How to Overcome Anxiety and Self-Doubt to Reclaim Your Health

Are you done with anxiety and negative thoughts ruling the show about your life and health? Then today's episode is for you, and together we'll be discovering how to stop negative thoughts, to reset your mind to positive thinking, calming that inner voice, That's constantly chatting, causing you to feel anxious and out of control, with special guest Fiona Kane, a nutritional medicine practitioner, mind-body eating coach, and a holistic counselor. Welcome, Fiona.

Hi, Rita. How you going today? Good.

It's great to have you back on the show, and today's episode is so important for those people that really feel that they're just not in control of their mind. You know, it's either they've got anxiety or they've got ruminating thoughts. So a lot of people say when you've got that, you tend to have a little bit more of a victim mindset. So how does this victim mindset, you know, silently sabotage our life and health?

Well, I think that, like, I'll start by saying No, this is not meant to be judgmental to anyone who does experience the victim mindset. I think we all do it sometimes, and I certainly know I do as well.

Absolutely.

So it's not kind of a— it's not having a go at anyone or being judgmental around it. It's just having a conversation around it and around what it is and is it helpful. And largely it's not. So, you know, if we have that kind of 5 minutes of, you know, life happens and we're all a victim of something and we get victimized, we have challenges, we have awful things happen. And so So we all are justified, you know, of saying, well, that's not fair, and, you know, that shouldn't have happened to me, or whatever. And so we all do go through those times where things happen and we feel like we're a victim. The difference is that we— if you choose to live there rather than pass through there, then it has a really detrimental effect on your life. So, you know, you can pass through the victim place and then move onwards and upwards, or you can stay in the victim place. And when you stay there, you really do limit a lot of things. things in your life.

I love that. I love that. Yeah, it is so true. It's about not that you're experiencing it, but you're stopping there.

Yes.

You've seen the stop sign and you're obeying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So to speak. Yeah, you stay there and you move in.

Exactly. So tell me, Fiona, how do these limiting beliefs keep people stuck in survival mode?

Well, what you do is you tell yourself the story over and over again of, you know, life done me wrong. The old saying, life done me wrong. It's an old— what is it? Sounds a bit like a country and western song or something, doesn't it? Life done me bad. You know, things have gone wrong. It's not fair. You know, I'm stuck. I can't do it. I'm hopeless, whatever. We get stuck in this mindset of something's happened to me that's out of my control. Something's been done to me and it's not fair and I— what can I, you know, I, I— and I can't do anything about it. So we actually become quite sort of, you know, we've got no— we've got— when we're in that place, we've got no ability to do anything about it. And that's the problem, is we get stuck in that place where we feel like there's nothing we can do. It also can be a handy excuse as well, because it's also a safe place to hide when you're sort of saying, uh, you're saying, well, it's a little bit too hard, but if I stay, if I use this victim situation as a shield, I can actually avoid getting hurt or upset or making mistakes or stuffing up or letting people down or letting myself down. So if I stay here in behind this shield, it's a safe place. As well. So I don't know, I can't even remember what your original question was. Hopefully that answered it.

It does. It was— and also around the survival mode, like a lot of people say, talk about survival mode, but what does that actually mean?

Yes. Yeah. And that's, that's the bit I knew I'd missed something somewhere. I forgot something. But the survival mode, really, if you constantly say, you know, this— I've been victimized, I've been harmed, people are out to get me, or this is— it's not fair, it's not fair, it's not fair. And you stay in that place, you stay in the story, you stay in the story of the thing that happened to you. And so that will keep you in that constant trauma response and that constant, you know, you'll always be in that stress response and, um, and always feeling like, well, it's not safe and it's not okay. And you're definitely not gonna feel like it's safe to move on because you're in the trauma response. There's a lion chasing after you. You have to be, you know, protect, you know, batten down the hatches and protect yourself. So you stay in the trauma response when you keep just repeating the thing over and over and over. This happened to me. It's not fair. It's not fair. And, uh, and really, I think, uh, Eckhart Tolle talks about this where he says that some of the biggest anxieties are experienced from not accepting where you are and being present with what is. And either stressing about what did happen or it shouldn't have happened, it shouldn't be like this and I shouldn't be in this situation. Or about the future, about what might happen. It should be like this or it has to be like this or it should look like that or what if this happens or what if that happens. So much anxiety is caused by just not being present right now. And right now is something bad happened, but I'm okay, or I will be okay. And, uh, and what can I do to move forward? Uh, but so we can kind of get stuck in that, like always looking back or always worrying about what might happen in the future.

