Okay, let's look at how to see the roots of your stress. So first of all, it's important to know that stressors trigger for a reason. There's a reason why certain things stress us out. Think for example of two people in an office, may they make sales calls, let's say they sell something. So the boss tells both of them, they have five more calls to make on top of their already full workload. You have to make these five calls before the end of the day.

Oftentimes, one person would be quite stressed out. They would feel the pressure from that the demand and then they might feel tense might get a headache might feel angry. Right. I already have all this to do. Why do I have extra stuff? It's so unfair.

Feeling stressed, feeling emotional. Their colleague might not have the same reaction. Chances are they won't. The stress affects us differently. Maybe that person likes making sales calls, maybe like talking person to person as opposed to boring data entry or something like that. So the situation is the same, they both have the same new demand on them.

But because of something inside, it's interpreted differently. So things stress us out, because of our deeper values, our deeper desires, our deeper wants, and our deeper fears as well. So what we're going to practice now is seeing reality instead of a mind story. Now, these desires inside these deeper values, desires, they influence how we interpret the world, the influence what we see and how we express reality. For example, if I value financial stability monies, having enough money is important to me, then I'm probably going to see the world in terms of money. You know, agonizing over odd another dollar for a bigger coffee.

It's a whole dollar. Right? Counting pennies, tallying up expenses every month, maybe every week, every day. It's because that I value financial stability, that I'm going to see the world that way. Whereas someone else might have different values, and they wouldn't. Maybe the money is just easy, come easy go.

The people are different, not the situation. Oftentimes, we live in our minds. And it's not until you start to question this that we can actually see there's a difference between what we think and what's outside. So for example, If there's a dinner party and I go and then a friend of mine goes as well, personally, I don't eat meat. And my friend does. So we go we have a nice dinner looking forward to it.

And then what's for dinner? salmon. I mean like nicely nicely made salmon right? nicely cooked. My friend might be thrilled because I really like fish. I wouldn't be because I don't eat meat.

So in the story in my head for this might be Oh, my friends a jerk. They know this. They know I'm vegetarian. You know? They've we've been friends for years. They should know this all the time.

And then all that person hate maybe that person doesn't like me anymore. Or what am I gonna eat? I'm gonna have nothing to eat tonight. I'm gonna be hungry for the rest of the night. Right? These are stories in my mind.

It's my interpretation of what's going to happen or what is happening, when really maybe my friend just forgot. Maybe they've had a really special stressful week at work, maybe, maybe they're having difficulties in some aspect of their life, that that's been taking their attention. That's really not a problem. I don't know that. So I'm interpreting it according to what I think. And what we think oftentimes is not true.

Our minds don't have all the facts. So what we're practicing here is we're practicing seeing reality instead of our interpretation of reality. And we're going to use this to look at a stressful situation in the past in your life. I'm going to practice that in a moment. So we're going to do this by first calming ourselves. It's important to practice a concentration meditation, either counting the breath or walking to stabilize yourself, ground yourself, be like a mountain.

And then to look at what happened very objectively What are the facts? What happened? The boss came into my first example, the boss came with more work, gave it to the people. That's all that happened. And then how did they interpret the facts? One person was worried about not being able to finish everything.

The other person is quite happy because they enjoy making sales calls. That's their different interpretations. And how did they respond? Maybe one person, the person who likes sales calls, they really had a nice afternoon. Maybe the other person who was worried about completing everything on time, maybe they're miserable for the next five hours. Maybe they're miserable after work and for the rest of the week because of it.

So we're looking at what the facts are. How did we interpret those facts? What story did we tell in our minds? And then how did you respond to that? Story, how did you react to it? This is, this is something that's quite unique to design approach is seeing reality, just letting thoughts come and go, accepting them, but not not putting full truth into them, seeing what actually happened, and then how our mind created a story about what happened based on what we think is important.

And the type of exam that I practice in particular renza. We use questions a lot. To discover this reality. We ask a lot of questions and then wait for the answer to really come clear. So that's what we're practicing here. In a way.

It's like a coupon. If you're familiar with that term, a coupon what are the facts? How did I interpret them? And how did I respond? So your practice assignment is as follows. First, practice a concentration meditation for 15 minutes, do one of our practices from last week for 15 minutes to stabilize yourself, be a mountain.

And then think of the time that you felt stressed. And choose a time that wasn't that big of a deal. If it was a very big life changing event, that might still be difficult to think about, are you our emotions, we'll probably call it that very easily. So think of something that was you know, five out of 10 stressful but not too too stressful. We're practicing looking at the roots of it, what caused it. So look deeply at what you remember about it.

So we have the three questions from before, right. What are the facts? What was my interpretation? And how did I react? And then I've got a chart here for you. You can copy this in your meditation journal.

Up to you how you interact with it. But give this a try, really take some time to look at the situation, what really happened. Now that it's over with now they're not feeling so emotional. And then looking at how you saw it, how you interpreted what was happening, and then what your reaction was based on that interpretation. It's quite interesting to see that oftentimes, our interpretation, or reaction to our interpretation is very different from what actually happened. And we do this all the time.

We do this subconsciously. This isn't this is not, not the easiest thing to do. This is very valuable in seeing more of yourself more of what's important to you. Okay, enjoy this practice assignment. I'll see you in the next video.