You're in the stress doom loop: Here's the escape plan | Brad Shorkend | TEDxPretoria

Kilimanjaro, the highest point on the African continent, Mount Elis, the highest mountain in Europe, in Russia and Everest Base Camp, 2/3 of the way to the top of the world. Now I know people who have died attempting these crazy and dangerous summits, but this was not what almost took my life, none of those adventures were something much less expected and much less obvious, it was the cycle of

stress

. I woke up the morning of December 29, 2014 and couldn't feel anything. I was numb from the neck down but I could move the pH my doctor I told him what am I doing

here

he told me to go straight to the hospital and that's what I did.

I drove to the hospital and when I got t

here

I was immediately admitted and was subjected for the next few days to every medical test you could conceive of it was not fun unconfirmed diagnosis now imagine the doctor showing you the MRI where he had found a lesion on your spinal cord and telling you that he doesn't know if he will ever feel again or if this will ever heal or if you will survive. I was in a hospital for two more weeks and came out undiagnosed with that same message and with advice to change my work habits, change my diet and manage my

stress

and that even involved some of the toxic relationships and energies I was inviting into myself. life so I decided to embark on a mission of intentionality how I eliminated everything that could be harming my nervous system my nervous system was in a state of chaos this intentionality paid off 6 months later I realized the ripple effect of this Approach, this Approach intense to beat this.

I was sitting in a restaurant and suddenly I started feeling electrical impulses going up my spine, my sensation was returning and two days later I could feel everything. 6 months of being numb 2 Days later, fast forward 4 and a half years and there I am again in the hospital, face up, extremely sick on October 3, 2019, but this time we had a diagnosis, the diagnosis was vestibular neuritis, a unpleasant situation. He was out of action, no. For 2 days or 2 weeks, but for two months I couldn't function. I had no balance. I could not stand it. I could barely see clearly and managed to regain my health.

Our bodies give us signals that we should listen to. I was ignoring them. the gentle pushes and they became stronger and stronger. I clearly hadn't learned the lessons from 5 years earlier as Hera was struggling again when I left the hospital. The very clear message the first time was to manage stress and I was understanding the same messages from the doctors this time, particularly in my workplace. Now the irony is that I'm a behavioral specialist and a workplace strategist, go figure, and I wasn't managing my own behavior and my own workplace strategy. I was ignoring the other things that mattered in my life I was obsessed with work, doing my job and my business is all we tend to do and as I lay there I had a lot of time to reflect on what I realized that the conversation that kept coming up was work-life balance. balance we kept hearing about this and I realized that balance does not exist because if we had balance everything in our lives would be in its perfect proportion it does not exist like that that is not possible balance is an illusion it is a dance of time energy energy intentionality but no we have balance what we do have is the perception of strength we feel stressed when we feel out of balance we have too many things to do when you have too many things to do and you are working hard that is pressure stress is when you are not taking control of things things you can and should have some control over there is a difference pressure versus stress the word Workplace Health Report feedback that 74% of people often feel overwhelmed and unable to cope and 79% indicate that this It comes from the workplace, so while I was lying there I realized that I needed to critically change three things in my life.

The first thing I had to do was make my decisions. I was making decisions for all the wrong reasons. I was making my decisions from my ego and because I was so worried about what other people thought that I had to stop doing this, the second thing I realized was that I had to learn that I only have a limited capacity for time and a limited amount of energy. time. energy I can give I had to learn to organize my capacity I had to learn to prioritize and divide things into those that matter most and the third thing I realized was that I first needed to address the anti-list I make by default of the things I I love and avoid the things I don't enjoy and they are there on my calendar looking at me stress more and more stress one night in the hospital the nurses brought me dinner they put the plate on the foot of my bed and I staggered and I could understand this and I looked at these containers I thought my life is a set of containers my life is Tupperware and that's where I came up with the Tupperware Theory and the Tupperware Theory quite simply is that 11 L cannot fit in a 10 L container.

I imagine you have them all the different compartments of your life, they are all the things that matter and you identify what they are and when you start looking at them, they are definitely consuming, I'm going to guess what more than 100% of you have available when you start listing them, plus they are all from different sizes, this gets more complicated and the sizes change and there may even be tupperware that you are not aware of. So now you're in a position where you may have to make some tough decisions and eliminate some of those tupperware, some of the things that are draining your resources and using up too many tupperware.

The problem is, do you even know where? All your energy, your time, your capacity is being consumed. I invite you to stop, pause and track where your time, energy capacity is being consumed, for two days, maybe a week, two weeks, just watch, you will be surprised because you won't know until you stop, observe and track, and then there will be times when you will have to go all out in those situations that require us to focus deeply and intensely where we must intentionally get out of balance from the perceived balance, we must deprioritize the Tupperware and then prioritize the reps. for a fixed period of time, those special occasions that need that deep concentration, but you can't do this if you're not organized in your Tupperware draw, so while I was lying in the hospital, thoughts were moving round and round now yes You've been listening and you've been evaluating as I've been sharing and you're thinking to yourself, well, those stress bombs, one or two, maybe even three in my life, are out of control, it's quite possible that you are in too. a stressful Doom Loop and you need to take back the control that you have given up and this starts with making a decision and the decision you need to make is to start tracking your time and energy to take ownership of your decisions and divide yourself between the things that matter most.

They matter they are not easy but they are critical we all climb these mountains in our lives and they are different sizes we all experience them differently but they stretch us and show us who we really are now my challenge to you is to choose build and design a life that does not You need to regularly

escape

a life where you go from stress and lack of control to accepting pressure and taking control, and I think that's an idea worth spreading. My chaos turned into beautiful chaos. I have not been back to the hospital and I have no intention of going back there and I am enthusiastically climbing the mountains of my life, thank you.