I was at a recovery meeting yesterday where stress was one of the topics. Nearly all of the those who made comments spoke of stress as if it were something real. They talked of stress as though it lived outside of themselves, as though it had an independent existence.

"Life has me stressed out," one said. Another claimed that his boss was the source of his stress. And so it went around the circle, each of them attributing it to external sources.

One person, however, had a better explanation of stress. He said that stress is only our reaction situations outside of ourselves. And he emphasized the word "reaction."

He said that we sometimes, without thinking, assign real importance to what goes on outside of us. This is dangerous, he explained, because when we do this then we give our power to forces beyond our control.

For example, if we blame the boss for a poor performance report then we are avoiding the responsibility for our own behavior. If we blame our mate for our uptight anger then we are not looking at the responsibility we have to communicate well.

And the list goes on and on.