Stress comes from wanting the present moment to be different, not from what's actually happening. When an angry customer shows up, accepting the situation as it is lets you respond with empathy and solutions instead of resistance. Your mindset, not the event, determines whether you suffer.
One of the words that gets thrown around a lot in today's day and age, very understandably, is we constantly feel stressed. When I heard Eckhart Tolle, who's kind of a modern-day philosopher, when I heard his definition of stress, it changed everything for me. I heard several years ago Eckhart Tolle said, stress is nothing more than our desire for things to be different than they are in the present moment. So stress is not actually caused by the angry customer that's waiting at your door right now. Stress is caused by your resistance to that and you wishing that there was not an angry customer at your door. If you learn to accept what is. And even if it's not your preference— I'm not delusional, I'm not saying that anyone would prefer to have an angry customer at their door— but if you accept that that's the reality and then you say, okay, what is the response that I can have that can make this situation better? You know, can I listen empathetically to whatever it is that they're angered about? Can I offer some compassion and some potential solutions? If you lean into that, then what could have, you know, been a really ugly situation could actually turn out to be the exact opposite.
