6 Ways to "Overcome" Anxiety: I Know... It Feels Horrible

you know you know you know what this whole anxiety thing is all about you're here because you've experienced it you've experienced it like the vast minority has okay everybody has anxiety all over the world it's an umbrella term we know this under anxiety comes loneliness comes shame uh uncertainty discontent uh pain all kinds of things you you have sadness loneliness grief depression all that in there okay and we could normalize it say everybody experiences this which we do on a spectrum of course we do you know anxiety is so normal as far as the sweaty Palms as far as the increased heart rate as far as the biological factors of increased norrine and cortisol okay rushing through the body okay we have thoughts that just go right into the future and tell a story and we just get so sucked into this story that we completely lose our sense of of presence this has an effect on the body we've all had those digestive issues haven't we we've all had the tightness of muscles we've all had the sweats we've all had nerves but if you're here it's most likely because anxiety is may be chronic and it's coming up in your life more than you want to straight up it's like I wish this wasn't the case how many times have you said that I wish this wasn't what my life was like why is this happening to me why can't I be like everybody else why can't I just glide through a simple walk to the store what's with this social anxiety I'm not necessarily scared of people I just don't feel comfortable in crowds why can't I be comfortable why does this have to be so hard yeah and those questions are perfectly legitimate of course they're going to pop up and the things you see online I'm going to go through six things and I'm not going to drag this out but but real quick the things you see online right now especially from men okay I consider myself a sensitive man uh man and I and I I have a healthy sense of Pride with that okay but what you're seeing from toxic masculinity is that the gym can heal everything the cold plunge can heal everything I can go on a cold plunge longer than anybody on the internet I do it I don't brag about it it's what I do I do cold showers all the time I jump in the ocean in the North Pacific it's 0 degrees big deal okay I go to the gym it doesn't cure everything it doesn't Okay it helps it's a tool but to think that this whole anxiety thing in your life is just going to Blossom and be figured out and the red carpet's going to just lay out right in front of you because you did some bicep curls that's not it it's part of it okay so if if you're beating yourself up right now because you followed maybe a few people and you're doing these plans of of working out and getting your body ready this is one piece of the pie it's could be a fairly large piece for a lot of people it is some people are like yeah sugar was my only problem I got rid of sugar anxiety gone great that's you that's not me so let's go through six things that I think will really be useful to you to to just chill out and and listen to okay just just chill for a bit and let's go through this because I wouldn't be talking about this if I didn't experience it myself guys my anxiety was so bad I was in the hospital just dealing with chronic pain massive headaches that were both physiological with my with my neck and a whole bunch of stuff that needed to be sorted out but my body could not shut down it could not calm down do you know what it's like getting up every single morning in pain not wanting to live because what's the point of living if you're in absolute pain and anxious all the time okay so I empathize with you I do and I'm really sorry that it's hard for you and I know it sucks um and to wish it was different I get it that's a healthy thing to wish that's a healthy wish okay so let's go through a few things that I think will be helpful number one don't try to overcome it don't try to overcome it when I say overcome anxiety it's because people are typing it in in YouTube and maybe maybe this will be shown the overcoming what does that mean does that mean to have zero anxiety for the rest of your life right when people are thinking I'm going to meditate because I want no thoughts I want my mind to be still nobody has that it's an unrealistic expectation so overcoming it means knowing the territory overcoming it means you're still experiencing some anxiety in your life but you're able to hold it you're able to live with it with a little more space right I've talked about in other videos where you're either in anxiety you are anxious I am anxious meaning you know it's in you it's on you right or I'm feeling anxious which I'm feeling anxious I anxious I'm feeling anxious I'm with the anxiety or I am the anxiety and lot of you are also dealing with you know sometimes we have a lot of the um the the causation correlation is anxiety goes with depression you know you got the zipper of anxiety on one side the other zipper both teeth of depression and you just zip it together and you they got a hold on you and you're wearing that jacket and if you can create a bit of space and not try so hard to have an expectation of overcoming to deleting to getting rid of to being anti that puts you in the fight that puts you in the in the push that puts you in the repression that puts you in the suppression and what we want to do is more of an acceptance for what's here what's coming and this doesn't mean to do nothing about it this means that while you're