Hi everybody,
I am Gene coming to you from Phoenix, AZ. I hope life is treating you well wherever you are. Thanks for joining me today! Welcome to my Healthy Positive Lifestyle Podcast! The Original podcast, since now I have another one I called Morning Mindfulness. Check it out on my web site HPLN.org. Yep, that is a new web address, as I am trying to brand HPLN as a non-profit public health and wellness education project.

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Transcript: Walking in the Rain: Dealing With Daily Stress one step at a time

Last time I started talking about stressful circumstances, and how they can affect our physical and emotional health. Today I will give you some examples and how-to’s. As I said before, this is just my experience, my life. You may not relate to that, and certainly this is not a set of professional instructions. I am not a shrink. I am just sharing what I’ve done. Fair enough? Yes, that was an annoying disclaimer.

As I mentioned, I started Healthy Positive Lifestyle Network, or HPLN, which I am planning to convert into a Non-Profit organization. Not only I will be doing a series of videos, but I am also interviewing a number of holistic specialists, wellness coaches, yoga and fitness instructors, meditation teachers and so on, and I will go nationwide. You can find those videos on my web site HPLN.ORG. Make sure to check it out.

OK, enough announcements, let’s get back to the topic.

In my previous episode I gave an analogy of a rain, meaning the rain of circumstances that keeps pouring on us non stop. We finished last time with the thought that sometimes we just have to bite the bullet and go through the rain, one step at the time. I will use the same analogy of the rain, and if you did not listen to the previous episode, I may suggest you do that so I will hopefully make more sense today.

Let’s start with several points regarding the mindset of going through the rain. Again, this is just my thought process, this is how I approach rainy day. This doesn’t have to be you.

But for me, the first question I would ask myself, is “what am I up against?” This brings us back to the previous episode where I was talking about stopping for a moment to assess the situation. So, what am I up against?

You see, often the rain may present a real problem, it may even be the main problem, but fighting with the rain may not be the best tactics to choose. Think about that for a moment. If somebody gets in a real storm, like a hurricane, they will not try to attack the hurricane. Most likely, that would not be the best use of our resources. So if stopping the rain is not an option we can use, then let’s just concentrate on what our goal really is, and try to accomplish it with minimal losses.

I learned many years ago from my martial art teacher that the goal of the martial artist was not to compete and to win in the ring. An ancient warrior did not care about somebody’s opinion regarding who’s better in fighting. Well, there were some folk games and even competitions, I hear you. But the warrior’s ultimate goal was to get from point A to point B, finish the assignment and hopefully come back alive. He did not know how long that might take him, what challenges he would have to face along the way. So if he had to hide to avoid the fight, he would. There’s nothing heroic in jumping at your opponent and screaming like you may see in some action movies.

When I look at our every day life, I often see that we may spend way too much energy complaining about circumstances we cannot change. I like the way Jody Victor said it, we spend a lot of time thinking about how we feel instead of thinking about what we should be thinking about, meaning doing our job to get us from point A to point B in life.

To continue with the topic of the hurricane, I see so many people complaining about things that already happened. Whether it was hurricane, tsunami or some quite unpleasant life events that get us out of balance or even knock us down. In my humble opinion, this is a waste of energy. This is dwelling on the past. This is driving your car while staring at the rear view mirror. I don’t think it will take us to point B. It may take us off the road, and we would not end up where we want to be.

So the main idea is to decide what IS our destination point and what is the best way to get there? It sound pretty obvious, but I still see people complaining about things they cannot change.. And I’ve been there too, so this is a first hand experience, so to speak.

My next point is, don’t worry about getting wet in a rain if you are already wet. You’re already in. Rain is pouring, and not much you can do about that. My best tactics here is to stop complaining and start moving. Yes, rain makes me wet.. but I am already wet. So what’s the point of complaining?

This is a mindset, a philosophy I use. Once I am good with that, my next strategy is to establish how bad that bad really is? I am not talking about my emotions. This is about real damage. Is this just my reaction to the set of unpleasant circumstances or is there a potential for a real issue. And if yes, what’s the worst outcome and who’s gonna suffer? My driving instructor told me many years ago that if we see that collision is inevitable, the best strategy would be to position ourselves inside the car the best way so we get minimum possible damage. Yes I know that in the worst case scenario somebody may die. That totally sucks. But panicking won’t help.

I am not going to give you any advices on how to handle the adversity. I had to handle mine more than once, but yours most likely will never be the same as mine. You would need to find somebody who can help you in your case. This may be a life coach or a shrink, or a financial adviser, or even a lawyer, or whoever. But get some help in case you need it, all right. We all have blind spots, and you need to identify yours with somebody’s help.

By the way, I know several good life coaches in Phoenix, AZ. They can work with you in person, or over the phone or via Skype. Let me know if you need recommendations.

Let’s say we evaluated the circumstances and decided that there are no immediate threats to life and health. All we have is just a long walk in a rain of circumstances. Life just keeps happening. I’ve been there too.

