Suffering, an Inconvenient Truth

The classical description to the first noble truth deals with birth, sickness, old age and death. These are four things that will most certainly happen to each and every one of us. It is a truth of human life. 

If I were to ask people if they suffered on a daily basis, most of them would look at me funny. If I asked them instead if they experience stress, they would say “Of course I do". We will use the word stress instead of suffering. 

At Plexus, before beginning our personal training relationships, new clients go through a health and fitness assessment. One of the questions we ask is “How would you rate your level of stress on a daily basis?” This allows us to know something about the individual’s lifestyle and how their mental fitness is. 

Many people in 2008 live with a fair amount of stress. Where does stress come from? I like to break stress down into two categories: Physical Stress and Mental Stress. These two are interdependent and ultimately are affecting each other. Let’s take a closer look at some examples.

Physical Stress - We can inflict negative stress on our bodies by eating unhealthy foods, eating too much food at once, drinking too much caffeine and alcohol, sitting in the same position too long, not exercising, exercising too much (yes you can do this), poor posture, neglecting the feet, bathing in the sun too much, and the list goes on and on. 

Mental Stress - The mind can experience stress when it internalizes things, takes things too personal, overworks and over thinks, clings onto the past like a broken record, fantasizes about the future, or meets the moment with preconceived notions of what they want to happen. And again I am sure we could go on and on. 

Is there a way to learn to reduce stress? The cultivation of the present state of mind allows us to get in touch with the body and mind. I know when I get in touch with the present moment and I am experiencing stress, I typically discover that my mind is grasping or clinging onto something. This is the Second Truth of human life: We suffer because we grasp and cling to things trying to concretize them within our minds.