What is the real cause of our stress?  It is our mental model of the world, based on our values, beliefs and early childhood conditioning.

Dr. Newberg, associated with the hospital at the University of Pennsylvania, has focused his research on various activation studies  designed to explore how brain function is associated with various mental states.

Quoting Dr. Newberg: We build up models of how we see the world outside of us.  And the more information we have, the more we refine our model, one way or the other.  Ultimately, what we do, is tell ourselves a story about what the outside world is.  Any information that we process, any information that we take in from the environment is always colored by experiences that we had and an emotional response we’re having to what we are bringing in.

Shirley MacLaine, the actress and author, says the same thing:  We do not see the world as it is.  We see the world as we are.

Last, I do not know who said this but I believe it is true.  “I would not have seen it if I didn’t believe it.”

So how can we apply this information to our own lives?  We can look at the our life that are stressful to us by taking a life stress test.  Go to www.SherylStanton.com/life-stress-test.html

Then we can decide to do something to reduce  it. www.SherylStanton.com