School Talk 53 - Living with Stress

Adaptation from "impressing")
(The proper question to ask)
(Living in a state of Grace)
(Increasing necessity)
(Reporting accurately)

[brackets for clarification, parenthesis for audience participation]
(audience participation in parenthesis)

So today we will talk about living with stress. It seems that most everybody manages to have a reasonable amount of stress, right? Think you do that all right? And we can make stresses about anything that 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.
You just name it.

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're never quite that way. So then we can get very stressed about that. Now, we want to make it clear that there's 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're all about stressful situations and most of them assume that it must be their inner feeling.

Environment

Now there are other ways. You can get in environmental stresses from jolts, jars, falls, constant noise, obnoxious odors--possibly even extremes of temperature--either cold or hot. Could be that way. Now it could be from a lot of noise and other things. We can have environmental stresses. We can have inner feeling stresses which we'll talk about a bit today.

Activity

We can also have activity stresses--that seldom many of us would overwork--but there has been people known to do it. I haven't seen anybody around here that got caught up in that activity; but we can also be under-active, and that probably fits most of us a lot better. Some people just don't have enough activity to keep the body in circulation even--much less doing well.

Nutrition

And by the same token nutrition can cause stress. Now by looking around, I don't think there's very many here that has malnutrition from the standpoint of not having enough. Maybe we overdo 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 all require adaptation to stress.

Adaptation

Now the adaptation to stress is what's ordinarily called disease. I have a hard time saying it like it's commonly used, disease--that's a thing. Dis-ease means you're not at ease. Dis-ease has been twisted around to mean some kind of critters are floating around up there in the sky or somewhere else, and they look down and say, "There's old John, I'm going to bite him." and they take after him. Or they say, "There's Mary, I'm going to bite her," and so on down the line, but that's all a misnomer. WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON is that we are adapting to a stressful situation, and that produces unusual sensation, first, which is uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is another word for pain, and we all want to be comfortable. So we get a little concerned about that. If we keep up this vicious cycle long enough, there is tissue-cell-alteration [TCA] or breakdown which means, CHANGE IN FUNCTION or a CHANGE IN SENSATION and a CHANGE IN STRUCTURE.

Now if you could tell me any other symptom anybody's ever had, I'd like to hear about it. Ever had any other kind? You ever had any other kind Mary? There's a change in sensation, a change in function, and a change in tissue. That's it! No matter what you name it, that's what it all comes down to; and those are the normal adaptations to a state of stress.

Now should you have the misfortune to be all broken up sometime--a bunch of broken bones and torn ligaments and everything, they produce those same symptoms also. Those are environmental stresses, and you're not going to get rid of them by any of the other methods. You could eat the most perfect diet in the world. You could have the most perfect inner feeling that ever come down the road. You could be in a state of ecstatic feeling all the time, and those good old injuries are still going to adapt a bit. So they require a little mechanic that knows how to straighten out body frames to put them back together again. There are a lot of those offices around. I see down the street here today, they're going to open up a new one--a new body shop for people. So they're going to make pretty bodies out of them, and that's all well and good.

Steam Engine Story

So we're going to talk about these stresses and how they work. First off, we'd like to know somewhat how it works. So I'm going to draw a little drawing here of a very simple procedure--the machine that was called the steam engine. Here is a picture of a boiler. The way a boiler works is that it has water put in it here. Then you build a fire underneath the boiler like this. The water goes up through tubes all through the inside of the boiler, and that makes a terrific amount of pressure from steam. Now the pressure of the steam turns a belt which makes the wheels on the steam engine move. There is also a whistle and a thing called a pop-off valve. The pop-off valve opens if the pressure gets too high. Now in order for the train to move, you had to keep throwing fuel on the fire.

Now as an analogy to stress and adaptation, suppose we kept pouring the fire in here to heat the water of the steam engine; and we locked this wheel down because it wasn't nice to run it. In addition we tied the whistle rod down so it couldn't blow. And finally, we welded the pop-off valve shut. Now say we keep pouring the fuel in here. Can you tell me what's going to happen to that boiler in a little while? Huh? The pressure is going to build up extremely high; and you've shut off the wheel, the whistle, and the pop-off valve, so the boiler is going to blow and have a crack in it. That's the steam engine's symptom.

Now this is generally the way the human being works; and we're much like the boiler. Now the boiler's story is the same as an old fashioned farm tractor, and it's true of the newest atomic energy plant here west of town. It's either got to do work or the unused energy has to be used up. So when YOU put the pressure on YOU by declaring emergency, or making something important, you mobilize this energy.

Now if you get very aggravated or annoyed at someone, but being the nice wonderful polite people we are, you don't say very much about it--you keep it inside and hold it down-it mobilizes energy--that's mobilizing energy to fight or run. Now that is the appropriate response to feeling you are stressed--to fight or run. We all came from ancestors where that was the only survival and it was appropriate for them-they could only fight or run from danger. But now that we have educated ourselves real well; and, in fact, it's considered quite inappropriate to do so-so we don't to do it. Therefore, we mobilize energy to fight or run. I'll put F or R because I'm running out of space on the blackboard, ok?

