Home

Rick Burnett: In Chapter 10, you write about detoxifying your stress.  What is the negative impact of stress in our lives?

Dr. Robert A. Schuller:   I don't think you can pick up any current magazine on health and read anything positive about the effect of stress on our health.  Stress is a negative thing because we are connected emotionally, mentally and physically.  So what takes place emotionally and mentally when we are stress is our brains release neuro-chemicals, which create damage to our body.  They actually increase our free radical production, which we understand to cause premature heart problems, as well as stroke problems, and various other toxic things that will take place in our bodies because of stress.  So, we know that stress is a negative thing and will cause negative consequences to our health.  However, there are things we can do about it that will eliminate the negative impact of stress.  We have to realize we cannot eliminate stress in our lives - we will have stress no matter what we do.  There is positive stress and negative stress.  Both stresses seem to have similar consequences in the negative arena, unless you do things to detoxify the stress. 

Rick Burnett:   What do you mean by positive stress - what is the positive stress?

Dr. Douglas DiSiena:   Positive stress could be for example working out a muscle.  Working out and exercise is a positive stress for muscles.  So, stress can be either productive or destructive. 

Dr. Robert A. Schuller: Also, positive stress can be things that are positive in our lives.  For example, we get a new position in our job, which we've always wanted; and that change is a stressful change, but a positive stress because it's what we wanted.

Rick Burnett:   You talk about the two ways you can respond to stress.  Will you elaborate on these two steps?  First you mention responding to stress with love, not fear.

Dr. Douglas DiSiena: Stress in many ways is just a result of fear.  I think fear is the separation from God.  If we were to have the understanding and the ministering of the Holy Spirit, then we have to remove fear to allow the Father's love to come and dwell within us to minister to us.  So, we need to try to go toward love and not fear.  Many times, stress is nothing more than a fearful anticipation of a future event.  Instead of fear we should live in FAITH - which stands for Forget Anxiety, Instead Trust Him.  Also, another acronym for FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real. 

Rick Burnett:   One of the other steps you talk about is Focus on the Present.  How does that relive stress?

Dr. Douglas DiSiena: One of the things about the Sermon on the Mount is that Jesus talks about worry and stress at least six times.  One of the things that He kept talking about is live today; "forget about tomorrow, because tomorrow has it's own worries", to paraphrase.  He tells us we should be concerned today.  Today we have whatever we have to deal with in life.  Focus on the moment and then fear and stress will become somewhat diminished.  It doesn't mean we won't have stress; it just means that the effect of stress will become diminished in our life. 

Rick Burnett:    Robert, is there anything you want to add to that?

Dr. Robert A. Schuller:   Yes.  One of the things that characterize the human being is the desire to live in the future instead of the present.  Our minds give us that projection into the future.   As a result of projecting ourselves into the future, we hope for the positive, but we fear the negative - because, we can see both positive and negative future consequences.  When it gets out of balance and we no longer see anything to fearful of - I think that is a dangerous place to be.  We have to realize there are things we need to plan for in the future.  If you have no future consequences, and if you get a check in the mail - you just go out and blow the whole thing, you forget you have bills to pay tomorrow.  On the other hand, if all you can think about are the negative consequences of the future, then you might have a lot of money in the bank; yet live like a pauper because you're afraid that you might not have enough money to pay for what might happen in the future.   I'm just using economics as an illustration for things we do in a host of different areas of our lives.  What we need to do is as we project and plan for the future we have to do so in a balanced way, looking at both the negative and positive.  We have to hope in the positive and realize if the negative comes, somehow God will turn that into good.  That is the promise that we have throughout the scripture.  God will care for us and He will meet our needs.  We have to pray like it all depends on God and work like it all depends on us.  We need to have balance so that we can look at the future in a healthy and wholesome way.  I love the saying that I believe Jackie Kennedy gave us.  "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, that's why we call it the present."   We have to live in the present, to realize that today is really the only moment we know we are going to have. 

Rick Burnett:  I've often heard that "today is our present; our present is our point of power."  That is where we make our decisions - that is our point of power.

Rick Burnett:  Dr. DiSiena, how much stress is too much stress?

Dr. Douglas DiSiena:  Stress is cumulative in nature.  In fact, we have numerical values that researchers have attached to the amount of stress we have and they can determine what kind of disease states we will probably get as a result of that stress.  Let me use the illustration that I like.  For those of you who've studied chemistry, you will remember the saturation effect in the beaker.  You would take a beaker of water and add to it teaspoons of sugar until the point where you would add the very next grain of sugar and the whole amount of sugar in solution would come out and you'd get a layer of sugar laying on the bottom of the beaker.  That's kind of what stress is like.  You can add to stress, and add to stress in our lives and we don't necessarily feel its effects; until that one additional amount of stress, takes the whole thing out of solution and we are out of balance.  That is the negative impact that stress can have on us physically and emotionally.  It's kind of like the example of a person driving in a car and somebody cuts them off and we call that road rage.  So, we have to be careful and realize that our stresses do accumulate and be aware of the stresses as they come so we can do something about them and be proactive.

Dr. Robert A. Schuller:   I'd like people to realize that we actually have a survey in our Possibility Living book that people can take which will help them determine how much stress they have in their life.  A copy of the book is available on this Webster.  You can take the survey/test and come to understand how you can lower your stress number!    Also, people need to realize that stress can cause you to withdraw and shutdown, and become depressed.