Latest / Impact Ready / 212. Stress Is a Choice Part 2: Mindset, Self-Awareness, and Emotional Resilience

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212. Stress Is a Choice Part 2: Mindset, Self-Awareness, and Emotional Resilience · Impact Ready

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  Welcome to Impact Ready, a show dedicated to helping you elevate
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  your impact in the world. I'm Steph Safra, your host.
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  Let's explore the power of showing up with intention and
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  energy each day. This is for those who seek to
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  make life truly meaningful. Get ready for impact.
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  Hello, team. Welcome to the show today.
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  Today in this episode, I want to talk about stress.
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  Stress is a huge topic for people.
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  It's something that you've probably talked about within
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  your own circle maybe a dozen times in the last week.
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  We talk about it often on this podcast for good reason, but
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  I've been changing my relationship with stress for a
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  long time, and it's felt very helpful.
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  So I want to talk about it again here on this show in case it
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  feels helpful to you. Near the beginning of this
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  podcast, two years ago, I did an episode called Stress is a
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  Choice. I think it was episode 6, and it
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  was the most listened to and shared episode of the year, as
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  well as one of the episodes that I've gotten the most feedback
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  and comments on. I definitely heard some pushback
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  from people on this idea of stress as a choice, but I also
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  heard a lot of feedback about how beneficial that perspective
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  was for people. And so I want to revisit that
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  again because our relationship to stress as humans is widely
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  variable and because there's a tremendous amount of change in
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  the world right now that might be perceived as stressful.
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  So we're going here again. Now, I could list the hundreds
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  of ways that stress impacts us mentally, physically,
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  emotionally. But in today's episode, I'm not
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  going to repeat that here. You've likely read it before or
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  heard it before or you felt it in your body.
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  And you can revisit some of the episodes that we've chatted
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  about that before. Instead, today what we'll do is
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  is focus on how to be in choice around it.
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  I've talked about how stress was a very prominent feeling in my
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  life up to my 20s and early 30s. I was always really hard on
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  myself as a kid. I had very high standards for
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  myself. I would study for hours to make
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  sure I got an A on every test. In fact, I don't think I ever
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  got AB in school once. And I, I don't say that because
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  I think that's a some great accomplishment.
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  I say it because that's insight as to how I approached
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  everything that was my perspective on the world is I
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  couldn't afford to get anything less than an AI, put a lot of
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  pressure on myself to achieve, to be active, to be liked.
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  I was always dealing with a low level of stress that I just
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  assumed was normal. And when I look back on it and
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  apply what I know now, it feels almost like I had an urgency
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  within me all the time. But I kind of just viewed it as
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  being part of life. I was pretty comfortable with
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  it, and by the time I'm in my late 20s, I felt like I was
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  pretty good at managing high levels of stress.
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  But things changed when I heard a mentor of mine say this
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  phrase. Stress is a choice.
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  I remember exactly where I was when I heard that phrase.
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  It was like all the air got sucked out of the room.
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  I was at a self development conference and I remember that
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  this guy was standing on the stage.
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  He was speaking. There were hundreds of us in the
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  crowd. The lights were shining bright
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  on him, and he'd stopped in the middle of the stage and held a
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  second of silence. It's a pause, and I looked up
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  from taking my notes. Of course I was taking notes.
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  And then he delivered that line. Stress is a choice.
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  I held my pen tight as I was writing that sentence down, but
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  I felt this deep discomfort welling up inside of me.
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  The rest of the talk was all about explaining that position
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  and by the end I felt like I had a different lens that I was
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  seeing things through. Initially I had this very
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  intense resistance to the idea. I felt physically uncomfortable
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  in my body. I think it was self judgement.
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  Looking back, I felt guilt, I felt a little bit of shame and I
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  felt like how could this be true?
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  Like, who do you think you are saying stress is a choice up
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  here on the stage? Just proclaiming that you don't
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  know what people go through. Things have happened to me that
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  I didn't ask for that weren't my fault.
