Believe Like A Boss
Learn how to smash your goals and expand the possibility of your life through mindset management, spiritual (energetic) alignment and intentional action. Join each week as Life Coach Nandi (rhymes with Gandhi) teaches you how to create what she calls "a life of thrive" with ease and authenticity. | NandiCamille.com
Believe Like A Boss
Taming Anxiety: Tools for Your Toolbox
Have you ever felt your chest tighten, your hands get clammy, or your thoughts race uncontrollably? These physical sensations are your body's way of signaling anxiety – an emotion that, at its core, is simply fear. But what if you could transform that fear into something more empowering?
In this deeply practical episode, I share the tools my clients and I have used to navigate anxious moments successfully. We explore the fundamental understanding that there exists only fear and love, and learning to shift from one to the other can change everything. I break down how to recognize your personal anxiety cues – both physical and mental – so you can intervene before anxiety escalates into panic.
The beauty of mindfulness lies in its simplicity. Sometimes, all it takes is a redirection of focus using what I call "catchphrase love" – repeating the word "love" to yourself when anxiety strikes. For those moments when you need more grounding, I walk through the powerful 5-4-3-2-1 technique that uses your five senses to anchor you in the present moment.
Perhaps most transformative is the shift from focusing on what you don't want (the source of anxiety) to what you do want. This simple yet profound change in perspective can recalibrate your nervous system and open doors to possibilities you might have been too fearful to imagine.
Whether you're experiencing anxiety for the first time or have struggled with it for years, these accessible tools can help you build a healthier relationship with fear. Remember – your brain is always trying to protect you, but sometimes its alarm system needs recalibration. With practice and patience, you can learn to respond to anxiety's signals with love instead of more fear.
Want to continue the conversation? Text me through the link in the description or find me on Instagram @nandi.camille.
Ready for personalized support? Visit nandicamille.com to learn about one-on-one coaching or schedule your free discovery call.
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Hi, friends, and welcome to Believe Like a Boss. I'm your host Life Coach, nandi Camille. Join me as I teach you how to smash your goals and expand the possibility of your life through mindset management, spiritual alignment and authentic action. I'll teach you how to create what I like to call a life of thrive, with ease and authenticity. It's time to play with what's possible. Are you ready? Let's go.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of Believe Like a Boss. I am your host life coach, Nandi Camille. Welcome back. My friends, I hope you're doing well.
Speaker 2:Lately I've been a little bit more honest. When friends or anybody asks me how are you, how are you doing? I feel like people actually are wanting to know a more honest answer. Not that they want us to all of a sudden have a therapy session, a coaching session, but that people are wanting truly. When they ask how are you, at least when they're asking me, it feels like they're wanting a genuine answer, and so my genuine answer lately has been good, but tired, or good and tired, and I'm like I'm good, I'm exhausted, I'm a little overwhelmed.
Speaker 2:Things are going well. You know it's summertime or it's springtime, it's warming up, it feels good outside. I got a lot on my plate right now and it just feels like everybody feels similarly that. You know I'm making the best of what's going on in my life right now. There are some parts that are challenging. The world feels challenging in some ways and I am doing my best to support myself, my family and my community Feels like the general consensus of the people that I'm talking to or that I'm surrounding myself with is this vibe of we're doing our best and we're tired.
Speaker 2:So I see you, if you are also out in the world doing your best and tired. You're out there putting in work, especially if we're becoming someone we've never been before, right, doing things that we've never done before. It's exhausting you're. You're asking your brain to exert energy in a way that it never has, literally. And so if you're losing weight and you're trying a new workout regimen, or you're looking for a new job right now and you're applying to other positions and you're trying a new workout regimen, or you're looking for a new job right now and you're applying to other positions and you're writing cover letters, or you're starting your business right now, and so you're thinking about do I do an LLC or an S Corp? What direction do I want to go and how do I want to process my finances, maybe you're looking to have a side hustle. You're just interested in figuring out where you want to go next. I'm talking to a lot of people about that right now, about where I want to go next. There's a lot of I'm feeling stale and feeling stagnant where I am right now and I'm wanting to find what the next thing is, but that's the thing I don't know what it is. So I'm talking to a lot of people about being curious about what might be on the horizon, but the way we're being curious about the horizon is going internally and understanding what do I enjoy? Who am I in the season of life?
