October 19, 2023 • 45 mins
Ever felt trapped by the invisible grips of anxiety? Meet Savannah Blake, a yoga and meditation teacher who turned her 23-year struggle with anxiety into an empowering journey of self-discovery. Savannah, once rendered mute by her anxiety, unraveled that her panic attacks weren't solely because of social situations but also due to unexpected health issues and food allergies. Join us as Savannah narrates her transformation story, a mesmerizing tale of evolution from hiding behind screens to basking in the glow of newfound freedom.
Recall those sleepless nights spent worrying about things that never happened? Or those uneasy feelings in the pit of your stomach before a big event? That's anxiety for you, and it comes in various forms - postpartum, trauma-based, food-related, and more. In our riveting conversation, Savannah sheds light on the importance of recognizing the type of anxiety you're dealing with. From self-awareness and acceptance to reaching out to the right people, we discuss a range of strategies that help keep anxiety at bay.
Have you ever wondered if you could manage your anxiety with just deep breathing or a simple walk? Savannah walks us through some practical tips for dealing with anxiety. She also shares her wisdom on using methods like yoga, meditation, and essential oils for self-healing. The importance of understanding your body, treating yourself with compassion, and being present cannot be understated. So, tune in to our episode and let Savannah’s inspiring journey guide you towards a peaceful state of mind.
ABOUT Savannah:
Savannah Shea Blake is a Yoga & Meditation Teacher and podcast host of Align, Vibe, Flow. She spent her first 23 years of life unable to speak due to crippling fear and anxiety.
Now, by guiding others though the chakra system, she helps them overcome the emotional and mindset obstructions brought on by society and culture that's held them back from being their true vibrant and confident selves.
Through healing the individual, we heal the world.
FREE GIFT from Savannah:
Dive into Savannah's FREE Chakra Course here.
CONNECT with Savannah:
Website | TikTok | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube
Join us in the Modern Midlife Mentorship.
CONNECT with Inviting Shift on Social:
Email me and tell me what you think: christina@christina-smith.com
Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, welcome back shifters.
I am so glad that you're here,because in midlife, something
happens to women that maybe youdidn't really have a problem
with before, and that is aboutanxiety and stress and this like
anxious feeling that comes up.
And I think a lot of that isalso from our hormones.
But even if you've never had itbefore, I have clients that are
(00:23):
like, wow, I don't know why I'mfeeling all this anxiety.
It's crazy.
I've never been like this.
Well, this is the episode thatwe're going to talk about.
How do we manage that?
How do we deal with the stressthat comes from all that anxiety
?
And we're doing this from aplace of self love, not that
place where I used to go to,which was like, damn it, what's
(00:46):
wrong with me?
Why do I feel this way?
And today we have the lovelySavannah Blake on to help us
talk about this.
She's got some really greattips about how we can start
managing and seeing our anxiety.
So thank you, savannah, forbeing here.
Absolutely Thank you for havingme.
I know that we had such alovely conversation on your
podcast, though I wanted to makesure that you came online
(01:09):
because I just love talking toyou.
So tell us a little bit aboutyou and who you are and what it
is that you do.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Okay, so I am a yoga and meditation teacher, and I do
that both online and offline.
And then that's just developedall kind of together.
It started my platform.
My website has turned into apodcast, has turned into a lot
(01:36):
of different just kind ofspotter webbed out right.
It just kind of startedspreading.
But I started it all because Iwas trying to overcome my
anxiety issues Somewhere aroundin my early 20s.
I was like you know, because weput so much pressure on
teenagers to figure out, okay,what are you going to do for the
(01:57):
rest of your life, what are yougoing to do?
Let's do it, let's figure itout.
And I didn't know, becausehonestly, it's really unfair and
we get on a tangent on thatforever.
But you only know a very smallportion of what is available to
you at that point in time inlife.
And asking a kid to figure outwhat they want to do for the
(02:20):
rest of their life is not reallyfair at all when they only know
, like, okay, I have, like what,five choices.
But so all I knew at that pointin time was that I wanted to be
successful and I wasn't reallysure what that meant.
I just knew that I couldn't getit in the anxious state that I
was in, Because if you startresearching because that's what
(02:42):
I did.
I just started researching howto be successful in the
beginning, like okay, and all Icame up with was characteristics
right.
And so you had to be bold andlike, confident and put yourself
out there and ask for what youwant.
You know, you got to walk inand ask for the raise and well,
I couldn't even talk to acashier at Walmart.
(03:03):
It was.
It was bad.
I struggled ordering food at arestaurant.
Heaven forbid, I needed someextra ranch or something.
I was not asking.
I was almost completely mute forthe first like 23 years of my
life because of anxiety.
Not that I was mute, I could doone on one conversation really
(03:28):
well, but that was it, and eventhen only if I was comfortable
with that person.
Otherwise, have you ever seenthe Big Bang Theory?
Yeah, raj, he can't talk.
That was me.
Could not make words come outof my mouth.
I would just like choke on them.
They wouldn't come out.
And so I started building thisplatform.
(03:50):
My blog became because I'vealways journaled, I've always
written and I always carriednotebooks around with me back.
You know, before the internetwas a thing and then so it just
kind of naturally progressedfrom carrying these journals
around to an online blog, andbecause I found a lot of solace
in my teenage years behind acomputer screen.
(04:11):
I was man.
I found a lot of comfort there.
So that's pretty much all itdid was stare at my computer
screen for like 15 years.
Well, I guess I'm still doingit so, but anyway, yeah, my blog
turned into this online journalof anxiety, you know, trying to
figure out why I had it, tryingto, which, at the time, I
(04:32):
thought was interaction based.
I thought it was social anxietydue to how I had been bullied
my entire life by everybody inmy life and because I remember
when I was itty bitty being atalker and I remembered, you
know, people rushing me throughmy, my stories, you know, as we
(04:55):
do with children a lot of times,and because of that I just shut
down and stopped talking alltogether because I didn't know
how to get to the point.
