NON-ATTACHMENT:  WHAT DOES CALM REALLY MEAN?          

          We don't have to live with constant emotional charge.  Upset and stress rob us of energy, health and joy.  Yet we often go through a day feeling like rag dolls, being jerked one way, then another.  We act as if the landscape were filled with mountains rather than molehills.  We forget that there's very few events in life worth getting really upset about.

          When we have strong likes and dislikes, we react with judgments and strong emotions about people and events.  We may get upset because our partner does something we don't like, because the stock market fell, because our child stayed out past curfew, or because we've been unexpectedly given a new responsibility on our job. 

          If we loosen up our strong likes and dislikes, lightening them up into preferences, we don't become so caught up in events.  We detach ourselves from them and remain feeling calm no matter what happens.  When we transform our additions to having life behave in a particular way and turn them into preferences, our range of dealing with the event opens up.  When we're stressed, we react in habitual patterns of anger.  But when we can draw back, become calm, we can deal with each event with clarity, without getting upset.  Dealing with an issue may mean understanding it, talking about it, accepting it, or even letting it go.

          To reduce stress in our lives, we can learn to feel like the smooth Gulf Stream under the ocean.  The waves are up on top, and not really connected with us.  When we learn to react to life events as preferences rather than addictions, those waves will become mere ripples.