Speaker 2:The other thing, that theme that I have been noticing with clients, has been an uptick in anxiety. Now, as a mindfulness based life coach, I end up attracting a lot of humans that have anxiety or experience anxiety, and I think also because I'm a human that has experienced anxiety throughout my life, I think that I just naturally attract those humans because I get it on a deep level. And so when I was thinking about the podcast this week, one of the themes that I'm noticing with clients right now is that uptick in anxiety, that we're spending a lot of time talking about anxious thoughts, anxious feelings and how to navigate that. Where some clients are noticing repetitive thoughts it feels like obsessive thinking in an anxious manner. Others might be experiencing panic attacks. Others are noticing themselves dissociating as a result of their anxiety. When I say dissociating the short version of that I always say do your research, but my shortened version of dissociation is when you kind of eject yourself from your body because you're overstimulated or wherever you are, you just deeply do not viscerally want to be. So you dissociate, kind of eject. And then it's when you kind of get to your car later on or get to wherever you're going later on and you're like, oh, where was I? I kind of moved through the motions, I left, I left the scene, I wasn't present. So those are some of the things that my clients are literally saying to me. That's what they're noticing, and so when I was thinking about you all on the podcast this week, I said let's go through some tools. Some of these tools you have heard before. Always, my friends, take what sticks to you, leave the rest. And if you're new here, my name is Nandi. Rhymes with Gandhi.
Speaker 2:I'm a mindfulness based life coach. I focus on supporting high achieving women, female entrepreneurs and creative entrepreneurs in overcoming their limiting beliefs and taking action in alignment, but not just taking action in alignment, also understanding what alignment means for them. Everybody's a little bit different, and so that's my favorite thing with coaching listening to you all, but then listening for the little nuggets and presenting them back to you. Of like this is what I'm hearing. Alignment is for you. Does that feel true? And then, from there, we check in. Does your life reflect what alignment means for you, right? What parts of your life are aligned and what parts of your life are not? And now, what do we need to think and do in order to get those parts of your life in alignment? That's what I do, but what we're going to come back to is we're talking about anxiety today, and so I'm going to start top to bottom.
Speaker 2:I'm actually going to read through client notes that I sent the other day and I'm going to put it in podcast form for you all, and, as always, again, some of this is going to be repetitive. If you've been around, hopefully it's a good refresher. Some of this will be new, but the way that I like to see anxiety, first and foremost, is fear, right, anxiety itself. What is anxiety? Anxiety is fear, right? It's very simply fear. When I'm feeling anxious about standing in front of a crowd of people, I'm afraid that I'm going to trip over my words, I'm afraid I'm going to sound stupid, I'm afraid that I'm going to freeze up. I have anxiety about speaking in front of people. I have fear, right, I have anxiety about driving downtown. I'm afraid that people are going to honk at me. I'm afraid I won't find parking. I'm afraid that it's going to be so congested and I'm used to open roads. I have anxiety about driving downtown. I have fear about driving downtown.
Speaker 2:What I would offer is this might be a great episode for you to listen to in order to notice those around you, some of their cues, and find ways that you can support them, or just keep this in your back pocket for when and if anxiety crosses your path, because in a conversation that I had with a client the other night, we were talking about panic attacks and she said this is actually the first time I'm having these. Then I started I personally, nandi, started having panic attacks when I was in middle school. I didn't actually know what they were until I was in college. Then I could name it. I thought I was just like heavy crying and tight chested breathing and that was it. I was just really, really, really intensely upset and truly that is what happens. It's a bubbling up of overwhelm and frustration, sadness, fear, right, I didn't have words for it until I was an adult, but now I'm talking to adults. I'm helping other beautiful queens who are experiencing anxiety, maybe for the first time in their adulthood, right? So, wherever you are, again, take what's six, you leave the rest.
Speaker 2:But the running definition that I'm going to use is anxiety. Is fear, right Now, the opposite of fear? I got this from A Course in Miracles, and Marianne Williamson is who teaches on A Course in Miracles? I'm sure lots of teachers actually, but that's who I've learned from. What I learned from A Course in Miracles was there's only fear and love. So the opposite of anxiety, the opposite of fear, is love.
Speaker 2:So, first and foremost, there's your first tools, right, when you're feeling anxious, notice, name, I'm experiencing fear. That alone should my hope is give you some grace, some wiggle room within your soul of like, oh, I'm experiencing fear. Right, you have some information to give yourself. It's not, I'm dying, the world is ending, it's all over. I'm experiencing fear right now. Right, you can name it and then, if it serves you, serves me, serves my clients, the opposite of fear is love. Right, and so, in a moment, again, that is a beautiful tool when you're experiencing fear, when you're experiencing anxiety. So, in a moment, again, that is a beautiful tool when you're experiencing fear, when you're experiencing anxiety in a moment. You say I'm experiencing fear right now. How might I shift towards love? That in itself has been such a beautiful tool for me for several years.
