How to Not go Bananas on your Relatives over the Holidays ;)

Hi, everyone, this is Dr. Nicole. I'm so happy to see you today. We are getting ready for the holidays and I want to talk with you about what I'm doing so that I don't go bananas on my family over the holidays. And I also want you to learn to of my favorite tips from the Anxiety Freedom one week challenge that we have going right now that's totally free. And so I'll talk with you about that. You're going to walk away from this really quick video with some strategies that you can start using right now that really work. And so stay tuned. I'm really happy you're here. And then at the end of the video, I'll make sure to put a link and give you more information on how you can get that one week check challenge. So there's a couple things that we want to keep in mind, is that when we see our family, when we speak with our family, not only are our present selves interacting with our family, but so are our past selves. So have you ever had an experience where you felt like you had different feelings that were coming up, like maybe you felt anxious or maybe a part of you felt really annoyed or maybe every time you get together with your siblings and you're the youngest, you suddenly feel like you're the bab of the family and they treat you that way and you just struggle going into those old roles, into those old patterns, whatever that may be in my life. In particular, my family, when they all talk, when they all get together, they like to talk about their achievements, their successes. And it's a whole bunch of like, who did the most amazing thing. And so it's like sitting and this younger part of myself will come up and be like, okay, well, what am I doing and how can I contribute? And that's part of what has driven me to work so hard in my life. But it also has created a whole lot of stress. Is anyone with me? Do you relate as you think about your family patterns, what kind of childhood patterns emerge for you and what can we do to help protect you from those patterns? Hijacking your happiness, the holidays right now. And so one thing that's a little bonus before we get into the two tips from the one week challenge is to identify our different parts. This part that may feel younger, this part that may get really annoyed every time you hear this certain person speak or if they know all of your buttons, these are parts of ourselves, right? And so what we want to do is we want to mindfully have those parts all go on vacation, like have those parts go to their happy place, their calm place, their safe place, then you and your now are the one that goes and deals with your family. Whether you're doing a zoom phone call, if you're going in person, if you're just sending emails or whatever it is, what we want to do is help you to cultivate a sense of this is who I am right now. And so let me share you with you an example from my current life and how I'm doing this. So my younger self, so I have an 11 year old self and she just wants to please everybody and do all of the things. And so then when I'm together with that part in my family, I may have a compulsion to just work and try to please everyone the entire time, but my family can't always be pleased all of the time. And so then my 11 year old part, I feel those familiar feelings of feeling really responsible for how people are doing their well being. And so I have my 11 year old part and I have lots of different ages that I've done work on. Which by the way, you can learn all about this in the ACT method. This is part of our psychological cast of characters that I'm talking about right now. And so if you want to learn more about this, then definitely check out the ACT method course. But anyway, so when you think about yourself, are there parts of yourselves, memories, patterns that you notice? So find that. And so I found that part. I noticed, I noticed the thoughts, the feelings, the triggers that came up for that part of myself. And then what I actually did is I imagined this beautiful double decker boho tiki bus and I put my parts on the bus like babes. You're gonna go out to Zion, you're gonna go out to La Jolla, San Diego, you're gonna get away from all of this stress, all this drama. And I, in my adult self, in my current self, with all of my experiences and resources, I'm going to go see my family. And so that those younger selves, even when my family members try to engage my younger parts based on old patterns, that that part is she's in her happy place, she's safe, she's protected, and you can do that too. And so the strategy to achieve that is to just simply imagine those parts and then imagine where they would like to go. Like when you were 11, if it's your 11 year old self, where would you want to go? Where would be a super fun place for you to go and hang out and then mindfully imagine sending them there. And so do that. And then make a promise. Have them promise you that they're not going to come back and join you where you are now until you decide, maybe that's when your family holidays are done. Maybe it's after New Year's, whatever feels right for you. And then they can come back after that time. And so then when you go with your family, you can mindfully put yourself in the space like, okay, I'm an adult. I've got this. I'm not going to be triggered by them. I'm going to show up from a chosen side so that right now, my loves, is what I'm doing to not stay banana and to not go bananas and to stay sane with my family over the holidays. And so the next thing I want to share with you is there are two tips and they're on day four of the Anxiety Freedom one week challenge. And this one week challenge has beautiful videos, a beautiful workbook that we created, and it's got a ton of free information you can just for you. And what will happen is you'll download the book, you'll give us your email that we can send you the videos to where I walk you through the exercises. And by the way, we don't spam you and we don't share your information. This is something that I created because, babes, I've been there. I've been at the top max of overwhelm and stress. I've been at the rock bottom in panic attacks and depression. And what I'm sharing with you are 14 of the things that helped me get my life back, that helped me turn the page. And, and so I wanted to make that