Here’s one of the best analogies I’ve heard about anxiety.

Let’s say you’re walking on a trail in a park and you see something squiggly up ahead on the path.

Your nervous system causes you to freeze in your tracks because it can’t tell what said squiggly thing is.

It’s a “potential” threat.

Is it a snake or a stick?

You have 2 options with 2 different outcomes.

If you think you’re lazy, I bet that’s just an error in your thoughts about yourself. 

I bet there are plenty of examples how you get sh*t done but there might be one thing or area where you seem to drag your feet or procrastinate.

Let’s look at what else could be going on besides the quick and dirty and shaming label of lazy.

The primitive part of our brains are only concerned with you staying alive from one day to the next. 

Period. Hard stop.

We’re fed this line of crap in our culture that we need to, “FIND OUR PASSION!”

And we all believe it!

I know I used to until I put the work into dissolving that belief and headed in a different direction.

How do you feel when someone asks you, “What’s your passion?”

I used to get a deer in the headlights look on my face, I’d stammer, freeze, I’d feel like I had to come up with something awesome and amazing, and wind up feeling like I sounded like an idiot.

It’s a really stressful question.

And the wrong one!

Here’s one of the best analogies I’ve heard about anxiety.

Let’s say you’re walking on a trail in a park and you see something squiggly up ahead on the path.

Your nervous system causes you to freeze in your tracks because it can’t tell what said squiggly thing is.

It’s a “potential” threat.

Is it a snake or a stick?

You have 2 options with 2 different outcomes.

There are 3 primary states of the nervous system. Safe/social, fight/flight, and freeze.

There are 4 hybrid states of the nervous system. Play, stillness, fawn, and hypervigilance.

The one I’m most familiar with is hypervigilance, and it’s described as feeling frozen, on edge, and scanning for danger.

When I’m in that state I feel exhausted, irritable, and like everything is very serious.

When I start to feel frozen, on edge, or I’m scanning for danger, I can go into what’s called a danger feedback loop.

When I first started my massage therapy career, and a client would cancel an appointment, I would take it so personally!

I’d think, “Why did they cancel? Did I use a level of pressure they didn’t like? Did I use a technique that they didn’t prefer? What did I do wrong that they don’t want to come back in?”

So many self-blaming and shaming thoughts ran through my head that created so much suffering.

I spent so much time and energy trying to figure out what the “problem” was.

This week I’ve had more calls, texts, and emails than usual and my brain is treating them like they’re life-or-death important. They are important and I will get back to the sender ASAP, but I don’t want to keep reinforcing the lie my primitive brain is telling me that, “my life is in danger and I need to get back to them as fast as possible or ‘something bad’ will happen!!”

Two things happen most mornings when I wake up.

I have to wipe some drool off my face even though I’m totally a nose breather.

I have an anxious thought.

Neither are problems.

I love the friendship and support I’ve found being a part of two online groups. During a group call yesterday, I was sharing about my experience of having lots of panic attacks in 2018. After I was done sharing, the group facilitator, Melissa, offered a reframe for the term panic attacks. She invited us to think about them as protective responses from our nervous system instead of an attack that’s happening inside us.

This is a really good question; and an important one. If a potential client isn’t sure which would serve them better, I’ll start by asking the following questions: 

Perfectionism usually starts young, like in elementary or middle school. We want to get all A’s, have a spotless bedroom, behave in a way that doesn’t draw negative attention, get first chair in band or orchestra, or be skinny.

What does failure even mean? And who the hell cares if we missed our mark? Big damn deal. It doesn’t mean we’re horrible human beings, unworthy, or don’t deserve success. It means we tried something, and it didn’t turn out how we wanted. So what? Try something else or try it another way. Drop the drama!

Her brain isn’t spinning, trying to remember all the things. Everything is in one place so she doesn’t have multiple slips of paper, and it’s giving her more mental space to think about other things, be more present with her family and not feel low-grade frustration as much.

I’m listening to the book, Play Big, by Tara Mohr. It’s been a great book and one section hit me like a ton of bricks today.

Tara describes a book she read by the late Rabbi Alan Lew, where he says they’re a few different words and definitions for fear in Biblical Hebrew. One is Pachad, which means projected for imagined fear. Worries about the future, fear about possible rejection or someone not liking us.

If I had a dollar for every time I was an asshole to myself, thinking it would help me get my shit together, I could pay off the national debt!

We think that being anything but kind and gentle will finally do the trick. Get us in line and make us change.

Few things wreak havoc like striving for perfection. It will waste your time and energy, and rob you of productivity, self-esteem and creative juices.

I’ve been an emotional eater since I was ten. I remember exactly when it started. I was in fourth grade and I broke my leg jumping off the stage in my school’s gym. I had a cast up to my groin for four weeks. And I was a very active kid. I loved to ride my bike, play with my friends, go to the park, the pool, and all the other usual kiddo activities.

There is a tale of a rabbi named Rabbi Zusya. Zusya was a timid man, a man who lived a humble life.One day Rabbi Zusya stood before his congregation and said, “When I die and have to present myself before the celestial tribunal, they will not ask me, Zusya why were you not Moses? Because I would say Moses was a prophet and I am not.

I was scrolling Facebook, minding my own business when I read, “Ultra-independence is a trauma response.”

This stopped me in my tracks and I reread it a few more times.

Our brains love to tell us that what we’re doing isn’t enough or won’t be enough. That we have to make big sweeping changes to get the results we want. It’ll tell you, you have to do all the things right now in order to declutter the house, lose the weight, heal the relationship, or get out of debt.