In Episode 18, I’m going a little deeper into why allowing yourself to sit in all of those super uncomfortable feelings is really important and what it means when you hear, “you have to feel it to heal it”.
When you stop and let yourself be anxious and notice how your body feels, you take a step toward getting to know your personal “brand” of anxiety. You get to take a break from working yourself into a hot mess to be kind and curious about your body, your thoughts, and your emotions.
It's time to embrace the suck, to feel all the feels, and to love yourself more.
Help others find this resource so they can calm, confident, and have more fun by leaving a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review wherever you listen.
Find me on Instagram
Find me on Facebook
Schedule your consultation and let's talk coaching!
Thanks for listening!
In Episode 18, I’m going a little deeper into why allowing yourself to sit in all of those super uncomfortable feelings is really important and what it means when you hear, “you have to feel it to heal it”.
When you stop and let yourself be anxious and notice how your body feels, you take a step toward getting to know your personal “brand” of anxiety. You get to take a break from working yourself into a hot mess to be kind and curious about your body, your thoughts, and your emotions.
It's time to embrace the suck, to feel all the feels, and to love yourself more.
Help others find this resource so they can calm, confident, and have more fun by leaving a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review wherever you listen.
Find me on Instagram
Find me on Facebook
Schedule your consultation and let's talk coaching!
Thanks for listening!
Welcome to the More Than Anxiety Podcast. I'm Megan Devito, and I am the life coach for women and teenagers living with anxiety, who want more out of life. I'm here to help you create a life you love to live, where anxiety isn't holding you back. Get ready for a light hearted approach to managing anxiety through actionable steps, a lot of truth talk and inspiration to take action, so you walk away feeling confident in your ability to live a life that sets your heart on fire. Let's do this.
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Episode Eighteen. If This is your first time listening, I'm so excited that you're here. My name is Megan and I'm a life coach. I work with anxious and stressed out women to help them be the best mom, or the best entrepreneur, or the best wife, or sister - whatever role they are currently in, by finding where anxiety hangs out in their body, and then helping them make friends with it...and that might sound completely nuts to you right now. But I'm here to tell you that it isn't only the best way to feel better, but that it's actually totally possible, and I know that because I did it myself.
So in the previous podcast, I talked about using anxiety as a launch pad, and how feeling anxious is actually the signal that you need to begin taking steps toward the things that scare you, instead of pushing back or trying to escape. And I would say that episode 17 was really the first in a three part series about the progress or the progression that I use when I'm coaching women. So you are getting all of the 1, 2, 3 steps that we start with when we work together. So if you haven't heard Episode 17, go back, listen to that one, check out episode 18. And then of course, check out episode 19 next week. But when you learn to listen to anxiety, and act in spite of how your body feels, or in spite of the stories that your brain generates, this is the stuff that recovery is made of. This week, I'm going to spend time going a little deeper into why allowing yourself to sit in all of those super uncomfortable feelings is super important, and what it means for you when you hear the words, You have to feel it to heal it". And maybe you're just thinking, "I don't want to feel it; I just want to feel better already!" I totally get it. When I was struggling with health anxiety, I was absolutely terrified of every thought that had anything to do with any disease because it immediately made my arms tingle, and my head start to buzz. And then once that started, I noticed I couldn't swallow very well or I thought my throat was closing, and my thoughts started going about 100 miles an hour down some rabbit hole of really scary stories about my health, and how other people might feel if I were sick, or maybe what would or wouldn't happen in the future because of this imaginary scenario that I had cooked up. I would get so deep into this that I could picture my parents mourning my death, or later on when I became a mom, I would wonder what it was like for my kids to grow up without me. This is how quickly this can progress, I mean in a matter of seconds! And the more terrified I felt and the more I tried to stop the thoughts or how my body felt by doing certain routines like checking a bump, or by really calling my parents and asking them if they thought I was Okay, seeking that reassurance, or looking up symptoms of diseases, (Which by the way only makes everything worse and creates extra diseases that you think you have) the worst it gets. This is true whether you suffer from health anxiety, or social anxiety, or driving anxiety, or any other form of anxiety; whether it's high functioning, or straight up panic, it always happens the same. I did everything I could not to feel scared, or sad or sick, which was exactly the wrong thing to do.
I spent a long time avoiding anything that made me feel anxious or other than calm, or happy, or silly things because the negative feelings felt like a lot of anxiety in my body. So if you are avoiding driving because it feels uncomfortable in your body, if you are avoiding social situations because it feels uncomfortable in your body, those emotions of fear or sadness or isolation or loneliness are really what need to be addressed. For me, sad meant scared, because people would be sad if I had a disease. Angry meant anxious because I was angry with myself or I was afraid to make someone else angry. Confused or overwhelmed might mean I'm being too much, or I was intimidated because I thought I was going crazy and instead of dealing with all of these really crappy thoughts about how we feel, we shove them away, over and over and over and keep fighting off the next disaster or the next embarrassing situation. Or for me, the next pretend disease that my brain would cook up.
