Managing Stress Without Succumbing: How to Turn an Enemy into an Ally

AVAlexander Volchek

Everyone in the world experiences stress constantly, and there can be so much of it that a person starts dying. They begin to suffer terribly, and every day they realize they can't cope with it. Today, we'll do more than examine what stress is. Most importantly, we'll find one very simple action that, by the end of this video, is guaranteed to help you minimize your suffering and stress. Watch to the end. I'll get to it very specifically. You're on my channel. My name is Alexander Volchek. Here, I talk about life, business, and spirituality: all the areas a person needs to expand and grow personally. Today, we'll talk about stress. When I recall and examine the concept of stress in myself or anyone else, I see that as a word, it's a fairly unexamined construct. What is stress? Everyone will actually describe a stressful state very differently, in their own way. You'll describe it in your own way. It will have its own meaning. We each have twenty-four hours, but time moves differently for each of us.

I mean that one person has ten thoughts a minute, while another may have one. One person takes a hundred actions in a day, another five. One person may be stressed all day, constantly, and that stress will be very intense. Another may experience it part of the time, or not at all—only, for example, in circumstances where it's necessary or unavoidable. In what circumstances might it be impossible to avoid being in a state of stress? When there's a direct risk to your life. Full awareness: a tiger or bear appears in front of you, you've been hiking in the mountains and broken a leg, or something suddenly happens to someone close to you. Things that put us under stress have an appropriate cause. Of course, people say it would be good, on seeing a tiger, to try to minimize that worry or stress, to reduce the stressful state. Although the physical body and many of its reactions probably can't be fooled, right?

Or perhaps you need to train constantly. See a tiger two hundred or three hundred times, I don't know. But I'm afraid that if that happens, the tiger won't wait until the two-hundredth or three-hundredth time. It'll eat you on the tenth. Then there are situations where you say, “I moved to another country, the United States in this case, and I'm stressed.” Or, “I changed jobs, and I'm stressed.” Or, “I'm stressed at my current job.” Or, “I feel stressed every day when I come home,” or, “I have children, and that causes stress.” Recently, my wife was talking to a woman and said, “Listen, three more children have come to visit us, so there are seven children at home. I'm feeding everyone right now. I need a little time.” Her acquaintance said, “I don't understand how you cope with seven people, how you can handle all those children together. I can't manage feeding my two-year-old and my husband.” My wife chuckled when she told me the story: to her, it was absolutely elementary.

Two completely different people. One feels calm, for example, with seven children there, all needing to be fed or needing a response to their various states. Another person gets very stressed. Each of us responds differently to the various causes and sources of stress. Very differently. The first rule a person needs to accept, put into practice, and hear is that their stress is unique in volume, composition, and quality. Unique. But what do we usually do? Someone comes to us with a problem, and we say, “Oh, that's exactly like me!” Or, “I felt bad yesterday, stressed all day.” “Oh, exactly like me!” “I moved to another country, and I'm stressed.” “Exactly like me. There's this, and this, and this.” “I go to work and feel stressed every day. I have issues with my boss.” “Exactly like me.” This comparison isn't real. What are people trying to do? Find someone like themselves, another person with the same stress, and know they're not alone in it.

In reality, you're alone with your own stress. Realizing and understanding that lets you see what to do next. I'll talk today about what to do. To move forward with stress, it's important to establish that there is no division into useful and useless stress. That division itself distorts your perception of reality. It's a kind of self-deception: “I'll call some stress positive and sustain it because I've found a justification—say, that it will help me develop in the future. I'll call other stress negative because it shouldn't arise in me.” If you approach working through stress, living with it, or changing your life and circumstances by dividing stress into good and bad, you'll very likely reach a dead end. You'll probably deceive yourself. You won't be able to make even an approximately adequate division. Most likely, it isn't even possible. It's a justification: “All right, I'll live this bad life because I need to go through it, because it's karma.”

