Success Without Stress

When some individuals hear about what is required for raising our children (and ourselves) without anger or stress, they sometimes find it too hard to put the solution into practice. There is a solution to this problem. This single, simple solution is one that you just may regard as a way to solve to every problem you ever face. It even solves the problem of any difficulty you have in applying it!

This way to achieve success in any area of life begins with the practice peace and poise. This is based on principle that when you lose your peace and poise in any situation, you lose your real power to direct events in line with your higher intentions. We can call this the "Foundation Solution" because it acts as the foundation for wise judgment and accurate, skillful action that produces the results you are after.

To achieve higher and higher levels of success without stress, practice maintaining your peace and poise under any and all circumstances, including those times when you find it most challenging to do so. If you have been habitually reacting with anger and stress for years and years, you might find maintaining your peace and poise impossible in the face of circumstances that typically trigger your stress, such as a your child whining, your mate complaining, your bank account sinking, your credit card interest rates rising, a client speaking rudely to you, an employer demanding the impossible, etc.

A wise man by the name of Isidore Friedman taught many years ago that the natural way to make progress in any situation is by applying gentle effort aimed at making small degrees of progress. You can change any condition, he taught, by small degrees... any condition.

When you come up against opposition or resistance in your efforts to improve a situation, it does not mean that what you are trying to accomplish is wrong or impossible; it means your approach is too demanding. Try an easier way to bring about slight improvement and you will find the open door to your progress.

Of course, this approach requires patience, which means letting go of attachment to how long something is taking. Ironically, you can grow more patient by small degrees as well! Just practice being slightly more patient when you encounter a delay and little-by-little the flower of secure, peaceful, positive patience will bloom in your happy heart.

Think of it this way. If you want to increase the amount of weight you can lift, you can do so by increasing the weight by small degrees. If you attempt to lift something far too heavy, you make no progress. You might even injure yourself. It is the same with taking charge in ANY situation. As you work in an unstrained way to bring about small degrees of progress or improvement over time, the natural law of momentum will push your achievements faster and farther, requiring no additional effort from you for swift strides of advancement toward your goals.

As the ancient Greeks said: "Make haste slowly" and "Go slow, go soft, go far." As your own conscious experience will prove: "When you lose your peace and poise you lose your power." Life is as hard as you make it; as easy as you take it. By degrees equals ease.