Ep 19 - How To Do It Afraid

Today we are going to talk about challenging your fear to a dual and here’s the best news; you can’t lose! This is the 3rd episode in a 3 part series starting with Episode 17 where I talked about anxiety being a launch pad to move you forward. Then moving to Episode 18 when I discussed allowing yourself to feel the anxious feelings in your body and recognizing them as an alarm to move forward, instead of avoiding what makes you feel anxious. In Episode 19, I’m bringing this all together by getting into actually doing the things that make you anxious and how you can start that process when your brain is likely screaming NO WAY! 

This is powerful work but I know you can do it.  You have me to guide you. Let’s dive in.

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Transcript

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, This is episode 19 of the More Than Anxiety Podcast. I'm Megan Devito and I'm a life coach for stressed out and anxious women. And if this is your first time listening, it is great to have you here. I hope you're ready because in this episode, we are jumping into some really big feelings and actions that will challenge you and change you. And I think that's probably why you're here. Today we're going to talk about challenging your fear to a duel, and the best news is that you can't lose any way it comes out; you absolutely cannot lose. This is the third episode in a three part series starting with Episode 17, where I talked about anxiety being a launch pad to move you forward, then moving to Episode 18, when I discussed allowing yourself to feel the anxious feelings in your body, recognizing them as an alarm to move forward instead of avoiding what actually makes you feel anxious. In Episode 19, this episode, I'm bringing this all together by getting into actually doing the things that make you anxious and how you start that process when your brain is probably screaming, no way in hell am I doing this! This is powerful work and I know it might feel really intimidating right now, but I also know that you can do it. You've got me to guide you and once you get started, it kind of turns into a power trip. So you've got this, let's just dive in. 
Let's talk about the problem first, because when you're anxious, the problem could be two separate things; it might be that you have an anxious thought and your body reacts. When your body reacts, you notice that your heart speeds up. Maybe you can't think clearly, you might have tension in your shoulders, you might have tension headaches a lot, you start breathing more shallowly in your chest or faster, your muscles might shake, or even feel weak. You could have blurry vision or an upset stomach. You can even have derealization or depersonalization. If you don't know what that is, it's almost what I would call an out of body experience where things feel like you're in a dream, or you're unsure what's real and what's not. That can be a really scary symptom for some people. I've experienced it and I didn't know what was going on and I was really uneasy about that feeling. There are other people who actually like it, because it's kind of removing yourself from those anxious thoughts all the time. So whether you have anxious thoughts that make your body react, or the flip side where your body reacts, and then your brain tries to figure out what's wrong, that's Okay. The problem is how you feel. And you might fear how your body feels. If you notice that you're shaking or your heart feels like it's going too fast, that might scare you. If you notice that you can't think clearly or you feel like everything's a dream, that could definitely scare you. You might think, "something's wrong, and I don't know what it is", or "I have this really bad vibe and I absolutely, I have to get out of here". This is all normal. You might think you're sick, you might think you're having a heart attack, you might think you have some deadly disease like I used to think, you might think that you just don't feel like yourself, you might think that everyone is talking about you... Your brain is going to offer up so many explanations of what is actually wrong, but the thing is, your brain is a liar. 
A lot of times, and especially when you're anxious, you have so many thoughts during the day, the ones that are sticky are the ones that cause you to feel some type of emotion or sometimes or some type of physical sensation is going to tell you you're dangerous, you're going to be embarrassed, you need to go to the ER right now because you're dying, or this time is different: even when you felt the same sensations in your body before or you've had the same thoughts before your brain might be telling you, "No, but this time is different". "What if they missed something?" "What if I'm wrong?" "What if they I'm the exception to the rule, I'm that 1%!" Your brain is going to try and figure this out and when it does, you fall into the trap of believing the lies that your brain chucks out at you because they feel real in your body, and they're really frickin scary. They are meant to protect you. I want you to think about that for a second; what if anxiety is meant to protect you, because that's really what's going on. Your brain is trying to keep you safely tucked away so that you can't be embarrassed, you can't be sick, you can't be hurt or anything like that. It's doing an incredible job! 
For example, I used to call my parents over and over to tell them not to fly, when they would go on vacation. My parents traveled a lot and anytime they were getting ready to leave town, I would call and I would say, "Please don't get on the plane if it feels funny". I was afraid of my own thoughts about how I felt when I thought about them flying, and something bad happening, like the plane going down or something like that. I would come up with all of these horrible stories about what would happen to my parents and how it would feel and what, you know, what would happen to me. And I would call them over and over again. But they didn't have that fear. I felt like it was real and that funny feeling was some kind of warning from God or I was clairvoyant. Neither of which is true, but that's what my brain told me. What happens is you avoid doing the things that make you anxious, because the feelings in your body and the scary thoughts feel so real and threatening and since anxiety is not rational, you fall into this really common cycle of avoidance, reassurance, or escape. That's it. That's what the problem is. 
