Essential Discourse With Bruce Smith

Self Care Is Essential

Season 2 Episode 7

Welcome to the Essential Discourse Podcast! In today's episode, we're diving deep into a topic that hits home for many of us: the struggle with frustration and anger. Have you ever found yourself overwhelmed by stress, unable to control the things around you, and feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders? We're going to unpack these powerful emotions and explore how emotional intelligence can be a game-changer in managing them. We'll discuss self-care's critical role, empathy's importance, and how building trust and confidence through human connections can transform your life. Stay tuned as I share my personal journey and the hard-earned lessons that can help you navigate through life's toughest challenges. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to find balance and strength in the face of adversity.

This podcast episode is my reflection on dealing with anger and frustration caused by uncontrollable situations, partly due to the irresponsibility of others and myself. I share my own experiences of stress and emotional turmoil, highlighting how these feelings can lead to negative actions and the importance of recognizing and addressing one's mental and emotional health. I discuss the concept of emotional intelligence and the need for a supportive network to help navigate these challenging emotions.

I emphasize the consequences of neglecting self-care, recounting a recent incident where my pent-up frustration led to a regrettable outburst. I underscore the importance of taking responsibility for one's actions and the necessity of holistic self-care—mental, emotional, and spiritual. The podcast episode concludes with a call to action, encouraging listeners to share their experiences and engage in a dialogue to support one another in managing life's stresses and maintaining emotional well-being.

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Sincerely,
Bruce S.
bruce@edpshow.com
@BruceDaTruth2 [Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok]
@EssentialDiscoursePodcastMedia [YouTube]


Bruce Smith with the Essential Discourse Podcast. Good morning. Good evening. Good afternoon. Real quick. Let's get into it. Have you ever found yourself in a consistent state of anger? 1 that is a result of being frustrated. Frustrated by things that you can't control, frustrated by things that, you know, you've offered advice to individuals to rectify a situation and they never do it.


And then something happens, and now you've got to deal with the aftermath of their, for lack of a better word, irresponsibility. Have you ever you ever found yourself in that type of situation? Well, it'll be unfair for me to ask you that question and not provide you with my response, and my answer is yes. I am currently in that situation. Things that happened that were beyond my control, I am left to deal with the aftermath of these things, and it's stressful. And the stress leads to more frustration because the more that you, try to take care of certain things, the more issues that you find, and it's like, yo, what were you doing? What were you thinking? And it is like AAA it's like somebody dropping a ton of bricks on your on your chest, and you find it hard to navigate mentally what I need to do. You don't have a problem with, okay, ABC, and d needs to get taken care of so that these affairs are in order. But I think a lot of times we neglect to take care of our mental health in these type of situations. And what we end up doing, well, I can speak for myself.


What I ended up doing was repressing these feelings, and, I ended up lashing out, at people who really didn't have anything to do with the reason of my frustration and anger, and I ended up, bruising, someone. So much so that I had to apologize, and and now I gotta deal with the consequences of my actions, because of my actions. And let me explain that. I gotta deal with the consequences of my actions because I failed to take care of myself. I failed to take care of my mental health. I failed to take care of my spiritual health. I failed to say to to to take a step back and say, you know what? This is a lot, so let me let me chill for a minute. And we I didn't do that.


And I think that for many of us, that is a common that is a common story. That is a common scenario for many of us. Sometimes, I believe that we get into, these situations in which, you know, we're we just go, go, go. Because if I don't do it, who's going to do it? And me being the oldest of all of my parents' children, It sometimes falls upon me to be that guy to say, okay. This is what we need to do, yadayadayada on the important things. Now there's a lot of stuff I don't even I don't even get involved with, you know, they'd be like, we need this. Okay. Tell me tell me what I gotta do.


I get it done, and you got that. But on this particular incident, and I won't get into the details of that, this was a life changing, experience. Anxiety, frustration, anger, are some of the emotions that, you know, I had to deal with. And and this term emotional intelligence, you know, we throw that around quite a bit. I've heard it thrown around quite a bit, and it's like, what is that? You know, when you when you really think about it most emotionally intelligent. And and for me, my definition would be, hey. Recognize that something's wrong. Something's off with you.