You know I didn't know how tospit it out.
I had to tell you all of thedetails.
You know you needed to knowwhat color the shirt was.
It comes in later so and Istarted stammering over my words
(05:18):
, really bad in an effort to getthem out.
And then I still do thatsometimes and but I just I just
stopped talking because that wasthe only solution that I could
come up with per who I was.
So I thought that all of thisanxiety that I accumulated was
from that.
You know, being bullied, being,rushed, being.
(05:38):
But then I got into my late 20s.
Well, I started remedying it alittle bit at a time in my early
20s, because that's when Istarted doing the research and
trying to figure out how to.
And then in my late 20s, I hada series of events happen.
(05:59):
That was a health event, so itwas a series of health issues,
and I ended up being put on thiselimination diet.
So we cut out like everythingfrom my diet except for like
five things, and I was justliving off these five things for
a month or two and we found out, for the first time in my life,
every bit of my anxietydissipated, it was all just
(06:21):
completely gone.
So we found out through thatthat most of my anxiety was food
allergy based, which was insane.
Nobody knows that.
Nobody knows that foodallergies can cause anxiety, and
it made complete sense to me atthe time because I would have
(06:44):
panic attacks so bad that Iwould end up in the ER because I
thought I was dying.
It literally felt like I wasdying and if you know, you know.
But if you don't experience that, then people really make it
worse.
They really tell you you know,what are you so stressed about?
What are you so anxious about?
(07:05):
They think it's overthinking,based solely, and I, over and
over and over again, told peoplelike it's not me, it's my body,
my, there's something wrongwith my body.
My nervous system feelselectrified, it feels like I am
going to just pixelate, like,just burst into pixels.
(07:27):
That's exactly what it feltlike.
So finding out that it reallywas my body was so validating
and so just this.
It was an aha moment, I guess,from lack of a bitter analogy-
yeah, beautiful, I mean that's.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
That's amazing because and I think that that
you know, I have no doubt thatpart of what we eat and how we
treat our bodies is definitelyrelated to how our anxiety
flares or not.
And then we go through thislike second adolescence is what
they call, like perimenopause islike this changing of the
(08:07):
hormones, and I don't know aboutyou, but when I think back to
my teenage years, I'm alwayslike sweating in the armpits and
like I like I cringe a littlebit, just because you know it
was adolescence and it justfeels so uncomfortable.
And so I think a lot of ouranxiety today, at least for
midlife women, those of us whodid not grow up on a computer we
(08:31):
tend to not only getuncomfortable but we start
thinking about it, right.
So there there is a body, mindkind of connection, in that
those of us who maybe didn'texperience this anxiety, or at
least at the level that we areexperiencing it today, we start
feeling it and then we startcoming up with all these stories
(08:54):
about it, right, which is I sorelate to your like when I'm
feeling anxious.
My husband, when we first gottogether, he used to ask me all
kinds of Well, what are youthinking about?
What are you so anxious aboutand what do you think we should
do about that?
And it was, like you know, withsomebody who has had anxiety,
(09:14):
that like trying to answer thatmany questions when you're
feeling anxious is like I just Ijust wanted to punch him, like
I was like no, you can't, youcan't do that, you can't ask me
all those questions and it wouldmake me crazy.
So I guess the point I'mgetting to you is one of the
things is to, for me at least,is to manage my thoughts around
(09:39):
my anxiety, because if it issomething going on in my body,
maybe it's food related, maybeit's stress related, or I
haven't had enough sleep,whatever the damn thing is.
For me, it's really likecontrolling my mind and not
making it into a huge thing,right?
Because the more that Ioverthink it and the more I go.
(10:01):
Well, why am I anxious?
Well, my brain's going to pickup like the 5000 things in my
life that could possibly make meanxious and we're going to
replay that like sufferingspiral is what I call it and
we're going to start makingstories and once we make up the
stories, then the emotion getsworse, right, like I mean, it's
(10:21):
like the worst thing to do tosomebody in a panic attack is
try to get answers from them,because they're just like I need
my body to calm down and thisis very much a nervous system
thing, which I think is amazingthat you went into yoga and
meditation, because I'm assumingthat was like related, like you
wanted to find a way to calmdown your body.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Well, it was unintentional, they were two
completely separate things inthe beginning, and then I got
into yoga and realized that theygo hand in hand, which is kind
of a.
There's lots of differentstyles of yoga, so it really
depends on which one you gotowards once you get in there.
Now, I got into yoga because Icame across a blog post one day
(11:07):
that said it is entitled how toexercise if you're lazy, and I
was like yes, absolutely that'sme, yeah, and then.
So I've been stuck with it eversince because I got into it and
I realized that it did help me alot with my anxiety, because it
allows you to create space andjust exist a little bit and
(11:29):
learn how to slow down andprocess, because anxiety is your
body's alarm system thatsomething's wrong.
The problem is is that it's thesame alarm for everything across
the board, and I think I'vetried out every flavor of
anxiety there is.
We had trauma based and thennot just from like bullying and
(11:51):
stuff.
But I had two ricks and a totaltwo vehicles in one weekend.
Wow, yeah, it's a littleimpressive.
And then didn't drive for sixyears after that and every time
I got behind the wheel I wouldhave a panic attack so bad that
I would have to pull overbecause I would black out.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah, and then my son was born and I tried out
postpartum anxiety, which is afun one.
So and then and then, after acouple of years down the road,
is when we found out that hadfood related anxiety.
So you know there's a lot ofdifferent kinds and there's some
(12:31):
are more manageable than others, and step one is definitely
figuring out which flavor youhave so that you know how to
address it, because trauma basedanxiety is going to be about
unpacking and reworking thosestories and redoing them in a
positive manner that you canmove forward with.
(12:53):
And then, of course, foodanxiety food allergy related or
toxin based.
You can have anxiety from toomany toxins in your body.
