183: Mastering Anxiety About the Unknown

Hello again, everyone, and welcome to today's show. If you're one of the 130 million people that are dealing with Sirs Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, or other conditions that are impacted by mold on a daily basis, and you need to learn how to eliminate that exposure, then you're in the right place. My name is Brian Carr, and you're listening to Mold Finders Radio.

Hey, everyone. So this has been coming up a good amount for me over the last week or two. So I thought I would record an episode about it because I'm having the same conversation with multiple people. And if multiple people are kind of bringing it up, then that probably means that there's more of you that are thinking it or that it's happening to. And so this can be a short episode, just a snippet on how to handle one specific piece of what goes on during this process. And what we're talking about is.

Is the anxiety that comes from future events that have not happened yet. This is a really normal, human thing that gets done. A lot of times we think about what might happen or what we suspect could happen in the future about anything. And with that, it actually starts shaping our emotional response at the moment.

There's a concept around this. It's called future pacing, or envisioning yourself doing something in the future. So I was just talking to somebody on my team about it yesterday and how to help coach people through it. So let me share what I shared with him with you. So when I was younger, for those of you that might not have been listening to this forever, I was a very, very good bowler. I was like, a top 20 bowler in the country as a youth bowler. And I just barely missed the US Junior Olympic team when I was a senior in high school. So it was something I was really good at. I treated it like a job. I was very serious about it. And you know something? I've learned a lot of lessons from my dad, but one of the things that my dad taught me within that realm was envisioning success for yourself before it happens. And as I've grown up, I've learned more about this, more about how the mind sort of impacts the body in a lot of different ways. You know, recently have dove a little more into, like, manifesting and the universe and things like that. And honestly, it's all tied around the same thing. So whether it's like I'm. It's the universe or I'm manifesting or I'm envisioning future success, whatever it is, there is this through line of how you see something occurring in the future and how that affects you now, right? And that isn't only towards achieving positive things, that can also work against you in certain ways. So when you are in a situation where you start to be concerned about what the future might hold, even though it's never happened, it hasn't happened yet, it's in the future, right? It hasn't happened yet. And you start to maybe be worried or concerned or fear something that could happen in the future, you start getting feelings of anxiety, you start building stress, you start doing those things and that doesn't serve you in the now, right? And what I've learned is that many, many times, unless one of you out there listening is Nostradamus, we're wrong about what's going to happen in the future. And, but our brain does not know that. This is kind of the, the, the secret sauce to envisioning yourself succeeding in something is that your brain actually thinks that it's real. It thinks that it's happening. And then the effect that that has on your body becomes a real effect on your body. So when you're doing it in a positive way, it could be, have good effects on your body, it could be calming, it can create more focus for you, create more confidence for you, it could create more energy for you that allows you to do the things that you need to do to get to the successful point, right? So it's really interesting. Like you look forward in time, you future pace in time, you look forward and you see yourself doing something incredible and what that feels like and what it looks like and how it's happening. And in doing that, you actually create in the now the physiological response that you need to achieve that. And it's really, really cool, right? And I've literally seen this happen. I had a. There's one bowling tournament in specific that stands out in my mind with this. And I was, I was a senior in high school in this particular tournament. I lived in Las Vegas. Las Vegas has high school bowling teams. We won the state championship every year I was on the team. And my senior year I was in the tournament that's called the MVP tournament, which is the best player on every team in the state goes into its own tournament. And it's the top, you know, 50 or 100, however many people, and it becomes a single single person tournament. Best player on every team, best man wins. And so obviously I sat down and I did what we talked about because my dad had taught me to do this. And I actually think It's a big reason why I was so good, to be honest. And I sat there and it was at this bowling alley that I knew that was actually in Las Vegas. So the state came to Las Vegas. I was like, oh, I know this place. I'm sitting here, I'm on the lanes. I'm watching myself win. I'm watching my, you know, all this stuff, I'm seeing it all happen in the future, right? So now fast forward to it actually happening. I show up that day. And for anyone who's ever played sports, and I'm sure this happens in other things, too. There are certain days that you just have it, and then there are certain days that you just don't, right? You walk up and you feel it, and you're like, oh, I don't have it today. Some days you walk up, you're like, man, I am on today. Like, I feel great. This was one of those days where I didn't have it. I showed up, I went up there, I started, you know, started throwing balls and warming up, and I just felt it like it wasn't on. And it was really hard. And it was a struggle. And it was a lot more thought to try to be focused on what I need to do to push through and just figure out how to get this ball to do what I need it to do. Because it just wasn't happening naturally.

