The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series
Have you been questioning how to live your dreams and enjoy greater happiness, health, and wellbeing? I'm James Granstrom, male model turned international speaker and wellbeing teacher. Join me every other week for new lessons, tips, and conversations on personal growth, health, healing and spirituality with my inspiring guests or straight talk from myself. I'm here to guide you to become your best self and enrich your life, so you can tune and tap into your own natural state of wellbeing.
The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series
Owning it: Transforming Anxiety into Empowerment
Have you ever considered that your constant need for external validation could be fueling your anxiety?
In this episode, I dive deep into my personal transformation from being a chronic people-pleaser to embracing emotional ownership. By facing my relentless desire for approval and taking responsibility for my own feelings, I shifted from a place of victimhood to empowerment.
I’ll walk you through practical, actionable strategies that helped me reduce anxiety and reclaim control. From grounding yourself in nature and setting clear boundaries to confronting your fears head-on, I share how these steps transformed my mental and emotional well-being.
Through candid stories and real-life examples, you'll discover the power of acknowledging your true emotions rather than hiding behind them. Learn how confronting your feelings can calm your nervous system and foster emotional resilience.
This episode is packed with insights that will inspire you to take charge of your emotions, turning anxiety into personal empowerment and leading to lasting peace and balance.
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In this episode of the Super Soul Model series, I'm sharing with you the philosophy behind owning it, because when you truly learn how to own it, you release the negative charge that holds you back from enjoying the life that awaits you. Hello and welcome to the James Grantrum Podcast, super Soul Model Series. In this episode, I'm going to share with you owning it the secret to reducing anxiety. Now, I've struggled with anxiety in the past, and when I started doing this, which is owning it, it reduced and it reduced significantly. Doing this, which is owning it, it reduced and it reduced significantly. Now, from occasion, I still get bouts of anxiety, but it is so much smaller these days as a result of the thing that I'm going to share with you in this episode. So if you've been struggling with anxiety or frustration or experiencing any challenge, in those emotions have risen up, those unpleasant emotions, then this episode is for you, because what's going to happen is is you're going to learn some strategies to owning that emotion so that you can move beyond it, because you can't move beyond it unless you own it, and that's what I want to share Now. My clients pay me a lot of money to help share the information I'm going to share with you in today's episode, and they may not be the best pleased that I do it for free, but I firmly believe that sharing this information is so important because we need to help each other as much as possible, and I just want to try and help you. I want to try and help as many people as possible enjoy a greater quality of life, because then we lift the consciousness of the people, of those around us. We lift humanity to the next level, and I firmly believe, instead of life getting worse, it can get way better when we understand ourselves. And that is what this podcast is all about. It's helping you awaken and rise to the next level of consciousness so you can enjoy a greater quality of life. I mean, how good is that when you understand yourself? Most people never get taught this information at school, yet get taught by their parents. So that's why podcasts like these episodes like these are meant to empower you, and the idea of taking ownership is helping you move from a victim mentality to an ownership mentality. This is the transformation. So that's what this episode is all about. It's helping you reduce anxiety by taking ownership, and I want to share with you how you're going to do that Now.
Speaker 1:Before I do that, I want to share with you some of my own contrasting experiences. My contrast means I'm putting my heart and my own story on the table here, because when I noticed that I was feeling anxiety, I was feeling that sort of victim mentality of, oh, these emotions are raw, that anxiety is rising up. I want to share with you how that came about in the first place, before I started taking action and changing the way I perceived it, which might become a little bit more relatable to you in your own story. So for me, it first started because I cared so much about what other people thought initially, and whilst it seemed so easy that you could perhaps negate that and go, oh, you don't have to think about other people, I really thought that.
Speaker 1:I really felt that because I was conditioned to a certain extent growing up that I had to people please. I had to care about what other people thought, number one because I watched my parents do it, and then, number two, when I moved into modeling, I recognized that I needed to be somebody that I wasn't to first start with with my career. I needed to portray this person, but I wasn't that person and I kept on looking for external validation at the beginning of my modeling career and I found that really, really difficult and it probably shook my confidence for almost three years, and that's a long way to feel out of balance, feeling highly anxious in your work and even though it's supposed to be a job or a career where you're supposed to be feeling confident, I felt less than confident because I constantly felt judged, and the reason why I felt judged was because I always cared about what other people thought. So that's where this anxiety really rose up. Number two the next call to wanting to take ownership, was because I constantly needed that validation or approval from other people, and whilst I got it sometimes, I didn't get it all the time.
