3 Tips To Calm Anxiety Instantly

What do you do when anxiety arises? I mean, it happens to everyone. And you might have periods where you feel more anxiety because there's something going on in your life. Perhaps there's a transition, maybe there's a breakup, something uncertainty in your future with your job or your finances. Or you might just often feel anxious. It might be a pattern for you, a pattern of worry, a pattern of anxiety, a pattern of social anxiety. So regardless of the source of the anxiety, when anxiety is happening, like in the moment, there it is. Boom. I'm anxious. How do you deal with that? Do you have tools and strategies? Well, there's three tips I want to share in this video that can serve you no matter what the source of the anxiety, and I want to guide you through them right now. So if you're feeling anxious right now, great, you're in the right place. And if you're not, maybe you could think of something that tends to make you feel anxious. Maybe thinking about your finances makes you feel anxious, or something around relationships make you feel anxious. Maybe a conflict with somebody. So you could think of something recently, think of something upcoming, and you might not want to. You might say, no, no, I don't want to feel anxious. But actually I want to show you is that it's okay to go into that feeling on purpose so that you know that you can find your way through it and out of it. Because one of our biggest problems with anxiety is that we're terrified of the anxiety, and it's fear of fear itself, right? So, oh, my gosh, I'm anxious. Oh, no. What if I get more anxious? Oh, no. I'm more anxious about getting anxious. Oh, no. And then we are off to the races, right? So we need to shift that pattern. And so if you know, oh, there's anxiety, I know how to work with this. That's instantly gonna start to calm you more. Okay, great. But what are the three things that we can do to start to shift this? The first thing is really simple. Now, don't roll your eyes, don't turn this off and say, I already know that it's your breath, but I'm sure something distinct around the breath that you might not have heard before. So, because I'm going to share a couple mental or idea shifts. But if you're not doing anything with your body or your breath, doesn't matter what you do up here. You got to get control of the reins of the horse or get control of the wheel of the vehicle. If it's spinning out of control, it does not matter what you say to yourself, you're not going to be able to shift that anxiety. So first things first, we got to get control of the breath. And one thing to do with that is to start to notice your breathing and deepen your breathing intentionally. I know it's basic. Stick with me, it works. There's a reason why it's taught everywhere. So breathing in and breathing out, you can start to do that with me right now and notice your breath. Now here's one thing that I want you to do with this. Sometimes when we're feeling anxious, we're like, okay, breathe. Yeah, yeah, got it. Shit's not working. I'm still feeling anxious. So what you want to do is you want to slow your breathing, but you don't want to go super focused on your breath and get all tight and getting narrower and narrower. You actually want to expand your focus. So as you start to breathe, I want you to imagine with each in breath, as you breathe in that. Now notice what I'm doing with my hands. I'm naturally already doing it. Like your breath, you breathe in, but then there's something that keeps emanating out of you even after that breath is done. And it's like an expanding of you, of your boundaries, of your sense of self. It's just expanding so you can bring more awareness to literally the space around your body. What does air feel like on your skin? If you expand your vision, I recommend doing this with your eyes open. Sometimes we're like, okay, I'm gonna focus on my breath, close my eyes, go inward. Oh, my gosh, it's scary in there. And we wanna actually expand outward. Can you feel that? Can you breathe in? Imagine a full, deep breath going all the way down in your belly. And now your attention is expanding outwards and also expand your peripheral vision. Can you bring your attention to your peripheral vision? Right now, that's like out here, you can't see my hands off the screen, but you know, out to the sides of your eyes, peripheral vision, like taking the whole room that you're in right now, each breath is expanding. And if there's any anxiety or tightness sensations in your body, imagine that those are not contained within your body. Those can, like, maybe even be expanding out as well. So they can, like, fill the room. You don't have to hold it all. It can be in the room. There's like space. Can you feel that? Okay, good. So as we're doing that, then we can start to focus on here and shifting something in here. But if you skip that step One, you're in trouble. In fact, if all you remember to do is breathe and expand your awareness to fill the