An Invitation To Share
An Invitation To Share
How to Deal with Problems, Peacekeeping, and Panic Attacks
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What if speaking about your anxiety could be therapeutic? Today we're reducing the stigma surrounding anxiety, discussing different ways to engage in conflict resolution, why "keeping the peace" might not always be the answer, and much more.
As we venture further into this conversation, we discuss how coping mechanisms can change with the seasons and the ones that currently work for my panic attacks vary from distraction, grounding, taking cold showers, and finding calming scents.
Disagreements are part of life, and learning to navigate them is also a part of this episode. Whether it is disagreements with people in my life or a disagreement related to this podcast, we explore how respect and welcoming conversation can lead to resolution.
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Managing Anxiety
Speaker 1Hey everyone , thanks for joining us for another episode of the podcast this week . Thank you for giving me a little bit of space . While I took last week off , I am starting a new job in a few days and I was wrapping up everything at my old job and visiting family and also trying to take care of my health a little bit , and we do not need to make excuses for taking time off . So I guess I don't know why I'm trying to justify it , but I appreciate everybody still supporting the show last week , even though there wasn't a new episode . I appreciate when I see you all posting photos on Instagram , sharing the podcast or texting it to anybody you know . So that means a lot to me . And today we're going to be doing another portion of the Ask Me Anything segment , where you guys submit questions either in person or you text me or you send them on social media , and I do my best to answer them to the best of my ability . We only have a few questions today that I picked because I think some of the answers will be a little bit longer and some will be a little bit shorter , but let me know if you all are liking the shorter podcast format I've been putting out as well . I've been doing some more 30 minute and 40 minute episodes versus an hour plus . So I'm definitely going to be doing some longer episodes coming up in the future , because I'm hoping somebody else will be joining me on the podcast again and those episodes tend to be a little bit longer . So if you have any feedback about the length of the episodes or the content , just send me either an email , add an invitation to share at Gmail or you can reach out on social media .
Speaker 1So let's dive into the first question what do you do for anxiety ? I do like this question because I think , even though we discuss anxiety a lot on the podcast and maybe some coping skills , I don't always share exactly what I'm doing , and this tends to change and fluctuate , I would say definitely by the seasons . But it's been really changing a lot month to month , and this was not necessarily a stereotype that I had , but maybe this predetermined idea that I would learn three to four things that worked really well for my anxiety and then they would just always work and always help me . I think this can be true for some people . However , we do change as people , so if we're doing the same thing , but we , as like humans , are evolving and changing and growing . That same trick might not still work .
Speaker 1So what I'm doing right now which I typically do , but I'm doing it a little bit differently now is I am talking about my anxiety , and what I mean by that is I'm not only talking about it on the podcast or talking about it with my therapist . I am talking about it with just about every person in my life that I have a relationship with , and I'm very open about it with my work , and I'm very open about it even with my outer circle . I do that for several reasons . One , talking about it reduces the stigma much more than you would think . People are very quick to have their own opinions on anxiety , whether it's real or not , or whether it's in your head or not , and I just want to crush those stereotypes and I just want to talk about it , not to try to change anybody's mind , but to just bridge the gap , have a relationship and share something authentic about my lived experience , in hopes of either connecting with someone or just putting it out there so they learn something new maybe . So I'm talking about it and I'm talking about what I am feeling . That may or may not be anxiety and why it's making me anxious . So the best example I can give of me doing this right now is for the past maybe two to three weeks .
Speaker 1I thought I'd been having a lot of health problems and I am definitely one who's on the more intense end of the spectrum for being a hypochondriac because I am so afraid of getting sick , but not to the point where it really affects my daily living . But it's very intense for me . So when anything feels out of sorts in my body , I really , really , really panic . I have been going on and off of multiple medications over the past several years , so my body will react very strongly sometimes and that will send me into a panic . Pretty much most of my life I will say I'm having a panic attack or I'm feeling anxious or something's wrong . Something's wrong , something's happening and I don't like it . I don't know what to do and I would just label that as anxiety or panic attack . In the past and it typically came up in similar patterns I would have difficulty breathing , I would have like a tremor and my voice would be hard for me to talk or say anything and I kind of felt like I was shutting down just full on becoming an armadillo going into my shell and shutting down , and so that's what it looked like for me in the past .
Speaker 1The past few weeks , I have had totally different types of anxiety , which I think is coming from a job transition and just being in a very different place in my life right now . So I've been having like shaky arms and shaky legs and my mind will feel like it's shutting down , but my body is just fully operating . I'm not having the increased heart rate or the temperature change in my body or anything like that . I'm still able to clearly talk , clearly work , clearly drive and clearly function , but other parts of my body , all the bells and whistles , are going off . That I'm having anxiety in a different way .