Now we're civilized and educated and conditioned by a whole bunch of suggestions as we were growing up that says you got to please everybody, you got to believe and do as you're told by your authorities, and you got to improve yourself all the time--the result is that we have mobilized energy which is held. We hold that energy. Now the mobilized and held energy is mobilized but unreleased. Now we can all mobilize a lot of energy momentarily under a stressful moment. We can mobilize a lot of energy if somebody's after us with a gun and going to do us harm. We can mobilize a lot of energy if somebody is going to rob us--hold us up. We can also mobilize a lot of energy if somebody is saying something that we feel they are being very rude to "talk to us like that". There's mobilized and held energy, and when it's held in, it's mobilized and unreleased energy.

Now if you're going to survive, mobilized and unreleased energy requires adaptation; and that adaptation takes place, as we said a moment ago-adaptation of first we experience unusual cellular activity. Some cells begin to do something they don't ordinarily do. Now that doesn't bother you very much. It just gives you a tickle feeling, but any unusual cellular activity produces unusual sensation. Now this you know very much about that, you have experienced unusual sensation. You're well acquainted with that one, right? You call that pain, soreness, stiffness, fullness, ache's--whatever you want to call it. You have unusual sensation. Then that begins to be something we "react to with fear"; so, therefore, we mobilize more energy because the first thought is, no doubt, there is going to be a stroke or cancer, or maybe even aids. Maybe it's the first signs of aids that I'm getting here because we just got real upset about having something that's a little unpleasant. So that starts off the whole vicious cycle.

We mobilize energy to run from this terrible condition we just "pictured in our mind". You know we "build a little picture of it". Did you ever have "pictures" of having brain tumors and all kinds of other things wrong. Kind of frightening, isn't it? You can build up some horrible pictures there and scare yourself half to death with them. So we have mobilized and unreleased energy--HOW YOU GONNA RUN FROM THAT?

So then that additional energy from the fright of the "picture" is held. That also requires adaptation; and so we go around and around this little circle, and we refer to that circle as the vicious cycle.
We start off with a misconception,
then we have a false feeling of emergency,
then it goes into the physical level where you are mobilizing energy to fight or run,
and you don't do either one,
so then not fighting or running requires the adaptation
which is experienced in the form of unusual cellular activity and unusual sensation.

Now as long as it's in that state, it is called "purely functional". There's no pathology. You can go to the doctor, but 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; and so you go along with this kind of advise; but continuing with the fear and adaptation..

Pretty soon you just know he must have missed something. If you keep this cycle up long enough, then these tissue cells that are doing the unusual cellular activity cannot continue indefinitely doing something they weren't designed for--so finally, there is tissue cell alteration or a breakdown. Now you have a pathology. Now you got a visible sign that your disorder has become respectable. The doctor can now find something to account for it--now you're no longer imagining it--you've got some messed up cells there.

So now you get down to where you can really do something about it. You can have them cut it out, or you can have them doctored in many different ways--but at least it's respectable or visible now,. It's out of the realm that it's all in your head. And, of course, you knew it was there all the time, they just didn't discover it quick enough.

So this accounts for all the symptoms in the world that all human beings have. Now we've been asked to talk on this for the last several days. We've had a lot of people who subscribe to these tapes call and ask would we talk about the most common and the most upsetting, unknowing, or unconscious stressful situation that people involve themselves in. They say, "I know I'm doing it, but I can't find out what it is?"

So, I'm going to talk about that for a little bit. Certainly everybody that might be mobilizing energy to fight or run is doing that and is totally unconscious of it. So it might be something that we could all take a small look at. It is not something to condemn oneself for if one is mobilizing energy; or pat oneself on the back about, if one is not doing it. It is merely to see WHAT'S GOING ON HERE, ok?

One of the most common things that I see many people "stress themselves with" is the effort to impress other people. Now dear little Mary over here used to have little statements she made from time to time when guys came around and laid a big number on her-a big attempt at impressing her. She said, "I'm impressed." I don't know whether it relieved the guys any or not because they kept right on with their business of attempting to impress. Now it's wonderful to impress other people. I think it's kind of essential now and then. It's about the only way you can get their attention in some cases; but we would like to make it conscious enough that we could each determine HOW MUCH AM I GOING TO PAY IN TIME, EFFORT, STRAIN, MONEY, WHATEVER IT MAY BE.

How much am I going to pay [in stress] in order to impress somebody--we'll say John over here. So how much am I going to pay to impress John. Now it takes time. It takes money--it takes a lot of energy and it takes a lot of anxiety down in the solar plexus area to wonder if I'm doing it up well. Ok?

Observing self caught up in impressing.

SO I CONSIDER HOW MUCH GOOD WOULD I GET OUT OF IT IF I DID IMPRESS YOU.

Aw, I'll spend five minutes a month on it. That's about enough, you know. Now if I wasn't conscious of what's going on, I might spend several hours a day every day in the month in order to do that, and that's way too much to pay for it.

As we go about, we see people put themselves in tremendous binds. I know people who will spend each weekend putting on a big party that cost six, eight, ten thousand a weekend in order to impress a few people that they don't even know. I have a friend over on the east coast that does that quite often. He goes out and puts on a big party. The people he invites he barely knows; but he gets a little write up in the paper--well, the party he gives gets the write up, but somehow he feels well reimbursed for it. Now I could think of lots of things that most of us could do with six, eight or ten thousand a week. Could you think of something better to do with the money than put on a party on the weekend? I could think of something better. But there's nothing wrong with it--absolutely nothing wrong with it. The only thing we're saying is, let's make it conscious so that I can determine case by case what I'm going to pay for it, ok?