room that you're in, that will help you more than anything else. You just did that for a few minutes. It'll start to calm you down and you might even feel calmer right now. Okay, then what do we do in addition to that? Well, notice what it is that you're reacting to. What calamity, what catastrophe, what awful thing? And if it's in the future, that's where most of our fears are. And by most, I mean pretty much all. Unless there's like an immediate, like person with a gun on you right now or something happening. Even if it feels imminent, like, I gotta figure out how to pay my rent. Okay, but literally right now, in this moment, what are you, what's happening? Narrow it down. Even if something feels imminent, like, narrow it down, like bring it in closer to right now and say, okay, is there anything to do right now? I need to figure out how to pay my rent. Is there something to do right now? And often the answer is no. Sometimes there's a yeah, and you could do something. You know, is that person going to call me back? What if they don't call me back? If they don't call me back, then no. No one's ever gonna wanna date me and I'm never gonna have any friends. And ah, okay. That's all in the future. Come back into now. Is there anything I can do right now? Is there anything that I need to do right now? Calm down. What I need to do right now. So it's the second thing is notice if you're just future tripping. That's almost always where it is. Bring it back into right now. And feel that breath. Remember that first step. And expanding into the room that you're in. Bring your awareness into the room that you're in. Like, what objects can you see in the room that you're in right now without turning your head? Just expanding your awareness and breathing. Okay. The third thing is, what if I'm just going to put this out there as an idea. You can sit with this one. And then we're going to conclude this video. What if the thing that you're most afraid of happening is actually the greatest gift that could ever happen to you? What if. I'm not saying it is just what if it was? So, for example, you know, someone's going to break up with me, I'm going to lose my job, someone's going to be upset with me, Whatever it Is we get anxious about, I'm going to run out of money. Whatever. The stuff we get anxious about is global stuff. There's going to be a war. This thing's going to fall apart. What if no matter what it was, it was going to be the greatest gift in your life? If you knew that, how would you feel even just asking yourself that question? Can you feel any shift in your body, any relieving or relaxing? Now, if your mind says, well, okay, that's a great thought experiment, Aziz, but come on, how could that be? So then I'm going to say I'm not going to tell you in this video, and I want you to find out. Look back on your life. This will be a little bit homework for you. Look back on your life to. Was there any incident ever in your history, your personal history, that seemed awful as it happened, seemed like the worst thing in the world, but actually served you? It benefited you, it grew you, it taught you something, you deepened as a person? One example, a client was recently telling me, is that breakup they had, and this person didn't want to be with them anymore and they left them. And my client was just utterly devastated. It was the worst thing in the world. And at the time, if you said, maybe this is the greatest gift, she would have said, I got your greatest gift right here. And yet they cracked something open in her. And the. The way she was in that relationship and in who she was with was way settling because she didn't see much of herself. She didn't think that she was worth more and getting left and like at first going down in her mood and her everything, but then something cracking in her saying, wait a minute, wait a minute, I am. I gotta change this. So she started to change the way that she saw herself, the way that she treated her. She started to change her confidence. And then she actually grew way beyond where she was and created a relationship that was, I don't even know how you put a number on it, a thousand times better, infinitely better, because it activated her and allowed her to be her full self in the world, feel energized and alive and beautiful and sexy and desired and valued. It was the greatest gift in her life that that person left her. So I wonder when you look back in your life, what those gifts might be. Thanks for being with me today. Hope this serves you. And the next time you feel anxious, you know, have this video downloaded on your YouTube app or favorited in a. What do they call them? The lists. The lists they have on YouTube, like watch later is one of the lists. Maybe just call them lists, playlists. Anyway, save it for later, come back to it and share down below. What techniques do you find useful for anxiety? What are you finding most valuable in this video? Until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.