Whinypaluza Wednesday: Adult Anxiety

Hello everyone, happy Winey Palooza Wednesday! No need to whine, it's Winey Palooza Wednesday! Have some wine and join us on the Winey Palooza Wednesday with the Green Family!

Cha-cha chicken!

Before you leave, show them how gorgeous you look. Look at her beautiful haircut. That's my girl. We were told we have the same hair by multiple people. Mine is same texture, same texture. Yeah, mine is just shorter. Okay, do you want to run away now? If you don't mind. Okay, bye. Thanks, baby. Love you. Thanks for singing. Please don't fall. Now we can get closer.

Now we can get closer.

You can steal the wine. How is everyone doing? Happy July. I think last time we spoke it was the last day of June. And now we have entered July, one of my favorite months of the year.

Why is it one of your favorite months of the year?

Because I love summer. You know that.

Maybe all the people don't.

I, I— summer is my favorite season. I will tell you that Mommy Taxi is in full gear, and I have been driving my girls to camps. Um, Max is gonna have a bunch of soccer. The— my car is getting lots of miles. Yes. Right.

All around the town. All through the town. Wheels on your car.

Oh my gosh. So throwback for you. So in talking to people about topics and topics that they want, anxiety and depression always come up time and time again. Will you talk about it with adults? Will you talk about it with kids? And tonight— Lily, you got to turn down your iPad. I can hear it. So tonight we're going to talk about adult anxiety, and we're going to talk about depression at a later date. We're going to focus more on kids at a later date. But I am telling you that if you work on yourself and your own stuff, it's going to trickle down to not only your spouse but your kids, and they will learn how to handle it by watching you.

So it's all your fault is what you're saying?

Everything, the good and the bad. Not true, but you know what I mean.

I was trying to be funny.

It is funny. So I— when I work on stuff for myself, I know that my family is going to benefit because all 4 of them tend to model me. And I feel like, you know, and, and I don't know that this is in every house, but I know that this is in most houses, that the mother sets the tone of the house. And that if we are stressed out, everybody's stressed out, including the pets.

Well, that is why there is the saying, if mama's not happy, nobody's happy. Yes.

So let's work on mama adult anxiety. And I have told you a little bit about this before if you have been following me for a while, but I'm no stranger to anxiety. In fact, I had a lot of school anxiety prior to school, like before school started in the morning, the evening before. And when I went to high school, all of my friends went to a different high school. And I walked into high school feeling like alone, feeling like I didn't have a group, feeling like I didn't have friends, and it caused me anxiety. And I had trouble going to sleep at night. I had trouble getting myself to go to school in the morning, and it caused me so much distress. So all of the anxiety that I have experienced on and off through my life has really helped me to understand others better. So I'm thankful for that gift. And I also want to tell you that Seth— Seth and I are not high school sweethearts, but we went to the same high school. We did not know each other in high school. And Seth entered the same high school a year after me, and he had a completely different attitude. Like, we entered school with—

we both entered school with no friends, didn't know anyone at the school, moved into the district, didn't know anybody.

So tell them what your attitude was.

I was excited. I was super excited to go to a new school where nobody knew me. I could reinvent myself. I was excited because I had hated my middle school experience and was looking forward to a new school with new people where I could start over and start fresh. And no one would have any assumptions based on my previous school experience. And I was excited to meet lots of new people and make lots of new friends.

So he entered high school excited and raring to go, and I entered high school a nervous wreck, like, I don't know any of these people.

Same exact situation, totally different attitudes and different—

so perspective and attitude and thoughts is like the biggest reason for my— any of my anxiety. And what I— and I have analyzed the years and the times that I had anxiety, and the times even recently that I felt some anxiety. And I realized that the underlying issue for me is lack of confidence. So when I am not feeling— so Seth, Seth tends to realize usually how capable you are, and you tend to have confidence in yourself.

Yes, I'm not perfect. There are bumps in the road, as we talked about earlier.

