She must have said it a thousand times.
I’ve tuned into her class almost every week since May of 2020, sometimes three times a week, but I never got it the way I did last week: “Any time you feel stressed, depressed or feel unease of any kind, it is because of what you are thinking and believing. It is only because of that.”

Your thoughts. My thoughts. The way to freedom is within us. We’ve got the power.

Her suggestion: write the thoughts down on paper (or the app) and in a state of silent inquiry, question them.

I can hear the audience pushback now:

• But bad things happen
• He/she is the cause of my stress/ heartbreak/anger
• If I don’t like someone, it’s clearly about them
• I can’t control my thoughts
• it’s YOU causing me stress!
  

I get it. Experientially, I can relate to all the objections. But I also know that when a stressful thought disappears into the silence of the One, the heart emerges from the cloud cover and beams. It soaks my world in sweet kindness. It feels realer than real.

In my lived experience, I vacillate. Intuitively? I know unconditional inner freedom is real. Getting to that unperturbable place as a state of being? Well, that is the game here. That is the school most of us are in.