It's accumulated in your bodycan't process, so that is going
to be more of like cleaning upyour lifestyle based.
So there's lots of differenttypes and step one is always
(13:13):
about figuring out which type isyour top, because all if you
have like toxin or food allergybased anxiety no, no amount of
the tools available to helpmanage your anxiety are going to
help it.
You just kind of have to rideit out until you get to the
other side, and that comes intojust having a bunch of tools,
(13:38):
that and the self awareness.
It's like, oh, here we areagain.
Well, this is going to ruin thenext two hours of my life.
Let's see what can I do, let's.
And then you start pullingtools out of the toolbox to ride
it instead of fight it, andthat's a big thing to.
You don't want to try to fightagainst the anxiety, because
(13:58):
then you have all thatresistance and it's just really
going to make it worse.
But if you can find a way toflow with it to ride it to work
with it, then you can getthrough to the other side a
little easier.
Again, it's just about havingthe self-awareness that this is
temporary, it's going to end.
It's like, man, I must have gota hold of some soy again and we
(14:22):
can go into that, but we won't,because it's a whole episode on
its own.
But just you know, okay.
So this is happening, what canI do?
All right, and then you comeinto like checking in with your
senses, checking in with yourbody, because, no matter what
kind of anxiety you do, youreally want to get out of your
head and into your body, becausethe head's just going to blow
(14:45):
everything out of proportion andmake it worse, make it worse,
yeah, yeah.
Then we're straight into panicattack land right, absolutely,
and that's how you end up in theER, right Like.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I'm having a heart attack.
I might die.
You're 28 years old andcompletely healthy.
What are you talking about?
But you know it happens and theimportant thing is to not beat
yourself up about it.
You're completely valid.
You are feeling sensations thatyou don't usually feel and they
feel like something's wrong,because something is wrong.
(15:17):
It's your body trying tocommunicate with you that
something requires yourattention.
It doesn't always tell you whatneeds your attention, which can
be really frustrating, but itis temporary, it is going to end
, so having people around youhelps.
So you know, call somebody,somebody you trust.
(15:38):
Not anybody is going to make itworse, Okay.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Nobody's going to get a little bit of a question.
That's not the one.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
No, no, I made the mistake one time of calling my
sister.
I was like I'm having chestpain and I was hoping that she'd
be like look, you're fine.
Okay, I was like 25 at the time.
I was like there's, you'reprobably fine, it's probably
just a panic attack?
No, she just kicked me off theside of the cliff.
She was like oh my gosh, what?
(16:05):
If you're dying, you should goto the hospital, okay, so that's
what happened.
I went to the hospital.
I was completely fine, it wasjust anxiety.
But having people that are notgoing to make it worse, people
who are like, okay, let's sitwith this, what do you think can
help?
Do you need a hug, do you wantto go for a walk, do you want to
turn on a show?
And essentially it's just.
(16:27):
You know, when you have a baby,like under a year old, they
start crying.
You don't know why, right, andwhen my kids were babies, people
, they'd be crying.
My gosh, my son criedconstantly.
He didn't have call like he wasjust whiny, but you know he'd
be screaming and crying andpeople would be like what's
wrong with him?
(16:47):
I don't know.
He doesn't talk, he doesn'ttell me Like Well, what do I do?
I don't know.
You just start throwing thingsat the wall and see if something
sticks, and it's essentiallythe same thing your body's
crying, you're having a panicattack.
So you know, just like a baby,you know, you bounce them for a
little bit.
Does that work?
No, okay, let's feed it.
(17:07):
Nope, that didn't work either.
All right, let's change thediaper.
And it's the same thing withyourself, and that's an analogy
that we could carry on into allsorts of directions of personal
growth and self help is that youhave to parent yourself, and
the same thing is here, you know.
So take care of yourself.
You start having this anxietycome up and you're like, okay,
(17:29):
let's see if you need some water.
Do you need some water?
Did that help?
No, and water always helps, youknow, but only like at the
moment you're drinking it.
Usually, as soon as you likeput it down, you're like, okay,
now what?
Let's go for a walk, let's dosome yoga, let's do some
stretches, let's turn the TV on,let's turn the TV off, you know
(17:49):
, let's minimize distractionscompletely, let's turn off all
electronics, let's.
Maybe we're overstimulated,maybe we need some silence,
because then we can get intolike neurodivergency and how
we're more prone to panicattacks because we have that
emotional dysregulation issues,and so overstimulation becomes a
thing, and sometimes we justneed silence or sometimes we
(18:12):
need loud music.
It's just a matter of figuringout what tools that you need to
put in your toolbox so that youcan pull them out when you need
to, and it's important to notethat it's really hard sometimes
in the moment of a panic attackto figure out what are my tools.
I don't know what are my tools.
Someone help?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
I don't remember any of my tools Somewhere.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, yeah.
So I always.
You know we're all about doingvision boards, right, and we do
vision boards for our goals, butthere are a lot of other things
that we can use vision boardsto that are beautiful, which in
one being a list of anxiety tool.
You know your tools so that allyou have to remember in the
(18:56):
middle of an anxiety attack isokay, where's my board?
And you go, look at your boardand you're like, okay, let me
try this, Let me try that.
And then you know what, ifnothing else, it gives you a
distraction away from youranxiety so that you can better
ride it out, because you feellike you're actively working
towards getting to the other end.
And if you have 50 things onyour board and you go through
(19:19):
every single one of them, you'reprobably you know that took
like two hours, that took likethree hours.
Now the anxiety attacks over.
Did one of them work?
I don't know, but you feelbetter now.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, I love that analogy of the one-year-old,
because no one in their rightmind would just start screaming
at that one-year-old going youshouldn't feel like this, don't
feel like this, just get better.
Just put your big boy pants on,let's go.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
And yet that's how some of us can treat her, at
least in Gen X.
We're very warrior, specific,want to get things done, want to
be productive, and so my motherwas always like my feelings
didn't matter.