But here's the solution. You have to be willing to be uncomfortable and anxious in order to not feel uncomfortable and anxious. It's the only way you can teach your brain that you're safe and I know that it might sound ridiculous and impossible. But it isn't. We are programmed to want everything very quickly, and to have it all be perfect. And that feels like a problem that has grown exponentially over the course of my lifetime - maybe it's because everything is faster and more accessible to us. But we have this vision of perfection and we think everything should feel good and be comfortable. And that's just not the way life is, nor is it the way that your body was designed to feel. Your body was actually designed to feel uncomfortable. Growth is uncomfortable. Change is uncomfortable. And when your brain perceives something as uncomfortable, or slightly scary or new, it floods you with hormones and causes you to feel anxious. But I want to invite you to change the label that you put on the feelings of fear, or uncomfortability, or newness, and how you feel about anxiety as a whole. This is really just a simple mindset shift that we practice when I work with people on doing the things that scare them and that's what this episode is all about. 
So there are two ways that you can think about this. This is a simple mindset shift that we practice when I work with people on doing the things that scare them or that feel uncomfortable in their bodies to break the habits that anxiety has them locked in. You can think of fear as Forget Everything And Run, which seems like a good idea; if I'm scared I should run away. Or, you can think False Evidence Appearing Real. Forget everything and run, or false evidence appearing real. This is a mindset shift. Fear feels like excitement in your body and the only thing that is keeping you afraid is your thoughts about a situation. So when you reframe those thoughts, and you start developing your motivational mindset, which sounds so terminology specific or so catchy, doesn't it? This motivational mindset, when I'm talking about when I say "motivational mindset" is coming up with thoughts that feel good that make you want to do new things. Just changing your mind about how you feel. Change your mind to want to do things that scare you. That's all it is. That's a motivational mindset. "This seems motivating." "This seems like something I would like to experience, so I need to change what I think about it." 
So creating this motivational mindset to get you to where you want to go. And you have to be willing to do things afraid. If you think back over your life, if you are a parent and you're listening to this...when they hand that new little baby to you. That's scary! When you decide to get married, it's super exciting, and also scary. If you decide to pack up your family and move to another country that is freaking scary, and also really exciting. It's just the thought that you're attaching to the situation. 
So something I've put a lot of time and attention to in the past couple of years is removing the label of anxiety or anxiousness from my vocabulary in my own life, not because I don't ever feel it, but because it has such a heavy and limiting connotation to it. I spent so many years, being ridiculously terrified of how I felt, and every single thought that came into my head, thinking that I had some, like, fancy ability to predict a disease in my body and that this was what was going to happen, I'm just preparing myself now so that when I get it later... That is insane and that's the way I spent so much time that I've decided to just peel that label off and throw it in the trash. And I've really noticed myself getting a lot more specific and using phrases like I'm stressed, I feel emotional, I feel overwhelmed, I feel excited. And yes, anxious happens, but it's okay because when I started to change the word anxious to uncomfortable, or whatever other word fit in that moment, the feelings started to move through my body more quickly. I didn't hang on to it and make it be just the beginning, or some signal of impending doom. I don't stay stuck in that period of waiting for the next symptom or for the next shoe to drop anymore. 
The words that you choose, are powerful and when you change the word, you can give yourself power. You can decide that you're up for a challenge. And you can see the opportunity to do things that make your body shake, or your mind race. And you can see those things as a power trip and a game so when you can turn it into a challenge, even the thing that scares you the most... maybe your fear of staying home alone. "If I stay home alone, something will happen to me, and nobody will be there to help me." "If I decide to go on a vacation, I could get sick and have to be in a hospital and no one could call my family." "Or I could be in a terrible accident" or whatever other story that your brain is telling you to keep you safe. You can take that and you can turn it on its head and let it become an adventure. Yes, by letting go of the thoughts that are keeping you scared, and letting your body feel anxious, and being like "This is going to be a great trip because I'm going to come back and feel powerful!" "I'm going to stay home alone for an hour today." Or maybe "I'm going to start with five minutes today and I'm going to feel powerful because I, like, through the finger at my anxiety. You get to let it become a power trip or a game. 