Now if I was out, as I said, to impress John, I like to impress him that I exist and I'm around; but I think a minute or two a month is adequate time on that. Now Mary, was it very hard for guys to impress you when you used to lay that line on them. "I'm impressed." Just about any line of crap would do it, is that right?

(Yes, well I only said it.)

Well, I know you weren't impressed because you knew what they were doing.

(They worked very hard.)

They worked real hard, so you told them. "Well, you can go at ease if you want to." You can be at ease. I know that most of us have been through somebody's home or office that was loaded with jillions of--what are these little statues you get for throwing the bowling ball in the right place? What do you call those?

(Trophies)

Trophies-they have about 50 to 100 trophies lined up and sitting up on some shelf. They received those for playing tennis or basketball or whatever--they have hundreds of those lined up and hundreds of pictures taken with this celebrity and that celebrity and the other celebrity.

Most everybody can arrange that. They have charity balls where you can get in for a price, and then get your picture made for $10. You can have your picture made with somebody famous or important. Then you hang all these up, and you can have all kinds of letters that people have written you and so forth. Now all of this keeps a person trapped in impressing unless they become conscious of it. Doing it unconsciously, they are in a constant strain as to how they're doing of impressing.

Now in the first place, they are unaware that they are attempting to impress anybody. They just have an urge--some of them tell me that it was because they're outgoing, some say it was fun. It was this reason [justification] or it was for that reason, but they cave in if the least little effort to impress is not going their way on it. They are spending a tremendous amount of energy which is very stressful to the human being.

Now I think about every one of us has some impression of everybody we meet--in one form or another, is that about right? You think that's right? John you've been around the world quite a bit, is that right? You make some kind of an impression on everybody you meet, is that right? And you don't have to knock yourself out to make a favorable impression. If you can perform some task or service, you don't have to make a big extra effort at it, is that correct?

If you turn in a decent week's work, you've made an impression. That's about all it takes to impress somebody. But if we went totally on this bit of saying, "Now I want to see that everybody knows I'm around." We'll put it that way. I'm doing a job and I'm doing something. I'm out here making a little contribution; and don't have to knock myself out and get myself into being very ill over trying to impress.

I had a call about two hours ago from a young man who is, in the eyes of the world, very successful. He's very ambitious. Now he gets all these little pats on the back at being ambitious--being successful. He's making lots and lots of money. He's probably 34, 35, maybe 36 years old or somewhere in that category; and I would say easily several times over a millionaire--but he has started bleeding. He's upchucking blood and has a whole lot of pain in his mid section; and he is in a tizzy. Now was it worth getting himself all worked up over impressing everyone around him and then wind up having to pay for it with a bleeding ulcer. That's a pretty hefty price to pay. I don't like having a bleeding ulcer to worry about that I'm going to conk out at some point. Would you want that Mary?

(No way!)

No way. You can get along better without all that bleeding. How about you John, you want a good one? You asked me one time a few years ago, did I think you had enough ambition. I said I hope you didn't have any. I don't want to worry about your gut. I have other guts to think about; and I don't want to have to add John's belly button into it; but I have this one's stomach to worry about, also, all the time.

So if we could look and see that all I want to do is be conscious of what I am doing. And that's no great sweat. Now, what I'm doing today is certainly not worthy of being condemned nor justified. It's simply something I want to do. If I want to impress people, I'm going to do it; but I'm going to figure out how much I'm willing to pay of it, ok? I got a price level on all sorts of things.

I like to be dressed up and look good; but there is a limit as to what I will spend from my possible little income on clothing. I dress for the occasion sometimes when I go out; but you know, there's no use having 10 Louis Roucouths suits in the closet. Not that I would turn them down if somebody wants to bring them in; but nevertheless, I'm not going out and work many hours or spend lots of dollars for them, ok--not that many of them--one or two, that's all right.

(You're not that ambitious)

No, no ambition whatsoever; and I'm thankful for that one--I'm not trying to get ambitious.

I do hope that each day I make some little contribution to life in some form or another through the day, but a little of it is enough. I don't need to do a whole lot. I make a little contribution every day. It does pretty good. I don't need to show everyone what I'm doing, and neither does any of the rest of us here--we can all do a day's work here, there, and elsewhere. We do something that's worthwhile for other people or we wouldn't be there or here--but we don't have to duly impress them.

I've always noticed they catch on if you can do something worthwhile. They catch on to it and start showing up. If you do a good job in your shop, why there's some people catch on without you running up and down the street telling how wonderful you are--there's quite a few of them show up over a period of time, is that correct? If you do a good job with care, people start showing up around there, don't they? They get here. Mary does a good job of jewelry. People show up at the door no matter how hot it is. Is that right Mary?

(Right.)

One or two poke their heads through the door all the time.

So anytime that we go out and do work, whatever it is, we don't have to knock ourselves out. Now all of this dates back to some very early conditioning like on the picture of man, that "it's important to please everybody else". So in order to know that I have "pleased them", I have to "impress them", is that right?

Now the other thing that I see that comes along that people ask me the question about is the term "I". Now if each of us would be totally interested only in #1 [myself], ok, that's all--everything is about me, me, mine, etc. Can you tell me how you'd feel after while? Everything is involved about "me". Everything then becomes "subjective". How does it affect "me"? If you're in a building and certain things are going on--the whole bit is how does "it" affect me.

