Speaker 1: Pastor Chad Hoven, lead pastor at the Horizon Community Church
Speaker 1: right there in Newtown along the banks of the Little
Speaker 1: Miami River. What a beautiful morning it is, Pastor Chad.
Speaker 1: How are you today?
Speaker 2: I'm doing pretty well. How about yourself?
Speaker 1: No complaints, absolutely none. It was very I got a
Speaker 1: little broken up here talking about that new exhibit that
Speaker 1: is starting down at the Cincinnati Museum Center about Auschwitz,
Speaker 1: and boy, if people go to Cincinnati Museum dot org
Speaker 1: they will see just some of the pictures video. It
Speaker 1: just tears you'll, okay, I tell you what else tears
Speaker 1: people up this time of year at Chad. We're getting
Speaker 1: into the holidays, and it's a time of great joy,
Speaker 1: of thankfulness, of celebration, hopefully spending a lot of time
Speaker 1: with family and friends. It is also, I would imagine
Speaker 1: you tell me from your shoes, walking in your shoes,
Speaker 1: it has to be one of the most stressful times
Speaker 1: of the year for a lot of folks out there.
Speaker 2: Well, without a doubt. In fact, if you think about
Speaker 2: just what we try and accomplish just in Christmas time,
Speaker 2: for example, you're going to if I told you any
Speaker 2: other months in the next thirty days, you're going to
Speaker 2: have five different parties, you're going to buy gifts for
Speaker 2: everybody you know, you're going to travel to three different
Speaker 2: locations on and you're going to decorate the house. You
Speaker 2: can tear everything down. You'd say I would never try
Speaker 2: and do all that in one thirty day period of time.
Speaker 2: So just the nature what we take on, and part
Speaker 2: of those are all wonderful experiences or attempts to create
Speaker 2: wonderful environments, but just the amount we take on in
Speaker 2: preparing for that. And then yes, you're with people that
Speaker 2: you love and care about, but also people that drive
Speaker 2: you crazy. And so in what's sense, we're all stressed up,
Speaker 2: all stressed up, but no place to go. And so
Speaker 2: I do think learning how to deal with our stress.
Speaker 2: Having expectations often causes stress too, because you're like, hey,
Speaker 2: I know everyone's going to get along. Well they've never
Speaker 2: given not everyone has ever gotten along ever before. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's normal to a misunderstanding. It's normal for you know,
Speaker 2: one person doesn't want this or wants to eat it
Speaker 2: this time. So I think a lot of it with
Speaker 2: stress is setting your expectation. And also I think understanding
Speaker 2: where stress comes from and how to handle it can
Speaker 2: be helpful especial needs dad. One thing I learned over
Speaker 2: sixteen years, you know, I've had a special needs son
Speaker 2: with severe autism, is my circumstances weren't going to change radically.
Speaker 2: You know, I had a stressful situation. I think for
Speaker 2: many of us, we think stress is something that happens
Speaker 2: to you versus something happens in you. There's a big difference. Now,
Speaker 2: that's not to say they aren't triggers when things happen. Yes,
Speaker 2: those happened to me. But two people can encounter the
Speaker 2: exact same circumstance and handle it very differently. Well, that
Speaker 2: tells you something. That tells you that stress is not
Speaker 2: primarily what happens to you, is what happens in you.
Speaker 2: How are you going to process that? I like sometimes
Speaker 2: the stress of because ongoing chaos of special needs was
Speaker 2: like driving a car from here to Chicago. And just
Speaker 2: so when you hop in the car with me, I
Speaker 2: locked the doors and say, hey, by the way, I
Speaker 2: enjoy your ride to Chicago. By the way, there's two
Speaker 2: wasts here. One of the wasts you can see is
Speaker 2: right there on your windshield. The other one, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure where it is. Enjoy your ride, and that's how
Speaker 2: I feel. Sometimes it's like I know one of the
Speaker 2: things I need to deal with, there's another one hiding
Speaker 2: in this car, and I can occasionally hear the buzz.
Speaker 2: What happens then, is your whole body, your your inner
Speaker 2: RPM goes up to like, you know, seven thousand rpm,
Speaker 2: and you're like, well, I need to call myself back
Speaker 2: down to one thousand rpm. I can't. There's two wasps
Speaker 2: in this car. One I can see, and one's going
Speaker 2: to bite me at any minute or sting me in minutes.
Speaker 2: So part of what I had to learn is there
Speaker 2: were often two wasps, one I knew about and one
Speaker 2: I didn't. Almost every day, I need to learn how
Speaker 2: to the one and not say my circumstance is going
Speaker 2: to change to get me distressed. It's something happened in me.
