Stress levels in America have been extraordinarily high – even for us. Although the phenomenon is often attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated effects on the economy and freedom of movement, it’s much deeper than that.

We must be honest with ourselves if our intent is to improve the situation.

America always suffers higher stress levels that any other country. It’s the reason why the country is the comorbidity capital of the world. That in turn contributes to the devastation COVID has reaped on our population. The so-called “shining city on the hill” is highly toxic to the population.

Our politics during the last four years have also contributed to the stress. We’re largely a nation divided along political lines. In fact, I have never seen the nation more divided, and I grew up during the Sixties. This division and the anger it inspires toward people is quite different than background stress that can be addressed in the post about gratitude.

It’s also quite different than anger directed at individuals. Forgiveness releases the emotional energy of that quite easily and will also be the subject of a future post.

What distinguishes the recent fluxion of anger or alarm energy in the emotion field is its direction at groups and/or events outside of the control of the individual experiencing it. That requires a different strategy I call “rewriting the past” or “decoupling from the past.” It’s based upon a phenomenon of quantum physics called the quantum eraser that will be subject of a future post.

This is an editorial piece based in science but that has not been tested by science. Therefore, there is no direct data to support it other than my own anecdotal experience. However that experience has been wildly successful for myself and everyone who has followed the procedure.

The procedure benefits all human energy domains by promoting stability across physical and non-physical systems. It promotes a highly productive use of sleep to enhance relaxation and restfulness too.

Staying in the Now

The key to remaining calm and collected is to remain constantly aware of  the “now.” This is relatively easy to do – particularly within the context of anger, which causes havoc across all energy domains of the body – but it does require substantial practice to learn.

Meditation is the gold standard of being mindful of the present. However, most Americans are quite resistant to dedicating the time required to learn it. Most of the posts here have featured interim activities that require less time instead. Nevertheless, the topic of meditation will be prominently featured in the book, The Answer is One. I owe my life to learning meditation.

Eckhart Tolle wrote the masterful book, The Power of Now that is highly recommended. It is a definitive work about meditation and maintaining awareness of the present. The author’s noteworthy quote:

“Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”

The above is absolutely correct. Nothing written here will contradict it in any way. But I am confronted almost daily by people looking for immediate relief from out-of-control emotion that is clearly causing them distress. It’s also slowly killing them while ruining their experience of now.

What follows is ultimately an interim step toward meditation requiring far less of a time investment. It can be used to augment meditation during particularly high-stress periods, which is how I came to develop it myself. However, I emphasize that meditation and the techniques described in Tolle’s book are the best long-term solution for chronic anger in particular.

Rewriting the Past

Rewriting or “decoupling” from the past is a simple solution, but don’t be fooled by that simplicity. It’s powerful and gets more potent with habitual use. It requires no special preparation whatsoever and takes advantage of something done twice a day every day in every person’s life.

Those two things are, in order of importance: go to sleep, and wake up from sleep.

I really have no easier solutions,  so please don’t ask.

The reason why it’s so difficult to remain present in the now for most people is what Tolle called “the illusion of time.” It is an illusion. So is most of  what we experience in this dimension. Our senses grossly deceive us as I covered in the post The Power of Invisible Energy.

Time is an illusion propagated by memory. We build histories within our mind based on that illusory connection of events. However, that history is only as valid as an objectionable odor, which is ultimately an arbitrary assignment of the sense of smell. Your dog may love the same odor because of her far more sensitive nose.

We can’t break the connection with memory, but we are capable of reframing events in far less objectionable emotional energy terms than we originally recorded them with.

Ideally, it’s best to retell the story within a higher, more compassionate, emotional frame of mind energy. It’s assigning new meaning to the event for storage in memory, but never falsifying it. This process has many short- and long-term benefits that lead to more peaceful thoughts.

In time, you’ll gain the  capacity to do it in real time while your former emotional buttons are being pushed. How valuable is that to you?

The Rewriting Process

Start while going to bed at night. Twice a day, everyone’s brain domain passes through the hypnagogic state described in the post, Intention: The Master Control of Life. It’s a slowed state of brainwaves typically around 8 Hz or so, and during that transition, there is direct connection with the subconscious. That’s important, because human beings operate out of the subconscious during more than 90 percent of our waking hours.

The basic concept is to edit the experience of the day to an improved and strategic viewpoint for recording in the subconscious.

