When Stress Spills Into Everything

What my TEDx preparation revealed about drift, self-awareness, and emotional spillover

Camilo Zambrano

Apr 01, 2026

This last weekend was pretty tough on my mental state.

Ironically, it was also a weekend that told me a lot about my journey, my relationships, and myself.

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As many of you know, my TEDx Talk is coming up.
April 18th, to be exact.

I’ve been practicing pretty much every night before bed. I read somewhere that this can be a good way to internalize the talk and let my brain process it while I sleep.

I think it has been working so far.

It’s tough, though, because it takes away mental space that I could be using with my family, and time with my wife, who is my main support right now, instead of having her record me over and over so I can see what I need to change.

For the most part, I’ve been practicing by myself, when walking my dog or standing in front of the window. Another portion of my practice has been with my wife, as I just mentioned.

I hadn’t practiced with a live audience up until last weekend.

A couple of weeks ago, we met with some friends to play pool at one of my friend’s houses. While talking about the TEDx Talk, the same advice I’ve been hearing from coaches and in different places came up again: practice with a live audience.

So I shamelessly asked the host, who is one of my good friends and one of my groomsmen from my wedding, if I could use his place for a dry run with our group of friends. His place is more spacious and better suited for something like that than my house, which, to be frank, looks like a daycare.

I’m not naturally inclined to brag or even talk much about my work. It’s funny: when I do, I tend to minimize its impact. I get shy about it and just try to deflect.

I told myself that if I trust my work, then I should stand by it. So taking the step of doing this dry run was a big thing.

That kept me stressed for around two weeks.
Now the stakes were real.

You would think that, because they are friends, it would make me less nervous.
My wife actually asked me that.

The truth is that, for me, presenting something, anything, to friends in a formal setting, where I or my work are in the spotlight, makes me act weird.

Presenting in front of strangers makes things easier in my head, because you might never see those faces again, so the stakes feel lower from a reputational point of view.

I know, it’s a weird take, but it brings me peace of mind, and it typically works in my favor.

So now you understand the stress: I was about to present work that I hold dear to a group of people that I value and care about, and whose opinions matter to me.

I didn’t want to take it lightly.

Well, last Saturday was the big day.

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I’m glad to report that the dry run went better than expected, and that the idea was well received. My friends gave me great feedback and also lifted my morale.

The thing is, in my head, I thought I would be an embarrassment.

It’s weird, but I think that’s part of my self-sabotaging mechanisms.
Thankfully, I didn’t act on it.

It gave me more confidence to talk about these topics openly. It also helped me share my feelings about the talk with more context. In short, it let me see that my friends are there for me, and that my work also impacts them.

The thing is, between the stress, the adrenaline, and the subsequent crash, my mood was not the best.

I caught myself more times than normal acting irritable, snapping at tiny things.
Me no like.

There were occasions where I caught myself hard and forced myself to stop and pause.

But I’m tired, and as I’m writing this my eyes are half open, just feeling the weight of the stress trying to show up.

I do think it is a blessing, though, that I have developed enough awareness to catch myself before a big drift.

Because now I can still say I love you when I’m upset. I can still try to distance myself from an argument when I think it’s not worth engaging. I can still snap myself out of the trance of stress and try to be present when I need to.

That awareness is also what drives me to say that I’m not proud of the fact that these last weeks I’ve been on my phone more than usual. I think it’s a way for my brain to feel like I have things under control.

Our brains have mysterious ways of coping when they are overwhelmed.

My kids have felt the toll too, and I actually caught my older kid looking at me, then looking at my phone, as if to say: c’mon, really?

So I’ve really tried to keep it away, or at least in my pocket, for the last day or two.

I’d dare to say, with all that I’ve learned, that my amygdala is on fire and that, from time to time, especially when I lack sleep, it inhibits my prefrontal cortex from making the best decisions, like not looking at my phone or not overreacting to a situation.

I’ve learned a lot, as you can see.

I learned that I can rely on my friends for these kinds of events. I learned that I can perform without letting this strange shyness block me. I learned that even if I don’t feel it during the process, there is a stress curve that compounds and peaks at the moment we’re waiting for, when our adrenaline is probably at its highest, and then we just crash, acting out of ourselves.

In short, compounded, silent stress acts as a trigger that sets the channels for drift to manifest. And our role is to be able to notice it, contain it, and address it.

And if you don’t manage to do that, then the next best thing you can and should do is return.

So if you are in the same position as me right now, not necessarily about the talk, but at a point where the conditions are pushing you toward drift, remember that self-awareness is the first step. Otherwise, you will always get stuck in the same cycles.

In our next paid companion, we will navigate how not to let stress in one area impact other areas, and how to keep it contained.

For now, focus on being aware of where you are, what you are doing, and who you are impacting.

Have a wonderful week!