Yes. So we did process some bumps in Seth's road earlier today. But I have found that the pattern for me, and I want you to think about what your pattern might be. The pattern for me is not realizing how capable I am, not having faith in myself, not having confidence in myself. So when I switch my self-talk, the chatter in my head, and I switch it from like, oh my God, it's too much, I can't do this, my life is chaotic, my schedule is chaotic, I'm overwhelmed— when I switch it to, look at all this great stuff that I signed my kids up for, look at what a wonderful day we're all gonna have, I can do this. If I switch my self-talk, my anxiety lessens. And when I realize that I'm going to be more than capable of doing whatever it is I need to do, then my confidence goes up and my anxiety goes down. So let's talk about what causes anxiety. And I looked up the highest things that cause anxiety. And I don't know if your anxiety is going to be on the list, but stuff that I read about was number one is negative thinking. That comes up time and time again. Medications could have side effects, so don't rule that out. Check into that. Caffeine causes me anxiety. If I drink too much caffeine, I'm like this.

Do you know how much too much is? Can you tell me so I cut you off from Starbucks and Tim Hortons that day?

I'm not giving you any information.

I see how you are.

So not only caffeine, but nicotine, sugar, Like, check into your diet. What are you eating? What, what could be causing it that you're intaking? Social gatherings. Some people have social anxiety. Public speaking is huge. Parenting can cause anxiety. A messy house can cause anxiety. Conflicts, finances, work, school, marriage, politics, COVID, and phobias— snakes, needles, elevators, heights.

You don't like sharks or aliens? The aliens I think we're safe from. I don't think you're going to run into any anytime soon.

Well, let's hope so. I am afraid of sharks in the ocean. I am. I will admit that. That is a— that is probably a phobia for sure.

It hasn't stopped you from going a little bit in the ocean. You've gone in the ocean a little bit. You've gone like 2 feet, 3 feet in.

When have I been to the ocean? Like, give me a pool. Give me a pool. I want to—

you went in on our honeymoon. You went in when we went to the beach. It in Pennsylvania for Max's soccer tournament a couple years ago.

I don't know, that's not the ocean.

It was literally the Atlantic Ocean. It was in New Jersey.

Okay, don't tell— how about if we just don't tell me what I'm walking in?

Okay, I will tell you it's a lake. How about that? There's— it's closed-in lake.

There's no sharks.

There's no sharks.

So I have realized something about messy houses. I have learned a lot about my friends. And Seth has heard over the years, their house is perfect. I'm never going to have a perfect house. And I have realized that for my own stress level, I have surrendered. I have surrendered to the fact— hallelujah— I have surrendered to the fact that my house will, will never be perfect. I have 3 kids, 3 pets, husband.

Hey now, I don't make too many messes.

We won't talk about that. So, um, come on, I did not leave toys out in the playroom.

I do the dishes and clean up messes.

You do help with messes, and you are the lowest denominator.

I'm the lowest culprit.

Lowest culprit.

Thank you. So at least, like, at least I got that.

So I have realized that my friends, some of my friends compulsively clean to the point— or just clean a lot to the point, like, clean— like, I clean every day, but they clean, like, to a level that I will never get to and have to have everything in a place and everything needs to be organized and they can't go to sleep unless everything is in its place.

And that makes them feel better and reduces their anxiety.

And I realized, I realized that it was coming from anxiety.

It's a coping skill.

And it was their coping skill to deal with their anxiety that they could control what their house looks like and they can control the organization. I do not have that issue. But I understand that other people do.

Although the more clutter, the messier it is, can make you anxious and cause your Sunday cleaning meltdown.

I will say that if the house gets too messy, I really do try to keep up, but if it gets too messy, I do feel super anxious.

You have a threshold.

So I do have—

it's not pretty.

Yes. So I do understand. And I want to touch on public speaking because public speaking is a huge Culprit is the number one fear in America. It's like one of the biggest culprits of anxiety. And I want to tell you, if you haven't heard this already from me, my daughter Ella helped me with my fear of public speaking. And I would do it. I would always do it. I never didn't do it. I just didn't like it. And I'm not going to tell you that I love it. But I'm going to tell you that I'm less afraid. And when I had a conversation with Ella, because Ella performs all the time. She's a big theater girl. She loves theater. And so I said, how come you don't have stage fright? Like, enlighten me. And she said it's because she focuses on bringing joy to the people who are there. So Ella is not getting on the stage and focusing on herself. She's focusing on, okay, let's make all these people in the audience feel entertained and smile. And because she's not focusing on herself, she's not feeling anxious. So the the more that we focus on others, the less anxious that we feel.

