Anxiety Coaching July 2018

Wait for you guys to join. We'll see who joins tonight. Got 2 folks. So who's online with us? I can't even see. Can I— Hey guys. Hey Crystal. Hey Deborah. Who else? Anybody else? So I was gonna do this actually outside. Hey, Stormy! I was gonna do this outside and it's been pretty nice out. You guys can hear me, right? Do I sound okay? Let me know if I sound okay. I take silence as consent. Can you hear me fine? All right, great. So I was gonna do this outside, and, um, I walked outside and it was— it's just storming out. Like, the trees were like this. Um, so that kind of ruined my plans. I was gonna go, um, I have some rocking chairs on my front porch, which I was gonna go and do this at, so— Hey, Ashley. Ashley, can you see me? Yeah, so anyway, if I, um, if I have to, if I have to run downstairs— hey Ashley— if I have to run downstairs because of my, uh, because, uh, I, any, I hear any, uh, tornado warnings, um, for you folks in the Midwest, it's probably, um, you guys probably are aware of this. So we do have tornadoes down here in Atlanta. I'm about, I'm about 45 minutes northwest of Atlanta, so, but I kind of live in the foothills. So if I have to run downstairs because the tornado comes through, just bear with me. Okay, so I did that poll and I looked at the list. So you guys wanted to chat mostly about mindfulness and specifically how you do mindfulness. I can go, I can get into what I kind of do it for and how I do it. And then if we have any general questions around that specific topic, or if you guys want to delve into something else, that'd be great. But so let's, let's tap into mindfulness a little bit. So mindfulness is a— it's an approach that helps us who struggle with anxiety to— especially when you're— it helps when you're in the mix of an anxiety attack or a panic attack. It really will help you ground you when you're in the process of having an anxiety or panic attack. The key to having mindfulness though is you want to practice this before you get yourself into a situation like that, right? So if you are, if you have general anxiety or if you're prone to a panic at all, or if you just have general anxiety and you're anxious, the mindfulness will help you When you are— when that— when it really— when it escalates on you, right? So basically, when panic kind of just comes and kind of, you know, kind of goes, and then the general anxiety is just kind of, you know, kind of— it kind of goes like this, and then it peaks and it goes down. So mindfulness will help you. Um, it's a grounding technique. It really is what it is. And how I do it is I take some deep breathing and then What I'll do is after I take some deep breathing, I'll focus on my breathing. So I'll focus, kind of walk it through. So the mindfulness, and I'll send out a blog. I think I wrote a blog on this. It might be deep on my website, but I wrote a— I just like to have a couple of blogs on this specific topic when it comes to mindfulness. And it really, really helps you. So if you do this, it's gonna help you when you have a panic attack or when you have an anxiety attack. So, The key to mindfulness is you want to ground yourself, right? And grounding yourself is just recognizing where, where you're at, not only physically, but also emotionally, right? So whenever I do a mindfulness exercise, you'll see me where I'll take a deep breath. I'll take deep breaths in. And you want to feel it. You don't want to feel it in your— up here in your chest. You want to feel it in your belly, right? So the way I do it is I typically, I'll put my— I don't know if you guys can see that. Here, let me hold it like this. So I'll typically put my stomach on my diaphragm like this, and I'll— and you see my belly coming out, and I'll take that deep breath, and then I'll just out like this, out through my mouth. So I'll take a deep breath in. I'll do this, adjust it. So I'll take a deep breath in. And I'll take a deep breath and I'll blow out. So you want to breathe through your nose, out through your mouth. You want to do that about 5 After you do that, after you take those deep breaths in, you should really feel the tense, you should feel your shoulders drop, you should really feel that, that, that just kind of, um, relaxed feeling. And then you wanna— I'm fighting a cold, so bear with me. Um, so if I sound kind of nasaled or if I'm mumbling, let me know, because when I'm, when I'm sick, I mumble a lot because I, I talk through my nose. So bear with me on that as well. So what I'll do is I'll, I'll, I'll Let me kind of show you. I'll shut my eyes and I'll show you. So, and then what I'm doing after, after I do that, what I'll do is I'll start scanning. I'll start scanning from the bottom of my feet. I'll start scanning my body. So I'll scan it in a way that I'll feel like the pressure on the bottom of my feet. I'll go through my legs and I'll feel the pressure on my back or my, um, where I'm sitting on my, on my, my, uh, butt or my lower back or my shoulders. And I'll start to, I'll, I'll, I'll scan, right? I'll scan my whole body from the top, from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. And then what I'll do is I'll scan, I'll feel the pressure points of that. And once I feel the pressure points of that, I'll scan my general mood. So maybe when I do this exercise, I'm a little bit jittery. So my anxious level is a bit up, or maybe I'm feeling a bit panicky. And so I'll kind of recognize that feeling that I'm having. I won't fight the feeling. I won't try to— get rid of it. I won't try to fight it. I'll just recognize it. And as I recognize it, I recognize these pressure points. And as I recognize these pressure points and I recognize my feeling, I'll then accept that, right? I'll accept the feeling that I feel and just feel it. Just allow myself to feel it, whatever I'm feeling. So if I'm drifting off and many of my thought processes are drifting off, what I'll