“But I won't live this bad life because it's karma. Could you please tell me whether this is karma or not? Then I'll start living or not living this life.” Someone comes along and says, “All right, it's your karma. Live through it.” What's supposed to happen to you then? Should the stress disappear? Should you calm down at that moment? A person wants to positively justify the presence of stress so they can calm down. Calming down implies the absence of stress. Calm is the opposite, the absolute opposite, of being stressed. If you feel calm, if you feel calm yourself, you're not in a state of stress. There's no stress. When you say, “This stress is positive,” you want to justify the stress itself. But you can't, because justification won't bring you to a good, clear state in which you're calm. So, regarding stress and any difficulties we somehow label with this term—what is stress? Some worry, anxiety, or doubt. What is stress? Bad thoughts. What is stress? A bad physical feeling inside the body. It's a combination of different sensations, and everyone will identify it differently.

First, don't divide stress into positive and negative. Ask yourself: can I take certain actions every day so each day brings greater calm, confidence, and growth—a calm, good life—instead of fighting these states? The more a person fights negative states, the more those states will develop and live on. The struggle itself in this direction—I'm specifically talking about struggle, the word “struggle”—and the resistance will produce exactly the opposite reaction. The first thing is to stop fighting it. Calmly tell yourself that, in life overall...

I want to say that in life, whatever events happen, happen. During a day, good and bad events can occur. I may experience very calm states and very stressful ones. The point is not to fight the resulting stress but to find its causes and see how I can arrange my life so events that cause me stress don't occur or manifest. That's one side. The other is learning to perceive difficult circumstances calmly and respond calmly. What does “calmly” mean? We're sitting here with her now, filming a video outside, and a plane flies past overhead, interfering with the sound. I could react negatively and become stressed, immediately thinking it'll ruin the video, this is an unsuitable location, we're set up wrong. I could generate stress for the camera operator or producer who chose this location and didn't ensure quiet. I could put even more stress on them because there's no additional noise protection on my microphone. Or I could simply pause for a couple of minutes while the plane passes and take it calmly.

Or say, “If planes are flying over too often, let's stop filming outside and move somewhere else.” Take it calmly. Two directions emerge in working with stress. On one hand, we learn to live through difficult circumstances calmly. On the other, we work on the causes that are sources of stress. In the plane example, staying calm means responding when it's already flying over. Taking a pause, or understanding that slightly worse sound in this video isn't terrible and won't change anything significant. Working on causes means understanding in advance, before going outside, that cars may pass, animals may run around—given the area we're in—planes may fly over, and something else may happen. Recognize that beforehand. Tell yourself in advance how you'll feel and respond to various situations. Our human system is built so that once we've perceived and become aware of certain things, we'll respond much more calmly. Our brain perceives things that way too.

That's before even considering a person's whole spiritual system. At least, a person here, in the form I exist in, will be calmer if we—and particularly I—agree beforehand with the filming team on how we'll behave when a plane flies over. The team will point it out, or I'll notice it myself. I'll keep talking, and slightly worse audio for a moment won't be a problem. Or I'll stop and say it again. Simply anticipating it a little and discussing beforehand the possibility of some unfavorable event will minimize and neutralize stress, because everyone has discussed it. Really, it doesn't matter at all. Why get stressed about it? Stress kills a person. It degrades them, destroys the physical body, the mental state, the spiritual system, so many things. Destroys them! If I get worked up and become negative about a plane flying past, I could fall out with everyone here. Then my wife and children arrive, and I snap at my wife, snap at the children. Then I go to professional business meetings and argue with partners, colleagues, and employees.

Go somewhere else in the evening and argue there too. Enter a bad state of stress, struggle to fall asleep, sleep poorly, and set off an incredibly large chain reaction, damaging relationships further. More than that, start doing things under stress and do them badly. I need to assemble a play structure for the children today—and do it badly. I need to hold a session with someone and help them in a consultation—and do it badly. Spend the evening at home with the children—and do that badly. Keep filming videos while irritated—and do it badly. It sets off a crazy reaction. Someone else might say, “Wait, Alexander, you're saying stress is categorically unnecessary and only bad. But isn't it important to live through difficult events and develop through them?” One doesn't preclude the other. The main thing is not to confuse them. Clearly recognize and accept that stress is bad and destroys our system. Is it possible for a person on Earth, in twenty-first-century society, to live their entire life, from birth to death, completely free of stress?