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  Things that have caused me a lot of stress.
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  I mean, people are dealing with all kinds of hard stuff.
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  Who are you to say that kind of a statement?
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  But I kept listening and he went on to describe what he meant.
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  And he explained that we as humans are the ones that attach
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  meaning and feeling to circumstances.
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  We are the ones who create the perspective about the experience
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  that we're having and the meaning that we give it.
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  And again, we've talked about this so many times on this
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  podcast, but it bears repeating because if you're anything like
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  me, I slip into old patterns and act as if I'd never heard this
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  before. The feelings we experience and
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  the meaning we attach to something is what dictates our
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  perception of stress, ultimately.
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  And the kicker? We are in choice.
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  We as individuals are in choice about how we view things, how we
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  see the world, and the meaning that we give these experiences
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  that we have in our life. When I stopped to think about
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  all this years ago, I actually felt like it was true because
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  I'd seen this. I'd seen two people have very
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  similar experiences but have two completely different perceptions
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  of it and two completely different stress responses to
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  it. I'm sure you've noticed this in
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  your own life. And as I started to dig into
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  that phrase a little bit and get curious about it, I understood
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  more of what he meant. It was like someone walked into
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  my life, pulled the string on a light bulb in the center of the
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  room, and then all of a sudden I could see something new.
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  And in all honesty, it took me more than once to hear that
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  before I really got it. It took some time to roll this
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  idea around until I understood that this was about personal
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  choice and that is something we have agency over.
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  When you can integrate this, it doesn't feel like resistance
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  anymore. It doesn't feel like a personal
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  shortcoming or a sense of failure.
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  Instead, it can feel like a new sense of personal freedom.
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  Freedom to choose, freedom to be in control of our stress, our
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  response to things. I realized that I just didn't
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  have that awareness in the past. It was never something that I
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  had learned as a kid. We didn't used to teach kids to
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  be empowered or in choice about their perspectives.
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  We didn't talk about ownership of feelings and thoughts as
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  children, although I think that's shifting a bit now.
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  But even adults have trouble with this concept.
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  And for many people it's totally new.
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  Even people who are fairly high performing and successful by
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  traditional standards. The idea that we are responsible
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  for our feelings, thoughts and behaviors and have a choice, it
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  takes time for them to really integrate that, not just hear
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  it. And I think that's because if
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  stress is truly a choice that means a lot of things for us as
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  a society, it would likely dismantle a lot of the
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  psychological triggers that people have.
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  Whole industries might fall apart like advertising and
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  marketing, because that urgency and busyness as a badge that
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  they rely on to move us and motivate us, it wouldn't feel as
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  relevant. We wouldn't have the same
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  reactions and responses to perceived stressors.
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  When I seriously looked at how stress was a choice in my life,
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  it meant many things for me as well.
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  It meant I had been looking at circumstances as happening to
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  me, as if I was fighting this battle with the world.
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  It meant that I hadn't even considered another way, like
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  maybe things happened for me. It meant my whole way of being,
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  the being great at managing stress, that skill that I prided
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  myself on. It was unnecessary because it
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  was based on something that I always had control over.
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  I had created this false illusion of my own reality.
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  And as I look back in hindsight, I can see that I was wrestling
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  with that adage. What got me here won't get me
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  there. I can acknowledge that my old
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  ways of being had served me well in many ways up until a point.
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  My reactions to stress often had me work harder, move faster, and
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  pursue more achievement in order to feel a sense of control.
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  But moving forward based on fear only gets you so far.
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  The long term future rooted in that looked like anxiety,
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  burnout, and a total lack of joy in my life.
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  Whereas practicing being in choice opens up a stack of
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  different possibilities, including access to different
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  feelings, different energy. I mean, what about being
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  motivated by desire or purpose or love or courage?
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  That completely opens up a different way of thinking and
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  being in the world. You can start asking yourself,
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  what if I refuse to let myself get worked up over this?