So when my anxiety came up, Iwas like, oh, we'll just shove
that down, we'll just ignorethat.
But the thing is, it never wentaway.
(20:06):
It just got worse and worse,because once your nervous system
is stimulated in that way, it'sreally hard to bring it back
down if you don't have thesetools.
So I love that, because whatare we going to do with a
one-year-old?
We're going to try to take careof them in a calm way, because
screaming at them is certainlynot going to get them to stop
(20:27):
screaming back.
So I love that analogy.
That was so great and just areally good example of how we
can better care for ourselves,and I really love that.
You were like we have to rideit out, which I think is really
where I stand with it we have tobe super compassionate to
ourselves.
I know on the days where I haveanxiety last week was Mercury
(20:51):
retrograde.
We might still be there, butI'm trying to pretend we're not.
And during that week, oh, itwas like I had technology issues
, I had health issues, and I cango into this place where
everything's wrong and I justkeep trying to push ahead and
yet I have tears as I'm tryingto do my work and instead what
(21:16):
I've really learned is thepractice of slowing down, like
you said.
Okay, we're feeling we'rehaving an off day, so that means
I'm probably going to get lessdone than I expected to.
It probably means that I'mgoing to have to take extra time
and it's going to be harder forme to focus.
And so, if I can get into thatcompassion of slowing down,
(21:40):
which is just unlike most GenX,it's really a gift and I've
gotten much better at it.
Like I was just like, ah,technology issues, I'm taking
Thursday and Friday off.
I don't care, I'm not dealingwith this and, like even today,
I've had some anxiety over theweekend, so, or yesterday,
(22:00):
especially when I went back towork.
So I'm like you know what, I'mgoing to re-record that podcast
and do a couple other things,and then the rest of the day I'm
going to step into that innerlittle girl of mine and go have
some fun rather than, you know,working my butt off.
And I'm actually going to gopaint this afternoon, because
that's what brings my stressdown, that's one of my tools.
(22:24):
I also love that you were likewe need to have this list of
tools or a vision board orsomewhere where these things are
put that we can refer to,because so often when we're in
our sane mind, we're like ohyeah, I can try breathing, I can
try yoga, I'll just go drinkthe water, I'll eat some fresh
food, I'll do something right.
(22:45):
But then when we're in thatpanic state or in that anxious
state, it's so hard to rememberthose things.
I mean, for me, it's hardenough to get my like inner
teenager to calm the hell downand be like we're doing this,
we're taking care of ourselves.
So, in order to remember thosetools as well, I think that
(23:05):
that's so essential, and I oftenhave my clients.
I'm like just have that listnearby of things that you can do
.
And the other thing I think isin Alcoholics Anonymous, I
believe is where this came from.
Is the HALTS Hungry, angry,lonely, tired, sick, iodine,
(23:26):
paramanipause, pms, whatever itis that makes you really
uncomfortable.
When we're in that spot, wehave so much more access to
getting into an anxiety statebecause often our brain's not
working right, our body's reallyuncomfortable and I know, at
(23:46):
least personally for me, when mybody's uncomfortable, my
anxiety can shoot up reallyquickly because my brain starts
going why am I feeling this way?
I shouldn't feel this way, Ishould feel a different way, and
you know what's going on.
And then I can get into thatpanic state, right, and then my
brain is like feeding thatstress and anxiety to my body
(24:07):
and my body's reacting to it.
So I think that it's reallyimportant for us to understand
that there could be somephysical discomfort that's going
on that we are not payingattention to.
I love that so much because,yeah, go feed yourself, go get a
little rest, go have some water, whatever it is that you need,
(24:28):
try all of the things and thencome back to it.
But I think the one biggestthing that we talked about was
this permission to slow down,like allowing ourselves the
permission to be like okay, Iknow I maybe had 110 things
planned for today, but maybethree are going to get done and
that's going to be okay.
(24:48):
And I'm just going to sit herewith us, because I think that
the one thing that people do iswe often think like happy is the
only way that we're supposed tofeel and if we feel any other
way, we start getting anxiousabout it, like if I'm angry or
I'm sad especially angry, a lotof us weren't allowed to be
angry when we were little, solike we feel shame when that
(25:10):
comes up.
And so really getting in tunewith what am I feeling?
And this is a process that hastaken me like 10 years to really
sit into and go, wow, what isgoing on for me right now,
without trying to explain itaway or justify it or whatever,
(25:30):
and I can just be like, yeah, mybody's feeling anxious today.
That is so interesting, andjust being curious about it
rather than judgmental.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Surrendering to whatever is given to you today.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
I love that Surrendering.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think that's somethingthat we can never have.
We can make plans all day long,but we have to really step back
from the attachment of.
That's how things have to go,because rent, as soon as you get
comfortable in a situation, arent is going to be thrown in
there anyway.
So the only constant is change,and things are oftentimes going
(26:09):
to change in a direction thatyou weren't expecting.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
So, being adaptable, and that doesn't mean it's bad,
though, right.
No, it's just our body that'sreacting to it.
I mean, a lot of times thingsdon't go my way and they
actually go better than I betterfor me in the end.
So it's really sitting in thattoo.
So let's review some of thesetips that we have so far.
Just so in case people haven'tstarted taking notes, we're
(26:33):
going to have them start takingnotes right here, because one
thing that we can do is, in themoment, right, we know that it's
gonna be helpful to figure outwhere is this anxiety coming
from, but in the moment whenwe're having the anxiety, it's
probably not the moment for usto start questioning you know,
where is this coming from?
(26:53):
Could it be this, could it bethat, could it be that?
Because then we start likebringing up even more
nervousness and anxiety.
So, in the moment, what we cando is, I always say take a
breath, breathe.
After you do that, what is itthat you do to manage your
(27:14):
anxiety?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Most of the time, I just get irritated.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
There's the honesty.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yep, no loud music helps me a lot and going for a
walk.
