Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the primal potential podcast and our consistency 365

series. I'm Elizabeth Benton. I was thinking the other day about this phase in my life.

It was a handful of years ago when I got really into hot yoga. I think I did like 30 hot

yoga classes in 30 days or 60 and 60 or something like that. I really was taking hot yoga

very regularly because there was a studio within walking distance of my house and that

just made it really convenient. I didn't have kids so I had plenty of time for that sort

of thing. I was remembering something that one of the instructors shared that still helps

me in moments where I begin to talk myself out of my commitments, my decisions. He was

talking about the difference between intensity and stress. He said intensity happens. Stress

is chosen. You can go through an intense moment, an intense experience, an intense situation

and choose to remain peaceful or you can react in a stressed manner. I was thinking about

this last night because we had all three kids out to dinner. Chris and I and all three kids.

I know three kids is not a lot of kids to a lot of people but we have two one year olds

and a two year old. That can just be a lot at dinner time if you're out in public and you

don't have reinforcements. It was just a situation where there was no place on the table to put

our meals where none of the three kids could reach and grab them and pull the plates off

the table so we had our plates on chairs next to the table and we had cups on the chair.

It was chaotic and kids were getting into things and knocking things over, dropping bottles.

It was wild and that was an intense moment. I mean I'm the spectrum of intensity pretty low

but it was a reminder to me that intensity happens and stress is chosen. It's not an inherently

stressful situation but I can react stressed. I can react with tension but I don't have to.

You can go through an intense moment and choose to stay calm and peaceful.

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