do is I'll Gently come back for about 5 minutes. So I usually do this mindful exercise for about 10 to 15 minutes. I've gone as long as about 45, but it's typically 5 to 10 minutes, and I do this mindful exercise in the morning. Some people, you want to do it right. I know a couple of you guys have trouble sleeping. I think that if you try this at night, it might help you at night as well, kind of calm yourself down. My anxiety hits at night. So right before I go to bed is where my anxiety hits. So I might do this at night, although I prefer the morning for me. It's just better for me to kind of focus. So after I do that, so after I do my deep breaths, I do about 10 of those, I get myself into a relaxed position, I'll scan my body, right? I'll physically scan it. I'll scan from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head and I'll feel all my pressure points. Then I'll recognize my mood. So like I said, I'll recognize if I'm anxious, I'll recognize if I'm panicky, I'll recognize just different kind of, if I'm happy, if I'm sad, if I'm whatever, right? And we all, our moods kind of fluctuate during the day. And so I just recognize the mood that I'm in at that given time. After I recognize that mood that I'm in and I recognize physically where I'm at, as I'm doing this, as I'm scanning, I'm also paying attention to the sounds. Around me. So if I'm hearing— I've gotten so good, I think I taught— I messaged Katie on this particular thing. I've gotten so good at my mindfulness that I can literally hear the electricity in the light bulbs. I know it's weird, I get it, I understand, but I can literally— I'm so tuned to what's going on around me that I can literally hear the electricity in the light bulbs. It's just kind of funky. So Having said that, I get that mindfulness. I, I, I, I— so some key things: I recognize where I'm at physically. I recognize the mood that I'm in. What's key about the mood is I don't fight it. If I'm sad, I'm sad. If I'm happy, I'm happy. If I'm anxious, I'm anxious. If I'm panicky, I'm panicky. I've still— I recognize the mood and still understand where I'm at physically. Meanwhile, while I'm scanning and I'm recognizing I'm also understanding where I'm at as far as sounds go. So that really all these different facets help us with our mindfulness. The last key point to this mindful exercise is once you get yourself into that state and you know physically where you're at, you know emotionally where you're at, what I'll do then is I'll hyper— I'll be hypersensitive to my breathing. What I'll do is I'll actually count my breaths. So you can either count each breath, so, you know, 1 being in, 2 being out. I typically like to count breaths out. So if I breathe in and then I breathe out, that's 1. If I breathe in, I breathe out, that's 2. If I breathe in, I breathe out, that's 3. I do this— What I'll do with my breathing is I'll focus on my breathing. I'll count my breaths. If my mind wanders, if my mind kind of goes and it goes somewhere else, I'll gently put— I'll gently bring it back to breathing. If my mind wanders and I, and I, and it goes somewhere else, I'll gently bring myself back to breathing. What this is teaching us is it's teaching us to— What's good about mindfulness is we're being mindful of how we feel physically, And we're being mindful of how we feel emotionally. And what we're doing is we're breathing and we're in the present. We're in the present even though we feel a certain way emotionally and we feel a certain way physically. So it's teaching us, it's teaching us to be in the present even though we're a little bit anxious or we feel panicky or we're sad or we're glad or we're happy, whatever the feeling might be. That's that's the point in which we want to work on the mindfulness. What's see my power just went out? Yep, see it's flickering. Ah geez, I'm about to run downstairs. So um uh I'm losing my mindfulness now. So anyway um the what we want to do is we want to actually learn to do this mindfulness without being anxious or without being panicky because then. What happens is when I have a panic attack or when I have an anxiety attack, what I'll do is I'll remember what I practiced and I'll be mindful of where I'm at physically, even though my emotional state might go a little awry because I'm dealing with the panic. So my muscle state might be going crazy, but I'm physically there. So what happens is my panic attacks used to last for hours. Hell, I had panic. I had a panic attack that literally lasted a year, um, because I didn't practice any of the stuff that I'm— that I coach on and teach now. So what I've done is I've kind of learned my— I've kind of learned the process of mindfulness. So do I still have panic attacks? Yes. Do I still have anxiety? Yes. Do I still deal with the voices in my head telling me this and that? Yes. I still deal with all those issues, and I still deal with A lot of those things, I just handle them. I handle the struggle differently than I once did. And that's why I'm trying to coach folks and teach folks on what to do just differently, not really saying things that are gonna go away, right? 