Speaker 2:Noticing anxiety is just fear, naming it and asking myself in that moment, truly taking a pause, taking a breath I'm experiencing fear. How might I shift into love right now? Right, maybe you're experiencing anxiety right now. Where we're going to move into are our cues. So when I was working with this client the other night, we noticed anxiety is fear and then from there we checked in on what are your cues Meaning? How do you know that you are experiencing anxiety? Everybody's a little bit different. For this client in particular, she experienced chest pain, tightness in her chest, tightness in her throat, feeling emotionally used, feeling like a boundary had been crossed. So I want you to notice a few things there. We notice the physical sensations in her body that are accused that she is feeling anxious. This is a beautiful mindfulness moment.
Speaker 2:If you don't know right now, thinking about anytime you've been anxious, what happens in your body, that's okay. The next time that you are feeling anxious, that is again feeling fear. I want you to notice what is happening in your physical body. When I would teach pure bar classes, like bar ballet bar classes. One of the things that I said the most in those classes are shoulders down and back. Roll your shoulders down and back, because when we get tense, often in our body, our shoulders creep up towards our ears. Our body gets physically tight. I want you to notice what happens for you. For some people, their tummy gets tight. For some people they get a headache. For other people they might get a scratchy throat or some part of their body might go down. Whatever it is, you get to check in for you and notice what are my physical cues in my body that help me to know that I'm experiencing fear. I am experiencing anxiety. So those are the physical parts.
Speaker 2:Now, emotionally, mentally we also checked it on that side what is usually happening in your mind when you are experiencing fear? Anxiety? For her, it was feeling emotionally used or feeling like a boundary had been crossed. That's what's happening in her mind Boundaries been crossed. Boundaries been crossed right. When a boundary has been crossed, especially if we have verbalized that this is a boundary, it makes us feel unsafe. I have asked for X, y and Z. I've asked for you to not talk about this person around me. I've asked you for that. I know you are talking about that person around me. It makes me feel like I'm being ignored, unseen and therefore unsafe in this relationship. It makes sense why you would, in that moment, feel fear, feel anxiety. Right, you bring it back home to you.
Speaker 2:When you experience anxiety, what is happening? Is it usually when you're going to work? Is it usually when you're talking to a specific type of person? Is it a certain time of day? Is it every Sunday, before you have to go back to work? Notice and then notice what are the thoughts and the physical sensations that are happening. The reason why this is so helpful is because when we can notice our physical body, it gives us that opportunity to pause and breathe. Notice, I am experiencing fear. Right, when we can be mindful of our physical cues. Oh, my chest is getting tight. Oh, my hands are getting clammy. Oh, I'm getting sweaty. I'm getting physically hot right now. I'm noticing my body getting extremely hot right now. It allows us then to say okay, I'm noticing what my body's doing. I can take a deep breath. Now, I can leave the room. I can ask myself the question how am I to shift into love? It's a really great way to give us kind of a.
Speaker 2:Our body's giving us a warning right Before we get to a panic attack, before we get to a place where we're yelling or we're running away somewhere or we're completely climbing, climbing up or we are tripping over our words. Right, our bodies are giving us a hey, hey, hey. That's all it is. I think sometimes we hear that, hey, we hear this, hey, hey, we're anxious, and that's not necessarily what's happening. Your body's just giving you hey, just want to let you know hands are getting clammy, to let you know we're experiencing a little bit of fear. There's a thought right now that is out of alignment with our best selves, but that's a whole other tangent. For another time, I want you to notice your physical cues and I want you to notice your mental cues because, again, that's going to allow you to take a deep breath. Now, from there, now that you've noticed, okay, my chest is tight, my tummy is tight, whatever your cues are, here are some tools that you can use to help to reset yourself, to get grounded, to move from your fight, flight, freeze, fawn response which is often what is triggered when we're feeling anxiety, fear and move back into your prefrontal cortex.
