24 Nov 2020 · 9 min
Thomas Anglero offers practical ways to manage stress during lockdown: walking, breathing exercises, gratitude, and emotional detachment. He argues happiness comes from your thoughts, not your circumstances, and shows how to center yourself when anxiety takes over.
Welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am Thomas Anglero, and around me, people that I know, people that I see, people that I walk by, everyone is so stressed. I mean, this COVID, this self-lockdown— notice how I say the word self-lockdown— has really, really pushed people to the edge. I want to talk to you about how to find yourself, how to center yourself. You know, I go for walks every day, and that's one thing you gotta do. You gotta get out the house. You got to get out of wherever you're at, the collective. You're living with 3 or 4 other roommates, you live with your parents. You got to get outside. When you get outside and you go for a walk, no matter the community, no matter where, you could live in New York City, just walk around the buildings, plenty of buildings to walk around. As you go for a walk, clear your mind. Your mind's gonna try to fill itself with thoughts, things you have to do, people who've wronged you, ideas, all sorts of things. Let these ideas come, let these thoughts come, and then just let them go again. Say, I don't want you to be here. I just want my mind to relax. And that's the key. You want your mind to completely Relax. Don't be so positive. Don't be so negative. Don't be anything. Don't dwell on any thought. Don't think about any situation you have. Clear your emotional mind. How's that? Don't have any emotions with anything that you think about, because if you do, that'll drive your stress levels. That'll make you angry. That'll make you all sorts of things. You'll, you'll not pay attention to the walk. Now, why are you out walking? Well, of course you're getting the fresh air, but you're looking at all the things that you normally look at, but with an open mind. You're looking at all the things you look at and realizing that anything is possible, that you're in total control of your life, of your environment. That just by breathing and by walking, you're existing. You then are controlling, and anything is possible. Things aren't that bad. Now, sometimes it's gonna take a while when you go for that walk, but that's okay. Clear that mind. Clear that emotional mind. When you wake up in the morning, as soon as you realize that you're up, show gratitude. Make a list in your mind of things that you're grateful for. You're grateful for breathing. I'm an asthmatic. I am always grateful for breathing. Always grateful for breathing. I don't take that for granted. Be grateful for that you have 10 fingers and 10 toes. It's not ridiculous. Imagine if you had 9 fingers or 8 fingers and 8 toes. You'd be extremely grateful and wish you had 10. Be grateful that you don't have a toothache. How many of you have been to the dentist, and that amount of pain is horrible. But you woke up this morning, you didn't have any. Be grateful for that. Be grateful for that. You woke up, and you woke up and you didn't have any rain or water dripping on you. You woke up and the room temperature was okay. Be grateful for so many things, and you wake up with that state of mind. The day— you've already conquered the day because there's so many negativity out there. There's so many people who don't meditate. There's so many people who don't take time for themselves and they're just negative and they haven't had a positive moment in their life in a long time. And yet you woke up and you had— you gave gratitude to your life, you gave gratitude to everyone, and you're ahead of the whole game. You're conquering life. These moments, what I'm emphasizing is your moments, your moments of when you wake up, your moments of when you go for your walk, are those that are moments that remind you of you. And get you back to being you, realizing that the things that happen during the day, those are things, but they're not you. You control you. I was walking through the store and I was relaxing, mentally, emotionally relaxing, and I just thought of some happy thought and I started smiling. I didn't really realize I was smiling. While I was walking. And these two women, one woman approached me and she just smiled. I was already smiling and she gave a bigger smile when she realized I was smiling. We shared a wonderful moment and you could see that she was more than happy than normal because no one's smiling. Everyone's upset, everyone's caught up in their thought and everyone's thoughts are negative. Do you understand how you are all of a sudden a leader amongst millions of people just by walking around in your thoughts and being happy with those thoughts? The next woman, same thing. And then I realized, what the hell's going on? She said, I was smiling. I was happy. And people gravitate, people want to be around people who are truly smiling, smiling from within. And how do you find that and how do you get there? By letting all this stuff go. Right now, just let it all go. If you're having your morning coffee, If you're listening to this while you're on a beach or driving, whatever you're doing, just relax. Let it all go. Thoughts will come in, so just let them go back out. Feel that? Oh, shoulders come down. That's who you are. That feeling, that centeredness, that balance, that feeling of, "Oh, I don't have any pain, I don't have any— I'm not upset, I'm not happy, I'm just there and it feels good." That's where you want to be. Now, you can't be there all day, but you want to be there a few times throughout the day. That's where you're centered. And from there you can make all decisions. From there you're making— ready to make all phone calls. From there you're ready to talk to all the people who are just not that nice or going to be challenging. How we say, "Oh, let's be nice." We're going to challenge you. And you're going to give them love back. And they have nothing against you in that. Go forth and spread beauty and light. Center yourself by being with yourself and let go of the emotional burden. Find yourself. Don't be mean to yourself. There. You found yourself. Remember that person. It's the world's most beautiful person. It's you. This is Thomas Anglero, and I love you very much. Take care of yourself until the next time.
Thank you for listening to that episode. If you want to contact me, you can contact me on my website at anglero.com, and you can also subscribe to the newsletter, or you can find me anywhere on social media with Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. Thank you so much, and I hope to hear from you very soon.
