How To Stop An Anxiety Tailspin

Welcome to Shrink for the shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence, first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Hey, welcome today's episode of the show. Today we're going to talk about how to get out of an anxiety tailspin. Oh, yes. If you have social anxiety, you know what this is. But even any kind of anxiety, any human has gone through some sort of anxiety tailspin. And what that is is when you start to have mounting anxiety, it might be a small trigger or a big trigger that starts to occur or may not even have a conscious trigger at all. There's just anxiety there when you wake up or anxiety there at some point during the day. And then it starts to build and you start to feel more anxious, more anxiety building inside of you. And then maybe you do some patterns or behaviors or actions that don't actually help, like you go grab a coffee or you go try to eat something to calm yourself down, or you go try, you go online and start looking stuff up, or you do something that's even more counterproductive. Like sometimes you do things that actually intensify the anxiety. So maybe you're having some health anxiety and you do a bunch of research online and then you leave thinking that you're gonna die in three weeks from some crazy type of canc cancer or whatever, right? So you might do some activity that could make it worse. It could be about escaping something to try to help, but it doesn't. And the anxiety is waiting for you right there. Right? Or you kind of pick at it and you ruminate and you worry and you just sort of seethe and roil around in that. You know what I'm talking about? Okay, So I want to show you in this episode how to get out of that tailspin. And you might be, you know, this is maybe a very valuable resource you could come back to. You could listen to this when you are anxious. You could listen to it. Now, even if you're not fully in anxiety, we'll give you a prompt to maybe think of something or focus on something. That could make you anxious, just so you can practice this. But this episode is gonna be very experiential. We're gonna be doing stuff together, so I encourage you to block off the time. This one will be relatively short, just about 20 minutes. And be able to listen to the whole thing because you don't want to kind of go part way through the process and then have to leave. Better to be able to stay with me to the end of the process, get to the other side, and better be able to do it. So, you know, if you're. I mean, you can do it while doing something else, while making dinner, while driving, absolutely. But something where you can give your attention to it would be even better. So maybe not while you're working or trying to listen to this in the background as you do something else, except for like driving or cooking or something that can be a little more mindless as you listen and kind of focus inward. Okay, so what do we do? There's anxiety right there. First things first, we need to calm your nervous system, because I'm sure you've experienced this when you're anxious. And then you try to tell yourself some good ideas, like, hey, listen, man, everything's gonna be cool. You're not gonna die in a gutter. You know, people don't hate you, whatever your fear. You know, fear is social anxiety. People are hating me. I failed that. I'm not gonna get the job interview. Nothing's ever gonna work out. I'll lose all my money and blah, blah, blah, whatever's stirring around in there. You try to talk yourself down, but it doesn't quite work. Because that rational thought, while it makes sense and is probably true, is not penetrating the avalanche of emotion that's like flowing from a different part of your brain and into your nervous system, into your body, into all the chemicals moving through your system. That train has already left the station. So what we need to do is we need to have a process to interrupt that pattern. And, you know, one basic process is to go into your body with your awareness. And we're going to do that in a minute. But I found it's really helpful to kick start that thing because, you know, going into your body with your awareness is kind of like using a body mindfulness activity to calm anxiety. It's very effective. One of my teachers called it the peace process because it brought a lot of his clients peace. Sometimes people call it somatic tracking. I'll guide you through that in a minute. But what I found to be even more helpful to kick things off is actually to do something to kind of jolt your nervous system a little bit. Now there's two ways to do that and both of these I got from none other than Wim Hof the Iceman. One is to take a cold shower. A one minute cold shower will do wonders for resetting your nervous system, for just kind of resetting you from that anxiety loop that you're going into. So if you've never done a cold shower, great time to start. And if you do them semi regularly, just remember that that's in your toolkit. Another simplified version of this is actually called a cold face plunge where you fill up a sink full of. Just plug the sink, fill it up with cold water and dip your face in something about, you know, close your eyes, hold your breath and dip your face in. You can do two or three times. Something about submerging your face in water again resets that. It sets a lot of things off in your, in your nervous system. Now if you're not near water, you're at work, you're not going to take a cold shower, dip your face in the communal bathroom area at your office. What are you doing, Jim? Just dipping my face in water because I'm freaking out inside, you know. So here's another method. Now this one also is a little bit noticeable. So you find a place where you can do it, ideally when people aren't around. Unless you want to answer why you're doing it. But it is the Wim Hof breath exercise. And so that