available for you. So there's no risk. If you don't like the content, you could simply unsubscribe, easy as that. We're here to love you, serve you, help you. And so let's jump into the two strategies that I want to share with you from day four of the one week challenge. So they're broken into a behaviorism skill and a cognitive skill. I call the behaviorism skills gold, and I call the cognitive skills glitter. So it's my glitter and gold method with the behaviorism. What this is working on doing is actually changing the way your brain is wired to perform. The way we wire it is the way the brain will fire it. Right? And I use gold because I feel like gold is a very malleable, beautiful metal and it can change slowly over time if we work with it. And so you're gonna get seven gold Skills, one per day. And the one that I want to share with you today is the behaviorism skill of how anxiety can get trapped in your body. And that's why when people get a message, they may. When people get a massage, they may laugh, they may cry, they may experience a lot of complicated emotions. And so if you're going on the holiday, if you're staying at home, whatever it is, is really listening to what your body is saying. And doing some bodywork can help to move some of that stuff if you're feeling stuck. And so if anxiety is trapped in your body, moving your body in gentle ways to help unstable that so that you can release it can be really effective. So one of the things I'm going to do over the holiday season is to be really intentional about walking Shiva for every single day for at least 15 minutes. And right now, I'm in the Midwest, and it's really cold, so I have my heated Ororo jacket, and Shiva's got her own little jacket. And we're just going to go move our bodies, we're going to walk, and we're going to help make sure the blood is flowing, that we're able to just process and get away. And so think of strategies that you can use, whether it's to get a massage or to take a hot bath or to exercise or to maybe even do some gentle stretching or yoga, whatever feels right for you. Remember, anxiety can get trapped in your body. And by working with the body, we can change the structure of your brain. So that is the gold behaviorism skill, the glitter skill that I want you to start practicing that you can start using right away today, Self talk. And I want to tell you a little bit about the way that talking to yourself can work. And so a couple of things is, one is that your cells are listening to what you're saying and being intentional in speaking truth, speaking life, speaking love, speaking forgiveness and joy into the body will impact the body. And I want you to think about it in terms of neuroscience. And so we know in neuroscience that the act of speaking, speaking activates a series of neural circuits in the cortex of the brain, and it triggers Broca's area. Broca's area is an area of the brain that is responsible for our speech. And then we hear the voice of ourselves, we hear the words, and then that activates a greater expansion of neurocircuits and triggers Wernicke's area in the brain. And all of this will culminate in a useful strategy for intentionally rewiring Your brain. And in the beginning, this can be a little difficult because they're new pathways, new thoughts, new intentions, but really speaking them and hearing yourself is a strategy that will activate more of the brain and supercharge your experience. And so here's what you can do, is you can make a list of ideas and I give you ideas in day three of the one Week Challenge. And you can write down all of the lies that your anxious brain tells you or that your family tells you. Those triggers, those things that you hear, those negative messages, write those all down. And then love. I want you in the opposite column to write down life. Write down truth, write down counter suggestion. And if that's hard to do, then ask somebody who loves you to help you. Fill that out and then start speaking it. Say it out loud, write it down. Hear yourself speak it. Speak life. Speak your highest truth. And the other thing I want you to know, my loves, before we head out for the holidays, is to know that you are not your family's expectations of you. You are not what the world has told you that you are. You are what you were before the world told you who you were. And so as you go through this holiday season, I want to urge you to take charge of your brain, to take charge of your experience, to take charge of the messages that you're giving your brain and and to think about the parts that are being activated and how we can protect and honor and serve them. And so if your parts get triggered, send them on vacation and then you show up with your resources, with your chosen supports, with your tools that you have right now. And download the One Week Freedom Challenge. This will help get you started on the right steps so that you can stay sane over the holidays and know that you are not alone, that we've all in some degree way, shape or form been through different things and so we can all support each other and advocate for each other in really powerful ways. And so this has been. Dr. Nicole My mission as an anxiety Freedom warrior is to be an anxiety freedom rebel for you and to help you get strategies and tools and solutions to get your life back. And so today I want you to download that one week challenge. We'll put the link in the show notes, then we'll be back making sure that we give you tons of information if you want to learn more about this parts work. These psychological characters that I've been telling you about, it's all explained in the anxiety freedom course. I think you're going to love it. I've been working with people for over a decade. I have a degree in clinical psychology. I have a master's and specialty in counseling, and I have an integrated medical degree. I've done a primary care residency. And I've been working with people around the world for over a decade to help them turn the page in their anxiety. And I'm really confident that I can help you. So check out our free stuff. We're here, babe. There's no advantage to us if you don't get better. So show up for yourself, do the work, and you can get your life back. I want to send you all my love, and I hope you have the most happy holidays. We'll talk soon. Take care. Bye.