Stressed out, umpiring baseball, Eckhart Tolle and meditation

[fledman]

I'm re-reading "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. I have a question for those of you who have read the book. What do you think he means in the beginning of the book when his subconscious told him to "resist nothing"? It seems to me we resist those things of which we are afraid. I think to "resist nothing" means to allow oneself to be afraid or to fail or to try.

I read some Jon Kabot-Zinn, who stressed 7 things: non judgemental, patience, non striving, mind of a child, trust yourself, acceptance and letting go. These themes seem to come up over and over in all writing and explanation of meditation and stress reduction. I'm especially taken with Tolle's instruction to just listen to the voice in our heads. To make no judgement of it. He says we are controlled by the pain body or our unconcious mind (the voice in our head) which is working overtime to convince us that it is the true self. We develop a negative image which is reinforced by the voice. The voice convinces us that we have to behave in a certain way or all will be lost. It takes control. It is in fact fighting for it's own existence. By actively listening to the voice and observing it and observing ourselves observing it, we can separate ourselves from it. The point being that if you can observe a thing, you must be separate from it. That allows one contact his/her true identity, that same identity present during meditation.

I've been doing this with some success. I've also been doing a meditation provided by a company called Holosync. It's incredible. It comes on a CD which I've put in my I-pod and listen to every morning. I've been doing it for about 3 weeks. I'm up to an hour every morning. I am overcome with feelings of peace and confidence. I've had very vivid dreams where I display a type of confidence I've never before experience, awake or asleed. It's like discovering a part of me exists that I never knew was there. I'm still in the early stages of this.

I've started umpiring baseball, however, and am very stressed out about it. Still, I feel I need the challenge. I want to explore those areas of life that are unknown and uncomfortable, areas where in the past I didn't have the confidence to go. It's scary but I'm trying not to resist. I can feel the pain body rebelling. I am listening to the voice imploring me to quit. I am observing it without judgement. I sense a panic in the pain body's frantic and almost desperate attempt to hold on as the energy force in charge. It knows that if I push myself into areas of discomfort and succeed, its days of holding me back will be over. As a result it is ratcheting up the stress level in an attempt to hold on and convince me to turn back.

I'm worried about the stress, which at times is on the level of a panic attack, but at the same time I am convinced that should I stick it out and get through the learning curve and do this thing that I've alway wanted to do, but have not had the courage to do, my confidence will be released in a poweful way - which should in the long run reduce my level of stress.

Kind of long winded, but any thoughts out there on stress and how to deal with it rather than just avoid it?

Fledman