Have you ever felt restless, even a bit guilty, when you’re just sitting there doing nothing? If your to-do list is never-ending and you feel like success only comes from constant action, you’re not alone, but you might be missing out on your greatest advantage.

When was the last time you felt a total absence of suffering? No fear, no worry, no guilt, no frustration. For most of us, the answer is almost never. We’re so used to carrying stress that it becomes the baseline of life, a background hum of resistance we hardly notice until it spills over.

Wouldn’t it be good if stress didn’t have to be stressful? The good news is, it doesn’t. For many of us, being “stressed out” has become the default state. But the problem isn’t always that we have too much stress. It’s that we’re carrying the wrong type of stress.