From the September 2012 magazine: “The Secret”

Our September 2012 magazine features "Real Peace in Times of Stress," a special section on how to find peace, calm, and sanity in a stressed-out world.  In her editorial for the September issue, Deputy Editor Andrea Miller reveals the secret of her biggest source of stress — and as it turns out, it's a common one.

I really didn't want to write this editorial. I couldn't think of a way to write it that wouldn't reveal my secret—my secret regarding the greatest source of stress in my life.

My life is pretty good. No, better than pretty good. Beyond just having a job, I have right livelihood, and on Monday mornings I look forward to getting to the office. Not only do I have enough food to eat, I frequently have avocadoes, mangos, and even fancy cheese. I have a roof over my head, too, and though it's not exactly my dream house, we're painting and fixing up. Best of all, I have people who love me—a warm, wonderful husband, an incredible mother, intimate friends. Nonetheless, in the midst of all of these people, things, and situations I am so grateful for, I still experience stress. As Kathleen Dean Moore so succinctly puts it in this issue, "What I experience is the ironic stress of the privileged, which is stress nonetheless."

So now for the secret I didn't want to tell you: the greatest source of stress in my life is the gap between what I think I should be and what I think I am. Niceness, productivity, smarts—the truth is I always fall wildly short of my expectations.

Of course, I didn't want to admit any of this because, with the cat out of the bag, I feel a little vulnerable, a little naked. But I'm admitting my secret to you now—to the thousands of you—because I managed to admit it to one coworker. "Yeah," he told me, "that's my source of stress, too." I believe he said it with a shrug. As if to imply, no surprise. As if to imply, that's most people's secret. And come to think of it, that makes sense. After all, the core of my problem is ego, and the buddhadharma clearly points out that ego is the core of everyone's problem. And one thing we know about ego is, it always feels bad about itself. It's always stressed.

Read the rest of "The Secret" here. And to see what else is in the September Shambhala Sun — including lots of mindfulness techniques to relieve stress at home, at work, in relationships, and more — click here.

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