Dealing With Anxiety

14:03

Dealing With Anxiety

by Matt Lambert

Rated

5

Type

talks

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

Plays

2

Anxiety can bring uncomfortable feelings that we naturally want to escape or control. In this video, Matt shares a calm, thoughtful perspective on learning to sit with anxiety rather than fighting against it. By allowing uncomfortable feelings to exist without immediately reacting to them, we can begin to change our relationship with anxiety. The way through anxiety is not always around it, but through it, with acceptance, patience, and a willingness to experience discomfort.

Acceptance Meditation Grounding Integration Practice Anxiety Mindfulness Exposure Therapy Self Observation Ocd Acceptance Of Emotions Ocd Management

Meet your Teacher

Phoenix, AZ, USA

Meet your Teacher

Phoenix, AZ, USA

Transcript

Hey, Welcome back to Peacefully Wired. My name is Matt, Aka Peacefully Wired. And anxiety. How do you get over anxiety? Everybody wants to know, How do I feel less anxious? How do I get over anxiety? Well the only way to get over anxiety is through anxiety and it's not what you'll hear from most people. Everything from breathing techniques, Grounding exercises, Distractions, Certain tricks, Mantras, All those types of things that you hear most people talk about, Are not how you get over anxiety. Those are ways to get over anxiety in the moment. But when you do things like breathwork and grounding, What you find is that you often will find yourself in another anxious endeavor where you'll need to do breathing and grounding. And then another, And then another, And then another. Those techniques are quick fixes. They are ways to get you to get out of feeling anxious in the moment. It's like a quick get out of jail free card. But what happens, Just like any other way of reacting to anxiety, Most people get really anxious about being anxious. Most people get depressed about feeling depressed. Most people get angry about feeling angry. Most people get frustrated about feeling frustrated. What most people don't understand is that just because you have a feeling, Does not mean you have to behave that way. So what most people are told about anxiety is that you need to. . . Get it to go away in the moment and it couldn't be further from the truth. What you actually want to do when you're feeling anxiety of any type, Whether it's just anxiousness, Tapping of the foot, Shifting yourself in your chair, Cracking your knuckles. Touching your face, Doing any of these behaviors that people do. We had a friend come and visit us. Lover to death, Has extreme inability to sit still, And is a very anxious person. Calm on the outside, But you can kind of tell like a little bit of a live wire and and a lot of moving, Touching the hair, And shifting, And all that kind of behavior. I could see it clear as day, And it's kind of distracting. I'm not going to step in and go, Hey, You've got some serious compulsions going on there. People don't realize those are all behaviors that increase your anxiety. They're not anything that gets it to go away. A lot of people will shift in their chair, Crack their knuckles, Itch. Do all sorts of things stretch get up and do jumping jacks right all these types of things but Just like that is training your brain that anxiety is unacceptable, So is breathwork, So is grounding. If you're meditating to get rid of a feeling, To become more calm. And you have OCD, You are doing it for the wrong reasons. And you're doing it for a reason that OCD sees, Right? My coach likes to say, It's like waving a red flag in front of a bull. When you do these types of behaviors, OCD really sees them and latches onto them. So when you're trying to get yourself out of a anxious moment, Right? A spiral by doing breathing and grounding. And saying mantras or saying out loud to yourself, You know, All of the reassurance things that you'll hear in the mainstream, You know, It's not me, It's my OCD or this will pass or, You know, Maybe yes, Maybe no, Like these types of things. These are all, You know, Essentially showing your OCD brain like this is unacceptable. This is true for people that don't have OCD. Every time you have to do anything to get rid of anxiety or panic, You are showing your brain that it is. Unacceptable for you to feel that way. So what do we do? How do we get over anxiety? By doing nothing. By doing nothing. And you won't hear a lot of people talk about anxiety or panic in this way. How do you get over panic attacks? You have to let yourself have a panic attack. Um. . . And panic attacks are scary. Having anxiety to a lot of people is scary. I was one of those people. Panic attacks are also very scary. I remember the last panic attack I had was 2021 in Mesa, Arizona. I live in Phoenix now. It was after my wife and I had moved to Boise, Idaho from 2018 to 2024. We came back and visited in 2021 and it was during a time where I was basically having a relapse. I had thought I was recovered from OCD in 2018. I went about three years where I thought that I was recovered and I had a major relapse that kind of took a couple of months to come to fruition and then I had a full blown panic attack in a little breakfast place in Mesa. And uh. . . At that time, I will tell you, I used all of the tools that people talk about. I grounded myself and I used the 5-4-3-2-1 and I did some breathing. I was able to you know, Looking back to I was able kind of to to apply. Some of this knowledge, Like not doing anything. I kind of just let myself feel that way, But I did do the breathing and I tried to ground myself and keep myself in a place and keep myself calm and safe. And I haven't had a panic attack since then, But it's not because of that. It's because of how I've changed my behaviors. So those things can help, Obviously. Now that doesn't mean that I didn't go. I mean, I had severe anxiety chronically for three years, Effectively. We'll say two years. Yeah, About two years after that. Well, Let's see. So I started working on real recovery in 2023. So we'll say for about a year and a half to two years, I had chronic anxiety. Basically every day I was anxious. And in that interim, I still was doing grounding and breathing and meditation, And none of that stuff really helped me. Become a less anxious person. And so, What I learned, You know. Through recovery was that I have to stop reacting to anxiety. That means every form of feeling anxious, Right? If you're waiting for something. You know, Just for example, Like. We have publications that. . . We're supposed to land this last week. During the