421. Freedom from Anxiety

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 421, Freedom From Anxiety.

This is Better Than Happy, the podcast where we study what the healthiest, most successful people in today’s world think, feel and do. And we leverage this knowledge to create our best lives. Are you ready, little bird? Let’s fly.

Hello everybody, thanks for joining me for another podcast episode. We’re going to talk about anxiety today. Before we get into that fun subject, I’ve had the best two days of work because I got to coach all of my mastermind entrepreneur clients who I get to know really well. We work really intimately in their businesses. And just feel so lucky on days like that to get to do what I do. I feel like I get to know these people and I care about their businesses, their personal lives, their families, all of it.

And just so excited for them, they’re having tremendous breakthroughs, so much positive momentum, so much growth and success in their businesses and their personal lives. And again, a huge thank you to all of them, they know who they are. Once I got done with coaching today I took a few of my kids and we went to Coeur d’Alene Lake and just cooled off in the lake, enjoyed some sunshine.

If you have not been to Coeur d’Alene Lake, you must check it out. It is the most amazing lake, I’m pretty sure, on the planet. I don’t know, I’m not very well traveled, so I probably don’t know, but it is gorgeous. And then we went and got some dinner and just soaking up the end of summer here.

So, I want to talk about anxiety and specifically about how to help you find freedom from anxiety. Somebody on my team recently was helping me with some marketing and things and they said, “Do you know what your most popular podcast episode is about, take a guess?” And I went, “Anxiety.” And they said, “Yeah.” And I thought, yeah, I knew it. Not because I’d looked.

But because that is the topic I get asked about the most, whether I’m talking to teenagers, young adults, speaking live or I’m on Instagram answering questions or I’m coaching. Anxiety is just hot a topic right now, unfortunately, it’s an issue for a lot of people. And anyway, I created a deep dive four part course called Freedom From Anxiety because it does not need to be the problem it is, I promise. It is not that our world is worse and scarier or more dangerous than it’s ever been. It is not that our diet is just too terrible, social media, whatever the things.

And I’m not arguing that these things don’t impact us, they do. What I’m saying is, it’s not a lost cause. You do not have to feel trapped and stuck and enslaved by anxiety, you really don’t. And so I’m going to tell you more later about how to take advantage of that deep dive four part course but let me just give you what I can give you today that if you just apply what I’m going to give you today. I promise it will start to provide the relief that you’re looking for. And then if you want more, I’ll tell you how to get more.

But I want to preface it by saying I am not a magician. I don’t know how to get rid of your anxiety altogether and as a matter of fact, I don’t think that should be our goal. I think because that is most people’s goals, how do I get rid of this anxiety, I think we make the anxiety worse. The way that I coach people with anxiety and I have been coaching for almost 10 years now and I’ve coached thousands of people.

And I’ve had people tell me they have clinical ongoing for decades now, chronic anxiety and that the tools they’ve learned have impacted many of them more than anything else. And I’m not saying this is the only way. I’m a huge fan of you trying out all the things, try out the therapy and the medication and the clinical, I’m going to talk about that in just a minute. But for many people, these tools have been the missing piece and so I want to give them to you here today.

So again, most people are trying to get rid of anxiety. They come on coaching calls and things and they say to me, “I’m just so anxious. How do I not be so anxious all the time? I don’t want to feel this anxiety all the time.” And my approach is totally different from what you might expect and what they think. My approach is that we’re not going to run away from it. We’re not going to try to get rid of it, we’re going to go towards it. We’re going to lean into it.

We’re going to learn how to do anxiety, how to be anxious, how to be a human who’s feeling anxiety and not have the anxiety trap us, shut us down, control us. Now, if you’re saying, “What? That sounds terrible, I don’t want it.” I get it but stay with me. So a client will often say to me, “I’m so anxious, I just don’t want to feel this way.” And I’ll say, “Why not?” I don’t mean why not, who cares? Let’s just move on. I genuinely want to know why, why not. And they’ll say, “It’s just so terrible. It just shuts me down. It’s been going on for so long, I just can’t handle it.”

I’ll say, “Okay, tell me, what does it feel like?” Now, by the way, I feel anxiety too. It’s not that I don’t know. I purposely ask my clients this and I want you, if you have anxiety to ask yourself this question the next time you feel it or even now as you think about it, even if you’re not feeling it. What does it feel like? Now, a lot of times what people give me are their thoughts. It feels like everything is terrible, I’m never going to be able to figure this out. I’m never going to solve this problem or I’m never going to get ahead in life. They start giving me thoughts.

I’m like, “No, no, no, what does it feel like in your body?” I get that you might have lots of thoughts. Your mind might be racing, spinning and it might not make any sense. And I know that all that might be happening in your head. That’s not what I’m talking about. What does it actually feel like physically in your body? Now, I ask my clients this because I want to see first of all, do they know? Have they experienced it? How aware are they of it?