That should have— when you touched on the should haves, that I— you hear that a lot, you know, I should have, I wish, It's all about what hasn't happened or what, you know, like we just said, should have happened, we think should have happened.

Yes.

But that's only really from our perception though. It's not really, you know, uh, what was possible, you know. So they're just seeing everything from a negative and not from, uh, what's actually good about what's happened.

Yes. Yeah, you're right there. And sometimes there is, and sometimes it's not obvious. So sometimes you, you miss out on something, or, you know, I, I sort of said this to a friend of mine who completely lost a career. I won't go into the detail because I don't want to tell that person's story, but this person completely lost their career, no fault of their own, back to square one. And was— this person was feeling very, very low around that. And, uh, and I just said to that person, sometimes when you lose something, it's actually opening up space for something great to come into your life. And that's exactly what happened. This person's got a whole new career that he loves dearly and that he's just really thriving in. And, uh, and but if he had got stuck in that place of, but it's not fair, and, you know, he didn't do any— you know, it wasn't his fault, but it just got torn right away from him. So sometimes there is a silver lining in it, and, you know, down the track there's something that comes up. But essentially, it's— sometimes people in life, they have to You know, life can be tough. And sometimes your life doesn't go the way you expected. So sometimes, you know, you might, you know, you're getting married and you think you're gonna have a great life and your partner dies. Or you, you know, you think you're gonna build the dream home and for some reason it burns down, or you run out of money and you can't build it. Or the career you thought you were going to have, or the family you thought you were going to have. Or, you know, you, you know, look at someone like Christopher Reeve, Superman, right? You know, one minute he is Superman and he's this ever-powerful, great movie star hero strongman, and the next thing he's quadriplegic. So sometimes life just deals us really awful stuff, and it's absolutely true, it does. At some point though, the people who do well are the people who at some point have a certain level of acceptance, and they're able to reframe it and say, okay, all right, so the reality is this is where I'm at right now and what will I do next as opposed to shoulda, coulda, woulda, which is, I mean, if I was Christopher Reeves, I mean, I think I'd probably still be stuck there. Although he's passed away now. But, you know, I could imagine why people say the shoulda, coulda, woulda when those things happen to them. But it's not helpful though when they do. And sometimes you see people with some of the worst circumstances happen to them and they're the ones that are able to move on. And so there's something about, it's not really what happens to you, it's actually that capacity, the capacity building that people have where they're able to move Move on regardless of how terrible it is.

Exactly. It sounds like developing a stronger mindset is key. The positive, stronger mindset, as opposed to sitting— what you— like you were saying, sitting in the could have, should have, why me? You know, I think the why me is one that's really, uh, one of the most damaging. And would you say that having very fixed expectation to the way something should go can, can cause anxiety, worry, and, and all the rest of it. Because if it doesn't work out like that, then what have you given yourself? You know, what leeway have you given yourself for something else, that something else has actually happened?

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, look, look at, uh, John Lennon. Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

Mm.

That's exactly it. And so when we are too rigid, the problem is when we're too rigid is we don't— we can't bend at all with anything, but then we don't see anything good at all. Because in our mind, it should look like this. This is exactly how it should look. And if it doesn't look like that, then we perceive that as a failure or as we've been done wrong or something's wrong. We just don't We cannot acknowledge anything good about it. Whereas when you're flexible, you can sort of say, hey, like the goal is this, but who knows where I might hit. I might hit something less. I might hit something more. I might hit something different, but it's not necessarily bad. And you're able to kind of go, okay, that's cool. This didn't happen, but this did instead. That's great. But when people are really rigid in their mindset, they fail to see anything good about a situation or any ability to move forward because they're so stuck in it should be like this. And sometimes the thing they think it should— sometimes the thing's even better. But they just, they can't see that or they won't see that because they're so stuck in this is how it should be.

Is there an element of fear that goes behind this?

