Listening to Anxiety: What Your Body Is Trying to Tell You

This is episode 1 95. We're talking about listening to your anxiety, what your body is trying to tell you

Welcome to Wellness. In every season, we talk all things wellness, to help you align yourself, align with your goals, find balance in your life, and just recalibrate yourself if you are listening for the first time. Welcome, welcome. I'm so glad you're here, and let's get started in the rest of the podcast.

this is important if you have any kind of neurodivergency, because oftentimes anxiety is a part of it. For me personally, I have ADHD, diagnosed, lived it. And I did not realize that I have anxiety along with it until I started taking a medication that also helps with anxiety.

And suddenly I didn't have anxiety. I didn't realize that's what it was until it was gone, and it was like, oh, okay, that's what's happening here. So listen to this. Even if you are somebody who says, I don't have anxiety, because I've said that my whole life, I've never been diagnosed with it, and suddenly it's.

Hold on a second.

So before we really jump in though, I wanna tell you that this episode is

part of a starting to become a global reach. It's through podcast is what it's called. It's where a whole bunch of podcasters that are English speaking, French speaking Dutch, and I think we're starting to get German speaking, podcasters around the world are getting together for this week and we are doing donation based episode, and we get to choose who we are sponsoring and if you guys want to help support them.

Then you look in the description and you can click the link and you can go and donate. I'll note that.

And the place that I have chosen to sponsor is the National Alliance on Mental Illness or NAMI. And the reason why I chose this one is because it relates to talking about wellness. Mental health is huge.

It's really hard to take care of your physical health if you're not taking care of your mental health, your social health, all these other areas of wellness, professional, intellectual, but if your mental health is struggling, everything is struggling in life. We have all have lived experiences.

Some short, some long, some ongoing, some in the past, some in the future of this. So. NAMI is someone that I choose to support because they are a nonprofit that does a lot of work raising awareness about mental health and helping people who are struggling, who can't afford help.

So let's talk about anxiety for a minute.

I've told you my own personal experience, but I want to share with you a little bit more and. It's going to be a little bit different today. Not only am I sponsoring somebody through podcast on NAMI is who I'm sponsoring again, but we're gonna talk about stress or anxiety, which they can kind of go hand in hand.

They kind of overlap, but they can be different. We're gonna talk about them in an abstract way, and we're gonna do a short experience with this. If you are driving, walking, running, you're not in a place where you can sit down and do this still join, know that you won't be able to do the full experience and you can come back to it to do the full experience.

No matter how much you can experience this and really dive into this, you're going to get something out of it. So just know that, and please share this with other people who are struggling with stress and anxiety because. Really, it's so hard to make it through this life or make it through the day unscathed at times.

So let's talk about a big misunderstanding with anxiety is that people believe it's something we should immediately silence or pushed away. Still struggle with that. As soon as I feel it, it's like, no, I don't want this.

For me today, I was driving to my dentist appointment to get teeth cleaned and I have a new enough car that I have CarPlay and my phone and CarPlay.

I was driving on the freeway and it flipped out and it was taking me in a way that I have never been before. Can you imagine the stress there and I. The more I try to struggle through and I'm gonna make this work, the more I start to feel that resistance. And it's that reminder of, okay, to go with the flow a little more.

But it's hard to get yourself there when you're in the middle of the stress of the anxiety. Do you agree?

But here's the idea. I wanted to push the anxiety away while I was going through this. This is why I was sharing my experience, is it often carries information. So for me it was that realization that I'm not trusting myself and that I knew most of the way to get there or I could figure it out. So that was the information for me, and it was also reminding me of the places that I haven't guilt with that anxiety.

Anxiety can come from past trauma and with directions. There is some past trauma there. Because my dad owned his own business and he would give me the map books. I don't know if you remember the old map books where you can turn the pages and see streets. He would hand that to me and I was a little kid barely learning how to read.

He would hand it to me and say, navigate me here, instead of pulling over on the road and figuring it out himself as an adult. And it was a lot of pressure and it was, I need to know right now how to get to this client's house. Very stressful. So when Google Maps stopped working for me, it was bringing in that stress.

And it's that reminder that your body is incredibly intelligent. And for me it's, it's the stored emotions that are in different places within my body. And sometimes it, one stored emotion in one spot will kind of ping it to another spot and then maybe another spot, at least that happens in my body.