And I’ll tell you that the more aware you become of it, the more you go in and pause and slow down and experience it, the less power it has over you and the less scary it becomes. Because when we are anxious about our anxiety, we have double the amount of anxiety. When we are afraid of being anxious, when we’re ashamed of being anxious, when we are resentful and frustrated and angry about being anxious then we have anxiety and resentment and frustration and anger or shame or whatever it is.

Do you see how this not wanting to feel it, creates a whole another negative emotion on top of the anxiety? This does not help, my friends. This does not lessen the anxiety. It intensifies it and in fact buries it under another layer of emotions. So what does it feel like in your body when you’re feeling anxiety? Now, there’s some variation in answers but not much. The main thing people tell me and I’m telling you this, because I want you to check in with yourself next time you feel anxious, see if you can relate to this.

The main thing people say is, “It feels like a pressure in my chest, like a tightness or a heaviness on my chest.” Can you relate to that? Then I say to them, “Okay. Well, can you still breathe?” Now, I get that sometimes we have panic attacks and we literally feel like we can’t breathe and I’m not talking about that yet, although I do think there are some similar tactics I would use, but let’s just keep it with anxiety. Can you breathe? Are your lungs being crushed? Is your chest being crushed? Are you being smashed?

And they’ll say, “No, not like that. I can still breathe fine. I’m not being crushed. I’m not in pain of something, this heaviness on my chest. It’s just like a pressure, a fullness, a tightness.” To which I say, “Why is that so terrible?” It’s not, you guys, it’s not that terrible. It’s inconvenient, kind of annoying. It’s not how any of us would choose to feel on any given day, but it’s not that terrible if you just go, “Alright, it’s a little bit tight in my chest. It’s a little bit of pressure, a little bit of a fullness.” That’s what we’re going to do today.

Now, again, there may be some variation, maybe you feel it in your stomach, maybe you feel it in other places, which I’m very interested in as well. I want you to ask yourself these questions when you’re feeling anxiety. Is it moving? Does it move within me? And if so, does it move fast or does it move slow? Does it kind of fall and then rise up again? And if so, does it fall slowly and then rise fast or is it the opposite, does it rise fast and drop slowly? Do they move in the same pace?

Do you see how these are little subtle nuances that are super hard to identify, you guys, you know why? The emotion is not that powerful, it’s not that intense, it’s not that strong. When I ask myself these questions, when I’m allowing emotions, and by the way, you can do this with any negative emotion, I’ll ask myself them and they’re really hard to answer, you know why? The sensation that these emotions create in our bodies is actually very subtle. It’s not a big deal. It’s not like I’m being tortured. It’s not like I’m being physically abused. They’re subtle little shifts.

What makes them feel intense and intolerable is me adding layers and layers of negative emotion, like resistance and anger and shame and blame and anxiety about my anxiety. That’s what makes them feel terrible but the emotions themselves, when you strip all that other away, are not that big of a deal. They’re just kind of annoying. They’re just kind of inconvenient. When you need to pee and you can’t get to the bathroom yet, it’s kind of inconvenient, but you’re not mad about it and you know it’s not going to last forever.

Okay, now here’s a couple of other things I want you to keep in mind as you do this. Do you see what I mean by going towards it, going into it, not trying to get rid of it, trying to solve for it, just opening up to it, allowing it, becoming familiar with it? This is more powerful than I can possibly describe. I seriously hope you will take me up on experimenting with this. It might sound weird. There’s a few more steps to add to it if that didn’t sound weird enough.

Relax everything in your body. I always start with my shoulders because I usually have them hunched up next to my ears, especially when I’m feeling negative. So I just drop my shoulders, take a deep breath, next thing I think about is my gut, because I’m usually trying to suck it in. So I’m like, “We’re not going to suck in the gut. We’re going to let it all hang out right now.” Often I notice when I’m feeling anxious that my face gets all tight. I’m scrunching up my face, so I relax my face. I think about relaxing everything.

And I’m taking breaths in through the nose, a little bit quicker in through the nose and long exhales through the mouth, longer anyway than the inhale. So I’m intentionally breathing in this way. I’m relaxing all my muscles and I’m going, “Alright, what does it feel like?” There it is. There’s that fullness. It’s not that full, though. I can breathe fine. I’m not being crushed. I’m actually not in pain but there it is. Is it moving? It moved, it went away. You’re noticing it and allowing it and welcoming it.

Now, later on, I hesitate to add this part for people because if you try to do this part while the anxiety is still really strong before it’s subsided, at least a little bit, it can easily turn into resisting the anxiety. And it can turn into again, trying to get rid of it. I’m just prefacing this part with a word of caution. Sometimes just allowing it is all you’ll need. But other times, once it feels like it’s subsided a little bit at least, and it’s not super strong and you feel like re-regulated yourself, then you may try asking yourself, “What is the source of this anxiety?”

