Ep 2: Use the Stress—Don’t Let It Use You

Most people think stress is the problem—but it’s not.
In this episode, Chris “Rhino” Swenson breaks down how stress actually works, why it can either help or hurt you, and how to take back control in the moments that matter most. Learn a simple, practical tool to stay steady under pressure and start carrying life differently.

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Welcome to the Rhino Resilience Podcast. I'm Chris Rhino Swensen. This is where we build calm, strength grounded resilience, and the mindset to carry what life throws at us, especially in rural life. Let's get into it. Okay, so welcome to the podcast. And, uh, today's episode, I am going to be talking about how to carry that stress, how to carry it. And so before we begin, I really need to talk about that. It's not just gonna be. Stress for the long haul. Like there's a difference between stress in the moment, like when the moment hits and everything's going crazy compared to stress that you're carrying for days and weeks and months, right? So I'm gonna be talking about in the moment, like when you're just overwhelmed when things get hit. Okay? And I'll be covering the long-term stuff on another podcast, but let me ask you this. Have you ever had one of those moments where everything hits at once? Yeah. I mean, your mind starts racing, right? I mean, your chest starts to tighten up. You can feel it in your body before you even have time to think. And maybe it's something at work. I don't know, maybe it's something at home. Um, or just one more thing piled up on top of everything you're already carrying. Yeah. That's not failing. That's your system doing exactly what it was designed to do. Okay? Most people think stress is the problem. They think, if I could just get rid of this, I'd be fine. But stress isn't the enemy. Your brain and your body are wired to respond to pressure. It's automatic. You don't choose it. It just happens. In a lot of ways it's actually trying to help you. It's trying to give you energy and focus and strength. It's trying to get you ready to deal with whatever is in front of you. But many of you may be wondering, I mean, if stress is actually trying to help you, why does it feel like it's taking you down? You know, like why does it feel like sometimes it's too much like it's running the show instead of you. Okay. That's what we're gonna get into today. So let's build on that, because if you live in a rural community, you already know something about pressure, right? I mean, this is not something I'm talking about theoretical. This is real life, right? Because you've got long days, early mornings, late nights, responsibilities that don't pause because you're too tired. Think about it like crops don't wait. Animals don't wait. Bills don't wait. And there are people out there counting on you. And what happens over time is, is you get used to carrying that weight. You expect it, you tell yourself this is just how it is, but here's what most people don't understand about stress. How you view stress actually changes what it does to your body. This isn't just mindset talk, this is biology. The thing is, if you see stress as something harmful, something that's taking you down, your body will respond that way. What happens is your blood vessels tighten. When you take that view, your system goes into protection mode more, and over time, that starts to wear you down. But if you learn to see the same stress differently as if your body is gearing you up, getting you ready to meet the demand in front of you, which it is, something starts to shift, your systems stay more open, right? Those vessels remain open. They don't pinch just because of the way you view it. You start to think more clearly and you can actually use that energy. Now, here's the important part. The stress response itself, right? That's automatic, right? You don't have to choose that. It's built into you, right? That just happens automatically. Stress hits, it's running. That's why it feels like, it's like it's running the show instead of you, but what you do with it, how you manage it, that part is not automatic. That part is learned. That part is, is trained. You know, this is the part where you take back your control of it. And what we are gonna talk about today, and this is something that most people also miss about stress. Um, they think the goal is to get rid of stress. It's not. So I'd like to you kind of explain it and think of stress like a, like a range. Like there's a place where it helps you and a place where it starts to take you down. Right? If you don't, like, if you're on the one end and you, you don't have enough stress at all, you can feel that too, because now you're, you're dragging, you know, it's hard to get going. You're unmotivated, you're hard to focus. It's almost like you're stuck in neutral. But when the pressure hits that middle zone, that's where something clicks. You're sharper, you're more focused, you're more aware. You're in it, right? Think about it. If you've ever had one of those days where everything just flowed because then you handled things, you made decisions, you stayed on top of it, that's what you were in that zone. But then there's the other side, right? And most people know this all really too well when it gets too high, because now it's not helping anymore. Now it's starting to stack, right? One problem turns into five. One comment hits harder than it should. One mistake feels like everything is falling apart. And now you're not thinking clearly because you're reacting. You know, you're snapping, you're, you're shutting down, you're going quiet, or your mind just won't shut off. And the hard part of this is, is from the outside, people expect you to hold it together. Because that's what you've always done. So basically, the goal isn't to get rid of stress because that's not realistic. The goal is to learn how to work with it and stay in that zone where it actually works for you. And this is where most people get stuck, right? Because the one side is automatic, it just runs. But managing it doesn't. That's the part because nobody ever really taught you how to do that. You know, in rural life, the message is usually pretty simple, right? Push through, handle it, figure it out, don't complain. And there's strength in that. Don't get me wrong, there really is, but there's also a cost because when all you know how to do is to push through, then you