is just full deep breathing. It's hyper oxygenating your system. Full deep breaths. He'll have people do 30, but we'll just do 12 together right now. Yes, as you're listening, as you're driving. And you could do it a little more quietly if you're sitting on a bus or whatever or not, who cares? You're just doing some breathing. But it is. You breathe fully in, into your belly and then out. So you're gonna make a little bit of volume sound as you move that much air. Volume. So we're just gonna do this together. Remember this is experiential. We talk about it, it's interesting, we do it, it's transformative. So you're ready to play full out. Even if you're not anxious. This is a very valuable activity to do. So here we go. And if you're, you know, if you wanna play along and you're not feeling anxious right now in any way, maybe think of something that does stir up your anxiety. Cause oftentimes we just Block that shit out. But maybe think about an upcoming project. Think about something in your finances. Think about a family member. Think about something. And don't think about everything that makes you anxious. Just pick one thing and see if you can get in touch with some of that fear or discomfort there. And then we'll run through this process. Okay, so let's do 12 of those breaths. We're gonna do it together on the count of three. One, two. Keep breathing. Don't just listen to me breathe. You do it with me. All right, let's go. If you feel a little light headed or tingly, that's okay, you're safe, you're fine. Ideally, you're not biking. If you're driving a car, you may want to pull over or just do a little lighter breathing here. Good. Three more. One more. Fully in, Let go all the way out. Now hold. Before you breathe in, ideally close your eyes again. If you're driving, don't close your eyes. Just notice that tingling sensation in your face, in your hand and your body. And then when you're ready, fully breathe in. And just notice how you feel. That in of itself might be enough. I recommend actually doing a full one. And this one you don't want to be driving for. You want to be sitting down or laying down, because sitting at an office chair, sitting on the, you know, cross legged on the ground. And you want to do a full 25 or 30 breaths like that. And then hold on the exhale as long as you can and then breathe in fully and then start breathing normal. And you can find out more if you go to YouTube and type in WIM Hof W I M H O F F. I think he's got two Fs in there. Maybe it's just one F. And look up Wim Hof breathing on YouTube and you'll find him and probably a lot of his fans teaching you how to do it. Once you've watched it, once you get it, and now it's part of your tool belt. So this is one of my go to's. It used to not be, before I learned his stuff, I'd go straight into meditation or some other technique. But this is really good for starting the calming process of the nervous system. The next step is to take your hands, put your dominant hand on your chest, and then you can put your other hand on top of that if you want. Or just leave one hand on your chest right in the center of your chest. So it's kind of your palm is right there in the middle. It can Feel very soothing if you're anxious. Because usually when we're anxious, we feel a lot in our stomach and in our chest. So you can also put a hand on your belly if you'd like to, and then start to breathe a little more slowly and deeply. This is a very soothing gesture for yourself. It's almost like an embrace for yourself. And then what you want to do is you want to start to tune more into your body and find the anxiety where it's residing. Anxiety, like any other emotion, has a physical component. You will feel physiological sensations of an emotion. Sometimes this takes a little bit of practice to build your awareness. But doing the wim hof breathing and doing this kind of exercise will build it over time. So even if you don't feel that much, that's okay. And what you want to do is you want to find, where do I feel this anxiety most? Now this is different because oftentimes we get into our head, we're trying to solve the problem that's making anxious. We're trying to figure out why we're so anxious. We, we might be judging ourselves for being anxious or judging other people or predicting doom or creating horrific imagery in our minds of all the problems that are going to happen. And what is that going to do that's going to intensify the anxiety. So remember, we got to calm your nervous system. So bring your attention out of your mind and go straight into your body, into your heart, into the warmth of your hand on your chest, into your belly. And as you do this, it might feel uncomfortable. Probably will. I mean, that's. Anxiety is like a. It can range, but it can feel like a raw feeling. It can feel like a roiling feeling. It can feel like a very unsettled feeling, like it's hard to just be with it. But that's exactly what you want to do, is just be with and imagine that all your thoughts and your mind and the stories and all that stuff is like the surface of the ocean on a choppy, stormy day. And there's waves slapping and crashing, water flying every which way, sloshing around different directions, chaos, collision. And you want to bring your attention down from your head into your heart, into your belly. And that's like bringing yourself down below the surface of the water to 10 or 20ft down. And no matter how intense the surface of the water is, if you drop 20ft down into the ocean, it's pretty much calm. And that's what you can do in your body just by going into it. And it's a Little counterintuitive that you actually go right into the place that's the most uncomfortable in your chest or in your stomach or elsewhere. And relax your jaw, relax the area around your eyes, soften your belly and just be with it. You don't need to do anything. You don't need to figure