So I put, because I amneurodivergent and that
overstimulation gets me a lotand for a long time I was going
to get so irritated.
People are like you can'thandle too many people, like
someone talking and they'rebeing the TV on and then the
fans on, like you can't handleall of these things.
(27:44):
But you can blast loud music inyour ears and be just fine.
I'm like, yeah, I don't get iteither, but that's what helps me
.
That's one thing.
Yeah, I completely get that.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
When I go to a bar and there's so much noise around
, or a restaurant where it'slike open and it's very loud, I
can't even decide on something,and I don't know that I'm
neurodivergent, but I can't evendecide on food.
We've left places withoutordering, because it becomes so
overwhelming to my senses tohave all of that going on.
(28:17):
And then and I also have somefood issues, especially in the
past, and so it's like I alreadyhave this issue with food and
now I'm trying to decide whatI'm going to eat and there's
like all this overstimulationgoing on.
So, yes, I love that.
You're like so honest andyou're like I get irritated with
myself and I do too.
(28:38):
I mean, I really do too, andthat's like almost a flag to me
is like why am I getting so meanto myself?
Why am I getting so irritableand like angry at my body?
And that's usually my, my clueto go okay, something's going on
here and you need to just takea breath.
So, after you get irritatedwith yourself, then what?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I usually put my headphones on and play some of
my favorite songs.
I have a specific playlist thatis only positive, upbeat,
energizing, top things that Ican also sing to, so that kind
of like helps me distract myselfand recalibrate my energy
levels.
And then I'll get my dog andI'll go for a walk.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Oh, animals definitely help too, I think, at
least for me.
So that is beautiful.
So that's another thing thatyou've prepared for yourself is
this playlist of things that aregoing to make you feel good in
the moment, to help you kind ofshift up your energy, yep, and
then go for a walk, which Ithink is you know.
I always think activity ishelpful, especially for us in
(29:49):
midlife.
A lot of us don't do a lot ofactivity and we really need to,
because it helps push thosehormones through our body and
out the liver and everything.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, I figured out about five or six, something
like years ago, that I couldliterally run from my anxiety.
So anytime my anxiety got bad Iwould go for a run and I
understand most people can't.
A lot of people can't do thatLike.
I even can't do that for a longperiod of time.
In the the weekend I totaledthe two vehicles.
(30:23):
I busted my knee in one ofthose.
So it does fine usually for themost part, but I can't run for
more than like X amount of time,x amount of days without it
flaring up.
And then I have to like wear abrace and stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So you know, it's just about.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
You have to figure out your body and what works
best for you.
There's mountains of tools thatyou can use and you're
definitely not going to needevery one of them.
You may only need three, youmay need 50, you know and just,
and even then it may be more ofa just getting to the other side
rather than anything helpingwith it or lessening it.
(31:04):
But just for the most part,really, you just have to
surrender to the feeling and becompassionate with yourself and
be like there's nothing wrongwith me.
This is just how I'm built andit's okay.
There's just some people arebuilt like this.
And is it irritating?
Yes, but every single one of uson this planet has something
(31:25):
built into us that's irritating,right?
Something that we have to dealwith, something that we have to
live with and learn how tomanage.
And if anxiety is yours, thenyou can always be like well, at
least it's not XYZ.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
You know, right, there are a million worse things
it could be.
And like I truly believe thatwhat you're just saying is like
the key is to slow down and bekind to ourselves and just be
like, yeah, this is what's goingon for me right now and that's
okay, and I can try these things.
(32:01):
They may not help.
They may at least be a fiveminute distraction, right, so
that I can give myself a littlespace between me and the feeling
.
But yeah, having thingsprepared that you could at least
try, right, it at leastdistracts our brain from
thinking about our anxiety andlike, okay, let me try this.
(32:23):
And that, for me, took so muchpermission, like I had to give
myself permission to be kind tomyself today.
I know I had things to get done, like last Thursday and Friday.
I know I have a pile of thingsto do, and is anyone going to
die if I do not do these things?
No, no one's going to die ifthese things get done next week
(32:45):
instead of this week, and it'sall going to be fine.
But it took me a long time justto get to that point, and so I
really encourage people just tobe able to sit with it, not
overly question yourself, nottry to solve it while you're in
anxiety, like that's non anxietytime.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Well, I'm sure sometimes, sometimes it can be
helpful for people to questionit, because, especially if it's
like trauma based, but you'renot aware that it's trauma based
, so what triggered this isalways the first thing that I do
tell my clients to askthemselves in the moment because
in the moment's the best timeto trace it back.
(33:30):
Because if you're out of it anda lot of us, honestly when
we're out of it we don't want tothink about it, we don't want
to go there, we're out of it,it's not something we deal with
right now.
That's uncomfortable, I don'twant to be there.
But if you're in the moment youcan be like, okay, what set
this off?
And then you can kind of backstep and back trace the sequence
(33:50):
of events and then start askingwhy and stuff.
But, If you can't answer any ofthose questions, is a pretty
good inclination that it istoxin or food related.
Maybe you're like my body'sdoing it.
I don't know my body's doing it.
It's not me.
I'm telling myself to chill outlike nothing's wrong.
(34:12):
I'm aware that nothing's wrong,we're fine, but also, yeah, on
the other side of the scale,though, definitely being present
in the moment as much as youcan.
So engaging all of your senses,that's something getting into
your body, grounding your energy.
It's essential oils, somethingto smell, it really helps a lot
(34:33):
because that is directly tied toour olfactory system, which is
directly tied to our emotions,which can help calm the body.
So, yeah, it really justdepends Some people it
definitely may make them moreanxious, but then maybe we can
just slow down and focus on onequestion at a time and creating
(34:53):
space around it so we're notoverwhelming the system.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, I get like 100 questions going on and I feel
like I need to have the answerto each single one of them.
But what I love about what youjust said is this using
essential oils is really great,and it's because it's like using
one of our senses.
