Latest / RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way / Ep. 2 – Coronavirus Anxiety

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Ep. 2 – Coronavirus Anxiety · RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is produced by my friends at WalkWest.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking to grow your brand and generate leads through podcast or video production, head over to walkwest.com.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's start the show.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Rise Up.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Live Joy Your Way with Comedy Wood.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to step into your power.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Hey there and welcome to another episode of Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: These are some crazy times that we're living in, aren't they?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: The amount of anxiety and overwhelm that we are experiencing as a collective unit right now across the world is crazy.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: I am sitting here recording this podcast and have to give the disclaimer that if suddenly you hear a child come running into the room, it's because we've gone from a house full of children who go off to school Monday through Friday to suddenly a house full of homeschoolers.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: And while we will continue to do what we need to do in order to get through this time, I would be not telling the truth if I said that there was not some stress and overwhelm and anxiety that we are all feeling as part of this uh pandemic that we are all facing.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: So when we think about the situation that we're all facing, I'm I'm hearing it over and over again uh through different people from different networking groups and different um groups of moms and um business owners about the panic and overwhelm that they're starting to feel because of the coronavirus and the pandemic that we are all facing as a nation and as a world.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I know, for instance, that many small businesses and small business owners are starting to worry about how they're gonna make ends meet uh due to the fact that they are not able to go out and uh sell their products and or services.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I know a lot of people are trying to work from home, but then when of course when you have to balance that with possibly homeschooling your children and trying to get your work done, that can cause stress and overwhelm.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so the big question I had is how are we gonna how are we gonna face this?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: How are we going to deal with it?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the biggest part for me was um giving myself the grace to recognize and to embrace the emotions that I'm feeling.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh oftentimes we think it's okay, I'll just muscle through this and I'll put on my brave face and it'll be fine.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're facing a crisis as large as this, it's it's a reminder that emotions are definitely meant to be felt.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: If we don't process them, they uh are left unattended and eventually are gonna grow and eventually come back tenfold.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so in this particular situation, we are definitely at a point where we have to slow it down and we have to give ourselves the time to experience the emotion that we're feeling.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: So whether it's fear or anxiety, we need to slow it down and to recognize uh, yes, I'm having this emotion, I'm feeling fearful, I'm feeling scared, I'm feeling angry, um, and allow the emotion to actually rise and crest as though it's meant to.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, again, I think I've talked about this before many times on several podcasts that I've actually guested on, and one of the things that I generally say to the listeners is emotions are meant to be in motion.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is one of those times where we have to recognize the importance of allowing ourselves to feel the emotion that we feel.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: What are some other ways and strategies that we can deal with the stress and anxiety that's coming with the whole coronavirus pandemic?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, besides, you know, um making sure that we do honor the social distancing, uh, other ways that we can help ourselves is to plan ahead.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a lot of us love to live our lives by routine.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have our our daily routines set in stone, and all of a sudden, now with us working from home, we could upend those daily routines.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so, what I do suggest, in order to keep some semblance of um sanity and less stress, it's to um to give yourself a sense of control in your own environment.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it might be to plan your day ahead in terms of how are you going to structure your day.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: If you're working from home and you just have to worry about yourself and your business, have a plan for how you're going to deal with the work that's coming up.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, of course, if you're also a parent and you are managing working and um having to deal with the homeschooling, I suggest definitely taking the time in the evening the night before to have a plan in place for how you would like to have the day unfold, how you're going to manage the school schedule, how you're going to add in things like snack time and lunchtime.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, our children do need some playtime.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: So making sure that we have that in place the night before, and not that we have to live rigidly by it, but if we have at least a plan, a baseline plan in place, it can alleviate some of the anxiety that's coming with the having to restructure our entire lives.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: The other suggestion I have is to make sure self-care is a priority.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: What do I mean by that?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's the physical things, like making sure that you find a way to add some exercise into your routine, that you're getting a good night's sleep, that you're eating healthy, because those are generally the pillars of well-being in terms of the physical sense.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: But then we also have to look at our emotional sense.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that I've often talked about when we're looking at our emotional health is to really slow it down, get present, and ask ourselves throughout the day, what am I feeling and what do I need?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: When we ask ourselves those two questions, and we can really get present with ourselves and we really understand what we're feeling, and then we also present ourselves with what we need, we can either self-soothe and give ourselves what we need, or we can also then reach out to our support system, whether it be friends or family, and communicate with them and be vulnerable and ask them for the things that we need so that we can actually fill our cup back up.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: We actually are taking care of ourselves because once again, when we're dealing with such a crazy time of stress, anxiety, and then of course, just the coronavirus in general, we want to keep our immune system up.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: So the best way that we can do that for ourselves is to make sure that we're making self-care a priority.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then the third suggestion I have is making sure that you're giving yourself some time to calm your mind and your body.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: How do we do this?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, oftentimes I suggest um meditation or mindful breathing, and there are different tools that I've definitely talked about, which I can talk about again here.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: One of which is the box breathing method.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's very simple.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: You breathe in for a count of four, hold for a count of four, exhale for a count of four, and then wait for a count of four, and repeat this three to five times.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Recently, when I was giving a talk, actually, though, um, one young lady told me that closing her eyes actually causes more anxiety.