According to ancient spiritual wisdom, stress free communities are and integrated and harmonized communities and a stress free mind is a globalized mind.

Stress is defined as the response of the body-mind complex to the perception of a gap between one’s actual state of being and a preferred state. For example, I like to be healthy but I am not; I want to be rich but I have no income; I want to be loved but no one loves me; I am loved but I am afraid that those who love me may not love me anymore; I am rich but I am anxious about losing my money; etc. Wisdom traditions assert that there is no end to our likes, wants, dislikes, aversions, fears, anxieties, and sense of being limited to achieve the desired or avoid the undesired.

Stress robs us personally of our physical health, mental health, learning ability and thinking ability. Collectively it robs us of our relationships and behavior. There are untold personal, familial and social implications of lingering stress. We lose our freedom becoming mental slaves of our stressors.

Wisdom traditions regard narrow selfishness as the root cause of stress. It considers self-centredness as promoting alienation and a narcissistic “me first” attitude distancing us from family, society, sense of commonality, common good, and belonging. We feel fragmented from rather than integrated with others. If at all a sense of “us” develops, it is immediately accompanied by a strong “us” vs “them” attitude.

Modern neuroscience agrees with ancient spiritual wisdom in concluding that the neo-cortex, the seat of thinking ability in our brains gets hijacked by amygdalae, the centers of instinctive emotions in the limbic part of the brain. Not limiting itself to warnings about the personal, family and social ravages of stress, wisdom traditions assertively prescribe stress management processes the regular practice of which engages the neocortex in mediating the activity of the amygdalae enabling a balance between our intellects and emotions.

In this presentation, Shiv Talwar presents a statistical study on the relationship of high stress and strong sense of belonging in 33 census metropolitan areas of Canada based upon data published by Statistics Canada. The study shows a strong correlation between increasing stress and decreasing sense of belonging. In addition, he shares the experience of Spiritual Heritage Education Network (SHEN) in offering stress management workshops in the community in their efforts towards community health, wellness, integration, sense of belonging and harmony. These workshops use a process based both upon ancient wisdom and modern neurophysiological sciences.