Episode 94: Your Stress Doesn't Own You

Welcome to the Soul of Innovation podcast. I am Thomas Anglero, and I want to talk to you about something incredibly important for your life and the quality of your life and your health. And that is, how much do you ignore all the stress you've built up inside your mind, inside your muscles, inside your mind, inside your body. Think about it. Or not even think about it, feel it. Right now, just feel. I mean, I bet most of you are saying, "I got this. I feel okay. I feel good. I got a day coming up," or maybe the day's over, or maybe in the middle of the day, but how do you actually feel? Do you feel fantastic? Do you feel like that perfect person that you know you're supposed to feel like? Do you feel good? Or do you feel soreness that you've just been ignoring? Do you feel tension, a tight muscle in a certain spot that you've just been ignoring? You say, I'll get to that later. You see, the last few weeks, months really, from summer till now, so you know, the last 5, 6 months, it's been on the go for me. Push, push, push, push, push. And stresses— I don't even want to get into the details, but we all have our details, right? It has taken such a toll. Last night I finished dinner, and I— before I went to dinner, I realized, you know, I'm pretty much done now. The holidays are right around the corner. And I've finished my 6 mush push— 6-month push, sorry. And I'll share a funny story with you, but it's not funny, pissed me off actually. I was bringing some food home yesterday in the rain, and I didn't realize that the bag I was holding all my food in was made of paper. So the rain deteriorated the paper, and all of my food that I was bringing home for me and my family ripped out of the bag and spilled all over the floor in the street. An entire meal for the family. I then picked it all up. This was disgusting. Picked it all up as best I could, put it in the closest, nearest garbage can, destroyed the gloves I had on, of course, because all the food got on it. But that's a small price to pay. And then I picked up the phone to call my family to tell them that What else did he want for dinner? Because dinner number 1 is gone, so we gotta find dinner number 2. And as I made the phone call to my family for dinner number 2, I realized that my mobile phone was broken, that the part where you put your ear on to hear people, I couldn't hear them. And this phone's only about 4 months old. And I realized, and I was just like, I don't need this. You know, you ever have those things, those 5 minutes just— and I realized, you know what, this is just 5 minutes of frustration. But I also realized that this is the end of a whole 6 months of frustration. Do you ever encapsulate all the things you do in your life and saying, this is the end? It is so important to find out, to realize, not to go, oh my God, what a horrible day. That's not it. This is the end. You have to put an end cap on stress. You have to put an end cap on all the stuff you're doing. This is the end of the stress. This is the end of that bad moment. This is the end of that bad relationship. This is the end of that bad thought. You have to put an end cap on all of it. Because otherwise the stress will eat at you. The stress will just keep on chewing at you, and it'll chew at you while you sleep. You have to say, "That's it." So then after I ate my dinner, I was done. But I was done because I purposely said— I put an end cap on it. I go, "I'm done. That's the end of the stress, you know. I'll just get— fix the phone, no big deal. I've eaten dinner, no big deal." The 6 months of pushing hard as hell is about to be over, and cap that. And then you know what happened? I couldn't sit up straight after that. I was so, so exhausted because I had taken all this stress, wound it all up, and it was inside of me, and I thought I was handling it really damn well, and I wasn't. How are you handling yours? Are you— have you just, just put everything to the side? We can't. Does what I'm talking about sound familiar? You cannot just store stress away and cannot say, oh, you know, I handle stress really well. I say that all the time and I do handle stress really well. But what I really am saying is I do a great job of taking stress and just shoving it down someplace inside my body. But then the body runs out of places to store all of it and all of a sudden you start cracking. How are you doing? How are you doing? How's the back of your neck feel right now? How do your temples feel? When's the last time you massage your temples? How's the bottom, the soles of your feet feel? What mental thoughts, things that are happening in your personal life, when's the last time you thought about those things? And why don't you think about those things? Because it stresses you out. How things going on at work, that individual, that group, those decisions made by other people. Don't want to think about it right now because it stresses you out. Stress is everywhere. Stress is a normal part of our day, but it's how you handle the stress that's so damn important. So here's my advice for you. Recognize that you are stressed. Recognize that you're not Superman or Superwoman, and then take a moment when you wake up in the morning just when you wake up and have that moment of gratitude, that moment when you just realize you're waking up. You say, "Thank you, I'm so grateful for having lung air in my lungs." Be that level of grateful. "I'm so grateful that while I slept, I didn't have to worry about rats chewing on me." I know this sounds crazy to a lot of you, but if you grew up in certain places, You understand what I'm talking about. Thank you. I'm so grateful for the fact that the roof didn't cave in on me. I'm so grateful that the water did not drip on my face while I was sleeping. Homeless people are dealing with that every single day. I'm so grateful I went to food— put food in my stomach. I'm so grateful. Do you understand? Be grateful for everything. Be grateful for where you are now. And then when you go to bed in the evening, just before you lay down, I want you just to relax your shoulders and relax your mind. I want you to forgive yourself for the day. It's okay, it's a tough day. And then lay down and have a beautiful night's sleep. All those bad people, all those tough meetings, they're not going to go anywhere, but you deserve an incredible night's sleep. Stress is everywhere. Stress is part of what— stress keeps us on our toes. But it doesn't mean stress has to dominate us. Take care of yourself. Breathe in. Breathe out. When's the last time you breathed? See my point? The holidays are around the corner. And if you're listening to this sometime in the future where it's not even close to the holidays, this moment of peace is around the corner, and you deserve it. Go forth and spread beauty and light. Be nice to yourself. Don't let stress dominate you. And if it is, it's okay. But then be grateful for the life you have. Be grateful for the fact that you're in it. You're experiencing life, the ups, the downs. And then love yourself. I am Thomas Anglero, and I do love all you. I do think— I know that life is rough, but that doesn't mean that we don't have to take care of ourselves. So take care of yourself, please. Until next time. Love you. Bye. 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.