Can you talk yourself into anxiety??

Hi! My name's Caroline Cavanagh and I work with people who struggle with anxiety. And every Thursday I've been popping into Facebook Live to post some of the hints and tips that I use with the clients to help them overcome their anxiety and to become more confident. So, this morning when I was sitting down for breakfast thinking about what I was going to share today, uh, an interview came up on BBC Breakfast Time. It was a young lady, a young 13-year-old girl called Margarita Barbary. Now, Margarita loved ballet. She was a passionate dancer. And at age 13, she was going for an exam, and her teacher said to her, Look, love, you've got thunder thighs. You're not the right shape for ballet. It's probably best you give it up now. Margarita's response at that point was to become anorexic. She lost so much weight that she actually had to give up dancing because she became so weak and frail. Now, fortunately, the story goes that Barbara— um, Margarita managed to get the help that she needed. She's now in fantastic shape and dancing her heart out. As part of the interview, Margarita was very insightful. She made the comment that she didn't appreciate how powerful those words were and how much they'd affected her. Now, I'm not here to say that those words were the only factor that had the response of Margarita becoming anorexic. However, I do understand the power of words and the effect that they have on the subconscious mind. So, it's quite unusual for a sentence like that to have such a profound response in sending someone into such a disabling disease. More common though, and something that many of us will experience in our lives, perhaps not even knowingly, is that consistent comments, whether we hear it externally or whether we hear ourselves speak, are very much like a dripping tap. And if a dripping tap continues, it can very soon become a flood. So the tip that I'd love to share with you today is to become more aware of what you say to yourself and perhaps what you're also saying to others. If you have children, perhaps people that you manage in the workplace, because the words you say, the words you actually hear to yourself, are also being internalised, being listened to, and being filed away. Now if you were to imagine that your brain is much like a database, all of the information, it's constantly going in, it's constantly being listened to. Some of it gets discarded, but if it is like that dripping tap, it's just consistent coming down again and again and again. Over the course of time, the brain will start to say, actually, I keep hearing this, there must be something in it. And it will start to create a file. It will start to create like that flood. So if, for example, you're constantly saying to yourself, oh, I couldn't possibly do— fill the blank— or, do you know what I'm really scared of? Or, do you know what I'm really useless at? Saying that again and again and again will start to create a database file. It will create a program. And what the program then does is it runs an appropriate behavior. So, if your brain creates this belief of, I couldn't possibly do, let's say, public speaking. I couldn't possibly stand up in front of a group of people and speak. Your brain goes, okay, then we'll make that real. We will make you so scared at the thought of standing up in a group of— in front of a group of people that you won't be able to do it. Perfect! Our brain actually is very complicit. It will do what we ask of it most of the time. So you can in fact talk yourself into anxiety. If you keep telling yourself you are scared of something, then you will literally create that belief that whatever you're talking about is to be feared. However, the good news is if you can talk yourself into anxiety, you can also talk yourself out. What you need to do though is become more aware of the language that you're saying. And again, it's not just the language that's coming out your mouth, it's that quiet talk that goes on inside. I'm scared of this. I'm useless at that. I'll never be able to do this. I'm going to fail my exams, perhaps for the teenagers, a very common one. The technique is when you hear those words, when you become aware because you're listening for it, it allows you to stop. Just step back and say, Wow, I've just told that to myself again. Do I really want that to be true? And start to question it. Now, the clip last week, I spoke about the what-if monkey, and this is a great place to bring the what-if monkey in to say, what if it wasn't true? What if I could do that? Another technique is to just flip it. I love flipping. So if you say, I couldn't possibly, just changing it to, I could possibly stand up in front of a group of people and do a talk. Now, there might be some resistance. You may find that your brain kicks back in and goes, ah, ah, ah, not true, don't believe it. And it'll be a bit like a tennis match for a while. You'll catch yourself saying, I can't do that. You step back and you say, okay, I can do that. That little voice goes, mm-mm. You keep going, yeah, I can. I really can. I'm going to. And a bit like that dripping tap, the more you keep saying it, that belief will happen until the resistance will start to reduce. And actually, your brain, just like it took on the negative comments, will accept the positive comments. It will start to believe that it becomes a possibility. Now obviously, there are some things that you can't do. We can't all walk on water. Well, I used to believe that until I saw a video by Dynamo where he appeared to walk across the Thames. Who knows? Was that just an illusion? Was it possible? But if anything that you are telling yourself you're scared of, you can't do, you're unable to do, look out. Is there other people that are doing that? Is there other people that are confident in doing that? And if you find the answer yes, there is other people, then that means you can do it too. You've just got to start your brain accepting that it's possible. And from possibilities you find solutions. So I hope that's helped. The moral of the story is you can talk yourself into anxiety, but yes, you can talk yourself out of it. And the first step is become more aware of your own language. Become more aware of what you're saying to yourself internally and out loud. And if you're a parent, as I say, if you work with other people, become more aware of what you may be saying to them. It's very common as an adult to say, oh, you're so lazy! Oh, you're so untidy! I find myself doing that with my own children, but stepping back and listening, I now say, well, I'm actually programming them to be lazy. I'm programming them to be untidy. And then you have the opportunity to say something different. That something different will help them create a new behaviour too. So I'd love to hear some feedback if you agree with what I'm saying in some of these videos, please share. Please let other people hear these techniques, hear these technique tips, because they work. They make a really big difference, and the wonderful thing is you can help yourself. So here's to all of us being more confident, taking control of our lives, living lives to the full, and I look forward very much to speaking to you again next Thursday with the next tip. Bye-bye now.