Well, it's all fear-based really, isn't it? Because it's, I don't know, I think we, one of the reasons we are rigid is we feel like if we hold on to it, if we hold on to the dream, if we hold on to the belief, you know, it'll all be okay. You know, we've got all these stories that we tell ourselves in our head that, you know, it'll be okay if we sort of, you know, hold this belief or hold this thing dear. And the truth is that life happens whether you're holding rigidly onto something or whether you're relaxed about it. Life's gonna happen anyway. So yeah, I think a lot of it is fear-based. And people, when they're very fearful, they— sometimes we get more rigid when we're fearful. And there's actually, on that note, there's something Excuse me for reading, but I just wanted to refer to— there's a musician that I really love. His name is Ren Gill, and he has a song called Hi Ren. And at the end of it, he does a little— he does a little talking bit at the end of the song. And he is, for context, short version, he's just been through hell and back. He's had Lyme disease, he's had psychosis, he's had, you know, he's in bed for years. And so he's a young man, but a lot of his life really had been taken from him. His health has been taken from him. And so he's really struggled with his physical and mental health. And he says at the end of that song, he says that, you know, what he learned about it essentially is— this is not word for word, but what he learned is that it's an eternal dance. And so we've got to learn to dance with life. And what he talks about is he said, the more rigid I became, the harder it got. The more I cursed my clumsy footsteps, the more I struggled. And so that you struggle more when you're kind of— when you're so rigid and you don't you struggle and that's kind of really what shatters you, right? So he says, you know, I learned to soften and the dance got easier. You know, and that's the thing, it's learning to soften. And so when we're really anxious, that's the last thing. Like we think that we have to stay rigid and we have to stay hard. And that's the stories we tell ourselves that we were just talking about before. But as Wren has learned and he's learned from major, major struggles in his life, that it's actually the softening. It's the softening that makes a difference. And softening doesn't make you more vulnerable. It actually makes you more flexible and more able to give you more capacity to cope.

God, I love that. That was just fantastic. Thank you for sharing. That was brilliant. And it sounds like that softening gives you more control.

Yes. Yes, it does. Because it gives you, it gives you a certain amount of agency, right? Because if it's, it should be like this, it is, there's no other option. Then that's really restricting, isn't it? There's no way you can move from that. So you're kind of just sitting there kind of going, oh, it's not fair, it should be like this. So, you know, whereas if you say, okay, it's a dance, life is a dance. I, I don't know what— you know, you might think that the next move is— I'm not really good with dances— might be the polka or whatever, and the next one is— I know, what's another dance?

We're showing our age with those analogies.

I should like— yeah, if we're going to use analogies, I should remember what they are. But you know, but you don't know what the next dance is gonna be, right? And because you don't know, sometimes you might think that you know what it's gonna be or what it should be or what you want it to be or what you expect it to be.

Yeah.

But it might be a completely different one. And when we soften and understand, when we just understand, and I think it's just like the softening to me is really when you comprehend that we're not— as much as we want to control it, we're not in complete control of it. And you understand that you're not in complete control of it, but what you are in control of is how you respond to things.

Ooh.

So you make a plan, and it's great to have a plan, but you build your capacity so that you're able to respond to whatever actually does happen. And then what's happening is rather than always swimming against the tide or getting caught in the rip and swimming— trying to swim against the rip, you kind of just go with it a bit and you flow with it a bit, and you've got enough capacity and enough strength and enough flexibility to You know, just turn it into a dance as opposed to turn it into a struggle.

Yes, absolutely. And there are so many reasons why someone does have rumination or anxiety, and there's so many neurological reasons, but that's not what we're talking about today. Today we're specifically talking about how our language and our beliefs affect us and cause anxiety, because Just from what you're saying, you can tell that if you're angry or you expect something to happen a certain way and you're rigid, you can just feel that in your body. If you were actually to do that exercise, you could just feel that in your body and the anxiety that that would produce, as opposed to deep breathing, being calm, and seeing possibility.

Mm-hmm.

How much more in control that you are, because I feel that anxiety is really a sign of Also with that head talk, feeling like you're not in control of your life.

Yes.

So going back to something you said which I really liked was the over-identification and bringing that back down to, uh, a health condition or the fact that you've been diagnosed with anxiety or panic attacks, whatever it is. You talk about not attaching yourself to a diagnosis.

Yes. So instead of saying I have anxiety or I'm anxious, at saying I suffer from anxiety or I experience anxiety— even probably experience is probably even a better word— I experience anxiety. Because the problem with the word suffer is the word suffer would indicate it's something bad. Whereas anxiety actually just might be a sign. It might be a sign, a symptom or a sign. It's data for you to sort of figure out something's wrong, right? So it's not always necessarily a bad thing that you experience anxiety, but you experience anxiety. You, you're not anxiety. It's not who you are. And so I think that when we separate it from who we are, we can manage it because it's an experience that we have. As opposed to who we are.

