Allow yourself to be open to the idea that feeling stressed-out means you are thinking stressful thoughts, and that stress is nothing more or nothing less than that.
Pay specific attention to the thoughts you are having each and every time you feel stressed. See if you can identify the thought you had that preceded the feeling of stress. The more you pay attention to what you are thinking, the easier it will be to see that the way you think is responsible for your stress.
After all, if there actually was an inherently stressful situation or person, everyone who encounters it would have to be stressed by it. Put it to the test for yourself with this example. Your boss stresses you out! It might even appear to you that everyone is stressed out by him or her. As a result, you believe your boss is the source of everyone’s stress. If your boss is truly the source of everyone’s stress, then everyone who comes in contact with him would have to be stressed-out. However, there is probably someone out there for whom he does not cause stress. It might be his best friend, his mother, or his sweetheart. If he were truly the source of everyone’s stress, all those people would have to be stressed out by him, too.
Since not everyone who encounters the boss is stressed-out, it cannot be he who is causing the stress. So what is it that causes your stress when you encounter him? It has to be something else — and it is. The way you think about him makes you stressed-out and nothing else.
Notice your thoughts and see if you can change the way you are thinking about whatever it is that seems to be stressing you out.