Speaker 2: I need to learn how to better manage the things
Speaker 2: I have, how to think about it differently. And then
Speaker 2: I had to practice getting that rpm. I could never
Speaker 2: get it quite down to one thousand rpm, but I
Speaker 2: can move from eight to five. And part that's what
Speaker 2: scientists called neuroplasticity, and that's the ability to actually kind
Speaker 2: of reform your physical brain with your mind. How am
Speaker 2: I going to think about this? How can I process that.
Speaker 2: I've mentioned this before, but one thing helps with stress
Speaker 2: is what I call hippo wrestling. A lot of times
Speaker 2: you think you're dealing with the real issue, but you're
Speaker 2: actually dealing with your hip thalmas. And so when you
Speaker 2: get triggered for stress, it kind of goes in three stages.
Speaker 2: Stage one iss a trigger and it could be something
Speaker 2: happens to you. It could be I think about something
Speaker 2: that might happen. If I'm a warrior, I could be
Speaker 2: my own trigger. Well, then what happens is your hippo
Speaker 2: campus or a hipothalmis kicks in. It begins to release
Speaker 2: adrenaline and cortisol, and you kick into what's called fight
Speaker 2: or fight. So back to my wasp example, You're like,
Speaker 2: oh my goodness, I think I hear the wasp whatever
Speaker 2: it's over here? Do I need to fight? Am I
Speaker 2: gonna have to swing at this thing? Am I going
Speaker 2: to have to jump out of car? And so that's
Speaker 2: why your RPM goes up because that hippo campus is
Speaker 2: kicked in. Well, our hippi campus that can help your
Speaker 2: mini arenas can lie to you. Sometimes you don't have
Speaker 2: a need to be triggered. But you said the gout
Speaker 2: the stippo squeezing all the stressed into you, seezing squeezing
Speaker 2: all this this cortisol on you and adrenaline, and then
Speaker 2: you get stuck there and where top chronic stresses. You
Speaker 2: don't realize your hippothomas is uh is taken over. And
Speaker 2: so part of hippo wrestling is learning, am I really
Speaker 2: dealing with a real issue or am I dealing with
Speaker 2: my reaction to real issue? How can I think about
Speaker 2: this differently? How can I process differently?
Speaker 1: You know, you use a word that I think that
Speaker 1: I mean the older I get, and we all try
Speaker 1: to do things better each and every day. Sometimes we succeed,
Speaker 1: oftentimes we take two steps back. But it's that word expectations.
Speaker 1: Give me an example of what you would say to
Speaker 1: somebody you used, you know, Okay, here comes family. They're
Speaker 1: going to be staying at our house. Man, We're all
Speaker 1: going to get along great well. In reality, we probably know,
Speaker 1: if we're honest with ourselves, which we infrequently are, truth
Speaker 1: be told that there's going to be some stress. So,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of going back to what we talked about,
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, sort of setting your expectations,
Speaker 1: maybe having a conversation ahead of time before people come in.
Speaker 1: Would you suggest things like that?
Speaker 2: I do think it's helpful because often, you know, when
Speaker 2: you have multiple personalities in the room, I'll go in
Speaker 2: family dynamics, and beforehand, I'll say, Hey, like, what time
Speaker 2: do you like to get up early? What time do
Speaker 2: you want to do stuff? And so you're trying to
Speaker 2: kind of set expectations on how things work. Hey, some
Speaker 2: people like to sleep in, some people don't. Hey, really
Speaker 2: would be helpful if you didn't bring up that subject.
Speaker 2: So I'll even start respectfully though, Hey, you're an adult,
Speaker 2: you can do whatever you want. But as I was
Speaker 2: thinking about who's going to be together, I think it
Speaker 2: might be helpful if would you be willing to lots
Speaker 2: of questions, a lot of respectful keeping my tone and down.
Speaker 2: But I'm also trying to say I'd like to make
Speaker 2: this the best experience possible for everybody, And I do
Speaker 2: think that can be helpful. And I think internally it's
Speaker 2: almost like I don't know if you remember the old
Speaker 2: cassette tapes or eight track fires, but sometimes when family
Speaker 2: gets together, you don't realize that you're playing old tapes
Speaker 2: in your mind, like maybe your brother drove you crazy.
Speaker 2: He always talked disrespectful of you. Well, maybe that's still true.
Speaker 2: But every time he opens his mouth or your sister
Speaker 2: opens her mouth, you're playing r spect in the back
Speaker 2: of your head. And so whatever they say, you're interpreting
Speaker 2: it through the music, the background noise of feeling disrespected.
