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The Biggest Myth Around Anxiety · RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is produced by my friends at WalkWest.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you're looking to grow your brand and generate leads through podcast or video production, head over to walkwest.com.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's start the show.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: From emotional intelligence through cognitive distortions, certified life and wellness coach Comedy Wood is on a mission to help people see the magnificence of their own unique human spirit.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Through these small bites of self-visualization and self-confidence, you can have healthy relationships, success in business and career, and live the life you want to live.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Rise up, live joy your way.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hi there and welcome to another episode of Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way, whether it's morning, afternoon, or evening, thank you for taking some time out of your day to spend here with me.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And today I want to just revisit the lovely topic of anxiety.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: So often we deal with some myths around anxiety, and I also want to just talk through some of the ways that many people try to cope with anxiety, trying to get it to go away.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes there's a myth that anxiety is not common and that you're alone in how anxious you feel.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth is, so many of us, so many of us are dealing with anxiety.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sure, there's a different spectrum and the the magnitude that people feel, the anxiousness will range.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: However, the the truth is many, many individuals feel anxiety at one point or another.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And anxiety, for the most part, is either around n you know, a fear of I'm not gonna be okay, or a fear of I I don't have control over the situation.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so oftentimes there's another myth that says anxiety is really bad and it needs to be eliminated.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: But again, the truth on that is that anxiety does serve a purpose to an extent.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there is such there is an idea that there is a right amount of anxiety because when we when we actually pay attention to the anxiousness, let's just say from, you know, we're crossing a a busy street, the anxiety around the number of cars going through that street is actually helpful to us because it keeps us safe and it keeps us from walking into the middle of the road and potentially getting run over.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's the idea or the myth around anxiety that it's gonna ruin your life or that it's really terrible, we need to get rid of it because if we don't get rid of it, you're not gonna be successful.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And again, the truth around it is that a little bit of anxiety can actually work in your favor and recognizing that anxiety is part of the human experience to an extent, right?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Anxiousness can be part of the human experience to an extent.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So if we spend all of our time and energy trying to get rid of it, we're actually trying to negate the human experience, and it's just it's a fruitless exercise, really, because again, some anxiety is there to keep us safe.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, people do have the myth around anxiety saying that if you're not perfect, you know, um, if if you are perfect rather, then you will feel less anxious.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually not true, you know.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think any perfectionist who says that they've been trying to work really hard on perfectionism and not making mistakes, that in and of itself creates its own sense of anxiety.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I deal with teenagers all the way through adults as my clients, and I will say that regardless of the age, when there's uh perfectionism in play, the anxiousness actually goes through the roof because there's even more worry about making a mistake.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes the coping mechanisms for anxiety will include things like avoidance, where you just try to avoid the anxiousness, you try to just never experience it.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that avoidance can actually trap you in the anxiety cycle.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, perfectionism, I just talked about, you know, many people think that if they're just perfect, they will never feel anxious again.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, when you try to be perfect, you will actually feel more anxious because you are so afraid of making a mistake.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So it would actually cause your anxiety to go through the roof.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Other ways that people will find themselves trying to cope with it, whether conscious or subconscious, is rumination, overthinking.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Almost like this idea that if I think about this again and again and again and again, I will find the answer and then that'll get rid of my anxiety.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: But when your mind obsesses over the fears or over the thing that you're worried about, then it can't actually find a solution because it's it actually gets caught in almost that riptide, if you will, of fear and anxiety.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so it actually can it actually strengthens the anxiety that you're feeling.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um other times people will try to handle their anxiety through the sense of control.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: If I can control the situation, uh then I won't feel anxious.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: But what ends up happening then is that you become actually more rigid and more um inflexible, right?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're thinking about how we work through challenges and how we can move from pain through growth or towards growth rather than pain into suffering, oftentimes we talk about becoming more flexible in our thinking.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Can I look at this a different way?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: But when we get so controlling around our anxiety, it actually keeps us from having that psychological flexibility.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, others have found themselves trying to self-medicate with substances, trying to just numb out the anxiousness.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: This might work for the short term, but then what ends up happening is the anxiety comes roaring back even stronger after the fact because the consequences of trying to numb out with those with those substances actually is it for the long term is actually more detrimental.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we're talking about this, you know, oftentimes I will say to people, uh especially my clients, when we're talking about anxiety and how we can work through it, it's it's actually facing it and going towards it, but going towards it with a sense of curiosity, going towards it with a sense of self-compassion, trying to figure out what is the anxiety trying to communicate to you rather than trying to uh distance yourself from it, numb it out, avoid it, uh control it.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's about noticing that it's there and then getting really curious about how how it's there, like what is it trying to actually communicate to you?
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we think about just the idea of anxiety, it can actually create some anxiety, right?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's like, I don't like that feeling.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And most often what ends up happening is we don't we don't like a feeling and we try to avoid that feeling, we just never want to have that feeling.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, if we just recognize that there's that polarity with the quote-unquote good comes the bad, with the bad comes the good, right?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: The flip of a coin, it's recognizing that if we run away from those feelings, if we don't pay attention to what it's trying to communicate to us, it it will come back because it has something that it's trying to communicate.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're thinking about anxiety, it really is about, and this is gonna sound strange to some of you, but it is about befriending it, it's about going towards it.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Facing that anxiety allows you to start to deal with the distress that you're feeling, and it and when you go towards it and you get curious with it and you understand it in the long run, you actually start building your confidence as well as your resilience.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not about you know just jumping into that deep end of the pool and just saying, okay, I'm gonna go full-fledged into dealing with my anxiety, but it's about gradually going into it more and more, building that muscle, building strategies so that you can find a way to work through the anxiety.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes we do need support when we're going through that, whether it be from close friends and family, or I know even in my own coaching practice, it's what I work with clients around a lot is just handling handling and working through uh the anxiety that people feel on a daily basis.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to talk to me about this or anything else that you feel that coaching might be able to help you move forward in your life, whether personally or professionally, feel free to reach out to me anytime at coachwithcomedy.com.
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  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, stay well.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: For more information, book a chat with comedy at www.chatwithcomedy.com or visit her website at www dot comedywood.com.
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  SPEAKER_01: You can also find comedy on Facebook or Instagram.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Username it's authentic me.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening.