Cultivating A Healthier Relationship With Your Anxiety

1. Intro: Welcome, everybody. I'm so glad you're here. Cultivating a healthier relationship with anxiety is a course to help us strengthen our muscles about how to live with this thing. This bad habit that we've got called worry. My name is Lisa Pepper Sat can. I am an executive therapeutic coach and I have been working with people helping them strengthen this muscle around, living with anxiety for a very long time. When I was a little girl, I was so afraid of so many things, but nobody called it anxiety. That's how old I am. That's okay, doesn't really matter. But I know one called it anxiety. It wasn't a problem. I was just a kid that worried a lot, but I know that it's snatched up a lot of my joy and carried on into my twenties, so I had to learn to navigate my life in a different way. I think that's what brings so much of my own passion to the topic. Cultivating a healthier relationship with your anxiety is broken up into six parts. In this course, they all start with the letter G. The first part is gain awareness of your anxiety. Number two is get curious about anxiety. Number three is Gather more tools. Number four is grow. Your practice number five is give anxiety. The boot on number six is go live your life with anxiety and then we have a really wonderful class project to do together that will help you start to empower yourself with these tools on a daily basis. In this course, cultivating a healthier relationship with your anxiety. What you'll get is a lot of understanding and a lot of compassion, which helps us decrease anxiety in our heads. Let me give you a little tip here. So anxiety is like having a really bad roommate doesn't pay the rent, eats all your food and wants to stay for free. So in this course, what we have to do is learn how to starve out the anxiety critic that lives in our head, increase our understanding for ourselves and tell anxiety like I know you're here to try and protect me, but I don't need your protection and in this course will learn how to do that. A bonus to doing this work. Cultivating a healthier relationship with your anxiety means that you start to claim that your feelings matter that you matter and that you're suffering matters and in this community together will help expand an understanding of anxiety, how it's wreaking havoc in our lives. And then what we can do to change that I'm really glad you're here in the next course will start with the first G game, gaining awareness of your insight. 2. 1 GAIN Awareness about your Anxiety: Now that we've covered what this course is about, let's jump right in. I talked about the six steps that I created to help you navigate anxiety. Let's jump right into the 1st 1 It's gain awareness of anxiety. In general, anxiety is considered to be the body's natural response to a life threatening situation. Danger or high intensity stress. It's an automatic alarm that goes on when you feel threatened or you're in a super stressful situation. It becomes problematic when that's going on in your body, when the situation doesn't really merit that kind of response. Despite all the different forms of anxiety, anxiety disorders have one common symptom, and that is excessive fear or worry. Moving throughout your system. Anxiety is best addressed by breaking it down into subsets. So there are three subsets. Worry, anxiety and fear. Worry is what you commonly you're concerned about. Will I get someplace on time? Anxiety is fear of the unknown. It's more where you start to per separate, where you start to spin because something is not known to you. The outcome is not known, and the 3rd 1 is fear. This is where something is life threatening, like a bear in the woods or someone scary to you on the street. They're two authors, John Forsythe and George Eifert in their book Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety. And they're the ones that outlined thes three parts that are very key to learning how to navigate a life with anxiety. I highly recommend their book. Unfortunately, fear and anxiety come into one's life in spite of self confidence, intelligence, circumstances, our best intentions. It's not your fault it happens to you. Here is one of the most powerful negative emotions we humans possess. Believe it or not, at times it can really help us because it can alert us to danger. What we're working on in this class, though, is how it's affecting our lives and our joy. Negative anxiety really isn't a bad thing in moderation. The problem arises when anxiety starts overwhelming you on a consistent basis. In situations that aren't life threatening. Anxiety disorders are group of related conditions rather than a single disorder. The symptom associated with the condition varies from person to person. The symptoms are different in all of us, and what's interesting is anxiety and excitement can show up in the body with the same symptoms. Worry and fear can draw. Whatever we are worried about, or fearful of your mind is