Hello again, it's Ron Huxley, I want to talk to you about how to find your anxiety balance. You know, many of us confuse the words fear and anxiety. We tend to use one interchangeably with the other, but they're actually very different things and they're actually key points that will help you find a balance in your life and manage anxiety. So let's say that you are on a roller coaster ride as you're riding up the roller coaster. You are anticipating something that's going to be very exciting, but you're also terrified. You have physiological symptoms, you're sweating, you're gripping the rail in front of you, you may be starting to hold your breath or shortness of breath, this event that of going up the hill is anxiety as you're crushing the top and going down there till you hear all the people screaming and you're screaming, and there's this kind of rush that's both exciting and terrifying at the same moment, that is fear.

The key difference between the two is that anxiety is fear of the fear you are anticipating an event in the future and you are imagining the consequences of that event good and bad in your mind. Whereas fear is you are living in the present moment experiencing the actual symptoms of that terrifying situation as is occurring. Now, these are very important distinctions between one is in the present moment of a situation that's currently going on, and the other is a one that we are anticipating. You see if we can control our thoughts about the future, because the future hasn't happened yet. And we can manage our present emotional state now, which is recreating fear of the fear. Okay, hope Not too bad, not too confusing.

These ideas are manifest in a key strategy by Marsha lineman who came up with dialectical behavioral skills. dialectical behavioral skills, otherwise known as DBT. Simply stands for tension, dialectical tension between the two have a balance between two opposing forces. And what this would be two opposing opposing forces would be acceptance, and change. What we do is we are simply accepting the fact that we have these feelings in this present moment, even though they haven't yet occurred. So if we have a public speaking event, and we're feeling nervous about it, we would accept that we feel nervous, and that we are a little terrified, and we have visible social anxiety, and we just accept that we are experiencing these feelings.

That's all we're doing. We're just noticing and accepted them. But we also realize that that change is going to come because the speech will be done. Because you can focus on your audience because you are well prepared because you have notes, because you have someone who is you trust is introducing you. And you know some of the people in the audience so you know that through change that this will not only end but you have people who love and care about you, who will be thinking positive thoughts about you. Acceptance and change, you may be worried about your health.

And while you accept the fact that maybe something may be wrong with you, physically, you may get a bad diagnosis. You know that there are doctors and there are medications and there are exercise routines and supplements and things that you can do to create change. So all is not hopeless. So while we are having this anxious moment, the fear of the fear the fear of the future, when it hasn't occurred yet, we can begin talking to ourselves and coaching ourselves. It was idea of acceptance and change which allows us Then to build coping skills. So if we accept that we have this situation going on, we'll talk about that in a little more detail.

We want to then be able to utilize the idea of change. So this is where we start learning some coping skills. So if presentations are part of your work, and you feel anxious about that part of your job, then you know that you can change how you feel because you can go and get coached, because you can go to Toastmasters International, because you can read books on speaking engagements, because you can watch YouTube videos, because you can get speak to a speech coach. So there's many things you can do that will help you build skills and deal with stress. So sometimes we get anxious we know how to deal with that we learn muscle relaxation skills, we learned how to deep breathe, we use acceptance and change tactics. We go and get coaching we learn new skills.

Maybe you're terrified of going out on a date. So you accept the fact that you are terrified and maybe you accept the fact that you haven't had very good experiences in the past. But you can change that by going out and having a couch again, you can read books on it, you can go out on group date situations, you learning skills. So this is a way of learning skills and dealing with your anxiety by using actual social skills, coping skills, acceptance and change. Now going back to acceptance again, and the whole concept of the fear of the fear, which is anxiety, this is occurring in our mind. So as we are accepting this, we are using the principles of mindfulness.

So my ideas of mindfulness may be a little different than what is currently out there. My idea is not to clear your mind out and to erase it of all thoughts and or chanting some type of New Age quote, I'm not trying to engage in this sort of myself. In this practice, mindfulness is a scientifically based tool, which engages the all areas of the brain and reduces the overactive amygdala, which is sending out these warning signals, you're going up the roller coaster, and it's going to be terrifying. So it allows you to deal with your own physiological responses of anxiety. So what I want you to do with this mindfulness practice, and honestly, I gave you the definition, the definition of mindfulness as I use it is what is your mind full of? And so what your mind is full of when you're anxious?

Are all these images of terrifying things happening of you crashing, burning, dying, bleeding, or relationships going bad or getting a horrible diagnosis, or all your finances and your business crumbling so you have this imagination of the future? Fear of the fear that hasn't even happened yet? And yet, you're incorporating that in your thoughts and that is creating And anxious reactions. So what I want you to do is when you are experiencing this anxiety, I want you to be able to begin just noticing what's going on, to be able to observing that you are having this thought, or this physical response. And you'll simply say something simple like, I am feeling very sweaty right now I am having a shortness of breath, I am worried about dying, I am believing that this relationship could end or I have a fear that I'm going to get a really bad diagnosis.

Whatever the thing is, that's creating this anxiety, I want you just to notice it. This is sort of a mindful healthy mental detachment, if you will, by utilizing the imagery that's already going on in your mind, but trying to watch it like you're viewing a computer screen or a large screen television And you're just watching this scene of your life go by, you are just observing all the details of what's going on. Try to observe it all the sensory detail that you can. What's happening. What do you notice? Are you?

Where are you at in space? Where are you at in terms of interacting with people? what's what's seeing come through for the next scene, what comes after that. And as you begin to step back and watch this scene play out in your mind, you begin to have more control over the situation. Because what's happened is you are now using the visual centers and the executive subsystems of your brain to manage your limbic systems or your emotional reactivity of your midbrain. So the forebrain and the hindbrain and your more cerebral, what we might call logical areas of the brain starting to take over and control these more emotional, non rational not logical thoughts and images, acceptance and change, being mindful of something.

Unfortunately, a lot of people try to just tell other people that are around them, you know, just, you know, stop having that thought or just think about something different or just distract yourself or just take a couple deep breaths. That's kind of like asking someone to take a beach ball and push it underwater, a swimming pool, and then hold it there. Pretty soon what's gonna happen is just gonna pop out. So you really need to do something you did deflate that beach ball, just hold it underwater and submerging it will not get the job done. But if you can observe it, and notice it, you can then begin to control it. It's acceptance in this change, which is attention will actually allow you to begin to manage your thoughts and your emotions and achieve a balance in your anxiety.