The Tao of Stress: How to Calm, Balance, and Simplify Your Life (13 page)

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Part 3

Reducing Your Desires

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Chapter 6

Understanding Desires

From the time we get up in the morning until the time we go to bed at night, we are vulnerable to an onslaught of advertisements across all types of media telling us what we should desire and obtain in order to be happy, feel good about ourselves, and be accepted by others. In addition, friends, family members, acquaintances, colleagues, coworkers, and others also often tell us what we should desire, get, see, or watch, where and what we should eat, and so on in order for their desires— yes,
their
desires— to be met.

In a very real sense, and unfortunately, our self- worth often hinges on attaining what others tell us we should desire. If we don’t please them, we fear that they may not like or appreciate us. This is clearly a threat to our self- worth and leads to chronic stress.

If we haven’t attained the things that others say we should desire, we feel threatened and stressed until we obtain them. If we do attain these things, we still feel threatened because we’re afraid we’ll lose them or because we think they aren’t enough. As a result, we are still chronically stressed. This becomes an ongoing cycle in which we are never

satisfied.

We all have basic desires that are part of our evolutionary tool kit, such as for safety, security, shelter, food, a good income, companionship, sex, having children, being healthy, getting adequate movement or exercise, feeling good, being happy, being liked, and so on. All of these have an impact on how we think, feel, and behave. They are also natural.

In addition, we have desires driven by social expectations, such as for fame, status, wealth, power, longevity, or always looking good or being uncorrected proof

The Tao of Stress

youthful. These also have an impact on how we think, feel, and behave and are not inherently problematic.

However, when any of our desires, whether basic or socially driven, are continually excessive or deficient and lead to chronic stress, they become problematic. They cannot be satisfied. We don’t know when

enough is enough or how to stop indulging in or pursuing these desires.

The end result is the physical and psychological harm of chronic stress.

When traveling the Taoist path to removing chronic stress, it is

important to remember that desires, thoughts, beliefs, judgments, feelings, behavior, and environment are all intimately intertwined and interrelated. All have a bearing on your center and root and the free and natural flow of qi. When they are neither excessive nor deficient, your yin and yang are in harmony not only within yourself, but also with the environment around you.

Taoism and Desires

Across Taoist history and in numerous Taoist texts, excessive or deficient desires are viewed as a fundamental cause of fragmentation and separa-tion from Tao. Excessive or deficient desires result in disaster, misfortune, danger, vulnerability, illness, and tragedy. Excessive or deficient desires disrupt and agitate both the mind and the body. Because of our excessive or deficient desires, we are selfish, self- centered, and chronically stressed.

In fact, these problematic desires prevent us from being free from chronic stress.

While our basic desires can certainly become excessive or deficient, Taoist teachings tend to focus on excessive socially driven desires, which tend to compromise basic desires, such as eating, drinking, sleeping, and exercise, and therefore contribute to chronic stress. In Taoism, the senses and the mind are seen as the primary vehicles for excessive or deficient desires. Regarding excessive desires, our senses and mind pull us out of ourselves and toward various objects in our environment that our society has determined to be of importance for self- worth. As a result, we ignore our own health and well- being as we continually seek what society has deemed to be valuable and important. This divide between our own

health and well- being and the values and desires created by society has long been a significant concern within Taoism.

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Is attaining fame or excessive wealth worth losing your health and well- being? Is it worth being chronically stressed? The problem is that we don’t know when enough is enough. We don’t know when to stop. Our

desires become excessive because we are continually bombarded with messages about how we should look and what we should possess, eat, drink, wear, and do so we can feel good about ourselves. This bombard-ment never ends, no matter how much or what we attain, as society

continues to create more and more new things we need to have or be— or ways we shouldn’t be, as in the cultural message that women must be deficient in weight in order to be beautiful. As a result, we can never be satisfied. Our desires become excessive.

Desires and Time

A major source of chronic stress for many people is the perception that they simply don’t have enough time to accomplish all the tasks they think they need to complete. Yet many of these tasks are directly linked to excessive desires.

The more desires we have, the more time we spend trying to satisfy them. The time we waste thinking about and trying to satisfy our excessive desires, and the time we spend complaining about what we don’t have, significantly contribute to our lack of time. This is time we can never get back. And because excessive desires can never be satisfied, we will never have enough time. As a result, we become more and more

impatient, which feeds chronic stress.

From the Taoist perspective, if we want to eliminate our impatience, gain control of our time, and free ourselves from chronic stress, we need to remove not only our excessive desires, but also our deficient desires.

More generally, we need to reduce our desires overall in order to simplify our lives.

Desires and Sleep

Chapter 4 looked at how mental behaviors, such as worrying and obsessing at bedtime, create problems with getting to sleep, staying asleep, and sleeping restfully. Chapter 5 discussed how practicing wuwei, or

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noninterference, can assist us in getting to sleep, staying asleep, and sleeping restfully. Here, I’ll take a brief look at how desires disrupt sleep.

From the Taoist perspective, excessive desires, including unfulfilled desires, hopes, and wishful thinking, disturb both the mind and body.

They give rise to and maintain chronic stress. If at bedtime we habitually worry and ruminate about what we don’t have but desire, what we wish would happen, what we want to get rid of, and what we hope won’t

happen, our minds will be agitated, making it difficult to fall asleep, stay asleep, and sleep restfully. Not getting enough restful sleep further stresses the body and mind, adding to our chronic stress. Our excessive desires so overwhelm us that they outweigh our natural desire for sleep. Essentially, our desire for sleep is deficient. In this situation, both excessive and deficient desires interfere with sleep and lead to chronic stress, harming us physically and psychologically.