the control panel. We will learn how to use it wisely to change your thoughts. Anxiety is sneaky symptoms or slippery. We automatically have created coping mechanisms, which actually are keeping us stuck anxiety once as to believe that were actually coping. But we'll learn through this course how it's keeping us stuff. Let me give you a few examples of different people that I've worked with who are suffering with anxiety. So I have one young woman who insists on cleaning. She has to clean her room, has to clean the kitchen, has to clean everything in the house. This is a young woman and everyone jokes. That's great center to my house. But what happens is the level of anxiety she experiences. If she's unable to carry out those tasks, that's how you know it's a problem. Another place that I myself experience anxiety is it's very difficult for me to go out into nature by myself. This is a good example because it's not causing me to lose joy in my life. What I do is I gather friends and we all go camping together. We all go hiking together. We all go play with our dogs out in nature together. That's how you know anxiety isn't keeping you down. It's not keeping you from your mood changing. Another woman I'm working with is having a very difficult time looking for a new job. Her anxiety gets in her way of her interview practices, so she and I are working on practicing, interviewing so that our anxiety doesn't keep her from landing the job that she really wants. The next lesson is get get familiar with your anxiety, will look at ways that you feel hijacked things that cause you a lot of worry or fear, things that keep you from feeling joyful in your life. 3. 2 GET Curious about your Anxiety: Okay, so here we are, the second G. Get curious about your individual anxiety. Anxiety tends to rule and take over your breathing and your body, for that matter and push your true self away. When we get curious about our own anxiety, it means our true Selves get to emerge. So what we're going to work on is realizing how we get hijacked by anxiety. There's this great six step method that I use with people. So you start to pay attention to what were you just thinking? What just happened? How did it make you feel that stuck? One Identifying how it made you feel? Step two is, Does this feel familiar? Then recognized this feeling as your anxiety pattern poll or your habit of worry. Separate the emotions connected from the past like what it reminds you of and start to apply your more mature processes like this. What we're learning how to do here. Step three is where does this story come from? Connect the story from your past and see where else this is showing up in your life. Step four. What needs to take place in this moment to help you get a new hijacked to get unstuck. Step five is choose what your next steps I need to be. Do I want my younger self to react? Or do I want my more mature itself with higher awareness to respond? Take one step. That's the final six step. Take one step toward getting unstuck. Action is very important. And then, of course, you gotta celebrate text a friend clients. I've clients recognizably text with their successes. It makes a difference. Now your true self is ready to fight back. That's why you're here. Each time you start to feel anxious. Think about what was I just thinking? What was I just doing? What was I just talking about? Practice this week? Practice writing those things down So you start to be the one in charge of your thinking. You are not your thoughts. You were the thinker of your thoughts. That's a very powerful concept. To start to learn, have to do another thing that's important that we get to do and get curious about our your anxiety pickup lines. So that might be something like I'm not good enough. I'm too tired. Oh, I won't get that client anyway. Someone else has already done it. We gotta learn how to not fall for our own anxieties. Pickup lines, no matter how believable they are, other things that you might be saying to yourself, I'll mess it up. Oh, the store is probably too busy. There's probably a long line. He won a life with less anxiety. You got to give up old stories and old ways of being. The past is past. It has already gone by. Today's a new day. If you're here, I know you're ready to let go of some of your old behaviors. So how we do that is we counter our anxiety pickup lines. I am tired. May really be. Actually, don't feel capable. I don't feel well may actually be. I'm choosing to believe my symptoms of anxiety or worry this week. Get curious. What does your anxiety want you to believe next week? What we're going to be doing is the next G gathering tools to help you learn how to live with anxiety. It might fade away. I don't know that it will go away, but you'll learn how to live your life with more tools and stop believing the anxiety Graham ones that are causing you so much 4. 