You know, take a step back, talk to whoever you need to talk to, vent, find you a trustworthy person who can be empathetic, who can understand, what it is that you're expressing, and be responsible enough to pull you back, you know, when you go too far off to the right, too far off to the left, and validate your feelings as a human being, someone who validate your feelings as a human being. You know? There's nothing wrong with scripture. I love scripture. I I love I love, God's word, but sometimes I need a human touch. I need human connectivity to ensure that, you know, you know, that this aspect of my life, you know, this this human aspect, I can get that back on track so that my mental and my physical and that my spiritual that me me holistically, I'm I'm I'm I'm good, and I'm I'm headed in the right direction. I'm on the right path, headed in the right direction. And so last night, man, it was a blow up. I had a blow up, man.


It was epic to say the least. It was epic, and it bothered me so much afterwards that I had to apologize immediately. You know, I had to apologize immediately, to the person whom I wronged, whom I said cruel and harsh things to, and asked them to forgive me. And then now, you know, words are just like bullets when you fire them from a from a rifle or from a handgun. You know? Once they go out, man, you have no control over the damage that they do. And so now I'm I'm having to, you know, navigate my way through this and regain, any trust that was lost, any confidence, that was lost, and I really didn't have to experience this if I just had taken care of myself, realizing and understanding that something was off and taking the steps to get that fixed and you know. It's it's just 1 of those things man that III regret and a lot of the a lot of the stuff, a lot of the stress and stuff that that we deal with, it it it comes about from not having a support system. Not I'm I'm not talking about I don't have people who care about me.


I'm not saying that, but there's something about having your your your main man, your homeboy, or your your homegirl, within within physical distance, you know, you know, it's cool to FaceTime and talk on the phone, man, but sometimes you just need to be in the same room, with your people. And so they they they can get the full picture of the the the the things that you're trying to communicate, that you are communicating. And so yeah, man. III messed it up real good last night. I did. I messed it up real good. But there's today. I I've got it today to work on it to get it better, and I've realized that, you know, that was 100% me.


It was 100% me. I let the outside factors, factor into what was going on inside of me internally. So I'm just venting a little bit, I guess. Because I know that I can't be the only person who's ever felt this way, you know, after experiencing, you know, significant life events. And I can't be the only person. And, it's my hope that by you, sitting here seeing me, on this podcast, this video, or listening to me, through whatever means that you do, that you will understand that it is very important for you to take care of you holistically. From a holistic standpoint, it is very important for you to take care of you Because if you don't, who will? And if you don't, you're gonna fool around and do some things that's gonna cause you to have to fix a whole lot of stuff outside of you because of your emotions. And, that's where I am right now.


I am having to, rectify the situation that I caused, because I did what I wanted to do, you know, from a physical standpoint. I did what I wanted to do instead of doing what I should have done, what I knew to do. And that's that's the most that's the most disappointing thing about it all, man, is that I knew better. I knew better when I did it, and I still chose to do it. So that's that's the thing that that really bothers me about this entire situation. So if you've ever felt that way, if you ever felt that way, if you feel that way right now, I'm I'm interested to see how you guys, rectify those situations. How do you come to a resolve? How do you how do you get yourself in the proper state of being so that you can function, in this crazy, crazy world that we live in? I'm I'm I really wanna hear from you. You know, I make these pleas with every video, every podcast, you know, interaction interaction.


I I wish that we would use social media to be more social, you know, so that we can all, gain insight and encourage 1 another because life is happening, guys. It's happening. It's happening whether whether you are an active participant or not, life is happening, and I think that we can navigate through this thing better together. Because like I said, I'm not the only 1 to experience what I'm experiencing now. And had I had, you know, someone who had been through it close by me who who I could see daily or talk to daily, and they recognize the the signs and symptoms, maybe I could've avoided, doing doing what I did. Maybe maybe if I was strong enough, I would've recognized myself and would have put the brakes on and said, hey, man. You tripping. Need need you.


But I did, And that's where experience comes in. Now that I've experienced this, you know, I I can I can I can learn from it? I will learn from it, and I'll go forward. But again, I want to hear from you guys. I want to hear from you guys. You guys are are valuable resources in which I I treasure, and I hope that you will, take the time to engage. And and when I say engage, communicate, you know, type, you know, ask questions, provide provide your your your stories in regards to the subject matter that we're talking about. You know, emotional intelligence, you know, it's just like spiritual intelligence, just like physical intelligence. It's holistic, man.


And, again, we do this better together, and I hope that you guys would would pitch in and join in on this, this dialogue. Well, that's pretty much all I wanted to say. I'm Bruce Mill. This is the Essential Discourse Podcast. I look forward to hearing from you and reading your comments, so you guys have a blessed day. Peace.