November 24, 2025 • 27 mins
In this episode I share how I finally overcame decades of chronic stress. You will learn what stress really is on both a biological and psychological level, how your mindset shapes your stress response, and how simple tools can shift you out of fight or flight and into clarity. I also break down the neuroscience of stress, the power of stress mindset theory, and why belief in your capacity to cope matters more than you think. This episode will teach you how to create space between stimulus and response, regulate your nervous system in the moment, and rewire your identity as someone who can handle stress.
What You Will Learn
- How the brain and body respond to stress
- Why mindset affects your biology
- The difference between stress as danger and stress as activation
- How to regulate your nervous system quickly
- A simple three step framework to interrupt chronic stress
- How to build belief in your ability to handle challenges
- How to lower your overall stress waterline and expand your capacity
🚀 NEW COURSE: OVERCOMING SHAME
Resources Mentioned
- Kelly McGonigal and Alia Crum’s research on stress mindset
- Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
- Stress Mindset Theory (2012 Journal of Health Psychology)
Connect with Jerry
Website: JerryHenderson.org
Free strategy call available for those who want personal support in their stress mastery journey.
I am grateful you are here,
Jerry
FREE COACHING STRATEGY CALL:
Schedule Call
Website:
www.jerryhenderson.org
How is your relationship with yourself going?
Get your free-self assessment guide
Pick up your copy of my book:
Returning: Meditations and Reflections on Self-Love and Healing
Get Your Free Weekly Tips!
Instagram: @jerryahenderson
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jerryahenderson
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jerry Henderson (00:00):
Hello everybody and welcome to Personal
Mastery.
I'm your host, Jerry Henderson.
And if you're ready to create alife that feels as good on the
inside as it looks on theoutside, you're in the right
place.
Let's get started.
It's been a while since I'vedone an episode.
That's been very intentional.
Got a lot going on withresearch I'm doing at Harvard
(00:22):
University and with my coachingclients.
And so something had to give inthis season.
And so I took a little breakfrom doing the podcast, but I'm
so thankful to be back here withyou.
And I do want to mention that Imight find a new cadence with
this podcast.
And that may mean that insteadof every week, there might be
times where I put it out everyother week, etc.
And I'm glad to be back behindthis microphone.
(00:45):
And I'm so grateful that you'rehere today listening to this
episode and a part of thiscommunity.
Now, in today's episode, I'mgoing to be talking about how I
overcame chronic stress,something that I dealt with for
decades.
Now, if you're new to thepodcast, I'm Jerry Henderson.
I'm trained in the psychologyof human behavior at Harvard
University.
And every week I share tips andinsights on how you can create
(01:06):
a life that you love.
And by the end of this episode,you're going to learn how
stress impacts the brain, thebody, the neuroscience around
it, how it affects usphysically.
Now you're also going to learnhow your mindset, the way that
you view the stress that you'reexperiencing, actually impacts
how you deal with or how you'regoing to handle the stress.
You're also going to learn somepractical tools about how to
(01:28):
deal with stress in the moment,when it shows up.
And finally, you're going tolearn how to build confidence in
your ability on how to manageand to cope with stress in your
life.
Now, the research shows us thatstress or individual stress is
on the rise right now.
And I think we can all relateto that, right?
Everything that's going on inthe world.
And that's why I thoughttalking about this today was so
(01:50):
important to give you somepractical tools on how to deal
with it.
So let's get into this andlet's start talking about what
stress is and what it does tous.
So the first thing I want youto think about is that stress
isn't just a response tocircumstances, and it's also not
just a set of chemicals, butit's also a mindset.
It's our perception and ourview of the experiences that
(02:12):
we're having.
I like to say that a lot ofstress is the narrative that we
carry about the circumstancesthat we're facing.
So let's just talk a little bithow this might unfold.
You know, for example, we'llhave a trigger that happens in
our life, right?
An unexpected deadline or arelationship challenge, or maybe
we get an unexpected bill inthe mail or in our inbox.
(02:34):
And when we receive thatinformation, our limbic system
kicks in.
And what happens is in a splitsecond, that information is
received, it's translated to ourhypothalamus.
That hypothalamus is thenactivating the HPA axis and the
HPA axis, which is associatedwith stress, is releasing
cortisol, adrenaline, otherchemicals into our system.
(02:54):
And then all of that causes theheart rate to rise, it causes
us to start tightening up, weget tense, we might start to get
a pit in our gut.
And what's happening is ourbody is preparing for action.
And like I said, all of this ishappening before our brain or
the prefrontal cortex part ofour brain has a chance to catch
up to everything that'shappening in that moment.
(03:16):
Then, as we're experiencing allof that, our story starts to
kick in.
What do I mean by that?
That's when we start to assignmeaning to everything that's
happening.
We might start to say things toourselves like, I can't handle
this.
Why does this always happen tome?
Might start to interpret it aseverything is falling apart and
(03:36):
you start to catastrophize,project into the future of
everything that's going to startto happen as a result of that
moment that you experience thatstressful trigger.
All of this is cascading andit's happening really fast.
Now here's the challenge.
That story that you start totell yourself, right, as you
start to interpret what'shappening, you kick in with your
(03:58):
story, that story is going toproduce even more stress.
It's going to keep that wholesystem active.
You're going to release morecortisol, you're going to
release more adrenaline, andyou're going to keep that whole
fight or flight state active andactually start to make it
worse.
And then as a result of that,you're starting to hardwire that
(04:19):
whole scenario into yournervous system.
And because you're reinforcingthat that event is bad, you
shouldn't be experiencing it, orwhatever story that's unfolding
as a result of all of that,that's embedding it into your
nervous system more and more.
And so it's amplifying theentire stress response, the
(04:41):
entire conditioning and theassociation that you have with
those experiences in your life.
It actually becomes a very realthreat to your nervous system
and your capacity to handle ithas been challenged because the
scope of this now is somethingthat's really scary, really
stressful.