And whenever we use our senses,we become more present because
we become more in our body,which I think is really
(35:19):
important.
That's why they do that thingwhere like can you see?
five things Can you hear threethings or whatever, but that's
all about getting into our body,which is why I love like what
you do is like yoga, andmeditation is one way If I can
calm myself down to go actuallysit and do it.
It's one of the ways, becauseit's about again getting back
(35:40):
into my body and out of my brain.
If I'm moving my body, andespecially with yoga and there's
specific poses and everything,I'm more focused on how my body
is showing up than asking myselfa lot of questions.
So I love that you're like.
Well, for some people likequestioning it in the middle
might actually be helpful.
(36:01):
As long as we're here's the tipsthat I heard from Savannah was,
as long as we're to focus onone question at a time and if
we're getting overwhelmed by thequestions, then we can go.
Okay, maybe I should thinkabout this later.
For me personally, my brainjust doesn't feel like it comes
up with any good answers whenI'm in anxiety, so I have to go
(36:22):
away.
I might review what justhappened, because for me, I
think it's a lot of.
It is food triggered as well,because I can go oh yeah, you
ate that gluten pizza and nowyou're feeling all ratchety
inside right.
Like, yeah, now it's all that'sgoing to your brain and so we're
(36:44):
just going to have to ride thisout.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah, that's why you need to pair it with being
present, because our brain doesstart coming up with all sorts
of things that are wrong, right,it's like you start questioning
, you're like, oh, oh, there'sthis other thing that I was
totally trying not to thinkabout today, but that's
bothering me too.
That's, you know, stressrelated.
(37:07):
And so, coming into the presentmoment, so shutting everything
else out, is like we're nottalking about tomorrow, we're
not talking about yesterday,we're talking about right now,
in this moment, not an hour fromnow, not an hour ago, right now
, in this moment, am I safe?
(37:28):
Am I cared for?
Am I?
Is everything around?
Is there any?
Is there a burning building?
Is there, is there someone?
Speaker 1 (37:35):
drowning that needs to be rescued.
Safe or uncomfortable is what Ialways ask my clients.
Okay, I'm just uncomfortable,this anxiety is really
uncomfortable, I can deal withthat, but like that helps our
brain at least start separatingthat because I don't know the
whole reason is because, like,our brains have this really
(37:56):
beautiful feature of likeseeking out right, seeking out
what is at risk, and the thingis like we don't have bears
chasing us anymore, we don'thave like lions, and so our
lives are pretty safe physically, and so whenever this
discomfort comes up, our brainkind of flags it as the same
(38:16):
thing and it's like discomfortis often growth, maybe not an
anxiety, but in life thiscomfort is often growth.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Yeah well yeah, we're designed to focus more on the
negative than the positive,because focusing on the negative
helps keep us alive.
So that's why the news worksthe way it does, that's why we
pay so much attention to it theway we do, and the positive kind
of slips through the cracks.
You know, you think back toyour past, where we can detail
(38:49):
you all the trauma that happened.
We can detail you all the badthings, all the things people
did to us, what they said, howthey said it, what they were
wearing.
You go towards the good, though, like tell me some good things
from your childhood.
It's very generic, it's veryoverlay.
It's like oh, you know, wecamped a lot.
That was fun.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Exactly because our brain doesn't log those things
the same way.
I think that that's soimportant.
I know that this could go intoanother hour long conversation,
because I already have all thesethoughts and I also want to
make sure that our listeners cantune in to another week.
But tell us a little bit aboutyour podcast and then tell us
about this gift that you havefor us.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Sure.
So the podcast is called AlonVibre Flow and the overall thing
, because I kind of moved onfrom it, didn't move on from
anxiety, it expanded, it turnedinto healing all sorts of things
, because anxiety again is thealarm system, it's something
wrong, it's the tip of theiceberg for all of this other
(39:55):
stuff that needs to be healed.
So our focus is healing theindividual for the purpose of
creating a better world, becausewhen we heal the one, it
vibrates out of us and toucheseverybody in our lives.
And that's how we heal theworld.
Because that's exactly how wemessed up the world, right In
the opposite direction, whentrauma pattern got passed on to
(40:17):
another person, got passed on toanother person, and now we're
all traumatized and hurt andneed healing.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Hurt in each other.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
You know, hurt people hurt people.
So, healed people heal people,and that's the focus of the
podcast, and I offer coachingconsultations and I do that
through the chakra system.
So we walked through the chakrasystem because, you know,
there's so many facets that wecould focus on and people get
really overwhelmed.
They're like I know that I needto heal things, but there's so
(40:45):
many areas that I need to healand I don't know where to start.
Well, the chakra system helpsus.
It gives us a place to startand gives us a step by step
place to go.
So I offer a free online chakracourse and it's through emails
and they're really in depth, andI have both audio, video and
(41:09):
written content in that so thatyou can.
It's really in depth.
So if you want to DIY, I'm allabout DIYing everything.
If you don't want to book aconsultation, call I have all of
the tools laid out in thiscourse that you can at least get
yourself going.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Start with some tools .
Yeah, beautiful, and all thoselinks to her podcast and to this
free gift is going to be below,so go check it out, Go follow
Savannah and her content and sheis going to help you bring that
anxiety down and also workthrough some of these other
things that need to be healed.
(41:49):
Thank you so much for being ontoday.
I really appreciate everythingthat you had to say, because I
needed a slightly differentperspective of anxiety as having
it your entire life so, or atleast since your 20s.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
I was still pumped up from time to time.
Oh no, it definitely was fromthe get go, I don't remember.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Because usually when I have clients that tell me that
they stop speaking, when theywere a child, there was some
kind of anxiety going on,whether that was trauma or
otherwise.
Yeah so, but thank you so muchfor being here.
I just love having you on.
Thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it.
And thank you, shifters, fortuning in.
I appreciate you too.
(42:30):
We'll talk to you next week.
Well, welcome back shifters.