3 GATHER Tools Part A: Welcome back, everybody. This is part three gathering tools to help you navigate your life with anxiety so you have little to lose by working with your thinking and so much to gain. So anxiety wants us to feel like it's keeping us safe, but it's actually not. It keeps us boxed in. And so what we get to do today is Explorer, different tools that will help you look at your thinking. You'll be looking at your thinking in a totally new way, and trust me, it will make a difference. The more you practice, of course, I'm inviting you to change your patterns by collecting more tools. So the best thing that you can gift yourself is a practice of mindfulness. What do I mean by that? It's a practice that involves accepting your thoughts and feelings and taking action based on your observations of your thoughts and feelings versus those thoughts and feelings. So I know mindfulness is the in thing, and everybody's talking about it. But what I'm talking about is a simple practice of getting to know your thoughts, your feelings and being able to separate yourself from those thoughts and feelings when they get all mixed up together. That's what I call anxiety when we're able to begin to separate out your thoughts, your feelings and then make choices based on that clarity. That's when you know you're getting a better handle on your anxiety. Anxieties. Tricky. It's slippery, right? This is what it does. It wants you to decide. Do I need to do this or that? Do I need to have that be a yes or a no? What we get to do together is practice. Our ability to observe are anxious, Mind where it wants to decide. Is this a good thing, or is this a bad thing? So here's my secret of all secrets. This will change your life. Don't believe your feelings. Believe your values. Then go and create that. Why would I say, Don't believe your feelings because you're anxious. Mind well, have you want to believe your feelings? Feelings Come and go there, sort of like the weather. Once you've identified the situations, maybe even relationships or encounters that trigger your anxiety, you're anxious. Mind will want you to avoid those situations together. In this course, we're going to learn how to kind of dive right into those situations and learn how to calm are anxious mind in those given situations. Let's talk about three practices that I'm certain you've heard of that are super useful when anxiety tries to seduce us, so they are exercise, journaling and meditating. Let me give you a little different take on. So with exercise, journaling and meditating, go easy on yourself. Practice, not perfection. Or, as they say in recovery, progress, not perfection. What you want to do is commit to a disciplined practice, not a perfect practice. 5. 3 GATHER Tools Part B: so anxiety runs a lot of energy through the body. Exercise is a wonderful way to get rid of exercise in. Anyway. That's good for you. Yoga, walking, running sit ups, push ups, Tai Chee Pilatus. Let's talk about journaling, so I want to invite you to journal in a particular way. I want you to start practicing repetitive, powerful statements about your diminished anxiety. Studies have shown that the more we repeat positive statements, the more of the brain and the biology begins to believe those positive statements. Now you and I both know that's true because our brain has believed our anxious thoughts for a long time. So not on Lee do we work on changing our belief pattern, but we work on replacing it with something more positive and something more effective that allows us to navigator anxiety. The Third practices meditation. This is a tricky one because there's so much pressure around us feeling like we have to do it right. What I like to teach students is find your discipline, find a practice and let yourself go into whatever practice feels good to you. So, for example, walking your dog well, then how is that meditation. Find your breath. Find your pace. Try and quiet your mind when you notice that your mind wanders. When you're walking your dog in your meditation, congratulate yourself. You come back to your breath. That's what makes it a meditation. You're expanding your awareness. Here's the good news. Simply committing toe a practice is good and that's perfect. Another tool that I want to teach is dialectical behavior therapy, commonly known as DVT, created by Marshall Linnehan. She's in Seattle, Washington, and what I love about DBT is it's a practice to help us get out of our own way. DVT is a process of being able to hold both, and I both feel anxious, and I am able to not follow my anxiety. I both want to avoid a situation, and I am willing to grow my practice and being able to navigate the situation in spite of my anxiety. So here are a series of questions to help you avoid avoiding the situation. What I mean by that is getting comfortable with your thoughts and feelings so you may feel anxious and still be able to go march ahead in your life. So what just happened? Name the situation that's happening, How did it make you feel? What did your anxiety want you to do As a result of those feelings? It's good to separate out why you think you got triggered. What short term or long term gain will you receive if you move through your anxiety, or if you avoid the situation that's triggering your anxiety next time will grow. Your practice will fine tune how you can apply these things to your life when you're anxiety is triggered. 