week and there was a mix-up in the software or some kind of glitch and they actually didn't end up hitting the mailboxes until the weekend which is not a good time for a magazine like ours to go out to people. It's a good time to get it like right before the weekend and so there was you know some anxiety around that but having that feeling or thought or just concern about it. It doesn't really phase me like it used to. I really used to give in to that anxiety. I would verbally be like, Oh man, Is it going to land? I'd be walking around checking, Hey, Do you know if it's landed yet? I'd be asking my wife. I'd be calling the guy that we work with, Hey, Did the magazine land yet? Then getting into that mode of like, Oh my gosh, Is it going to land? I really hope it's going to land. All these businesses, Oh my gosh, They're not going to get a chance to get seen because people are getting it on the weekend. All of that stuff feeds into anxiety, Right? It makes you actually more anxious and then Also, If I would have been sitting in the corner breathing and doing grounding exercises every time I felt a little bit of anxiety from it, Again, That's going to be telling my brain this is unacceptable. Because I've done so much work Um. . . Sitting through anxiety, Sitting through that uncomfortable feeling. I was told very early on In my journey, You're going to have to sit with anxiety like it's an uncomfortable coat or jacket, And you're going to have to take it with you everywhere, And you're going to have to let it be there and not do anything about it. And I practiced that and I practiced it and I practiced it and I practiced it over and over and over and over again. And I genuinely have become a less anxious person because I know how to not react to anxiety. Where most people are doing something. And they're like, Oh, This really helps take care of my anxiety. It's like, Well, You talk to most of those people. It's like, Well, How often do you get anxious? Oh, All the time. I always get anxious. But I just do breathing, And I do grounding, And it takes care of it. It's like, Well, Would you like to, On a long timeline, Not have to do those things and just be able to react to anxiety in a different way? And then not only does it help you become a less anxious person, But you're more I feel like it makes you a better problem solver. Because you're not instead of you know, Trying to get something to go away, You're actually letting it exist with you. And you can actually learn from it a little bit, You know, When you're not trying to get it to go away. You can learn more things about it, About the way your brain works, And about yourself. Um. . . So yeah, I mean, That would be my. . . Recommendation, You know, If you're, If you're struggling with OCD. And you're constantly having images or just sensations. Thoughts and they're giving you a lot of anxiety and you're constantly trying to run away from that anxiety by doing whatever. You could be trying to distract yourself. You could be doing breathing, You could be grounding, You could be trying to reassure yourself by googling, Venting, Complaining. You could be doing all of those things, Right? You could be scrolling on social media trying to find the answer for your problem. And all of those things are effectively going to make you continue to be anxious. If you want to be less anxious, Then you're going to have to start learning to wear anxiety. And do nothing about it. Let it pass through you and let it take as long as it takes. It could take all day for you to come down. But every time that you get anxious about being anxious, Every time you do that, You are making yourself on a long timeline, Prolonged. You are making yourself a more anxious individual and your anxiety will continue. Whereas if you start to allow it to exist within you and not show your brain that it is a problem on a consistent basis. You will start to become less anxious and you will start to be able to deal with anxiety in a much more constructive way than having to pull out these tools every time you feel anxious. And it's a much more freer way to live your life. I'm less anxious than probably anybody that you're going to meet. That doesn't mean that I don't ever feel anxiety. It just means I know how to deal with it. And I don't need to calm myself down. I allow it to exist within me. I'll just end the video with this. My wife and I, We are in marketing and advertising, And we are part of a networking group. I went to a networking group by myself. We usually go together. Uh, Which usually, You know, It takes a little bit of the anxiety and the edge off, But I went by myself to one and it was one of the bigger groups in the area. And I was a guest, So I was going to be able to stand up in front of about 75 other people and talk about our business and give a quick 30-second commercial. And. . . There's 75 other people there, Right? So 74 people went before me and to do a piece every time. You know, Somebody stands up, I'm listening to them and slowly but surely got to the point where it was my time, My opportunity to speak and my heart was pounding. I just could feel it, You know, And. Instead of breathing, Visualizing, Grounding, Right? Doing all that stuff, Which is something I would have done. I learned it existed there. I got up, Stood up, Delivered what I wanted to deliver. Did I do the best at it that I could have? I was a little misunderstood towards the end when I gave the tagline for what our business is. There was some, What did you say? And so that was mildly a little embarrassing, I guess. But again, Because I've done this work of allowing uncomfortable feelings and I've allowed myself to ride them out, I was able to ride out that feeling of my heart you know beating through my chest and also you know potentially I wasn't I wasn't really understood by a large group of people with my tagline everybody had their their neat little taglines you know about their business and I was trying to come up with a clever one and it didn't really hit and land like I wanted it to and that's another you know aspect of OCD you know and I'll get into that in some other videos but for this video specifically anxiety the best way through to get over anxiety is through it. There really is no other way or else you'll just continue to be an anxious person who needs grounding and needs tools. You don't need those things. You don't need them effectively to become a less anxious person. You just have to practice it over and over and over again. So thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. We'll see in the next video. Peace