The secret about strain

We all experience strain in our lives. It can occur on “bad” days or it can occur multiple times everyday. It is usually experienced as a feeling that things are out of control. In this article, we explore why strain occurs and how we can correct it for good.

Strain occurs whenever there is a will-behaviour conflict.

It means our willing (what we want do) and doing (what we actually do) have become discordant. For example, we may want to crucify someone at our workplace or in our family but we actually end up acting nice because only that is socially acceptable. This conflict between our will and our behaviour causes strain.

The secret about strain is that strain is fear. When we are experiencing strain, our mind is actually experiencing fear. It is the fear that there is something unloving in us that will get out and do irreparable damage. The fear comes from trying not to express a murderous thought—or any loveless thought. We are afraid of that thought, afraid of its presence in us and afraid of it getting out. We want to attack and we want to act decently. This conflict causes immense strain.

Since we have this murderous hand that wants to lunge out and choke everyone, whether we always keep it under control or sometimes let it off-leash, how can we not be in a state of fear?

The real solution to strain

We begin by admitting that it is fear, in fact, that we are experiencing as strain. Then we acknowledge that this fear comes from our own choices. Somehow somewhere, we made a choice not to love.

Fear arises from lack of love — from accepting into ourselves a loveless, destructive will that we are afraid will escape our control and go out and wreck relationships and careers and lives.

We then recognise that this cannot be corrected by better doing.

But it can be corrected by higher willing.

That’s the big solution: higher willing, acquiring a more loving will. How do we achieve that? We place our will under love’s guidance—not our behavior, but our basic will toward others. We must let love guide how we think about others and what we intend toward them. Once we accept perfect love into our minds, it will shine away all our lovelessness and the sense of strain that comes from it.