If you're tired of feeling never enough, of constantly being derailed by your own fears or the reactions of others, then you are in the right place. I'm Deb, a licensed psychologist, and this is Blooming Outside the Lines, a podcast dedicated to women who've spent their lives trying to stay within the lines of what's acceptable, who've never felt good enough and who are ready to break free and bloom. Let's talk about how you can build a solid foundation connected with your strength and your wisdom. Before we start, I need to make sure that you know that the information I share with you is just that. It's just information. It's not meant to be a prescription for what you should do or meant to replace the advice of any of your healthcare providers. It also doesn't mean that we have a professional client-therapist relationship.

This transcript was created using AI and has had some minor editing. Please excuse transcription errors.

Hi there and welcome. This episode is a follow-up to my episode, Stress, the Surprising Link to High Performance and a Meaningful Life. In that episode, I shared research to support the value of changing how we view stress and anxiety from one of something to avoid to something we can gain value from.

In this episode, I want to talk about how to go about doing that. If you are new to the show, you might be wondering what dealing with anxiety has to do with being ourselves in the world and blooming outside the lines. When I think of that question, a couple of things come to mind. 

One, to be ourselves in the world, we have to put ourselves out there, which usually involves some kind of risk and anxiety or stress. And second, my experience is that being calm has become another standard related to being good enough. It's become part of the lines that define for many of us how well we're doing and whether we're acceptable.

What I hope you will gain from this episode, as well as from the two previous ones, is that you can be anxious and be okay. Better than okay. You can be anxious and perform at a high level and have a meaningful life.

One thing that's important before working on changing your perspective on anxiety is to be sure that you've had a good physical and some blood work to rule out any health conditions that might be masquerading as anxiety. For instance, changes in blood sugar or blood pressure can feel very much like anxiety, and we don't want to assume that it is anxiety if you're actually having problems with one of those.

And you don't want to be telling yourself that nothing is wrong with your heart when it starts to feel tight or beat faster when there actually is something wrong. So get it checked out so you can confidently say to yourself that this is my body gearing up to help me.

So let's start talking about how to change our perspective, how to start using our anxiety. I think of anxiety as being a blanket. And what I mean by that is that anxiety, is the symptoms that show up when something else is going on underneath. As I talked about in the last episode, calming our body when facing a challenge like the students faced in taking the test didn't help their performance. The students who framed their anxiety as excitement and believed it would help their performance actually outperformed those that tried to calm themselves.

I share that because when we look underneath the anxiety, when we look underneath that blanket, the answer is not always to calm ourself.

So when we notice that we're anxious, we have to look underneath it and find out what just happened. What gave the message to the nervous system, to my nervous system, to gear up? 

Am I facing a challenge, physical or intellectual? If I am, then my body is doing exactly what it's supposed to do-making changes that will enhance my performance. If I'm lying in bed feeling anxious or wake up feeling anxious, unless I have a challenge ahead of me, most likely I have inadvertently signaled my nervous system that I need help.

I don't really know how this happens when we're sleeping. During the day, many times we are busy ruminating about the future, worrying about what's going to happen, and in doing that, sending the message to the nervous system that we are in danger. There's no past, present, or future in the part of the brain that triggers the body to mobilize its resources. And

 There's no ability to distinguish between what you are vividly imagining from what is actually happening. So very often we are sending a message to the nervous system that we are in danger when we're actually not in danger.

This can also happen because of the functioning of the brain. The brain is constantly scanning our environment and trying to match what is present with things we've experienced in the past in order to help us be prepared and to stay safe. Think about walking out to your car and without thinking, grabbing your key fob or turning into your neighborhood on the way home from work and having no memory of having done that.

The brain has matched what is happening in the current moment with what has happened in the past.

Major priorities for the brain are survival and the conservation of energy. So the brain is constantly trying to predict and match it with the structure we already have in order to conserve energy and to keep us safe. So for instance, we don't have to relearn that a grizzly bear is dangerous. That structure is already in our brain and seeing a grizzly will light up that wiring.

Same thing when you turn into your neighborhood without realizing it. The structure is already there. This kind of predicting is really essential for all that we do during the day. We probably couldn't make it through our day. Probably we'd still be in bed if we had to direct every action that we took during the day. And this can work against us when it comes to triggering our nervous system.