Speaker 2: And if you can instead say, you know, I need
Speaker 2: to turn down my background music and realize that maybe
Speaker 2: I'm not reacting to what they're saying. I'm reacting to
Speaker 2: this old tape from the past. That's where kind of
Speaker 2: moved from stained glass to playing glass of stained glass.
Speaker 2: The Bible says that one way you handle stress is
Speaker 2: you take every thought captive, and part of those expectations
Speaker 2: are what was I expecting here? Was that a realistic expectation?
Speaker 2: Need to have that expectation, you know, is it really
Speaker 2: that important that I die on every single hill here?
Speaker 2: And then on the other side, the Bible says, renew
Speaker 2: your mind, and so you can think differently about this.
Speaker 2: You know, is it okay that your family doesn't get along, Well,
Speaker 2: there's the difference between everyone should be happy all the time,
Speaker 2: at Christmas. Okay, well you could try that right crazy,
Speaker 2: or you can say I'd like everyone to get along,
Speaker 2: but it's okay if they don't, but we're going to
Speaker 2: have try and have a good time as often as possible.
Speaker 2: That's a very different background noise. Otherwise, you every time conflict,
Speaker 2: and again I'm a person who doesn't like conflict either,
Speaker 2: but every time you hear conflict coming, the background music
Speaker 2: starts playing Jaws. You know, Yeahohn, I think you're about
Speaker 2: to blow up. Done and that blows up because it's
Speaker 2: the self dolling prophecy versus. Hey, you know what, the
Speaker 2: kids are going to sometimes disagree on politics or whatever
Speaker 2: it is. But I might call in the dance and say, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: we know those different opinion politics and the family before
Speaker 2: we get to the kitchen table. I know you've got
Speaker 2: some wonderful singers about whatever your political side is. Could
Speaker 2: you not do those at the dinner table if you
Speaker 2: and that person want to go have a conversation, you know,
Speaker 2: in the other room later on. Because you enjoy that
Speaker 2: kind of thing, A lot of us don't enjoy that
Speaker 2: kind of thing. And I've got a couple of family
Speaker 2: members whore like that. They love talking politics and they
Speaker 2: love engaging in debates other people drives them crazy, So
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say at the table sometimes, hey, we all
Speaker 2: know that so and so the politics driver crazy. So hey,
Speaker 2: let's hold that off till later and just enjoy the meal.
Speaker 2: Or hey, we put a card on your table for Thanksgiving,
Speaker 2: we're going to talk with things we're thankful for today,
Speaker 2: and so we'll do a little guided questions and things
Speaker 2: like that. But I do think it's appropriate, and sometimes
Speaker 2: you can't control it. You know, you can't control people
Speaker 2: or circumstances. Other times sometimes you can guide it gently,
Speaker 2: nudget or at least try and ask everyone for mutual respect,
Speaker 2: so that I think. I think underneath the stress level
Speaker 2: and the triggers that people have and the hippos kind
Speaker 2: of get kicked in and a family gathering, I think
Speaker 2: people would like to enjoy themselves. I think that the
Speaker 2: whole world. But of course, when you travel to your
Speaker 2: travel the kids were upset, yeah, and we got managed
Speaker 2: to them. So you're not at your best either. You're
Speaker 2: not sleeping your same mattress. So even then to say
Speaker 2: everyone is not in the best circumstance, meaning thirty days
Speaker 2: of trying to do a thousand things. I'm going to
Speaker 2: give double doses of patience, double doses of grace. I'm
Speaker 2: going to assume the best. I think if if we
Speaker 2: would just come into circumstances with a family and say,
Speaker 2: more often than not, I'm going to give the benefit
Speaker 2: of doubt and I'm going to assume the best. And
Speaker 2: I'm going to imagine that someone is carrying something that
Speaker 2: I don't know. Like if I told you, hey, someone
Speaker 2: got really ticked off at you today in traffic or
Speaker 2: mad at you or an employee or a coworker, and
Speaker 2: you were telling me the story, but how inappropriate was
Speaker 2: and I said, well, did you know they just found
Speaker 2: out they got cancer. Your whole perspective would change. It
Speaker 2: still doesn't mean that what they said was appropriate or
Speaker 2: way the handle is appropriate, but suddenly that stress would
Speaker 2: be Oh, I can change my mindset, have some compassion
Speaker 2: towards the person rather than irritation as a person. Now
Speaker 2: that's the first one to you know, my instinct is
Speaker 2: to judge and to you know, realize, you know, they
Speaker 2: should be handling that correctly. Blah blah blah blah. I
Speaker 2: would have done that, of course, I would have done that.
Speaker 2: So I think they have and some perspective can really
Speaker 2: help you, but everyone around you as well.