'Cause they're not. We just learn how to handle them and deal with them differently so our lives are productive. Having said that, my panic attacks nowadays are up, And down, right? My anxiety goes up and then down, right? So I've learned over the process of learning these different tools and techniques, mindfulness being one of them. Specifically, if I'm in a panic state and I have a panic attack, what I'll do is I'll really, I'll do my breathing. Then I'll focus on where I'm at physically. I know where I'm at already emotionally, and I won't fight it. The key, the key to mindfulness is you learn not to fight the feelings. So you just, you just go with it, you breathe through it, you, you understand where you're at physically, you know where you're at emotionally, and you allow it to go away, right? So with, with this kind of mindfulness techniques, and I would start out, so I'm— I would coach you if I was coaching you one-on-one, and these are one of the things in which we were working on. I would have you Work on the mindfulness every day for 2 minutes, right? Let's just do 2 minutes. And then how that progresses, okay, let's bump up to 5 minutes. Okay, how that's going, okay, let's bump up to 7 minutes. So how do you progressively work yourself up to a certain amount of time? I like a 15-minute time. That really allows you to hone in on your, on your phys— where you're physically, where you are, where you're at emotionally. And mentally, and then allows you to hyperfocus on the breathing. That will allow you to kind of let your mind wander, because when you're practicing this, we want to allow our minds to wander because they'll naturally do, and then gently bring them back to breathing. And then they'll wander, and then we gently bring them back. So that's really kind of the mindfulness tool that I use on a— okay, I'm not going to say I'm a regular at this. You gotta get better at it. But it really, really is a tool that you can use in your tool belt once you learn the practice. I just love it as far as teaching me to kind of really ground myself and teaching me to be okay where I'm at mentally, right? And to be okay where I'm at physically. I think one of the things that we all struggle with, specifically with anxiety, Is we want to fight it and we want it to go away and we want to get rid of it rather than embracing the way we feel, understanding the way we feel, and just working through the way we feel, right? That's one of the things in which we really got to get good at to really beat anxiety is we got to get good at accepting it and then good at working through it. And mindfulness is one of those tools I use. So I don't know if you have— if you guys have any specific questions. On this technique, if you want me to go through some more breathing exercises, or let me know in turn, let me know over chat. Was this helpful? Was there another topic that you wanted to get into? Let me know. Who do we have on? Hey, Renee. Thanks for joining. Hey, Deborah. All right, so you guys have any questions? What's the one where they talk about— that's— Yeah, yeah, that's, that's another— that's, that's another way of doing that, Deborah. Um, that is a mindfulness, um, way to go about it. You can do that. I, I, that's kind of really, it's kind of, that's hypersensitive on your senses. So you can, that's, that you can probably just look that up. That is focusing, that's hypersensitive on your senses rather than your breathing, where you can see 5 things, where you can hear 5 things or smell, or smell things. I like, I like to use the one that I use specifically when you're actually first starting this or first doing this, because that will teach you The breathing techniques that you need to learn, and it will allow you to, to kind of recognize where you're at, um, emotionally, right? That's, that's one of the key things in which we got to learn, is to understand where we at, where we're at emotionally in that present time, right? It's how we feel right then and now when you're doing the exercise. So, but there are, there are some tools and techniques as far as the The 5 senses go. Mm-hmm. And that's, that's one of them. So there's things like hyperfocus on like listening for something, right? Or seeing something or something like that. So yeah, I don't, I don't particularly like that, that, that technique when you first start. Um, like I said, it just does, it's kind of hard to do that. Um, I really want my, I really want people focused on being present and then understanding where they're at emotionally and mentally. I think that's, that's, Some of the key things that we need to learn first. Hopefully that helps you out. All right, you guys have any other questions? I take silence as consent. Yes? No? Okay, I'll get into that in a second. All right, let me ask— let me ask— let me, uh, let me answer Crystal's question. So Crystal's— Crystal, when you— when you're getting a panic attack and it's starting to get out of control All my rational thinking goes out the window. How can I help that? Okay. So when we're talking about panic attacks, you have to remember, Crystal, that anxiety doesn't make sense. So let's stop trying to make sense of it. Right. That's the first and foremost for all of us that struggle with anxiety. We have to stop justifying why we have anxiety. There's no justification for it. That is how God made us. It's something that we have to deal with. It's our thorn in our side. And so we have to understand that. So we can't not make sense of something that doesn't make sense. That's first and foremost. Second thing, when you're having a panic attack, you have to realize what's going on physically, right? Physically, your, your norepinephrine is spiking like this. Your neurotransmitter, your norepinephrine, is spiking like this. your adrenaline is spiking like this. So what you do in that case, and I know, you know, specifically you, or not so much you, but all of us kind of, we want it to go away. We want to fight it. We want to kind of, we don't want to lose control. We won't want to, we don't want to, we think we're going to go insane. We think we're going to die, whatever. So we know that one of the things in which I do when I have a panic attack, especially when I, early on when I didn't understand what was going on, is I'd fight it. I would absolutely fight it to the— I mean, I would just, I would do everything I can to fight it. What I did, however, is I've learned over the years, and I— that's plural, years of dealing with panic attacks, um, to— we, we need to let it come, right? Incorporate some of this mindfulness, specifically the breathing techniques. Let it come, let it do its thing, and then let it go, right? So it's, it's kind of