There's a question I hear very often which says: "What's being done to me?" Now that's the question most of the people get involved with. "What's being done to me?"

So we try to hand out a different question. The other question is: "What's going on here?" Now if it's "What's going on here?", it's purely objective. You're just seeing what's going on. If you're seeing "what's being done to me", it's purely subjective and everything looks like I'm being mistreated. I'm being mishandled and everybody is saying naughty things. They're not doing what they "should do". People are not doing what they "ought not to do" and etc. That's the total involvement with "I", "Me."

Now if we want to get along reasonably well in the world and eliminate about 90 per cent of the stress; we would merely say, "What's going on here." So if somebody is griping over here, then I'm seeing a person expressing this early conditioning of "it's important to stick up for his rights", or that "it's important to have his way right now" and the way to get it is to "complain". So if I ask "What's going on here?" and drop "What's being done to me."; everything I see is completely turned around and reduces all this stress and anxiety.

So, I can see what's going on here, somebody's practicing a very early piece of conditioning. One day John asked me how I developed a sense of humor. I said, "If you can just see what's going on , you can't keep from laughing. That's all. You're bound to have a little fun here and there. So if you could just see what's going on here, as grown-up bodies inhabited by infants with infant behavior; you'd see the joke in the whole thing. Sometimes that's kind of interesting. You can make a joke out of it. So we used to put out that the world is populated by infants, many of which have grown bodies and technical educations.

Every now and then you meet a person that's grown up, awake and objective, and that's a pleasant surprise. So the way to be never disappointed is to assume the first--that the world is populated totally by infants, many of which have grown bodies and technical educations. Then when you do meet a grown up one, you have a pleasant surprise. Have you ever complained about having a pleasant surprise? That'd be like if you won the lottery. That'd be a pleasant surprise; and I don't think you'd sit down and complain about it, would you? I don't think you would. Probably not.

So when we have seen what's going on here, we have put ourselves in a position to be at ease with all the things that are going on around us; and there's nothing that gets so important. Whenever you "make things very important", you get "very anxious"; but when you're NOT making it important, it doesn't matter.

If I make it "important how you treat me", what kind of an expression have I got on my face when you look at me. I could be in a mess in a very few minutes, right? You think to yourself, "He looks like he might be looking down on me". "He looks like he might become critical."

So if we turn that around and we see someone with that look on his face, we can decide, "So what--he looks like he's looking". That's all. "He's probably totally unconscious where his face is". "He probably doesn't even know what he's doing with it." So, you know, then you don't pay any attention to all that. Then we are not taking anything too "personal" or being involved with it in any way, shape or fashion.

So this is why we feel that if we looked at "all these little things" we could discover that we could live with all these events that have been called "stressful situations" all of our lives. We could find that we have precious few anxieties except a few environmental stresses. You can't do much about the weather. You can't do much about whether it's raining or the sun is shining. You can't do much about the temperature. You can come in and sit in the air conditioner or you can go out and get real warm. In the winter, you can come in and get warm or you can put on more clothes and go outside. But you can't control it. And you can't control little accidents and every single thing that happens.

But about 90 per cent of all the stresses that tear people up can be avoided simply by seeing the real things we're talking about today. We've just eliminated about 90 per cent of it--if we use it! Now if we don't use it, why of course, it doesn't eliminate any. But if I see that what's going on here is REALLY WHAT'S GOING ON and is not being "done to me"--there's absolutely nothing "personal" about it. Nobody's out to "pick on me", I don't think. If you get your head twisted just a little bit, it looks like the whole world is down on you. The invalid question is "why did this have to happen to me" and on and on it goes.

We can sit and feel sorry for ourselves and feel that we are "total victims" of everything under the sun; and that everything that is going on is "directed at me", or we can see--just see--that it is people acting out their unconscious conditioning. That it's going on and it really doesn't matter. If people are "complaining", they're "complaining". There isn't any rhyme or reason that they "have to do anything unusual" or "do anything about it". They are just going on with it-and only they can be responsible for themselves. So I can get around to where I can see what's going on here; or I can use the unconscious way and say "what's being done to me?" The second way creates a lot of stress in me which leads to a lot of adaptation, physical stress, emotional anxiety and all these tissue cell alterations.

Obviously in the work I do, I get a lot of people call up about their mates. The mates are never doing what the caller thinks they "ought to do". The mates are doing things to the caller that makes the caller feel unhappy and unpleasant. But when we talk and look at it a little bit, it finally gets through that the mates are just doing what they feel is right, proper and justifiable. The mates don't feel anything at all; or perhaps they're merely expressing their "unconscious conditioning." There is no reason to be concerned or get all rattled with it in any shape or form.

So if we can put here that I'M GOING TO KEEP THE PROPER QUESTION OUT AT ALL TIMES. The proper question is "What's going on here". I'm not going to use the improper one of "What's being done to me?" We're then evolved into an OBJECTIVE BEING rather than a "subjective creature". A subjective creature is like one of those cups on this table or one of these pieces of equipment.