Does This sound familiar to you? I'm guessing it does.
If health anxiety isn't what has you listening to this episode, the same holds true, just like I said, if you're afraid of being judged, if you are afraid of being embarrassed or being alone, it's all the same. And it all starts with knowing that you have done your very, very best, up until this point, but now things get to change; even if it's only by 1% at a time, because that is still change, and it adds up really quickly. When you imagine what recovering from anxiety looks like or how it happens., it happens 1% at a time and it happens by making choices over and over again, while your brain really learns how to deal with emotions or feelings that are super uncomfortable and scary. And even though you might know that thoughts that you're having aren't true, they're still really powerful thought, and they are very believable, aren't they? If they weren't, you wouldn't react the way that you do. And it's the reaction to all of this that's keeping you anxious, whether the thought comes first, or the way you feel inside your body. After that thought, what happens next is the same. Those feelings like your legs shaking, or even your insides like your guts shaking, your heart racing, that heaviness that you might feel in your arms and legs, or maybe even weakness in your arms and legs, tunnel vision, brain fog..., they are all only a reaction to how you feel building upon itself.
So things like sadness, anger, fear, or loneliness, these emotions are stored in your body, and they're coming out in feelings. Does that make sense? I don't ask that because I think you don't understand. I ask that, because sometimes I question whether I'm communicating clearly. That's not my intention, I want you to understand that the emotions that you are pushing off, are coming out in physical sensations. That's what I was trying to say. The way to release those emotions is to listen to them. And listening to them starts with letting them be there.
So This goes back to an idea that I shared also in Episode 17, about using anxiety to launch into what you want to do. And here's the truth bomb for you. Even though anxiety feels really really uncomfortable, it is also very comfortable because it gives you a false sense of security. When you're anxious and you're feeling out of control, there's still this slight thought about being proactive or vigilant just in case, isn't there. Here's what I mean. Let's say you've been really careful not to drive because you're afraid that you'll get a flat tire and be abandoned on the side of the road. So in order to protect yourself from being abandoned on the side of the road, you avoid driving. You are protecting yourself; there's a false sense of security there. This is why when someone begins to recover, and they start to do the things that scare them, they feel even more anxious about not feeling anxious. Like, 'I drove the other day and it felt normal and it felt good, but something doesn't seem right. It maybe it feels even a little too good. This comes up often when I'm working with someone. There's this really warped sense of safety and refusing to feel negative emotions and then to relax into them. Those emotions feel dangerous. And here's why.
Negative emotions have a story behind them so whether feeling scared came from a fear of abandonment or losing someone... Maybe you lost someone in the past, maybe there was some big event or maybe even a little event, it makes you feel sad or scared or lonely. Just like that feeling of sadness or loneliness the first time that it happened. So have you ever come up with some story? I do my best thinking in the shower. Have you ever been in the shower, or driving, or somewhere and you come up with this story in your head about maybe losing someone, and the next thing you know you're crying. And I mean, like sometimes snot crying - like ugly crying! Your brain doesn't deal with time or with fiction. If it feels the emotion and you allow your mind to go to the sad or anxious place, or even if you allow your brain to get super excited and go to a super fun place, your brain just assumes that it is now and it is real. When you're anxious, this happens even if you're not particularly clear on what the real emotion is. Your brain just acts as if it's happening and it floods your body with a big rush of adrenaline or cortisol or whatever hormones are going in there to make you feel nasty and rotten, and then you're in the thick of it. This is why anxiety is such a huge feeling. Even when we create the story in the shower, we know the story is likely garbage, but our brain thinks it's actually happening.
So when I talked last week about those feelings being a launchpad, I mentioned the power of pausing before you react and I want to go deeper this week and talk about what you do during this pause or this moment of stop. I know I mentioned recognizing the feeling, but today we're going to talk about what to do once you recognize that feeling. No matter how your body shows you that you're anxious, it is exactly right for you. So I see a lot of women asking, has anyone else has ever had muscle twitches or blurry vision, or maybe weakness in their legs? And my answer is always, yes. First of all, because I've felt all these symptoms from one time or another when I was anxious, but also, because in this search for reassurance, when you pause, and you feel the feelings that are very familiar to you, and when you start paying attention, you'll notice you felt the same feelings before, there's a pattern there. And after a while, there becomes a sense of normalcy. This is great news, because your brain loves familiarity and routines and normalcy. It's just hiding this in a flood of thoughts, and of this big overwhelming feeling inside your body.
