Last week, we delved deep into the importance of maintenance for our mental health. If you missed it, don't worry; you're right on time for the next chapter. Today, we're talking about something we've all encountered: anxiety. Yep, that little troublemaker that sneaks into our lives uninvited. But fear not! I've got a tip that's going to change the game for you.
Let's break it down using the acronym L.I.V.E.:
L - Letting Go:
Ever felt like anxiety is playing tug-of-war with your sanity? It's time to drop the rope. We're talking about letting go of that struggle, letting anxiety in, and simply allowing it to exist without a wrestling match.
I - Inviting:
Sounds counterintuitive, right? But trust me on this one. Imagine inviting anxiety in like an unexpected guest. "Hey anxiety, what's up? What do you have to teach me today?" It might feel odd at first, but it beats the exhaustion of resisting.
V - Valuing:
What do you value in life? What would your life look like without anxiety stealing the spotlight? Identifying your values is like having a compass guiding you through the anxiety maze. Once you know what truly matters, you'll be better equipped to take charge.
E - Engaging:
Actions speak louder than words. Engage with the process. Take those steps, no matter how small, towards a life without the burden of anxiety. I've got the perfect actions lined up for you, ready to lead you to a more peaceful existence.
And here's the cherry on top: I've crafted an audio coaching download just for you. Picture it as your personal guide through the journey of processing anxiety and other tricky emotions. Close your eyes, hit play, and let the transformation begin.
Get My Audio Coaching Download Now!
Imagine a life where anxiety is just background noise, and you're moving forward, conquering your goals. Sounds pretty amazing, right?
Give it a listen, and let me know how you're feeling afterward. Your journey to a more anxiety-free life starts now!
Looking forward to hearing about your victories and the relief you're experiencing.
To a life of L.I.V.E.ing fully,
Cynthia
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Email me: ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com
Text me: 785-380-2064
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00:00:00] Hi. Welcome to episode number 170. I'm so glad you're with me today. Now last week we talked about maintenance and how you maintain your mental health and the cost of not maintaining your mental health. And so today we're going to talk a little bit about.
What, how we can do that. And I, if you listen to any of my things before you know, that anxiety and all of the emotions that we experience as a human are normal. Everyone has anxiety, everyone. Now they don't have diagnosed anxiety necessarily, but everyone feels the emotion, the feeling of anxiety at some point. But some people, the anxiety kind of overtakes them. And some people are able to figure out how to deal with it. And so I'm going to give you a tip [00:01:00] today. About how you can. Handle anxiety or really any uncomfortable emotion when it comes your way.
So we're all going to experience it. So there's no reason for us to feel like we shouldn't be feeling it or we. Resisting it and trying to make it go away and getting mad at it because it's there. I get the frustration about it. I don't have anxiety a lot of the time. But if I did, I'm sure I would be super annoyed by it and wanting it to go away.
But. We can't make it go away. Totally. But we can stop allowing it to take things away from us because we want to live a peaceful life. And at least most of the time, And so we're going to take the letters of live L I V E. And we're gonna use it as an acronym for something else. So let's take [00:02:00] L and L is going to stand for letting go. So we're just going to let go of our struggle with anxiety.
We're just gonna let it be. And we're going to just be. Acknowledging that we are going to feel anxiety sometimes. And we're just going to let it come into our body. And once we just allow it to be in our body and just, don't try to push it out, don't get mad at it. Don't fight with it. Don't. Have a wrestling match with it.
We just let it set in her body. And when we do that, it's actually going to free up some energy. For us to do other things that are actually going to help us. Get past the anxiety and those are the things like that energy. What are the things we're going to learn about today? But. There's a lot of things that we can do about anxiety.
And once you just allow it to set in your body, you're going to be freeing up that energy for you to learn new things and [00:03:00] for you to actually take action on these new things. Then I stands for inviting. Now this is going to sound really counterintuitive. It's going to sound like you don't want to do it. But it's actually inviting anxiety into yourself. Just as you would invite in a friend.