(end of tape)

(beginning of other side of tape)

So when we begin to see that we want to be a conscious creature, a conscious being, which is going toward being unlimited. Now the more that I'm a "subjective creature", I'm in total limitation. Everything and everybody determines what I'm going to do and how I'm going to feel. In other words, I'm totally "other determined" if I'm subjective, "What's being done to me." "What's happening to me." "Why did this happen to me." I'm being totally subjective. And a subjective being is like this piece of equipment-say a car. It's subject to what happens to it. Now if it comes raining, it pours water on it, it can't run get out of the way. You could call the car dirty names and it doesn't seem to change anything. If the car won't run, you can hit it with a hammer and you can dent it, but there's nothing the car can do about it. It's purely subjective--100 per cent--but we are living beings, or at least theoretically we are. We have the potential of being--then we can be totally self determined.

I can determine WHAT I'M GOING TO DO, and I can determine HOW I'M GOING TO RESPOND TO ALL THE STIMULI AROUND. There's always--I'M GOING TO CHOSE HOW I RESPOND TO ALL IMPRESSIONS COMING INTO THIS BODY. If I decide to be "on guard" and not let anybody get by with whatever it is that they've been getting by with; you know, they could call you a liar, SO THAT DOESN'T MAKE YOU ONE. Perhaps you didn't lie--but more than likely we all have fibbed a few times in our lives. I would say with all probability that we have all fibbed. Then probably you could use my expression to people that say to me "You're a liar." I say, "Yes, I've always prided myself on being the highest grade liar around. So what are they going to say next?

But when you react to the accusation, you go on the defensive, which is a purely mechanical reaction--you're going to be defensive every time somebody says something that's not complimentary. With some people you can't even say a compliment to them without them going on the defensive. Did you ever notice that? You compliment her and say, "That is a very beautiful dress you have on." She says, "Oh for goodness sakes, I've had this for six years." The defensive--you can't even tell her she's pretty--or any other nice comment that comes to mind. She's got to be defensive.

Now when we begin to see this, we begin to see that that person is not in charge of what's going on in their lives at all. They're not in charge of the way they're going to feel. They're not in charge of what they're responses are--they're purely mechanical.

Now if we would be an evolved human being, we would be responsible for our responses to stimuli. We'd be responsible for choosing our own inner state of being; and we could choose how we're going to respond to challenges all around. Now if you can be in charge of how you're going to respond and in charge of you're own inner state; then you are a pretty well evolved into a conscious being, is that right? Do you think you usually are in charge of your own inner state of what's going on or you're responses; or do you "react" to those other jerks out there. Which one is it? Can somebody come along and produce a bad feeling within you--not unless you give them the "authority to" and you don't take charge of your own responsibility. [able to respond]

So being responsible and being free is the same side of two sides of the coin. So if I'm going to be living in a world of a lot of people and most of them highly conditioned, it would seem that it would behoove me--and be to my advantage--to say the least--to be in charge of my own inner state. Would that be all right? Would it be all right to be in charge of your responses to people. Huh?

(It's the only way.)

John told me one time he was sitting on a stump up in the state of Washington all by himself out on a stump ranch--just sitting here meditating, I suppose. And he said a guy walked up; and he was in a fight in a minute. He keeps getting into fights all the time. You're getting over that since you're getting older and stuff. You don't fight as much, do you? John used to be in fights all the time; but he said it wasn't anything he did--it was just anybody that came up--they started a fight. Are they still doing that John?

(No.)

They finally slowed down.

Ok, I'm glad they quit that. You're mother said it was awful hard on your clothes-all those fights you got into. That was a long time ago;and she didn't worry about your skin, it would grow together; but fighting was rough on your clothes--she had to buy some new ones for you all the time.

Ok, I think we've covered the subject for enough time, now let's have some discussions. I like the discussion part. So who's going to come up with the first one? Comments, challenges?

Ok Tom.

(When you've reached the TCA, whatever those are?)

That's tissue cell alteration or breakdown--that's when you got a big old lesion -- you got a cancer--you got an ulcer--you got a tumor.

(Infections?)

You've got skin all broke out or whatever.

(OK, So you get to that state, and then you start seeing how uncomfortable you are, and then you start waking up to………...)

What's going on here.

(What's going on here instead of "what's being done to me". Then you see, it will go back the other way?)

Yes, it goes back the other way. In other words, it retraces. It goes from tissue cell alteration, to lesion, flare up, to unusual sensation and then the tissue begins to function as it was designed. It goes back the same way it adapted. So it went out this way-then it comes back the same way. It doesn't just go, pluup--over here-well being all at once. Sometimes it does; but most often it doesn't do it that way. Most often it goes through what we would call retracing.

So the best thing is when you finally realize that it's not necessary to be on the defensive. It's not necessary to challenge everybody's statement about you or to you--you can begin to be totally objective instead of "subjective", Then the body starts repairing. Sometimes it's rather dramatic in the way it does it. It doesn't look like the same person before very long, ok.

Mary?

(Mobilized energy is used either to blow the boiler or ________couldn't hear the rest of the sentence__)

In one way or the other, you got to get rid of the mobilized and unreleased energy. You've got to use it up right quick or get rid of it.

(Like if you had a stressful situation or you created a lot of stress within, there's still that adaptation that is going to go on,, but once you see that....)

Well, it's still there; but once you see that it's going on, you see that it's a normal adaptation, and you start being thankful for it instead of all agitated and declaring emergency; it all burns it up in a little while, and you don't have to do anything.

