Episode 319: The LA Fires & Dealing with Stress

I hope you had A safe week. I am actually recording this podcast from New York. However, I do live in Los Angeles and I own a house there.  And, like so many, all of us Angelenos, it's been a terrifying week, and I'm saying it's been a terrifying week, and I haven't even been there.  But I've been watching the fire creep closer to my house, and at the moment I am recording this, thankfully, I am out of immediate danger. My family is out of immediate danger. My house is out of immediate danger.  I want to talk today. Briefly, this will be a shorter podcast about stress. Because over the past two weeks, I have endured a lot of stress. My mom and dad came out to Los Angeles to celebrate the holidays with us.  And on Christmas night, my mom unfortunately had a stroke. She spent the night in the hospital. And believe it or not, this is my mom's seventh. That once I got my parents settled, almost like I went upstairs and that's when I heard about the fires in L.A. and it was stressful with my mom because she didn't have all of her doctors around her.  And that was stressful.  And then I got her home and I was like, okay, because I kept saying to myself, okay just wait till Sunday, just get her settled on Sunday. And then, I got her settled over the next couple of days and then this happened.  So stress has been something that I have personally been dealing with.  I also need to say I fully realized that my stress is my stress but the stress to those people who have lost houses is unimaginable. What I want to talk about is just one thing, because sometimes when so much is happening, it's the only thing we can do is focus on just one thing.  And that is the tool of journaling.  One of the things that I've picked back up recently, because of the situation with my mom, but also because I've decided to, quite frankly, go deeper with my spiritual practice. I'm doubling down. I'm raising the level. I am raising the frequency. Of what I am living, of how I am living.  And one of the things that has helped me to do that is stream of consciousness journaling.  I found it before everything happened with my mom, meditating, to be something, I wouldn't call meditation easy, but something that I enjoyed. But while this has been going on, that has proven to be a bit too challenging for me.  Visions of the news, visions of maps, visions of, all the horrible things that all of us have seen circle in my head.  But what I can do is I can sit down, and I always talk about getting a nice cup of tea because I'm a big tea drinker, sitting down and journaling just stream of consciousness. And, In situations like where we're in right now, especially for those of you who are so directly affected, I find that really forcing myself to do it for a good 20 minutes.  All this is really necessary as long as you can till your hand starts to hurt.  Now notice I say my hand because again when it comes to journaling I so strongly believe in writing it out. So that is my tool.  Really, double down, raise the level, raise your frequency around your spiritual practice now.  And stay safe, stay super safe, and take care of yourself this week. I hope this helps.