Oscar-award winning filmmaker Shekhar Kapur asks Sadhguru about stress, who looks at the shift we need to engineer within ourselves in order to get rid of stress.

Shekhar Kapur: Since I’m having the chance to interview you, I know people will say, “Well, why didn’t you ask about how to get rid of stress?” Is there a definition that we can assign to the idea of stress?

Sadhguru: When I first went to the United States a few years ago, wherever I went, everybody was talking about “stress management.” I really didn’t get this because in my understanding, we manage things which are precious to us – our business, our family, our money, our wealth, our children. Why would anyone manage stress? It took me a while to understand that people have concluded that stress is a part of their lives.

Manage yourself, not your stress Stress is not a part of your life. Stress is just your inability to manage your own system. Stress happens not because of the nature of your work. The Prime Minister is complaining of stress; the peon is also complaining of stress. In between, every other person is saying his job is stressful. And those who are unemployed also find their situation stressful. So you are suffering your job – if I get you fired, will you be joyful?

Shekhar Kapur: No

Sadhguru: No. So stress is obviously not about your job, isn’t it? It is just that you do not know how to manage your body, your mind, your emotions, your energy, your chemistry – you do not know how to manage anything. You are functioning by accident, so everything is stressful. If you get into a car where if you turn the steering wheel one way, the car goes in the opposite direction, you’ll be stressed, isn’t it?

Shekhar Kapur: Yeah.

Sadhguru: Right now, that’s the kind of mechanism you are driving. Without understanding anything about it, just by chance, you are blundering through life – so you will be stressful. Stress is not because of the nature of the activity that you are performing or because of life situations. Stress is simply because you do not know how to manage your own system. What is stressful for one person, someone else breezes through -isn’t it so?