So when you stop, and you let yourself be anxious, and you pay attention to how your body feels, you take a step towards getting to know your personal anxiety. You get to take a break from working yourself into a hot mess and just to be kind and curious with yourself. You stop telling yourself that you're too weak, or you're too afraid, or to incapable and you simply get curious about how your body feels, or about the thoughts that are swimming around in your brain. Maybe you're used to fearing when your heart speeds up. But if you're just watching your heart, there's no judgment on how you feel. You're just allowing your heart to do its thing, knowing that it's been doing this from like, way before you were born. This is just how you feel when you're anxious. You feel it and you understand that, this is what I do. Maybe you count the beats, maybe you put your hand on your heart and you feel it through your shirt; your only goal is really to feel all of the things that are going on in your body. One of the techniques I use when I'm working with someone is to have them view themselves from 10,000 feet, as if they're looking down on themselves from an airplane or even looking from the outside and just watching and observing is if they could see maybe inside your body. If you can imagine what you would see or what it would feel like staying in your body and out of your mind... You're just watching without figuring anything out. Like look at what those muscles are doing. They're quivering, because they're really tight. Or my stomach is really messed up because I can tell that it's full of hormones, and I'm really anxious right now. My heart's going really fast, I can see it. I can feel it, but it doesn't mean anything because it just becomes part of what anxiety feels like inside your body ... feels like in your body. There are several really fun ways to get to know that feeling better. Another one I really love is talking to the feelings as if it was a separate being from you, or maybe as if it was a mirror image of yourself. And I'll warn you though, lots of times, there's some serious emotional release when you do this. I have cried, and laughed, and high five for myself several times in the mirror. However you react though, and especially if you get emotional, it's actually great. It can be kind of embarrassing if you're by yourself and you're talking to yourself, and suddenly you're sobbing. It's Okay. It's Okay to do that. It's actually really good for you, because this is exactly what needs to happen. Because this is what it's like to feel all of those emotions. And this is where you start to heal. I know This might sound like a really big ask if you've been afraid of how you feel for a really long time and if you've spent tons of energy trying to make those feelings stop. I really do. But when you allow yourself to be uncomfortable, and to start getting super clear on describing the feelings, or imagining what your anxiety looks like, or feels like you get to know how your body feels without it meaning anything at all, other than something inside me needs attention, when you know 100% what anxiety feels like and you start to embrace the feelings as part of who you are, you're learning to get comfortable in your own skin. Even when it's not comfortable. The feelings become nothing more than how it feels to need a drink of water or if somebody jumps up and yell "SURPRISE!".
So think about that for a second. How long have you been wishing you were in somebody else's body, or mind, or life because anxiety has been so damn uncomfortable? That no matter how hard you try, you can't control it. Would you wish you were somebody else because you were really thirsty or startled? No! So what would it be like to let go and feel your heartbeat or your arms tingle? You can do this and the more you do it, the more familiar and easy the feelings become. It doesn't take very long before you don't have the urge to push yourself away from how you feel anymore. You just let it be there until it isn't. And the more you can do that, the faster it goes away, and the less often you feel anxious, I promise your brain will catch on.
So I did a quick Google search on "how long does it take for your brain to change". This is called neuroplasticity, by the way and it's a process of your brain learning new responses and reorganizing the neurons in there and it only takes 21 days for it to begin to catch on, and the rewiring of those neurons is really happening in full force by 63 days. That's only like two months away! So from the release of this podcast on January 10, 63 days brings you to real results by March 14! This is why my clients gets results so fast. After years of pushing and trying all these different things that haven't worked. I have helped clients who take meds, who don't take meds, who have health, anxiety, social anxiety, who are just incredibly overstressed. People who work as corporate executives, people who work in factories, people who are stay at home moms, and people who are teenagers, and they have all experienced incredible shifts and how they react to how they feel. And they've rolled into recovery. And it doesn't take years. It doesn't!
So I want you to take some time and really imagine what this would be like for you. What would it be like for you to sit and let your body just do its thing. I know you might think it's impossible and I know that you think that you'll turn into a puddle of goo on the floor, but I promise you that you will survive. You already have proof that you will because you have survived every single time that you felt anxious so far.
When you fall into thinking of anxiety as something that's too scary, or something that makes you so anxious that you're afraid to try it because you're afraid that you're not strong enough, that is only your brain trying to keep you safe by keeping you fighting or fighting or whatever it is that you do to go into survival mode. But the truth is, you are already safe. Instead of falling into that same habit of pushing and fighting, when you choose to feel and allow, you get to choose to love yourself and to get to know the best parts of yourself that are really hiding in this big cloud of crappy feelings. It is safe for you to feel anxious. It is safe for you to feel emotions that are not happy or positive. It is safe for you to choose to let go. It is safe for you to change. And your brain will definitely argue, but you know it's true. I will be back next week to talk about the next step in the recovery process. Doing things that make you anxious on purpose. Yes, it's going to be a big one. So be sure that you're subscribed so that the episode pops up in your feed where ever you are listening to your podcast. I'll see you then.
I hope you've enjoyed This episode of The More Than Anxiety podcast. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review so others can easily find This resource as well. And of course when you're ready to explore coaching with me, jump to the shownotes click the link and schedule a time for us to talk. See you soon.