Here’s one I used on the night a dear friend of many years betrayed me and truly broke my heart. The gender association is arbitrary:

My friend betrayed me unexpectedly and without cause. It alarmed and shocked me. I reacted poorly. I regret the reaction. I can and will do better.

I mean no harm to him now or ever. I bless  and release him. My ability to trust and to love freely are always my highest priority. A peaceful release must be.

I send my love and forgiveness now with the hope he can feel it and go forth with a peaceful mind as I choose to do now.

That’s the whole thing. Pretty simple and amazingly effective. The summary below offers insights and best practices.

Summary of Decoupling from the Past

There are some powerful psychological benefits to the process described above. The action is broken into its component parts below along some additional tips for making the practice more powerful below. These will help readers customize their own process.

• A short, vague but accurate, description of what happened without any expression of anger or frustration
• The truth you hold in your heart about your desires for every experience
• A resolution that offers all involved a peaceful way forward with no animosity
• Never exaggerate or use terms like “broke my heart,” deeply sad, etc. You’re trying to reframe the event in positive terms, but never misrepresent or use negative terms that you don’t want in your future.

The last point above is extremely important. This exercise reframes the memory reference but doesn’t lie about it or express itself in negative emotional terms. Think like you would while writing about a terrible employment experience on a resume – which in reality, is a history rewriting experience.

A few extra notes that made the act personal for me, and I believe make it more powerful:

• Touch the area of the heart as the words are recited. This focuses an awareness of the heart energy domain that is extremely powerful and is proven to increase activity of the vagus nerve that releases stress.
• Visualizing the event and the peaceful departure adds energy to the intention. Being able to see it in your mind is excellent.
• The words in the first paragraph, “I can and will do better” are words I say whenever I express a sense of regret or remorse for my actions.
• The second paragraph has my true intent every day of life in every situation without exception. It may sound quite magnanimous, but it’s quite selfish. Think about that.
• The peaceful release being restated is important. A highly emotional event can and will return to mind on occasion. Those words of release are best repeated when a recurrent thought returns to discharge it from consciousness.
• The word “now” sets a boundary in time. It’s a statement that you are finished.
• Avoid or eliminate references to the past or future. Do not use negating terms like don’t, won’t, will not, etc. The subconscious rejects those references.

Repeat the above first thing in the morning as soon as possible. If you can do it while still in bed, that is ideal. It’s not desirable to take the event into the day. If the memory returns, restate the release.

Whatever disturbed your sense of peace will likely stop coming to mind within three days. I have no idea why that time seems to be the average. It just has been.

There’s an additional benefit to this approach. I have slept undisturbed ever since I started using it. My sleep is quite deep, and I always wake up refreshed. I’ve been told that I never even move during sleep but obviously can’t confirm that. I cannot recall an upsetting dream during the past 20 years.

Subconscious and the Quantum Eraser

A curious and amazing thing happens when a sub-atomic particle like a photon is fired through a barrier with two slits: the particle goes through both slits and interferes with itself on the other side as a wave.

That is the natural state of the photon. It’s a wave of probability until it is measured. Measurement compels the wave to collapse into a single, very tiny point in space. It is called the collapse of the wave function. This will be described fully in a future post.

When the measurement is reversed or eliminated, the photon returns to being a wave. This very odd phenomenon is known as the quantum eraser. (Besides being utterly amazing).

When I first developed the technique above, I did so with the knowledge of how past resentments from childhood were operating in my subconscious. They produced some dysfunctional behavior that I could not trace to their source. They were recorded and forgotten by that time, but the associated unhappiness and displeasure arose with almost no provocation whatsoever in many situations.

It was quite frustrating. One day I wondered if there was a way to produce my own quantum eraser for emotional responses so they never “collapsed the wave” to reside in my subconscious mind as a defined particle or “thing.”

The  procedure described above is what I arrived at, and it has worked beyond anything I imagined possible. I don’t carry resentments into the future anymore.

When this practice is combined with a gratitude prayer in the morning as described in the post Cure Stress with Simple Gratitude, the lasting effect of peaceful living becomes a reality.

A post is planned for dealing with longer term memories. They too can be rewritten. Leave a comment if you are interested in the topic, and it will be moved up on the schedule.

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Photo Credit: Arnes Buric at Pixabay

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