Navigating Mental and Physical Well-being: Self Acceptance and Overcoming Fears

✅ Balancing Acts: Navigating Mental and Physical Well-being with Angie Miller

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Key Highlights: 📌
🔍 Interconnected Wellness: Angie Miller underscores the inseparable link between physical and mental health, revealing how one bolsters the other.
🌟 Positive Control: Angie's compelling strategy for stress management that transforms perception of control into affirmative action.
💡 Illuminating Vulnerability: Angie advocates for embracing vulnerability in leadership to foster a supportive and less anxious team environment.

In this enriching episode of the Anxiety at Work podcast, we welcome Angie Miller, a dynamic blend of fitness expert, mental health therapist, and an empowering force for women in midlife. Angie brings to light the potent relationship between our physical actions and mental states, and how mastering both spheres can lead to a harmonious life.

Angie emphasizes the power of naming our fears and the importance of understanding our motivators as key to pushing through the barriers of anxiety and stress. She also delves into the realm of self-acceptance and the critical role it plays in self-motivation.

➡️ If Angie's methods strike a chord, give us a 5-star rating 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 and share her insights with your networks. Help others find balance and strength in their mental and physical journeys!

#Wellbeing #StressManagement #PhysicalHealth #MentalHealth #AngieMiller #MidlifeEmpowerment #SelfAcceptance #Leadership #AnxietyatWork #HealthPodcast #MindfulMovement #Resilience

Transcript

The Anxiety at Work Podcast is a production of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders and is made possible by Adrien Gosselin, Professor of Psychiatry and the Center for Autism and Related Disorders. workplace and your personal life. We invite experts from the world of work and life to give us ideas and most importantly tools to deal with anxiety in our world. And this podcast is brought to you by the delightful people at Lifeguides. Everybody in life needs a guide and Lifeguides is remarkable. It's a peer-to-peer community that helps people navigate through their day-to-day stressors by providing a place of empathy, listening, wisdom, and support with a guide who has walked in your shoes experiencing the same challenge or life experience as you. To offer this to your team and show them that you care, go to lifeguides.com forward slash schedule a demo and add the code healthy2021 to the free text box to receive two months free free of the lifeguide service. Everybody needs a lifeguide. Make your lifeguide lifeguides. Well, our guest today is our good friend Angie Miller. Angie is a speaker, writer, global fitness educator, podcaster, and mental health therapist who blends her skills and experience to empower individuals and audiences worldwide, giving them mental and physical strategies for success. Angie Angie also hosts virtual women's retreats for women in midlife and beyond focused on mindful movement, building resilience, and letting go of limiting beliefs. To find out when the next retreat is all you have to do is go to AngieMillerLifestyle.com, click on retreat and you'll get all the information you need. Well Angie, welcome to the show we're delighted to have you on our podcast. You know what, I'm delighted to be here. I really appreciated Chester and Adrian, and I think this is gonna be a great talk. So thank you for having me. Well, we've been looking forward to having you on the show since you interviewed us on your podcast. We really, I think there's some great connections here to what we're doing with mental health and what you do with not only mental, but physical health as well. So let's begin as a fitness expert, help us understand the connection between physical health and mental health and how exercise plays into that. You know, that's a great question. I guess I look at our physical and our mental health as like a good marriage. One supports the other. It's really hard to be physically healthy if we're not emotionally well, and it's hard to be emotionally well if our physical body is affected. We all know what it feels like when we get injured or we can't exercise for a while. We just don't feel as good as we normally feel. I did a, I wrote an article for American Fitness magazine on the effect of exercise on mitigating anxiety and, excuse me, and you know, anxiety one in five Americans are struggling with an anxiety disorder. There's so much research out there on how exercise can lower our levels of anxiety, lower our levels of depression, and it's a lifestyle intervention. It doesn't involve medication, and there's a lot of research that supports that exercise is as good if not better at mitigating symptoms of anxiety, boosting mood, and doing all those things that we need to feel better from the inside out, just as good as medication. Yeah, you know, in that blog, you wrote about overcoming fears, right? Using exercise to overcoming fear. So can you give us some thoughts on that concept, some tips that we can all put into practice? What are some things we can actually do? You know, that's a great question because I think that fear is often what holds us back. There's, I don't know, my mom used to always say, the devil we know is better than the devil we don't. And so often we get stuck in bad relationships