Stress Academy Presents:

Web Series – The Story of Stress

Part 1 – Understanding Stress

Episode 15 – Recognizing Stress within – Active, Dormant & Potential Stress

In the previous video, we introduced the definition of stress. We learnt that stress is characterized by our passions (kashayas) originating in consciousness.  Passions are mainly classified in two categories: 

(1) Aversions (Dwesh) – which includes Anger (Krodh), Ego (Maan), Sorrow (Shok), Fear (Bhay), Disaffection (Arati) and Disgust (Jugupsa). 

(2) Attachment (Raag) – that includes Deceit (Maya), Greed (Lobh), Affection (Rati), Laughter (Hasya) and sex-passions (Stri-Purush-Napunsak Ved). 

Stress is manifested through these passions in three different modes – a) Active Stress b) Dormant stress c) Potential stress. Let’s understand these: 

Active stress consists of two components – 1) “passions” such as being angry, feeling irritated or being rude, and 2) “awareness” of these passions during the moments of their experience. Thus, Active Stress is characterized by active experience of these passions (Ashuddha upyog) while being aware of it in those moments. Can you now identify an example of Active Stress within yourself? How about getting angry, sad, fearful or irritated? Take a moment to visualize such active forms of stress within yourself. 

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Next, let’s discuss Dormant stress – these are passions which exist in a dormant state, like a dormant volcano. For example, when we hate someone, we don’t think about that person all the time when we get occupied with other activities. But, the dislike exists in a dormant state and is just waiting to rise again in an active form whenever a situation or thoughts related to that person are triggered.  In another example, even though we don’t think constantly about our intense desire to be extremely wealthy, that desire to become wealthy remains in a dormant form and becomes active periodically. Therefore, we can realize that passions can also manifest dormantly and exist without us being actively aware. In fact, this  occurs for all types of passions and constitutes dormant  stress within us. While we may be actively worrying about only one thing at a time, we could be dormantly worried about many things. Dormant stress is characterized by unresolved passions (Sushupta Kashay) lying in a dormant state while not being actively felt and contemplated at the present moment, but can become active based on internal or external triggers. It is important to recognize our dormant stress as well in order to fully uncover all modes of stress. In general, these dormant passions are not identified until we recall our past and introspect on our emotions. Can you now identify an example of Dormant Stress within yourself? Do you realize how such dormant passions could keep you internally stressful even after the undesirable event is over?

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Now, let’s delve into a form called “Potential stress”. When the circumstances and other’s behavior manifest as per our desires, we normally feel that we are not under any stress. We normally tend to discover our stress when we face unwanted or unexpected situations. For example, I may not be actively or visibly angry towards a specific person and I may also not harbor any dormant anger towards him at this time. However, I could get really upset if that person treats me unfairly or behaves rudely with me if I have a strong expectation not to be treated that way. That means, although I have no manifested active or dormant anger towards that person at the moment, I certainly have potential to become quite angry. In another example, the person is more likely to get into stressful situations by engaging in unethical conduct if he already holds opinions that justify such behavior. Likewise, if I am attached to see my favorite team winning, I am bound to feel disappointed when the team loses. Potential stress is characterized by passions that have not yet manifested but are capable of being manifested in future due to existing opinions, expectations and attachments in the presence of conducive circumstances. Forming hard expectations in life such as “something must or must not happen to me or others” can lead one to potentially very stressful situations because we can’t necessarily dictate circumstances as well as how others behave. All active and dormant forms of stress manifest from the potential stress and it is the most difficult one to recognize because it requires us to introspect about our opinions, expectations and attachments. Can you now identify an example of potential stress in yourself and how it might have led you to experience active stress?

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Now, there are certain types of passions that are expressed by us while some others remain unexpressed. For example, we may find ourselves being visibly angry or irritated at times which is easily noticeable. This is an expressed (vyakta) form of anger that can be seen. Sometimes, in certain situations, we may not angrily react with anger right away but instead choose to hold a grudge and decide to avenge it later. We may appear completely calm and smiling from outside, thus no one can really figure out what’s going on within. This is an unexpressed (avyakta) form of anger. It is important to note that we express only certain forms of passions and the majority of passions remain unexpressed. Sometimes, one passion forces another passion to remain in an unexpressed state. For example, if we are in some public setting and we become really upset about something but somehow manage to remain quiet because we feel that our reputation can be hurt if we misbehave. Here Ego (Maan) forces Anger (Krodh) to remain in an unexpressed state even though they are existing simultaneously. This example demonstrates the importance of being mindful of our Expressed (Vyakta) as well as Unexpressed (Avyakta) forms of stress in order to overcome stress completely. 

Now, the question is do we really recognize our stress in its entirety? Out of various forms of passions, we are able to identify only a subset of our passions. Although we continuously experience them, we remain unaware about the vast majority of those passions. For example, suppose we have fear about losing our job or about failure of business. In this case, the fear appears to be related to employment; however, if we keep asking the question “why”, we can trace our fear of losing employment to much deeper levels of fear. They can be uncovered by following a chain of questioning.

Fear of losing employment  —>Fear of losing possessions & self-esteem  —>Fear of inability to sustain family & self —> Fear of Poor Health & Nutrition —> Fear of Death

Therefore, we can conclude that fear of unemployment is not just about fear of unemployment. Most people normally identify ‘Active stress’ as the only form of stress and therefore, completely missing out on identifying dormant and potential forms of stress. 

We can use this Stress Identification Diagram to discover hidden forms of stress within. First, identify a particular active stress that occurs due to passions as anger, sadness or fear. Out of all active forms of stress, only a subset of them appear in the ‘Expressed’ form. So, introspect carefully and make a list of active passions even if they are not expressed. You can then introspect if any of your dormant passions such as grudges from the past became active or not. Most underlying form of stress is Potential Stress from which Active forms of stress arise periodically. So ask yourself what opinions, expectations and attachments led you to feel that way. 

Stress Identification Diagram

We hope that this classification provided here gives you a tool to introspect and recognize your stress clearly. Don’t forget to like the video, comment and subscribe to the channel.