You ruminate about it and ittakes up a lot of capacity, and
(05:03):
you're stuck now in fight orflight.
You're stuck in a chronicstress mode.
And when we're stuck in achronic stress mode, our
capacity to handle stressfulevents becomes more and more
diminished because what'shappening is our water line of
stress.
And I use this example with alot of the clients that I work
with.
I ask them, where's their waterline of overall stress?
(05:26):
And for many people, they'reliving with a water line of
stress up to their neck.
And any event that comesaround, it puts that stress
waterline up over their head andthey feel like they're
drowning.
And so what we want to do isfigure out how do you get that
stress level, that water line ofstress to come down in your
life.
And that's a lot of what we'regoing to talk about today, is
(05:48):
how to bring that down.
But I do want to help youunderstand that if you're in
that place of chronic stress,your waterline's pretty high.
And no wonder when you get thebill or you get the
confrontation at work orwhatever happens, it feels like
it's flooded up over your head.
And you feel like you'rewalking around on this planet,
like I did for so many years,with a pit in your gut, this
(06:11):
background hum of anxiety, andit has to do with the stress
that you're carrying and yourbody's reaction to that and
seeing those things as fight orflight scenarios.
As I said, the good news isthat if a lot of what's
happening is our response tostress, it's creating even more
(06:33):
stress.
The good news is that we can dosome things, intentionally do
some things that can helpreverse that.
And I want to transition tostart talking about how you can
do that.
And the first thing I want tostart with is what's called the
stress mindset.
And yes, you have a mindsetwhen it comes to stress.
So what is stress mindset?
As simply as I can put it, it'sthe way that you see stress.
(06:58):
And if you see stress assomething that's bad or harmful,
it's actually going to be moredifficult for you to deal with
stress.
Stress is going to have abigger impact in your life
versus if you see stress assomething that's normal,
necessary, not bad, that'sactually going to show up in
your life, and you don't labelit as something negative, stress
(07:19):
is going to have a lot lessimpact in your life, and you're
going to be able to deal withstressful events more
effectively.
And there was an interestingstudy that was done that was
published in 2012 in the Journalof Health Psychology, and there
were 30,000 people that were apart of this study, and they
found very clearly thatindividuals who saw stress as
(07:40):
negative were less likely tohandle stress well versus people
who didn't see stress asnegative and their capacity and
their ability to handle stress.
And the individuals who didn'tsee stress as harmful had lower
levels of anxiety, they hadlower health issues, and they
actually had lower mortalityrates than those who saw stress
(08:03):
as something that was negative.
What the study showed in a veryreal way is it's not stress
that harms you, it's your beliefthat stress is harming you or
will harm you that actuallywinds up harming you.
Now, Dr.
Crumb at Stanford Universityexpanded on this idea and
developed what is known as thestress mindset theory.
(08:23):
And what she found is thatpeople tend to fall into one of
two mindsets when it comes tostress.
The first is that stress isdebilitating, it's gonna break
me down, it's gonna harm me.
The second mindset is thatstress is enhancing, that stress
can help me rise to challengesand build strength in my life.
(08:45):
And then what she found isbased on what mindset that you
have, it doesn't just affectyour psychology, it actually
starts to affect your biology.
Those with a stress isenhancing mindset have lower
levels of cortisol, they havegreater heart health and the
ability to have fastercardiovascular recovery.
And they also had better focus,better motivation, and better
(09:08):
learning outcomes from theexperiences that they were
facing in life that could belabeled as stressful.
And so the research aroundstress mindset is extremely
fascinating to me.
And I find it extremely helpfulwhen I work with my clients to
help assess their stress mindsetand help them improve their
stress mindset.
And so the takeaway from thisis that the way that you see
(09:31):
stress, your mindset towards it,is going to determine how well
you deal with it and the impactthat stress is going to have in
your life.
Now, the other thing that'simportant to understand about
stress or stressed mindset isthe way that we see ourselves
and our ability to handlestress.
The research shows us that ifwe don't believe in our capacity
(09:54):
to handle stress, stressfulexperiences in our life are
going to have a greater negativeimpact on us versus if we
believe in our ability to handlestressful events.
So, in other words, if youbelieve that you can handle
stress, your brain and your bodyrespond differently to
(10:15):
stressful events than if you sayto yourself, you're not good at
handling stress, you're alwaysoverwhelmed by stress.
And when stressful things showup in your life, if you start to
say things like, I can't handlethis, this is too much for me,
it's actually going to startkicking your brain into more of
a stress mode, more of asurvival mode, and you're
(10:35):
actually going to diminish yourability to handle stressful
events.
And now listen, I know thatstress can be very debilitating.
I know that stressful eventsproduce a lot of suffering in
people's lives.
Like I said, I personally knowthis from my own experience.
But I also know that for yearsI didn't believe that I could
(10:55):
handle stress well.
And then as I began to realizethat my mindset towards stress
was determining how I handledstress.
And when I realized that mybelief in myself and my ability
to handle stress was also a keyindicator as to whether or not I
was going to handle stresswell, it gave me some tools to
(11:15):
start changing some things.
And I no longer felt like I wasa victim to stress.
And that's my hope for you isthat you'll understand how
stress works, how it's showingup, how that cascading happens
that we talked about earlier,and how your mindset of how you
see stress, when you can changethat, it's gonna help empower
you.
And when you start to believein your own ability to handle
(11:37):
stress, it absolutely is gonnachange your approach to stress.
And it's absolutely gonnachange your ability to deal with
stress, and then as a result ofthat, you're gonna be less
likely to be carrying aroundchronic stress in your life.
So let's start talking aboutthese practical tools that you
can use to start shifting yourstress mindset and start
(11:58):
shifting the way that you seeyour ability to handle stress.
So let's start by talking abouta framework around stress,
which is stimulus, gap, andresponse.
