Singing Loudly, Doing Squats, and Letting Go

My Surprisingly Unpolished Path Through Stress and Worry

One of my meditation students asked me:

“How do YOU deal with stress and worry?”

Let me tell you something personal.

When stress creeps in—and it does, even for meditation teachers—my first instinct isn’t to double down and push through. It’s to stop. Like, full-on walk away from the laptop, stop.

I go out to the back deck and just sit there like I’m in some kind of dramatic indie film. Or I crank up a song—my go-to is “I Wanna Know What Love Is” by Foreigner—and I sing it loud. Alone, because, well, let’s just say I won’t be auditioning for The Voice anytime soon.

Sometimes I write a poem or a letter to a fictional friend (they never judge me). Sometimes I just move—some squats, some leg lifts, anything to get energy flowing out of my head and into my body. I’ve found that when my body gets involved, my brain starts cooperating again.

Because here’s the truth: I don’t really try to “manage stress.” I try to listen to it. Stress, for me, is just a sparkly euphemism for the feeling of danger. But 99% of the time, I’m not actually in danger. I’m just caught in the grip of my inner alarm system.

That’s when I remind myself I don’t need to force anything. I don’t need to fix everything. I just need to come back to what’s real, what’s here. All I HAVE to do is the next thing. That’s what helps me do what I want to do more effectively and efficiently.

Now, worry? That one’s even easier. Maybe it’s because I’m 75 and I’ve seen it all. Everything I ever worried might go wrong did go wrong—and guess what? I’m still here. Still walking. Still singing bad ’80s ballads when no one’s listening.

One of my mantras is:

Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen.

And it’s going to happen whenever it happens.

We don’t have control over most things. That’s not a failure, that’s just life.

We’re going to live. We’re going to die. And let’s face it—when we die, our inbox will not be empty. We’re not going to get it all done. We’re not going to do it all perfectly. And maybe that’s not the tragedy we think it is.

So when the stress and worry try to pull me into perfectionism or people-pleasing, I have to laugh. I remind myself:

What other people think of me is none of my business.

I mean that in the gentlest, most liberating way possible. Your worth isn’t up for negotiation. Neither is mine.

So next time stress shows up uninvited, take a breath. Maybe take a walk. Maybe sing like no one’s judging you—even if, like me, you can’t carry a tune in a bucket.

Whatever works. You’re already doing better than you think.

With love,

Bob Martin

(aka your imperfect, unpolished, sometimes-singing meditation teacher)