Speaker 1:And when you're needing constant approval from other people, you can't get it. Whether it's a loving parent or a loving grandparent, no one's going to give you their approval full time because there's so many moving parts going on and even though you look to the people that have given you stability in their life, they can't give you approval the whole time because they've got things going on and so you start going around looking externally to fill yourself up. But life won't do that and that's why people turn to drugs, or they try to substances or sex or drugs or alcohol. You know I was turning to like alcohol and drugs as a result, to try and fill myself up, to stop feeling those fearful, anxious thoughts, but that didn't work either. So you know, it's amazing what we tend to do to try and heal ourself when we're in this void.
Speaker 1:And the next thing I got anxious and embarrassed in like everyday moments. I was a chronic avoider. I avoided opening my bills, I avoided speaking to some people, I avoided life, I avoided responsibility and this just created more anxiousness. And it sounds silly I mean you can listen to this or you can watch this and you can laugh but the fact of the matter is that's what I was doing and that caused me a lot of pain. I also noticed that when I was a child, I went to a boarding school and I noticed that I had always wanted to uplift. I always wanted to make people feel good, but that was also at the detriment of my own well-being, because I was trying to get other people's approval by trying to uplift them. But then I felt really upset or ridiculed by the fact that maybe not everybody was up to speed with being upliftment, so they put you down and yeah, so again anxiousness can really kick in and I remember thinking to myself when's this ever going to change?
Speaker 1:And you know when it started changing? It started when I began to take ownership of the way that I felt and recognizing that no one was creating my own reality except for myself and, despite my setup, despite my challenges, despite those knee-jerk anxiety responses that were rising up in my system, that the only person who was ever gonna do anything about it was myself. So I remember asking myself when is this gonna change? When is this emotional anxiety feedback gonna change? And it changed when I began to see the truth. And the truth was this every feeling that I'm feeling is just a response to the thoughts that I've been thinking prior to this event, prior to this experience. And this emotional feedback is just a signal saying you're not quite on track right now and it's okay.
Speaker 1:So when you start owning this emotion, just recognizing what it is, which is this is feedback, this ownership calms you down, meaning there might not be anything you need to do right now, in this moment, other than find a way to begin to center yourself, because this emotion or this anxiety that comes up is just a response to the thoughts that you've been thinking prior to this experience. And that is when I noticed that, when I took ownership of that, that it began to dissipate, that it began to reduce to dissipate, that it began to reduce. And that's when I started to do other things, such as meditate, to begin to make my system, my energetic system, begin to find this beautiful state of equilibrium. And then, when things still turned up in my life, meaning contrasting events and emotions came up, such as the death of my father or the death of my best friend, when that happened, then I recognized I was like right, this is just still more feedback. And I found that regulating my system energetically gave me greater confidence, gave me greater strength, gave me greater ownership, and they will for you when you begin to implement them.
Speaker 1:Nothing can come in your experience that's uninvited, unless it comes through your energy. So there's no need to fear, there's no need to be truly anxious, although anxiousness may come up in the system. It comes up as an experience or a wound that comes up feeling you've got no control. But the fact of the matter is you do have control when you begin to take ownership. So all emotions are energy in motion and they are just going to happen, and sometimes they happen just like that, in the spur of a moment. So the more you begin to regulate your energetic system meaning meditation, meaning spending time in nature, meaning spending time around the elements even doing things like yoga and stretching and working out begins to regulate your system.
Speaker 1:If you're doing anything that's chaotic to your system, your system is going to be responding and getting used to that. So children that grow up in very noisy environments want to be around more noisy environments because that's what they're used to, and some people prefer a busy, noisier home, some people prefer a quiet, calmer home. But either way, however you condition your environment, meaning your environment at home, what you listen to, what you're reading, what you're absorbing, the food you're ingesting, how clean your environment is, the music, the TV that you're absorbing all of that is conditioning your environment and conditioning your nervous system. If you've grown up with traumas of any sort, conditioning your environment that you can control will absolutely heal you, and I've noticed this in my own life and I've noticed this in my clients' lives. And this happens because you're taking control of your environment and making your environment absolutely at the forefront of the thing that you can control, because you can't control everything in life, but you can do your best to make your environment as beautiful and as clean and as peaceful as possible, because this regulates your nervous system and when triggers turn up, you can just reframe them.