And Victor Frankel talks aboutthis, and he's a Holocaust
survival who wrote a fantasticbook that I recommend to so many
people, which is Man's Searchfor Meaning.
And he says this that betweenevery stimulus and response,
(12:23):
there is a space.
And it is in that space that wehave the power to choose our
response.
And in our response lies ourgrowth and our freedom.
I love that quote because whatit tells us is that we have
power, that when we face astimulus, that stressful event,
(12:44):
right?
The relationship challenge, thebill in the mail, or whatever
it is, that's the stimulus.
And between that stimulus andour response to it, the story
that we start to create, thestress that we start to feel,
all of that is a gap.
There's a little bit of amoment where we have an
opportunity to responddifferently or to choose which
(13:05):
way we want our response to go.
So here's where emotionalmastery or stress mastery really
comes into play and what reallychanged my life in dealing with
chronic stress.
Now, the first thing in this isto notice and to create the
gap.
Okay, so you get that stimulus,you start to feel the heart
(13:25):
rate rising, you start to gettense, you know this reaction
that you typically have to it,and you may typically kick into,
oh my gosh, this is bad, Idon't know how to handle this,
you start to catastrophize.
What I'm gonna ask you to do inthat moment is just to notice
what's going on in your body.
Pay attention, get aware ofwhat's happening in your body,
get out of this story up here.
(13:46):
That's going to create just alittle bit of a gap.
And in that moment, to say toyourself or to reframe the
situation from this is danger,to simply saying, I'm aware that
my heart rate is increasing.
I'm aware that I'm beingactivated, and to not label it
as danger, to actually use thatlanguage.
(14:08):
This is not dangerous.
I'm simply being activated inthis moment.
And what's happening is thatsingle statement, or however you
want to phrase that, is goingto start calming down the limbic
system, the fight or flightsystem, and it's going to start
to activate your prefrontalcortex or that reasoning,
rational part of your brain.
And then that part of yourbrain, when it's online, allows
(14:31):
you to think, process, problemsolve, etc.
Now, after you've created thatlittle bit of a gap, then I want
you to move into your body tostart regulating your nervous
system.
Now you could do this by doinga quick breathing exercise like
box breathing, etc.
You can then start to relaxyour shoulders.
Notice if you've got anytension in your jaw, letting the
(14:54):
body relax.
And what that's going to do isit's going to send signals to
your brain that everything'sokay.
It's going to help move you outof fight or flight into a more
relaxed state, which is veryimportant right now.
So what you're trying to do isget that nervous system to calm
down.
And the quickest way you can dothat is through breathing and
(15:15):
through changing your physiologyto signal to your brain that
you're okay in this moment.
And the truth around this isthat when the body signals that
I'm safe, the mind does follow.
So we want to start with ourbody, not trying to get up here
and get all you know in ourbrain trying to figure out how
to problem solve immediately.
No, first we want to calm downthe nervous system.
(15:37):
So remember, when the bodyfeels safe, the brain will
follow.
Now, let's go on to step three.
After you've created somespace, you've now started to
regulate your nervous system,you can actually get into
reframing what you'reexperiencing, the story that you
have up here that can determinewhether or not you're going to
cascade into more stress, oryou're going to find the
(15:59):
capacity within yourself tohandle what you're facing.
How do you reframe it?
Well, I encourage you to startasking yourself some questions.
Instead of going down therabbit hole of all the bad
things that this could mean, getcurious and start to ask
yourself some questions becausewhat curiosity does is it keeps
that prefrontal cortex, thatproblem-solving part of our
(16:19):
brain engaged and keeps us outof the limbic system.
And so when you start to seethe situation that you're
experiencing and start to askyourself questions about it,
it's going to help you stayfocused and help you reframe it
in a way that feels moremanageable.
And so you can ask yourselfquestions like, well, what else
could this mean?
(16:40):
versus what you've immediatelyinterpreted it as meaning.
You can also ask a question of,what is this stress preparing
me for?
You can also ask yourselfsomething like, how could I use
this energy, this what feelslike stress, all of this energy
that you're having to moveforward.
(17:00):
But it's important to rememberwhat we're trying to do in the
question asking is to reframe itand keep ourselves engaged in
curiosity, which keeps us out offear, catastrophizing, and more
stress.
And here's an important thingto remember: reframing isn't
about denying, right?
We know when we're denyingsomething, we're trying to fool
ourselves.
Reframing is about aligningourselves with something that is
(17:25):
as true, if not truer, than thestory that immediately kicks up
in our head.
So instead of saying somethinglike, I'm anxious, you can say,
my body is preparing me to dealwith an event in my life.
Or instead of saying I can'thandle this, you can say, I've
handled challenging experiencesin the past, and I can handle
(17:45):
this.
And the truth is your languagedoes affect your physiology.
The language that's used, thestories that you start to use
will either tighten you up, getthat heart rate up, or it's
going to relax you.
And as you do this, you'reactually going to retrain your
association to these stressfulevents.
And you can begin to teachyourself that the activation of
(18:06):
stress is not somethingnegative, but it's actually
something that's preparing you.
And it's actually activatingyou, giving you the energy,
trying to give you the mentalclarity, the sharpness, etc., to
deal with whatever is showingup in your life.
So if you can see it that wayas something that's preparing
you, once again, instead ofsomething that's trying to harm
(18:27):
you, it is definitely going tochange the way that you
experience stress and yourbelief in yourself and your
ability to handle stress.
And so let's talk about thatpiece a little bit, your belief
and your ability to handlestress.
Because a belief that you can'thandle stress is trying to
serve you, it's trying to keepyou safe.
It's a survival strategy thatyou're using because your brain
(18:50):
is trying to kick into a way tofigure out how to handle this
and keep you on red alert.
And so the belief that youcan't handle it is going to keep
you in a more activated redalert state.
And maybe you've carried thatstory for a long time, that you
can't handle stress, you can'thandle uh what would be quote
(19:12):
unquote bad experiences thatshow up in your life.