or bad jobs because we're like, well, it could be worse out there. And we play these what if games, what if it's worse out there? And so, so many times we feel powerless to change when really change is so much easier than what we realize. And you know, oftentimes it's our own fears that get in the way. And I think the first step in conquering fears is you have to claim it to tame it. You have to really understand what is the fear. What am I most afraid of? Is it failure? Is it loss of income? What am I most afraid of? And then I think we have to gather information. I think that knowledge is power, and we have to realize what we need to do to bring this dream or this situation to life. You know, oftentimes we're scared of something we don't know because we don't know enough about it. But it's kind of like looking for a job. You do all this research, and all of a sudden it doesn't seem so daunting. Or you're scared about writing a paper when you're in college but then when you actually start to write it, it becomes less daunting. And so that's actually what I tell people is first decide, discover what your fears are and then gather as much information as you can to move forward and then take that first step. Because everything in life is like a staircase. You have to climb that first step in order to have the courage to climb the next one, right? Okay, sounds like there may be a story behind the story for you, Angie. When were you maybe afraid of taking a first step? Maybe it was starting your own business or becoming an expert in what you did? Give us a little insight into you. Oh gosh, how much time do we have? Can we extend the podcast? You know, it's interesting because I think one of my fears was actually starting these midlife women's retreats. I do a lot of work for other companies as an educator, as a therapist, and it's real safe to stay an employee, but it's not as safe to become your own employer, if that makes sense. my own boss and to run my own my own corporation, right? And so did you take your own advice? Did you claim it to tame it? Did you educate yourself? How did you get through that? You know what I did? I hired a mentor and somebody who is good with branding. So I discovered that I can't do it alone. I discovered that the way that companies succeed is they build really, really good teams. And so I built a really good team. I found some people to help me with branching and marketing because I already knew that I had the education and the knowledge to offer to people, to women. I just needed somebody to help me get the information out there. And I think that that's another part of mitigating our fears, to invite other people into our story and allow them to help us cultivate what it is that we most want. Instead of shutting people out and being afraid, oh, what if they see me fail? How about inviting them in and letting them help you succeed? I love that. And that is part of what you help people in these retreats. You talk about self-acceptance. And look, this is what I'm good at, and I need others to help lift me in places where I'm still learning. And that's awesome. But so how do you counsel people or maybe people listening right now who may be feeling down about themselves, especially the women that you help, how do you help them with that inner voice that may be telling them, Angie, you can't do this. Right. You know, that's a great question. And I think that so many of us are only limited by our own limiting beliefs, that internal negative dialogue. I call it that radio station and it plays that darn song over and over and over again. And I think that it helps to pay attention to our limiting beliefs. Often I'll have my clients write down what are those doubts and fears that come into your mind throughout the day. I want you to actually take note of them. I want you to write them down. Those dirty, ugly thoughts that come into your mind. What is that song that plays again and again and again? And then I want to hear that. I want to hear what is that negative internal dialogue. I want to hear those five negative messages that you say to yourself over and over again. And often they started when we were very, very young. And I think it's especially difficult for women because society seems to dictate how women are supposed to look and that's changed dramatically through the decades. If you look at what the ideal female body was throughout the decades. There's this, this, this, we go from needing to be a certain size to curvy is in, then curvy is not in, and then, gee, it helps if you have a derriere that is of substantial size. And women's bodies are women's bodies. We don't get to redesign them according to what's in vogue, right? I can't go up and buy a new booty the way that I can buy a new pair of jeans. And so I think that it's, for women especially, we really need to recognize what that internal dialogue is and where did it come from. And then we need to kind of reframe those thoughts. We need to reset our mind and kind of call our fears bluff and call those thoughts on the table and say, is this really accurate? Where did this come from? And is this serving me? And what are some things that I could say to myself that might help me move forward in a more positive way? That inner voice is very powerful, isn't it? It is. How about you gentlemen? Do you struggle with negative internal dialogue once in a while? You know, it's interesting. Adrian is my inner voice and he tortures