The AMPcast with Aliza Marie Prokop

Episode 17-Understanding Stress: What’s Really Happening Beneath the Surface with Gaylyn Williams

• Aliza Marie Prokop • Season 1 • Episode 17

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0:00 | 19:59

Stress isn’t just something that happens to us—it’s something that builds within us. In this episode, Aliza is joined by author, speaker, and President of Relationship Resources, Gaylyn Williams, for a deep conversation on what stress really is and how it shows up in our lives. They explore how even good things—like marriage, a new baby, or buying a home—can create pressure, and how our expectations, fears, and past trauma often amplify it. Gaylyn also shares powerful personal moments and practical wisdom on how to recognize what we’re carrying and how to refocus our hearts on Jesus in the middle of it all. This is a conversation that will help you see stress differently—and learn how to walk through it with clarity and faith.

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SPEAKER_00

Good evening. We begin tonight with an issue that continues to affect millions long after the original events have passed. Trauma. Mental health experts say trauma from earlier life experiences often resurfaces years later, influencing emotional responses, physical health, and relationships. While the incidents may be in the past, the body and brain can remain in a heightened state of survival.

SPEAKER_05

I wish I could just forget about everything that happened to me so long ago. But these memories haunt me.

SPEAKER_06

I know it's over, but it doesn't feel over. I need help, but I'm afraid to open up about my past.

SPEAKER_04

I survived, but I don't feel alive. I want to heal, but I'm scared of what that means.

SPEAKER_03

And this lady sitting next to me, I met yesterday and said, Hey, I think you would be really good to be on this podcast because this is a force of nature. Galen Williams. She's written many books, she's been honored, and the book that caught my eye is called All Stressed Up and Everywhere to Go: Solutions to De-Stressing Your Life and Recovering Your Sanity. I mean, come on. If you don't relate to this, then you're not breathing because everybody has something going on that we can tie this to. You can also look up her information. We'll give you all of the links at the end, all of her books at the end, but I want to introduce her and thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me. So give us a little bit of background, just the generic, who you are, what you do, what brought you here.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I'm the president of Relationship Resources, have been running that. It's a nonprofit for 26 years. We empower people in their relationships with God themselves and others through books and training. So I've written 42 books. Wow. And traveled around the world doing workshops. Yes. I live in Israel part-time and serve serve them. Wow. They have a bit of stress over there. It's a little stressful. A little bit. Yes. Yes. And so you're helping people there too. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_03

I started doing stress workshops when I'm over there now. That's so my background is trauma, and the two of these things are linked inextricably. Yes. I think. What can you tell us about the trajectory that you see worldwide if you'd like, but you can bring it to any capacity you'd like. But the trajectory of what stress is doing in numbers now. It's going up. You see more people, you find more people that are suffering from this. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_02

And you know, we have so many, so many helpful things now, supposedly, in this day and age. Yes. And yet there's more and more and more stress. People are just, well, over stressed. Yes, they are. Yeah, there's there's a high percentage of people say that their stress is an eight out of ten. Oh, wow. Which, I mean, that's consistently like if you were to ask. That's where they're living. That's where they're living. That's where they're part of. And and most have at least uh five out of ten, at least.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. You know, when we get clients in, I always give them what we call the Holmes Rahey stress scale. I don't know if you're familiar with that. It's it's for the therapist, all of us. And on that stressor scale, we circle different things if the person has had this occur to them in the past 12 months. And when you look at the things that are on the stressor scale, you are like, why is that on the stressor scale? But they're good things too. Oh, absolutely. Marriage, baby, winning the lottery, got a new home. Like, what can you say about that? Do you see people with not just the bad, but the good?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yes, a lot of times people think that the stress is only the bad stuff. Yeah. Um, but no, anything, anything can cause stress.

SPEAKER_03

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

Um but one of the things that most people don't recognize that's causes stress, they look at the the situations, the the stress situations that happen, but it's the internal stuff, the stuff that we bring with us into a new stress situation that causes the whatever stress we're feeling to get much bigger. So things like our our attitudes, our expectations, our sore spots, so things like our fears, anxieties, unforgiveness, resentment, yes, those kinds of things, if they're not dealt with uh because and most of those come up because of some sort of trauma. Trauma, we're getting there, yeah. Yes. But if those aren't dealt with, then when we go into another stress situation, then it just makes it appear so much greater.

SPEAKER_03

That's right. And so that's exact I like the way you said that. It makes it appear so much greater because we have people that come to sessions, let's say a couple, let's say a married couple comes in and the husband says, My wife goes zero to a hundred like over something so unimportant, like the pot roast burned, or she didn't get invited to the neighbor's party, or she went zero to a hundred and it's not an emotional, emotionally regulated thing, and there's something wrong with her. And then we point the finger at that person, make them feel shame, but in reality, it's a reaction to the trauma she had.

unknown

Right?