Now, in my experience, there are basically only two things that are ever the source. One might be something chemical or biological going on in my body. There may be a chemical imbalance of some sort, this triggering anxiety. There may be something biological like I’m just really exhausted and so my body is dysregulated and escalating things. I am running low on sleep or the kind of exhaustion that comes after intense physical or emotional or mental labor of some sort. So I would classify those things as chemical, biological things happening in the body.

Now, I want to know that because if I do want to see if I can possibly minimize this anxiety at all, I’m going to want to treat a chemical or biological issue with a chemical or biological solution, which may mean medication, therapy, clinical type addressing of it. It may be getting more sleep, getting some exercise, figuring out how to lighten my load a little bit, figuring how to rest and recover.

If it’s a chemical thing, again, what I’m doing by asking myself this, what is the source of this, is I’m showing myself, there’s not real danger here. Anxiety is our brain saying there is danger. And if there is danger, I want to feel anxious and I want to know that. It’s an invitation to something. But if it’s a biological something, okay, then we would attempt to treat it biologically. The other thing that may be the source of anxiety is my thoughts about a particular situation.

So like I just said, maybe it is literally something that I want to do something about in my life, good to know, that I’m glad this anxiety is here to prompt me to pay attention and make the necessary changes in my life. In many other cases, it is not anything that I either want to or can change. By that I mean maybe it’s something I saw in the news, a tragedy happening in the world that I can’t at least immediately go fix that problem in the world.

Maybe it’s a challenge that a loved one, one of my kids or my close friends or family member or somebody that I love is going through, and I’m worried about them. Maybe it’s something that I’m going through. Maybe it’s my workload of some sort. Maybe I have anxiety about school or work or relationship situations or whatever. And if there’s something going on in my life and I am having thoughts about it, this is a really important distinction, by the way. It’s not that thing going on in your life creating the anxiety, it’s your thoughts about it.

Sometimes there are thoughts that I want to have and I want to address the situation, the circumstance. Many other times, more often I should say, they are thoughts that I want to take a look at. And that is where coaching comes in. And I will say for the majority of my clients, that is the cause of the anxiety that we’re able to address and that makes such a tremendous impact that even if there are biological factors still, which there often are. Because even if I don’t have a hormonal or chemical imbalance, sometimes I don’t get enough sleep.

So even when there are biological factors or circumstances that I might want to address, I want to be anxious about so I can try to make an impact. Those become so available to me, so possible to address because the majority of it that’s causing me to feel trapped comes from this bucket of stories and beliefs and thoughts that aren’t serving me. And I wish it were just as simple as saying to you, “Just think positively.” I wish it were that easy.

Some people distill down what I teach into that, they think it is that simple. I wish it were that simple. I know it’s not that simple. So if you’re thinking, it’s not that simple, Jody Moore, I know it’s not that simple. That is why I have thousands of clients that I work with closely to take a look at how do we shift your thinking? It’s not just thinking positively, it’s shifting your thinking into something more useful. And in fact, sometimes some of the most positive sounding thoughts are actually creating anxiety for us.

For example, if you ever think, I just want my child to be happy, I just want him to fulfill his potential. Doesn’t that sound like a lovely thought? If your child is unhappy or not living up to his potential, it may be an anxiety inducing thought, it may not be a useful thought. And that’s just scratching the surface.

Like I said, I have a deep dive four part course where I’m going to go into in more detail what we do about anxiety. And if you want to join me for that, the best way, well, let me just say, for all of you who are already in Be Bold with me, I’m going to be teaching it to you in there, so you’re already going to get it, don’t worry. If you think you might be interested in joining me, even if it’s just for this course, my recommendation is that you come to try out coaching, it’s free. I want you to just get the free sample of yogurt before I give you a whole cup and charge you for it.

Come to try out coaching. I’m going to talk more on that. It’s happening very soon, by the way, you go to jodymoore.com/trial, but I’m going to talk more on that about how to get freedom from anxiety and a lot of other tools and resources. But again, this is available on a very limited time because I’m teaching it soon.

So if you struggle with anxiety and you’re thinking, I’ve tried everything and I am sick of feeling this way or you haven’t tried anything but you want to get started somewhere or you have a loved one or a friend or a family member. Please have them come to try out coaching, it’s free. And even if you decide not to go through the deep dive four part Freedom From Anxiety course, I promise you will leave try out coaching with some insight that you can only get by hearing live coaching.

So come and join me. You might feel anxious still in your life, you probably will. You’re a healthy human, I still do, but it doesn’t have to trap you. It doesn’t have to control you. It doesn’t have to dictate your life. I promise you this is true even in today’s world, even with social media, even with all the things. So join me or send your loved one. I can’t wait to help you with this. Thanks for being here today, everyone, take care.

Coaching changed my life and I’ve watched it change the lives of thousands of men and women since, but is it right for you? You’ll only know by giving it a try. Try it out today at jodymoore.com/trial.