Summary
Joe Hudson explores the paradox of stress — it is both essential for life and potentially destructive. He begins with a thought experiment: if you could eliminate all stress forever, you wouldn’t, because stress is inherent to being alive. Every heartbeat, every breath involves tension. Yet chronic, unresolved stress leads to burnout, black-and-white thinking, and creative stagnation.
The key distinction isn’t the amount of stress but how your system handles it. Growth-oriented stress doesn’t produce shame or regret; deteriorating stress leads to bad habits, self-criticism, and repeating patterns. Joe guides viewers through somatic experiments to feel the difference in their bodies between corrosive stress and growth stress, and between holding stress tightly versus gently.
Joe shares a personal story about how sleep deprivation — not relationship issues — was causing fights with his wife after their second child was born. This led him to investigate what he was actually stressed about versus what he assumed. He discovered that emotional release (crying, anger, frustration) often resolved what seemed like work overwhelm, revealing that the true source of stress is frequently different from what we think.
Key Concepts
- Resisted stress harms, unresisted stress enlivens
- Holding stress gently builds capacity
- The source of stress is rarely what you think
- Emotional release resolves work overwhelm
Key Quotes
“There is no form of life that is alive that doesn’t feel some form of tension, some form of stress, some form of resistance and then letting go and contracting and letting go and contracting.”
“It’s not really about how much stress, it’s about how your system is handling the stress.”
“How gently can I hold the stress? How much am I resisting the stress?”
“If I’m stressed, I just did this thing and I don’t feel any shame. That’s growth. I’m under stress. I’m doing this thing. It’s created some shame… That’s when stress is deteriorating.”
“What I think I’m stressed about isn’t actually what I’m stressed about.”
“One of the most important things that you can do when you feel that stress is to start investigating what could be all the possibilities that is the main culprit in creating that stress.”
Transcript
Stress is actually essential for life. In fact, we would die if we had no stress in our body and we wouldn’t grow without stress. So, there are some kinds of stress that we really need and there’s some kind of stress that tears us apart. And in this video, I sit down with a woman and I talk to her about those different kinds of stress, how to recognize them in her body and how to work with them so that you can prioritize the stress that helps you grow and not be torn apart by the stress that doesn’t. Along the way, you’ll also be invited to do some experiments so you can feel what it’s like in your body right now. So, imagine I have a button right here. And if you push this button, you will never feel any more stress for the rest of your life. Zero, none, nothing. Would you push the button? Right? That’s the thing is nobody would push that button. And the reason is something in us knows that we would be dead. And I don’t mean kind of dead. I mean like immediately, instantly dead, right? There is stress that our heart feels in every beat. There is stress that our lungs feel in every breath. There’s a a tension that comes with life. There is no form of life that is alive that doesn’t feel some form of tension, some form of stress, some some form of resistance and then letting go and contracting and letting go and contracting. So, there’s something that’s amazing about stress and something horrible about stress. Kids who are really stressed out have a hard time learning. We know organizations that are stressed out get burnt out. We know that stress doesn’t make us think very well. It puts us into black and white thinking. It makes us less likely to problem solve, less likely to be able to be creative. There’s all sorts of things. If you think about why big bureaucracies have a hard time being creative, it’s because everybody’s always under stress. And so that’s not good. At the same time, no growth has happened without stress. No change has happened without stress. No transformation has happened without stress. So there’s something beautiful about stress. There’s something that we can’t do without when it comes to stress. We can’t even be alive without that stress. In this experiment, you’re going to find the difference in your body between stress that deteriorates you and stress that helps you grow. So, I want you to go back into your memory and go to the place where you felt most stressed out in a way that you knew was bad for you, that was not serving you, and find that memory where it was super stressful and and just corrosive. and put this in your body. Note that this is the way stress feels when it is corrosive, when it is hurting you, when it is stopping you from growth. Okay, take a deep breath. Shake it off for a second. And now close your eyes again. Deep breath in and go to a memory where you grew, where you had just like an amazing amount of growth in a short period of time. And how does that stress feel in your body? So let your body know the difference. So now whenever you’re out in the world and you feel these different kinds of stress, your body knows the difference between these stresses. Some of this is based on tolerance. Meaning I can run not as long as you can run. You’re you can run much longer than I can run. your body has practiced. There’s all sorts of things that you’ve done that make it that you can run longer. But I can probably play pickle ball longer than you can play pickle ball without getting wiped out. And so there’s a a thing that happens around stress that can allow stress to be different in our systems. Stress for the stress of pickle ball to me isn’t destructive. The stress of pickle ball to you if you played it for a long time would be destructive. your