Practically impossible. When I say “practically,” I mean impossible for most people. For nine million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of ten million, it's impossible. Impossible for most people. For all of us, it's impossible to have none of it. But it's important to know that its presence is destructive. Living in society, we experience difficulties that really do have causes. Those causes are connected, among other things and first of all, to ourselves. I talk about this a lot here on the channel, on Instagram, and in different videos. There are reasons you experience stress. On the other hand, all right, you need to live through an unfavorable event. You may experience stress, and learn to cope with it and respond calmly when it arises, as it arises, or afterward. You can catch it right at the beginning, as I did today with the plane. I caught it, dealt with it, lived through it, and explained it as an example. You can catch it afterward.

Get worked up, become stressed, then reflect, acknowledge that you entered that state, and begin observing and tracking it. There are many methods for doing this. Many people talk about them. People experience an enormous number of stressful situations they've generated themselves. They aren't even external events that actually happened. For example, yesterday I went to Madonna's concert in San Francisco and parked on the street. I know car windows get smashed in San Francisco. About every hour during the concert, I requested screenshots, and images from my car were sent to me. My car can do this with all its cameras. I checked that it was still where I'd parked it and everything around it seemed fine. Around the fourth or fifth screenshot, it was already eleven thirty at night and the concert was ending. I thought the right-hand window had been broken, and I felt stress and fear. At that point, the concert no longer mattered to me. What mattered was what had really happened and how I'd get home.

Because I live in Silicon Valley, about forty minutes south of San Francisco. What did I do? To remove this state completely, because I couldn't cope with it anymore—it was nighttime, and I could see difficulties ahead—I looked at earlier screenshots from that camera and realized they were exactly the same. The first ones hadn't looked that way to me; only in the last one had I imagined the window was broken. In other words, I personally generated stress, fear, and fright for myself. Of course, that put my system in a bad state. I felt very bad physically. I managed to deal with it quickly, although some of that feeling remained until I reached the car. I walked around it, saw it was fine, and thought, “Phew, thank God!” Once again, I thought I should make every effort to park somewhere nothing could happen to it. Every time I leave my car on a San Francisco street, I feel that worry. What does this bring us back to?

That there are things you can deal with beforehand. If you know in advance that you may worry...

And generate anxiety or some stress, you can minimize the occurrence of those events. Second, when they do occur, try to live through them calmly. What might stress me out, for example? Asking viewers each time to like and subscribe, telling you it's important to me. No matter how often I say it, I feel stress and discomfort. I change. I can't say it from a place of freedom, because every time, something feels wrong. I'm asking you now: please like this video. Please subscribe to my channel. It's incredibly helpful. Send this video to friends. Leave comments. But the like and subscription themselves are very important. They help my channel develop and make new videos possible. Yet every time I think about saying it, it causes stress and changes something inside me. The very fact that I'm saying this now, saying and explaining that it stresses me out, makes it easier to talk about. I understand that some of you will comment, some will like, some will subscribe, and some won't.

Although it's easy for absolutely anyone to do. Wouldn't it be great if five hundred people watched and there were five hundred likes? Someone sat there and put effort into recording and creating this content. They really worked hard on it. A like is an inner expression of gratitude. Otherwise, it turns out we have no gratitude at all toward people who do things, such as making videos. It's an incredible amount of work. A like. Here's a stressful situation many people experience: their phone rings, and it's someone close to them. Or someone close calls and says, “We urgently need to talk.” Or says, “There's a problem,” or sends that message and disappears. At such moments, it's important to remember how I behave toward others. Do I approach people with “There's a problem” when often there isn't one at all? For years, I felt stress whenever my mother called. Just her calling immediately triggered a feeling that something had happened. There were reasons: I'd experienced events in childhood, youth, and later when someone called to report a problem, saying, for example, that someone had died. Knowing someone might call because something bad happened, you keep bringing that possibility to yourself.