Yes, I understand that I cannot control anything other than my attitude and my actions. I understand that in most of the cases all this depressing routine has nothing against me personally. I know it now. But this was not where I started.

I started with modifying my immediate environment. With me being an introvert, it was pretty easy to create an imaginary “shell” around myself, like an emotional cocoon, where I could hide any time I needed, and from where I could even live my life on a daily basis. I understand, that people have different personalities. Not everybody can live an a quiet imaginary place. You may be an outgoing person who loves parties and company, this is how you recharge your battery. And if your job sends you to the North Pole to work at the small polar station with only three people there, then you got a situation.

Regardless of your personality, learning basic techniques to separate yourself emotionally from the environment may be quite beneficial. They help not to get emotionally attached to whatever is going on around us. Yes, I’ve used it quite a bit myself. But let me give you a warning: learning to hide from the world can be very dangerous. It may easily became a permanent state of living. That’s why having a friend or a coach really helps.

As I said in my previous episode, the whole idea of my training, first of all, was my Super experiment on how far I could push my self control. That what Autogenic Training was for me 33 years ago. I used a lot of visualization techniques, moving meditations, and other tools. I cannot show you those exercises in audio podcast, but I will be making some videos, and also I will be teaching some of this in my classes in Phoenix, and perhaps in other cities too. So stay tuned.

Now, keep in mind that I did not think about my attitude, at that time. I am teaching attitude now, but it took me over 20 years to start understanding this topic. Back then it was all about me, myself and I. Come on, I was a young teenager. I was just learning it like a form of self hypnosis. It was simply cool! I felt like Harry Potter at the Hogwarts School of Wizards. At that time I did not think about any emotional issues, perhaps because I did not really have many, other than being a social outcast. Most likely, psychoanalysts can desert my mind and tell me what was wrong with me. I am sure they can. But I did not really feel bad. I had my books and crafts, all I needed.
But the knowledge of self control I gained came very handy later.

Creating some kind of a man cave has always been quite important for me. Again, this is just for me. I’ve always had a lot of hobbies, some kinds of crafts, like making jewelry. Or it was my training. So changing the environment has never been hard for me. Again, not everybody can relate. But what I suggest is everybody can identify at least a couple of things they like doing for pleasure. Whatever that is, changing the environment is quite important in order to get out of routine. It may be some sports, reading, writing, watching a movie, fishing, hunting. Whatever that is, create an escape for yourself with what you have available now. Move the furniture in your house if nothing else. Perhaps it may help you to know your personality, so find it out if you don’t know it yet or get a coach who will help you to find it out.

For me, I often used learning new skills as my way to get out of routine. I know, some people may consider that a bit sick. But this actually helped me more than once. I love learning. I still learn new things every day. And besides it helped me in life financially more than once.

I’ve learned later about surrounding myself with people who can uplift and encourage me. Some authors call it the mastermind groups. Today you can find various Facebook events, Meetups etc. We did not have that 30 years ago. Besides, I grew up as an introvert. But I realized that I had to change if I wanted to have a successful business. I became a member of the leadership team. But that is a different story for another episode… Did I change? I am not sure the person can completely change personality, but I sure learned to compensate.

Often we are getting overwhelmed with the complexity of the situation. What helps, is to mentally cover most of the picture, so we don’t concentrate on the whole task and don’t get overwhelmed by the complexity of the maze. We just follow a passage one step, or one day at the time. Of course, this can be done after we do our best to assess the whole situation to make sure it is safe to do it this way.

Later I learned from John Maxwell so called “peak to peak” principle. It says never make important life changing decisions when you are in the valley. You don’t see a bigger picture. Make your decisions when you are on the top. But when life takes a downswing, stay the course until you get to the top of the next peak. Use the logic, not emotions. Remember the goal, and get a friend or a coach who can remind you of your goal. If you feel low, remember, the World has nothing personal agains you. It is just the nature of the landscape. You may be in the valley, my friend. For goodness sake, don’t stop, keep moving.

What I found works best for me is to start a day with a positive thought about something. No, no,no, I did not say positive thought about what I don’t like. On the contrary, positive though about something I do like. If I did not want to go to work, for example, I would not say, oh how I love going to work, yay! Our subconscious mind knows that’s a lie. I would find something positive not related to my work at all. It may be nice landscape, or picture of serene oriental garden, or whatever, anything that will deposit to my positive emotional bank account.

I am teaching at my class an exercise called the Inner Smile. This is a very useful technique. I will make a video about this and other techniques I use.

I am also looking for positive things about what I don’t like. But that is more in the category of reasoning. I convince myself that there’s a reason behind what I am doing. I paint the outcome, and then I don’t have that much of an issue doing something I don’t like. But again, I am phlegmatic and melancholy half and half. This is how things work for me. I need a reason, and I need to calculate the probability of an outcome. Sanguines may think this is so bizarre. But this is who I am. We will talk about personality types some other time.

