There are times when stress and worry can become so great that we feel overwhelmed. In these situations, it is useful to determine, does how we’re feeling accord with the reality of the situation?
In the majority of cases, our feelings and emotions that we experience are completely divorced from the actual facts in issue. In other words, things are probably not as bad as we are making them out to be. What we’re experiencing probably has less to do with our circumstances and more to do with how the mind is responding at any particular moment.
While at first this may sound like bad news, in fact it is very good news. It means that our happiness is not in fact constrained to the ever changing circumstances that we find ourselves in but, rather subject to and dependent upon the degree and maturity of our mental training.
If we can apply our meditation practice training to our daily lives, we can become much more skilled at recognizing when our mind is going off the rails. As a result, we don’t have to be a victim to our own reactions. Using insight meditation practice, difficult conditions such as worry, doubt, craving, laziness, and anger can be relegated to short-term interruptions instead of debilitating hindrances. The rest of the time we will be left to relax and enjoy satisfaction with the present moment.