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so what we were talking about with her was she said that she really loves to draw and paint.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so sometimes it's not necessarily meditating or closing her eyes and breathing that's gonna give us the calmness and allow our thoughts to settle, but it's finding something that we resonate with.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: So for this young lady, drawing and painting was something that allows her to give her mind that space to breathe and for those thoughts to calm.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so the thing that I told her was, you know, that's perfectly fine because not every technique is going to work for everybody in this time of high stress and high anxiety, it is so important to get connected with what you need to give yourself whatever space and grace that you need in order to manage and face the adversities that we're facing.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so, if painting is a way that you can calm and get mindful and present, great.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Some people have talked about taking meditative walks, which is another great way to get present in your daily moment and also allow your mind to slow down on those thoughts.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And the fourth way, which leads me into the fourth way of actually dealing with the stress and anxiety that's coming with uh this pandemic that we're all facing, is getting grounded in nature and spending time in nature.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Just allowing for a pause between all of our daily transitions.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we wake up, we're trying to get our work done from home now.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: If we are parents, we're trying to manage our children's schedule, make sure that their school stays on task.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so giving yourself that time each day to just pause and get grounded in nature, get recentered, and also just get fresh air, getting outside and getting some fresh air, even if it's 30 degrees outside, just for a few minutes, bundling up and just breathing some fresh air will help reduce the anxiety and it also boosts our resilience factor.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: And when we're dealing with such a high level of overwhelm, we have to remember that if we stay in that state, which is you know, we stay in that fight or flight state for such a prolonged period of time, we're going to end up suffering trauma.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so we have to find ways.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's so important to find ways to bring down that feeling of overwhelm.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we give ourselves these little techniques, whether it be go for a walk, whether it's just you know making sure that we practice our mindful meditation or just closing our eyes for you know a couple minutes, and whether it's the box breathing method or just even the simple method of breathing in for count of three and exhaling for count of six, when we practice these things that allow us to get present and to calm our mind, we are able to get out of that fight or flight state, and then we're also able to start thinking about things differently.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because through what I've realized throughout this whole process, and and I honestly am dealing with it myself, is you know, my anxieties have risen, and there was a moment there have been moments where I've been saddened by the whole thing, and then there have been moments that I've been angered by the whole thing, and I started to realize, you know, comedy, this is much like the the different stages of grief.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that I'm I'm I'm actually going through it just in a different with a different storyline.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, now we're dealing with this health crisis that's a pandemic that the entire world is facing as one.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I realize that with each of the stages, there does come a point where you start to look at it ever so differently, and you're able to start to say, well, what can I take from this?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: What's a positive that I might be able to grasp in this time of, you know, the economy is having issues, we don't know if our children are safe, we can't really go out of our house, you know, the grocery stores don't have, they're not very well stocked.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the worries are huge.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: What possibly could be coming out of this?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And when I slowed myself down and I thought, what's something that I can take out of this?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: I realized, you know, I went from being overscheduled with my kids every single night to suddenly all of those activities have fallen off.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And while they love their activities and I believe in their activities being really beneficial from a social as well as a developmental point of view, you know, I I definitely believe in the education system, but I also believe in having other, you know, um things that are interest that interest you and that you pursue just in terms of the overall well-being of somebody, I realize that this time has allowed me to clear off that calendar in the evening and suddenly we're all cooking together.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: So while I would not necessarily prefer this to be the method that we're spending time together, one of the positives from this whole situation has been that I have been able to reconnect with my family in a way that we hadn't been connecting.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: We had gotten so busy going through the tasks of life and getting all of the things done that we had started to lose touch with one another.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so this whole situation has given us this newfound time with one another, this newfound way to um hang out, whether, you know, with my daughter, we've come up with new recipes to try, or just everybody being home all at the same time when we're having these meals together and just having funny conversations and you know, kind of picking on each other, yes, but picking on each other in a in a playful way and just being able to be around one another.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And for me personally, it's a huge thing because my oldest is 18 and getting ready to go off on her own.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um, then of course I have my 16-year-old who's also going to be starting to look at colleges in short order, and so it's just it's a nice way for me to spend time with them, but then also for their youngest sibling who happens to be six, getting to spend that quality time with her older siblings because a lot of the times they don't get to spend much time with one another because their worlds are so different and their their activities are so vastly different at this point in time.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, all in all, what I really just wanted to get across today was I hear you and I feel you, and I understand the stress and anxiety that is being felt by you and by everybody as a collective.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're all in this together.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I recognize that there is so much stress and so much anxiety, but if we could just remember that we will get through this, we will come out the other side, and just certain things like you know, making time to breathe, making sure that we're not getting overwhelmed with information from 18,000 sources, but just find the one or two really reputable sources that we can go to during the day once or twice, so that we're not constantly feeding our minds and making our minds race with information and we have information overload, but we we mindfully engage in the information around the coronavirus, you know, doing things like taking care of ourselves, practicing self-compassion, and remembering to ask for support when we need it.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here for you.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you need anything ever, feel free to email me at contact at itme.com.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: You can find me on the web at www.itsauthenticme.com.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: And until next time, I'm Comedy Wood.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Rise Up.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Always remember your uniqueness and the gift that you bring to this world.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Life happens for you, not to you.