EXERCISE TO USE UP MOBILIZED AND UNRELEASED ENERGY.

Now there are ways that you can kind of short circuit this mobilized and unreleased energy a little bit. Let's say that for some reason or another you were violently startled tonight. Say somebody walked into your jewelry store with a gun and said, "Get under the counter or I'm going to blow your brains out". It would probably startle old Mary quite a bit, is that right?

(Yes, I'd want to live.)

You'd live through it. Let's say that you were very startled at the guy who took a couple of little trinkets and left the store.

Now when you get past that situation, you can either wind up with a good headache or upset stomach tomorrow. However, let's say that you can pick up a piece of iron or a wet towel or something and begin to beat it out on something harmless for a few minutes. [see person note at the end *] You can pretend that you've smashed that character up. Then you can be all right. In other words, you can short-circuit the mobilized and unreleased energy out of your existence. But either way, it's going to be used up whether you do it consciously or whether you depend on X to use it up in unusual behavior or TCA.. Sometimes it's not convenient to short-circuit it. So what--you're going to have the sniffles or you're going to have an upset stomach. You're going to have a headache tomorrow or something like that, but who cares.

(But isn't that the same energy for being creative.)

That energy is always intended to be creative, Mary. It's creating the effort to maintain life. If you can do it with unusual cellular activity--that's all it would be. Now we all probably have a certain amount of mobilized energy everyday that we're totally unaware of, so that energy is always in a creative direction; but then the unusual sensations is only that the body is doing a lot more of this burning up the mobilized energy than we are aware of. It's in effect, Life is saying to us--you're goofing up a little bit--do look at it; and if it gets down to here [adaptation]--it's still trying to survive.

Now it's all a survival mechanism. I'm sure most of you have, at one time or other, known somebody that was very very ill--very severely ill. They were maybe even unconscious. They had all sorts of adaptations going on with them. All of a sudden all the pain and adaptations quit--they are no longer unconscious. They act like they're all brightened up, and they feel fine. They want to talk to you and see the grand kids and everything else, and then-zap--in a few minutes they're dead. That's because adaptation ceased. When X, Life, seems to discern that adaptation is not getting anywhere, there's no use in adapting the body any further--it quits. When the body quits adapting, the person is no longer sick; but they only live a few minutes. Sometimes they live six, eight hours, sometimes 24. But when somebody has been severely ill and some of their family tells me:
"Well, a while ago he just seemed to have miraculously got all right."
"He came out of his coma."
"He sat up and started talking to us; and he was all right; and he said he had no pain or anything."

The family thinks he's getting well, but I have a whole different viewpoint. He's dying because adaptation has ceased.

Most anybody who has been around a lot of sick people over a period of time learns that you don't let that last little alertness come up and impress you at all because they're going to die. X ain't fiddling with that body anymore--X, Life quit adaptation--so then it's all over with. So all of it is (if you look at it from it's proper perspective), it's all creative energy. X, Life is doing a creative task. X, Life is maintaining the body and trying to survive through what looked like, to that person anyway, as an unpleasant situation.

If you really look at it, so what, it's just like every other situation. What was it that Cronkite used to say. It's like all days, they're all about the same………….you see it that everybody's picking on you--it's horrible--everything's going bad, OR you can say, "Well, everything's getting along pretty well, and I don't need to fret about it." And you know if you look at it--look how may years you've been here, you're still here, and everything's always been all right, huh?

(Right.)

(I don't know how much this relates to "stress" as it does possibly to "anxiety".)

Anxiety is an ultimate stress in my book.

(Ok. Well we all have these situations where we're caught between a rock and a hard place.)

Right, we don't like either one.

(Like in the modern days, Catch 22)

[………..from marsha……Catch 22 was a popular movie during the 60's or 70's. I never saw the movie, but I surmised that no matter what decision was made, the result was still very unpleasant.]

As the phrase goes, you jump out of the frying pan into the fire and all these other good things.

(We have these, I've noticed at least in my experiences that throughout the daily activities, throughout the month, several of these will pop up. Now some of them are not major. Some of them involve other people. Sometimes they're involved with nature for example, where there's no choice. Would you comment on how this relates to our relationship with reporting something of this nature to X)

EXERCISE IN REPORTING

1. I'd just report what's going on.
2. I wouldn't be reporting it was "good or bad" or
3. what I thought "ought to be done" about it
4. because I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE ABOUT IT, so I would say
5. WELL, THIS SITUATION IS GOING ON, whatever it may be.

I've seen rivers flooded when I needed something on the other side of it; so I sat there and said "I'm sure the world won't come to an end while the flood runs down.

(Well, let's take a ...............)

No, let's don't take a hypothetical, let's take an actual one. I'd rather take a real one.

(An actual one?)

Yes, one that you've experienced.

(I got a hypothetical one.)

Well, I don't want those. I don't want to philosophy because that's just noise--so let's don't take the hypothetical ones.

(I'll come up with a good actual one for next time)

Ok, we'll have one of yours for sure--more that likely one has never happened except in your mind.

You know it's like the kid that goes out in the back yard and he tells himself that he's out there fighting tigers in the African jungle. He, then, scares himself and starts running and hollering and tells his mother that there's a lion in the backyard. Really, very seldom have you ever been in any "life or death" situations, is that right?--not very many because you're still here. If you'd been in more than one, you'd have fumbled up at least once.

