Weekly Warriors is your once a week dose of life-changing magic here to empower the warrior in you. In today's episode, I share my Top 5 Tips to overcoming anxiety and fear so you can start to enjoy life with more flow and less worry. My intention is to help you feel more empowered with your current state of anxiety and fear, and, after hearing these strategies learn effective methods to overcome without overcomplicating.
These mini weekly episodes are here to leave you feeling inspired, motivated and empowered to live in a beautiful state. Say goodbye to your pain story and start living your life with clarity and intention.
"If nothing changes, nothing is going to change"
Don't forget to connect with Mahalia and join the journey on Instagram -www.instagram.com/mahaliajaneco
LIMITED SPACE FOR 2021 - BOOK 1:1 call with Mahalia here: https://calendly.com/mahaliajane/discoverycall
FREE MEDITATION HERE: https://www.mahaliajane.com/meditation
Please remember to FOLLOW, SUBSCRIBE and REVIEW on iTunes this podcast if you enjoyed this episode.
Weekly Warriors is your once a week dose of life-changing magic here to empower the warrior in you. In today's episode, I share my Top 5 Tips to overcoming anxiety and fear so you can start to enjoy life with more flow and less worry. My intention is to help you feel more empowered with your current state of anxiety and fear, and, after hearing these strategies learn effective methods to overcome without overcomplicating.
These mini weekly episodes are here to leave you feeling inspired, motivated and empowered to live in a beautiful state. Say goodbye to your pain story and start living your life with clarity and intention.
"If nothing changes, nothing is going to change"
Don't forget to connect with Mahalia and join the journey on Instagram -www.instagram.com/mahaliajaneco
LIMITED SPACE FOR 2021 - BOOK 1:1 call with Mahalia here: https://calendly.com/mahaliajane/discoverycall
FREE MEDITATION HERE: https://www.mahaliajane.com/meditation
Please remember to FOLLOW, SUBSCRIBE and REVIEW on iTunes this podcast if you enjoyed this episode.
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Hello, my incredible warriors, and welcome to this episode of The uncovery podcast. Why am I speaking like this? It's probably because it's 1230. In the morning, I have just come out of a really beautiful evening meditation and I had a bath. So I soaked in some magnesium and loving to salts because I'm not sure what's going on this week. But I've had this really intense surge of energy, and I shared it on my Instagram last night, I haven't been able to sleep. This is quite interesting. I'm just embracing it. Rather than resisting it and trying to tell myself to go to sleep. I'm just going to the flow. So here I am recording a podcast episode for the week, at 1230 in the morning. So a very important episode today. Indeed, we're talking about anxiety and fear, and my five tips in how to start to think about overcoming these very important things in your life. And I say important because as someone who has anxiety disorder and has overcome massive fear-based anxiety, and social anxiety, it's important that we think about ways that we can overcome these obstacles in our life without getting too attached to the fear, the feeling of what might happen, the worry, and that is something that may just sign that may frighten you or elevate your heart rate. And it's it goes hand in hand with the saying when people say, just relax to an anxious person. And that's possibly the worst advice you can give someone. Or it's similar to if someone's depressed, and they say, Just be happy, just choose joy. There's much more that needs to be uncovered when we talk like that. So let me try to simplify this method as much as I can and take you through my favourite five tips and strategies on how to overcome fear and anxiety.
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Hi, welcome to the uncovered podcast. I'm your host, Mahalia Jane.
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Every episode I take you on a journey, talking about life, wellbeing, and mental healing. The uncovering connects with different people from different places who share stories of growth and enlightenment. It's my passion and privilege to be here guiding you with my own truth and experiences because it is possible to live in a beautiful state.
02:43
Now I started this series called weekly warriors on the uncovered tree. And the intention of it was that I would come on here once a week with completely unscripted content and talk about something that's come up for the week. So what I'm trying to do is still keep those episodes going. But I am alternating them with interviews and conversations that I have with other people on the show. So today is technically an unscripted warrior session where I am going to keep it pretty real and authentic for you.
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So five tips. I want to start today with a little bit of a story of how I came to this strategy. And it wasn't in a day or a week or a month, this was years of work, and years of doing the wrong things to come to a place of knowing what actually works for me. Now I could take you on a journey of some pretty intense stories of when I would wake up in the middle of the night having extreme panic attacks, or moments where I couldn't even go to work because I was so concerned about something going on that didn't even really exist. But if I did that, honestly, that doesn't sound like much fun. So without going too deep into those types of stories. I'm going to share a story before I go into these tips of something that I do believe a lot of us struggle with. Now someone that does not struggle with this is my husband. And did I just say husband, husband? Oh, gosh, that sounded weird husband, husband.