never actually learn how to manage what's happening inside of you. So instead of using stress, you get taken over by it, and it doesn't always show up the way people think. Right? Sometimes it might look like you start snapping at your spouse, or you're being pretty short with your kids more than you want it to be. You know, sometimes people shut down, you know, not talking, keeping everything inside, just trying to get through the day, and sometimes it's laying in bed at night where you're tired, exhausted. But your mind keeps running, running through everything like what you did, what you didn't do, what's coming tomorrow. And then the next day you wake up and do it all over again. And at some point you, you start to wonder what's wrong with me? And the truth is, nothing is wrong with you. You've just never been taught how to work with this. And that's where this shift starts to matter. So let me give you something simple to hold onto. Something you can come back to when things start building, right? So remember, the goal is not to eliminate stress because you can't, and honestly, you wouldn't want to. You need some pressure. That's what helps you show up, get things done, take care of what matters. But the goal is to control it and use it. Not be abused and debilitated by it, because when stress is running the show, it takes more from you than it gives. But when you learn how to use it, it actually starts working for you. So how do you actually do that, right? How do you actually do all that? I mean, in the middle of real life, right? Let me give you something simple, something you can use when things start stacking up, right? We need to start simple, and I've always said that when you start to learn anything new, it's the same thing we all did as as little ones where you had to learn to crawl first, then walk, then run. You just don't start running. So let's start crawling. Let's give you something simple that you can use today, right? So it comes down in a simple thing. It's called like PBC, right? Pause, breathe. Choose. Pause, breathe, choose PB, C, however you remember that. But the, the beginning part is pause, right? So the first thing when the stress hits and it's, it's on, you've got to interrupt that moment because when the stress hits, it hits fast. And if you don't slow it down, it's gonna take over before you even realize it. So you pause even if it's just for a, a few seconds, right? Maybe you're in the truck, out in the shop, or maybe you're standing in the kitchen. Just stop. Get your feet on the ground, look around, create a little space. Just let things settle for a little bit before responding. And that brings us to the be the breathe, right? Because the first part is you gotta get control. The mind, slow it down, but your body is freaking out. And so now you gotta calm the body. And the only way to calm the body is through breathing. And I know that you're breathing, right? Because if you're not breathing, you're no longer here. You don't have to worry about the stress. But what I'm saying is there's a particular way in which we breathe, right? So you have to calm the body because if your body's fired up right, your mind is not gonna think clearly. And this isn't anything complicated, like you don't need an app, you don't need a whole program. It's just simple. Just slow it down and then inhale and then have a longer exhale. That's what's important. Your exhale has to be longer than the inhale. Now, there's a whole bunch of technical jargon of why that is and a different nervous systems, but I don't want to get into that. And sometimes that's kind of boring as well. But you breathe in through your nose. Maybe 2, 2, 3 in, and then exhale out, right? Have you ever heard anyone do like a sigh of relief? Like they just, that's it. They exhale is longer than the inhale. So you do that a few times and you'll start to feel it, right? Your shoulders kind of drop. I mean, your chest might loosen things start to settle. But what's important to understand is the stress doesn't just go away, but it begins to slow down enough to keep you in that right zone. Okay? And once you get those things more settled down, now you come to the final choose because instead of the stress choosing for you, now you get your say, right? Instead of reacting according to stress, instead of letting that moment decide for you. You can ask, how do I want to carry this? How am I gonna respond? What is my next step? And in these times, you don't have to fix everything. You don't have to solve the whole week, just what's the next right step. And this is where this really starts to show up in real life. I'm gonna give you some stories here to kind of talk about what we were saying. I. 'cause it's not an easy thing. You know, it isn't that I've done all this training and managing everything that I'm perfect and I'm not human because we all are human, right? Those emotions don't just go away. And so sometimes there can be times I'm pretty stressed out or I'm ticked off or whatever it might be, and I'm just, uh, you know, running around. And so what I've learned is, you know, as a human, we, we've got to acknowledge that. We have to at least kind of have a little bit of our moment to throw our fit, perhaps right before we need to settle down. So one simple thing that I always do is I'll grab my phone and put a timer on it, you know, for like one minute. I mean, sometimes, depending on how it worked up, hey, it might be two, you know, but one minute I put it on there and say, all right Chris, you got a minute, you know, let it out. Throw your fit. Do what you gotta do, because after that minute. Now's the time that, okay, it is what it is. It's happening. No need to keep complaining about it, describing it, but now whatcha gonna do? How are you gonna respond? And then a lot of times it becomes where, what is my next step? Right? What's my next step for me? Uh, my question always is, what are my options? What are my options? And then I work the problem. It's always working the problem, step by step, one little thing at a time. Not everything, like I said. And so sometimes that might be something that you could try. You know, years ago a friend of mine, he had such terrible social anxiety and he really couldn't, you know, had a hard time in social places, all this stuff, um, difficult to kind of get outta the house. We spent a lot of time just hanging out with him playing video games, but he really wanted to, to