Yeah, because it— I— over-identifying with a condition and attaching your identity to it, it— that would be, I assume, so hard to separate, to then really feel like you can do the work, feel like you're in control of it and being able to do the work. Because that means you take— because I assume it'll feel like you're taking a part of you away. And what do I do? What do I replace that with? Whereas if you don't make it part of you, it's just something you have or you're experiencing, and work out why that is. Like you said, I love it the way you go, it's data. You know, some people might be offended to say my condition is not data, but your condition is speaking to you, which is data.

It is data, yeah. And of course, I'm not— by saying that, I'm not sort of belittling any experience that people are having. I know that for some people, anxiety is absolutely life-changing, like, you know, crippling issue.

Crippling, yes.

So I'm not making light of that in any way. However, that is— it still is data. When you're having anxiety, that is data. And, and when we start to look at things as information and data and kind of put more of a scientific language around it, that can actually be useful because it just— like I said before, like when I said the word suffering and then I corrected myself for saying it, right? It's just the language is important and And if we use language that confirms that we've got no control over it, it's just happening to us, we're victims and it's all suffering, if that's the language that we use, then that's exactly what we will get and we'll continue to get because we believe that. Whereas if we use empowering language of this is an experience I have or this is a condition that I'm managing or this is an issue, a challenge that I have. It's very, very different language. And when we change language around it, yes, it does empower you to do something about it. Whereas you feel like you can't change who you are, you can change something you're experiencing.

Absolutely. And that's what you actually gave me a, a quote here. I have, you know, to say, to reframe that negative into something positive. Like when people say, oh, I need to go to treatment, you know, I may have treatment for my anxiety or panic attacks or whatever. It's more like I get to go to have treatment versus I have to have treatment.

Yes, yes. So get to and can and able to are very different to I have to do the thing. And, uh, and when you get to— I mean, we're lucky we live in Australia and, uh, and Most people, I'm not saying all, there's challenges with all health systems, but many of us essentially do have access to help when we do need it for these things. So yes, I get to go and have some help with strategies to manage the anxiety I experience as opposed to I have to go and treat my anxiety.

Yeah.

And my anxiety, my anxiety is a bit like a pet really, isn't it? You know, it's like my chihuahua, you know what I mean? My anxiety, it's very, it's very, there's a lot of ownership Ownership in that, that maybe is too— maybe you don't want to have that ownership on that level. It may be— maybe it's something you experienced, not who you are.

Yes, exactly. And it sounds like a lot of taking a more of a gratitude perspective is that you actually do get to have treatment. You're lucky enough to get treatment.

Yes. Yeah, you're in a place where you've got access to Yes, exactly.

Instead of begrudging the fact that you have this condition and that you have to go and have treatment.

Mm-hmm.

You know, so tell us more around the— now moving on to like people who worry and ruminate. So let's talk about what's the difference between just thinking through something and ruminating on it. And for people that don't know, what is rumination?

I don't know the dictionary definition, but my idea of it is that you just cannot let something go. You just go round and round and round and round on the same issue and just can't let it go or can't make a decision or can't move forward with it. And so, you know, for me, it's like a lot of things in life are about just doing it anyway or just getting on with it. Because I think that one of the reasons that we have time to ruminate Is because we sit still and ruminate, right? Where if you just get on with it, you don't have as much time to do that. So sometimes it's just kind of like you've got to get out of your head. You've got to actually do something. And if you've got nothing to do, do something, right? Because if you've got— and this is what happens too, is when we do have these issues, what happens is we close our life off a lot. And maybe we're not in our job anymore and we're at home and we're alone and whatever. And when that happens, you've got all the time in the world. world to, to just ruminate on the thing. And so you actually, whatever your situation is, my encouragement is you structure your day no matter what. So whether you're in a situation where you've got a job and you're going out and you've got a family and you're busy, or whether or not you're in a situation where you've got none of that and you've got all the time in the world, structure your day and create things for yourself to do because that actually just gives you less time to do that. But look, the other thing too is I did hear someone on a podcast the other day talking about making decisions. And he just said, rather than use the word decision, how about you say, try to use it, say, let's just do this as an experiment. And I thought that that was useful because it's like, so you can sort of say, well, I don't know what to do. Oh, hey, why don't I do an experiment? I'll just try this. And somehow that language, again, language seems less heavy than I have to make a decision. The decision, you know, like, and we— some decisions in life are big, but a lot of the decisions that people ruminate on, they're not that big. But we turn them into bigger than Ben-Hur, right? Another reference, cultural reference for people who are older. Big long movie, guys. Um, but yeah, we turn it into something a lot bigger than what it is. So a lot of the time, if we just said, well, I'm not sure, but how about I try an experiment? How about I try that?