Yeah, anxiety, at least in my experience, it's usually self-focused. I'm focused on be afraid of something going wrong related to me.

Well, and that goes with depression too. The more self-focused you are and the more into yourself you are, the more depressed you get. And people who will start like volunteering will feel so much better because they're getting outside of themselves.

Yeah, Tony Robbins says when you're nervous, get into service.

Oh, well, I also have started— You smell pretty. Sorry, I just noticed. I do like the perfume I'm wearing.

I do too.

So I also have reframed it. So I used to be like, oh my God, I'm so nervous. And I have reframed it to, I'm so excited. So it will, you know, like my first podcast, I mean, that's a perfect example. Seth is like, You're going to do a podcast. And I'm like, oh my God, is he crazy? And there's the microphone and there's the guest. And I'm like, ready, set, go. And it was my first one and I was so nervous and I was like, it's okay. This is excitement. This is energy. Like, go with it. And when we go for it and do it anyway and feel the fear and conquer it and do it anyway, we gain confidence in ourselves and we feel more capable and anxiety goes down. And when we avoid it, I am, I am jumping way ahead to exposure. But when we jump into it and expose ourselves to it, the anxiety goes down like flying. If I'm nervous to fly, I do it anyway. And I see that everything is okay. And then I feel more confident and the anxiety goes down.

Build that muscle.

If I avoid flying, and I say, no, I'm too scared to fly, then that anxiety grows and it like gets bigger.

When the fear wins, it gets worse.

Exactly. Um, so I jumped to how can you help yourself with talking to you about exposure. So exposure is number one. Make yourself do something. Make yourself do something anyway. I'm okay with you feeling the fear. I'm okay with me feeling the fear or feeling nervous, but tackle it and do it anyway. If we are present-focused, we are going to feel so much less anxious. If you think about what you're nervous about, you're nervous about something that either happened before or something that you think is going to happen soon in the future. Are you ever really— is it— it seems like it's rare that you're nervous about what's happening at this moment.

Yeah, you—

it's hot.

You're definitely— it's definitely At least in my case, it's future-focused. I might be upset about something going wrong right now, but I'm definitely worried, oh, it's going to cause that client to stop paying, or we're going to lose something because of that thing going wrong.

Well, and if we stay in the present moment and we deal with what's going on right now and we don't think about the future and we don't think about the past, but we stay focused on what's happening right now and what do we have to deal with? Right now, it's a lot less anxiety-producing.

Yes.

So that is number one. Take care of yourself. Let's start— where we should start is look at, are you eating? Are you eating healthy? Are you eating regularly in the day? Are you sleeping? Are you exercising? I feel like the more we— I know that the more we take care of ourselves, the less depressed and anxious we feel. And if you are having trouble sleeping, start looking at like, what are you eating later in the day? Like, for me, I can't have coffee later in the day. I, you know, I shouldn't have a lot of sugar later in the day. So if we avoid those things, we sleep better. And I'm really big on my sleep routine. Kids need sleep routines, adults need sleep routines. I get in my bed, I do my journaling, I do my reading, and then I go right to bed. So if you're having trouble sleeping, start looking at what's getting in the way of it. Ask yourself, what is the worst-case scenario? That if you feel prepared to handle the worst-case scenario, then the anxiety goes way down. Like, create what is the worst thing that's going to happen. So people have said to me, I'm going to die of COVID And I'm not making a joke of that. Like, people have literally said that. Me. And I want you to fact check, fact check your anxiety. If you are scared of something, look into statistics.

What are the odds?

Like, what are the odds of you actually dying from COVID It's going to reduce your anxiety. I'm trying to think of another fact check that people are worried about, like crashing in a plane. Like, what if—

it's actually the safest form of travel in America.

