About "Stress"

    In competitive, warp-speed America, personal "stress management" inspires countless books, articles, Web sites, programs, and resolutions. Most people can describe common symptoms of stress (e.g. sleeplessness, mind-racing, irritability, frustration, weariness, impatience, and worries, etc.) but few can name the root cause of it.

    Premise - excessive "stress" and "Type A personalities" are symptoms of major disharmony among a person's team of personality subselves. Each  subself contributes unique thoughts and emotions causing local or chronic "stress" - a  mix of  neediness + anxieties + guilts + shame + hurt + frustration + confusion + anger and other local reactions.

   Implication - the most effective way to avoid or reduce significant personal stress is to harmonize your crew of subselves under the expert leadership of your resident true Self and other Manager subselves. The technique of "parts work" and personal wound-reduction described in Lesson 1 will help achieve this. Parts work combined with learning effective communication skills (Lesson 2) can significantly reduce personal stress over time.