doing some of the things that I'll talk about here it's you're not beating yourself up for it the expectation isn't to have zero so when we try so hard to have zero have zero anxiety have zero intrusive thoughts uh you know have zero bad sleeps have zero pain then if it's 1% anxiety we're upset and we're beating ourselves up if we have a little flash of elbow pain then we're beating oursel up because m did I feel something and people with anxiety are sensitive to more of these things we are more sensitive to pain actually we are more sensitive to headaches we are more sensitive you know a sunburn we are just more sensitive individuals there's a sensitivity to the environment so we need to be extra extra gentle with ourselves this goes for men this goes for men again uh the you know the farmers out there majority are men okay let's say they're they're planting crops man they're planting crops and all these hardworking men out there and they plant the seed and they let it they let it go they don't see the crop for weeks or months you water it you let the sun do its thing you water it you let the sun do its thing you have to be gentle with the crop you have to give it time you have to let it do what it's doing and somehow with our bodies we have to attack we have to fight we have to keep keep going keep pushing more chinups more curls more cold plunges more masculinity a big part of masculinity um is is being patient with yourself is giving yourself what you need and in the overcoming of anxiety the overcoming being patient with yourself is how you're going to do this and to have a a softer expectation of what overcoming actually means okay in the conquer anxiety course I put together conquer anxiety meaning not to conquer it and delete everything to conquer meaning before a battle you know the territory you know what you're dealing with and then you can conquer something meaning to know it so that's number one don't try to overcome it you know don't don't put so much energy into it that you're creating just a head-to-head fight with it then you're fighting against yourself okay set your expectations of of you know realistically what would I want to happen with this sense of anxiety through the day what if I could get it down 10% what would that do for me what about 3% what if I could what if I could just do a few things to help myself sleep at night okay so be gentle with yourself in that case and number two this is huge here is know yourself and know your triggers this is massive massive when we don't know who we are we're constantly in people pleasing mode I know all about that one oh my gosh we're in people pleasing mode meaning we're going to have to put on a mask put on some kind of persona to be able to meet somebody else's needs before ours we're constantly emptying our tank and we're constantly aware and sensitive already to the environment around us which is why people with anxiety are more people Pleasers we're sensitive to the feelings around us and other people's needs and other people's feelings and if you've had somewhat of an interesting childhood you are there to alleviate suffering around you and to lighten things up and make sure you know people are doing well around you so what you'll do is you'll be the best person in the room you'll help everybody else before you help yourself and when you're attuned to all of these things you're on constant threat mode you're in constant alert of how's that person doing how's that doing okay am I sitting in the right position are they looking at me that way how am I looking to that person how are they looking to me are they okay is this okay is that in the right place and you have to notice this that knowing yourself and knowing these kinds of triggers to know a trigger is one small part of the whole anxious experience to know a trigger is a really good thing but to know how it makes you explode on the inside is the more interesting part right so the the trigger of a gun is the very small part of a weapon but the ammunition the bullet the the Gunpowder the actual mechanism is a much larger part the barrel the handle it's a huge part of a weapon so you think about that as far as triggers the trigger is just a little thing but what is it inside you that makes you react and this is about knowing yourself this is it it's about being open whether it's in coaching whether it's in therapy it's about talking about these things openly seeing yeah I get anxious in that moment what's that all about yeah that really triggers me okay so you know a trigger awesome let's deal with that let's see what that's all about let's see what happens inside you when that goes on in your environment can you see how if you really really know yourself you know your triggers you know the kinds of people that might set you off on the inside there's a preparation that comes with that and there's also an acceptance that comes with that like I know who I am and what do you call those people who really know who they are you call them content and you say you're so sure of yourself what's the other SW word you're so secure you're so secure and what do we call the people that aren't sure of themselves who are just you know erratic and people pleasing and getting everywhere and doing this for that person that for that person yes we call them servers in in some way but we also call them insecure they don't know who they are they don't know what they stand for they don't know what they believe they don't have their feet on the ground so to