Speaker 1:When anxiety turns up up, you can go. Oh, that was a response to the way I was thinking about this. There is still time for a comeback. There is still time for something in this to work out, even if it's not now. Every time you reframe something that happens, that negative, you can see it as a lesson or a blessing in disguise that's going to set you up for something future that you're going to walk into that will be beautiful. You know, like I've mentioned before, every bit of crap or manure that you experience in life is fertilizer for something beautiful that will happen in another season, because every time you can reframe any challenge or any nervousness or anxiety that's coming on, don't worry, that's a larger call for something good to happen at a later date and it's when you begin to take ownership of that that things will begin to dissipate, in terms of that energetic, reactive feedback and every trigger that you get, every feeling that comes up that gives you that all that icky feeling that's a wound in place somewhere or another. So that means you have to learn to regulate your system and reframe that wound and see it as oh, this is something I need to look at, and in looking at it, meaning you're not afraid to avoid looking at it, you're afraid to look at it head on. When you look the monster in the face, it seems a lot easier. So how do you own it? So these are my five ways that you can own it when you're experiencing any challenge.
Speaker 1:So taking responsibility for the choices that you're making is number one. So, instead of like blaming external or blaming other people and a lot of people love to play the blame game but really effectively, all you're doing is you're still masking the ego when you're blaming, saying I'm right and everybody else is wrong. Every time you're blaming, what you're also doing is just heightening and strengthening the ego, and you need to just let that go, because you're claiming that you're right meaning you're a victim and everyone else is wrong. Now, however hard that seems, is that if an experience has happened in your life at some energetic level, even if you don't even know you've attracted that experience and even if it's incredibly painful, there is a way out, and that is by reframing it, by looking at it from a new perspective. Instead of blaming the externals or blaming other people, you want to take full ownership, because when you're blaming, you're only strengthening the ego and whilst it's easier to blame, what you're still doing is heightening that ego and making you drop out of the heart. And that is not where your power lies. Your power lies in your heart and your ability to look at it from an elevated viewpoint, meaning I can make a better decision about this. I can acknowledge it, that this is not what I want, but I can acknowledge it and own it so that I can make more favorable choices going forward.
Speaker 1:If you feel anxious, worried or even fearful to a certain extent, or frustrated, own it, just own. That's how you feel right now. You can't hide how you feel, because the universe doesn't know what you say or what you think. If you're just going, how are you? And you go I'm fine, everybody knows you're not fine. I remember my friends used to say how are you, but I'm fine? They're like, no, you're not. I went yes, I am, and they were like no, you're not. And I could just tell that, even though I was just trying to brush that, to not have that conversation, I was constantly trying to avoid how I felt and mask that through just having a stronger sense of ego, a stronger sense of I can handle this by myself, instead of actually saying you know what? I don't feel that great right now, but it's temporary.
Speaker 1:This is owning your emotions and even though you might experience a trigger or a wound or some type of energetic feeling, an icky feeling that comes up in your body of anxiety or whatever when that turns up, just say oh, I recognize this feeling of anxiety. This has turned up in my life, this has been triggered again for one reason or another. And instead of like running away from it, you just say to yourself in that moment it is what it is. This feelings come up, this, too, shall pass, everything's going to be okay. What if whatever I'm focused on works out right now? Instead of trying to run away from that emotion, you're just owning it, saying you know it is what it is, this will pass, this is temporary. Out of this situation, something will work out. And what if something works out today? And what if this feeling passes? You know what if? I'm going to be okay?
Speaker 1:And you know, sometimes we need to soothe ourselves, but so that anxiousness can dissipate. Sometimes we need to soothe ourselves not by going oh, I feel great when you don't. That's not what you want to. Sometimes we need to soothe ourselves not by going oh, I feel great when you don't. That's not what you want to say. You want to go. I don't feel that marvelous right now, but wouldn't it be nice to feel good again and wouldn't it be nice to see evidence of things coming together again? You know, like the what if and the. Wouldn't it be nice? And you know this will pass and it is what it is right now, and I'm just going to let this go for right now, these types of statements for about a minute or two begin to soothe your nervous system and also couple that with grounding, spending time in nature, outside, getting barefoot, or in the water, or in the sea, or in the forest or in the parks. Do it because that grounding energy of mother nature begins to soothe your nervous system and helps you come back to reduce that anxiety and you start to own your power again. Your power is not given to that experience or given to that anxiety. What it's done is, it's given to your control these subtle statements. All they do is just build emotional resilience, and that helps you regain control, regain your power.