like, um, if you can, if you can do me a favor and just kind of picture right now, um, a river if you can, or a stream. And in that stream there's a log, there's a, there's a branch that's going down that stream or kind of going down that river. Just kind of picture it for a second, even if you have to close your eyes. So if you kind of just close your eyes and picture that log on that stream kind of going down that— I'm sorry, that log of that branch kind of going down that stream. You know, the stream is just kind of flowing it through, right? So you're kind of watching that log and that, that branch kind of just let it go. That's the same thing with our panic, right? Our panic comes in like a, like, like that, and we just kind of just let— watch it go by, right? So we don't fight it. We don't try to outthink it. We don't try to rationalize it. We just kind of just let it— we kind of just watch it doing our breathing and let it go, right? The worst thing we can do is fight it. Now, what's good about that is there's some other tools and techniques that I want to talk about. And I have someone on here that one of the things in which I would incorporate is something that triggers her. So I don't want to really get into that with her here, which is okay. But Crystal, if you want to reach out to me directly, there's some things that you can do to get yourself grounded pretty quickly. That can help you kind of recognize what's happening to you as far as the panic attack goes. And then breathing. Don't try to rationalize it. Don't try to fight it. Don't try to outwit it. Just let it come like that stream and let it go. So hopefully that helps. Yeah, let me know if that helps. Yeah, Katie, I know that I watched you breathe. I think in one of our sessions I watched you breathe. And I like for you to get more in your belly. I could still see it in your chest when you did a couple of breaths with me. I kind of want it still in your belly when I watched you breathe. But yeah, you're doing an excellent job and learning how to do those tools and techniques as well. All right, so you only have panic attacks normally when, when I'm in a vehicle. Okay. Yes, that's interesting you said that. She knows she probably has happened on Thursdays. That sucks. I know it, a particular day. Um, you might have a trigger actually, um, on a Thursday. If that might be a trigger for you, I don't know what, what on that Thursday or what happened on a Thursday to trigger that, but that might be happening. Um, so there might be something subconsciously that's going— it's going on on a particular day on Thursdays. We would have to really delve into that to see if anything really has happened traumatically on a Thursday, but I bet you that's probably why that's coming up. Stormy, to answer your question, no. Deborah, I want you to stay on. You don't have to leave unless you have to, unless you have to go. So Stormy, to answer your specific question, really panic comes in many different forms. Specifically, it's a control issue, right? So when we're at, when we don't feel like we're in control, It's really when we're having, um, panic attack really is, is a, it's a direct effect, a direct effect of wanting control and not having it. That sometimes has to do with our given situation we're at, our bodies, our body is doing something that we're losing control about, or it could be in a car. Um, unfortunately, Yeah, Thursdays are probably something, something subconsciously actually is probably happening or happened on a Thursday, um, that's probably causing the panic. And so yeah, we would have to— if I was coaching you one-on-one, we would— I would, I would have you kind of— I'd walk you through those type of things on a Thursday, and we'd have to dig into that. But back to Stormy, um, so yeah, I had that same type of— I don't like other people driving. Is my thing. And when other people drive, I get anxious about that. And this is the difference between a panic attack and an anxiety attack. If I know that I'm going somewhere and someone else is driving, like this past weekend when someone else drove a van for 32 hours when I was running, I was not happy about that. So I had anxiety the whole weekend I was running. I know I talked to Katie about that. So that had to do a lot with— with not having control of the vehicle. And so since I didn't have control of the vehicle and I was really not, I was really, I was in, you know, I was in farmland, right? I ran 200 miles with a team from Chattanooga to Nashville. And so I was in farmland, I was running at night. I don't like running at night. I was, you know, a lot of things were making me anxious. Having said that, it comes down to control, right? So what I did is, in that given situation is I really just embraced the time in which I was there. And I thought about the driving, I thought about the other people driving, I got nervous about it, and I got— but I worked through it, right? So what I didn't do is I didn't stop me from doing the very thing in which spikes the anxiety or spikes the panic. So in your case, Stormy, what I would coach you on doing, if you were coaching one-on-one or even here, is I would coach you to say, Go do the very thing you fear, right? So if you don't like driving, go drive. If you, um, if someone else driving, then have someone else drive. Get yourself into a state in which once you learn these tools and techniques to ground yourself, it will allow you to get yourself in that type of situation and then breathe through it, right? Just do it just like you was, um, in other situations, right? So what I did this past weekend when I was having anxiety Uh, okay, you have a license? Okay, so is it when someone else is driving then, or you can— do you have panic when someone else is driving like me? Yeah. Okay, great. All right, so fine. So if you have a confident— if you have a friend of yours That you can— is it anybody driving, or is it