Does Free Will choose, or offer us the capability of Choice?

[Plenum]

 Plenum, how do you relax your self mentally when really stressed?

Hmm.  It's not easy.  Not as easy as switching stress off like a light switch.

For me, I've probably still got lingering background anxiety, at a very low level.  There's traces of it, which I know are still there.  So I can't say that I've ever dissolved all my stress; at least to the point of total freedom, that I can faintly recall as a 4 year old - absolutely carefree.  Nothing traumatic happened at that age - it's just that I have that memory of being absolutely free - it stands out.

In terms of the larger patterns of stress rising, and stress falling, though, I do need my free time to help examine the catalyst behind such situations (causing the stress).  

So I don't have anything specific which I use (a mantra or visualisation) to help deal with stress.

Which brings in a tangential tie-in.  Meditation is often recommended to help calm the mind ... and yet, I find that above a certain threshold of confusion and anxiety, I can't actually still the mind to actually benefit from such meditation.  So I find it actually non-applicable in my case, as an aid in terms of calming.  I need to get to the other roots of the issue (of imbalance/catalyst) to actually be in a settled enough state where Meditation actually 'clicks in', and yields the calming benefit.