And maybe some of this camefrom early childhood
experiences.
I know that was my case where Igot wired to think that I
couldn't handle stressful eventsbecause I was told that, I was
made to feel like a failure, allof the things that happened in
my life.
I didn't feel like I had thecapacity to deal with stressful
things in my life.
(19:32):
Now that's not true.
The truth was I just didn'thave the tools.
And that's the same for you.
You may just not have thetools, and the lack of tools
creates a sense of fear and asense of an inability to handle
these challenging circumstancesin life, but it really is just
about a set of tools.
And we can all learn thosetools, and I've just shared some
(19:55):
of those with you earlier aboutcreating the gap, then moving
into the body, and thenreframing.
There's gonna be very powerfultools that help me overcome
chronic stress.
But I think the most importantthing that helped me overcome
chronic stress was changing mybelief system about me and my
ability to handle stress.
And once again, I want toencourage you that you can learn
(20:17):
the tools that help youovercome stressful events in
your life and deal with thechronic stress that you might be
facing.
Now, how do you start todevelop that belief?
Well, the first thing I wantyou to do is I want you to
actually look in your life forthe evidence of when you've
handled stressful events becauseguess what?
It's there.
If you're here on this planetright now and you've made it
(20:40):
through some challenging eventsin your life, guess what?
Your survival, you were able tofigure out stress, you adapted,
you figured it out.
Did it always maybe show up themost healthy way?
No, but you did figure out howto navigate and to get through
challenges in your life.
That is evidence that you knowhow to handle stressful,
(21:03):
challenging events becauseyou're here right now and you're
listening to this.
And so all of that is proof,it's genuine proof that you were
able to get through challengingevents in your life.
Now, the second thing that canhelp build confidence in your
ability to handle stress is thatwhen that voice comes up that
(21:23):
says, I can't handle this, whenthis happens, I always shut
down, I don't have the capacityto do that.
I want you to ask a questionwhose voice is that?
Right?
Because you weren't born withthat voice.
And you might say, Well, that'sthe voice of me just, you know,
having experiences in lifewhere I didn't handle stress
well.
Now, that's a part of it, butit's also something that gets
(21:44):
embedded in us in earlychildhood experiences or in
toxic relationships or you know,painful life experiences, where
we get this voice that's insideof us that got trained in us to
tell us you can't handle this,you're gonna fall apart, etc.
But that is a training.
Our voice that's we listen to,you know, those reactions, those
(22:06):
are all trained responses.
And we can train ourselves tohave a new response.
And the first most importantthing in retraining ourselves is
to identify whose voice isthat?
Where did it come from?
And to ask yourself, is that atrue voice right now in this
moment, or is that a voice fromthe past?
(22:27):
Is that a voice that got rootedin fear because of experiences
that I've had?
And here's the thing I want youto realize is back to the
Victor Frankel quote, right?
That we have a stimulus, wehave a gap, and then we have our
response.
And each new stressful event,right?
If we look at stress not assomething negative, we look at
(22:48):
it as something that life bringsinto us that gives us an
opportunity to grow, and thenwhat that does for us is it
allows us to reframe each newexperience as an opportunity for
growth.
And each new experience, wehave the ability to choose how
we respond, and we don't have torespond the same way that we
did before.
(23:08):
And handling stress is not aninnate uh capacity, it is a
learned capacity that we have.
We learn how to deal withstress, and part of what we do
to learn how to deal with stressis to reframe our ability to
deal with it and to reframestress in and of itself.
Now, the other thing that'simportant to do in building your
(23:30):
belief in yourself to handlestress is to celebrate every
win, no matter how small.
Because when you celebratewins, it wires it into your
nervous system that you're thetype of person who does have the
capacity to handle thesethings.
Because we will spend a lot oftime noticing our flaws,
noticing when we've messed upand replaying that and then
activating our stress responsesystem as we replay the places
(23:55):
where we failed or the thingsthat we didn't do, quote
unquote, so right.
But if you'll shift that andstart to look for evidence of
when you do succeed or when youdid succeed and celebrate that,
when you celebrate it and attachsome emotion to that
celebration, you're starting torewire your brain, and your
brain is gonna start noticingwhen you win, and when you see
(24:19):
that you did win and that youdid have success, it is
absolutely gonna build yourconfidence that you have the
capacity to handle these typesof things, and you can handle
these types of things.
I'm gonna keep saying thatbecause I believe it's important
for you to hear it.
Because listen, the goal isn'tto eliminate stress, the goal is
to increase our capacity tohandle stress, to shift our
(24:42):
mindset away from stress beingbad.
So let's do a little quickreview.
We know that when we experiencestress, it's gonna activate our
system naturally.
So just because you getactivated doesn't mean there's
something wrong with you.
That's just a part of how thebody works.
It's preparing you, okay?
And when you get into thatstate of feeling triggered or
(25:03):
stress showing up, if you labelit as bad, you're gonna have a
lot harder time dealing withstress versus if you label it as
something that can be enhancingin your life, that is something
that's necessary for growth,just like when a tree, you know,
a tree needs wind in order toget strong roots.
We need wind or stress to helpus build the capacity to deal
(25:26):
with life.
So it's something that's tryingto enhance us.
And then we talked about youseeing yourself as a person who
can handle stress and reframingthat, that you can believe in
your ability to handle thestressful events that show up in
your life.
And so, as you do all of that,you're gonna find that your
capacity to handle stress isgonna increase, and your ability
(25:50):
to have an overall sense ofthriving in your life is gonna
increase because we can't getrid of stress.
That's once again not the goal.
Because if we do that, we'regonna have to go live in a hole
somewhere, and then we'llusually find something to be
stressed out even there, right?
It's the stories here thatcreate our stress.
And so, what we want to do isbe mindful of how it works, be
(26:11):
mindful of how we label it, andbe mindful of our view of
ourselves and our ability tohandle stress.