get to a place of security means that you get to know yourself so right that one down so we have one don't try to overcome it be gentle number two get to know yourself and getting to know yourself is through a therapeutic process okay it also has um um you know I had to spend money to get to know myself I had to spend some money I did coaching programs I did therapy I've done silent Retreats I've worked with spiritual directors and a part of me in the back of my mind goes man oh man what a privilege you Scott you know how how dare you take all of this help just for you I need it simple I need it not everybody else does I do so I got what I needed knowing yourself is about knowing what you need what do you need what will help and go get it okay number three when you are being gentle with yourself when you are getting to know yourself when you are taking steps number three is self-compassion all this needs to be in a bubble of self-compassion in a parachute of self-compassion did you ever play that parachute game when you were a kid in the gym you'd have everyone would have the parachute you all the kids would be around and and I think you'd like yeah you'd go and then you'd all put it behind you and go under the parachute and for some reason when you're a child and even as an adult you feel safe under something under that parachute uh I feel safe in a tent uh when you made a fort as a kid I was playing with my nieces and we went kind of under the sheets we made a bit of a Ford and we're just like oh my gosh okay hide hide and there there's a safety they love the safety of that you feel warm you feel cozy you're away from the outside world a bit so self-compassion is creating a a layer of safety around you self-compassion is not weakness and uh just a little heads up I'm going to be working with with men only in a future coaching program that's around self-compassion and it's not a weakness uh the most masculine men have a high sense of self-compassion it's not a weakness it's the ability to suffer with yourself compassion comes from the Latin word compati which means to suffer with to be able to be with yourself in times of suffering not against yourself we feel like the way forward is to beat ourselves up for motivation that got me to where I am today so I can't be mad at it but it's to knock yourself down saying how could you why could you do better next time time versus man good try let's let's go for it again next time let's really push it next time self-compassion is having firm boundaries there's a whole bunch of things that revolve around self-compassion which I won't get into now but that's number three is really to be able to have a safety bubble around yourself and a lot of us with anxiety have a deep deep deep inner critic you know you could be insulted by 7 billion people and they can't say a single thing that's worse than what you've told yourself comment if that's true for you comment and say Amen because it's a sad truth but admitting that is getting to know yourself back to number two it's man I am hard on myself man the way I speak to myself is wow I would never speak to my parents I would never speak to my friends that way why would I speak to myself that way okay now number four talked about this at the beginning exercise cold plunge walking the gym spin classes push-ups sit-ups whatever it is it doesn't necessarily need to be calm stuff when it comes to you know uh working with the body yes there is a fight ORF flight response there is a A figh or freeze response and you want to get into a parasympathetic response of course when I feel anxiety and I feel a restlessness you know there's a song by Gordon Lightfoot it's a kind of a Restless feeling and it catches you off guard as we gaze into the distance through the trees in my backyard I can feel the Restless yearning some some some catches you off guard doesn't it and when it catches me off guard it's either I sit with it and go through my meditative practices or I got to go do something I have to move my body I actually have to do something that's uh in Adrenaline inducing go move go lift something go for a run do something exciting get your mind off it distract yourself right distraction is just a change of focus change your focus okay because the more we go into it all the time and self-analyze and again be critical about it the more we we have a pattern of every time we feel anxious we're taking time to to always cuddle with it sometimes that's necessary to to appreciate ourselves to be self-compassionate in that way another way to be self-compassionate is to move away from it goes back to number two every time getting to know yourself and what you need in any given circumstance sometimes you need the exercise and the cold plunge you need to go for a run you need to lift heavy other times you need to uh cuddle your partner men don't admit to cuddling losers sometimes you need to watch some cartoons on TV sometimes I need to break out the guitars okay knowing yourself is what you need so exercise massive now there's so many studies I'm I'm sounding like a broken record but you know most people who watch this stuff aren't subscribed so I'm doing my masters of Neuroscience and when I when you talk about you know people online sharing studies about anxiety and anti-depressant use and exercise looking at the studies everyone says this where exercise is as if or more effective than anti-depressant use the peer-reviewed articles for these things just like the people claim that uh drinking