knees or your ankles or something would start giving because I’ve built up some muscles to it. So, you can’t even get to say, “Okay, the it’s the right amount of stress that’s good for you and the right amount of stress that’s bad or the wrong amount of stress that’s bad for you.” You can’t determine what the good amount of stress is from anything besides the way that it feels in your system at the moment and if it’s pushing you into destructive behavior or if it’s pushing you into growth behavior. So there’s a sense a felt sense of stress in your system that feels like growth and there is a felt sense of stress that feels deteriorating. And then you can intellectually get above that and look and see, oh well, if it is growth, I’m doing things that aren’t creating shame when I’m under stress. Oh, I just did this thing. I’m under stress. I just did this thing and I don’t feel any shame. That’s growth. I’m under stress. I’m doing this thing. It’s created some shame. It’s doing I’m doing things that I’m not proud of, right? I’m repeating a pattern. I’m doing a bad habit. I’m I’m uh doing anything that makes me feel like I’m not as good or that I I don’t want to do it or I shouldn’t do it or why did I do that or regretting that all that stuff. That’s when stress is deteriorating. So, it’s not really about how much stress, it’s about how your system is handling the stress. And the way that I think about it is that there’s no way to get rid of stress in life. There’s you can’t do it without dying, but you can hold it ever more gently. So, right now in your system, there’s stress. You can feel it. There’s stress in my vocal cords talking to you. There’s a little stress in the words that I’m saying. I’m not saying all my words like this, right? There’s a little stress. How gently can I hold that stress? How much am I resisting the stress? Right? It’s it’s in every it’s just oh there’s going to be stress there’s no way I can talk without some stress but how gently can I hold the stress that’s the question and as you are thinking about oh is this creating shame or is this creating growth the opportunity that increases your capacity like your capacity to run or my capacity to play pickle ball is how gently you can hold the stress the felt sense of gently holding the stress In this experiment, we’re going to see what it’s like to hold stress gently. And so, don’t let your mind get too confused in this. It’s just a sematic thing of holding gently or holding really, really tightly. So, feel stress. Any stress you have in your system, any stress that you’re holding from the day, if you can’t find any stress that’s big enough, go into some issue that you’re having in your life. remember it and let that stress start kicking up. And first thing I want you to do is just hold it as tightly as you possibly can. Like really hold on to that stress really really tightly. And now take a breath in and see what it’s like to hold that same stress. Don’t try to change the stress, but hold that same stress just as gently as possible. Just it’s there. It’s hanging out. And you’re just being very gentle in your holding of it. And now go back to holding it as tightly as possible. Tightly as possible. And now as gently as possible, just super tender with the stress. Just here you are. I got you. That’s the difference in your body between holding stress tightly and holding stress gently. Our two kids, they were second one had just been born. We hadn’t had enough sleep in gez whatever it was. And my wife and I were fighting constantly at this point. We’re justah super stressed out and we were what’s wrong with the marriage? What do we have to do? Counseling, you know, what’s is it this about me? Is it this about her? What’s happening? We were just in this thing. And uh I think it was a friend of ours was like, “Oh, we’ll take care of the kids and one of you can go to a hot springs.” And and I got to go first. I don’t know how I got so lucky. And I I uh slept I think for I think it was like 18 hours straight the first night and 14 hours the second night, just dead to the world. And when I came back, my wife went and she slept the same amount. And then we came home and there wasn’t any problems in the marriage anymore. And it blew me away because we had always thought about if there’s any problems in the marriage, it’s because something’s going on emotionally or psychologically. It was just about sleep. There was no actual problem in the marriage. And then I started really paying attention to this about stress. Oh, if I’m stressed, is it because of the thoughts that I’m having? Is it because I’m not having enough sleep? Is it because I am emotionally overwhelmed? And that’s when a whole another set of patterns showed up, especially when it comes to work. What I noticed is when I was working really hard and I would feel overwhelmed by that, fully stressed out by how much I had to do. If I had a big cry or if I got angry or I had frustration, I release some emotion. All of a sudden, it wasn’t I found out it wasn’t about having so much to do. the next day I’d be doing the same stuff and I wouldn’t be stressed out. Or I would find out, oh, it’s it’s not about my stress. It’s about I’m I’m in a culture where I need to be stressed to seem relevant or to look like I’m doing my job. So, the emotional release became another way that I realized, oh, what I think I’m stressed about isn’t actually what I’m stressed about. And what I notice is when we get stressed, we tie it to something and say this is the thing that that we’re stressed about, but actually we haven’t investigated that fully. We haven’t done the experiments to say, “Oh, how can I find what I’m actually what is the underlying stress?” And so one of the most important things that you can do when you feel that stress and you’re like oh I want to I want to address the stress is to start investigating what could be all the possibilities that is the main culprit in creating that stress.