How To Deal With Anxiety

Welcome to the Man Talks mini episode. I'm Connor Beaton, the founder of Man Talks, and on today's mini episode we are going to talk about managing anxiety. Now this is any form of anxiety so I'm going to talk about today is really any form of anxiety, whether you have performance based anxiety, whether you have stage anxiety or presentation anxiety. And I really want to break down for me from the work that I've done with a lot of people who experience this, whether it's in the bedroom or in the boardroom, there are really two sort of types of anxieties. There's the type of anxiety that seems to linger and is. And it's sort of always there. It's always there like over your shoulder and kind of like talking in your ear and talking smack. It's kind of like that guy in the break room or that woman in the break room where as soon as you walk in, you know, to sit down and have lunch, they seem to like start chomping open mouth, like they're chewing open mouth right behind you. And like they sit down next to you and they start talking to you on your lunch break. And they won't seem to go away even though like you're just trying to eat your food and they're not picking up on the social cues that you actually just want some alone time. You don't actually want them to be talking to you right now, but they keep talking anyway and they won't seem to go away. And even when you're like, yeah, that's great, thanks so much. I actually just, I would really love to like eat my food right now. And they're like, oh yeah, yeah, it looks like some great food. And they keep talking to you and you're like, how are you not picking up on the fact that I want you to go rate right now? But they seem to stay and in fact they get more obnoxious somehow. That's what lingering anxiety is like, where it just seems to be ever present, it seems to be constantly there over your shoulder, talking about what ifs, creating situations on future based worries and is just sort of this like icing to your thought process, you know? Not the best icing either. The second type of anxiety that I see a lot of people deal with is situational anxiety. Now situational anxiety is more about when you are in a specific environment or set of circumstances, you experience a heightened level of anxiety that you ultimately and usually normally wouldn't face. And so understanding which one you usually deal with is extremely important. Now just to Be clear. Anxieties are always future based. They are always, always, always future based. They're always something that is a concern or a worry or an apprehension about something that could potentially go wrong in the future. They're never about a past circumstance. We don't experience an anxiety about past circumstances. So this is just good to know that whenever our mind starts to wander, like if you catch yourself from an awareness standpoint, your mind's starting to wander into future projections about what could potentially happen in the future, you can start to catch yourself and just notice, like, oh, my mind's in the future, right? So you can start to notice is my mind going into an anxiety creating or anxiety provoking circumstance? Because it's like there in the future. And I remember this starting to become more and more clear for me when I got the opportunity to speak with Gary Vaynerchuk. And I've spoken with him twice now and once was at my own event and the other one was recently. Once was before him at my own event and the other one was after him. And it was interesting to notice the difference between the two because on the one hand I had my own event which has its all, you know, all the stress around putting on an event for 15, 1600 people. And then there was this added layer of I have to speak before Gary Vee. And so it better be freaking good because all these people here at my event that I've put on to see this guy that I've brought in from, you know, across the United States. And so there was a certain pressure that I had on myself. And I remember the day before, I was having a conversation with a friend and we were talking about the event and I was like, everything's set up, it's all ready to go. Everything's super smooth. Like, I can't believe that we, you know, we've sold all these tickets and. And he said, great, that sounds awesome. How do you feel about your talk? I was like, yeah, I actually feel pretty good. He's like, well, great, don't choke, don't screw it up. And he kind of chuckled. And at the time I chuckled. I laughed a little bit at the moment. But then as we walked away and I went back home, I started thinking like, well, how could I screw up? What could go wrong in that moment if I was to screw up? Like, this is a big moment and I'm going to step on stage in front of a lot of people and there's going to be 1500 people in the audience and this is my event. And what if I forget my words? What if I forget what I'm talking about? What if people don't like what I'm talking about? What if it doesn't land with anybody? What if nobody remembers what I've said? And so all of a sudden my mind started to like, unfold all of these different scenarios almost without me being able to stop it. It seemed like, you know how sometimes you'll talk to somebody and they'll just start to like, verbally vomit out in front of you and they'll just start talking and they seem to be unstoppable, like you can't even get a word in. Well, that's what my mind was doing in that moment. All of a sudden it was just like, brrr. And it was just spewing out all these future possibilities of like, ridiculous things. Like, what if I walked out and I was so sweaty that it was like seeping through my shirt? And people will see, like it was just crazy. And the next day, I remember it was lunchtime and my now fiance was at the event. And she walked up to me and she was like, hey, how you doing? Are you ready, you know, are you ready to go speak? And I was like, yeah, yeah, feeling good. And she could tell that I really wasn't doing so well. She could tell that I was kind of out of it. And she said, hey, like, where, where are you right now? Are you okay? And it made me realize that for the past, like 24 hours, I had been not in the present moment. I had been consumed with future based thoughts. I had totally lost like probably 18 to 24 hours in just like ruminating thoughts about what could potentially happen. And I hadn't really experienced that morning. I hadn't really experienced connecting with all the people that were walking in, friends that I knew, people that were there to support, people that, you know, had helped us build the event. I hadn't really been present for any of those moments and that was so unlike me. And so I got to like really ground back and come back to the present moment. And, and I use these two tools that I'm going to unfold and unpack for you right now. Because there's really two ways that we can deal with anxiety outside of drugs and medication. And in some cases that actually might be the right course of action