And I've realized that with other people that I've coached. Sometimes your anxiety is simply your nervous system asking you to pay attention.

Where do I need to heal? What do I need to release? Can I imagine it releasing from those areas on that?

So if you're driving, no, you're not going to be able to do the full experience if you're running or walking. Same. But if you're able to sit down with me like I am right here, you can do the full experience. And if you're somewhere comfortable, this will only take a few minutes. If you're not, it still will.

Okay, so let's talk about why this matters as you dive into it. Many people live almost entirely in their thoughts. I have been there. I'm still learning how to unplug in a healthy way. Because we often think of unplugging like and have a remote in my hand, or that phone in my hand, or the Kindle in my hand, or it's, you are unplugging from thoughts, but then you're putting other thoughts in forced thoughts of whatever you're watching or reading or doing instead of just relaxing and breathing and being in the moment.

And anxiety takes you out of the moment.

And it doesn't start in the mind, it starts in the body. Emotions start in our body and then we attach a thought to them. I don't know if you've ever heard that before, but the first time I heard that I was like, hold on. Wait, what? And the more I thought about it and experience it for myself, it makes sense.

Try that on. It might feel as tightness in your chest. Press in your throat, maybe your throat, feeling out of alignment and not in your stomach, tension in your shoulders, erasing heart, all of them. If it's all of them, then ooh, you're really feeling some big things.

It can feel like maybe your hip's feeling out of alignment or a little sole. Think about it. What does it feel like for you? It can be very general. The population feels good, but it can also be very specific to you. Where does it start in your body? For me, it starts more in my diaphragm that tightening.

When we ignore these signals, they tend to get louder. Think about that for a second. You reflect on past times. Is that true or false for you? Does it tend to get louder when you ignore them?

What about when you listen to them? Do they soften? For me, it's sometimes.

It's also because I am listening. Well, trying to shove it away instead of having maybe a longer exhale or, okay, what is this trying to tell me? What do I need to do about this?

So it's that reminder instead of doing things faster in the wrong direction, it. Slow down. Okay, let's restart this. So when we listen, it soften. I notice that for me, in my experience, what have you noticed?

That's what we're gonna practice. You ready? Okay.

So if you are able to find a comfortable chair and sit down, you're not your comfortable chairs, your car. I sound like a mom right now. It's the feet you're sitting in while driving, or it's while you're walking or running or cleaning the house. If you're cleaning the house, take a minute and just sit down.

This will be fast, okay? Or holding laundry. Whatever you're doing, let your feet rest on the floor if you're able to, and allow your hands to relax on the steering wheel or in your lap. Take a slow breath in and then gently exhale. Now, close your eyes if you're not driving or walking or moving.

And just for a moment, I want you to create a little bit of anxiety. Tiny bit, nothing overwhelming. Maybe think about a task that you've been avoiding. Or something, you know, you need to deal with soon. Anything coming to mind for you?

If nothing is coming to mind, maybe think about a conversation that you need to have with somebody that's uncomfortable that you've been avoiding. This is just enough of that little bit of anxiety to feel the sensation and then pause.

Notice where that feeling appears in your body.

Is it any of the areas that I mentioned before? The throat, the shoulders I mentioned for myself. It's the diaphragm. Is it maybe the heart? Maybe the stomach. For me, it can depend on what exactly I'm feeling. Sometimes it's in the stomach.

Okay, so notice it. Like I said, it could be in your chest, your stomach, your throat, maybe your hip.

Maybe none of those areas that I mentioned. Wherever it shows up gently place your hand there driving just one, one hand. Let your hand rest on that spot. And now bring your attention to the sensation itself. And this is part somatic work here. If you're. If you ever wondered what the word somatic is about your body

now, what does that feel like? Is it tight, heavy, warm, sharp, bubbly? Does it move or stay still? Just observe it, not analyzing it. Stay curious There. Imagine that this sensation is trying to show you something. Let your awareness follow the feeling, almost as if it's leading you somewhere, your own personal journey.

Stay curious. If your mind wanders, that's okay. But bring your attention back to the sensation under your hand. Stay with it and just breathe. For me, because of fast trauma, I find that the longer exhale, make it a longer exhale than an inhale. It centers me. I can't do breathing exercises where I do longer inhales than exhales.