Is that so? It was a harder day. It was a harder tournament, but I was able to then go back to what I was thinking about. And there were times where I, I, I felt like I clawed and scratched my ways to the finals. And I was in the final match in this tournament, and I just. There was one point where I sat there and I just closed my eyes and I saw what I envisioned myself working towards over that period of time. And it just was like, oh, like, I'm winning, I'm winning. That's just what I'm doing. I'm winning. This. I'm here. This is everything that I thought was going to happen. Here I am. I'm gonna win. And I went out and I won. And the reason that I share that story, because if I didn't, like, future pace it beforehand and like, kind of prep myself for that, I probably would have crumbled under the feeling when I showed up that day that I didn't have it right. Because then it's so hard, you know? So it's hard to explain, like, having it and not having it from a sports perspective unless you've played sports. But some days you Just got it. Some days you just don't, you know, and you gotta work through it. Anyways.

In that case, I used my future pacing to then anchor myself to what that feeling was once I reached that point in the future. And then I was able to then use all of the energy and the, and the, and the vibes that I created for myself up until that point to re. Bring me back to what I was trying to do. The mind is incredibly powerful. It's incredibly, incredibly powerful. And so the reason I set all this up is because what I've been seeing and what I was helping coach. One of my, one of my consultants on yesterday was how to identify this happening in someone and how to help sort of coach them out of it, right? It's interesting. Like what we do, we obviously, we go in the house, we find problems, we figure out where they are, we do all that stuff. But a lot of it is like person coaching too, right? Because there's all these situations and scenarios and frankly like you've never seen it before and you just need help understanding it and how to navigate stuff, right? So that's part of the process. So literally am coaching my team to help coach people that work with us on certain things like this. So here's the scenario that happens. We go into a house and you find a number of things. Let's say you find 10 things in the house that are a problem, right? And as the person who's living in the house, you see what we're showing you and you immediately start to future pace and forward. Think about all the bad things that this means. Okay? This is like a negative future pace that happens here. You start thinking about how it's not going to be possible to handle all of it or if it is possible, it's going to cost so much money and where am I going to live during all of this and what's going to happen if it, when it, if it comes back and it wasn't successful and doesn't pass, then what do I do? And what happens at the remediation company and you just start spiraling and you actually start and it's natural. So it's a normal thing to kind of shift to the negative for whatever reason for us is normal to do that and you start envisioning a future of problems. Okay? Now keep in mind this future hasn't happened yet, right? So like this is a future that has not occurred and most times it doesn't happen, right? Most times it doesn't happen. In my example that I gave you the future I envisioned of winning, it didn't work the way that I envisioned myself doing it. But I use it as a tool to anchor me back to it while I was there. So for most people, what you're thinking doesn't actually happen. Here's another example. My Internet goes out and I get annoyed and I'm like, ah, Internet, Internet always goes out, whatever. And then I have to call the Internet company, right? And now I feel like a lot of people can resonate with this. Say it's your Internet or your phone or your cable company or whatever. Everybody has to get on the phone with the utility company, something's not working. And you get on and you're on hold now you're sitting here on hold for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever it is, that entire time you are on hold. Don't lie to me right now. How many of you raise your hand in your car safely and if you're listening in your car or whatever you're doing and just tell me, how many of you start thinking about what that conversation is going to be like and start ramping yourself up to defend yourself, to fight for yourself, to advocate for yourself because you think they are not going to try to help you, right? I do it. I feel like most people do this, right? So I'm sitting there for like five minutes and I'm coming up with every scenario that I think that they're going to tell me and then I'm coming back with a response. And while I'm doing it, I'm ramping myself up and I'm ramping myself up and I'm getting angry and I'm getting like, I could feel it, my heart rate is going up, my mood is changed, all this stuff is happening because I'm thinking of something in the future that might happen that's bad. And my current physical state now completely changes because my brain thinks it's actually happening. And then they answer the phone and they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, you're right, there's