anything out right now. Your mind might say you need to, but any attempt to figure anything out from a frantic state of fear is probably not going to be a good solution anyway. So calm and settle yourself as best as you can. Soothe yourself. If you want to give something for your mind to do. Sometimes our mind is, you know, it's hard to bring a focus to our bodies because your mind is so active, maybe with fear or other things, then what you can do is you can say something. One or two very simple phrases. One that I love is it's safe to feel. Another one is I am safe, I am loved. I am safe, I am loved. I'll just repeat those two as I focus. So it's giving your mind something to do, almost like a mantra as you focus in on your body and maybe your mind's like, no, no, we don't have time for that. Let's go figure this out. And tries to pull you back in. You just want to, oh, back to the surface of the water. Okay, drop back down on the next breath. I like to really imagine that ocean scene I was describing and seeing something down 10, 20ft below the water. So if I get pulled in my thoughts, I kind of imagine going back down that, you know, that rope or cord down into that, whatever it is, 20ft below the water. And here is the next step. So as you're starting to calm your nervous system, what you need to do to really work with the anxiety and ultimately overcome it or free yourself from it is, is we need to give the two things that are missing. There's two nutrients, two extremely beneficial gifts that are missing. They're not actually missing, they're not gone, you've just forgotten them. Two truths you've forgotten. And if you take these in, it can really help soothe the anxiety. Not from a heady place where you're just trying to throw solutions at your nervous body, but you're really calming your body, you're really meeting the sensations inside with love. As if, let's say you had a three year old that was really scared. Maybe it's a niece, nephew, maybe one of your kids, maybe you have a kid that age. Maybe you did at one point. You can just imagine a young kid, maybe imagine Yourself, when you're three and you're just hugging them, when they're so anxious they can barely sit still, that's how you want to be with those sensations in your body. And then as you soothe and love yourself and this anxious feeling and part of you, you want to give yourself these two gifts, these two rememberings of truths that you've forgotten. And they both involve trust. One is trusting in yourself that you can handle anything. You can handle anything. I can handle anything that comes my way. This is what you want to be telling yourself, I can handle anything that comes my way. No matter what it is, I will handle it. I've handled everything that's happened so far in my life, and I will for the rest of my life. It might not be comfortable. It might be. I might not like it. It might be embarrassing, it might induce shame, or I might challenge my ego, or I might lose something. And that might be painful. Not saying it's easy or comfortable, but it's. You are stronger than anything that can happen in life. Can you feel that? Can you see the truth of that? That you can handle anything? Because that's where the really, that's where the anxiety can get really strong. Is this false story that we can't handle it? It's sort of subconscious, but in the background it's like, what if X happens? And then it's like, well, if X happens, then I can't handle it. But anything. You can handle anything. In fact, you know, if your mind is producing scary images of doom and gloom and death and ruin and loss and pain and stuff, you know, let yourself see the vision and say, I can handle that. I can't. I won't like it. I don't want that, but I can handle that. So there's a strength that starts. And you can start. As you do this, you can start to feel, feel more strength back into your body. That kind of shaky, ungrounded, bottomless, nothing to stand on feeling of anxiety can start to feel. You can start to feel a little more firmness in your legs on the earth. And by the way, if you want to do this with your feet literally on the earth, it will radically help to have your body in touch with the actual earth. Barefoot on dirt or grass. So a bonus. Or sitting down or laying down on grass, too. But if you can't do that, this is fine. Just in an office or your house or wherever you are. I can handle anything that happens. Isn't that true? Can you feel the truth of that? Can you see and know the Truth of that. Can you breathe fully and deeply into your chest and nod your head and be like, yes, yes, that's true, I will. I can. I am strong. I'm a fucking warrior. Beautiful. And then the second truth that you want to install or remind yourself of is that it's not just about you handling everything and sort of you and what life brings to you. There's kind of like a dichotomy there. It's like you versus life. That's just one way of thinking about it. A more accurate way of thinking about it is you are part of life. You are a drop of water in the ocean. That is all other humans, all other life on this planet, all other inanimate things on this planet, like you are an integral piece thread in the fabric of life and reality and the biosphere and the cosmos. And you're not separate and such in that way, like you are. Everything is unfolding in this interconnected, beautiful drama where everything is unfolding exactly as it should. And we come up with distinctions about what should or shouldn't happen based upon what we like and what we don't like, what we fear. If we're afraid of it, then it's bad and it's wrong, it shouldn't happen. If it feels like, lost to us, then it's bad or wrong. If someone doesn't like us, that's bad. If we lose something, that's bad. If our business doesn't work out, that's bad. If we get fired, that's bad. If our friend gets laid off at work and we miss them, that's