And as we do those things, it'sabsolutely gonna help lower the
waterline of stress in ourlife, increase our ability to
have well-being and thrive.
And we're gonna start showingup in life in a way that feels a
lot more healthy.
(26:32):
Now, if you'd like some help onyour journey of managing stress
and building the tools andhabits in your life that allow
you to cope with it, I encourageyou to go to my website at
jerryhenderson.org and set up afree strategy call where we can
connect and see if workingtogether one on one would be the
right fit.
I'm looking forward to learningmore about you and the goals
(26:53):
that you have.
Well, thank you so much forsharing this time with me today.
So grateful for you, and I wantto remind you that you are
worthy of creating a life thatyou truly love.
And I can't wait to be with youin the next episode.
Hello everybody and welcome to Personal
Mastery.
I'm your host, Jerry Henderson.
And if you're ready to create alife that feels as good on the
inside as it looks on theoutside, you're in the right
place.
Let's get started.
It's been a while since I'vedone an episode.
That's been very intentional.
Got a lot going on withresearch I'm doing at Harvard
(00:22):
University and with my coachingclients.
And so something had to give inthis season.
And so I took a little breakfrom doing the podcast, but I'm
so thankful to be back here withyou.
And I do want to mention that Imight find a new cadence with
this podcast.
And that may mean that insteadof every week, there might be
times where I put it out everyother week, etc.
And I'm glad to be back behindthis microphone.
(00:45):
And I'm so grateful that you'rehere today listening to this
episode and a part of thiscommunity.
Now, in today's episode, I'mgoing to be talking about how I
overcame chronic stress,something that I dealt with for
decades.
Now, if you're new to thepodcast, I'm Jerry Henderson.
I'm trained in the psychologyof human behavior at Harvard
University.
And every week I share tips andinsights on how you can create
(01:06):
a life that you love.
And by the end of this episode,you're going to learn how
stress impacts the brain, thebody, the neuroscience around
it, how it affects usphysically.
Now you're also going to learnhow your mindset, the way that
you view the stress that you'reexperiencing, actually impacts
how you deal with or how you'regoing to handle the stress.
You're also going to learn somepractical tools about how to
(01:28):
deal with stress in the moment,when it shows up.
And finally, you're going tolearn how to build confidence in
your ability on how to manageand to cope with stress in your
life.
Now, the research shows us thatstress or individual stress is
on the rise right now.
And I think we can all relateto that, right?
Everything that's going on inthe world.
And that's why I thoughttalking about this today was so
(01:50):
important to give you somepractical tools on how to deal
with it.
So let's get into this andlet's start talking about what
stress is and what it does tous.
So the first thing I want youto think about is that stress
isn't just a response tocircumstances, and it's also not
just a set of chemicals, butit's also a mindset.
It's our perception and ourview of the experiences that
(02:12):
we're having.
I like to say that a lot ofstress is the narrative that we
carry about the circumstancesthat we're facing.
So let's just talk a little bithow this might unfold.
You know, for example, we'llhave a trigger that happens in
our life, right?
An unexpected deadline or arelationship challenge, or maybe
we get an unexpected bill inthe mail or in our inbox.
(02:34):
And when we receive thatinformation, our limbic system
kicks in.
And what happens is in a splitsecond, that information is
received, it's translated to ourhypothalamus.
That hypothalamus is thenactivating the HPA axis and the
HPA axis, which is associatedwith stress, is releasing
cortisol, adrenaline, otherchemicals into our system.
(02:54):
And then all of that causes theheart rate to rise, it causes
us to start tightening up, weget tense, we might start to get
a pit in our gut.
And what's happening is ourbody is preparing for action.
And like I said, all of this ishappening before our brain or
the prefrontal cortex part ofour brain has a chance to catch
up to everything that'shappening in that moment.
(03:16):
Then, as we're experiencing allof that, our story starts to
kick in.
What do I mean by that?
That's when we start to assignmeaning to everything that's
happening.
We might start to say things toourselves like, I can't handle
this.
Why does this always happen tome?
Might start to interpret it aseverything is falling apart and
(03:36):
you start to catastrophize,project into the future of
everything that's going to startto happen as a result of that
moment that you experience thatstressful trigger.
All of this is cascading andit's happening really fast.
Now here's the challenge.
That story that you start totell yourself, right, as you
start to interpret what'shappening, you kick in with your
(03:58):
story, that story is going toproduce even more stress.
It's going to keep that wholesystem active.
You're going to release morecortisol, you're going to
release more adrenaline, andyou're going to keep that whole
fight or flight state active andactually start to make it
worse.
And then as a result of that,you're starting to hardwire that
(04:19):
whole scenario into yournervous system.
And because you're reinforcingthat that event is bad, you
shouldn't be experiencing it, orwhatever story that's unfolding
as a result of all of that,that's embedding it into your
nervous system more and more.
And so it's amplifying theentire stress response, the
(04:41):
entire conditioning and theassociation that you have with
those experiences in your life.
It actually becomes a very realthreat to your nervous system
and your capacity to handle ithas been challenged because the
scope of this now is somethingthat's really scary, really
stressful.
You ruminate about it and ittakes up a lot of capacity, and
(05:03):
you're stuck now in fight orflight.
You're stuck in a chronicstress mode.
And when we're stuck in achronic stress mode, our
capacity to handle stressfulevents becomes more and more
diminished because what'shappening is our water line of
stress.
And I use this example with alot of the clients that I work
with.
I ask them, where's their waterline of overall stress?
(05:26):
And for many people, they'reliving with a water line of
stress up to their neck.
And any event that comesaround, it puts that stress
waterline up over their head andthey feel like they're
drowning.
And so what we want to do isfigure out how do you get that
stress level, that water line ofstress to come down in your
life.
And that's a lot of what we'regoing to talk about today, is
(05:48):
how to bring that down.
