Dr. Mort Orman here, and today I’m starting a 6-part series, over the next two weeks, to help you better understand the true causes of your stress.
In my 30+ years of helping people master their stress, I’ve identified a handful of key distinctions that can give you enormous personal power.
One of these is the distinction between internal and external causes of stress.
Ignore This Distinction At Your Own Risk!
This distinction between internal and external causes is absolutely critical. Understand it, and you will be well on your way to becoming a stress mastery pro.
Ignore it or neglect it (or even worse…argue with it), and you will forever remain among the mass of stressed-out, overwhelmed human beings who are needlessly suffering today all around the globe.
One of the main reasons so many people are needlessly suffering from stress today is because our society has conditioned us to focus almost entirely upon obvious, external causes.
Ask anyone to tell you the major sources of stress in their lives and they will have little trouble coming up with a very long list:
- My boss
- My spouse
- My job
- Losing my job
- My living situation
- The bad economy
- Lack of money
- Lack of time
- Lack of appreciation
- Too many responsibilities
- Not enough help or support from others
- My kids
- My in-laws
- My neighbors
- Crowds
- The threat of terrorism
- And on and on…
What’s Missing From This Typical Way Of Thinking About Stress?
The only problem with this list of stress causes is that it is missing a second column.
You see, whenever we human beings suffer from stress, there is ALWAYS more going on than meets the untrained eye.
Every time you can point to an obvious, external cause of your stress, there are ALWAYS internal causes that are also involved, lurking unseen in the background.
Unless you know how to recognize these hidden, internal causes, you will always be missing at least half of the important puzzle pieces.
And if you try to get rid of, or reduce your stress, by only focusing on external causes alone, your chances of success will not be very good.
Internal Thoughts And Behavior Patterns
So what are these hidden, internal causes?
Quite simply, they are thought patterns and behavior patterns that occur within us, and therefore they are much more difficult for us to “see.”
For example, take a very bad stressful situation that on the surface might appear to be entirely caused by external factors. Imagine, for instance, that a huge tornado suddenly erupted and totally destroyed your home, causing you to lose all of your life-long possessions (similar to what occurred last month in several U.S. locations).
For those who suffered substantial losses from these recent natural disasters, it might appear that the tornado itself was 100% responsible for both their losses and their subsequent stress.
Well, that’s not totally correct. You might be correct to assign 100% blame to the tornados for most of the losses, but you would be wrong to do the same for whatever stress might have followed.
Losses of physical possessions are events that occur outside of us. Stress, on the other hand, is something that occurs inside of us.
And while there may be a certain amount of stress from having a major loss, the amount of pain, suffering and other types of stress we experience will be greatly influenced by our cognitive and behavioral responses to the event.
Some people who experience the very same degree of losses will have differing amounts of suffering and stress.
Some will experience pain, stress and suffering for months or even years.
Other will recover much quicker, and they will return to feeling whole, vibrant and happy again in a much shorter period of time.
What’s the key difference maker? It can’t be anything related to the external event, which is similar for all, so the difference has to be found within the thought patterns and behavior patterns that different individuals bring to how they respond to the situation.
Natural Disasters Are Very Rare
I chose this “extreme” example to show you that even when most people think a bad external event can be totally responsible for any stress they experience, this is NEVER the case.
There are always going to be internal factors involved, and this will be true no matter how serious or severe an external “stressor” might be.
But natural disasters, as unpleasant as they are, are extremely rare events.
Human stress, on the other hand is extremely common.
And we even have the ability to manufacture some of our stress, completely out of thin air, just from the thought patterns and behavior patterns that get triggered within our bodies.
So we don’t even need to have an external event of any kind in order to experience stress and internal suffering in our lives.
Let’s Get Some More Clarity
The purpose of this 6-part series is to give you some greater clarity about how stress truly occurs for human beings.
Regarding the next five articles in this series, each will highlight one very specific internal cause of human stress.
I will try to give you a few examples of how each hidden cause actually functions in our lives, but obviously I won’t have the space to do an exhaustive analysis.
But if I can just shed light on a few of these hidden, internal causes, I am sure you’ll be able to continue exploring them, on your own.
To your health, happiness and success,
Dr. Mort Orman, M.D.
International Speaker, Author And Founder Of The Stress Mastery Academy | http://DocOrman.com
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You'll also hear Dr. Orman talk to you directly about his excellent stress mastery introductory training program.