04:24
Okay, so my husband is not somebody who does this. And when we got together, he started to say things to me like, Hmm, I really noticed this behaviour that you do when we are at a party or were with friends. And we have this really beautiful evening and then as we're wrapping up and leaving, the first thing you do is analyse every single thing that happened. Now, I used to think that that was just what I did because I'm always absorbing information. I'm analysing them.
05:00
Taking in energies and I'm trying to stay connected to the people that I love around me. Now, this hasn't happened for a few years. So, dearest beloved friends who are listening, this is not something I do anymore. So when I process this information that my husband was telling me,
05:19
I knew that it was the worry, the fear, the anxiety creeping its way back in. Because it's not a normal behaviour for me to analyse so deeply. And we all have different little symptoms or flags that will pop up. And only you will recognise them. I know that a lot of psychologists, psychotherapists will have their definitions of exactly what anxiety is. But until you've truly experienced your own versions of anxiety, and understood it to the level that most of us have, who have really suffered from it, then you start to go out, okay, there's my flag, there's my little, hey, knock at the door reminder. And then I thought, Okay, what strategies have worked for me, how have I overcome this, I mean, let's be real here, I could take information from professionals and write it down and then share it with you. But instead, I want to tell you exactly what I did. And what I do when those moments creeping on me.
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Tip number one, remove the focus. Removing the focus then allows you space to get better. If you focus on fear and anxiety, it will get worse. Every single person feels anxiety, experiences fear.
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If you constantly get stuck on a goal, to remove your anxiety to remove your fear,
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it's completely unrealistic. And it'll just make you feel like absolute shit. Because if the goal is to not feel anxious at all, to not feel fear at all, you're setting yourself a completely unrealistic expectation, all anxiety in life will never be resolved, you will never live in a state where you do not feel fear. Instead of focusing on your anxiety and on your fear, I want you to start to think about shifting your focus, shifting your focus to something else coming up with strategies to then not make it about getting to this end goal of no longer having fear and anxiety. I can't even imagine living in a world where there isn't fear, we need to have a level of fear, we need to have a level of fight or flight. So then that means that we need to find you a new goal to think about a lot, something that you can focus on. So depending on who you are, and the things you like, some things that you can do, instead of focusing on trying to fix and eliminate the fear and anxiety is shift your emotion and put it in a state of something that you can control. That may be as simple as planting a new garden bed, or listening to new music, learning how to bake a cake. And that becomes your new goal. going for a walk in a new suburb that you've never walked through before, or learning something new. The list is long, and I could probably sit down with you for an hour and we could come up with different strategies of what you can focus on. And if there is something in your life that you do have quite a lot of control over whether it's your job, your family, your house, maybe just look at ways that you've gotten to that place of contentment within that and start to focus on the things that you've done very well in that area of your life. And apply that to your new learnings, your new lessons, no, your garden bed, what are the things about you that has made you an absolute champion in that area of your life that you do have quite a lot of control over and I say control in a positive way. It's not a negative controlling environment.
