fear |

December 8, 2020December 8, 2020

Our Fear Response

Here we are again.

More COVID, more pandemic, more isolation, more uncertainty, more fear.

Are you someone who is succumbing to the fear?

Look at your behavior.

Are you GLUED to the news and can’t get enough?

Are you going beyond your normal stocking up at the store and actually OVER buying things…like toilet paper?

Are you resisting the fact that you need to wear a mask in public and practice social distancing?

Are you short-fused, when that is not normally your response reaction?

How about your money situation…are you worried you don’t have enough?

Ladies!!!!

This is ALL a good indication that you are operating out of FEAR!

Let’s look at how this fear is affecting your life.

You may be procrastinating more.

What goals did you set your sites on and now, they seem unreachable because you have taken to staying glued to your television or other habits that keep you distracted from taking action?

If you experience anxiety, it may be heightened because of all of the uncertainty there is in our world right now and you can’t let go of what if xxx bad happens?

If you were someone who grew up in a world of uncertainty-not enough money, not enough food, not enough jobs, etc.-you may be triggered by the state of the world now.

Let’s look at how this affects your health.

Fear prepares us to react to danger which in turn causes our body to release hormones that:

Slow or shut down functions not needed for survival. Things like the digestive system.
Sharpen functions that might help us survive (such as eyesight).
Increased and blood flow to muscles so we can respond faster and remove ourselves from the impending danger.

Our body also increases the flow of hormones to an area of the brain known as the amygdala to help us focus on the presenting danger and store it in our memory.

The brain reacts to signals from the amygdala, hindering rational thinking

When in this overactive state, the brain perceives events as negative and remembers them that way, storing them for future reference.

The brain stores all the details surrounding the danger—the sights, sounds, odors, time of day, weather, etc.

These memories tend to be very long-lasting, and may also be fragmented.

The details will act as triggers later and in severe cases causing PTSD

As you can see, fear serves a purpose, however, we are generally responding in a state of fear that can lead to greater, hindering responses and can ultimately affect your health and wellness and cause long-term effects.

So what can you do?

First of all, fear is normal.

Our fear response is designed to keep us safe.

Yes, we are in a pandemic and we all want to be safe, but when we operate out of fear, we are succumbing to responses that aren’t serving us mentally, physically, and emotionally.

2020 has been difficult for everyone.

Everyone has been afraid.

Sit back and look at how the world is responding.

We went from the toilet paper hoarding to stories of people actually hurting each other over wearing a mask or not.

What???

How is that a solution?

This CLEARLY is not rational behavior!

And seeing other people do it is contagious!

No wonder we are struggling!

We want to feel in control and shopping makes us feel more in control.

Trying to control others makes us feel more in control.

When the truth is, we have no control.

The only control we have is how we respond.

So I encourage you:

Create some awareness
- Look at your habits and behaviors-how are you responding to situations?
- Take a deep breath-are you reacting rationally or are you responding based on someone else’s response?

Do things that make you happy-what brings you joy?
- Make that list now!

Stop watching the news!
- The news is designed to keep us in a fearful state because it increases ratings and gives them stories to report on.
- Find other reputable sources to obtain the FACTS

Maintain a routine
- This involves creating positive habits that keep you functioning in a higher resonating state which will help keep the fear at bay

I hope that that this helped create some awareness of your fears.

If you are ready to DETOX 2020 and let go of your fears by creating lasting habits and working through the hard stuff, let me know.

I have a 6-week program designed just for you and it starts Monday, January 4th.

We will be eliminating fear, ending self-sabotage and procrastination, creating lasting habits and so much more!

Click here to sign up!

March 4, 2020March 4, 2020

How to Survive Anxiety

There are so many people in my life that struggle every day with anxiety, including myself. I have worked with several clients on how they can manage their anxiety. It almost seems like an epidemic in this world we live in.

When I first learned about my own anxiety, I felt helpless. I felt broken. I felt out of control.

I was, what I thought at the time, in a good relationship. What I didn’t know, was that relationship was going to trigger so many things in my life to cause me to start spinning out of control.

The biggest contributor was his inability to hold down a job and our ever-growing debt.

I was a control freak and I could not MAKE him get a job. I could not MAKE him keep a job. I could not MAKE him stop spending our money as if we had it.

The more I tried to control this and MAKE him do things, the more OUT OF CONTROL I became, and the MORE I tried to control.

I was spiraling deeper and deeper into the “oh my God, how are we going to pay this…how are we going to pay that…” mindset.

I was exhausted. I was scared.

At the time, I had no idea what was causing my anxiety or how I could make it stop.

I also kept my anxiety a secret because of the “mental health stigma”, which caused me even MORE anxiety. My God, what if someone found out!

Now, this was many years ago. Before there was an open awareness of this affliction, so I turned to my doctor for help and she prescribed medication and told me to get a therapist.

I was really hesitant to take the medication. My mom was addicted to pills and I have extreme sensitivity to almost every medication, including Advil, so I was hesitant.

I had already done therapy so I knew how therapy worked. I didn’t need to look at my past anymore and I knew enough about what was going on to know that I needed help with right now so I could stop worrying about the FUTURE.

So I took the meds which helped enough to allow me to research my anxiety.

So, what is anxiety?

Anxiety is your body’s natural response to stress and a feeling of fear or apprehension about what’s to come. The what if’s of the FUTURE.

This can lead to physical things happening within our bodies. Rapid heart rate, fast and shallow breathing, sweating, feelings of nausea, and other things. And, one of the big ones…the fight or flight feeling.