new people driving? Is it going to certain places, certain distances away from the home? What's the, what's the, what's the particular panic? Do we know? Because if it's, if it's, if you know what I want to get to, Stormy, is you got to work. You got to get yourself into a position where you are confronting the panic. Okay, great. Okay, fine. So what I would do is I would have someone else drive, like your mom or a friend or whatever, and I would I would have them, I would be honest with them, right? This is the first and foremost things that for us that deal with anxiety and panic is we need to be open and honest, right? That's why I'm— if you, as on my social channels, you can see that I'm an open book when it comes to mental health, my mental health issues, anxiety, panic, OCD. I'm pretty, I'm pretty open about what I'm dealing with. And it took me a long time to get there, but I'm open about it. So first, we need to be open about it. Second thing is be open with the people that can help you, right? So if your mom is driving, let your mom know, hey mom, I want to drive to around the block, right? Because what you want to do is you want to inundate yourself with the very thing that causes the panic, right? So you want to get— I know it's hard. I know it sucks. I know you don't want to do it. I get it. I understand it. I know it's scary. I get it. But the only way you're going to overcome the panic and the anxiety is to, is to allow the panic anxiety to come and then to work through it. So how are you going to do that if you walk everywhere? How are you going to do that if you stay at home? You have to live life, and part of living life is driving. Having said that, you want to get— you want to work yourself into longer distances. You wanna— so, so you wanna— you maybe start around the block, and then after you get around the block fine, you want to start around maybe do a mile. And then after a mile's fine, you want to get yourself into 5 miles, 10 miles, whatever. You want to put yourself constantly in the position that you're gonna have these— this anxiety and panic so you can work through it. If we don't work through it and we don't do the things in which we need to do to overcome it, we'll never overcome it, and then it will always be there, right? So you have to get yourself in that situation. And, um, probably next week I'll probably talk about journaling and how we journal. You can journal, help yourself journal through situations like these panic attacks. Yeah, you can definitely do the mindfulness while you're driving. You can have your own, you can definitely do it while you're, while you're driving. It might be a little bit more difficult, but you, again, all you're doing is scanning, right? Deborah, all you're doing is scanning where you're at. You're feeling your— if you are driving, you're feeling your hands on the steering wheel. You're actually seeing the road. You can maybe roll down your window and hear the wind. So you know where you're at physically. And then again, emotionally where you're at. Are you happy? Are you sad? Are you scared? Are you whatever? This is the same exact thing. It's— you have to pay a bit more attention, especially if you, if you, if you yourself are driving. So it becomes kind of an art. But I would, again, any of this stuff I would practice while doing like a block or a mile. I wouldn't go off and go 200 miles. I would do this stuff short distances, short to get yourself in a rhythm where you understand what to do, and then you branch out. But I, I think what I'm trying to tell you guys Is you want to not, not do the things in which is going to cause the panic anxiety. You want to go do the very things that you want to cause the anxiety. Um, and Katie, I'm not sure, I don't really want to talk about our specific coaching, but I, I'm, I'm coaching Katie one-on-one. Um, and I made her, I was with her and made, and actually made her do something that would cause a panic attack. I'll cause her anxiety. And I was with her when she did that through, through, uh, FaceTime. And she did— she was scared. She, she, she— but she did it right. She confronted it. Um, oh, it's a total control issue. It's a— don't know, don't— Stormy, it's a total control issue, and we got to understand that. So anyway, back to, back to Kitty. Kitty, let me know if I'm stepping balance here. I won't go into specifics what we're coaching about, but let me know if I'm crossing any lines here. But I was with her during a high anxiety time and walking her through that process. Thanks, Katie. And so the thing that I was so proud of her about was you can see it on her face, the anguish and the anxiety that she was feeling. really kind of probably panicky, definitely was having an anxiety attack with me on the very activity that I was having her do. What I was so proud of her about was she actually did it, right? She actually did the very thing in which she was so anxious about doing. Now, was she happy about it? No. Did she hate me for doing it? Probably. But we did work through it, right? And she had a victory in her life. that she hadn't had for years, maybe even decades. And so she had that victory in her life and now she can build upon that victory. If she— this is why I like doing coaching like this because it allows you to take me with you and puts— and allows me to help, you know, puts me in a position where I can help you kind of walk through that panic and anxiety while you're having it. So, you know, I wanna publicly tell everybody I'm very proud of you, Katie. Thank you. I just saw the anguish on your face. Even going through that exercise, and you still did it, right? You could have cut me off, you could have blocked me, you could have did whatever you had to do, but you did walk through it. So having said that, we need to walk through— and I don't know if it's me, I don't know if it's your husband or your boyfriend or your friend or your pastor