Speaker 2:In psychology often they'll call this flipping your lid right. When you're flipping your lid, you're no longer thinking in the front part of your brain. That's where creative thinking happens, your prefrontal cortex. You're then, when anxiety is triggered, you're flipping your lid. You're in your brainstem. You're then, when anxiety is triggered, you're flipping your lid, you're in your brainstem Fight, flight, freeze, fawn. You're in protective mode where our IQ drops there because our adrenaline is high, right, that's why our hands get clammy, we get hot, our stomach hurts. Our body is getting ready to fight, our body is getting ready to flight. Right, our body is maybe getting ready to freeze and should something happen to us, I will be sturdy enough and okay enough and strong enough and warm enough to protect myself. I noticed that is what is happening in the body. So our job is to move back into the prefrontal cortex, to move back into the space of creative thinking, to move back into the space of love instead of fear. Here are some tools. The first tool this one had me and several of my clients cracking up because, whether it was my queen that was dissociating or my queen that was having a lot of pain in her physical body as a result of anxiety. This worked for both of them.
Speaker 2:Often, when we are feeling quite stressed or quite anxious, stressed out due to the anxiety, when we are feeling quite stressed or quite anxious, stressed out due to the anxiety, it's hard to have that thought. Let me breathe right now. Let me pause right now. How can I shift into love? I'm kind of making fun of myself. The reality is, I am now in a place where I actively do that. I will stop, I will breathe, I will pause, I will notice what am I thinking? How is it not serving me? How can I shift into love right now? I will go through that entire process now. But it has taken years for me to get to a place where I can actively notice I am feeling anxiety right now, I am feeling fear right now, and go through that process.
Speaker 2:When I first started this process, it was a catchphrase and that's truly what I'm going to call it Catchphrase love. That worked for me. So when I noticed fear is coming up, I could verbalize that I'm experiencing fear. Fear, anxiety, fear. I'm experiencing that. Right, I can notice that my body's getting tight, my chest is getting tight, I'm experiencing fear. So then I use my catchphrase when I'm noticing the cue in my body love, love. Just say it to yourself out loud or in your brain love, love, love, love, love, love. It helps to redirect your focus and it doesn't take all of the thought process of how am I feeling right now? Right, I want you to get to that place where you can pause and process how you're feeling. But on the way, step one is to notice and shift using your catch phrase love. Again, say it out loud or say it silently. That is a whole tool, right there. Next tool I'm going to give you remind yourself. This is one that we started with. Remind yourself there is only fear and love. There's only fear and love. That black and white thinking can be very helpful in a moment where we're feeling very overwhelmed. What about this, what about this, what about this? I'm feeling anxious. There's only fear in love. I'm experiencing fear right now. I'm going to shift into love. It's like level two. Right, that's the next step. If you have the ability to pause and ask yourself that, ask yourself the question how might I shift into love right now and then trust the answer that comes up? Different tool Affirm Often, when we are feeling fear, right, we're focusing on what we don't want, and so what I will ask you, like I ask you so often, is what do you want?
Speaker 2:The examples in the beginning were let's say you have a fear, you have anxiety about driving downtown. I don't want, right. You're focusing on when you're having anxiety. You're focusing on I don't want to be in a congested area, I don't want somebody to honk at me, I don't want to have a hard time finding parking. You're focusing on everything you don't want again, because your brain is trying to protect you. That's what your brain does. It's always trying to protect you. But what I'm going to offer is focus on what you do want. So, when you know yourself I don't want to do this and I don't want to do that, what do you want? If you're going to drive downtown, right. If that's happening regardless, then what do you want? And if you have the option to not drive downtown, then don't.
Speaker 2:But if you're driving downtown anyway and it's not your favorite thing and you know that you're going to feel fear about it, my question to you is how do you want to feel instead? I want to have a peaceful drive. I want to be surrounded by kind drivers, nobody's going to honk at me. I want it to be very easy for me to find parking and if I have to parallel park, I want it to be so easy for me to parallel park. Let there be a beautiful open space for me to park in Right. Affirm what you want. That's the tool. No-transcript spot and have a better drive. Because you're going in thinking I'm surrounded by kind drivers, I expect to be surrounded by kind drivers, and if the one person cuts you off, you're like it's okay, and the first time you do this it might be okay. You're bringing me like, say, say, but then we have to bring it back to. I choose to believe that, even though this person cut me off, I can still have a positive experience driving downtown. What do you want? And then affirm you can have it.
Speaker 2:Your next tool I'm going to leave you with this last one, the 5-4-3-2-1 method. This is a method. You can look this one up. I honestly might have two of the senses flipped around and it, at the end of the day, doesn't matter, because these are tools that I want you to use in a moment where you're noticing my stomach is tight, my hands are climbing, I'm feeling anxiety, right, these need to be quick. Grab tools. So, again, please save this podcast episode If you're a human that experiences anxiety and you need tools in your back pocket. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 method Five things you can see.
