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.