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  Is this something that I asked for at some point?
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  Is this something that I created for myself?
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  Those questions are incredibly level setting.
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  What people don't realize is that so many of our responses to
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  stress are out of habit. It's old programming, old ways
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  of thinking, old behaviors. We get in the habit of reacting
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  to things in a certain way. We operate under the illusion
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  that we have a lot more control than we actually do.
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  But what we truly have control over is solely what is within
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  us. Our feelings, thoughts,
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  behaviors, mindset, perspective, our breath, our language.
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  Only what is within our self and nothing outside.
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  All those years ago, I remember thinking to myself, God, I need
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  to play around with this. I need to make some different
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  decisions. I need to refuse to let things
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  have this much power over me because I would spiral to
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  circumstances, to the way that other people behaved, to the
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  emails or like traffic or spilled coffee or the mood of my
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  spouse. What I had been doing for most
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  of my life was letting other people's agendas or their
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  expectations, their opinions or their emotions dictate my
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  experience of the world. And that was a huge aha moment
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  for me to become aware that I was ultimately letting those
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  things dictate my stress levels. I was letting life happen to me.
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  I wasn't taking radical ownership of my own feelings and
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  thoughts and actions around the circumstances in my life.
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  And then I thought, what if it didn't need to be that way all
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  the time? What if stress management was
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  actually way easier than we thought it was?
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  What if what we need to do to stop the madness is simply
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  decide to slow down and calmly do what we need to do?
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  It's a practice to challenge your own beliefs, especially the
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  ones that you really believe in. Now I can acknowledge and
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  understand that when people hear this conversation, there's some
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  resistance that can come up. Trust me, I lived that too.
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  It can be uncomfortable. It can raise our defenses, but
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  with practice, and trust me, this is a practice.
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  This is something I practice every single day.
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  You become more and more in control of yourself and your
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  life. You're not so much a victim to
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  your circumstances. Life isn't happening to you all
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  the time. You're no longer the one getting
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  tossed around in the waves of life, but rather you've climbed
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  into the boat and you're now steering the ship.
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  As the Latin phrase goes, a more fatigue that translates to love
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  of 1's fate. It's a mindset where you don't
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  merely tolerate or accept what happens in your life, but you
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  actively embrace and love every moment, including the hardships,
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  the failures, the delays. Whatever it might be, you see it
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  as a necessary part of your journey.
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  So my challenge to you for the rest of this week is to do your
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  own stress audit. How do you perceive stress?
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  How do you respond? Do you complain?
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  Do you skip self-care? Do you skip rest because that's
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  what busyness is supposed to feel like?
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  Do you talk about how stressed you are all the time?
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  Does expressing stress make you feel more committed or
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  productive or important? Do you get upset and irritated
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  really easily when things don't go your way?
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  Do the little things send you like hitting traffic or the
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  house being a mess? This is the audit that I did on
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  myself years ago and I still do it every now and again.
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  It's incredibly eye opening and humbling even just getting
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  curious about this and asking the question.
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  What else could I choose to think or feel besides stress?
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  Or what if I refuse to feel stress about this?
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  Those are powerful questions and they can open up possibilities
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  for new ideas or new energy about the circumstances you're
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  facing. So I hope this spurs on some
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  thoughts for you. If you have comments, thoughts,
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  insights, I'd love to hear them. I'd love to hear your pushback
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  if you feel any of that going on.
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  I'm always open to the conversation.
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  I appreciate you being here listening.
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  Thank you for choosing this podcast amongst thousands of
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  podcasts in the world. And as always, team, thank you
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  for being ready to Impact. Thanks for listening to Impact
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  Ready. I hope today's episode inspired
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  you to own your impact and recognize that you are powerful.
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  By elevating our energy and awareness, we can create
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  exponential change in this life. If you enjoyed today's insights,
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  share them with a friend and subscribe to the show for more.
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  I truly appreciate you. Thanks again for being here.