Speaker 1:Another way you can own it is by facing your fears. Things like public speaking, or maybe even jumping out of an airplane, or, you know, making sure that you are getting ready for a big interview yeah, there's that nervousness starts to really come up. Or maybe something like asking that person out on a date, or managing money in a certain way, or even moving large sums of money, or you know, investing in something where you're trying to study for some exams and you're really anxious about them. All of these feelings that come up are just feedback about the way you're thinking about everything and when you can acknowledge those feelings and if you could speak to somebody about them that this is just the way I'm feeling about it. What you're doing is eliminating that emotional weight on your chest and then you can confront those fears head on. And that is the best thing.
Speaker 1:And I remember reading a book by Richard Branson. He goes one of the things that we do when we are looking at virgin companies is that we are looking to face our problems head on. And that's exactly what you need to do Once you've spoken to a trusted friend and shared those emotions, as long as you feel that that's a person you can super trust and that will give you honest feedback, because when those emotions come up, they're real and those emotions are energy in motion. Be honest to yourself that acknowledging and owning it and recognizing that you can do something about it is going to make sure that you feel back in control, because one thing that I know for sure that doesn't work is avoiding stuff, because when you're avoiding these feedback, this emotional feedback systems in the form of those anxious thoughts and feelings that come up in the body, when you avoid them, they only get bigger and they scream louder, like when we don't feel great. You know you experience them, you experience things that represent that, but when you feel really good, you experience what I call lucky experiences, and that's just the law of attraction at work, because your emotions are like iron filings to a magnet. So avoidance drains your energy, whilst taking control and owning it brings it back. And whilst it's not going to be perfect every day, owning the emotion that you feel right now and doing your best to try and feel just a little better will improve your emotions, and the reason why I'm sharing that is because I've done all of these things.
Speaker 1:Number four setting clear boundaries. This is absolutely pivotal for your well-being. If you feel overwhelmed by anything, that is because your time is so precious and it feels really limited, and unless you begin to set healthy boundaries with others, this is going to prove to be really difficult. One of my clients had a very, very difficult christmas and they were so concerned with so many people coming all over to come and spend time at christmas at their house, only to discover that previous Christmases that were really, really challenged and things didn't go well and there was a lack of family harmony and it was just unpleasant. Until I said you've got to put your boundaries in place, this is what time you can stay and this is what time they've got to leave by. And when those boundaries were put in place, everybody knew where they stood and that was because number one, they began to value that their time was precious, their home was precious, and then they didn't want people out staying there. Welcome, and that is the same for you. So you've got to protect your precious time and your precious energy with setting healthy boundaries and when you begin to do this, you grow in confidence.
Speaker 1:The amount of times I've said no to people and this is my time cut off and this is what I've got to do. And even to my partners I'll be like, look, I've got to go by this time, that's it. Everybody knows where they stand with me because I'm always extremely clear and and I like to be honest, I like to be truthful and I like to tell you exactly how it is. So you know where you stand with me and this is because I'm owning it. I'm owning my power, I've got my control, I've got confidence, and what they think about me isn't really that important, because this is what I have to do and this is what I need to execute With some of my other clients.
Speaker 1:They are so good at this because their time is the most precious commodity. Some of the wealthiest people that I work with and that I've studied recognize their time is absolutely precious. They've got 20 minute meetings. They send one answer text when they go to the restaurant. All they're doing is they know what they're ordering off the menu. It's already sorted and paid for as soon as they've left. Their time is so limited and so precious. So if you really really want to enjoy a great state of well-being and success and confidence, set your boundaries and set them well and let people know where they stand with you in a loving way. But make sure you give everybody warning, because this is really important your intentions when they're very, very clear, people feel very comfortable as long as you execute on your intentions.