me every day. It's a horrible, horrible. I do, I do. You can't do this. It's funny that you mentioned that, Angie. What made you think you could do that? I hear that from Adrian. No, actually, we're each other's, I think we're each other's positive voices, but you need people around you, like you did, Angie. You need people around you who'll lift you, and if they're sucking the life out of you, maybe give some distance to those kinds of people. Yeah, you need some difference. Oh my goodness. Yeah, for sure. I call those energy vampires. I did a whole podcast on energy vampires. Those people who suck the life out of you and you walk away and you're like, why do I feel so bad about myself? Well, because you just spend time with an energy vampire. And so I think it really does. We have to look at who we're hanging out with because those are the people that we become. Right? Yeah, my grandma used to have a saying she says, you know, you can't live in a sewer and not end up smelling like one So find find friends that don't smell like sewers. I think was her advice You know, let's talk a little bit about about stress. I'm guessing with your fitness focus You'll suggest to people, you know to get moving, you know, I get out and exercise will help reduce stress But what about people who don't like or don't want to work out? How can we how can we reduce stress without exercising? Is that a fair question? Well, we have to end this podcast right now because if you don't like to exercise. I think he's talking for himself, Angie. What can I do sitting here right now without moving? Turns out there's actually quite a bit you can do from a seated position. But, you know, it's funny, I recently did a podcast on 10 ways to stress less and how we often get in our own way. And one of the first tips that I talked about was focusing on positive control. And that's something that I talk with my clients a lot about because stress is about perception of control. And if we perceive that we don't have control over a situation, we feel really, really bad about it. But I think that it helps to remember that we have more control than we think over situations. And so I think it helps to focus on positive control. So let's say that it's a situation where, you know, my mom was sick for a long time and I knew my mom wasn't going to be around forever. I knew that my daughters were going to grow up and go away to college. So way back when I sought out a university position and ironically I couldn't make this up, the way that I got the job was they hired me to teach stress management. And that was my way of focusing on positive control. There was so much that I couldn't change in my life, but yet there was this way that I can make a powerful difference for others. And where we really have positive control is how we look at situations, how we treat people, and what our attitude is each and every day. And I could, you know, I've got all these 10 tips, I could offer a few, but I do think positive control is a big one. I think that remembering that we are not stuck, even when we are in our most stressful situations, there are things that we can do to make our situation better. If not today, then in the future. You know, I love what you're saying there, Angie. You know, in our new book, Anxiety at Work, we do talk about this idea, and it's the idea of mastery, which doesn't mean that I'm in control of everything, but I have a feeling that I'm not at the whims of society or the wind blowing winds, that I do have control over what I have control over. And you brought up your mom, and you cared for your mom when she was diagnosed with dementia. Now I've seen that you're helping others as you educate them about Alzheimer's. And so what have you learned about this mental health issue and what can we do to help those maybe who are aging? How do we spot or help treat those who are reaching that point with dementia? You know, I think that, I mean, all of the research really supports lifestyle interventions. And so one of them is actually exercise, but I think that we should stop demonizing exercise. First of all, I think we should never say the word exercise again. I think we should just call it movement. And I think that we just need to move our body the way we need to move our mind. And so I think socialization is one of the most critical things. One of the first things I noticed with my mom was not wanting to be around other people for fear that they would discover that she was not the person she once was. It was that feeling like she had lost control. And so she would isolate herself so that no one would notice. But socialization is huge for all of us. I mean, socialization mitigates stress and anxiety and depression. And so the socialization, the movement factor, and I also think that the biggest thing we can do for ourselves is as caregivers, we have to take care of ourselves in order to take care of other people. It goes back to that whole oxygen mask thing. We can't kid ourselves and say that we can keep giving away what we don't have. We're going to be better care providers if we are taking care of us. Excellent. You know, a lot of this is around motivation, right, self-motivation, and I think it's a fascinating topic for all of us. I heard a great quote the other day from the immortal Zig Ziglar. He said, people say to me, Zig, motivation doesn't last. He says, neither does a shower. That's why we do it every day. I thought that was a great