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Tip number two, and this is one of my favourites. Anxiety is all about self fear is all about an illusion you have created. And I hate to break it too. But no one actually cares how you feel. I mean that in the most loving and compassionate way. Obviously, there are people in your life that care about you, your partner, your children, your parents, your friends, me, because if I didn't care, I wouldn't be sitting here at 1230 in the morning, recording a podcast episode to help you that I don't even get paid for. So there are people that care. But when I say no one cares, I mean, explode that into your brain. So much that whenever you leave
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If the house and you feel anxiety or you feel your social anxiety creeps in, you remind yourself that the people you don't know, or the people that you're not very close with, don't actually think about what's going on for you. They are, they are so absorbed within themselves, within their own life, that they're not really thinking about you, they're not caring about what's happening internally for you in that moment. And this can apply to when you're on the verge of having a panic attack, it always looks worse than it feels you always look like you have your shit together. When internally, you feel like you're shaking, you're sweating, your face is bright red. It's one of those things that it always feels worse internally than what it actually is. So explode that no one cares, explode it in a way that no one actually cares about my panic about my anxiety about my fear. Do you know what they care about? They care about you, who you are, what you do for work, your family, your hobbies, your loves your passion, your dog, your cat, they care about those things. And as much as anxiety is real to the things that we can connect on a daily basis with other people in social interactions, we'll get your mind and your energy away from what is giving you anxiety and fear. And that brings us to tip number three, avoidance isn't going to help. I know it brings you complete discomfort, to do the things that bring you fear and anxiety. But the more that you shy away from it, the worse your anxiety is going to get. So the best thing you can start thinking about is how do you stop going into avoidance? How do you start exposing yourself a little bit more to the things that do make you feel uncomfortable? So let's say you're struggling with social situations, the less socialising you do, the worse that will get. And while I'm not suggesting that you should go to a party tomorrow and have 10 wines and party with a bunch of strangers. I'm saying it's very important to think about how you're going to manage this long term, short term, it's wonderful to avoid it, to stay home to not face it, and to do things that make you feel extremely comfortable, and are encouraged feeling comfortable. But at the same time, if this is really a problem for you, and you're thinking about it a lot, it's healthy to start thinking, Okay, how am I going to manage this? How am I going to start introducing little baby steps into my healing, so that then I no longer feel like I'm constantly thinking of ways to avoid it. I am the master at avoiding things that bring discomfort. And do you know why? Because I did it for so long. So I can teach you ways that you can avoid your fear, anxiety, discomfort, all the things that we can do to never have to face it ever again. But deep down, that's going to be there. And then if one day, you're in a situation where you have to be in that sit truck situation, say, a board meeting or a wedding, something that raises your level of social anxiety and fear, it will be 10 times worse. So how can we think about setting up these little strategies? Well, for starters, have a conversation about what's going on with someone that you trust, whether that's a professional or a loved one, let it out and open up about what's going on. Because being embarrassed about what's happening, that shying away from it just as much as not exposing yourself to it. So that's a really, really nice place to start. writing it down is also extremely healthy, so journaling about what's going on. And another thing that I love to do when I'm journaling is write down the way I can visualise myself being in a place of my feet where my future self lives. So if you're fearful about going to
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now let's talk about public speaking because that's something that a lot of people struggle with. So let's say your fear is public speaking, and you are someone who is in a job that requires a lot of public speaking. So write down what you visualise, in your mind of your future self doing. How is she embodying speaking, what does she look like? How does she feel? What is she wearing, and read it back once you've written it down, and then take a moment just to pause and embrace all of the feelings that that does bring to you. So when my social anxiety and my fear based anxiety got so bad, I did so much visualisation of my future self and where she was. I even got so deep into it that I created this entire picture of where she lived and then I created a meditation visualisation tracker.
15:00
for other people to use, because it was in this beautiful outdoor setting near this lake, looking through a window, and I can go to that place at any time, and it's not my safe place, it's not the place that I need to go to. Because I'm scared. It's the future place that I created for myself, for my now self who has reached that place. So that's a very good way to start to honestly speak to someone, write it down, start visualising exactly where you see yourself, because I believe you will get there doing these things. And then once you've done that, give yourself one thing to do, that does make you feel uncomfortable. And I'm not saying go from zero to 10, and jump into 10. If you're scared of swimming, don't go jump into the ocean tomorrow. But let's think about how we can start doing little things to get you to jump in the ocean. If it is water, can you dip your toes in the water? If it's you're scared of heights, can you maybe walk up a small flight of stairs tomorrow. And just do that one thing, I always talk about the one thing that you can do. So starting with one thing, and then as soon as you start to feel comfortable with that, don't put pressure on yourself or a timeline, then move to the next thing. Okay, and number four is all about boosting your self love. Don't underestimate the power of self love and the importance that self love plays in your healing journey. So I want you to check in on the messages that you're sending yourself on a daily basis. If you find that there is a lot of negative self talk going on a lot of shame around what you're going through or what you're feeling or the anxiety and fear that has come up for you. Let's pull it down a notch and start sending some positive messages to yourself. I'm literally talking about sending yourself text messages that you would send to someone else. Think about the way in which you speak to other people. Now imagine the way that you speak to yourself speaking like that to someone else. If it's not kind, then I want you to get rid of it. So start routing text messages to yourself, or emails, a love letter, whatever you need to do. It may be you've created a video and you watch it in the mornings. I think it's so important to be kind to yourself. Start comforting yourself with a lot of care, listen to affirmations tune into your body to really feel where the negativity is coming from. And like I said, meditate on some really beautiful, powerful healing words that that are all about self love. Start in the mornings, because that's a really great place to start. And I often put a little note above my mirror when I'm having a hard time with self love and self worth just reminding myself of the kind of things to say to myself. So start praising yourself, it's all about praising yourself and giving yourself a lot of self love, whatever that means for you. It needs to just become routine where you're not even thinking about it anymore. And that brings us to lucky last number five, but hey, it's not the last in the journey. It's just the last of my tips for the day. And it's all about having fun for fuck sake. And I say for fuck sake because honestly, if you can't have fun, then what do you have to look forward to having fun gives you something to look forward to knowing that is fun approaching can really shift your focus and your energy. And hey, I'm not just preaching here. I mean this I do this, I embrace this practice if you go onto my Instagram, which is Mahalia Jane, co all my tik tok, you will see me dancing around, you'll see me creating my own fun dancing around and I'm not embarrassed. I'm having fun. I'm embracing the goodness of life by doing the simple things that give me joy. So start thinking What does fun mean to you? Does it mean running? Does it mean tap dancing around your lounge room naked to the main calling someone and just having a laugh, whatever it is, start embracing the fun, make it a priority, make having fun, a priority because a lot of us are so sick or sad or caught up in the depths of the hardship that we forget about creating time for fun.