Oh, anxiety. You're here to visit me again. Come on in. Have a seat. Come inside and my brain and let's, um, Have a chat.
And you can even ask anxiety. What are you here to teach me today? What are you here to tell me about? And if you aren't fighting against anxiety and you're just letting. That struggle go. And you're inviting in anxiety in and saying, what are you here to tell me? What, what should I learn from you today? It just feels better, even though that anxiety is going to feel uncomfortable. [00:04:00] When you add the resistance and the fighting with it, that is even more exhausting.
But if you're just. Being open and allowing anxiety to be there. You're already going to have more energy to deal with it.
And then V. V as in Victor, V as for valuing. So what do you value. And when you work through the anxiety maze navigator with me, which is my program that I have created to go along with all of these anxiety. Episodes. We're actually going to find out what your values are, but some of them you already know, like, what is it that you value in this world?
Would we know what we value and the kind of life we want to have? Then it's so much easier for us to decide to do the work. To help us with our anxiety because we have all these things over here. We're valuing that we haven't been doing [00:05:00] because anxiety was taking that away from us. And now we're not going to let anxiety take that away from us anymore.
And you'll be able to do these things over here that you value. So think about what is it. That you value? What is your, why? For wanting to end the struggle with anxiety because you, all of you will have some kind of why. What you, what your life will be like when you don't. Struggle with anxiety anymore.
Ask yourself, what would your life look like if anxiety was not in the picture? At least anxiety that stops you from doing things. What would your life look like? What would you do with your time and energy? If anxiety wasn't taking your time and energy away from you.
What decisions would someone make, who didn't struggle with their anxiety?
Could you make steps towards those things today? [00:06:00] Even small steps.
And E stands for engaging. So just like last week when I said you have to take action. If you are having a life that you don't want to have, then you have to do something different and you have to have an action that goes along with it. So E four engaging means some you have to engage and do something different than what you've been doing.
So.
I will teach you. Those actions that you need to take. In order for you to feel better. And be able to do all of those things and to live. Peacefully in your life. So think about that. The, the word live. Meaning letting go. And. Inviting. Anxiety in. Thinking about what you value. And then engaging [00:07:00] some action. And if you do those things, you're going to feel so much better. And I have actually created an audio coaching download. That you can, that you can get, that's going to walk you through. Ways that you can invite anxiety in how you could not allow it to be in your body. And you can work with it and talk with it. And all of this would be, you could just close your eyes and listen to this audio. And walk yourself through. Processing anxiety or processing really any uncomfortable emotion. And so I'm going to put the link to that in the show notes. But think about. All the things that you're going to do in your life when anxiety isn't a problem for you anymore. What does that life look like? If you've listened to my podcast for a while, we did kind of a visualization episode [00:08:00] right before school started in August of.
It might've, I don't know if it was August of 21 or August of 22. But I had. My listeners and I also had my clients. Imagine, what is their life going to be like in may of the next year? You know, after they've the whole year's over, they've done all the things they wanted to do. They won all the awards.
They had all the friends, they got the perfect partner, whatever it is. And then how do they feel there? And then how do you create that feeling right now? And start living through your year. Well, we can work on. Getting rid of the struggle with anxiety and you could start the second semester in such an amazing way. You will be able to do so many more of the things that you wanted to do. And you'll be able to work through anxiety where [00:09:00] it's just kind of buzzing in the background, but you're moving forward, doing all those things that you value. And want to do. In your life.
So check my show notes so that you can get the link to this audio coaching, where I just walk you through how to process anxiety and how to process any uncomfortable emotion. And if you're a parent. And you get this for your teen to listen to. You can listen to it too. I know that a lot of parents also struggle with anxiety as well as their kids.
So this is something you could do together. And. You know, however you want to do it, or maybe you do it to calm down so you can talk to your child. However it is it it'll be so helpful for you. To be able to process anxiety. So check it out and then I'd love to hear from you about the relief that you're feeling. And the steps forward that you're making. Now that anxiety is [00:10:00] not going to take time and energy away from you. Talk to you soon.