depending on the severity of your anxiety. I'm not advocating for medication. I think that in a lot of ways we can overcome these things without it. But, you know, it might be that there's a chemical imbalance that you actually need to, you know, go on medications, so maybe get that checked out. But for the majority of the people who know that their anxiety isn't so severe, but it just seems to pop up in these moments, and they'd like to get a better handle on it, here are a few things that I have found to be extremely, extremely helpful and have been really helpful for the people that I've worked with. So first, we can objectively look at the anxiety in a really almost logical and contemplative manner where we start to look at the reason or stimulus for the anxiety and start to ask whether it's inherently true. Now, this is challenging because in many ways, we don't want to look at the anxiety. We don't want to look at whether or not it's true. But the great thing about that is that if we look at the anxiety that we're having about a future project that we need to present at work, or a date that we're going on with, you know, somebody that we're really excited about to potentially date, or a conversation that we need to have with, you know, a family member or a friend, we can start to see whether or not the anxiety that we have is valid. And one of two things are gonna happen. Either one, you're going to come to a sort of logical realization that the. That the anxiety is inherently false and that it actually is fairly absurd. And this can sometimes alleviate the anxiety itself. Once we realize, like, wow, that future possibility that I've been playing it in my head is completely ridiculous and it's not true, we can start to look at, well, what's not that? What's the opposite of that? What is a different version of that that could be true. And we can start to create the future possibility of what could be true. And that allows us to be freed up of. Of that negative experience of anxiety and create a future possibility that we feel good about creating in our life. The second thing that could happen is that we might see some inherent validity in it. So, you know, let's just say, for example, you're about to present, you know, in two days a project to your business partners or at work in the boardroom, and you have a lot of anxiety around the presentation. You start to realize that you have anxiety about the presentation because you haven't practiced the presentation. Well, then if you are experiencing anxiety because you haven't practiced it, you know that one way to actually help resolve that is to run through the presentation multiple times to get it into your body to have it memorized to feel good about it and to help your body actually relax. Give it what it needs. Give your mind and your body what it needs. Oftentimes people are afraid of public speaking because they haven't put in the work beforehand to feel comfortable with what it's going to be like. That might mean for you that you need to get in front of somebody, like put your partner, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your husband, your wife, your kids on the couch in front of you and actually present the presentation. No matter how boring it is, no matter what the topic is, present it for people and actually get comfortable with presenting that material in front of people. And it will help to, to alleviate a lot of the stress and anxiety that you're experiencing about under preparedness. Because oftentimes that's actually what future based anxiety is about. Especially when it comes to work or romantic relationships. It can be about underpreparedness. So that's step one. Step number two is then secondly, I guess this is secondly. We can choose to work towards incrementally in a very manageable way. We can start to work towards incrementally experiencing the anxiety. And so what I mean by that is that the majority of the time this is the process of how anxiety shows up. People will experience anxiety emotionally and then they'll have the thought of, oh, I'm experiencing anxiety, I don't want that. And that rejection of anxiety will produce more anxiety and then we'll reject it again and produce more of it, and reject it and produce more of it. And it creates this like crazy process where all of a sudden we sort of spiral out of control simply because we are rejecting our own experience in that moment. We're rejecting our own experience in that moment. So one of the things that we can start to do is when anxiety pops up, we can actually acknowledge that we feel that way, we can label that we feel that way. And instead of and maybe catching ourselves wanting to reject the anxiety, we can actually start to embrace that anxiety and say, okay, this is what I'm experiencing and it will pass. Because if we're really honest with ourselves, we'll uncover the wisdom and the inherent truth that the rejection of any emotion, not just anxiety, is actually to hold onto that emotion and give it strength. Because we are actually constantly focusing on that which we don't want. But by embracing what the emotion is, by embracing the anxiety, this is sort of the allowing of it to pass through into another experience. By actually labeling and embracing, acknowledging that it exists, actually it creates the space and the momentum for it to dissipate and for us to start to experience something else. So instead of labeling I, I am anxious, you might want to change your verbiage to I'm experiencing anxiety. And something else might also be there. And what you'll start to notice is simultaneously maybe you'll start to notice, I'm experiencing anxiety, but I'm also still experiencing some happiness from that milkshake that I had this morning. Or I'm experiencing anxiety, but I'm actually still experiencing at the same time the recollection of that same experience of, you know, you know, saying goodbye to my partner this morning that made me feel really loved and supported and connected. Or I'm experiencing anxiety, but I'm also experiencing this weird sense of excitement to go out and, like, crush this stage. You know, whatever. Whatever the experience is. So label it, lean into it, and allow it to be present. And when you can do that incrementally, you'll notice it'll start to dissipate and something else will enter into the space. So that is how.

I've worked with people who have had a lot of anxiety. It's how I've managed my anxiety in the past, whether it's been on stage or at work. And I have found it extremely helpful. So if you found this helpful, please comment below if you're on the YouTube channel. And by the way, for everybody listening to this on the podcast, if you want to see me live, head on over to the YouTube channel and you can check out the video there. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you are. YouTube, Apple Music, Spotify, Stitcher. And leave us a rating and review because it goes a long, long, long way. So until next week, this is Conor Beaton signing off.