or a therapist or whatever, but it's good to have someone kind of walk you through that process. Um, and hold you accountable to doing it as well, right? That's sort of the other thing. The key to this is, hey, you got to do the mindfulness stuff, right? You have to do those mindfulness tools and techniques. I'll send out my blog. Like I said, I think I wrote a couple of blogs on this. I'll send out my blog on this. So you must do this on a consistent basis and don't hide from the anxiety or the panic. Go do the very thing that you don't want to do. That's what's key, right? That's what's gonna get you over the hump and get you on the road to recovery is go do the very things that you don't wanna do. So hopefully that helps. Was there any other questions? Oh, sorry. I know, Chris, I think you had a question about your mom taking your daughter to Florida. So did you, Crystal? Did you have a specific question? Oh, she didn't ask you because of it. Okay, got it. She's taking your daughter. She's not taking you because she's not— she doesn't want to— she doesn't want to ask you to do things anymore. And a lot of things, a lot of times, guys, I'm going to be, um, uh, how can I say this? I'm going to be blunt. Yeah, I'm going to be blunt with you, right? I'm going to be blunt with everybody here. A lot of times, us that deal with struggle with anxiety Is we curse ourselves, right? We, we, we— a lot of times people don't understand us and we try to— we get angry with them, we get frustrated with them, we get, um, depressed by them or depressed with them, whatever. We, we try to justify why we have, why we have what we have when we don't understand ourselves. Having said that, A lot of people like your mom, Crystal, will give up on us because we don't want to do the very things to overcome our anxieties, right? So a lot of times people will give up on us because we gave up on ourselves, right? We don't want— we gave up on ourselves and we become reclusive. We become negative. We become— Overwhelmed. We become just a burden to be around, to be frank with you. And because we become like this, we people don't want to be around us. I get it. I understand it. We I have toxic people in my in my family that I don't want to be around. My mother being one of them. Um, so I I get it. I understand it. She might see you, Crystal, as toxic as as toxic. Toxic if I can get it out. And that's okay. Um, that's one of the things in which we need to understand ourselves. We need to confront, we need to look in the mirror and say, yes, I have been toxic. I have not been confronting my anxiety. I have not been doing the very things in which will help me overcome my anxiety. So a lot of times we, a lot of times we get what we reap, right? So we are doing the things Or not doing the things to help us get over our anxiety or help us beat it. I don't really think we get over it. We kind of, we beat it. We become toxic and people don't want to be around us. And so one of the things in which I was like that, man, I had, I was, I was a, I was a, I was a complete ass. I was a complete ass. People just did not want to be around me. I was negative. I was self-loathing. I was frowned upon. I was just downright— no one wanted to be around me, right? I was a recluse. I was everything, you know, everything was always wrong with me. And, you know, I went to see this doctor, that doctor, and finally I just said, you know, finally at a breaking point with me, I'm like, you know what? I'm tired of this, man. I need to step up and do the very things in which I don't want to do. And so I worked on it. It took me years to get there. But you can see now where I'm— I have my moments. But a lot of times, you know, people, they find— now I've kind of flipped it around, right? Now I'm, you know, people flock to me, not only through my social channels, but because I'm open and real and I'm open and honest about what's going on. But I don't look at my anxiety as a detriment no more, right? It's a thorn in my side that I've learned to kind of live with. And struggle through. And with my struggles, I haven't been a burden to anybody. So I get family members like that. I get family members that don't understand. I get family members that really don't know what to say and they don't know what to do. And, you know, they know that you're struggling, but they don't really understand it. So I get it. I wouldn't, you know, we're hypersensitive. Uh, stuff— I struggle with anxiety. Everything bothers us. And so we're hypersensitive to certain situations and certain family members or certain, you know, likes that I don't get on my social channels or anything like that. We become really judgmental in a way that we're judging ourselves, right? And I think that we need to show ourselves grace and show ourselves some self-love. And as long as we're doing the things in which we want to do to to beat our anxiety. Like, take for instance this mindfulness thing, right? I'll check in with you guys next week to see who actually did it, right? Who's gonna, who's gonna watch this thing again, do the breathing, do the mindfulness thing? I know, I know it takes time. I know it, we, I know it's frustrating. I know that we don't always feel like doing something. I get it. But this, these are the things in which we need to do to beat anxiety. Right. That's— I get it, Crystal. I understand you, right? That's one of the things that us that struggle with anxiety, I get, I understand it. And so I can relate. But, you know, a lot of times we self-loathe and it just— we're our own worst enemy. We really are. And then we get pissed off. Or jealous or mad that people don't want to be around us. That's the that's that's the crazy thing about anxiety, right? Is we get all pissed mad and and bent out of shape because we're the negative ones and we're the we're the ones that don't want to be around because we're downright flipping negative. And of course, no