Aspartame is worse or or sorry drinking Aspartame is worse than having a uh Coca-Cola or drinking Aspartame is better than having a Coca-Cola and they'll always have these specific peer viwed peer- reviewed articles that hold no water but it's one article and they can cite it and I'm citing my work therefore it's true and look the scy scientific Community has some kind of consensus about it that's not the way it works so when you if you go into you know looking about the looking looking through this about anxiety and what should I do and and be careful of who you're listening to I'm not I'm never giving you straight up advice that's what the coaching is for that I do off YouTube but please be careful of of who you listen to and who condone maybe it's medication okay who condones Pharmaceuticals there's going to be people here that say Mushrooms cured me magic mushrooms cured me I took some gold in teacher I got some penis envy did a massive trip six grams seven grams went to a shaman did iasa whatever it is be happy about it be happy for them they they did something that worked other people will have the story all I did was exercise and I cut sugar and I've been going to the gym three times a week anxiety gone way to go man other times people will say yeah I'm taking 20 milligrams of this and then 10 milligrams to to help myself sleep at night think who are you to judge who am I to judge what works for somebody what people are trying what's helping someone on their Journey what people are experimenting with who are we to force somebody to change we don't have that power so be on your path seek some kind kind of you know not necessarily advice all the time but seek some options look at options but back to number two get to know yourself and what works for you okay so we have number five here and each of these I'll put into separate videos and we could we could talk about each and what we can do uh number five this is so big you can Define anxiety sometimes as the dizziness of Freedom you like that one the dizziness of Freedom you have energy and you don't know where to put it anxiety is a lot of energy isn't it you feel it it takes energy it's boom boom boom bo bo boom bo boom muscles tight and it takes a lot of energy a lot of ATP to tighten these muscles right takes a lot of glucose a lot of glycogen to just get this body moving get these sweat glands opening anxiety is energy and if you have a mission if you have a goal if you have something worthwhile to strive for that's your focus that's where you can put your energy okay and energy not in a mystical sense okay I'm not going into this energy vibration stuff I'm sorry there's a lot of channels for that I'm staying a little more grounded with us I hope you don't mind my mission okay let's just talk about me for just a quick sec my mission is to help people on the journey all right my Focus you know to be honest is on Christ and how to follow in his footsteps where does where do I align in Christ's compassion and his kindness and how he treated people right like you think Christ was a republican you think he was a Democrat you think he was white with blue eyes and long hair okay how can you be uh like the person that you read about so even if you aren't religious in the slightest what do you value what do you value about the world what do you value about yourself what are your moral uh principles what do you love doing what do you like doing where's your mission where where's your time being spent so if you're anxious and maybe you have a lot of time on your hands maybe you don't know where to put your energy maybe you're on disability and you know you you you're not working so you're not sure what to do and there's a lot of anxiety in that uh anxiety comes with Transitions and change for sure because you don't know where to put your energy there's a lot of moving pieces let's say you move to a different country different city you have a transition in a job there's a lot of unknowns so know where the anxiety again is coming from it could be that there's just a lot of moving parts right now and what you may need is to just have a mark have a mark and you know when you have a mark and you just strive for it and if you miss your mark you know what that is in archery right it's called it's sin sin is missing the mark and that's kind of true from a uh Christian sense as well we really miss the mark sometimes when we sin we really miss the mark when we make a mistake it doesn't mean it's intentional it means that we're human beings and we're not perfect we're going to miss the mark all the time but go for it put a mark in the sand crawl towards it walk towards it but at least at least you have a bit of a compass a little bit of a focus as to where to go okay so that's that's a big big big one is what are we at one two three four that was five and then number six is huge loneliness is the epidemic we have today and it's difficult to talk about and chances are you know if you're feeling extremely anxious a lot of us have smaller community have um maybe smaller families families we don't stay in touch with a lot um or maybe not a large friend group or we have all of that and we're still anxious okay so there's there's no necessarily like black or white rules when it comes to who deals with anxiety and who who doesn't everyone tries oh my gosh the way we try to do this is hilarious I did a paper on low consumption countries versus high consumption I like those terms better than developed or developing okay and