Speaker 2:Look around, right, this is you're noticing your chest getting tight. You're noticing yourself getting nervous. All right, I'm getting nervous. What are five things that I can see? What I'm getting nervous? What are five things that I can see? What are four things that you can touch? Right, can you touch your shoulder? Can you touch your pants? Can you touch the top of your head? Can you touch the seat that you're sitting in? What are four things you can touch? What are three things that you can smell? Can you smell clean air? Do you smell stinky air? Do you smell food somewhere? Right, what are three things you can smell? What are two things you can hear? Those are the senses that I may or may not have flipped around. Again, use this the way you need to Use it in a moment. Quickly, two things you can hear. Do I hear?
Speaker 2:right now, as I'm recording this with you, I hear my dryer running and just like the general hum of our home. So that's what I can hear. And then one thing you can taste. That one's fun too, right. What's that last sense Something you can taste? What's the last thing that you ate?
Speaker 2:This is the art of redirection. In a moment when you're feeling anxious, again, remember, you are focused on what you don't want, right. And when we are in a moment of an anxiety attack, what's usually happening and again, I'm going to speak on behalf of myself and my clients, I know that everybody is a little bit different, but we've hyper-focused on something that we don't want and now we've almost convinced ourself that it's going to happen and we're going to die. And it's not truly that we actually think we're going to die, but a panic attack feels at that level there's a deep breathing, there's a tightness in the chest. You can't breathe and you truly, there's a moment where you feel like you're going to die. You feel like the world is closing in on you. It's quite scary, right? And so what this does 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, it redirects what you're focusing on and instead of focusing on and focusing on and focusing on the thing that you don't want. Now I'm focusing on five things. I can see four things, I can touch three things, I can smell two things, I can hear one thing, I can taste. And the goal is that by the end of that, you have at least started to recalibrate your nervous system, started to ground yourself more, because you've redirected what you're focusing on. And then from there, I would offer to take a deep breath and ask that question what do I want?
Speaker 2:My subtext for that is that there's going to be parts of you that are going to say what you want, and then there's going to be parts of you that say why you can't have what you want. And that's why I became a coach, because you can have what you want and it might not come in the package that you think it's going to come in. It might not have come as soon as you thought it was going to come. It might not come in the package that you think it's going to come in. It might not have come as soon as you thought it was going to come. It might not have arrived yet. And that's why you're feeling fear or anxiety. What if it never shows up? What if I never get that job? What if I never become an entrepreneur? What if I never become a mom? What if I never meet the person? What if I never move out of this town? What if I never write that book Right? There's another part of you, the part of you that I keep nudging, keep asking you to ask what do you want that knows that you'll be able to be a mom, knows and sees the vision of you with your partner you traveling the world, you starting that business, you being an entrepreneur. What do you want? Focus on that. Notice there's only fear and love. And if you have a different perspective on that, as always, like I say, take what sticks to you, leave the rest In the show notes.
Speaker 2:Now, in the description of the podcast, there's a thing that says send us a text at the top. You can literally click that and you can send me a message. It doesn't send a text directly to my phone. It sends a message and I can read that message. So if you have any thoughts about this podcast, if there was a tool that really spoke to you, please let me know. Send me a text, send me a message. Tag me on Instagram at nandicamille.
Speaker 2:I do know that anxiety is personal, though, so I also don't expect anyone to be like I tried the 5-4-3-2-1 method from Nandi Camille and my anxiety, I mean I would love that, I would absolutely love that, but I don't necessarily see anybody necessarily posting that on their Instagram reel anytime soon. So you can message me privately if that feels good for you and, as always, my friends, if you're ready to book that discovery call, if you're ready to work with me one-on-one where we work on this, where we work through this, where I help you see your limiting beliefs, help you step into love when your body wants to pull you into fear, when your brain wants to pull you into fear, giving you tools, a tool belt, to help you navigate all of this. This is what I do, but, as always, my friends, take these tools, use them as you need to. I'll see you next week.
Speaker 2:Hey friend, if you like this podcast, I would love it if you could give us a five-star rating. Share it with your friends. If you're interested in one-on-one coaching, if this podcast resonates with you and you're ready for some one-on-one support, support for you and your journey, go ahead to nandikamilcom to learn more or head over to nandikamilasme to sign up for your free discovery call.