bad. And we have all these judgments and labels. But if you really take a step back and see the unfolding of everything, there's a way to tap into life is unfolding exactly as it should. This kind of like cosmic destiny perspective that could be so helpful because it allows for surrender. And surrender in this case doesn't mean, you know, if there's an issue, you need to solve a problem that you don't solve it and say, well, I surrender. So I'm not going to do anything. No, it means, okay, I surrender. That there's this issue that I need to do something about. Because a lot of our anxiety comes from fighting or fleeing from reality. I can't. Or imagine realities, right? Like ones that haven't happened yet, but like, oh, no, I can't handle it if that happens. Ah, you know, so then we think we can handle it, which is not true. And then we think that wrong or shouldn't happen. So stepping into A greater trust in the unfolding of life. And this one, this one's a very personal, probably lifelong journey for all of us. So this one, you got to find your own path. Maybe there's certain spiritual teachings that you benefit from, certain poetry, certain books, certain teachers or audios. I mean, this day and age, being able to find books or audios or things on YouTube that helps give those spiritual perspectives and tune into them is. There's an abundance of that. It's an amazing time for that that we live in. But not just getting a bunch of stuff in your head, but really as you put your hand on your heart, maybe it's still there, your hands on your belly, trusting, bowing to what is bowing to life. Like, okay, do what you will with me. I surrender. And that's what I love about a lot of the spiritual teachings. There's like a humbleness in them. And I don't mean some sort of false humbleness. I mean just like a basic, like, okay, all right, God, you got this. Okay, that's what you want. That's what's happening very well, right? And there's this kind of bowing to it, this surrendering to it. Like, okay, all right. You know, surrendering to what is. And I think that's the other aspect, and that's part of a trust in whatever. Right, Whatever your understanding, your sense of is trust in life, trust in the universe, trust in God, trust in universal intelligence, trust in the cosmic unfolding so breathing and feeling now that you can handle anything that happens and that things are unfolding as they should. And then the final step that can be really valuable is to let everything else go. Tune right into your heart, put both hands on your heart and think of one moment that you could be grateful for right now. One person, one moment with somebody, an opportunity, a situation. Could be alone, could be with a pet, could be with a friend, could be with a lover, child, parent. What's something you're grateful for? Good. And let's find one more. What's something else, someone else you're grateful for. And close your eyes, breathe into your chest, and let yourself really feel that gratitude for that person. Or maybe the love that you feel if you picked a person. Sometimes there's gratitude and there's also love. Beautiful. So we're not going to have an action step for today because, well, that we just did action. We just did that whole process. If you listen to this and you're kind of more listening but not playing along, not doing it, then your action step would be to find a Time when you're anxious and just take 20 minutes to go through this process. And eventually you won't need me to guide you through it. Right? But I wanted to show you. And then you know the process. So it's stop what you're doing. Ideally, get to a place where you can have a little space, not be driving or whatever, and then do one round or more. You can do two or three rounds of Wim Hof breathing, 25 to 30 breaths. But don't get hung up on that. Even if you just do one round of 12 breaths like we did, that's fine. Just something to kind of start to reset your relationship with your nervous system and calm your body. Then put your hand on your chest and your stomach, go inward, find the anxiety and meet it with love, soothe it, drop beneath the stormy, choppy water of your mind and into your body, sending it love, relaxing your jaw and your belly, Just being with the feeling, not fighting it in any way. And as you do this for a little while and you start to feel a little more calm, then remind yourself of the two truths. The first one is what? That's right. I can handle anything that happens to me. I know this because I have handled everything that's happened to me, and I will continue to handle everything that's happened to me. Doesn't mean it's comfortable, doesn't mean it's easy, but I can handle it. And then number two is that deeper trust in life, in God, in the universe. Like, I surrender, okay? If this is what's meant to happen, then that's what's happening. And, you know, you get your fearful future catastrophe forecasts. You know, a lot of them are probably not even happening. But you know, what if I don't perform well and then they let me go in six months? Ah, well, then you can surrender to that too. It's like, you know what? I'm gonna do my best at work, and if I get let go, then that's what's meant to happen, right? It's this flowing with life, if that. I mean, you don't have control. You have control to show up and do the work that you can, but beyond that, you don't have control. So it's really about surrendering to the places that we don't have control, which can be very relieving as well. And knowing that you'll be okay. Those two work in tandem together. Beautiful. Thanks for being with me today. I hope this helps soothe you now and in the future. I know this process is something that I'VE used a lot. I'll use it with mild anxiety and, you know, spikes of strong anxiety. So I hope it serves you in your life and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.