Hi, my name is Ali Sharifi and this is part two of a two part series on ?23" how to relieve stress at work and at home.  If you missed part one, please see the link at the bottom of the article.  So, in the last article, we had seen our "awful day" progress up until around 2pm.  Lets see what happens the rest of the day.

3:30 PM
You find out that you were passed up for that promotion you had been working so hard to receive.

Normal way – You are overwhelmed with feelings of depression and spend twenty minutes hiding in the bathroom.  You have thoughts that you'll never get this promotion and that no one appreciates your work and skills.  You then think that you probably don't deserve the promotion anyway and you just feel worthless.

Meditation way – After a few seconds of self pity and sadness, you realize that these feelings wont help you move forward.  Instead, you spend the next few minutes thinking about possible reasons why you didn't get the promotion.  You come up with a plan of action with specific to-do items to help you become a better candidate for promotion.  You are confident that this goal is achievable and that you completely deserve it.  With a renewed sense of hope, you continue your day.

4:30 PM
You get a call from you wife that your daughter has come down with a serious fever and that shes taking her to the emergency room.  You ask your boss if you can leave early and rush to the hospital.  You and your wife sit in the waiting room as doctors work with your daughter.

Normal way – You are in a state of panic and are having trouble swallowing.  You pace back and forth as your mind races with worse case scenarios.  Seeing your state of mind, your wife's anxiety rises even further.  You both feel utterly helpless.

Meditation way – You are deeply concerned about your daughter.  You hold your wife's hand and assure her everything will be all right.  You then close your eyes together and focus all of your attention on your daughter.  You conjure up an image of your daughter in your mind and imagine a burst of white healing light surrounding her.  Both of you continue to send her white light and affirm that she will be all right (Link to meditation below).  You ask the universe to help her in this time of need.  You both feel better, knowing that you are doing something to help her as you wait, and calming yourself down in the process.

8:36 PM
You bring your daughter home from the hospital and she is doing just fine.  You make some quick dinner and sit down to eat.  As you try to have your meal, you receive calls from four different telemarketers trying to sell you their services.

Normal way – You get extremely angry and scream at the telemarketers.  You have a hard time masking your anger, making everyone feel tense around the dinner table.

Meditation way – You realize that, even though the telemarketers can be annoying, they are people too and they are just doing their jobs.  They don't deserve to be yelled at.  You take a deep cleansing breath and calmly tell them you're not interested and get back to dinner with your family.  You even decide to turn off the ringer on your phone while you enjoy the rest of your meal.

10:45 PM
As you are about to go to sleep, your mind is filled with thousands of thoughts and feelings about the days events and things you need to do tomorrow.

Normal way – You go right to bed and end up tossing and turning for hours.  You finally fall asleep, but wake up feeling awful the next day.

Meditation way – You spend fifteen minutes meditating.  This time you choose to do the Focus on Self meditation (Link to meditation below), where you focus your attention on different areas of your body.  Before you end your meditation, you also program your mind to wake up at 7:00 AM.  You simply do this by telling yourself repeatedly that you will wake up at that time.  As soon as you're done, you go to bed and instantly fall asleep.  You have a great nights rest and wake up totally refreshed and on time.

This has been an exaggeration of an awful day you might have.  Hopefully every day wont be filled with all of these potentially stressful things, but we've all had similar experiences from time to time.  I hope you were able to see how you might change your behavior and thinking when seemingly awful situations arise.  With a lot of practice, you'll find that with the meditation way, even the worst days end up being okay.

Have a great day!

Please visit my blog to listen to the White Light Meditation and Focus on Self Meditation mentioned above.  Also, if you missed part one, you can get it below.