Exactly, exactly. So I do like that experiment. Experiments does sound so much lighter. It takes— it sounds like it takes the fear of the unknown out of it because you're just experimenting.

Yes. And also in many decisions, not all, but if in many decisions, it's not— it's not like no way back, you know. If you try this, it doesn't work, and try that. I know it's not in every situation, But in many situations, the worst thing that can happen is you, you know, if you paint the wall the wrong color, then you paint it a different color. You know, it'll be okay.

Exactly. Like, I find— I think it's a— is it a personality type or is it attached to self-worth? Because most people tend to worry that, oh, I said this. What about if I did that differently? If— why did I do this? You know, now I've offended. And it seems to be that thing that they ruminate in their mind And they can't go to sleep.

Yes. Yeah.

So is that more a worrier?

I think it's a personality type. I think there are personality types that are more like that. And there's, there's people who really don't care about what anyone thinks about anything. And then there's people who overworry. And I do think that is a personality. I think when you look at the top 5 traits, personality traits, that is one of them is pretty much the overthinker. And so that's the other thing too. It's like, okay, You can know who you are as in, okay, I'm, I'm more inclined to be this way, but you don't have to completely, you know, make your whole life around that or completely say that's exactly who you are completely and it's everything about you. But just kind of go, okay, I know that I'm more inclined to have this issue. So because I know that I'm more inclined to have it, I need some more strategies, right? So someone who doesn't really care what people think, they don't need strategies about getting to sleep at night.

Yes.

They need different strategies, right? They might need strategies on how to, how to have better communication, right? And so that's the other thing too, like sometimes, like the kind of superpower is the thing that you're undone with as well, right? So your superpower might be that you think a lot and you care, and that might actually make you a good friend in a lot of ways, and you might be a really kind person and all the rest of it, but it also might mean sometimes laying asleep at night night, well, not asleep at night, worrying about if you upset your friend or whatever. So yes, there are personality types and sometimes we are that person, but then that is the person that needs to get a great, you know, app on their phone to help them sleep or drink their chamomile tea at night or maybe get a diary where you kind of write out all this stuff because sometimes when you kind of just have all these things going on in your head, if you just write like just stream of consciousness, right, it just gets it out of your head.

Mm-hmm.

So it's not so much like saying, oh, that's wrong or bad that you're like that. Well, maybe you have a got that kind of personality. But it's more, okay, well, person with that personality needs these strategies. The person who doesn't care maybe needs other strategies. So it is what it is, that's fine. So a level of acceptance, but also kind of going, okay, so it just means I need some strategies.

So speaking of strategies then, to move out of the, you know, constant chatter, the what-if, the spiraling, the, um, the fear-based Thinking. So how can we shift from— it kind of feels like such internal criticism. So how do we shift that internal criticism to more of a compassion without falling into, you know, the common, what's known now as toxic positivity?

Yes. Yeah. So what I encourage my clients to do is I do encourage them to notice what they're saying. So start noticing that dialogue, whether it's an internal or external dialogue. Notice what you're saying. But I— it's always with a caveat of notice it with curiosity.

Yes.

Just like a curious friend. So you're not allowed to judge it, but you're just kind of going, oh, that's interesting. I didn't know I said that so often, right? So it's just noticing with curiosity what you say and how you say it. And what you will do is you'll start to— so the first thing is that insight. It's just noticing what you do. But then as you start to notice that, what will happen is you will more and more kind of catch yourself in it and do it less. Or you catch yourself in it and you kind of— you're aware that you're doing it and you say, oh, well, that's not helpful. That's not helpful. We're gonna move on from this, right? So you— when you can— or that's not true. That's the other one too, is sometimes that sort of inner critic that you've got going on, the stories they're telling, they're just not true. So sometimes it's actually kind of like— it's just— if you imagine if there was someone in the room that just kept coming over to you and saying, No, no, no. Whatever, you know, all the things, all the things that you're saying to yourself. You're not good enough, blah blah blah blah blah blah, whatever. If that person's coming over constantly, you know, you're going to be saying, but that's not true. What do you mean? Like what? You'll be more likely to speak up or to question. But because it's a voice inside of our head, somehow we think that it's true and we have to believe everything it says. But you can actually sort You know, I've got nobody. Is it really true I've got nobody? Let me think about that. What is the truth behind that? Or I can't do anything.

What?

Not anything? There's not one thing you can do? Whatever it is, whatever you're saying, often when you stop and think about it, it's not true.