The episode opens with a brief endorsement of Anchor, a free platform for recording and publishing podcasts across multiple services. Host Ryan Light then introduces himself and the beatanxiety.me podcast, explaining that this is his first episode. He shares his personal history of over 30 years living with anxiety, beginning in childhood with panic and intrusive thoughts, and later developing pure‑O (obsessive thoughts without compulsions) that spanned sexual, violent, and religious themes. Light recounts decades of unsuccessful attempts to manage his anxiety through medication, therapy, and countless medical specialists, culminating in a severe crisis about ten years ago that brought him to the brink of suicide. This crisis forced him to confront the underlying sources of his anxiety, which he now believes are rooted in trauma, limiting beliefs, and early life messages. He describes his healing journey as a process of digging into emotional, sexual, and physical trauma, and notes that as he addresses these root causes, the anxiety symptoms gradually lessen. Light outlines a four‑step framework for healing—acknowledgement, acceptance, discovery, and embracing—and states that the podcast will use this platform to share his story, answer listener questions, interview guests, and foster a community of mutual healing. He concludes with contact information for beatanxiety.me across Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and the website, inviting listeners to join the journey.
Chapters
Hey guys, ever thought about creating your own podcast? I think Anchor is an excellent resource for us to do that. You know, when I was looking to create a podcast, I was looking for a tool in which I could use that would allow me to record and publish to multiple platforms, and I found that by using Anchor. They have some great tools to use. And when you record and publish, it publishes out to all major publications. So it's really a one-stop shop that allows you to create your own podcast and, uh, and then publish it out to all various, um, different platforms, which I just love. Check them out. Make sure you go and download the free app and, or go to anchor.fm to get started.
Hi guys, this is Ryan Light with beatanxiety.me, your host, where we will be going over the struggles of anxiety and learning how to heal the underlying causes. Well, hello everybody, this is Ryan Light from beatanxiety.me, and this is going to be my very first podcast. I've been, um, really thinking about doing this for the past couple of years, and I had a number of people ask me if I had a podcast and really gave it some thought and thought, you know, why not? Why not try this thing out? Why not try, um, the whole podcast world out? So, um, this is my very first one. If I stutter or use words like um a lot or I pause to think. Bear with me because that is— I'm not a public speaker, so to say, though if you do put me on a podium, I do feel at home. So I thought that this would be a really good test for me to really dive into anxiety. I've been really struggling. If you don't know my story, I'm probably going to use this first podcast as a as a kind of intro to me. Who am I? What am I about? What is up with this anxiety thing? And really, what is up with this whole beatanxiety.me? And just to give you a little bit about me, I'm— my name is Ryan Light, and I've been struggling with anxiety for over 30 years now. I'm in my mid-40s. My first episode of anxiety started with intrusive thoughts. Though I probably had elements of panic and elements of just general anxiety as an adolescent. I remember times in my 7, 8 years old, I remember times of having panic and times of being just really anxious about life and what was going on. And as you'll learn to come to understand about me, there's a lot of— there's a backdrop, right? There's— and what I've really found about anxiety is there really is a backdrop to anxiety. I always talk about Um, anxiety is kind of the manifestation, and really that those are only the causes. So the things that we all struggle with, with, you know, this, the can't breathe and the choking feelings and the, the control feelings and those types of things, those are simply manifestations of really what lies deep within us. And what I've found is as we start to heal those things that are under the anxiety, the anxiety starts to dissipate. So I'm hoping that I can use this platform as a way for me to kind of speak my mind, be honest and open about not only my own struggle, but how I can help you through your struggle as well. So anyway, like I said, I've been struggling with anxiety for about 20— I'm sorry, about 30 years now. 20 of those years I struggled with it unhealthy. And you'll hear me say a lot in my— during my podcast, a lot around unhealthy coping mechanisms and then healthy coping— hoping— excuse me, healthy coping mechanisms and healthy coping mechanisms. I'll get this out as I start to really start to dive in and talk about anxiety as a whole. So I'm sorry again if I stutter at all. at all, or if I mumble. My wife tells me I mumble a lot, so maybe, um, hopefully this will help me. Anyway, I spent 20 years of my life really struggling with depression, general anxiety, intrusive thoughts, which is also known as OCD or pure O because I didn't have the compulsions. I had the obsessions, the obsessive thought, the obsessive thoughts. Typically obsessive thoughts are around 3 core elements. They're either sexual in nature, violent in nature, or religious in nature. And interesting enough, I struggled with all 3 of those. So I am what's called a pure O. And then 10 of those years I've been really kind of healing the anxiety, healing, going through my healing journey and going through my own process of recovery. And really looking at anxiety from a different lens and treating it differently. A lot of times what I found during my 20 years of struggle is I really looked to manage the anxiety. So