I am so glad that you're here,because in midlife, something
happens to women that maybe youdidn't really have a problem
with before, and that is aboutanxiety and stress and this like
anxious feeling that comes up.
And I think a lot of that isalso from our hormones.
But even if you've never had itbefore, I have clients that are
(00:23):
like, wow, I don't know why I'mfeeling all this anxiety.
It's crazy.
I've never been like this.
Well, this is the episode thatwe're going to talk about.
How do we manage that?
How do we deal with the stressthat comes from all that anxiety
?
And we're doing this from aplace of self love, not that
place where I used to go to,which was like, damn it, what's
(00:46):
wrong with me?
Why do I feel this way?
And today we have the lovelySavannah Blake on to help us
talk about this.
She's got some really greattips about how we can start
managing and seeing our anxiety.
So thank you, savannah, forbeing here.
Absolutely Thank you for havingme.
I know that we had such alovely conversation on your
podcast, though I wanted to makesure that you came online
(01:09):
because I just love talking toyou.
So tell us a little bit aboutyou and who you are and what it
is that you do.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Okay, so I am a yoga and meditation teacher, and I do
that both online and offline.
And then that's just developedall kind of together.
It started my platform.
My website has turned into apodcast, has turned into a lot
(01:36):
of different just kind ofspotter webbed out right.
It just kind of startedspreading.
But I started it all because Iwas trying to overcome my
anxiety issues Somewhere aroundin my early 20s.
I was like you know, because weput so much pressure on
teenagers to figure out, okay,what are you going to do for the
(01:57):
rest of your life, what are yougoing to do?
Let's do it, let's figure itout.
And I didn't know, becausehonestly, it's really unfair and
we get on a tangent on thatforever.
But you only know a very smallportion of what is available to
you at that point in time inlife.
And asking a kid to figure outwhat they want to do for the
(02:20):
rest of their life is not reallyfair at all when they only know
, like, okay, I have, like what,five choices.
But so all I knew at that pointin time was that I wanted to be
successful and I wasn't reallysure what that meant.
I just knew that I couldn't getit in the anxious state that I
was in, Because if you startresearching because that's what
(02:42):
I did.
I just started researching howto be successful in the
beginning, like okay, and all Icame up with was characteristics
right.
And so you had to be bold andlike, confident and put yourself
out there and ask for what youwant.
You know, you got to walk inand ask for the raise and well,
I couldn't even talk to acashier at Walmart.
(03:03):
It was.
It was bad.
I struggled ordering food at arestaurant.
Heaven forbid, I needed someextra ranch or something.
I was not asking.
I was almost completely mute forthe first like 23 years of my
life because of anxiety.
Not that I was mute, I could doone on one conversation really
(03:28):
well, but that was it, and eventhen only if I was comfortable
with that person.
Otherwise, have you ever seenthe Big Bang Theory?
Yeah, raj, he can't talk.
That was me.
Could not make words come outof my mouth.
I would just like choke on them.
They wouldn't come out.
And so I started building thisplatform.
(03:50):
My blog became because I'vealways journaled, I've always
written and I always carriednotebooks around with me back.
You know, before the internetwas a thing and then so it just
kind of naturally progressedfrom carrying these journals
around to an online blog, andbecause I found a lot of solace
in my teenage years behind acomputer screen.
(04:11):
I was man.
I found a lot of comfort there.
So that's pretty much all itdid was stare at my computer
screen for like 15 years.
Well, I guess I'm still doingit so, but anyway, yeah, my blog
turned into this online journalof anxiety, you know, trying to
figure out why I had it, tryingto, which, at the time, I
(04:32):
thought was interaction based.
I thought it was social anxietydue to how I had been bullied
my entire life by everybody inmy life and because I remember
when I was itty bitty being atalker and I remembered, you
know, people rushing me throughmy, my stories, you know, as we
(04:55):
do with children a lot of times,and because of that I just shut
down and stopped talking alltogether because I didn't know
how to get to the point.
You know I didn't know how tospit it out.
I had to tell you all of thedetails.
You know you needed to knowwhat color the shirt was.
It comes in later so and Istarted stammering over my words
(05:18):
, really bad in an effort to getthem out.
And then I still do thatsometimes and but I just I just
stopped talking because that wasthe only solution that I could
come up with per who I was.
So I thought that all of thisanxiety that I accumulated was
from that.
You know, being bullied, being,rushed, being.
(05:38):
But then I got into my late 20s.
Well, I started remedying it alittle bit at a time in my early
20s, because that's when Istarted doing the research and
trying to figure out how to.
And then in my late 20s, I hada series of events happen.
(05:59):
That was a health event, so itwas a series of health issues,
and I ended up being put on thiselimination diet.
So we cut out like everythingfrom my diet except for like
five things, and I was justliving off these five things for
a month or two and we found out, for the first time in my life,
every bit of my anxietydissipated, it was all just
(06:21):
completely gone.
So we found out through thatthat most of my anxiety was food
allergy based, which was insane.
Nobody knows that.
Nobody knows that foodallergies can cause anxiety, and
it made complete sense to me atthe time because I would have
(06:44):
panic attacks so bad that Iwould end up in the ER because I
thought I was dying.
It literally felt like I wasdying and if you know, you know.
But if you don't experience that, then people really make it
worse.
They really tell you you know,what are you so stressed about?
What are you so anxious about?
(07:05):
They think it's overthinking,based solely, and I, over and
over and over again, told peoplelike it's not me, it's my body,
my, there's something wrongwith my body.
My nervous system feelselectrified, it feels like I am
going to just pixelate, like,just burst into pixels.
(07:27):
That's exactly what it feltlike.
So finding out that it reallywas my body was so validating
and so just this.
It was an aha moment, I guess,from lack of a bitter analogy-
yeah, beautiful, I mean that's.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
That's amazing because and I think that that
you know, I have no doubt thatpart of what we eat and how we
treat our bodies is definitelyrelated to how our anxiety
flares or not.