Sights, sounds, smells, times of the year can all result in the brain lighting up memories from the past, some of which can be anxiety provoking because there's fear attached to the memory. 

And that fear that's attached to the memory sends a message or triggers mobilization by the nervous system. Something we are remembering, anticipating, or that our brain is matching can trigger a response by the nervous system and result in the symptoms that we perceive or that we define as anxiety. 

Because remember those symptoms are actually evidence that our nervous system has mobilized to try to help us in some way.

The important thing to remember in working with your anxiety is to remember that your body is not malfunctioning and that feeling afraid of your symptoms or trying to make them go away usually makes things worse. This is what tends to trap people in anxiety because if you remember from...think it was a couple of episodes ago, I talked about those qualities, those forces of wanting to do well. And so we try hard to make our anxiety go away. And in the process, we end up making it worse. 

It's kind of that pink elephant thing. If someone tells you not to think of pink elephants, what do you immediately think of? Pink elephants, right?

When we bring our attention to our anxiety, we're going to notice the changes in our body, which may not be comfortable. And that discomfort can trigger another response from the nervous system, increasing the symptoms that we are afraid of or that are resulting in the discomfort.

Take a moment and bring to mind a time when you were really excited about something. Maybe you were waiting for a loved one to arrive at the airport, or you were throwing a surprise party for someone that you care about.

See if you can take yourself back to that moment. And as you do, notice what's happening in your body. Is it calm? Or is it revved up? You might notice what your heart's doing. Is it beating faster?

How about your breathing? Are you finding it a bit hard to breathe? And that maybe your stomach is doing flip-flops?

The symptoms of anxiety and excitement are very similar. Both represent a gearing up of the body. The differences, we usually respond differently to them. When we're excited, we're focusing on our excitement. We're looking for that person coming off the plane or we can't wait for the person to arrive so we can yell surprise. We're usually not focusing on the fact that our heart is beating faster. Once we start to worry about anxiety, that is what we start to focus on. And then we start to notice that difference in our heart rate and that can lead to fear, which makes everything worse.

The most important thing we can do when we notice our system has revved up is to accept that it is trying to help us in some way. And then peek underneath those symptoms, underneath that blanket of anxiety, and see if the help is needed in that moment or whether I've accidentally sent the message to my body that I needed its help in facing a challenge or a threat.

Sometimes anxiety can become chronic, as I'm sure some of you know. And I'm going to come back to that situation in a few minutes. And let's talk first about an incident where you notice that you're anxious. So we're going to want to work on accepting that all that means is that my body is responding to something.

It's trying to help me in some way. if you're unsure how it's trying to help you, like you're not...facing a test or about to give an ⁓ interview for job or try something new that you've never done. So if you're not facing a challenge, one of the things that might help is to ask yourself what your strongest feeling is right now in that moment and to put it into a sentence. Oftentimes that can help us to figure out what we need in order to care for our nervous system. 

I think that, well, if you know me, you know that I usually think it's easier to imagine how to do this by imagining a child. So let's take a moment and imagine that a child is anxious the night before a test. I imagine that the first thing that I might do is to ask them what they're afraid of and what's leading to that anxiety. Are they afraid because they know they haven't studied? Or are they simply anxious about how well they'll do?

If they haven't studied, unless there's no time to study...probably the need, what's gonna help, is to spend some time studying. It's probably not going to help to simply reassure that it's normal to get anxious before a test because the child is going to know that they haven't studied. And so will you. 

So if you know that there's something that you could do and you're, body has mobilized because you are afraid, because you haven't done something, then the need might be to get that done so that you can ease that anxiety. 

Now, if the child is worrying just because there's a test tomorrow, I might want reassure them that getting anxious is pretty normal before a test, that it shows that doing well is important to you. And that's a good thing. And then I might help them to get their mind on something else.

 So that's an example of how checking in with your feelings can help to give you a direction for what to do once you peek underneath the anxiety. Let's take another example. Say a good friend of yours is feeling anxious before a trip.

I'm imagining you'd probably want to know more. If it were me, I would. I'm imagining if it were a client of mine, I might ask her to check for her strongest feeling and to put it in a sentence, like I just suggested. And if she is afraid because she's never flown to the airport where she has to catch her connecting flight, maybe her fear is pointing to a need to familiarize herself with the airport.

