Q: This is from Natalie in Switzerland, and Natalie writes:

"Dear Marie. Do you ever get consumed by stress and if you do, how do you turn that stressiness

into another energy? Thank you and lots of love."

A: Natalie, this is an awesome question. So thank you so much for asking it. Every single

successful person I know including myself has their own challenges with stress. So before

I tell you how I handle it, I think it's really important that we break down stress and really

look at what it is.

Stress is something that happens when we get overwhelmed by things happening in our life,

and if you break that down even further, the only time we experience stress is when we

leave the present moment and we caught up worrying about possible future scenarios that

may or may not even happen.

In fact, one of my favorite quotes that describe this is by Mark Twain and Mark Twain says,

"I have known a great many troubles but most of them never happened." Booya, Mark Twain!

First I want to share two truths that help me immediately stop being in stress mode and

shift into something more productive like action.

So, the first truth is something I love saying. You may have heard it before, everything is

figure-out-able. Everything! So if you find yourself stressing out; you got to slow down,

get out of your head and get into the moment. Anything can be solved if you break it down

to a series of steps and just follow one, two, three, and four and handle the problem.

Most stress is initiated in our minds; that's where 99% of stress lives. So if you get out

of your head, get out of your mind, get into the present moment that's where all of your

power and control exists; and, you can handle anything from that space. The key is stop

stressing and start engaging.

Take a look at what you can do right now. Sometimes it's a physical action like having

a conversation or making a phone call and other times it's a spiritual action. You need

to just slow down and maybe have a little prayer time. You know, ask for some guidance

and some wisdom, and some insight from whatever higher source you believe in.

Here's the other truth that I live by, nothing is worth getting stressed-out over. Haven't

you noticed that everything always seems to work out in the end? In my experience, every

time I freak myself out and get stressed over something, somehow it always works out. So

stress only makes you less effective and honestly, stress is poison to your productivity.

Now, here's a more direct answer to your question about how I personally handle stress. So what

I do is I like to kind of cut it off at the knees. I put three daily habits in place,

things that I do every single day that eliminates stress before it even happens. First thing

that I do; my daily mediation practice. I used to not be a very big fan of mediation

but I have to tell you, lately it's been working like a champ. You can Google mediation.

There's lots of different techniques but essentially I sit for anywhere between 10 and 20 minutes

every day before I do anything else. Clear out my vessel and I'm good to go. The second

thing that I do is I eat "super clean." So I've talked about Kris Carr's Crazy Sexy Diet

before, it is my Bible. I've eliminated 99% of dairy. I eat a lot of vegetables, drinking

a lot of green juice, eliminated most caffeine.

Just eating super clean and I'll tell you if you don't think that what you put into

your body effects your stress, you're sadly mistaken, my love. And, the third thing that

I do that completely eliminates stress before it even comes up is daily exercise. Now I

have to tell ya, I know a little something about teaching people how to exercise.

(Exercising clips: "Here we go! We take it to the right, for four and the left for four.

Do it again!" "Take em' up. Squeeze." "Lean down into that lunge. Make it nice and funky.

Good!" "Three, really control it." "Really go for it! Shimmy back. "Here we go, we fit.

Right for two." "Good! Double lunge right here.")

That's what we got for your Q & A Tuesday, you all! Thank you so much for watching. Please

like it if you like it. Leave a comment, let me know if you have other ideas, tips or strategies

around how you handle stress. And last but not least, if you are not yet on the newsletter

list you better get your butt on there, you all!

Come over to marieforleo.com and join myself and close to 40,000 other women from over

108 countries around the world getting rich, happy and hot every single week. Thank you

so much for watching and I'll catch you next time.

(Exercising clips: "African arms to the right. African arms to the left. Mambo!")