I did things to cope with it. I did things to manage it. I went to a litany of doctors and countless— I took countless medications and I saw psychologists and psychiatrists and general doctors and Heart doctors and neurologists, and I mean, the list goes on and on and on. For us that struggle with anxiety, we know what that means, right? We know that when we— we know that we've gone through the litany of doctors looking for ways to kind of cure or get rid of anxiety. So I spent a good part of my life kind of struggling with that, dealing with that, and kind of working through that, and I really, for me, nothing really worked. I really couldn't find anything that really worked. So, you know, yeah, I would pop medication. Yeah, I would take vitamins or I would exercise or I would talk about this and talk about that. I really do kind of do talk therapy. I did that for about 20 years, to be honest with you, and nothing ever seemed to help. And then about 10 years ago, I kind of hit rock bottom and I went through a stage in my life where I really— the panic attacks were really taking over my life. I felt panicky all the time. I would— I got kind of really— I got the feeling of not being here kind of feeling, which is the depersonalization feeling that a lot of us talk about, a lot of us might struggle with. And so I kind of felt that for about a year. And I was really at wit's end, and I was really at a point in my life where I just couldn't handle it no more, and I wanted to break free of the anxiety. And for me, the only way that I saw breaking free of the anxiety was doing the unthinkable, and that was taking my life. And as I reflect back on that time, what was interesting about that was that was a really— it was a wake-up call for me. Because I really, at that time, I really made a decision that, you know, either I'm going to do this, or I'm going to really get real with what's going on and really get real with healing this thing. And as I did that, what I came to understand, what I've come to understand is that, at least for me, and I really coach this now when I coach individuals, is anxiety at the root is really— it's trauma-based, it's limiting beliefs, it's how we think. It's really— and granted, that comes from trauma, that comes from life issues, that comes from limiting beliefs that we have about ourselves. It comes from what parents have told us, people have told us, what the world have told us. And so as we start to believe these things, we still live in such a way, um, that causes the anxiety. And as I discovered for myself that I really had to start looking at the root causes, right? I had to start really going through the process of healing those things in my life that needed to be healed. Uh, the emotional trauma that I, uh, that I had, the, the sometimes sexual trauma that I had, uh, some, uh, the, uh, physical trauma that I had, the physical abuse that I went through. So as I started really digging deep into those things, when I started really getting real with myself around those things, um, it was interesting that as I started to kind of go through that, work through that, and heal that, what happened was the anxiety that was associated with these traumas and with these issues started to slowly dissipate. Now granted, I'm not healed. I'm not healed, right? I'm healing. So I'm in the process of healing. And so for some of us, we've been on this journey for a day, some of us an hour, some of us a year, some of us a decade, some of us it's a lifelong journey. And so I really talk about this journey as a journey, right? It's not something that I've— it's not a destination, right? I think that anxiety as we go through life comes and goes. It's going to be good times, there's going to be bad times, we're going to get triggered, and there's going to be times in which, um, things got— things come at us. But as we learn to heal those things, what we do is we react to those triggers, we react to those, uh, things in life a little bit different. And you're going to hear me talk a lot about, uh, acknowledgement, a lot about acceptance, a lot about discovery and a lot about embracing. And I believe that that is a process in which we all have to go through to heal these things in our life. We have to acknowledge that we are struggling. We have to then accept that we accept the things that had happened or things that are happening, discover the causes, right? Discover, was it a limiting belief? Was it a self-worth issue? Was it trauma? Was it the litany of things? The list could go on and on and on, but discover those things in which is causing the anxiety. And then from that, we can start embracing these things. We can start changing our mindset and changing the way we think about things. And as we do that, we will heal and the anxiety will start to dissipate. So, um, what I plan to do is I really plan to use this as a platform, but I don't Only times on my own struggle and times that I'm going through my own stuff, but also to answer questions and kind of just speak freely and openly about ways in which we can beat anxiety. And we beat anxiety, I believe, through healing the underlying causes. So I look forward to this journey with you. I look forward to creating stories, going through stories and questions, and maybe having some Some people I can interview on the show, but I really look forward to having you partner with me as we go along this journey and we heal together. So I'm excited about it. I look forward to it. And once again, this is Ryan Light. You can reach me or contact me. I'm on all the major social channels at Instagram at beatinganxiety.me, Twitter at beatinganxiety.me. I believe it's. I believe, of Beat Anxiety Me. I can't remember my Twitter handle, uh, but then on Facebook as well, um, under beatanxiety.me. Or my website is, uh, beatanxiety.me. So anyway, guys, I look forward to this journey with you, and we'll talk to you soon. Take care. Bye. Bye.