find someone, you know, like a girlfriend, things like that. He told me that, you know, he, he decided that he needed to call backup in and go to a counselor, which is truly courageous. And that's kind of how I see it. It's, you know, don't have to fight any of this stuff by yourself. Go, go get some backup and get some help. You know? And he did, and he was working with. This counselor for quite a long time on the different skills and the skill sets to manage this. And so that, okay, when I go on this date, I'm gonna be great. You know, I can, I'm gonna be good, control this anxiety so it doesn't control me. And he worked very hard on it. And then he told me that he went out on this date and, um, he was going to order. And when he looked down at the menu, he couldn't see anything on the menu. And if you know anything about when that. Anxiety level gets up there, you're gonna be very shaky. You're gonna have a difficult time sometimes seeing where in the right spot your eyesight improves, your hearing improves. Like you're getting geared up. This is the best spot, but when it gets too high, now you're getting debilitated. And so he couldn't see anything on the menu. And so I asked him like, what'd you do? He just said, um, I ordered what, what she did. Um, but, but the story kind of talks about that, you know, it's not something that we just get, we learn and we got it and there's, you know, we're never gonna have any problems with stress again. It's not that we're all human take some time to do, you know, but there are some phenomenal people out there that they've really got it, you know, and you can train and work to get to that level. I'm gonna tell you a story about Nelson Mandela. Um, I'm not sure if you know who Nelson Mandela is, but if, if you don't, just check it out on Google. But he's a very famous individual, and there's this story that he was on a plane and he was reading a newspaper, and suddenly the plane had some problems. I don't know if it was nose diving, falling out of the sky, something was going on and there was this younger person next to him on the plane. Well, anyways, um. When they landed the, the pilot finally got control and, and did land the plane safely. The, the young person next to, to Mandela was totally surprised because he was like, how did you do that? Like, the plane was not doing well. Everyone was panicking, and you sat there and read the newspaper like nothing was going on. Mandela told him, are you kidding me? I was scared. I was freaking out. Right. There goes to kind of show that inside. He might not have showed in the outside, but he was, he was having all that. But I would imagine if you know about his life, I mean he is been through a lot where there's probably been a lot of training and practice to manage himself in some very tight situations, you know, um, kind of a simple story and. My dad has shared this with me many times. When he was, when he was younger, a teenager and he was working on the farm, he was telling me that, you know, he would work for his uncles up there, my great uncles. And uh, one day he was driving a, a grain truck into town. Drop off the grain and something, how he must have got off the road a bit, I don't know. But it tipped over sideways. It dumped all the grain out in the ditch. And man, he got out. He thought, man, he was decent trouble. They're gonna, they're gonna let me have it, you know, I'm dead. This is it. You know, if you've ever been young and messed up. And he walks back, excuse me, and he gets to the farm and he approaches both my. My two great uncles, almo Morris asks and tells them what happened, and he told me that they just, they just like stopped stare. And then they said, well, let's go get the auger, get it back up. And that was it. And he was amazed. My dad was like, how? Whoa. I'm not even in trouble. How did they do this? And knowing my great uncles throughout the time was the same thing. They're always so calm and cool, collective levelheaded. But I know inside they must have been thinking in their mind like, what? What did you do? Now I gotta take time outta my day to go do what I'm sure all that was going on. But they paused and then they went right into what's the next step, you know? So to me, the big part of this is that when you start to engage with this and you start to do this, you start to see this play out and you begin to notice something important because the people that you think are calm under pressure, you know those ones that seem steady, who seem like they've got it all together, they're not calm, they feel the same pressure, you feel the same stress, the same weight. The difference is they've learned how to work with it. They've trained themselves to slow it down, to stay steady and to not let it take them out. Kind of a little simple tool. We talked today, and when you start to do this, that also changes how you start to see yourself, right? Because this is what strong people actually do. Okay? This is the truth. They don't ignore stress. I mean, they don't pretend it's not there. They face it. They work with it. They learn how to carry it, and that's something you're not born with. That's something you build and you build it very simply. Like when you're in those moments, every time you pause, every time you breathe, every time you choose, you're building it, you're doing it. You're training in your mind whether you were successful or not. Each time you do that. You're gonna get better and you're building it. You know, if you're still listening to this right now, there's a reason for that. Okay? You know, I care deeply, and if you've made this far that says something about you, because most people don't slow down long enough to even look at this, right? They just avoid it. They push it down, they stay busy, but you didn't. You leaned into it, and that takes strength and learning to carry this differently. That takes courage as well. So if this helps you today, there's more waiting for you, you can head over to the website, rhino resilience.com, check out the blog, sign up for the newsletter, right? And we'll keep building this together, you know. You don't need a different life. You just need a different way to carry it. I just want to thank you all for listening today and share this with anyone you feel who needs to hear this. You know, be sure to subscribe and like the podcast and definitely get signed up for that newsletter. But with that. I hope you have a great day.