SPEAKER_02

Is that what you see? Yes, definitely. Okay. Yeah, and it it uh affects our perspective if we haven't dealt with the past. So can I just give a story for the thing? I used to work with my dad before he passed away, and I actually wrote this uh this book on stress with my dad. I see that. Ken Williams PhD. Yes, and he used to do traveling around. Well, we'd travel around the world doing training for missionaries together, but he was a counselor, and he one day he met with two different couples. They lived on the same street, worked for the same ministry, did the same basic type of work. They came in at uh one right after the other. The first couple came in and said, Oh, we're so sad we have to leave this amazing country. We love the work, we love the people, we love the food, we love where we where we live, everything about it, but we have to go because her mom was sick. Oh so they had to come back to the United States. The second couple came in.

SPEAKER_03

It's different, I bet.

SPEAKER_02

Same scenario. Everything was the same. They came in and they said, We are leaving this country. We hate it, we hate the work, we hate the ministry, we hate everything about it, we hate the people. We are leaving. Same situation. Everything was the same. What did you take from that? It's their internal stress, it's what they brought with them into that situation. Yeah, it is. So it wasn't a different situation.

SPEAKER_03

It was their person, their psyche, their memories, their trauma, their residual effects that came with it. Yeah. And and it put on a different pair of glasses, right? So they saw it differently, felt it differently. Yeah. So the book, tell me why you wrote the book then. Tell me about this all stressed up and everywhere to go solutions to de-stressing your life and recovering your sanity. Tell me what prompted you to actually write this particular book.

SPEAKER_02

Well, we had trained a huge network of people around the world, mostly missionaries, also in churches, but mostly missionaries, on how to manage stress. And right now we've we've trained between 50,000 and 100,000 people in it.

SPEAKER_03

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

But the skills, it was only available for people who went through the workshop. So I wanted to make it available to anyone so anyone can walk through these um very powerful practical strategies on their own. And they're they're easy to apply. I looked at them, they're great.

SPEAKER_03

They're things we could use in therapy sessions. I could use this with clients. Easy to apply. So can you give us a little teaser on maybe one thing that you would say is your favorite or one of your favorite things out of this book? Or are they all your favorite?

SPEAKER_02

Everything is your favorite. They all they all build on each other. Okay. So it's important. I mean, the beginning it starts off trying we need to understand what stress is and how it affects us and what our stressors are because sometimes we don't recognize what they are, and so one of the first things that that we have people do is write down all of their stressors that they have. Okay. And so when I do and I still go through this process on my own, even after training for over 25 years. Okay. When I do it myself, it's amazing how many of them are the internal things. You know, I'm concerned about such and such, or worrying. Oh, we're Christians, we don't work. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I have a PhD in worrying. I'm a worriologist. Yeah, so uh so many of them are things like that. Yeah, it's true. So so that's the beginning, and then looking at how it affects us overall, how it affects us specifically, um, with symptoms that we may be developing when we're over stressed, and it's very important to learn what the symptoms are. Yeah, because we're each different. We are God created everything. Every one of us different. Um, and then there's working through specific ways to work through the the stressors that are on there. Um, and then the last the last one is focusing our eyes on on the Lord. And from Hebrews 12, 2, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. So what uh one thing I love about this verse that most people don't know is in the Greek it's one word, the fixing our eyes, or fix our eyes. Okay. And it has a dual meaning. Tell me. It means to look away from something and to look towards something. So I cannot be focused on my pile of problems, whatever they may be, and focused on the Lord. I have to choose. You can't serve two masters. Yeah, right. We have to choose. And can I give you an example of a time? Yes. So my second son was born with numerous problems. And he was in the hospital for three the first three months, and I was just stressed and anxious, and well, at that point I wasn't ad acknowledging that I was angry, but I was angry. You were why would God I mean, I'm serving God, I'm a missionary, why would God allow this? Well, when he was three months old, the doctor sat us down and said, because he'd seen um like 25 pediatric specialists had six surgeries, and when he was six months old, she sat us down and she told us that he has six to twelve months left to live. Oh no. And you would think that that would be the darkest day for me. But it was just like God met me in such an amazing way, and I really I mean, right sitting in that doctor's office. I still can picture the doctor's office because I realized that I had been trusting the doctors to to fix my son, and they could do nothing. I had to trust God, that was my only choice. And you did? So, yes, and God just flooded me with this peace and joy. It was so amazing. But then walking the that out was not necessarily easy. So every day I would have to choose to focus in on the Lord. And I'm sure you know that little song, Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory. And you know, there's there's a lot of truth in there because our problem we focus on the Lord and our problems don't don't necessarily grow, as I tell my clients that are. Yeah, but the problems don't necessarily go away. They can, but they grow strangely dim. And so I would sing that song sometimes I think I it would be 30 or 40 times before I could really take my eyes off of my problem because I had a very real problem. I'm sure you did. He was he was the last his last month, he only lived six months, almost six months. Um, his last month he was on high levels of oxygen, and he was so blue that most days I didn't think he was gonna make it through the day. Through the day. And yet God continued to give me strength and peace and even joy in the midst of that time.