Speaker 1: You know, I talked about a study that came out
Speaker 1: not a study, where a former head of the psychiatric
Speaker 1: division of the FDA came out yesterday and talked about
Speaker 1: how antidepressants, in his estimation, are so overprescribed. In your job,
Speaker 1: So much of your job as a pastor is to
Speaker 1: walk people through some very tough days and nights. You
Speaker 1: hear all the time, man, I'm so stressed out. Are
Speaker 1: are we saying we're more stressed out than we are?
Speaker 1: Or are we really more stressed out now more than ever?
Speaker 2: Well, the word is stressed became popular in nineteen seventies
Speaker 2: as kind of normal vernacular. It's actually developed in nineteen
Speaker 2: thirties and forties by an endocrinologist and he defined it
Speaker 2: as a non specific response to a demand for change.
Speaker 2: And so I think it has become like the go
Speaker 2: to thing to say, and like to say, how you doing?
Speaker 2: I'm busy and I'm stressed, the two things everybody does.
Speaker 2: So I do think it's become the current vernacular for
Speaker 2: describing things. And I think it's actually kind of a
Speaker 2: deficiency of being able to say what's really going on.
Speaker 2: I'm worried, I'm fearful, I'm angry. It's like stresses, this
Speaker 2: neutral word that we all accept as appropriate versus kind
Speaker 2: of being more honest. But I think also a little
Speaker 2: philosophy for a second. We're living in a culture of materialism,
Speaker 2: meaning we think human beings a roly material. So if
Speaker 2: you're only material, then we just need to give you
Speaker 2: a medicine that's going to help take care of your
Speaker 2: material body. If you realize the human beings both material
Speaker 2: and I material, meaning to have a soul, what you think,
Speaker 2: what you feel, and what you want, as well as
Speaker 2: a body, then you say, oh, my spiritual dimension, my
Speaker 2: soul is dimension. I can handle this with medicine, yes,
Speaker 2: but also with learning how to talk about my feelings,
Speaker 2: learning how to take captive the feelings that are inaccurate,
Speaker 2: learning how to renew my mind and think better thoughts
Speaker 2: towards the circumstance. So I think it's a whole philosophical
Speaker 2: problem that we don't realize human beings are far more
Speaker 2: than just you know, meat facts that can be medicated.
Speaker 2: We're souls. And think about it like when you're stressed.
Speaker 2: When we're stressed, we talk to ourselves. If you're a worrier,
Speaker 2: I wonder if this happens, when this happens, What this
Speaker 2: happens in change, reaction, anxiety. You're talking to yourself even
Speaker 2: anger fantasies. Right, you're here, I'm guys, that's confidence my boss.
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna say this, and you going to say that,
Speaker 2: I'm you know, just see, you're talking to yourself. What
Speaker 2: if there was another source, a person to talk to,
Speaker 2: you know, I would call it prayer, You call it meditation.
Speaker 2: But instead of talking to yourself when you have a problem,
Speaker 2: what if you could talk to someone who's the ultimate
Speaker 2: source of strength and comfort and wisdom. Well, just sare
Speaker 2: at sound smarter, doesn't it? I know all my resources
Speaker 2: talking to myself, and I already know my limited resources.
Speaker 2: If I could have figured this out, I probably would have.
Speaker 2: I need outside wisdom, outside strength. So God says that
Speaker 2: you can cast all your anxieties upon him. You can
Speaker 2: take every thought captive, you can renew your mind, you
Speaker 2: can meditate on things that are good and pure in
Speaker 2: a good rapport, and you can reach out to him
Speaker 2: and say God, I need wisdom and how to handle
Speaker 2: the situation. I can't control the universe or my mother
Speaker 2: in law or my kids, but I do want you
Speaker 2: to help me control how I'm going to handle it.
Speaker 1: It's great stuff, great great stuff. We can continue this topic,
Speaker 1: I think, for multiple weeks because there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people that and each and every one of us
Speaker 1: is one of them. Where we have all these expectations,
Speaker 1: we get stressed out ahead of time, we get stressed
Speaker 1: out during and maybe just a deep breath, maybe a conversation,
Speaker 1: maybe prayer can help dramatically change that. Chad, we thank
Speaker 1: you so much for your time and your expertise. I
Speaker 1: know we're going to miss you next week, but we'll
Speaker 1: look forward to catching up with you the week after.
Speaker 2: Sounds great. I appreciate it all right, mister.
Speaker 1: Chad Open from the Horizon Community Church. Great Stuff, Plain Glass,
Speaker 1: Stained Glass every Wednesday at eight thirty eight