No Time To Relieve Stress? Here's How!

Interviewer: What tips would you have for somebody that says, 'Hey, take time out you know and feel these emotions. That's great, but I don't have time. I have eight meetings today. I have to get my kids to three different events. Plus I have a PTA meeting and their day is full from 5 a.m. until 10 p.m." What do you say for someone to get started doing what you're talking about? 

Dr. Rosensweet: There's a complex question. Here's why. If that person were to pay attention to how their own self feels about around that particular life design and if they were to wake up and really see what was going on in their own body. They would see a rather amped up biological stress response and they would feel all the uncomfortable feelings that attend that.

And one of the questions is, 'How do you recognize that that life just doesn't work?" If we want to be happy, if we want to love, if we want to have a good life, then it doesn't work too well. If we want to be able to see our wives and our kids or our friends and be there with them, and enjoy them, and be present with them, we can't be doing that. So I know I took a sidetrack there, Scott. But that lifestyle is driven. It's an avoidance lifestyle. Life in the moments, it just isn't beautiful enough. So we think we have to get somewhere and we have to do this and this. But I'm sorry, that's a sidetrack.

You asked for... The very process I'm telling you about is ultimately something we want to be able to do day in and day out whatever we're doing. So if I'm in a meeting and all of a sudden I'm feeling a wave of fear come over me, I will breath and feel that fear. I'll admit it to myself. No one else needs to know it. I don't have to say to the meeting, 'Well I'd like to let you know that I'm feeling tremendous fear right now. As soon as I get over it, I'll be able to listen in.' You don't want to do that because no one needs to know anyway. The truth will set us free, but we're the only ones who need to know it.
Inside my mind if I go, 'I feel that fear and I feel it and I feel it.' Because I'm getting present with what's so, I'm going to be present in that meeting because I'm present. I'm trying to push the fear away and overcome the fear. I have to go unconscious to do that and my mind is not going to be as sharp, and my decision making is not going to be as sharp, and my choices are not going to be as sharp or based on wisdom. They'll be based on the flight of the moment. If I'm standing in front of a group of a hundred people about to teach them and I'm feeling a lot of fear, I don't say, 'Well I'm going to overcome this.' I go, 'Okay, lean in David. Breath and feel the fear.' Let it be part of you. It is; that's the truth. And then what happens there is I show up from my in-the-moment. I'm conscious in the moment and I'm more conscious. Invariably the fear melts into what it actually is. It's not realistic fear. These people aren't people I need to be afraid of. They're beautiful people. They're there to learn and they're excited and happy.

So the idea is: get skilled. People go to the gym to build muscles. It's brilliant and beautiful to build cardiovascular health. Anyone that's done it knows that if you do it enough it works all the time, baring you're not too excessive. If you don't do it enough, you don't get it. It's the same with emotions. If you use your life, the life you're in, to wake up inside of that life and see what that truth is... And if one of the truths is: I feel happy, I'm having fun. If you breath and feel that and you're more conscious of that, well that's real life and that's beautiful. Or if you feel sad and you include the sadness... Look at this, I'm going to an important meeting and I'm feeling very sad. I just lost my mother or my father or something. It's okay. I can include it all and feel that sadness. I'll stay conscious. I'll stay awake of what the truth really is. And then people like this because we like when other people are real. They don't have to tell us what's going on, but we don't do too well with them faking it. We can all sense it and wonder what's going on. I know I'm drifting to the left and to the right of this topic here, but to answer your question...

You develop this skill as you would in the gym and you use the life you're in to do it. If you're rushing off and you're late for something, you get conscious of it. You say, 'Why am I feeling like I'm light like this. Oh god, I just feel stress in my body. I feel just driven.' We want to be calm, peaceful and if we're not, that's fine. If we just get conscious of the truth: Oh I'm very frightened here talking to Scott. I don't what Scott's doing, but I'm only kidding. You're not a good example as you're about relaxation and enjoyment. But let's say I was frightened. I would just breath. I would use that moment to breath and feel the fear and let it be exactly what it is - fear. And then I get to show up conscious because I'm awake. I'm not trying to repress. I'm not trying to shut myself down. So you use your life and these emotions are rising up all the time. When you're driving down the interstate and you feel anger, the idea is not to honk at someone or play dodging cars with them. It's to go, 'Look at this, I'm feeling anger and I'm in a car traveling 75 miles per hour.' And I think, 'One thing I know about the anger is that it's taking place in me. Okay I'm going to breathe, drive, pay attention, and feel my anger. I'm not going to scream and I'm not going to blame anybody because none of that's going to help me. I'm just going to breathe and feel my anger.' That will help someone to stay more conscious in their car driving their automobile. And the anger will be getting what it needs - to be recognized and felt - because it will melt if you do that.