quote. Managers spend a lot of their time trying to keep people motivated and moving, but with the rising levels of anxiety and burnout, that can be really hard. So what have you learned about motivation that can help leaders to help keep their people moving and more than that, keep them engaged? Well, I think one of the biggest things we need to remember is that everybody is motivated by different things and that our motivations change over time. So I used to be motivated to exercise because I wanted to fit into my skinny jeans. And then when my mom passed from dementia, I decided I just wanted to remember where my darn skinny jeans were. Even if I couldn't fit into them, it would just be an aha moment if I could remember where they were someday. And so I think that we need to tap into who people are. And I think that on the most simplistic level, instead of saying good morning to our employees, how about if we say, hey, what's going well for you today? Or how's your dog? Or what was great about this morning? Focus on positive questions and invite people to share positive experiences and lift them up and make them feel good, but also focus on getting to know your employees a little bit and know what's important to them. If they're caring for their mom, you can say, hey, how is your mom doing? And more importantly, how are you doing caring for your mom? I love those questions. They're not, you know, in your face. They're not confrontational. I'm interested in you. Right. And isn't that the biggest way to motivate people is to show interest? To show that we care about them even on the most simplistic level, remembering someone's name and maybe taking a moment or two every week to connect with them personally so our employees feel like we know they're there and we really appreciate them for being human beings who contribute to our company, not just a number. Right, right. Yeah, I used to spell Adrian's name without a K on the end for years and it really was inconsiderate. I finally had to change it. Yeah, yeah, I said it would be easier for you to change your name, Adrian, that would mean better. You know, on that topic about getting to know people better, so where can people find more about your work? Where would you send them? You know, they can go to my website, angiemillerfitness.com and if they want to join one of my retreats, they can go to angiemillerlifestyle.com. That's where you find the retreats. They can connect with me on social media. I have a Instagram and a Facebook page that's Angie Miller Fitness, and they can also get information from there. You know, I have one last thing that I want to add. How about this? Can I add one more thing? Sure. So, you know, you asked me about stress, and one thing that I would really encourage people to think about, and I talk about this a lot with people, and it seems so simplistic, but I think it's so powerful, is instead of asking why, ask what now. And I think that that ties into everything from motivation to stress to when should I exercise. So instead of asking why, why me, why did this happen to me, why am I always so tired, ask what now. So, you know, maybe this did happen to me, maybe I am tired, but what now? What can I do to make myself feel better? What can I do today that will shift the narrative and put me in a better space? I love that idea of that forward-looking idea, Angie. That's terrific. Yeah, kind of coming to this idea too, you say that leaders need to stop taking ourselves so seriously. Now, how can that help reduce anxiety maybe for us, for those around us, and it probably sounds easier than it is for leaders who want to be respected and maybe even feared a little. How do we bring down anxiety levels within teams and do this? I think that's a great question because I think that at the end of the day, if you have an anxious leader, you have an anxious team. Right? And so I think one of the best ways leaders can not take themselves too seriously is to remember the power of humility and also remember the power of humor. It's those H's. That we don't have to be perfect, we just have to do the best we can. Because if you ever had a teacher who had these really ridiculous expectations or maybe some people even had parents who had very high expectations, and so you were always struggling to not fail versus struggling to succeed. And so I think that leaders need to look at how they're leading. Are they leading from a place of fear or are they leading from a place of empowerment? And I think that's a big critical factor in leadership, using a little bit of humor, allowing themselves to be a little vulnerable and asking for feedback. Yeah, you know, I love your comment there about anxious leader, anxious team. It just gives off that vibe, doesn't it? The leaders really do set the tone and build the culture. Well, it's been a great discussion, Angie. We knew it would be a lot of fun. In summary, if there were just a couple of things you wanted people to take away from the conversation, maybe something we haven't talked about yet or a point that you wanted to make, what would that be? One thing, I seem like a silly take away, but you know when I taught stress management to university students, I always talked about clearing away the clutter. And I think that sometimes we need to clear physical space in order to create mental and emotional space. So when we moved to Charlotte from Chicago, we put our stuff in storage for 11 months. And when we got