(Then possibly "what it is" is I've just "visualized" situations with other people. Say there's a fellow riding in the car with a friend who drives over a cliff. He has no choice, he can't control the car. The driver's the one that drove over the cliff. Ok, where's this fellow? He's going to go over the cliff with the driver one way or another.)

Well, probably he's going to go down the hill, I don't know what's going to happen when he gets there. But when you let somebody else drive for you, that's the chance you take. That's always the case.

(He's still in the "catch 22" that he has no control over.)

Let's say he went over a 500 ft. embankment, there's really not much difference because I've noticed that very few people get out of this world alive. Have you notice that?

So what's difference in the way you do it. If you're going out, what difference does the way it happens make? You know you're not going to get out of this world alive.

(So you just do your reporting...)

So you just report on the everyday "what is"; and you don't bother to come up with all these hypothetical things that scare you to death. If you want to frighten yourself to death every time you get in a car with some guy and hypothesize or hypnotize yourself that this jerk's going to run across the meridian and meet "head on" in the oncoming traffic with an 18 wheeler, you go right ahead.

You see there was an accident up the road the other day where six people were in a car--they were tailgating a truck. Another truck got on the runway and came in and squeezed them in between the two trucks. It was fatal, yes; but that doesn't mean I'm never going to get on the road again. I really don't have any choice over driving those other two trucks. Most of the trucks have been getting there all right--it's like most of the airplanes.

(One went down this weekend.)

But that doesn't mean that none of us are going to get on an airplane. That was an unusual situation. There was a guy on the airplane who lives on the west side of town.
He was sitting in the tail end of it because he smoked and that's where the stewardess made him sit. He walked out of the crash and came home. He's already here feeling fine. It's a good thing he sat in the smoking section. The tail end was left after the crash. That was the only time he really got paid off for smoking--you see--he's alive. If he'd been a non-smoker, he'd have been up there in front and been wiped out. So his vice saved him. So don't always knock smoking or any of these other things you mechanically judge.

(That definitely wasn't detrimental to his health.)

No, it wasn't detrimental to his health that day.

(Even non-smokers will request the tail of the bus.)

Well, it doesn't make any difference, it's just that there's got to be somebody discriminated against, and sometimes you might as well be back there and be alive, I don't know. Next time maybe the tail end of the airplane will be burned up, I don't know; but the point is he got here all right, so that's the main thing.

(So when the situation comes up like the "catch 22"-type thing, and it involves other people--then you just report what is and make whatever decision you want.)

Well, you can report whatever you want, and go on about your business. There's really a lot of things, we said, that you don't have control over; but you have control over your inner feeling, if you want to. You can control how you respond to other things said and done; but there's no way that we're going to be able to control the environment.

You see, that's what everybody who is "going to solve something" sets out to do--solve the environment. Now solving the environment you can't do. There's quite a few of us here on earth--so you're not going to get everybody here to agree with you.

SO YOU CAN ONLY TAKE CHARGE OF WHAT YOU CAN, WHICH IS ENOUGH. IF YOU'RE IN CHARGE OF YOU'RE OWN INNER STATE, HOW YOU'RE GOING TO FEEL, AND YOU'RE IN CHARGE OF HOW YOU'RE GOING TO RESPOND TO ANY OF THE REST OF US HERE, YOU GOT ENOUGH.

But now when you start talking about controlling circumstance, you're very busy--all you'll do is get yourself in a state of anxiety. Now the circumstances....

(If you handle a situation over here where "somebody wants you to do something"; and meanwhile somebody else is the one "you're doing it against", you're caught between the two. You really don't want to be there.)

Well, in all probability, I would take a walk. Say boys, I'm sorry....

(There are times when you cannot walk.)

Well, stay there until you're paralyzed and then they can haul you. So you can always say, "I've made previous arrangements and you guys can all handle this all by yourselves.
There's no way that you're going to control circumstances, John.

(That's not what I'm talking about.)

Yes, that's what you're talking about. I don't care how you name it, you're saying that if I could control circumstance, I could handle it. But circumstances many times are as you say--one wants you to go one way, and another one wants you to go in a separate direction. Some guy's paying you $550. to kill his wife and his wife is giving you $500. to take her on a trip. So which one are you going to do?

(Take them both.)

Take her on a trip and get rid of her, now you got'em both. So you've made $1050. instead of $550. So there's really not too many "catch 22's" going on except when a guy says he wants to control circumstances. Now controlling circumstances is not within your realm, ok. Controlling you're response to circumstances, controlling your own inner state of being IS. You cannot control circumstances except to an "extreme limited degree" because everybody else has got a finger in it. Besides nature and other people make pretty good odds against you handling it, ok?

Any other questions comments?

LIVING IN A STATE OF GRACE

(Certainly living in a state of grace is very different from living in a state of stress.)

You'd better believe it.

(Would you comment on this alternative to stress--that is, living in a state of grace)

Well, I'm talking about making ourselves very available to grace. GRACE IS NOT MAKING THINGS IMPORTANT. GRACE IS BEING IN CHARGE OF MY OWN INNER STATE OF BEING AND BEING IN CHARGE OF MY RESPONSES TO CIRCUMSTANCE. Now it is grace that we even heard of these teaching ideas. Basically, people have been living thousands of years; and only an extremely small number of people have ever been reminded or exposed to, seen, heard and valued the teachings--so that's where the grace comes in.

