Thanksgiving Week

Happy Thanksgiving WeSTAT!
I hope wherever you will be celebrating, you find the time to notice all the many things and people to be grateful for-that's certainly my goal this week.

It's no secret that I have an ongoing struggle with fear and anxiety. For me, anxiety acts as an active response to fear but I'm learning that gratitude is a healthier alternative.  

Transcript

 What types of conversations make you feel uncomfortable? Is it when you feel like you might be judged? Or maybe you don't know a lot about a topic, so you're worried you're going to come off as uninformed.  Maybe it's when you think a conversation might lead to conflict. Or it's too emotionally charged.

I've certainly experienced all of those things and more when I have had conversations that have left me feeling uncomfortable. But here's what I know. Every time I have a conversation that pushes my comfort zone, I end up feeling uncomfortable. More connected, better informed, and feel like I've grown as a person.

And I think that we need to be having more of those conversations. The more we push ourselves into uncomfortable conversations, the less isolated and divided we may feel. So,  I'm Jessica Kidwell, and this is We Should Talk About That. 

On this week of Thanksgiving, I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about gratitude.  I know that from the perspective of listening to this show the last few weeks, it may seem that I am solely focused on politics and policy. And if I'm honest, it really has taken up a lot of headspace for sure. But. Not all of it.

So today I want to talk about gratitude. To me, finding gratitude is a space I go to when I need to quiet my anxious mind. My anxiety comes from a place of fear. When I don't know what is going to happen or I don't think that I have any control of what may happen, I don't like it. It scares me. I fear it. 

And I hate feeling scared. It is such a foreign concept to me that people willingly seek out scary experiences like movies or haunted houses or even thrill seeking adventures. I know feeling scared impacts people differently, and it might be something that's exhilarating or something that helps propel someone to move forward. 

I also know that with my theme this season of courage and asking all my guests what it means to them, I've heard many times that courage is feeling scared and doing it anyway. I know all this.  But I also know that when I experience fear, it is so uncomfortable for me that I need to immediately try and shift into feeling something else.

And my knee jerk reaction is to shift to anxiety. I learned something this week that was pretty fascinating. I was talking with my therapist, Bethany, and I asked her why someone, meaning me, would choose anxiety over feeling something else. Why do I prefer anxiety  over feeling fear?  And she actually had an answer for me. 

Fear is a passive response, while anxiety Is an action.  Worrying about something makes you feel like you're doing something. You're preparing, or planning, or reflecting upon what you would do or should have done, and all that feels like you're actively doing something which releases dopamine into your brain and that temporarily makes you feel better. 

So you start to train yourself that when you feel scared,  if anxiety gets recruited to step in and take over and start doing things. You'll feel better. Let me give you a recent example of how this works for me. I think this will be universally relatable.  The fear that something terrible will happen to someone you love. 

For me, it's usually after I've heard about something terrible happening to someone else. We have a road near us that has had several catastrophic accidents happen on it in the time that we've lived here.  People have died or their entire lives have been forever altered on that road.  And the proximity of this road can cause me to think, God, what, what if that was my loved one? 

And that can feel unbearable. So instead of sitting in that fear,  I recruit anxiety to step in and start thinking of all the things I can do to prevent that terrible thing from happening to someone I love.  I can tell everyone, I don't want you to drive on that road. That road is terrible. Nobody should drive on that road. 

For my kids, I can tell them, you're not allowed to drive on that road.  And then to make me feel even better,  And that they will actually listen to me, maybe I can download an app that tracks them and I can see if they've been on the road or how fast they've been driving on that road and then I can punish them so that they know I really mean it.

I don't want them on that road and doing all of this can make me feel like I am doing something. I am making sure something bad is not going to happen to someone I love and that makes me feel better.  I might be exhausted from all that hypervigilance.  I might not have the best relationship with my kids because I've created.

a non trusting environment in a bit of a police state, but  I feel protected from that fear.  But it is a false sense of security.  The reality is, things happen. Bad things happen. And no amount of worrying or planning can fully protect me from that.  So if you remember, I started this episode saying, I was going to talk about gratitude and so far I've taken you on a roller coaster, anxiety ride through a worry in the life of my brain, but that is because gratitude is also an active response and it can counter.

Our passive fear reaction.  It can do the exact same thing anxiety can do. It can move you out of that uncomfortable feeling, cause that dopamine to hit, and boom, you feel better. And here's why it's such a better choice than anxiety. Gratitude keeps you present in the now, in the moment you are in right now, paying attention to what is happening all around you and finding things to be grateful for. 

Anxiety pulls you away.  Your attention is focused on what might happen so that you can see all the things you need to plan for, and you're not here.  You're not  in the now.  You're somewhere else mentally planning and preventing and completely missing what's happening right in front of you. And so this week, and frankly every week, I'm going to try to choose gratitude.

I'm grateful for the people in my life, for the roof over my head, for the ability to do this podcast. I'm grateful for the color of sunsets. and rainy days that make me want to put on slippers and cozy clothes. I'm grateful for the lip smack sound my dog makes when she's content and just about to fall asleep. 

I'm grateful for friends who feel like family,  and for my family who holds my history, my future,  and my heart in their hands.  I'm grateful for horseradish and chive potato chips from Trader Joe's that only come out at this time of year. I'm grateful for ice cream. I never, ever am too full for ice cream. 

I'm grateful for the laughing that I hear from Charlie's room as he plays video games online or is chatting with a friend about whatever happened in his day. And how despite being five foot eight, he still launches himself onto my bed most nights to say goodnight. And to tell me that he loves me. I'm grateful for the photo that Grace's dance coach sent me just the other day of my girl smiling and shining on stage, doing the thing that she most feels like herself. 

And for the text I got from her just a couple of days ago,  where in the middle of the day, she just wanted to tell me. It was snowing. These are all the things that I actively thought about today or in the recent days that keep me from feeling fear of the unknown and things I cannot control.  They keep me grounded in the now and give me perspective that nothing's permanent. 

And that's my wish for you, wherever your life takes you this week,  that you find the things to be grateful about to calm your mind and fill your heart.  And I'll see you next week to talk about things we can't control, or things we don't know enough about.  We Should Talk About That is hosted and produced by me, Jessica Kidwell.

The audio engineering is done by Jarrett Nicolay at Mixtape Studios in Alexandria, Virginia. The theme song, Be Where You Are, is courtesy of Astra Via.  Graphic design is by Kevin Adkins.  Do you have a topic I should talk about? Let me know. Submit your idea on my website, www. weestatpod. com.  There's a form right on the main page for you to get in touch with me. 

And if you don't have a topic, but you want to let me know what you thought of the show, you can send me a message on any of my social links. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, that platform formerly known as Twitter. On all of these, you can find me at WeStatPod.  You may even hear your comments on a future show. 

And finally, there is no we without your participation. I really couldn't do this podcast without your support. So thank you for being here.