here, my husband was like, what do you want to do with this? And I said, burn it. But I think my point was that too much is too much and sometimes we feel owned by our environment versus owning our existence and environment. There's something to be said for the tiny home philosophy or living with less. And I think that if we really want to reduce the stress and anxiety in our lives, it starts by maybe clearing some physical space so that we can clear some emotional space. Living with less, and if not living with less physically, then living with less emotionally. So maybe that means you talk to somebody, a professional, maybe that means you start journaling, maybe that means that you start moving more, but just living with less clutter, if not physically, then emotionally. Great advice, great advice. Well, thanks so much for being on the show Angie. We really appreciate it. Yeah, I really love being here. Thanks so much guys and keep doing your great work. Well, thanks Angie for for being on the show. Chesa, you know another good really insightful guest who really kind of started us thinking about this idea of mental and physical health. Yeah, you know we've heard this from other guests and I'm a big believer since hearing it and living with it for a while is that you can't be physically healthy if you're not mentally healthy. We've heard that time and time again. This idea of, she says, name it to tame it. Give it a name and realize that this is an issue and work on making it better. That was a great takeaway for me. Yeah, yeah. As you're facing your fears, she's talking about that. Get to know your fear. What exactly is it? And sometimes you do, you find yourself doing things, you know, we all do in our lives. Maybe, you know, you're sitting around, maybe you're eating, overeating, maybe you're doing something you know you shouldn't be doing and what she's kind of saying is, okay, think back, why am I doing this? What is driving my behavior? And she says, first off, you got to claim it to tame it. So yeah, a lot of it comes back to just what she said about I've got to control stuff. It's fear of losing control and she says turn that on its head. Make it positive control. Yeah, I loved her take two on socialization. You know, she learned from her mom that her mom, as dementia got worse, she isolated herself. She didn't want to be embarrassed and yet socialization, reaching out to people, having a community, we often hear about people that suffer alone or in silence, and that's where the danger sets in. You're so right. And it's not just dementia. Everybody who faces mental health issues does this, where they'll say, I don't want somebody to see that I'm depressed or anxious, so I will isolate, making the problem even worse. Or just what she said, too, about sometimes we'll end up being around the wrong people those energy vampires she calls them you know especially when you're suffering from anxiety depression etc you'll be very careful who you're around yeah living with less to was great you know they had all that stuff in storage for a year she said burn it I mean if we if we haven't missed it for 11 months to a year we probably don't need it. And there's a big movement around decluttering. I mean, I'm just looking around my office, thinking, you know, literally, if my office burned down, there would only be a couple of things that I would really miss. The other thing she made a point of is, what now? What now? What a great question. Versus why me? Yeah, what now instead of why me? Those introspection, like she says, are you journaling? Are you meditating? Are you whatever? I thought that was a great way to jumpstart the conversation. What now? So a wonderful podcast. My last takeaway is look, you know, if you're a leader, anxious leader, anxious team. So, you know, bring humor, bring humility and start talking to some people. I think that's so important. So, and you've taken the first step in listening to our podcast. We want to thank you for listening, especially if you've downloaded. That does help us build up the notoriety of the Anxiety at Work podcast. And a special thanks to our producer, Brent Klein, and to Christy Lawrence, who helps find us such amazing guests. Absolutely. Share it with your friends, share it with your families. You know, our mission here really is that no one be alone, that they can deal with their anxiety, that they can create a better life. And one last shout out to our good friends at Lifeguides, the peer-to-peer community that helps you navigate through your day-to-day stressors by providing a place of empathy. Their support is a personal guide, someone who's actually walked in your shoes and experienced the same challenges in life that you have. The offer for our listeners is a wonderful one. Go to lifeguides.com forward slash schedule a demo and add the code healthy2021 in the free text box to receive two months of free service. We love our friends at Lifeguides. Everybody needs a guide in life, right, Adrian? Make it lifeguides. They certainly do. We love Lifeguides and the amazing service that they provide to so many people around the world. Their goal is to help a billion people. You gotta love a company with an amazing mission. So thank you again everybody for joining in. We wish you nothing but the best of mental health as everybody for joining in. We wish you nothing but the best of mental health as you go through the coming week. Yvette, take care and be well.