The grace is undeserved goods. I did nothing that I can think of to earn having come across such material many years ago, and being able to use it.. That was pure unadulterated grace to me, ok? And I think it is grace for any of the rest of us--because in most cases, we could have never stumbled upon it ourselves.

So we live by grace when we take advantage of the teachings that makes it possible for us to live without being torn up and in the usual state of stress that everybody around us lives in, ok? And I'm very thankful for the teachings myself--very thankful for that grace, ok. Any other comments.

(In your book headlines, you refer to something called INCREASING NECESSITY.)

INCREASING ONE'S NECESSITY. If I can get down to here [… from Marsha-"here" means having made things important for a long time and experiencing many adaptations]; and my body's pretty well having a lot of difficulties, I've INCREASED MY NECESSITY TO PAY ATTENTION.

Could I say one word for you dear one please?

Miss Judy is a sweet lovely lady that about a year ago was almost incapacitated in getting around. Her necessity was increased to the point where she was able to listen to something to lower the stresses. Now she's a beautiful lady running around, is that right Judy?

So, that's the difference. If everything is going real good for me, I don't have any necessity to study any of this stuff, John; but when things get too rough going, then I'd better start looking. So I'm not one to increase anybody else's necessity; but I will stand around and let nature do it for them, right quick. If everything's just going wonderful--if they even remotely ask us about anything, it is purely out of curiosity. They don't intend to use it. But when things get rough enough, and the going gets tough enough, then they start experimenting with it. So we do advise that, because nature is going to take care of it anyway, ok?

(Can we ask and work on something without getting our necessity increased?)

Oh, you might, but more than likely it's only a want.

(Ok)

Probably won't use it to the best.

(There's a statement in the new testament that says you will not evolve from the level of the state in which you now find yourself until you have paid the uttermost farthing.)

The last nickel, penny, even the mill.

(What is the payment exactly?)

Adaptation and tissue cell alteration--you don't get out of it. Say that you got yourself worked up sometime; and the tissue cell alteration an breakdown was really going. Now you had been going on that route. Now, it's not going to just go away--pluup. You're going to go all the way back through it. We call it retracing in a technical term--so you will retrace.

So just because--I say, "Oh Lord, I'm so sorry I did that." Nothing changes one bit. In other words; say I've sat around and had been a professional grump for years. I finally discover that grumping got me all stiffed up; and I'm full of rocks and stuff inside Finally, I say, "God, I shouldn't have done that, I'm sorry," But, I've still got to go all the way back through--retrace as I said earlier, ok?

(So the payment is accepting what you have to work with and .....)

And letting the teachings work. You are understanding what's going on and that all the mobilized and unreleased energy you created with your misconceptions, conditioning and reactions is being used up, ok? That you have generated, mobilized and held a bunch of energy that has to be burned up by some sort of adaptation in one way or another.

So that's when you're paying the last little bit [farthing], because we have to get to the state of what's called homostatious or balance in the body before we feel real good, ok? That's one of the things on it And if you've grumped and fought with people for years--being a good guy overnight doesn't straighten it out, even if you start preaching and holding church services down the street-- you see--you just turned over in bed here. We're going to wait and see what you're really going to do with it.

[I've also observed this applied to those who have tried just switching from A side to B side and begin to "please", "try to be different" and all of the "B" side traps instead of observing that side too………. Marsha]

(So you're really talking about a conscious adaptation as distinguished from a mechanical adaptation.)

A mechanical one?--we're talking about being conscious now. We're talking about allowing IT to do. We can aid in getting it done as quick as possible by not mobilizing more energy. That means NOT MAKING THINGS IMPORTANT.

About the mechanical part--the strongest human beings wear out in about 70 years with the mechanical part--the strongest and best ancestry and so forth. Those bodies can only stand it's turmoil of mobilized and unreleased energy and adaptation for about 70 years. That amount of stress will wear out a good strong person--weaker ones go before then. Now if you want to stick around and feel good a little longer, why you learn to do the Work, and then we don't have all that adaptation, ok?

Thank you everybody and have a good day.

* [I've used this exercise with a towel on the bed and know that it's a very valuable exercise. Of course, I did it where I couldn't be seen or heard. Kids might get scared. Others would perhaps laugh, judge, or mistakenly think I've gone crazy. It was quite a dramatic feeling inside, but I was able to function much better the rest of the day. My thinking wasn't all anger, frustration and dwelling on the event. When and if I don't do the exercise, I experience what I call "obliterated thinking which is unclear and confused I then observed myself repeating tasks because I don't know if I've done them-equipment I use fouls up. I make mistakes in cooking, computing, writing and adding and subtracting figures and even have trouble dialing telephone numbers I know by heart. Occasionally when I've been mad at someone I love, I've found I couldn't do it. Therefore, I divide the image of the person into two parts-the one I love and the one who has "done this to me"-I destroy the image of the one I "see" as "having done this to me." After all, it's just the not I's telling me that they are "doing this to me" and blocking the "What's going on here" and "What can I do" from X. After the destroying of mobilized energy, I can see more clearly What is Going On and also "What I Can Do About" anything that is happening in the current situation. My teacher was correct when he said that help can come from anywhere and anyone; but we are not open to it when we are in conflict, struggle and resistance.......Marsha]