But I do want to help youunderstand that if you're in
that place of chronic stress,your waterline's pretty high.
And no wonder when you get thebill or you get the
confrontation at work orwhatever happens, it feels like
it's flooded up over your head.
And you feel like you'rewalking around on this planet,
like I did for so many years,with a pit in your gut, this
(06:11):
background hum of anxiety, andit has to do with the stress
that you're carrying and yourbody's reaction to that and
seeing those things as fight orflight scenarios.
As I said, the good news isthat if a lot of what's
happening is our response tostress, it's creating even more
(06:33):
stress.
The good news is that we can dosome things, intentionally do
some things that can helpreverse that.
And I want to transition tostart talking about how you can
do that.
And the first thing I want tostart with is what's called the
stress mindset.
And yes, you have a mindsetwhen it comes to stress.
So what is stress mindset?
As simply as I can put it, it'sthe way that you see stress.
(06:58):
And if you see stress assomething that's bad or harmful,
it's actually going to be moredifficult for you to deal with
stress.
Stress is going to have abigger impact in your life
versus if you see stress assomething that's normal,
necessary, not bad, that'sactually going to show up in
your life, and you don't labelit as something negative, stress
(07:19):
is going to have a lot lessimpact in your life, and you're
going to be able to deal withstressful events more
effectively.
And there was an interestingstudy that was done that was
published in 2012 in the Journalof Health Psychology, and there
were 30,000 people that were apart of this study, and they
found very clearly thatindividuals who saw stress as
(07:40):
negative were less likely tohandle stress well versus people
who didn't see stress asnegative and their capacity and
their ability to handle stress.
And the individuals who didn'tsee stress as harmful had lower
levels of anxiety, they hadlower health issues, and they
actually had lower mortalityrates than those who saw stress
(08:03):
as something that was negative.
What the study showed in a veryreal way is it's not stress
that harms you, it's your beliefthat stress is harming you or
will harm you that actuallywinds up harming you.
Now, Dr.
Crumb at Stanford Universityexpanded on this idea and
developed what is known as thestress mindset theory.
(08:23):
And what she found is thatpeople tend to fall into one of
two mindsets when it comes tostress.
The first is that stress isdebilitating, it's gonna break
me down, it's gonna harm me.
The second mindset is thatstress is enhancing, that stress
can help me rise to challengesand build strength in my life.
(08:45):
And then what she found isbased on what mindset that you
have, it doesn't just affectyour psychology, it actually
starts to affect your biology.
Those with a stress isenhancing mindset have lower
levels of cortisol, they havegreater heart health and the
ability to have fastercardiovascular recovery.
And they also had better focus,better motivation, and better
(09:08):
learning outcomes from theexperiences that they were
facing in life that could belabeled as stressful.
And so the research aroundstress mindset is extremely
fascinating to me.
And I find it extremely helpfulwhen I work with my clients to
help assess their stress mindsetand help them improve their
stress mindset.
And so the takeaway from thisis that the way that you see
(09:31):
stress, your mindset towards it,is going to determine how well
you deal with it and the impactthat stress is going to have in
your life.
Now, the other thing that'simportant to understand about
stress or stressed mindset isthe way that we see ourselves
and our ability to handlestress.
The research shows us that ifwe don't believe in our capacity
(09:54):
to handle stress, stressfulexperiences in our life are
going to have a greater negativeimpact on us versus if we
believe in our ability to handlestressful events.
So, in other words, if youbelieve that you can handle
stress, your brain and your bodyrespond differently to
(10:15):
stressful events than if you sayto yourself, you're not good at
handling stress, you're alwaysoverwhelmed by stress.
And when stressful things showup in your life, if you start to
say things like, I can't handlethis, this is too much for me,
it's actually going to startkicking your brain into more of
a stress mode, more of asurvival mode, and you're
(10:35):
actually going to diminish yourability to handle stressful
events.
And now listen, I know thatstress can be very debilitating.
I know that stressful eventsproduce a lot of suffering in
people's lives.
Like I said, I personally knowthis from my own experience.
But I also know that for yearsI didn't believe that I could
(10:55):
handle stress well.
And then as I began to realizethat my mindset towards stress
was determining how I handledstress.
And when I realized that mybelief in myself and my ability
to handle stress was also a keyindicator as to whether or not I
was going to handle stresswell, it gave me some tools to
(11:15):
start changing some things.
And I no longer felt like I wasa victim to stress.
And that's my hope for you isthat you'll understand how
stress works, how it's showingup, how that cascading happens
that we talked about earlier,and how your mindset of how you
see stress, when you can changethat, it's gonna help empower
you.
And when you start to believein your own ability to handle
(11:37):
stress, it absolutely is gonnachange your approach to stress.
And it's absolutely gonnachange your ability to deal with
stress, and then as a result ofthat, you're gonna be less
likely to be carrying aroundchronic stress in your life.
So let's start talking aboutthese practical tools that you
can use to start shifting yourstress mindset and start
(11:58):
shifting the way that you seeyour ability to handle stress.
So let's start by talking abouta framework around stress,
which is stimulus, gap, andresponse.
And Victor Frankel talks aboutthis, and he's a Holocaust
survival who wrote a fantasticbook that I recommend to so many
people, which is Man's Searchfor Meaning.
And he says this that betweenevery stimulus and response,
(12:23):
there is a space.
And it is in that space that wehave the power to choose our
response.
And in our response lies ourgrowth and our freedom.
I love that quote because whatit tells us is that we have
power, that when we face astimulus, that stressful event,
(12:44):
right?
The relationship challenge, thebill in the mail, or whatever
it is, that's the stimulus.
And between that stimulus andour response to it, the story
that we start to create, thestress that we start to feel,
all of that is a gap.
There's a little bit of amoment where we have an
opportunity to responddifferently or to choose which
(13:05):
way we want our response to go.
