A short talk by Ashok Gupta about how language and mindful observation influence stress, anxiety, and chronic conditions. Gupta advises avoiding self-identifying statements like “I am stressed” and instead observing sensations as transient (e.g., “there are some anxious sensations within me”) to reframe distress as brain loops that can be retrained.
So you don't identify with these patterns. You don't say, I'm really stressed. So one of the worst things you can do with language is to I am stressed, I am anxious. Because the moment you do that, you are identifying with that and making it you, the whole of you. I am stressed, I am anxious, I am ill. But the purpose of a lot of these practices is to shift that language in towards there are some anxious sensations within me. Doesn't that feel nicer to observe it in that way? There's this loop in the brain that I'm retraining rather than I have this horrible condition called chronic fatigue syndrome. It's this is just a loop in the brain that I'm retraining right now. And so through the process of observation, we observe what is going on in the mind, what is going on in the body, without judgment and without this.
