The Seven Secrets of a Stress Free Life

By Randal Johnson

Eliminate Stress Permanently and Effortlessly!

The Seven Secrets contained in these pages embody a unique paradigm. In this book, you will learn that you don’t need to change your external circumstances to eliminate your stress. Because stress is created in the mind, the solution to stress is also found in the mind. What does this mean for you?

●No dieting!
●No exercising!
●No meditation!
●No goal setting!
●No more doing the things that cause MORE stress!

As you learn and adopt the Seven Secrets, your stress will begin to dissolve without any effort on your part. Your journey through the Seven Secrets will build hope and confidence that a new day is dawning in your life. With a mind free of stress, you will discover your true self—a self you love and want to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Randal Johnson
• Release date: Jan 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781950710225

Randal Johnson

Randal “RJ” Johnson specializes in Stress Elimination. For him, this is not a theory. A high-pressure financial career created overwhelming stress and led to a drug and gambling addiction. After hitting multiple bottoms, he desperately searched for answers in religion, philosophy, science, 12-step groups and personal development programs. Ultimately, he found the secrets to living without stress. Adopting these secrets through his unique method, the Effortless Stress Elimination Formula, permanently eliminates stress without all the frustrating effort taught by other programs. He truly believes the principles contained in this book can alleviate human suffering and change the way we experience life. His life’s mission is to teach these principles and help others enjoy a stress free life that is satisfying, fun, rich, and full of unexpected surprises. RJ has an MBA in Finance from UCLA and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion at Claremont Graduate University. His academic research interests include the intersection of human consciousness with neuroscience and quantum physics. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, going to the beach, and spending time with his family. RJ can be reached at randaljohnson.com.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

About 25 years ago, I turned to drugs to medicate extreme stress from a high-pressure job as a bank executive. When my problems became known to the bank, I was demoted and put on probation. Eventually, I was terminated. My wife took on multiple jobs to make up the lost income. Add to that raising three young daughters, and the stress was overwhelming.

Eventually the situation became so extreme I could no longer function, to the point of contemplating ending my own life. I thought of the great harm that would come to my children if I gave up. I couldn’t do that to them. Right at that critical moment, a voice pierced my thoughts. It told me it was time for me to get up and do something. So, I chose to begin the slow work to rebuild my life. I dove into therapy, 12-step groups, and dozens of personal development methods. Some of these things were helpful, most were not.

In pursuing these programs, I would sometimes find a core principle that actually helped. However, adopting that principle alone didn’t eliminate all my stress. I kept searching, finding another principle, and then another. As I started incorporating these principles, my life got better and less stressful.

My experience led me to the following conclusions: One, negative emotions only exist in the mind. Two, all negative emotions result from thinking about the past or the future and are experienced as stress in the present. I found by applying the principles to my stress, other problems also resolved themselves.

These principles eventually coalesced into The Seven Secrets of a Stress Free Life. I call them secrets because they fly in the face of conventional wisdom and conflict with cultural expectations. They will likely feel counterintuitive to the way you’ve been thinking. This is a good thing. If the way you’ve been thinking was working for you, you’d already be living stress free and wouldn’t need this book!

So, what exactly are these Seven Secrets?

Take total responsibility for everything in your life.

Disconnect external circumstances from internal feelings.

Identify needs that are really just wants.

Give up being right.

Realize you don't know anything for certain.

If you must speculate about the future, speculate positively.

Love yourself first, then others.

Here’s an analogy to explain the difference between the power of these principles and other stress management techniques. Think about a pressure cooker. When it’s filled with water and put on a burner at high heat, steam builds up, increasing the pressure inside the cooker. The pressure cooker represents your life, and the steam represents your stress. The rising pressure of the steam is like you getting more and more stressed out.

When this happens, the most common way to release the steam is to open the valve. But once the steam is released, the valve closes and steam begins to build up again. This doesn’t solve the underlying problem; it only fixes it for the moment. Many other stress management books teach you how to open the valve repeatedly to release steam. They focus on temporarily reducing your stress by doing something, like dieting, exercising, or meditating. However, if you stop doing the suggested method, your stress just builds up again.

My approach is different—and simple. It’s called the Effortless Stress Elimination Formula. Through The Formula you internalize the Seven Secrets, which eliminates your stress instead of just temporarily relieving it. Looking back at the pressure cooker analogy, this is the equivalent of turning off the burner.

I’ll discuss the full extent of The Formula in the next chapter, but for now here is a brief overview of the two stages of effortless stress elimination:

Stage 1: Increase your self-awareness so you understand how your thoughts are creating your current stressful experience of life.

Stage 2: Replace your stress-producing way of thinking with a new paradigm in which you experience life without stress.

The Seven Secrets contained in this book embody this unique paradigm. Adopting these secrets does not require you to change or control your external circumstances—no writing, no meditation, no goal setting, dieting, or exercising. You can adopt these secrets simply by changing the way you think. Because stress is created in the mind, the solution to stress is also found in the mind. Once these secrets are integrated into your thought process, stress will begin to dissolve without any effort on your part.

While you won’t need to change your circumstances to reduce stress, you will most likely want to make changes in your life for more happiness, peace, and fulfillment. When you focus on these principles, these changes will happen naturally and effortlessly through your new life perspective.

As we begin to explore the Seven Secrets, you may find yourself wanting to disprove these new principles. You might come up with extreme scenarios where the secrets don’t appear to work. I ask you to set such thoughts aside for now. Give yourself a chance to try this new approach and