Now, if you asked me what was on the list, but it didn't make it to the top five, and I guess we can call it a bonus tip because you stayed to the end. It would be fueling your body with healthy things. And I'm not talking about going on a kale only diet. I mean think about what you're putting into your body and how that actually affects your energy levels, your mood, your anxiety, your well being your fatigue, and I did an episode two weeks ago with Dr. SinClaire Bode who talks all about the biome in our garden, and how the nutrients that we're putting into our body, the soil in which our vegetables are growing, how that really affects our mood, our energy levels. So check that episode out if you're thinking about making changes. But I also want to acknowledge, it's very hard when you aren't feeling great to eat well, because we all want the comfort food, we all gravitate to the things that bring us the feeling of satisfaction. And I don't think it's until you start to make those changes, and then feel the benefits of changing your lifestyle to a healthier one, that then you go, Okay, this is worth it. And then you can slowly have your little traits here and there when you like. So let's recap. Number one, focus makes it worth removing that goal. And eliminating that idea that one day you will no longer have any fear or any anxiety is complete bullshit. Know that the little bit of anxiety and a little bit of fear, to have it that always to live within you is actually a very healthy thing. become friends with it, because you might find that it's actually a really cool friend to have. Number two, anxiety is all about self. Stop focusing on yourself. Stop thinking so much about how other people perceive you. No one cares. No one's really caring about the things that you think they all can see. So start to focus on what they can see. Talk about the things that raise joy, the passion, the connection, because honestly, they've probably got their own stuff going on. So no one really sees what's happening. Number three, how can you create little strategies of slowly exposing yourself to the scenarios rather than hiding from it and going into avoidance? Number four, self love, self care, self kindness, comfort, tuning into your body, praising yourself more praise, and more love. Number five is all about having fun for fuck sake. So how can you have fun? How can you move? How can you get the energy flowing? How can you just do things to create fun in your life, to create joy, spark that joy, and see what happens.
And I do encourage you to use this time to use your healing and your process as a way to then have empathy for others going through this. If you share, if you talk about it, then you'll realise it doesn't have to be so isolating. You're not alone in this. Well, that's that's it for today's episode. Now, I'm obviously I'm gonna stress again, I haven't covered everything. And I'm not a psychotherapist. I'm an intuitive coach, I help people on an intuitive level to really heal their life. And I bring them a sense of joy, I connect them to their purpose, I work on an energy level, I have done so much self work. I have many, many, many personal stories and have overcome huge emotional trials. But I just want to highlight as a little disclaimer, I'm not a licenced, psychologist. So if you are struggling, and you are wanting to make change, and this information isn't relevant to you, I encourage you to seek therapy and to really talk to someone. But if you want to connect with me, I'm available. If you go to the description of this episode, you'll find a link to jump on a call with me. And if you want to become part of my community, you can do that as well. I have a very beautiful community of warriors who all connect and support each other on this wonderful journey. So that brings us to the end of the episode and wow, I think it's time for me to go to bed. So I'll be dropping this into your podcast land first thing in the morning. So it is the night before. But it's time for me to rest to re energise and I do hope that whatever you're going through you find some healing in today's episode and you can start applying some of those strategies to your everyday life. Just feel what it feels like to let go of having this goal of getting better. Try shifting the focus, shifting the energy. And once again, you can jump into the description of this episode and connect with me. I'll chat to you again next week. Take care Bye