It triggers me. So if you need to do box breathing where you do four and four. Hold for before pour out. Hold before pour in whatever breathing works for you so that you can stay grounded in this moment. Okay?

And bring your attention back to that sensation. Where is it leading? You

now slowly take a deeper breath. Notice whether the sensation has shifted at all. Maybe it's softened, move, stayed the same,

doesn't matter what. It's done perfectly, okay? No matter what.

Gently open your eyes if they were closed, and then reflect on this. What did you experience? Did you experience anything and what have you learned from this experience? Now you can analyze it a little bit. Don't go too deep into self theorizing yourself in any way, shape, or form.

But this is just to give you an idea of where does your anxiety typically reside in your body, and what is it trying to tell you? And then what can you do about it if it's an easy fit. If it's not an easy fit, then this is exactly why nami, why I'm sponsoring them, why I'm giving you the chance to donate to them.

And if this isn't the right fit for you, maybe coaching is for you. I am a coach. I am happy to help you through this. You have friends or you should have friends. Or speak to a friend who is really good at listening to you. Another option is you can journal about it, to let you have that chance to really reflect and dig deeper in safe environment where you're not feeling judged and where you're not going to be judging yourself.

Somebody who will call you out as soon as you start going down the judgment.

Because one of the interesting things about anxiety is that it often changes the moment you give it attention. Not because we forced it to go away, but because we stop fighting it. That is important. That part, we stop fighting it. Our nervous system responds to curiosity vary differently than it responds to resistance.

And sometimes when people do this exercise, they realize the anxiety was connected to something specific. Like for me, with that whole having to look at the paper maps and try and read it while going down a road. And I used to get a little bit of car stick with it too, and I was just learning how to read.

So it triggered a lot of things for me. It's reminding myself that I know the town that I live in and I can figure out how to get there eventually. And I was running super early, so I had all of these things going for me. It was raining. Yes, I could have pulled over. Yes, I figured it out. And is that a reminder?

Heard that quote of everything is figureoutable. Like saying that a couple times in a row. So what is yours? Is it related to a conversation you've been avoiding? A boundary that needs to be set, a decision you've been postponing. Maybe an area where you need to learn some more self-trust. Like where I was this morning or maybe.

You simply need to release a little bit of tension that's been sitting in the body. Totally get that. That's usually me after I've gotten my kids out the door in the morning. So no matter the outcome, it is valuable to be able to do this exercise because you are to reconnect with your body. We talked about emotions and past episodes and now there's still.

An emotion, the anxiety part, it's about reconnecting. We live in such a world where we disconnect all the time. When we are unplugging, we're still disconnecting. Instead of learning to be in the moment, to be tuned in, maybe tuned into nature around us, or tuned into ourselves just tuning that, move on. We have value.

And these actions matter our experiences.

So when anxiety shows up during the day, try this simple question, where do I feel it in my body? Then place your hand there and breathe for 10 to 20 seconds and you might be surprised. How quickly your nervous system begins to regulate. I noticed that for me, and it's something that I've been working on since I started work with my somatics coach two years ago now.

I don't even know how long it's been, but you'll also notice that it's not about eliminating the anxiety, it's about learning to listen to it. And this goes back to a previous episode that I did. That's called the nightly check-in which this goes really well, where you can really check in and what is my body trying to tell me?

What's coming up for me? So here are some coaching questions to go along with this. When anxiety shows up for me, where do I usually feel it in my body? What might this feeling be asking me to pay attention to? And what small step could I take that might ease this tension?

I hope you found this to be valuable. I know that this is something that I've been working on with clients and with myself and with my children, and it's made a really big difference in what.

That anxiety is okay. Our feelings are okay, and what we tell our kids almost constantly is it's what we do about it that matters. Things come up for us. We are human beings living this life, and we're not gonna go through this life like robots. We have higher thinking than robots. Which is something we also remind our children with the world of ai, but what matters is what we do about these emotions and these thoughts.

So I hope today's exercise resonated with you. I hope that you gained a lot out of this, and you have a great rest of your week, and I will see you in the next episode.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope that you found the answers that you needed, and you had some amazing aha moments. Please share this episode with others because it helps us align ourselves and then better align the world so that we can seek the healing that we really are looking for as part of the legal language.

I am a certified life coach with a Bachelor's in Applied Health. That is what I am leaning on for this. This is general advice. Take it as such. See you in the next episode.