Speaker 1Now , this could be anxiety . This could be something else . I'm still trying to , I guess , get the full answer , which I might never get the full answer , but all the signs point to this is a different type of panic attack that I'm having , because whenever I trace back to the point where it started or what was going on , all signs are pointing to yep , this is the perfect storm of what would give me anxiety . So what I'm doing is I'm trying to find someone close to me when I'm having those panic attacks and tell them hey , I think I'm having a panic attack , this is how it normally feels for me , or this is not how it normally feels for me , and I just want to let somebody know , because I'm feeling really scared right now and my therapist encouraged me to say to myself this is hard and this is happening . This is hard and this is happening because my instinct is to override the panic attack and try every single coping skill that I know of , because that worked in the past and my panic attacks were . I had different symptoms in the past . I could do deep breathing to help with my increased heart rate and , like my tremoring voice , I could sit down to relax to help with any desire . I had to just fold up inside of myself and shut down , knowing I can't override this or go around it .
Speaker 1Recognizing this is hard and this is happening and labeling it as a panic attack and letting people know around me that I'm looking for support or just say , hey , this is what's going on , in case something else happens that is maybe more extreme for me . I feel like somebody else knows . I don't feel as alone . That's the first thing . That's kind of long , but it's very true . It's been helping me , as talking about it and not holding it in and not questioning it . I'm not questioning myself anymore Like why are you doing this body , why is this happening ? Self , I'm just trying to lean into . This is hard and this is happening . I'm having a panic attack . We're here , we're in the moment .
Speaker 1Another thing I like to do for my anxiety is do anything I can with my hands , whether that's coloring , picking up a fidget , baking , folding laundry , flipping through a book or a magazine I don't even have to be reading it doing something with my hands and looking at my hands while I do it . I have some strong , I guess , connection to sensation when I'm doing something with my hands and it is telling my mind okay , you're focusing on something and you're doing something while we're going through this panic . It's not going to make it go away , but it's going to , at least for me , not necessarily distract me but pull away a small bit of my attention . So I'm not pouring fuel on the fire of my current anxious situation . I do believe in distraction as a helpful coping skill . Some of the time , especially if you're in the middle of something , I like to be feeling like . I have a very small amount of reassurance I can offer myself in these moments and by doing something with my hands physically , or maybe even doing something with my feet physically , such as trying to dig my feet into the ground or take my shoes off and walk outside and touch grass or mulch or water or cement , something that I can feel into most of the time will help to slowly bring me back or act as that mini distraction , while also grounding my physical presence into my environment and getting me out of my head a little bit .
Speaker 1Another trick that I learned more recently is to have something very sour or very spicy when you're having either just a really difficult time with anxiety or a panic attack . I've been trying to carry very strong gum in my purse or just like some sour candy . Sour skittles do it for me . Sour patch kids do not , they're not sour enough . But sour skittles are like crunchy and very , very , very strong . So that works some of the time it's not my go-to , but it provides me some comfort knowing I have gum like really spicy , not minty , like spicy gum in my bag , or I know I can go try to get some sour candy somewhere , or I have some readily available because sometimes I will try to drink water because if I'm crying during a panic attack , drinking water helps me slow down the tears a little bit and just take a breath . But sometimes eating something or drinking something doesn't feel safe for me , like I don't want to choke or become more uncomfortable . So you know , you guys can take that and see if it's appropriate in the situation . But these are just my personal suggestions .
Speaker 1Something else that's interesting that always helps my anxiety and has since I've been 14 or 15 has been meditation . But that is not feeling safe for me recently , even if I have my eyes open , closing my eyes to relax , not on the table right now I don't really know why . This is what I'm talking about , when our bodies needs change or they might vary based on the type of anxiety or panic you're experiencing or the situation . So if I'm really feeling triggered in my environment , closing my eyes is not a good idea and I'm not going to do that . However , I've been a little bit thrown off guard because I will be in a safe environment and I will be having feelings of anxiousness leading to a possible panic attack , and I'm typically like okay , let me put on some soothing music and I will ride this out , do some breathing and meditation . I tried that more than once and it made it worse , and it has . That's never happened to me . It's always been very helpful . So that was a sign to me that my body was needing something different in that moment , and I think that's why having some knowledge of a few different tools whether they've worked for you in the past or they haven't trying them again or trying something new can be really helpful
Managing Anxiety and Dealing With Disagreements
Speaker 1.