Learn how that anxiety feels in your body and to trust those feelings as just the false alarm. I talked about this in Episode 18. Learn to notice thoughts without them becoming the truth or thinking that you're having some premonition. Scary thoughts often come from how you feel, and your brain trying to scramble to help you. Remember, I said that those scary thoughts can actually be beneficial? They are only thoughts, and you are the keeper of your thoughts, so when you switch from them being scary and limiting to, "this feels scary, and like a challenge to be met", you can just ignore them. Even when your body wants to throw more gasoline on the fire and give you an extra dose of adrenaline because it might do that. You might feel more scared and that's okay! Remember those feelings and those thoughts are all normal. And they're just a reaction to that other extra gasoline, that adrenaline or that cortisol, that your body decided to squirt out. Your brain is doing its job. It's doing an incredible job! You are the master of your mind, though. 
So here's how you can start. This is how you can learn to do it afraid. First thing you need to know is that being afraid is not a problem. If you fear feeling afraid, the problem is the way that you're thinking about feeling afraid - it's not the actual being afraid part. Everyone is afraid at some time, even like the most macho, strong, powerful person that you know, feels afraid. It's normal. So, first, if that is the problem, "I am afraid to feel afraid"  you can talk to me and I can help you do this because I help people do it all the time. And I help myself do it. All you have to do is message me find me on Instagram @coachmegandevito and schedule time for us to talk, click Work With Me. We'll figure that out. That's not a problem either. The second thing is, I want you to make a list of your top five scariest scenarios. Five things that make you feel really anxious. These are the things that are keeping you too afraid to let go of your thoughts or of your feelings. And this is where you stay stuck. There's no wrong answers here. We all have our own scary scenarios. Remember, I didn't shake anyone's hand for a long time. Other people don't ride in cars. Other people won't eat certain foods. Some people won't eat food that they didn't prepare themselves. Your brain is coming up with whatever it needs to come up with to keep you safe. There's no wrong answer. Yours might be "I'm afraid to touch a kitten." That's Okay. That's Okay... write it down.  Five of your scariest scenarios.
Then I want you to rank them from the very scariest to the least scary. They will all feel scary but which one would be the worst? Like, I don't think I could ever conquer this fear or this anxiousness. "I'm always going to be terrified of dying." "I'm always going to be afraid of being alone." That might be your scariest. Maybe your least scary is having to use a public restroom, or to go out to eat alone. Whatever, it's okay. Just write those down and rank them from one to five. Then you have to get real honest with yourself, because I'm going to ask you to choose the easiest and the least scary scenario and I want you to imagine doing that. And here's how this works. This is called future pacing and it is one of my absolute favorite things that I do with people that I coach!
 I want to tell you a really quick story. Before I was a life coach and while I was teaching, I was actually a swim coach for like 10 or 12 years. So I don't know a lot of sports, but I do know swimming. And I learned about future pacing when I was getting my coaching certification to be a life coach. I heard a story about Michael Phelps around the same time, and about as he was practicing for the Olympics, he says, somebody asked him, Hey, how did you pull off that race? It was a super close race. He said, I've swam that race 1000s of times in my head and what he meant was he was practicing future pacing. Future pacing allows you to experience a situation before you're actually in the situation and the reason this works is because your brain does not know the difference between now, the past, and the future. Whatever you're thinking about is currently happening to your brain. So if you can practice something, and you can bring in your senses, and you can put yourself in a situation, you can rehearse something before you actually take part in it. So what I do when I'm coaching someone, is I record these future pacing scenarios for people for everything from practicing taking a test at school, or going to a new class, if I'm working with teenagers, to how I'm going to handle, you know, taking my kids to the park or what do I do with that? To what am I going to do when I go back to work? I've been on I've been on this leave and when I go back, what do I want it to look like? So what happens is I create this future pacing scenario and I allow people to practice changing and choosing the responses they have, and creating the feelings they want to experience before they ever get to that moment in time. So remember, I said your brain doesn't do time and it doesn't do truth. Either. It time travels all day long, it believes whatever you tell it is true. When you practice how you want to feel in your imagination, your brain just believes it's happening. It's similar to when you get in the shower, and you start concocting some scary stories. Maybe this is just me... where all of a sudden, you're sobbing because someone died, but it never actually happened. Your brain thinks it's actually happened. That's what's moving you into that emotion. You're playing it out in your head. To your brain, that's your reality. And that moment when you get out of the shower, you dry off, you're over it, and they're back to life. This is why this works. 
I want you to sit in a chair, or on a couch, get all snuggled up and let your brain do its thing. So go somewhere you feel safe - maybe your bed or your favorite chair; wherever you can be comfortable and you know that you're safe. And I want you to close your eyes. You're just going to sit there. You can wrap yourself in a blanket. Feel your body as you imagine your worst case scenario. I want you to go there. I want you to imagine your worst case scenario, the thing that you fear, on the easiest, least scary of your scarries. Remember, we ranked them one to five. You're talking about the one that's going to be the least scary or maybe the easiest to tackle. I want you to let your brain go there and imagine it. Let it play out. You are safe. You're sitting in a chair, feel your body and memorize that feeling, because that feeling is anxiety. 