So here's where emotionalmastery or stress mastery really
comes into play and what reallychanged my life in dealing with
chronic stress.
Now, the first thing in this isto notice and to create the
gap.
Okay, so you get that stimulus,you start to feel the heart
(13:25):
rate rising, you start to gettense, you know this reaction
that you typically have to it,and you may typically kick into,
oh my gosh, this is bad, Idon't know how to handle this,
you start to catastrophize.
What I'm gonna ask you to do inthat moment is just to notice
what's going on in your body.
Pay attention, get aware ofwhat's happening in your body,
get out of this story up here.
(13:46):
That's going to create just alittle bit of a gap.
And in that moment, to say toyourself or to reframe the
situation from this is danger,to simply saying, I'm aware that
my heart rate is increasing.
I'm aware that I'm beingactivated, and to not label it
as danger, to actually use thatlanguage.
(14:08):
This is not dangerous.
I'm simply being activated inthis moment.
And what's happening is thatsingle statement, or however you
want to phrase that, is goingto start calming down the limbic
system, the fight or flightsystem, and it's going to start
to activate your prefrontalcortex or that reasoning,
rational part of your brain.
And then that part of yourbrain, when it's online, allows
(14:31):
you to think, process, problemsolve, etc.
Now, after you've created thatlittle bit of a gap, then I want
you to move into your body tostart regulating your nervous
system.
Now you could do this by doinga quick breathing exercise like
box breathing, etc.
You can then start to relaxyour shoulders.
Notice if you've got anytension in your jaw, letting the
(14:54):
body relax.
And what that's going to do isit's going to send signals to
your brain that everything'sokay.
It's going to help move you outof fight or flight into a more
relaxed state, which is veryimportant right now.
So what you're trying to do isget that nervous system to calm
down.
And the quickest way you can dothat is through breathing and
(15:15):
through changing your physiologyto signal to your brain that
you're okay in this moment.
And the truth around this isthat when the body signals that
I'm safe, the mind does follow.
So we want to start with ourbody, not trying to get up here
and get all you know in ourbrain trying to figure out how
to problem solve immediately.
No, first we want to calm downthe nervous system.
(15:37):
So remember, when the bodyfeels safe, the brain will
follow.
Now, let's go on to step three.
After you've created somespace, you've now started to
regulate your nervous system,you can actually get into
reframing what you'reexperiencing, the story that you
have up here that can determinewhether or not you're going to
cascade into more stress, oryou're going to find the
(15:59):
capacity within yourself tohandle what you're facing.
How do you reframe it?
Well, I encourage you to startasking yourself some questions.
Instead of going down therabbit hole of all the bad
things that this could mean, getcurious and start to ask
yourself some questions becausewhat curiosity does is it keeps
that prefrontal cortex, thatproblem-solving part of our
(16:19):
brain engaged and keeps us outof the limbic system.
And so when you start to seethe situation that you're
experiencing and start to askyourself questions about it,
it's going to help you stayfocused and help you reframe it
in a way that feels moremanageable.
And so you can ask yourselfquestions like, well, what else
could this mean?
(16:40):
versus what you've immediatelyinterpreted it as meaning.
You can also ask a question of,what is this stress preparing
me for?
You can also ask yourselfsomething like, how could I use
this energy, this what feelslike stress, all of this energy
that you're having to moveforward.
(17:00):
But it's important to rememberwhat we're trying to do in the
question asking is to reframe itand keep ourselves engaged in
curiosity, which keeps us out offear, catastrophizing, and more
stress.
And here's an important thingto remember: reframing isn't
about denying, right?
We know when we're denyingsomething, we're trying to fool
ourselves.
Reframing is about aligningourselves with something that is
(17:25):
as true, if not truer, than thestory that immediately kicks up
in our head.
So instead of saying somethinglike, I'm anxious, you can say,
my body is preparing me to dealwith an event in my life.
Or instead of saying I can'thandle this, you can say, I've
handled challenging experiencesin the past, and I can handle
(17:45):
this.
And the truth is your languagedoes affect your physiology.
The language that's used, thestories that you start to use
will either tighten you up, getthat heart rate up, or it's
going to relax you.
And as you do this, you'reactually going to retrain your
association to these stressfulevents.
And you can begin to teachyourself that the activation of
(18:06):
stress is not somethingnegative, but it's actually
something that's preparing you.
And it's actually activatingyou, giving you the energy,
trying to give you the mentalclarity, the sharpness, etc., to
deal with whatever is showingup in your life.
So if you can see it that wayas something that's preparing
you, once again, instead ofsomething that's trying to harm
(18:27):
you, it is definitely going tochange the way that you
experience stress and yourbelief in yourself and your
ability to handle stress.
And so let's talk about thatpiece a little bit, your belief
and your ability to handlestress.
Because a belief that you can'thandle stress is trying to
serve you, it's trying to keepyou safe.
It's a survival strategy thatyou're using because your brain
(18:50):
is trying to kick into a way tofigure out how to handle this
and keep you on red alert.
And so the belief that youcan't handle it is going to keep
you in a more activated redalert state.
And maybe you've carried thatstory for a long time, that you
can't handle stress, you can'thandle uh what would be quote
(19:12):
unquote bad experiences thatshow up in your life.
And maybe some of this camefrom early childhood
experiences.
I know that was my case where Igot wired to think that I
couldn't handle stressful eventsbecause I was told that, I was
made to feel like a failure, allof the things that happened in
my life.
I didn't feel like I had thecapacity to deal with stressful
things in my life.
(19:32):
Now that's not true.
The truth was I just didn'thave the tools.
And that's the same for you.
You may just not have thetools, and the lack of tools
creates a sense of fear and asense of an inability to handle
these challenging circumstancesin life, but it really is just
about a set of tools.
And we can all learn thosetools, and I've just shared some
(19:55):
of those with you earlier aboutcreating the gap, then moving
into the body, and thenreframing.
There's gonna be very powerfultools that help me overcome
chronic stress.
