Overcoming Your Anxiety: Recent Episodes
Andrew Castro
Overcoming Your Anxiety Podcast is not the cure for your anxiety. It's simply a tool to help change your perspective. The cure is in you. This podcast is about my journey and the knowledge I've collected having suffered from debilitating anxiety for many years. The podcast is filled with stories and lessons that help shift your perspective on life and your overwhelming thoughts and sensations. The Overcoming Your Anxiety Podcast is not about tricks or gimmicks to temporarily fix your problem right now. This podcast is about the long haul and the process of overcoming your anxiety for good.
Part 2 of attachment styles. This week I talk about avoidant attachment and the anxious/avoidant trap.
I want to discuss the three types of attachment styles in relationships. This week I start with Anxious Attachment style.
We've been through this obstacle course a thousand times. We know what's coming if we can learn to be present in the obstacle course.
If you are in an anxiety cycle then you are probably constantly monitoring your every thought and sensation all the time 24/7 and probably doing it through a negative anxious lens. Let's try and change that.
Whether you work in an office, or are an athlete, a performing artist, this episode will help you.
We tend to talk to our anxiety in negative fear based ways. We need to start implementing new and more productive self talk.
We are the ones blocking ourselves at every turn. Be inquisitive about your direct experience.
We've created a negative identity for ourselves over years and years of negative patterns. This keeps us from making any positive progress because we sabotage any steps we might take by reifying our negative view of ourselves.
I am excited to announce that after finishing my Masters Degree in Human Behavioral Psychology, studying Buddhist/Eastern Psychology for the last 6 years, and bringing my direct experience having dealt with anxiety, I am now taking clients for 1 on 1 Life/Anxiety Coaching. Find out more in this weeks episode.
We are always trying to run from pain and run towards pleasure. But this is a mistake that keeps in the anxiety cycle. Let's find out why.
In this episode I share my experiences and thoughts on going to therapy and using medication for our anxiety.
Overthinking or ruminating in our thoughts is probably the most common troublemaker that I run in to. We must learn not to let every thought dictate our every moment. Let's find out how we start to do that little by little.
Anxious people tend to have their anxiety spill into all facets of their lives. One big area it spills over to is worrying about our health. Let's see how anxiety and being a hypochondriac go hand in hand.
I take a different look at my Anxiety Wrecking Ball analogy and apply it to the year 2020.
We tend to see our thoughts and sensations as these static things, as part of our identity. We see them as solid and there to hurt us. However, thoughts and sensations, just like everything else are mere appearances. Let's learn about this.
The three most common things I saw in myself and I see in other people dealing with anxiety is they either: Fight it, run from it, or ignore it. We need to stop doing these three things. Let's find out what they are, how we are using them, and how we can learn to move away from them.
Try to notice how often you have the same thoughts over and over again. Try to see how when you have those same thoughts you give the same reactions over and over again. This creates our anxiety cycles, this feeds the beast. We think we want to change but through our reactions we have reified our identity as someone who has anxiety. We need to change this. I give a couple practical things we can do to set us on our way.
I give my top 6 books on anxiety!
Knowledge is key. We can't begin to change our perspective unless we learn what our current perspective is and how to change it. Reading has been such a huge part of my journey. It has opened the doors to a river of knowledge that has guided me and changed my life for the better.
Even if it sounds cheesy or feels fake at first, starting our day off with some positive and healthy practices can help us avoid just diving right into our anxiety cycle as soon as we wake up. We can't keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results. So let's try and break up the cycle by interrupting it first thing in the morning.
The benefits of diet and exercise on our anxiety are well known. But sometimes we have the mindset that these two things, when implemented, are going to "fix" us. This mindset towards exercise and diet puts added pressure on us to feel better. When we don't immediately feel better then we've created another problem for ourselves. I'll explain how I view exercise and diet as just another part of the whole process, rather than a quick fix.
We can't just accept things with a snap of our fingers. Even just thinking "I accept this" isn't enough, it's a start, but we need action behind that mindset. I give three steps to help us practice acceptance: Don't Run, Start a Practice (Meditation) to Practice Acceptance, Fake it 'Till You Make it.
Plus a short Q & A on performance anxiety.
I bring back an old metaphor with an update and a brand new metaphor. The first is the anxiety tug of war. We are always pulling on the rope trying to make anxiety do what we want, trying to "win". But who and what are we actually pulling against and can we "win". The second metaphor is if we keep staring at the sun and it hurts our eyes why do we continue to stare at the sun instead of moving our focus to the blue sky.
We are always wondering why the lights are off? Or Why we can't see things like we used to? Or, who turned off the lights? But maybe we need to stop asking who turned the lights off and start just trying to get to the light switch and turn them on.
Boredom is a common feeling and is very underestimated in its ability to create anxiety and depression. It's a very dismissed feeling because we have so many distractions at the ready. But let's not distract, let's try to investigate through simply being aware of our states of boredom.
We don't like to hear it, but it's easier to stay the same than it is to change. Change is hard and takes work and staying the same just doesn't.
Promoting healthier daily routines. Routines help us stay on track and not wander. Healthy routines lead to a healthier lifestyle which leads to healthier choices and breaking those old patterns and habits that got us into this trouble.
Just a few things that we can do in our everyday life to be more mindful. No headphones at the gym, silent car rides, no phone or book on the toilet all that stuff
This week I talk about attachment and how we cling to emotions of happiness. This can lead to falling further into the tough times when they arise.
We identify with our minds so much that it becomes our identity. But let's take a look and see if the old mind is playing some tricks on us.
Your anxiety is not special or unique. That is a hard fact to realize because we create this identity of ourselves that we think is unchangeable and solid. We then reinforce our new identity by isolating ourselves and feeling sorry for ourselves. This is something you have to overcome
I'll be talking about mini cycles. These are little anxiety cycles that tend to happen after we get out of the big cycles.
Let's talk about the Anxiety Wrecking Ball. Stop micro managing all your symptoms (Which we talked about last week) and learn to recognize the main issue.
Those crazy symptoms.You know;
Depersonalization, depression, fatigue, headaches, racing thoughts, adrenaline, insomnia etc..
The Snowball Effect is a very common metaphor used in life to explain how things continue to build. In this episode we are going to apply this metaphor to how our anxiety and unhealthy habits and patterns got us in the mess we are in.