one wants to be around a negative person. And then we get mad at them because they don't want to be around us, right? It just doesn't make sense. I get it. I understand it. Let's make a turn. Let's change it. Let's do the very things in our life that will change who we are, and, and people want to be around us, so people will accept us. And when we first— first, when we come to understanding of what we're dealing with, have the acceptance of it, learn from it, then we can make a change about it, right? Exactly, Stormy. So, I mean, Just, just what you said, right? We're pissed off at other people that can do this stuff when the actuality is, Stormy, you can do this. You can do the very thing in which your 20 friends are doing. You just have to make a decision and do the work it's going to take to do the very thing that your 20 friends are doing, right? That's the difference, is making a decision. You got to make a decision that you are sick and tired of being sick and tired Of struggling and dealing with not working through the anxiety, right? You got to get to that point in your life that you're just— you're done, and you're going to go do the very things that your 20 friends are doing, right? And when you make that decision, it's funny, once you make that decision— and a couple of you people, a couple, couple of people that I'm coaching have made that decision— they're just like, they're fed up with how they're feeling. And they're doing the very things that they don't want to do to go eventually one day go do the very things that they once wanted to do, if that makes sense, and if I'm talking in circles. Right. But you can be those 20 friends, Stormy. You have to understand that and believe that once you make a decision that, that you'll go do the very things in which you need to go do to go do the things that your friends are doing. Right? And then you won't be pissed off. People will flock to you. Each and every one of us, I want you to understand this very, very closely, each and every one of us has a gift, right? This is— I truly understand that anxiety is a thorn in our side to help one another, right? We not only want to support each other, but one day your story and what you're dealing with if you work through it, it's going to touch someone else's life. Right? You got to, you have to internalize that and understand that and know that you were, all of us created special. All of us are created here for a purpose. Unfortunately, right now we're dealing with some stuff with our anxiety that are stopping us from our purpose. Once we make a decision to move forward and move past that, What will happen is, now again, most of you know that I'm a Christian and I'm a believer. And so I talk in such sense, I talk in such context that each and every one of us has a God's gift to another, right? And once we hone in on that and once we understand that, all the stuff, all the trauma, all the stuff that has gone to— that's happened to us, Finally, it makes sense, right? And once it makes sense, then, then you have a purpose. And once you have a purpose, then you'll create the drive. And once you create the drive, then things will start changing, right? But everything that's happened to you right now, in the past, is there for a particular reason. You just need to understand it and work through it and make a decision to, to now Take that, take what was, take what was done or take what was felt or whatever and then move forward, right? That's the difference between me and a therapist. And I, I've, I've talked to Elise, I think Katie, about this. Therapists, what they want to do is they want to talk about why you got in the hole. They want to, they want to delve in to understand why you got in your hole. My goal and what I want to do is understand How to get you out of the hole and get you moving forward. I really don't care why you got in the hole. I know you're in the hole. You wouldn't be— you wouldn't be here if you're in the hole, right? If you're not in the hole and moving forward, you wouldn't be talking to me, or you wouldn't be coached by me, or wouldn't be on my Facebook group or my anxiety coaching group. You wouldn't be— you're in the hole. My goal now is to get you out of the hole and moving forward, right? That's what— that's the difference between me and therapy. Now, therapists, don't get me wrong, Some people need therapists, especially if you're dealing with, with, you know, really, really bad depression, or you need to understand some context on why you're in the hole. So therapy is— there are reasons for therapists. Having said that, that's the difference between a coach like myself and a therapist. So anyway, I always get on my soapbox with that, so I apologize. But I think that for every single one of us, We need to clearly understand that I— why we're good, why we've gone through this and why we're going through this. And this— and you're doing this because one day your story is gonna save a life. And you gotta internalize that and understand that. If I would've thought that I would've been taught— I would be talking to 5 beautiful people about Beating anxiety 5 years ago, I would not even have talked to one, right? So when you, when you internalize that and come to a deeper understanding of that, it changes perspective. It changes the way you think. It changes what you do. And you, like I said, you, you have a purpose, and that's what's key. Well, it's, it's, it's true, Crystal. It's absolutely true. Your, your story and what you're dealing with right now is going to save another person's life, and I want everybody to understand that, right? The better you understand that, the quicker you understand that, the more you'll have a purpose, right? I can't, I can't even tell you how many people have reached out to me. I think everybody that's chatting right now, right now has reached out to me before we got on the social channel about how do I beat anxiety