I like using positive thoughts or positive images throughout the day. Just to change my emotional environment for a few seconds. I’ve learned to create a place in my mind which is sacred. In my mind because where I have been in life, I did not always have Zendo close by, so I did not have a chance to sit with a bunch of Zen monks and observe my feelings. That’s why I created it in my mind. I guard it heavily, I decorate it with the most positive images and pleasant sounds and music. In my mind, of course. I like listening to music a lot, and I play music, so I can imagine something really nice. I can picture myself sitting in a tiny cozy cabin, and looking through the window at whatever landscape I created. It could be sunny, or rainy outside that cabin. That’s my World, I control the weather. It can even be the small boat in the middle of the ocean, and I feel the waves and very nice pleasant breeze.

I know, I know. Not everybody can relate to that. But remember, this is my life story. I believe that we are the product of our environment. But also I believe that environment we create is a reflection of who we are. I was talking about that in the episode about Japanese gardens. The master creates the garden, or a piece of art, and then this piece of art will engage peoples’ emotions and pull them towards what the creator had in mind at the moment of creating. This connection is bi-directional. That’s why when we are in the Oriental garden, we feel so calm.

Unfortunately, teleporting to Zen garden from work is not always an easy task to do. Creating imaginary place in our mind may not work for people not familiar with visual meditation. Changing the activity is a great tool, but not always practical in the middle of the work day. What other options do we have?

I would suggest trying to organize the immediate environment. A desk to begin with. This is something I have to work on myself. I noticed when my work area is more organized, my thoughts are more organized. And this is something I can control.

Decorate your working area the best you can. Poster with a nice landscape, or maybe table-top Zen garden, or maybe tiny fish tank, or a natural plant, or a small teapot with nice tea.. something you can use in your relaxing environment. This will be different for different people. I will not tell you what to use. This is something you can control. And once you do, stop and look at that often. Reinforce positive in your mind.

Another very important component of our environment is what we say. We may not always pay attention to that, and we just repeat what we hear from media, friends, coworkers, etc. I used to do that too. But I’ve learned along the way that we are hung by the tongue. What we say is what we get. I stopped watching news and reading news papers. Why? Because I believe there’s nothing there that may help me on my Path. Again, you may disagree. This is just me. But I believe that what I say is creating a large part of my environment. That’s why at some point I became very mindful of what I was saying.

I like to take time to think. Remember, the word meditation originated from the word “meditari”, which means to think. I like to think. But again, I have to be mindful of what I say and what I think. I made a decision to cap negative. So thinking has to be constructive, not destructive, as well. If I feel I can’t find anything positive at the moment, I start thinking about future plans. Or about nature. Or music. Or clean the house, get busy. Help somebody who needs help. I won’t let present circumstances get me out of balance. I purposely switch the attention.

Using the humor has been one of the aces in my deck of cards in life. I’ve learned to laugh at myself. Why? Because everybody else does. And because as I learned from Dale Carnegie, if I laugh at myself, nobody else will have to. I remember a song popular among rock climbers, that has words, if a stone falls on your head, just smile and think that it could be bigger. I love reading books about how to make a joke out of any life pitfall. I remember reading about Thomas Edison. When his lab was on fire, he told his son, ‘bring your mother, she will never see such a fire again.’ That’s a spirit.

Whatever happened already happened. We cannot change it. At least joking about it makes things look not as dramatic. And hopefully not as emotional.

One other thing I learned, don’t let your past influence your future decisions. And if we are emotionally attached to the event, we may make a decision based on emotions, not logic.

And one last thing.. I’ve learned these rules of life from hiking:
1. Going one step at a time will get the job done. Always. It is not the question of if, it is about not quitting.
2. Sometimes you have to stabilize one foot before taking next step, and sometimes you have to jump. Watch the surroundings carefully, and make a decision.
3. Trail will go up and down. This is a part of your hike.
4. Sometimes you make a stop and look around. Learn to enjoy the view. It is not just about the trail, it is also about where it takes you.
5. Once you are on the top, you will have to go down before you go to the next top.

I truly hope you can learn something from my talk. I hope I can help somebody to regain control and move through some tough times… one step at a time. I hope to hear from you. Please send me your questions and comments. Share your story! This helps me to come up with topics useful for my listeners. Contact me at
HealthyPositiveLifestyle@gmail.com. You can find my page on the FaceBook as Healthy Positive Lifestyle Network or you can follow me on Twitter @HPLPodcast

If you found something useful in my podcast, or if you have suggestions on how I can improve, please drop me a line too. I would really like to know.

Don’t forget to visit my site HPLN.ORG
You can also find a transcript of this episode on my site. Hope to hear from you soon!
Until then,
Smile, stay happy, keep the balance, keep putting one foot in from of the other every day, and make a wonderful day happen!
This was Gene from Phoenix AZ. I’ll talk to you next time!

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Peace!

Eugene