Speaker 1And the last thing that I do for my anxiety and that I offer to other people when I'm with them if they're having a panic attack or something , is to find something to smell . I always carry around , like I said , gum , but now I'm carrying around just a small thing of essential oils and hand sanitizer . Do not sniff hand sanitizer people , that's not what I'm saying . Sometimes , though , I get nauseous when I have panic attacks , and if I put a little bit of hand sanitizer , like on my hands , and that's just enough for me to smell it , it helps with the nausea . I don't really know the science behind that , but it just helps . And then having an essential oil to smell whether it's lavender or something very strong like frankincense , just kind of like brings my senses back to earth , back onto the planet , because I might be floating around in space mentally very feeling very untethered during a panic attack . So bringing my senses back with a candle or a body wash or a bubble bath , like getting in either a cold shower or a cold bath , can be really helpful as well . Smells that are soothing is what I would lean towards . If something like doesn't typically make you feel good or is more like energizing , I maybe wouldn't lean towards that , but everybody has a preference of what makes them feel relaxed and cozy . So if you have anything like that that you can have in a lunchbox or a work bag or a backpack or just in your car , if it's like something that's safe to be in your car might not leave a candle in there because it might melt , but you get the idea .
Speaker 1Another question I got was how do you deal with people who disagree with you , either in real life or related to the podcast ? So I think this means if somebody doesn't agree with what I talk about on the podcast , or and or I guess if somebody doesn't agree with what I talk about in real life , how do I deal with that . So this is a good question , because I remember just a few years ago I was having a lot of discussions with Anthony over the fact that I was really uncomfortable with a lot of people in my life who are disagreeing with pretty much everything I was saying and doing , and that was very unsettling for me at the time , but not unfamiliar , I think . Growing up in a big family there was just constant disagreement , conflict and debate in healthy versions and like unhealthy versions as well . But I think that it was not new to me that people were disagreeing with what I wanted to share or how I wanted to live my life or just like my values in general , and so I thought the answer was to shrink my circle of people and only surround myself with people who thought like I did .
Speaker 1I saw this as some variation of setting boundaries , and I want to clearly state that this can be , and I do not let just any single person or anybody in my life or back into my life if they are specifically being hurtful or aggressive in any way like too intentionally hurt me . I do not allow that , because that is very rude in my opinion , and if someone is like purposely trying to hurt me over and over . I do not welcome that with any type of positive energy . However , I do welcome everybody that wants to disagree with me , because when I only surround myself with people who have the same exact values and beliefs as me , they're only feeding back to me what I already believe to be true , and I feel like this can be a little bit harmful .
Speaker 1The way that I started expanding upon welcoming people who are very , who have very different ideas and who openly disagree with me like how I started welcoming that back in was actually through my previous job , because I was one of the youngest workers on our entire floor and I was the youngest person in our office . Pretty much everybody but I worked with was 50 or older , somewhere in their 40s , and when I started working at 24 there , we had very , very , very different life views , work styles , communication styles , and at first I was very scared because I was like what if we can never see eye to eye , is it going to be difficult for us to work together ? And it was quite the opposite . Actually , I felt like there was very intentional conversations that we had that led to more growth on a project because we had such diverse perspectives and so many different ideas and varying values .
Speaker 1I believe in respecting people and I believe in loving people , not in a way that is just kindness for everybody , because that does not feel true enough to make active change in the community . So when people disagree with me , there is a line between if someone is treating people like absolute dirt and not being a human who is open to growth and healthy conversation and debate . I don't want that in my life and I don't see a lot of value fighting with people over that . But I do welcome conversation and the possibility to build upon relationships with people who have very different points of view from me . So I deal with that by not putting up a bunch of walls , but also by being very clear about my intentions and what my values are and how I view people in the world . And when it comes to the podcast , if people agree or disagree with what I'm sharing on the podcast , they're able to send their feedback .
Speaker 1However , I think we all know that people can be very vicious online for no reason , whether it's because you are hiding behind a screen or you just really don't care about people's feelings . I don't know If there's a lot of hate , I guess which there hasn't been a lot , but there has been some like in the past on my social media or just in my personal life . I deal with that by seeing . If there's like feedback , I guess I can take from that . Or are they really just trying to be malicious or are they intentionally trying to hurt me ? I guess I tried to decipher that based on the situation and , depending on the situation , I'll reassure myself , I'm doing my best or I'll be like , yeah , what I did was not right or I said something that was out of line or literally not true . I need to go check myself in this comment . Even though it might have seemed hateful , they were right or there was some truth in it and I need to learn from it . So that's a little bit about how I deal with people who disagree with me in work or in real life and on the podcast .
Speaker 1I also want to add how I deal with disagreements in my relationships and in my marriage , because I used to think if there was no arguing or no fighting , then everything was good , everything was fine . I don't want to seek out arguments , but typically , if everyone in my life is very free flowing or silent about things , or if Anthony and I are not having any sort of debate . Part of me is like okay , well , are we being truthful with each other or are we just constantly compromising our own beliefs to keep the peace , which is also problematic to me . I love to try to keep the peace and I feel like I've tried to do that most of my life , but I'll do that at the cost of downplaying what's happening with me or not telling people what's happening or not being true about feelings or emotions . I have to try to avoid disagreements . Definitely pick your battles with this , because not every single person deserves to know every single thing about you and what's going on .
