Believing in a divine plan or purpose can drastically reduce stress. We need to look for lessons, things to be learned, from the obstacles in our lives. Sometimes the lifetimes with the most obstacles are those in which we can make the most spiritual progress, where we learn our soul lessons at an accelerated pace. To look for the lesson in an obstacle, or even in a tragedy, allows us to discern the purpose in the event. When we understand the lesson, we can choose to let go of pain and suffering.
As Christian mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once said: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” He was right. If we recognize the soul lesson, we can grow beyond suffering, and there is no stress in this state of understanding.
We are overly attached to the results of our actions. If we would detach from our obsession to outcomes, to our assessments of success or failure, we would feel so much happier. If we could only reach out to others with love and compassion and not be concerned with what comes back to us—what we will or will not gain—our lives would be filled with joy.
Love is the antidote to stress—yet in this violent, greedy, and hate-filled world, it seems so difficult to love unconditionally. This is an extremely challenging spiritual lesson. If you could love unconditionally … if you were ever mindful of your true spiritual nature, of your soul … if you expected no return for your unsolicited compassionate actions … if you could let go of your emotional attachments to material things … then you would never again experience prolonged or unhealthy stress in your life, and your days and nights would be filled with happiness and joy.
Very few, if any of us, enter this life in a state of spiritual enlightenment. As a psychiatrist, I am aware of the huge struggle to overcome familial and cultural conditioning. How can we be spiritually mindful when our subconscious and unconscious conditioning create sinkholes and quicksand to trap our minds? One way is to start at the beginning.