Of course, anxiety can affect everyone differently so you may or may not experience some or all of these physical responses.

Anxiety can be normal in stressful situations such as public speaking or taking a test. But, anxiety can also manifest just from thoughts we have or situations we are in where we feel fear. Real, honest to goodness, fear.

And then, everything can spiral out of control and the anxiety takes over, causing you to literally become debilitated from the fear.

But rest assured, no matter how bad the anxiety gets, it won’t kill you. So out of anything you take away today, I really want you to know this. ANXIETY WILL NOT KILL YOU. Even though it can feel that way sometimes.

When someone suffers from anxiety, it’s not enough to change negative thoughts into positive thoughts. Actually, this is probably the LAST thing they need to hear because it is something that can be literally impossible to do depending on how severe the anxiety is. What needs to be addressed goes a bit deeper than just a positive thought.

It starts with awareness. One thing I can say for sure, is I now KNOW when my anxiety is coming on. People with anxiety tend to be hyper-aware of the feeling once they can identify it. Where there is a lack of awareness is what is CAUSING the anxiety. And THIS is where you can actually stop the anxiety in its tracks!

So, how do you get to the root cause?

Some things that you can do when you feel your anxiety kicking in:

Take some deep breathes

Sit with the anxiety. Remember, it stems from the FEELING of fear or apprehension about something in the FUTURE

Try to identify what that something is

Check-in with your thoughts.

I then recommend writing it down, acknowledge it. This way, it is somewhere that you can refer to and no longer swimming around in your head.

Understand that your mind is playing tricks on you, and in fact, could be lying to you so question it!

And bring yourself back to the present using affirmations, gratitude, and meditation.

Find someone to talk to. Someone you trust that can help bring you back to your present self.

Lastly, Remember, diet and exercise with adequate sleep are great ways to manage anxiety.

You don’t have to suffer!

If you are ready to dive deeper into this or any other subject you are working through, book a call with me here and let’s get you on your way!

April 18, 2019April 18, 2019

Welcoming Change

Change is necessary. Change can be scary. Many of us fear change. I know this because I used to fear change for a long time and still do from time to time. The fear comes from the unknown and uncertainty of what is to come. Change often occurs because of an event that has happened or something that needs to be different. There are many different types of change. In the end…change is inevitable. We need change. We need change in order to grow, to improve, and to move past certain behaviors and feelings.

I have gone through many changes over the past 12 months. Some of the changes were out of my control. Some were made because of choices I had to make. Some of my changes were my best-friend moved to far away to another state, my husband and I purchased our first home together in the country, my sister and nephew moved to another state, my self-work of coming to terms with my spirit, and many other little changes in between.

A very significant recent change I have made is leaving my job. I am sharing this with you because I know many of you have been and probably are in a similar situation. I worked for an amazing company, but it is was time for me to leave. I was slowly losing “me” in my work. Sacrificing way too many hours trying to make it all work. I was starting to have serious anxiety and depression, which presented itself as anger, illness, and frustration. Having been here many times before, I promised myself long ago that I would never let myself get to this point again. The culture, the people, and the overall company were amazing so why in the world did I feel the need to make the change? First of all, I have been doing a ton of work on myself over the past 6 months. I have been doing some serious soul searching about my life and where I want to be. I can honestly say, I am firm in my discovery that I was meant for something greater than being a staff accountant and in order to realize my destiny, I needed to free up “my” time so that I could focus on the things that were important. I still need to work a job, but I need job that allows me to come in, do my best, feel good about what I have contributed, and leave the work at work where it belongs. I had lost “my” time and part of that was this blog. The other being my coaching practice, which I am in the process of rebuilding. I was meant to help others and now was the time to make the transition, even though I wasn’t ready in my mind, my spirit was SO ready. I quit my job without having another one, which was very scary, but I embraced the fear, and searched until I landed another position which will be exactly what I need and will allow me to have “my” time to continue my work in helping others. I am not in a position yet to leave the world of accounting, but I know that I am where I need to be right now.

Leaving my job is the perfect example of a change that needed to happen. From the outside, it appeared perfect, but from the inside, I was slowly withering away. Instead of crumbling and falling into the darkness that was quickly overtaking me, I decided to make the change. I decided to take control of the outcome and embrace what needed to happen.

Choosing to make change is a little easier to stomach in the end than change that is not welcomed or is unforeseen. Sometimes, making the decision to make the change is every bit as difficult as the actual change. This was the case for me when I decided to make my exit. I needed to make the change NOW so that I could begin the transition process and make room for all of the new possibilities to flood in. So, how did I get to the place where I could actually embrace this change? I dug deep. I weighed my outcome. I knew that I could stay, but I would have just been miserable, and in turn, unintentionally making those miserable around me. I was already suffering from depression and anxiety which, in turn, made it next to impossible to find the energy to do what I loved in the small amount of time I had in between work hours. I wrote in my journal, I meditated, and I tapped into my daily affirmations. I visualized what I needed as if I already had it. I was sad to leave the people who were truly family and I was afraid of where I would go next, but I knew I was headed in the right direction. I didn’t allow my fear of change to take over. I also had the support I needed. Support from friends and family. Support from my co-workers and boss. Support from a loving husband who believed in me.

In the end, I am right where I need to be. I am taking the next step in my journey of life. I am happy with my choices. I am excited for new things to come. I am excited to have the time to start building my practice again and helping others. This would not be the case if I hadn’t embraced the change that I needed to make.