Speaker 1But in my marriage and in my strongest relationships , I do want to be as honest and upfront as I can , and knowing that might lead to a disagreement is okay , because having a conversation about conflict can help work things out and there's a difference between arguing and debating , or arguing and conflict resolution . They're not the same thing . Debate and conflict resolution is like a conversation , in my opinion , back and forth , where you're open to receiving new and different information , and during the conversation , when you're arguing , it can feel one sided because you go in with your points and nothing can change your mind or open your eyes and you're just back and forth , back and forth and you don't find a solution typically , and there might be voices being raised , involved and other things happening , and I heard one time it's not an argument until tensions rise . I try to tell myself that sometimes I don't know how accurate that is , because there might be tension , like in a debate as well , but I think that means energetically and emotionally . If you can keep things open in conflict resolution , where you have your ideas , you disagree with someone , but you're open to at least receiving new information in the conversation , that seems very healthy to me and that's what I try to do . I am not perfect , but that's what I would encourage others to try as well .
Speaker 1The next question I love it says who is your favorite cousin ? This was submitted by one of my cousins and the answer is I love my cousins that listen to the podcast and watch reality tv with me , and that's my answer to that . I love reality tv . I used to hate it and I used to judge myself for other people for watching it . I did not watch a lot of tv growing up in general , but it is one of the only times I feel like I can just totally turn my brain off , which is almost impossible for me to just turn my brain off , whether it's reality tv or just something on netflix . Every now and then my brain deserves to be on like snooze slash do not disturb mode , where I just don't have to worry for a little bit . I worry and I'm anxious a lot of the time and if there's a way to slow that down or shut that off , I'm here for it in a way that's healthy or in moderation , and it's really fun to watch like funny shows with my cousins and my family as well , because then I'm connecting and bonding with people and I'm enjoying my show . So I really like that .
Speaker 1The last question was let's see how do you deal with imposter syndrome ? So , imposter syndrome I did an episode on this previously it was episode 29 , so you can go back and listen where I talked about imposter syndrome . There's a video linked to where it came from , and imposter syndrome is essentially where you have self-doubt in some way and you might think you're just not capable of doing something or being someone . I think a lot of us deal with imposter syndrome , but probably not everybody does , and I feel like the best way for me to work through imposter syndrome is to try to build confidence alongside that by finding small wins for myself . Typically , I feel imposter syndrome at work , so an example of building confidence at work would be finding something that's a small win for me , like can I answer this email , simple as that , or can I plan a meeting to get some extra details on this project ? So I feel like I have all of my questions answered . Or is there something I already know how to do that I can add to my daily to-do list ? So at least I'm checking one thing off of the list every day .
Speaker 1This mindset kind of carries over to the making your bed every morning phenomenon . Like your brain . If it can check off a task that you already know how to do every day , that might help build and boost your confidence up . Okay , there was one thing today that I did . I can check it off of my list . It's a little bit mindless but it still requires some effort . But that still is like the productivity mindset , which is something I am a little bit hesitant to lean on because I don't think we need to always be productive to feel good about ourselves or to be confident . So for imposter syndrome .
Speaker 1I also typically try to tell myself life is very long , there are so many mistakes I am going to make in addition to the one I'm making now . If I'm making a mistake or life is so long , there's plenty of opportunity for me to try something else if what I'm doing right now doesn't work out . Because a lot of times my imposter syndrome will be fueled by the fear of failure . It feels so risky to fail . It feels so scary for the possibility that whatever you're doing or trying might not work out , which might amplify that voice inside of your head telling you you're not good enough , you can't do this . You're setting yourself up to fail . So if you're trying to do a little bit of reverse psychology and say , yeah , I am going to fail and I'm going to do whatever I can after that , I don't know , that's probably not even reverse psychology . But instead of saying I'm afraid of failure , just saying I'm going to fail and it's going to be a learning opportunity or it's not , it's just going to actually suck and life is long and I will try something else .
Speaker 1I don't like saying life is short anymore . I will say it sometimes , but I don't like having that idea always in my head because it produces more fear , like , oh my gosh , I have to meet every single deadline and every single timeline and do everything perfectly , and if I don't , life is so short , I won't ever have another opportunity for success . And that's not true . You will have another opportunity for success . For all I know , you will be very successful in this exact opportunity you're having .
Speaker 1In posture syndrome over Life is long . We all make mistakes , we all fail and we all grow and maybe it's going to work out amazing . And you just need to tell yourself it already did work out amazing . Like just visualize and pretend it already went really well . So those are some of the questions I want to answer today . I really enjoy doing these because I like answering questions . I'm not saying I have the answers , but I like answering them and I appreciate you all coming back for another episode this week . I hope you have a wonderful , wonderful rest of your day and rest of your week . I love you very much . Thank you for coming back and we will see you next time .