If these people broke into the shop, an alarm would sound.
As the shop owner, you’d be annoyed by it. And as the robber, you’d be even more annoyed by it.
When I hear an alarm, like our smoke detectors going off at 2 AM, I want them to stop. I don’t like them. They startle me and wake me out of a deep sleep.
I don’t like alarms. Who does? But annoying as they are, alarms are just doing their job. Alarms are supposed to be annoying. They wouldn’t get our attention otherwise.
Stress is an internal alarm that goes off whenever I start believing something that does not match my deepest truth of love.
Every time I hurt someone, or put them down, even in my mind, I feel the alarm of stress. Every time I manipulate to get what I want, I feel the alarm of stress. Every time I blame someone else for what is really my responsibility, I feel the alarm of stress.
There are innumerable ways to step away from my deepest truth. And each time I do, stress is there to let me know.
It is pure honesty. It is the opposite of denial. Stress tells me exactly where I’m off. And when I’m interested in coming back to my truth, I listen to my stress. And use it as my guide to come back home.
That’s what The Work of Byron Katie is: a way to listen to any stress alarm. A way to stop ignoring it or trying to disable it. The Work gives a clear emergency checklist of what to do when the alarm sounds. It shows exactly how I can move away from what’s not true for me and towards what is.
Improve your skills of listening and responding appropriately to your internal alarm system. Take The Work 101 course and gain a lot of experience in just nine weeks.
“Suffering is a natural alarm, warning us that we’re attaching to a thought; when we don’t listen, we come to accept this suffering as an inevitable part of life. It’s not.” Byron Katie, Loving What Is
We are not meant to live stressed lives. Learn how to address the root cause of your stress and find your freedom again. Otherwise, stress will keep accumulating. Learn how to break the cycle of stress here.