So let yourself really hear and see and taste and smell all the things that you're imagining. Really sink into This. I want you to ramp up that anxiety as much as you can, because again, you're just sitting in a chair on a couch or in your bed with a blanket. You're safe. Let yourself be in it and observe it as if you're watching yourself without believing the story that you're making up as you imagine it. "Isn't it crazy that I can sit here and imagine this and feel it and oh my god, I'm so scared right now!" "I feel incredibly anxious right now." But again, you are safe. Remember, you aren't actually doing these things, you're just writing a story in your head. You can change it whenever you want. And this is when you get to step in and change it! 
You're going to intentionally change your story. Once you start feeling anxious and say, I feel horrible right now, mentally change the story. You take one small step toward doing the thing that you fear. Imagine yourself doing it. Yes, even though your brain and your body are definitely doing their thing and making you feel like you're actually  in danger. You can open your eyes and make sure you're still in the chair if you need to, and say this is too scary. But you can go back into this. You can say, if I did this, and it came out the way, I would hope, or that would be not so scary, then I'm gonna let myself imagine it that way. I'm gonna imagine things working out. I'm gonna imagine doing the thing that scares me to death and surviving. Even if it's staying home five minutes, or walking into a public restroom, or eating a food you didn't cook or driving your car only to the end of the driveway. Whatever that is, you have to imagine yourself doing it successfully! 
And then you have to celebrate like you just won the Olympics! You have to give your brain that dopamine that it loves so much, and it will start to crave more of it. It will do what it takes to get you more. Your brain changes all the time, for good, or to keep you safe; you just get to decide, do I want to change it to think "this is scary and I shouldn't do it", or "this is scary and I feel so good because I get to celebrate and then my brain gets some dopamine!" Do it over and over and over, going one little tiny step further every single time. But you have to celebrate every time and you have to feed your brain dopamine, you get to level up to the next fear then and repeat the process. This is part of where I'm coming from with this. Have you ever had your phone sitting maybe next to you somewhere or on the counter away from you, or maybe you even have it on like silent and you think that you hear a text message coming through? That little ping, that notification that we get that makes us feel like "somebody liked my post", "somebody wants to talk to me"... Your brain likes that and it will even create it on its own because it wants it! You can create this in your imagination by imagining yourself being successful at doing the things that scare you. If you have no idea how to start this, we need to talk because this is so much fun, and so powerful, that you can actually practice doing things afraid. When you do this, you learn how anxiety feels in your body, you recognize anxious thoughts, and you learn to rephrase them and let them go. You learn that a thought is just a thought and you do not have to respond to it. You teach your brain that you're safe. When you do This, your brain rewires itself and the thoughts become quieter, the body responds less and less and less, and you learn that you can trust yourself; even when you have anxious thoughts or your body feels shaky, or sick ,or like you're going to throw up, or like your heart's going too fast, or you're sweaty, or you have tunnel vision, all the things. 
You get to unlearn that fear and start creating some really incredible confidence and love for yourself. You are a powerhouse of capability and it's all because you just learn to trust yourself and your body. Even if something feels funny, even though your brains telling you something's wrong, you know and love and trust yourself enough to do it afraid. You can use this new confidence and this love for whatever you want. It doesn't just have to be for anxiety.. obviously you in your life, you could just sneak attack yourself into doing things that you only imagined doing before, and you can like, get through this list and go on to more. This is where it's really super fun. Vacations. Yes! Going back to work. Yes!  Stepping out with your friends, dating, driving, trusting yourself all of these turn into big YESSES, because none of the feelings matter anymore. It's just like, "There's that thing. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna prove I can do it!"
 So it's been three weeks of me talking about how anxiety can launch you forward And I am so ready to hear all of the things that you're experiencing. I want to know how it's going. Are you actually trying this? Are you just like rolling your eyes and thinking this woman is psychotic? You can announce to the world. what you're up to. You can go to the podcast and leave a comment about, "my launch was driving to the grocery store"..., Whatever it is for you. You can also tag me @CoachMeganDevito on Instagram, or leave a comment on this podcast or whatever podcast, or whatever post, and tell me what you're doing. I love hearing from you guys, and seeing how you're progressing. And I wanted to celebrate with you. That's super fun. You've got to celebrate guys! You've got to give yourself that dopamine. I will be back again next week. But until then, I'm cheering for you. Keep it up. 
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 show notes, click the link and schedule a time for us to talk. See you soon!