WHAT’S GOING ON?  

2022 JULY Newsletter

#168 JULY 2008 

ALONG THE WAY

Life is Divine

THIS MONTH’S THOUGHT

When we criticize ‘what is’, we are criticizing Life, X.

LIVING WITH STRESS – SCHOOL TALK #53 – Dr. Bob Gibson

Today we will talk about living with stress.  It seems that most everybody manages to have a reasonable amount of stress.  We can make stresses out of about anything we choose to do so over.  We can make it over work.  We can make it over other people.  We can make it over transactions of various kinds.  We can make it over relatives.  We can make it over non-relatives. 

About all it takes to make a good stressful situation in our inner feelings is to know how things ought to be.  And, of course, they are never quite that way.  Then we can get very stressed about that. 

Now we want to make it clear there is more than one way, besides inner feeling, to have stress.  I get calls from people many times a day from all over the country and they are all about a stressful situation.  Most of them assume it must be their inner feeling.  Now, there are other ways.  You can get environmental stresses from jolts, jars, falls, constant noise, obnoxious odors, possibly even extremes of temperature, either cold or hot. 

We can have inner feeling stresses, which we will talk about a bit today.  We can also have activity stresses.  Seldom would any of us would overwork, but there are people who do it.  We can also be under active.  That probably fits most of us better.  You just don’t have enough activity to keep the body in circulation even, must less doing well.  Nutrition. By looking around I don’t think there’s very many here who are malnourished, from the standpoint of not having enough.  Maybe we over do it a wee bit and have over amount of intake of food, because it’s fun to eat, not because we’re hungry. 

Any of these can be stressful and they can all require adaptation to stress.  Now the adaptation to stress is what is ordinarily caused disease.  I have a hard time saying it’s like it’s commonly used—disease—that’s a thing.  Dis-ease means you’re not at ease.  Disease has been twisted around to mean some kind of critters are floating around up there in the sky or somewheres else.  They look down and say there’s old Chuck.  I’m going to bite him. And they take after him.  But that’s a misnomer. 

We are adapting to a stressful situation.  That produces unusual sensations, first, which are uncomfortable – pain- and we all want to be comfortable.  We get a little concerned about that.  We keep it up long enough there is tissue cell alteration or breakdown… a change in the function, a change in the sensation and a change in the tissue. No matter what you name it, that what comes out. If you could tell me any other symptom anybody has had, I like to hear about it.

All of those are the normal adaptations to the state of stress.  Should you have the misfortune to be all broken up with a bunch of broken bones and torn ligaments, they produce those same symptoms, also.  Those are environmental stresses.  You’re not going to get rid of them by eating the most perfect diet in the world, have the greatest inner feeling that ever came down the road and those injuries are still going to adapt a bit because they require a little mechanical assistance.

So, we’re going to talk about these stresses and how they work. 

I’m going to draw a little drawing here of a very simple machine that was called a steam engine.  This is a boiler.  It had water put in it and capped up.  They build a fire under it and that made a terrific amount of pressure from steam.  Now they had wheels that turned on it.  They had a whistle on it.  They had a pop-off valve. that popped off if the pressure got too high.  Now if we keep pouring the fire in here and we locked this wheel down, we tied the whistle rod down so it couldn’t blow and we welded the pop-off valve shut, can you tell me what is going to happen to that boiler in a little while?  It’s going to have a crack in it.  That’s its symptoms.  Now this is generally the way the human being works as well as the boiler. 

So when you put the pressure on, you mobilize energy. Let’s say you get aggravated or annoyed at someone, but being the nice, wonderful, polite people we are we don’t say very much about it.  We keep it inside and hold it down.  That’s mobilizing energy to fight or run.  That’s the appropriate response when you are stressed—to fight or run. 

We came from ancestors where that was their only survival.  We have educated ourselves, so now we don’t have to do it.  So we mobilize energy to fight or run.  Now that we are civilized and educated and conditioned by things that say we’ve got to please everybody, we got to believe and do as told by your authorities, you’ve got to improve yourself, then that mobilized energy is held. 

We hold that energy which is mobilized and unreleased which requires, if you’re going to survive, adaptation.  That adaptation is, first, unusual cellular activity.  Some cells begin to do something they ordinarily don’t do. That doesn’t bother you too much.  An unusual cellular activity produces unusual sensation.  That you know very much about.  You’re well acquainted with—pain, soreness, stiffness, fullness.  You have unusual sensation. 

And that begins to be something that we mobilize energy for because the first thought is, “No doubt, I’m going to have a stroke, or cancer, or maybe the first signs of AIDS, even, today.  We just get real upset if we have something that is a little unpleasant.   So, we mobilize energy to run from this terrible condition we just pictured in our mind. 

