In this opening vlog of a 90‑day personal stretch, Tony Stark Policci explains why he began tracking his automatic emotional reactions. He describes a pattern of reflexive irritation—such as exclaiming “Damn it” when dropping a sock—that revealed deeper, chronic stress about things he cannot control. By observing his thoughts upon waking (often worries about work and forgotten tasks), he realized he was operating as a ‘human doing’ rather than a ‘human being.’ Over the first 24 hours of heightened awareness he recorded at least a dozen upset reactions to mundane events (a loud cat, an unexpected text), which surprised him with their frequency. The next day, despite feeling physically ill, he noted fewer upsets, attributing this to his conscious monitoring. He also experimented with sitting with bodily discomfort (headache, back pain) without vocalizing it, a departure from his usual habit of expressing pain to his wife. This non‑judgmental observation helped him accept unexpected events without letting them ruin his day. He frames these observations as early progress toward moving from reactive, victim‑like behavior to responsive, intentional living, and invites viewers to comment on their own experiences.
Chapters
Okay, so I'm going to call this day 1. I want to give you a little more background into why I'm doing this stretch. I noticed that I was having these strange reactions to things. Now, let me explain what I mean by strange. Let's say that I was moving some laundry from the laundry room to my bedroom and I dropped something. Like, the immediate reaction, like a reflex, would be, "Damn it," or like, "Ugh," something. And I would notice it, like, "Why am I, what is the big deal?" I dropped a sock or whatever. But this was showing up in multiple areas of my life. And it was like, "Okay, so what's going on underneath?" Well, it was upset about things that I couldn't control in other areas things that were going on in my life, and there was this sense of dissatisfaction, frustration, stress that was just constantly percolating, and it was spilling out into other areas of my life. And while I was typically jovial with most people in conversations and things like that, when I was alone or when I was focused and something threw me off course, I would find myself getting upset really, like, instantly. Like a reflex. And I would notice it, I mean, the second after it happened, in most cases, I can't say all cases, but in most cases, I'd be like, why are you reacting that way? So I started taking a look at what was going on. Like, if I woke up in the middle of the night, what was the first thing in my mind? You know, and it was typically something that I was worried about, concerned about, things that I had to do. Tasks, things with my business, maybe something I'd forgotten, a fear that I'd forgotten something. And so that is the reason for the stretch, because I feel like that there are, you know, I'm spending an awful lot of time in my life lately working on being a human doing rather than being a human being. Does that make sense? And so That's part of the reason why I want to do this stretch is to be very intentional about how I think. So let me tell you what has happened just in the 24 hours since I made this declaration and posted the first video. Yesterday, I noticed because I was being ultra aware of how I was thinking, I was reacting at least a dozen times where Something happened and there was an upset inside of me. And it was really sobering. Like, wow, I didn't realize that I was, you know, the cat would meow too loud and I would get irritated. You know, a text would come in and I would be like, who's texting me now? And I just thought, Man, really crazy. So, you know, suddenly being very intentionally focused on what my reactions were to just normal everyday things in my life was— I was very surprised, to be honest. I was surprised about how often I was reacting in a way that was stressful or angry or just upset, you know, rather than just like being accepting of the normal things that happen in my day. So that was quite interesting. And today there were not as many upsets. I think just from being aware of it yesterday, you know, helped with that. Now, I will tell you this. Currently, I'm not feeling very well, feeling kind of sick, and everything has been harder. Also, I woke up with a number of things that were going on with my body that I wasn't happy about. And, you know, instead of voice— giving a voice to those things, instead of complaining about them, I just noticed them. I just sat with them. Now, this wasn't easy, right? And that was also a big awareness too, because I noticed that, wow, typically if I've got a headache or something's going on with my back, I'll give voice to that, you know, or I'll say something to my wife. And today I believe that I refrained from doing that. I mean, might have to bring my wife in to check in and make sure that I'm not fooling myself here, but that was just interesting. So And also, a number of things occurred today that were not the way that I planned, were not the way that I wanted. And while it was not comfortable, it didn't— it hasn't ruined my day. I've gotten more to the point of accepting. So that's pretty cool. I feel like today was a day where I could measure some progress and see some just to be really aware of how I'm showing up. So that's my report for today. So I'll see you in the next video, and love your comments, love your feedback. What kind of stuff, you know, how do these things impact you? Like, how is reacting to what's going on in your life, you Showing up for you. I want to respond. I want to be a person that's responding, not reacting. And that's another reason that I decided to take this stretch. It's like, you know, what has shifted in my life to move me from a point where I'm responding like a warrior to reacting like, I guess a victim is a good word. And you know, that's not what I want to be. Love to hear your comments and your feedback. All right, God bless. Have a good day, night, evening, morning, afternoon, whenever you're seeing this.