Or to remind herself that she's good at figuring things out, that she's good at problem solving, and even though she hasn't been there, she'll figure it out when she gets there. Or she might remind herself that this is how I stretch and grow by trying new things.

And it's quite possible that her strongest feeling might be excitement, masquerading as anxiety.

And because, as I shared in the last episode, stress is associated with the sense of having a meaningful life. You might consider whether there's something meaningful to you that has triggered a response by your body.

Most of the things that we pursue in our life that will give it meaning most often come with fear or stress. The two go together. If I'm going for a new job or a promotion, there's probably going to be some fear with that and some stress with that. I can expect that. I can expect my body to mobilize because that is a challenge for me. And that will give my life meaning.

So once you have peeled back the blanket of anxiety and peered underneath to discover what has triggered it, then you're in a much better place to know how to proceed. If you're facing a challenge, you might want to remind yourself that your body's gearing up to help you and then bring your attention back to whatever challenge you are facing.

So think of that child anxious about the test. Once we have reassured the child that it is normal to feel geared up before a test, then we want to redirect. We want to get them busy thinking about something else. It doesn't really help for the child to sit and focus on their discomfort. And the same is true for us.

So we want determine if we're facing a challenge, if we are. to remind ourselves that our body's trying to help us, and then we want to redirect our attention back to what we need to do in order to face that challenge. If I'm not facing a challenge, try checking in with your feelings and figuring out what you need. If it's the middle of the night, you might need to let your nervous system know that you're safe through your words, your breathing, maybe doing some qigong or some tapping. If there's a fear there and there's something you could do about it, are you willing to do it?

I want to come back to chronic anxiety because I know many people struggle with this. And when we have chronic anxiety, we have likely trained our brain to react with fear to the body's mobilization. For instance, I've had clients with anxiety who were unable to physically work out because the minute their heart started beating faster, they became paralyzed by their anxiety, by their fear and anxiety. 

Remember how I said that the brain is always trying to help us and whatever we do with frequency, the brain will make it easier for us to perform that behavior in the future by creating the structure to support that behavior. So we can get in a terrible vicious cycle, where the brain is responding with fear to symptoms designed to help us, and in doing that, creating more symptoms.

So when this has happened, when we have trained our brain to go to fear, when our body mobilizes to try to help us, we're going to have to retrain the brain.

And I'm going to once again borrow strategies that Dr. Schubiner writes about using with his patients who are working on unlearning their pain. So this is from his book, Unlearn Your Pain.

So one of the strategies that I'm borrowing from him is to create a set of affirmations that you can use to remind your nervous system that all is well. For instance, a few of his suggestions are, I'm healthy, I'm strong. I'm safe and I'm not in danger.

Whatever words will help your nervous system get the message that it can stop mobilizing your defenses. So you would want to repeat those affirmations throughout the day, knowing that your brain, without you even thinking about it, is going to react every time your system starts to mobilize. So you want to repeatedly be giving your nervous system a different message, the message that all is well. 

He also has his patients simply say, I'm okay, throughout their day. And we know that using the third person might even make this more impactful. So I might say, Deb, you are okay. You are safe.

The one thing we don't want to do is get into judging whether we're doing well by the absence of anxiety. We're not going to be able to turn off a normal physiological function in the body. And wouldn't life be kind of boring if we never got excited?

I hope this has given you some ideas for how to approach your anxiety in a way that will keep it from getting worse, in a way that will enhance your performance and support you in creating a meaningful life.

And bringing it back to where we started, I hope this has helped to normalize that being ourselves in the world often is a challenge and we want our nervous system to help us when we face challenges. And so it's likely that our nervous system is going to be geared up. So we want to Thank it for helping us.

As always I would love to hear your thoughts and reactions and until next time take good care and bye bye

This has been Blooming Outside the Lines, a podcast dedicated to supporting you in blooming into all you are meant and wish to be. If you enjoyed it and gained value, please consider leaving a review, as it will help other women to find it and please share it with anyone who would benefit from it. And if you would like to be notified when new episodes become available, be sure and follow on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, how will you light a candle of self-acceptance? Because you deserve to be you, even if others disagree.