Did you ever build pictures of having brain tumors and all kinds of other things wrong with you?  It’s frightening.  You can scare yourself half to death with them.  So how are you going to run from that?  So that, of necessity, is held and mobilized energy and requires some more adaptation.  So we go around and around this little circle that we sometimes refer to as the vicious cycle.

We start off with a misconception.  Then we have a false feeling of emergency. Then it goes to the physical level where we mobilize energy to fight or run.  You don’t do either one, which requires the adaptation, which is the form of unusual cellular activity, unusual sensation.  As long as it’s in that state, it is purely functional.  There is no pathology.  You go to the doctor and he looks you over from one end to the other and he says, “You don’t have anything wrong with you.  It’s all in your head.”  You need to see a shrink.  You go along with this stuff. But you know he must have missed something. 

Finally if you keep this up long enough, the cells that are doing the unusual cellular activity cannot continue indefinitely doing something they weren’t designed for. 

Finally there is tissue cell alteration or a breakdown.  Now you have pathology.  Now you have a visible sign.  Your disorder has become respectable.  The doctor can find something to account for it.  You are no longer imagining it.  You have some messed up cells.  Now you are down to where you can do something about it.  You can have them cut out.  You can have them doctored many different ways.  At least it’s respectable now.  It’s out of the realm that it’s all in your head.  You knew it was there all the time.  They just didn’t discover it quick enough. 

This accounts for all the symptoms in the world that all the human beings have.  (To be continued next month)

A STORY 

While I was sifting through some old papers the other day, I found this which was written some around 25 years ago.  I found it interesting…. Hmmmm.

“I carry around negative emotions, day after day, year after year.  These emotions are not always being expressed or apparent, but I know they are always there, just waiting for an opportunity to destroy me. I am sick and tired of these bandits always lurking in the shadows ready to attack me.  So, with all the earnestness at my command I am writing them the following letters.  They have been my teachers and I’m grateful for their unceasing attention.

“Dearest ‘Sense of Rejection’: 

Your persistence in making me feel miserable is commendable.  Every time my stomach feels a glitch, I can count on you being there.  You have expertly taken situations and have me read into them put down, unworthiness, guilt, blame, fear, criticism, judgment and a myriad of other tag-a-longs.  Your team has worked tirelessly under your direction to destroy my inner state.  This new woman no longer needs your services as your constant probing has done its job well to make me aware of your tenacious grip and over-whelming power that you have had over me. 

Your employment is terminated.  You can no longer claim my precious energy which has sustained you for years and I have allotted it to more constructive activities.  I may miss you now and then, as we have had a long friendship.  I shall always be grateful for your helping me to see that it was only my ego that you manipulated and conned.  Go now, with my blessing, and don’t ever come whining back to me again!

Dearest ‘Mistaken Sense of Responsibility’: 

Thank you for all the times you have driven me out to accomplish false goals (gods).  Without your constant attention, I would never have arrived at a place where I could recognize what my responsibility is, which is to be true to my own heart.  I am grateful for your smothering, suffocating influence in my life and the subsequent pain that brought me to the point where I could kick you out! You did a suburb job of tricking me into believing that I was responsible for other people’s inner state of being.  You rejoiced when I crucified my own Soul.  You have earned your retirement.  I no longer need your untiring efforts to sustain me in that illusion.  Thank you for teaching me about responsibility.  You are no longer employed.  You have my blessing.

Dear ‘Self-pity’: 

I release you now.  You no longer have any power in my life.  You have breathed your last breath.  I no longer need you.  You have no place in which to dwell.  I bless you and thank you for all the lessons you have taught me.  I no longer need others pity or praise to maintain a peaceful inner state.  You have been my faithful companion for a long time, but I now refuse you admittance into the temple of my heart and mind.  You are dismissed with my blessing.

My very dearest “What’s the Use”: 

For the long days, nights, months and years that you were faithfully by my side, I thank you.  You were always there when I needed you.   I thank you for teaching me that Life really does matter, that each moment is precious, and that I am privileged to be a guest on this Planet.  You have helped me sort the wheat from the chaff, the true from the false, the real from the unreal.  You untiring efforts gave me a point of reference from which I could see that every thing has value. Since our relationship is destructive, I find it necessary to terminate your employment.  My life is, as of this moment, off limits to you.  Go!  Now!

Life is very, very good.

                                                                        *****

At the evening service tonight the sermon topic will be, “What is Hell?”  Come early and listen to our choir practice.