people always think yeah it's it's the rich people the people that have everything and they they have so much money and they have you know nothing to worry about that then they make up their own problems and they deal with anxiety wrong people in low consumption countries have way higher suicide rates and anxiety rates way higher okay it doesn't matter uh the nationality the color of your skin ethnicity doesn't matter age gender this is why like beating yourself up for something like this don't don't we had very little control over it when these things were developing there's genetic components there's environmental components social components there's childhood there's family all kinds of stuff things that weren't under your control okay so the last part though is in-person experien let go of Reddit let go of Instagram let go of the news let go of things that don't serve you you know what I did uh maybe six months ago is I went on my Facebook and I had all these people from high school and University that I just don't talk to to be honest and I just I know I just deleted them I can always reach out if one day we reconnect but the people I love and talk to I have their phone numbers and we talk people on Reddit people on Instagram people acquaintances have nothing to do with where Vanessa and I buy a house they have nothing to do with when we start a family they are not coming to celebrate my birthday um they don't know about my work they don't know about the things that make me anxious and my triggers right and there's a loneliness that comes with that that you're connected but you're not connected so if you can take a break from the online world and focus on your life here like what really matters here do people you follow care about your future do they genuinely know you and want to help you no do they know what you're doing right now no but are they taking up your time with their cont content yes is their content useful to you now I'm not talking about is it giving you personal goals and is it helping you become a better person no is it entertaining you sometimes too so look at your Facebook look at your Instagram look at your Reddit and see if this stuff is genuinely serving you is it giving you your time are you giving your time to these platforms and feeling good about it are you feeling good about it and you ask the average person do you feel good about the amount of time you spend on your phone every day 10 out of 10 people will be like no I should use it less ask any man or woman are you proud of yourself that you watch porn nobody's proud of it nobody says yeah I watch it three times a day yep every single day I can't wait to get home from work see how the online world is helping you or holding you back from certain things is it distracting you too much is it making you see the world in a very skewed way how is your life right now in front of you and what can you do about it okay so listen don't try to overcome it number one know yourself is number two this is huge number three is self-compassion be kind to yourself talk to yourself like you would a best friend when they're going through hard times exercise not always the the calming things in the yoga but get your get your heart rate up and get the adrenaline up have a mission have a focus have a mark sin your way there make mistakes on your journey it doesn't matter just make a mark in the sand and go for it okay the other one is in-person experiences friends if you are a lonely person and feeling lonely again self-compassion first self-compassion first next what can we do about it is online helping me with this stuff can I find a group of people online that uh that can help me out are there things in my community I can go to right is there a a faith-based community group I can go to is there tennis lessons basketball lessons are there running groups I can go to right there's so many things and to just change up your routine a little bit to get out of your com comfort zone just a little bit and when I say a little bit I mean if you are extremely anxious and let's say you make your own coffee cuz you're well don't drink coffee okay first of all you make your own chamomile tea at home and you're too anxious to go to the coffee shop to get a tea and one day you leave your condo leave your house and you walk 10 steps and you're right at the door of the coffee shop and then you turn around two thumbs up awesome job okay it's it's the small do things small but progress is progress it doesn't matter if you're again 100 an% anxiety to zero don't make that the goal that's the over that's the unrealistic overcoming 100% to 99 is progress okay so be gentle with yourself and you know I look at my experience in my life and it's not easy it's not easy it's never easy and anyone who comes on this platform and I could name names but no way but they say yep zero anxiety I used to be this guy and now I'm happy and I have this and I have this and not a worry in the world nope don't trust them sorry snake oil I still deal with these things I still deal with a judgmental mind I still deal with intense anxious thoughts we are human you can't run away from that embrace embracing Humanity knowing yourself as an imperfect human and what is what this is all about I hope you know the the strength that exists within you I hope you can recognize that if not now one day soon God bless you my friend thanks a lot for watching hope to see you in the comments and have a great great week and I'll see you next Monday take care