and how do I do this and how do I do that. I have countless amount of people that reach out to me on a daily basis, um, on, you know, just they're struggling, right? And, and, and, you know, I just, I, for me, I came to a decision and to an understanding that my life is worth it. I'm worthy, just like every single one of you are worthy. Um, even though you may not feel it, you're worthy because your life and what you've gone— what you've gone through and what you will and are going through is for a reason. And you're going to touch someone's life, right? You're going to save a life. And you got to, you got to understand that, internalize that, and, and now use that as a platform For you to get better. Now, you can't, you can't, you can't really make someone— or I, I don't want to say make someone— you really can't, quote unquote, help someone get better until you're better, right? Until you were doing the mindful exercises on a daily basis. How are you going to teach it if you ain't doing it, right? How are you going to teach someone? How about, Crystal, how can I teach you how to walk through a panic attack if I have never gone through a panic attack? and haven't been doing the very things that I'm telling you to do? Or Katie, how can I walk you through that process without understanding the feelings and the emotions that you were going through during that time? There's no way I could. That's a liar. That's a hypocrite. So because of that, you need to go do the very things in which you don't want to do. And so that's part of the motivation of why we have— that's why I created this group. That's why I have the anxiety coaching group that I have going. And that's why I have the one-on-one coaching. And hell, that's why I preach on, on my social channels, is go do the very thing in which you don't want to do. And for, for you, Crystal, that might be, you know, having a panic attack and walking through it. Stormy, that might be you driving 5 miles out of the way. Katie, that might be you dealing with the struggles that you're dealing with, right? It's just, you have to walk through it. And you have to incorporate the tools that you've learned, hopefully that I'm helping you kind of walk through to do the very things, right? So hopefully this tonight was helpful. Hopefully you've learned something. I'm going to check in with you guys on the mindfulness stuff. Probably, I'll probably post it either tonight or tomorrow. You need to look for it on my site. I'm launching my new site next month. Thanks for my headshot photos. You should see all the 20-something-year-old men that think I'm 30-something for some reason reaching out to me. I can't post anymore about my wife. I think everybody knows I'm married. So, but the gay 20-year-olds, they just, oh geez, you think we have problems. Yeah. Anyway, having said that, I'll post those articles on the social channels. And then, you know, let's hold each other accountable. Let's ask each other if we're doing our mindful exercises on a daily basis. This next week, guys, just try it daily for 2 minutes. Just do 10 breaths and sit there for 2 minutes. Yeah, I know, guys. It's— I'm going to save it. I'm going to finish it. I'm going to save this video. The 20-something-year-olds. Oh, geez, man. Oh my God. Anyway, um, I don't know. I don't, I don't— my, my pictures, to be honest, are not, you know— do I put like a little flare on them for a filter? Sometimes. But I mean, this is me live. I guess, I guess I look 20-something. I don't know. I don't look 20-something. Um, having said that, yeah, so let's hold each other accountable. Let's— that's part of this group. And, um, I'd love for everybody to get to know each other. I want to get the group out as well. So I know that, um, let's share it on— yeah, yeah. I don't look 20, do I? I mean, I got, I got the gray. You guys can see the gray. So I'm, you know, I don't look 20. Um, I don't know what— I don't— I have the wrinkles up here if you can see them. Um, anyway, having said that, uh, I'm not— if you think we're crazy, let the 20-somethings The 20-something-year-old gay guys chat with you or send you a message. Anyway, um, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm not even in my 30s either. Um, so having said that, uh, so yeah, let's hold each other accountable. Let's check in on each other. Um, like I said, I want to build a community here, so, um, feel free to post, just, you know, post on, on the Facebook site. Um, Answer or ask questions, and let's, let's really build this community. I think, uh, the new term nowadays is tribe. My, my wife's in the social media world, so she calls it the tribe or something like that. Um, but, uh, yeah, let's, let's get the word out. Let's get people that are struggling on this, on this, um, to really— so we can talk about things like this. Um, specifically, I can never get that word out. The tools and techniques that we need to learn to beat anxiety. So next week, it sounds like journaling was something that we want to go through. What I'll do is maybe— sorry, guys. Next week, I'll go through the journaling and I'll show you. I don't have my book with me right now, but I'll go through how I journal and then how I kind of mind map a lot of my stuff. With how I, how I mind map it with my different thought processes, and it really helps me understand what I'm thinking about. So we'll probably go through that next week. Like I said, I want to do this— like, I'll probably do this every Thursday. I'm hoping that it seems like Thursday is the best day for everybody. So anyway, hopefully this was helpful. Again, if you have any questions for me, obviously direct message me. And if you want to do any group Um, coaching, I have that group coaching happening, or if you wanna do one-on-one coaching with me as well, um, you can reach out to me for that. So anyway, this is a great chat, guys. Um, have a good night. We'll talk soon. Take care. Bye.