Speaker 1:Owning your mistakes and learning from them is perhaps, last but not least, the most essential part of reducing anxiety, because when you're owning your mistakes and recognizing, hey, I could have done better there what you are doing is you're disarming that emotional charge behind the error by accepting the responsibility from a challenge and then doing something to implement and go about changes. What this actually does is it creates empowerment, it helps you go from regret to growth and it helps your failures become valuable learning opportunities. One of the things I remember that I'll never forget is when some friends of mine went into business and they put five million pounds into property and it went wrong. What they recognized was this was a valuable learning opportunity, even though it was incredibly costly. And even when we're looking at a lot of things that are creating turmoil in the world, can we see and learn from the past and use them as valuable learning opportunities. That's when we're looking at things like wars.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm a firm believer in creating more peace, but peace has to start with us first before it can get out into the world. Make your environment peaceful, make your family a peaceful environment which to live in, and that is determined by your level of consciousness. So anytime you're taking ownership of any negative experience in your life, what you're beginning to do is transmute it. For me, when I had a car crash and I knew I'd done wrong and I'd taken my dad's car and without his permission, and I'd been drinking all of those things, I had to take full responsibility. And it was the first time I'd actually owned everything in my life and it was an absolute mess that I'd left behind. Fortunately, no one had died. But when I owned that error, I became free, because I looked at this mess that I'd created and I'd gone. I'm going to own this. This is this is the first time I'm actually going to take responsibility for everything that's going wrong in my life. And then there became this sense of peace because, even though I'd made this grave error, I had to sort out those emotions and those choices I'd made to make better choices going forward. And whilst it took quite a few years to really come to grips with all that, that energy that I'd left of owning that mess gave me greater confidence going forwards and it helped me reshape my life.
Speaker 1:And that could be in the case of business, where you know some people you know work in companies where they're trying to execute and send a lot of money in transfers, but they forget one digit and you know, suddenly that puts the the company out millions of dollars. And I've read about this and people have made these mistakes. And instead of like shouting at people whilst you can be truly, you know upset that these errors have cost the company, ultimately you've got to own it and learn from it. And then what can you do about it? Going forwards? You've got to always have, like this, understanding that things can go wrong and that human do make mistakes. But we all make mistakes and sometimes, even in relationships, you can say that you're going to do something and didn't do it and instead of getting upset and blaming the other person, you've just got to own that you didn't do it and it wasn't right. Just let that ego go aside and go right, I could make a better choice going forwards. Because every time you're doing that, you're disarming the negative energy.
Speaker 1:And I love this in business as well, because I remember when I set up my first business, my planner came along with me and said we're going to order all this stock, but we need to at least give room for some error. I am so grateful for that because when that stock did come, it wasn't all perfect. There was a few broken bottles in that large stock that I had placed a very large order from. And that's exactly the same in life. Not everything is going to be absolutely pitch perfect. So when you make room for owning mistakes, recognizing that they're going to be mistakes but you can move forward by making responsible choices from the errors that you've made, your life's going to be far more empowered, because you only learn really through making mistakes. So, accepting responsibility, learning from the experience, all this does is helps negate that negative charge where you become free and empowered and take your control back, because if you don't say anything, all you're gonna do is you're gonna exacerbate that anxious feeling going on inside the body. So when Nick's mistakes come, own them. When you've made an error, own them.
Speaker 1:Even if you look at comedians, even Kevin Hart one of the things I love about kevin hart is one of the funniest guys on the planet, but the press find it very difficult to actually take the mickey out of him or even write bad press about him, because kevin's jokes are all based on his own self-deprecation of owning all his errors and all his mistakes. They are the source of all his jokes. Eminem does exactly the same in his movie eight mile, which I watched recently, and what I loved about it was that there's a standoff between two people on the mic at the end and eminem was asked to go first. And you know what he does is he just takes full responsibility for all the mess in his life and the other guy has nothing. He's got no emotional charge in which to feed on.
Speaker 1:So owning your mistakes, owning the errors, owning of how not amazing everything is going right now, but you're on your path will set you free, and taking this level of ownership will change the course of your entire life and give you back the confidence that you so richly deserve. So, in conclusion, reducing your anxiety comes from this. When you own it, you move from helpless to empowered, from anxious to controlled. So this mindset fosters personal growth, self-discipline and lasting confidence. So next time a challenge comes up, own it. Next time the emotions come up, own them. Next time anything turns up, just recognize it's a blessing in disguise, cloaked for you to become a more evolved version of yourself. And they'll come up time and time again until you can find that peaceful, harmonious middle way. I hope you've enjoyed this episode and if you've enjoyed it, please remember to like, subscribe and share, and if you'd like to leave your support, please do so. You can keep getting the best content. That's life transforming. Until the next episode, I wish you a wonderful week ahead and green lights all the way.