What did I do? I understood that when I was in a meeting and saw my mother calling, I would definitely become stressed and stop being present in the meeting. I'd spoil that moment—not just for myself, but for other people. I turned off all incoming notifications on my phone, all messenger and phone notifications. I began turning them off because I knew it was the one preventive measure that could minimize the number of causes of stress. That created new stress: you're sitting there knowing your phone is off, and perhaps someone called at that moment and you didn't hear it. But at least it started a process of becoming aware of what was happening. Over the years, I've worked through a great deal of it. Have I removed it completely? I haven't. Certain messages or calls still bring on some fear or stress. But I'm generating it, not other people. A person has the right to message me, call me, tell me something.

In fact, a person even has the right to write, “I have a problem.” The question is how you respond. Can you respond calmly when someone says, “I have a problem,” and understand that their problem isn't necessarily something you need to become stressed about? It might just be a small situation. Creating problems for others this way is common at work, for example. We come to the most important quality and rule for dealing with your own stress: the unique, incredibly important action everyone needs to take to work with their own stress. This whole video is about it. To cope with your stress, see and change the causes that arise, and learn to work with states where you're already experiencing a problem or trauma, first start noticing how you treat other people. Do you create stress, anxiety, complications, and difficulties for them? Do you even do it deliberately? We generate many problems in our lives, and you too deliberately create problems and stress for others, putting them in that state because for you, it's a way to handle your own stress.

That's deception, an illusion. The more we pay attention to other people, the more we pay attention to our own behavior toward them. Like that plane flying past. Understand that the camera operator isn't to blame for the plane flying overhead. Don't shout at the camera operator or producer. Don't shout at other people because such a noisy plane flew past. They aren't to blame. No one is to blame if it starts raining now. Don't try to create stress for others or put them under it. Creating problems for other people is the easiest thing we know how to do in life. As soon as we learn this, as soon as we pay attention... It's a very simple action: keep observing whether I'm creating stress and difficulties for others. When I do, reflect and consider how I could have acted differently. At least learn to apologize, sincerely apologize and say, “Sasha, I'm sorry. I'm at fault. I just shouted for no reason. Masha, I'm sorry. I'm at fault. I shouldn't have done that. It's my fault.” That's what will help minimize your own stress and teach you to understand it.

It will let you live a harmonious, steady, whole life. It will let you live in freedom, because that's what freedom is. Freedom doesn't mean enslaving twenty people. It doesn't mean having power over others or the right to put them under stress. Real freedom means you've let everyone else go and they don't depend on you. Real freedom is not imposing your expectations on other people, and that leads to your own inner freedom. This is a powerful point in human development. Here on the channel, I talk about business, life, and spirituality. Why those areas? Together, they're a range of areas and directions that let a person expand, grow, and develop personally. Development takes time. I've just launched a program called V100. It's a monthly development program with me. It has no end and, in a sense, no beginning. You can join at any time. Right now, below this video, there will definitely be a description and a link to join V100. Joining gives you the opportunity to stay within a system of development for an affordable monthly fee.

Since you may watch this video at different times, the monthly fee may have changed a little. It may be a hundred dollars, a hundred and twenty, or a hundred and fifty. It's roughly in that range, but it will very likely rise every month, so it has probably increased. The starting price was a hundred dollars a month. That's the price you pay to be in my circle, among the people around me, in a state of observation and moving forward through the various actions a person can take. Of course, a person needs help, a teacher, a mentor, an observer, a group of people. This is where you can find that. It's a program for incredibly powerful forward development, where I, Alexander Volchek, am personally interested in helping you constantly see your next step. There are many next steps, not just one. If you see the very best next step you can take for your personal development right now, you take it. You've taken the next step; tomorrow you'll see another next step. There's a next step you need to take in your work or business. A next step in your family.

There's a next step to take in your health. A next step in your thinking, in what you do. There's a next...

Your thinking, in what you do. A next step to take in your spiritual life. There are many next steps. Join V100. Please like this video today, even if you liked it a little. It's a very simple, easy action, an easy action from a sense of freedom. Subscribe to my channel. Subscribe. Click the Subscribe button. It helps my channel grow and helps me develop. It's very important and necessary to me. It would be great if you shared in the comments the most recent stress you created for someone else. Or the most recent stress you experienced in your life. Something simple—write that comment. May this video help you find your next step in dealing with stress. Believe me, the action I've given you is guaranteed to help. See you next time.