Hi my name's father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents. I imagine
you're probably stressed at some point in your life. Maybe even right now
because you should be doing your work but you're watching a YouTube video, so,
busted! But, a lot of us experience stress. In fact, when they asked across
the across the country—country being the United States, but thanks for
watching from other places than the United States—people report high levels
of stress. You know, it's interesting because when you start
diving into research about stress, something you find is that there is such
a thing as "eustress" and such a thing as "distress." So, eustress is the good
stress, right? It's the anxiety or the anxiousness we feel before we are
gonna perform. It's the thing—it's the eustress, the good stress, we experience
that actually gets our body prepared to act, right? So,
eustress is the kind of stress that prepares our bodies for action. But
there's distress. And one of the things that distress does is, distress can
paralyze us. It does the opposite of eustress or good stress. Distress
makes us feel incapable of moving. It makes us feel paralyzed. It makes us feel
afraid and anxious to the point where we don't move. Instead of "I'm anxious so I
need to move," eustress. Distress is the kind that paralyzes us. And I imagine
that distress is the one that we complain about, because eustress is not
so bad. That's why it's called "good stress" ... because it's ... basically it's good. But I think a
lot of times we approach all stress as the same, and our approach to
stress is "I just need to get done with this project and get done with this
thing, get past this moment and then I won't be stressed so much." I think
about that a lot, because I often times— and just a confession here—I'm often
concerned about the next thing. I'm often concerned about what's the next project,
what's the next task, what's the next thing that's really weighing on me that
when I look at it, I have the distress. Right? So I find myself getting
paralyzed in the face of it. And so once I get done with that though
then I'll be fine. Once I get done with this thing, I'll be able to move on with
life. And there's something about that that I've been praying about a lot, and
thinking about a lot. And the conclusion I came to—the realization that I kind of
came upon—was that life isn't about avoiding stress. Stress is just a part of
life. Life isn't about avoiding stress. It's not about getting around
stress. It's about, like, no, this is life—to experience stress is to
experience life. In fact, we need stress to continue to live. There was this
research, was it at Stanford I think—maybe? One of those, you know, big schools—
Harvard, Stanford—but I think is was Stanford that did this research on very very
simple-celled organisms, single-celled organisms. And they put it in a place of
stasis, right? A place of homeostasis where there was no stress
whatsoever on the organism, on the simple organism. And with absolutely no stress
with all the environments that it needed just to simply be "in stasis"—to be just
alive and comfortable—essentially they died. They corrupted. They were
destroyed ultimately, because they needed stress to be alive. And you and I need
stress to be alive and to remain alive. And so, life isn't about avoiding stress.
It's about how we engage with stress. Our perspective can really matter a lot
right? There is a bunch of studies—I was reading this book recently that
talked about this—that people who see stress as something to be avoided versus
people who see stress as a challenge, to be engaged with, makes all the
difference. If I see my stress, my projects, the things that worry me, and
the things that cause me anxiety as something to be avoided, then I'm gonna run away
from them. And what I'm gonna have—I'm gonna have distress, I'm gonna
be paralyzed, versus "I see stress as a challenge to be engaged with," well then
what am I gonna have? I'm gonna have eustress or stress that leads me to take action.
So my invitation is this: is to ask yourself—when you experience stress, the
next time you experience stress is—can my perspective on this thing that is
causing me stress, can my perspective actually affect
how I'm gonna engage with this? Ultimately it comes down to how do you see
yourself? How do you see this world? This is where the Scripture comes in, right?
How do you see yourself and how do you see this world? Am I a person who is a victim
of the stressful situation? Am I a person who's a victim of what causes me anxiety,
what causes me worry? Am I someone who's powerless or do I have agency? Am I stuck
here, paralyzed, or do I have a power—do I have a certain agency where I can
actually make a difference? I can engage stress as a challenge and ultimately not
only will it give me life, but I'll be able— better able—to become
the person God wants me to be and bring life to others. We can do this because we
know who our Father is; this is the crazy thing about life as a Catholic Christian.
We know who our Father is. In fact, go all the way back to the psalms of David
and just take one of those popular psalms—psalm 23. He says "Even if I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death" ... think about that: David was not
saying if I walk through the sunny valley of, like, you know, Anne of Green
Gables, something like this. He says that even if I walk in the valley of the
shadow of death, I fear no evil. Why? Because you are at my side. As Catholic
Christians we have this profound conviction, this profound awareness,
that in every situation, even the worst—the valley of the shadow of death—I won't
fear. Why? Because God, you're with me. Nothing to be afraid of because you are
with me. I can engage the situation because you are with me. All my ability
to have agency, to engage the stress as a challenge, doesn't have to do with
just me. I don't have to just be, you know, pulling myself up by my bootstraps. It has
to do with "I believe something about this world" and that
thing is that there is a father in heaven who's also present to us here and
now in the midst of every situation. So even in times of distress that are
terrible, he is at my side, and what can I do? I don't have to fear. I can go from
this place of being paralyzed by my situation to be able to be
activated by his presence. In James chapter 1, he's writing and he says—James
chapter 1, verses 2 through 4—he says "Consider it pure joy, my brothers
when you encounter various trials ..." Consider it pure joy when you encounter
various trials ..."for you know that the testing of your faith produces
perseverance." The trial itself, right, the stress? It does something
in you: it produces perseverance. "And let perseverance be perfect so that you may
be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." I know the father's with me. I
have agency. And if I enter into this— whatever trial it is, whatever challenge
it is—if I enter into this with him and with that agency, this trial becomes a
challenge that produces fruit, both in your life and in the lives of the people
around you. We are all stressed out, which is a great way to say all of us have the
opportunity at all times to become perfect as James says, lacking in nothing,
considering it pure joy that I have the next task to do, pure joy that I have the
next challenge to complete, pure joy that I have the next work to do. Why? Because it
all leads—has the power to lead—to him. But only if I walk with him.
From all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name is Father Mike. God bless. And like,
subscribe, do all those things people do on the internet, like, you know, thumbs up.
Thumbs down if you don't like it, whatever. I mean, that's ... that's an
option. You can take that option. Why? 'Cause You got agency yo. *clicks* Ha. *Off camera* Yo? Who says yo? Dumb.