something wrong. We're gonna replace your modem for you, we're gonna send it out, it'll be there and that's it. And it's a 30, 60 second conversation. And everything you imagine that they were gonna push back. There's nothing wrong with your modem. It's all you. You're the problem. We're not gonna send somebody out there. It's gonna cost you all this money, all these things that you're thinking don't actually happen. And so you've put yourself and changed your physical state, your mood, your stress level, all of that stuff for something that doesn't actually you didn't even need to feel like that for, right? And this is what I see happen a lot. When we go into a space, we find number of problems. All of a sudden you start spiraling in your mind of everything that can go wrong and you become overwhelmed, you become anxious, you become stressed, you. It's not healthy, right? It's not healthy. And it then puts a strain on your relationships. Potentially all of these things occur. And I'm saying, I'm not saying this is the only reason why it happens, but this is a reason why it happen is because you start future pacing something that has not happened and likely will not happen, yet you are allowing your body and your physiological response to respond to it. And so what I try to tell people when I'm speaking with them is like, hey, listen, I totally, I totally get what you're thinking, right? And I'm not saying that none of it is that, that it's not valid. Like sure, that stuff could happen, but here's what also could happen and think about what could happen on the other side. I get to find what the issues are. I'll have a remediation company come in and I'll vet them and I'll make sure that I feel comfortable with them and they'll do a good job. And I'll be able to use the priority recommendations that we Inspect provides to do it in a way that's not going to cost me a million dollars. I'll be able to focus on the most important things and I'll be able to, to then cross that, cross reference that with the areas for remediation that might be the least expensive. And look, there's going to be a number of things where I can remove significant source issues which don't require massive remediation costs. Like there's a path to that. I can do that. That's going to happen, right? We inspect has consulting on the back end to help me review my report and put my thought process together on what that looks like. This is going to work, right? It's not gonna be easy, but it's gonna work. That thought process instead of this isn't gonna work, it's not gonna happen, blah, blah. And all that stuff it gets, it puts you in a completely different place and it doesn't allow you to make the right decisions that you need to make in the current time. So it's almost like a predefining prophecy, right? I think everything is gonna go wrong. And just like I said earlier, it affects your current state. So like on a positive effect, when I was training and trying to win things, it put me in a place where I was more focused, more energy, more concentrated, more zoned in when I was practicing because I knew that I was gonna get to this place, right? On the flip side, if you're thinking that something is gonna fail, you are now gonna be making decisions from a fear based mindset that don't serve you to actually help you succeed. Okay? And I just wanna explain that to you guys. Cause then I want you to try to catch yourself in these patterns when they start happening. It's not just with mold stuff, like with anything, like try to catch yourself in these patterns, but specifically in a mold situation, please try not to let yourself go down the what if everything goes bad road. Right? Because when you do, you start making decisions in the now because your mindset is in a different place, your mood is in a different place, your physiological state's in different place. You that that then manifests a decision that's not the wrong, that's not the right decision that you need to make, but you think it is because everything of your feelings and your mindset are in that place. So that seems like the right thing. But if your mindset was in a different spot and you weren't allowing yourself to get kicked off track of something that hasn't even happened yet, then you would be a lot of times looking at something a little differently. You might make a different choice. And this is kind of how I envision it. This is where these forks in the road happen, right? You have a decision that you need to make, but there are things that affect the decision. And so if you can affect your decision making process for the positive, then you want to do that. So then you can make sure you're picking the right fork in the road. So that was just a little piece I wanted to share. That was some of what we talked about yesterday with one of my guys and I thought it'd be helpful for you guys. So if you like this, let me know. Throw a comment and throw a rating on the show. If you're at it, it helps, it helps other people see it. And I appreciate you guys. Listen and talk to you later.

So that's it for today's show, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment and subscribe and give a rating wherever you get your podcasts. It'll help spread the word to those.

Who really need it the most.