SPEAKER_03

How? It's there's no earthly way. Like there's no logic to this. No. At all.

SPEAKER_02

No, but then again, God's ways aren't always logical, right?

SPEAKER_03

They're you they're usually or they're often not logical. Exactly. And that's why I I think it's better to look to him because if we try to figure it out, at least in my life, if I try to figure something out, I'm gonna mess it up. So that's just a that's a given. Yes. So, okay, looking at the book then and looking at your experience and the trauma that you went through and how you are today, what would you say to someone who is all stressed and they say, But I I have to work, I have to support my family. I can't afford I wish I could go to Bermuda. I wish I if I'm sure you've heard this, right? But I have to pay my bills and I I have to take care of my elderly parent and get my kids to basketball practice. What would you say to that person or to a person who feels trapped?

SPEAKER_02

Well, a lot of times they don't like what I say. That's okay, we want to hear. Because they need to take the time to work through their stress. To go through the sim whether it's in in my book or or something else, um, very practical strategies to work through the stress because until you can work through it, then it's gonna keep on bothering you. And yes, well, going through the process, you might get be able to get rid of some of the things that you're doing.

SPEAKER_03

Um but is it perspective, how you view what you're doing as much as possible?

SPEAKER_02

But part of it is learning to deal with your internal stress. It's dealing with that and and learning to see, okay, so how does stress affect me? Because we we all develop symptoms. Right. And they can be physical, emotional, spiritual. We all develop symptoms when we're overstressed. And so those symptoms can either be friends or enemies. They're friends if we recognize them when we start to feel them.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Uh and not start to spirit start to experience them. Or they're enemies, you know, if we don't do something about it, because then that can begin to damage our health, begin to damage our relationships, um, and put us potentially into burnout. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03

And I see burnout inventory on page 38. I was impressed seeing that. That's this is tangible and a lot of clients want that. You know, they want something that they can look at. So thank you. I I could talk to you for another half hour. Um tell us in closing, then, how people can find you. Um I see you have another book. You have several of them. You've written 42, but we have God's Lavish Love. Devotion, so you wrote a devotional. I've written a whole bunch of devotions. A whole bunch with the that's beautiful. God's lavish love, devotions to draw you deeper into God's heart, and then explore God's heart for Israel. Discover Israel's importance for the end times. And how can oh, and that's a 12-week study, Bible study. Cool. How can people get a hold of you or see your work?

SPEAKER_02

Um, you can go to relationshipresources.org. Relationshipresources.org. There's a tab at the top of the page for Israel. Okay. And you can get a a resource kit on God's Heart for Israel on there. But on the front page, um, if you go about halfway down the page, there's 52 free stress management tips. Oh. And you'll get one a week. They're just very, very short and easy to apply. Okay.

SPEAKER_03

I think I may do that because I'm I'm a little bit stressed, just a little bit here. Um, all good stress, but you know, I notice I need to sleep a little bit more, maybe cut the caffeine. Those are on my to-do lists. You know, they're coming. But thank you very much. You can reach us at ampcounseling.com if you want to learn more about me or my podcast. We're on all the platforms. Definitely give us a like and a share. I think this could be shared with everybody. Again, I think stress is universal. How you deal with it may not be. So definitely look it up and check us out and check out Galen Williams. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you. That's it from the floor of the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm Aliza Pro Cop. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next week. Have a good week.

SPEAKER_01

You've been listening to the Amp Cast with Aliza Marie ProCop. To find out more, go to Ampcounseling.com. You can discover more information about all our services that we offer. Be sure to follow our social media platforms using the icons at the bottom of the page. Don't forget to check out our show notes for today's episode, where we will have links and contact info for today's guests. Well, that's all the time we have for this episode. Thanks for joining us, and we will see you next time for another edition of the Ampcast with Eliza Marie Pro Cop Dealing and Healing from Trauma.