I mean, when Seth and I have talked about it, Driving is like so much scarier if you actually look at it. So I don't want to cause any anxiety. Like, let's, let's not look into that.

Don't talk yourself out of one and give yourself the other one.

Oh my God, that's an excellent point. You didn't just hear anything that I said, but do some fact-checking about COVID about flying, whatever you're afraid of, about snakes, about sharks. Like, I need to do some fact-checking about sharks in the ocean.

Yeah, I would imagine the ocean that the 3 feet of ocean you go into up to your hips is probably a pretty safe place. Uh, Nicole Weinstein says hi.

Hi, Nicole. Start moving. Get up, move. So if I sit and ruminate over what's bothering me and I go over it and I go over it and I go over it, it gets worse. If I just get up and start doing stuff, whether it's, you know, working, cleaning, dishes, laundry, exercise, exercising, take a walk, like go do something. Um, the other thing that is super helpful is distracting yourself. And I want you to get to the root of what the issue is so that you can solve it, but distractions can get you out of like where you're at, where it's an intense— agree with Seth regarding sharks. Nicole, that's like my phobia is sharks in the ocean. It's It's— yeah, anyways, we won't talk, we won't talk about that.

You went parasailing on our honeymoon.

That was like 16 years ago.

So are you saying your phobia with sharks has increased?

Yes.

Okay, have you had any interactions with sharks that have caused this? Let's do some cognitive behavioral therapy right now. Come on, have you been watching a lot of shark movies? Is that the problem?

No, but I want to talk about— no, it's It's never mind. I'll, I'll tell you later. I don't want to throw anyone under the bus. See, Nicole agrees with me. So I was talking about distractions.

I was distracting you, see, from your shark anxiety.

So a very wise psychologist said, start looking.

Okay, Nicole, what about you?

Start looking for orange. Look for orange all over the room. She said orange is hard to find. It will make you think. Look, engage your senses and distract yourself out of the anxiety. Look for orange. What are you hearing? Can you hear birds? Start thinking about what you're hearing around you. If— pick a shape to look for, pick something to touch. If there's a blanket next to you, touch the blanket, touch your wife, you know, do the alphabet backwards, like engage your mind out of the anxiety. Again, I, at the moment, you probably need to distract yourself to get out of if it's getting really bad, but I also want you to look for patterns of what is the pattern of anxiety so that you can fix it. And, you know, for some people it's the pattern of public speaking. That's just one example. I know that this sounds so basic, but just spend some time breathing. I will be like this. Yeah, Seth will be like, oh my God, breathe.

Why are you breathing like the dog?

Like, I'll be running around the house like— when she gets in her whirlwind mode, and I'm like, okay, I just need to sit and breathe. I was talking to my friend today, and she said before her interview, she told everyone, I'm just gonna breathe for a minute. And I was so impressed that she knew to tell everyone that she just needed to, like, take a breath. Like, how awesome is that to start your interview with? I'm just going to take a breath. And you can take more than one.

As many. They're free.

We love to laugh. And I will tell you, I had a very anxious summer, two, three summers ago. Remember when the kids kept getting sick? Yes. Yeah, because our cats are 3. Our cats just turned 3. So we got our cats 3 summers ago and the kids got sick one after another and then the kitten got sick. So my anxiety was like, vroom. And one of the ways that we coped with it, the whole family, was we would put the Holderness Family on and we would all laugh together. Like I needed to get out of what was going on and I needed to just laugh and put on music and sing with them and dance with them and put something on and be silly with your family. It helped me. You all know meditation helps greatly with anxiety. There's a million YouTube videos. Go try one.

Or apps.

There's apps. I told you that I journal. I have my routine of journal, read, pray. And I am very big on turn your worry into faith. I'm huge on that. It helps me. I was talking to Ella about it, and I was like, when I'm feeling worried, I say a prayer and I let it go. And if you practice that, it will help you. And especially, I feel like women that I talk to have trouble going to sleep. That is one of the keys to me going to sleep— say the prayer Give it away. Go to bed. Who are you talking to? You hear me talk about this almost every vlog. Do you have a friend to talk to? Do you have a therapist to talk to? Do you have a support group to talk to? Um, I—

she's awesome to talk to, helped me incredibly well today. Oh, that was an awesome session.