6. 4 GROW Your Practice: welcome back. So today we're going to talk about growing your practice the last time we introduced tools , and now we're going to look at ways that we can utilize those tools to grow our practice, to learn how to live with our anxiety, not avoid our lives because of our anxiety. So what you do when your old habit of opening the door to anxiety comes in? No, do not slam the door that will work. That just makes anxiety mad, and it makes it come back fiercely. What we want to start to do is grow our practice of really helping ways to take care of ourselves. Journaling, exercising, meditating, answering the DPT questions, all the things that we need to do to engage with anxiety and let it know that it no longer serves you. It's a bad habit, so we're growing our practice. Something we've got to do is memorize, literally. Write them on three by five cards or put him on your cell phone. Memorize what you're going to save yourself when your anxiety tries to pick you up. You know those anxiety pickup lines like, Oh, I probably won't get that client anyway or I won't know anyone at the party or that restaurant probably doesn't have the foods that I eat. I won't find parking. I mean anxiety. It's seeking. So no practice. Learn over and over and over. What are your lines you're going to counter your anxiety with. So when you have thoughts and feelings, the trigger anxiety, you can begin to watch them observed them. Let them pass through you sort of like the weather. Another really powerful practice is to recognized your mind trap and your mind joy. So I teach clients and kids are great with this exercise. What makes your mind light up feel joy and then, obviously mind trap is your anxiety a really great way to move through mine trap. And my enjoy is to make a long list of affirmations. Affirmations are positive statements that you can grow into. I am creative. I am safe. I am loveable that grows your mind joy. You'll notice that when you're in mind truck and you're fearful and you're scared and you are afraid of the unknown. You're making statements of affirmation based on mine trap. Whenever you start to feel mind trap those negative unnerve ing vibes begin to emerge. Pas take a breath and state a couple of affirmations of mine. Joy. Try it. You'll see that it will make a big difference in calming hearings. I to come up with affirmations right down what you're hearing when you're tuned in tow. Mind trap. So you might hear, for example, I don't want to go to that party. I don't have any friends anyway. Your affirmation could be I am making new friends. I am practicing meeting new people. I am more comfortable in new situations. The more we repeat affirmations, the more the brain begins to believe that, and her anxiety gets diminished. So here's what's key. As you grow your practice, what are you willing to commit to and how will you remember your commitment? Sometimes I have clients who wear watches. I have them move their watch from the hand that they normally wear it on to the other hand . Why? Because it's a pattern ship. You still look at the old hand for the time, and then you are aware that it's on the other hand and then you remember your commitment to stay in my joy. Ask yourself this how will I remember my commitment to my practice and then remind yourself daily what your commitment ISS and make sure you celebrate your success. Next time we're going to give anxiety the booth. 7. 5 GIVE Anxiety the boot: Welcome back in this lesson. We're going to give anxiety the boot as best as we can, right? I told you my best kept secret, which is Don't believe your feelings. Believe your values. Then go and create value. But in this lesson, we're going to learn how to give anxiety the boat. Don't let it have the power that it's had in your life. What we want to do is stop arm wrestling with anxiety. In many ways, we sort of won, like give up. Okay, you win, you're stronger. But I'm not gonna fight with you anymore. And I'm not gonna feed you with four. Thank it for how it's served you. There's probably been times when it's protected you from scary situations, but now you have to continuously, like, 700 times a day. Tell your anxiety I got this. I know you're trying to protect me, but actually I'm safe. I might be uncomfortable, but I'm okay. I might not want to touch those germs, but I'm not going to get sick. You have to remind yourself how you will land back on your feet another way that you can give anxiety. The boot is to pick it up, take it with you. What I mean by that are all those pickup lines that anxiety tells you. Write him down, put him in your pocket and march forward with your life. Live your life in spite of