But I think the most importantthing that helped me overcome
chronic stress was changing mybelief system about me and my
ability to handle stress.
And once again, I want toencourage you that you can learn
(20:17):
the tools that help youovercome stressful events in
your life and deal with thechronic stress that you might be
facing.
Now, how do you start todevelop that belief?
Well, the first thing I wantyou to do is I want you to
actually look in your life forthe evidence of when you've
handled stressful events becauseguess what?
It's there.
If you're here on this planetright now and you've made it
(20:40):
through some challenging eventsin your life, guess what?
Your survival, you were able tofigure out stress, you adapted,
you figured it out.
Did it always maybe show up themost healthy way?
No, but you did figure out howto navigate and to get through
challenges in your life.
That is evidence that you knowhow to handle stressful,
(21:03):
challenging events becauseyou're here right now and you're
listening to this.
And so all of that is proof,it's genuine proof that you were
able to get through challengingevents in your life.
Now, the second thing that canhelp build confidence in your
ability to handle stress is thatwhen that voice comes up that
(21:23):
says, I can't handle this, whenthis happens, I always shut
down, I don't have the capacityto do that.
I want you to ask a questionwhose voice is that?
Right?
Because you weren't born withthat voice.
And you might say, Well, that'sthe voice of me just, you know,
having experiences in lifewhere I didn't handle stress
well.
Now, that's a part of it, butit's also something that gets
(21:44):
embedded in us in earlychildhood experiences or in
toxic relationships or you know,painful life experiences, where
we get this voice that's insideof us that got trained in us to
tell us you can't handle this,you're gonna fall apart, etc.
But that is a training.
Our voice that's we listen to,you know, those reactions, those
(22:06):
are all trained responses.
And we can train ourselves tohave a new response.
And the first most importantthing in retraining ourselves is
to identify whose voice isthat?
Where did it come from?
And to ask yourself, is that atrue voice right now in this
moment, or is that a voice fromthe past?
(22:27):
Is that a voice that got rootedin fear because of experiences
that I've had?
And here's the thing I want youto realize is back to the
Victor Frankel quote, right?
That we have a stimulus, wehave a gap, and then we have our
response.
And each new stressful event,right?
If we look at stress not assomething negative, we look at
(22:48):
it as something that life bringsinto us that gives us an
opportunity to grow, and thenwhat that does for us is it
allows us to reframe each newexperience as an opportunity for
growth.
And each new experience, wehave the ability to choose how
we respond, and we don't have torespond the same way that we
did before.
(23:08):
And handling stress is not aninnate uh capacity, it is a
learned capacity that we have.
We learn how to deal withstress, and part of what we do
to learn how to deal with stressis to reframe our ability to
deal with it and to reframestress in and of itself.
Now, the other thing that'simportant to do in building your
(23:30):
belief in yourself to handlestress is to celebrate every
win, no matter how small.
Because when you celebratewins, it wires it into your
nervous system that you're thetype of person who does have the
capacity to handle thesethings.
Because we will spend a lot oftime noticing our flaws,
noticing when we've messed upand replaying that and then
activating our stress responsesystem as we replay the places
(23:55):
where we failed or the thingsthat we didn't do, quote
unquote, so right.
But if you'll shift that andstart to look for evidence of
when you do succeed or when youdid succeed and celebrate that,
when you celebrate it and attachsome emotion to that
celebration, you're starting torewire your brain, and your
brain is gonna start noticingwhen you win, and when you see
(24:19):
that you did win and that youdid have success, it is
absolutely gonna build yourconfidence that you have the
capacity to handle these typesof things, and you can handle
these types of things.
I'm gonna keep saying thatbecause I believe it's important
for you to hear it.
Because listen, the goal isn'tto eliminate stress, the goal is
to increase our capacity tohandle stress, to shift our
(24:42):
mindset away from stress beingbad.
So let's do a little quickreview.
We know that when we experiencestress, it's gonna activate our
system naturally.
So just because you getactivated doesn't mean there's
something wrong with you.
That's just a part of how thebody works.
It's preparing you, okay?
And when you get into thatstate of feeling triggered or
(25:03):
stress showing up, if you labelit as bad, you're gonna have a
lot harder time dealing withstress versus if you label it as
something that can be enhancingin your life, that is something
that's necessary for growth,just like when a tree, you know,
a tree needs wind in order toget strong roots.
We need wind or stress to helpus build the capacity to deal
(25:26):
with life.
So it's something that's tryingto enhance us.
And then we talked about youseeing yourself as a person who
can handle stress and reframingthat, that you can believe in
your ability to handle thestressful events that show up in
your life.
And so, as you do all of that,you're gonna find that your
capacity to handle stress isgonna increase, and your ability
(25:50):
to have an overall sense ofthriving in your life is gonna
increase because we can't getrid of stress.
That's once again not the goal.
Because if we do that, we'regonna have to go live in a hole
somewhere, and then we'llusually find something to be
stressed out even there, right?
It's the stories here thatcreate our stress.
And so, what we want to do isbe mindful of how it works, be
(26:11):
mindful of how we label it, andbe mindful of our view of
ourselves and our ability tohandle stress.
And as we do those things, it'sabsolutely gonna help lower the
waterline of stress in ourlife, increase our ability to
have well-being and thrive.
And we're gonna start showingup in life in a way that feels a
lot more healthy.
(26:32):
Now, if you'd like some help onyour journey of managing stress
and building the tools andhabits in your life that allow
you to cope with it, I encourageyou to go to my website at
jerryhenderson.org and set up afree strategy call where we can
connect and see if workingtogether one on one would be the
right fit.
I'm looking forward to learningmore about you and the goals
(26:53):
that you have.
Well, thank you so much forsharing this time with me today.
So grateful for you, and I wantto remind you that you are
worthy of creating a life thatyou truly love.
And I can't wait to be with youin the next episode.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.