I am So glad that we had a good session together. Happy to be your therapist. I put on my therapist hat.

I asked her, I texted her and said, I need a session.

He said, I need to— I didn't exactly understand what he needed. But he's like, I need to come home. We need to take a walk alone.

Without Tammy.

I didn't realize he didn't even want the dog to come. He's like, we need to go for a walk. And I need to tell you all about my day. And I didn't realize how serious he was, but he literally walked in the house, put on his sneakers and said, "Okay, let's go." And I was like, "Okay, therapist hat, let's go." I also think the Winey Palooza mom group, I started it on Facebook for many reasons. Please go join it and join us and use it. Use it for yourself. If you're feeling anxious, if you're feeling depressed, if you're feeling scared, if you're feeling overwhelmed, stop. I love you. Um, talk to us and use the group. It's, it's for us. Use it for your stresses. And it has become— I think it has become a supportive community for us to use for each other. And come and talk to us and we will help you. Or tell us what's worked for you, because you can help other people if you have found things that work for you. What else am I— oh, I'm big on control your mind. We do not let our mind control us. Take control. Take control of your mind. Don't let it control you. And you may say, I can't do that. Well, start, start right now, and then do it every day and watch your ability to control it grow. Anything else? Am I getting texted about the vlog?

You are. Would you like me to check it?

Is it a text about the vlog?

Um, love your advice.

Oh yeah. Okay, you don't have to read it.

I will not read the whole thing.

Okay, so those are some tips for anxiety. I'm not a stranger to it. I'm not immune to it. I feel it too. I think that the, the thing, the motto in my head is feel the fear, do it anyway. That's my favorite line. If someone was to ask me in an interview, what's your favorite line? What's your favorite advice? That's definitely one of my top 3. Awesome. And I hope that this was helpful. I would love to hear from you. Tell me what helps you with your anxiety. Start with taking care of yourself. Food, sleep, vitamins, exercise, start there. We don't take care of ourselves, that's issue number 1. Now I pulled my July winner, my July challenge winner. I'm sorry, Lily. Lily pulled my July summer challenge winner and it was Megan Sullivan. So Megan, I forgot to text you but I'm going to see you tomorrow. And I'm going to bring you a summer gift. And this Friday for the Winey Palooza Family Friday podcast is— tell me if I'm pronouncing her name right, Seth. Sharon. It's not Sharon, it's Sharon, I believe.

Why are you asking me?

Because you interviewed her.

You know her last name?

Lynn Wyeth.

Oh yes, Sharon.

Sharon. So Sharon Lynn Wyeth was actually a recommendation from my husband.

Yes, now that you're—

and she uh, studied namology, invented the science, invented the science of namology, and she tells you what your name means. She has—

really cool.

She was so amazing to talk to. Uh, listen to the podcast, you're gonna love it. You're gonna learn about your name. And I'm reading her book, Know the Name.

It's pretty crazy how accurate it is.

I know, it's her first book. I think she's written 3.

She even has name compatibility have somebody's name read before you hire them, before— to know if they're going to be a good fit. Like, all kinds of cool stuff.

And I think it's going to help us with our kids and our spouse. So, like, for example, you're— the first vowel in your name is how you communicate. So she said, so you and Seth have the same first vowel. Yeah. So that's good for us with our communication style. So, like, my mother is an A My father's an I, Lily's an I, you know, Ella's an E. So based on— she tells you about the vowels and how people communicate and what the letters in their name means, and it can help you with your family and your friends and your co-workers, etc. So I think you're gonna love her. So that's this Friday, and I need Lily. I hope that Lily's coming to close me out. So keep the topic requests coming. And thank you so much for listening, reading, and watching. Come on, let her in. Come close us out. Okay. Thank you for watching Mighty Mighty Plays on Wednesday with the Green Family.

Ciao ciao, chicken!

Thanks everyone, have a good week.