your anxiety, go to the restaurant even though you feel anxious, Easier said than done. But with practice, it actually can happen. Another powerful practice is one that I called radical self care with radical self care. You learn how to take care of yourself in spite of your anxiety. So know what your practices are and have the discipline to commit to those practices. So here's an example. I have a client who does not want to go toe outings like those wine tastings or those outings with all the girls, even girls and guys. And for a long time, she thought it was her anxiety. It's not her anxiety. She boarded those outings. That's radical self care. Give yourself permission to not do what you don't want to do. Once we know ourselves better and we wrestle anxiety to the ground, we don't dismiss everything because of anxiety were able to discern. Wait, no, that's really something that I don't like doing. That's radical self care. You will learn to accept and live your life with inside. Take charge of what you can control your behavior and what you do. That's what you can be in charge of your thoughts and feelings, my friend. They come and go. Radical self care means you are in charge of your behavior. I recently asked the client, Have you shared with your new boyfriend any of the work that we're doing around your anxiety? She said, Hell, no, not giving it any attention. I'm not giving it any power. So ask yourself what is one thing that you've been avoiding doing and with your radical self care practices? Are you willing to try it? At least during this course, Go for it. Celebrated in this group. Share it with the group 8. 6 GO Live your life: Welcome back here. We are going to go live our lives with anxiety, like, What am I doing in a class that teaches me to go live my life with anxiety? But really, what we're doing ISS going on and living our lives. Thoughts and feelings of panic are anxiety. They run in the background there, intense and overwhelming at times. But they're not the real enemy, Believe it or not, the rial enemy is the rigid avoidance of our lives. The worst thing we could do is live a life, avoiding the things that bring us joy and pleasure and connection. What if we saw our reactions is helpful, A way to face our insight. Did you know that excitement and anxiety yield the same or often feel the same in the body ? It's up to you to decide how you label it. How might you engage with radical self care and grow in this very moment? Recently, I took my kids for flu vaccinations or some kind of vaccination, and they got so worked up about the shots. They were so triggered by their anxiety, I could barely calm them down, so I didn't try, just kept asking them. How are you going to get through it? How are we going to get through it? When the shot was over, they both said, Oh my gosh, I got myself so worked up for nothing. That's a great line to practice. What are you getting yourself so worked up about? And is there a way that you could release it as nothing? Carol Dweck is a social psychologist and teaches kids about growth mindset. That's what we're doing in this course. Were growing are mine joy. We're not saying stuck in mind track, so make it commitment to changing your relationship with anxiety. Be disciplined in your practice. Stick to it. This is living your life with anxiety. Now I live it. Lack of sleep can be a real trigger for anxiety. Make best friends with sleep. Develop healthy practices for sleep. Find comfort in being alone. This is living your life with anxiety. You don't have to make it mean anything. Find the waves. You enjoy being alone and practice them. Doing them often. Let love it. Seek it out where the well, it's full. Let go of relationships that don't feed you that don't serve. You find other people who understand anxiety and who will let you talk about your new practices, and we'll support your new practices and will support your growth mindset. Radical self care in every way possible. Find your practice. Be disciplined and watch how your anxiety begins to diminish. Living your life with anxiety me is that you are aware in your conscious mind of how anxiety wreaks havoc in your life or how it has re tactic in your life. You're deep, subconscious programming has you replay your anxious thoughts over and over and over. A very simple practice and a very powerful practice is when you notice your anxiety having its way with you. Say out loud. Oh, there's my anxiety. What that does is brings it to your conscious mind, and you're more powerfully able to take your power back. Anxiety wants to take your power away. Don't give away for power, and I'm really glad you shared this time with me. Awesome job. It's your first step and radical self care. Here's the good news. It makes a difference. Here's the trick. Your news. You have to practice 763 times a day. At least but you can do it. This is the first step in radical self care. Memorized the six G's and then go live your life with anxiety. It gets easier, trust me.