The teachings of Taoism indicate that at bedtime we should be free of deliberations, expectations, emotions, and desires. This allows the mind to be still, empty, and anchored in a quiet place, which promotes deep, dreamless, undisturbed, restful, and adequate sleep (Guo 1974).

Desires and Eating

There is no question that certain foods taste good. They taste good because evolution has taught us to eat them to get the energy we need to engage life. If we didn’t have the desire to eat, we wouldn’t have the energy to sustain life. We would simply die.

The foods that tend to taste so good primarily contain sugar and fat In addition to providing the energy we need for life, they also tend to make us feel better emotionally. Therefore, we call them comfort foods.

For about 40 percent of people, stress increases the desire for these foods (Dallman 2009). By making us feel better, they temporarily reduce the negative symptoms of stress. In this way, the desire for comfort foods in response to stress is reinforced. When stress becomes chronic, the desire for these comfort foods becomes excessive. People start taking in far more calories than they need and become overweight or obese (Harvard Health 2012). The additional weight adds another stressor that compromises their well- being.

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For another 40 percent of people, stress results in a reduction in the desire to eat (Dallman 2009). When such people experience chronic

stress, their desire to eat becomes deficient, resulting in unhealthful weight loss. This too is detrimental to well- being.

In order to eliminate the excessive or deficient desires that interfere with eating, we need to manage our stress and also focus on specific eating habits. In chapter 2, you learned the practice of Eating with Guan.

In chapter 5, you learned about not interfering with yourself (wuwei) in regard to eating. The integrated Taoist approach calls for eating a balanced diet, eating moderately, not interfering with yourself in regard to eating, and being present while eating.

Desires and Exercise

In the United States and other countries with large numbers of overweight and obese people, the problem is compounded by a generally deficient desire for exercise. Although our bodies are wired for motion, our society generally reinforces activities that require and reinforce a sedentary lifestyle, such as eating, drinking, texting, surfing the Web, watching TV, social networking, and playing video games. Given these many distractions, people tend to come up with numerous excuses for not exercising, as noted in chapter 5. In such cases, the desire to exercise is clearly deficient and contributes to chronic stress, which compromises

well- being.

On the other hand, some people have an excessive desire to exercise.

By overexercising, they chronically stress both mind and body and

thereby put their health and well- being in jeopardy. Sometimes this happens because people overtrain in a quest to be the best. In other cases it occurs because people perceive that they’re fat, and in a quest to be extremely thin, they manifest an excessive desire to exercise and a deficient desire to eat.

In all cases, we need to be aware of how excessive or deficient desires in regard to exercise interfere with our well- being and stress both mind and body. Once again, moderation is the key. Our yin and yang need to be in harmony.

Moderation, wuwei, and guan are all extremely helpful because they allow us to customize our lives to what is natural for each of us

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individually. As discussed in the previous chapter, we need to get out of our own way, stop being judgmental, and simply begin to exercise.

Practice Exploring and Reducing

Your Desires

This exercise will help you explore your problematic desires— those that cause you to lose your center and root and result in your yin and yang being out of harmony. These are desires that are either excessive (too yang) or deficient (too yin) and that give rise to, maintain, or result from chronic stress. Continual y eating too much is an excessive desire that results in weight gain, which chronical y stresses the normal functioning of the body. Continual y not eating enough is

a deficient desire that results in weight loss, which also chronical y stresses the normal functioning of the body. By becoming aware of

these problematic desires and examining, moderating, or eliminating them, you can simplify your life, find your center and root, harmonize your yin and yang, and ease chronic stress.

For this exercise, you’ll need to use your journal, a piece of paper, or a computer. Make two columns. Title one column “Excessive

Desires,” and the other “Deficient Desires.” Then list all of the desires that apply to you, placing each in the appropriate column. Be honest with yourself, and be specific. Here’s an example.

Excessive Desires

Deficient Desires

Eating junk food

Exercising

Texting

Drinking

water

Gaming

Eating

fruit

Drinking alcohol

Eating vegetables

Sleeping

This is the first step: becoming aware of your problematic desires.

The next step is to examine each desire individual y. Separately, list
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each problematic desire and give yourself space to answer the fol-

lowing questions for each one:

1. What do you get from this excessive or deficient desire?

2. What function does this desire perform for you?

3. Is it beneficial to your health? If not, why not?

4. Is it detrimental to your health? If so, how?

5. Can you avoid or change the environment in which this desire

arises or is deficient? If so, how?

Be sure to actual y write down your answers to these questions

for each desire. If you are to reduce your chronic stress, it’s crucial that you have a crystal clear understanding of the problematic desires associated with your chronic stress.

While this type of inquiry is general y straightforward for excessive desires, it may seem tricky or confusing in regard to deficient desires.

So let’s take drinking water as an example. Most of us don’t drink enough water and are unaware of how this can chronical y stress the body and how it is linked to a wide variety of physical and psychological symptoms. Here’s an example of how someone might answer the

preceding questions for a deficient desire to drink water:

1. What do you get from this excessive or deficient desire?

Because water has no flavor and I don’t feel I get anything

from it, I don’t have to drink much if any water.