And then we go through thislike second adolescence is what
they call, like perimenopause islike this changing of the
(08:07):
hormones, and I don't know aboutyou, but when I think back to
my teenage years, I'm alwayslike sweating in the armpits and
like I like I cringe a littlebit, just because you know it
was adolescence and it justfeels so uncomfortable.
And so I think a lot of ouranxiety today, at least for
midlife women, those of us whodid not grow up on a computer we
(08:31):
tend to not only getuncomfortable but we start
thinking about it, right.
So there there is a body, mindkind of connection, in that
those of us who maybe didn'texperience this anxiety, or at
least at the level that we areexperiencing it today, we start
feeling it and then we startcoming up with all these stories
(08:54):
about it, right, which is I sorelate to your like when I'm
feeling anxious.
My husband, when we first gottogether, he used to ask me all
kinds of Well, what are youthinking about?
What are you so anxious aboutand what do you think we should
do about that?
And it was, like you know, withsomebody who has had anxiety,
(09:14):
that like trying to answer thatmany questions when you're
feeling anxious is like I just Ijust wanted to punch him, like
I was like no, you can't, youcan't do that, you can't ask me
all those questions and it wouldmake me crazy.
So I guess the point I'mgetting to you is one of the
things is to, for me at least,is to manage my thoughts around
(09:39):
my anxiety, because if it issomething going on in my body,
maybe it's food related, maybeit's stress related, or I
haven't had enough sleep,whatever the damn thing is.
For me, it's really likecontrolling my mind and not
making it into a huge thing,right?
Because the more that Ioverthink it and the more I go.
(10:01):
Well, why am I anxious?
Well, my brain's going to pickup like the 5000 things in my
life that could possibly make meanxious and we're going to
replay that like sufferingspiral is what I call it and
we're going to start makingstories and once we make up the
stories, then the emotion getsworse, right, like I mean, it's
(10:21):
like the worst thing to do tosomebody in a panic attack is
try to get answers from them,because they're just like I need
my body to calm down and thisis very much a nervous system
thing, which I think is amazingthat you went into yoga and
meditation, because I'm assumingthat was like related, like you
wanted to find a way to calmdown your body.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Well, it was unintentional, they were two
completely separate things inthe beginning, and then I got
into yoga and realized that theygo hand in hand, which is kind
of a.
There's lots of differentstyles of yoga, so it really
depends on which one you gotowards once you get in there.
Now, I got into yoga because Icame across a blog post one day
(11:07):
that said it is entitled how toexercise if you're lazy, and I
was like yes, absolutely that'sme, yeah, and then.
So I've been stuck with it eversince because I got into it and
I realized that it did help me alot with my anxiety, because it
allows you to create space andjust exist a little bit and
(11:29):
learn how to slow down andprocess, because anxiety is your
body's alarm system thatsomething's wrong.
The problem is is that it's thesame alarm for everything across
the board, and I think I'vetried out every flavor of
anxiety there is.
We had trauma based and thennot just from like bullying and
(11:51):
stuff.
But I had two ricks and a totaltwo vehicles in one weekend.
Wow, yeah, it's a littleimpressive.
And then didn't drive for sixyears after that and every time
I got behind the wheel I wouldhave a panic attack so bad that
I would have to pull overbecause I would black out.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah, and then my son was born and I tried out
postpartum anxiety, which is afun one.
So and then and then, after acouple of years down the road,
is when we found out that hadfood related anxiety.
So you know there's a lot ofdifferent kinds and there's some
(12:31):
are more manageable than others, and step one is definitely
figuring out which flavor youhave so that you know how to
address it, because trauma basedanxiety is going to be about
unpacking and reworking thosestories and redoing them in a
positive manner that you canmove forward with.
(12:53):
And then, of course, foodanxiety food allergy related or
toxin based.
You can have anxiety from toomany toxins in your body.
It's accumulated in your bodycan't process, so that is going
to be more of like cleaning upyour lifestyle based.
So there's lots of differenttypes and step one is always
(13:13):
about figuring out which type isyour top, because all if you
have like toxin or food allergybased anxiety no, no amount of
the tools available to helpmanage your anxiety are going to
help it.
You just kind of have to rideit out until you get to the
other side, and that comes intojust having a bunch of tools,
(13:38):
that and the self awareness.
It's like, oh, here we areagain.
Well, this is going to ruin thenext two hours of my life.
Let's see what can I do, let's.
And then you start pullingtools out of the toolbox to ride
it instead of fight it, andthat's a big thing to.
You don't want to try to fightagainst the anxiety, because
(13:58):
then you have all thatresistance and it's just really
going to make it worse.
But if you can find a way toflow with it to ride it to work
with it, then you can getthrough to the other side a
little easier.
Again, it's just about havingthe self-awareness that this is
temporary, it's going to end.
It's like, man, I must have gota hold of some soy again and we
(14:22):
can go into that, but we won't,because it's a whole episode on
its own.
But just you know, okay.
So this is happening, what canI do?
All right, and then you comeinto like checking in with your
senses, checking in with yourbody, because, no matter what
kind of anxiety you do, youreally want to get out of your
head and into your body, becausethe head's just going to blow
(14:45):
everything out of proportion andmake it worse, make it worse,
yeah, yeah.
Then we're straight into panicattack land right, absolutely,
and that's how you end up in theER, right Like.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I'm having a heart attack.
I might die.
You're 28 years old andcompletely healthy.
What are you talking about?
But you know it happens and theimportant thing is to not beat
yourself up about it.
You're completely valid.
You are feeling sensations thatyou don't usually feel and they
feel like something's wrong,because something is wrong.
(15:17):
It's your body trying tocommunicate with you that
something requires yourattention.
It doesn't always tell you whatneeds your attention, which can
be really frustrating, but itis temporary, it is going to end
, so having people around youhelps.
So you know, call somebody,somebody you trust.
(15:38):
Not anybody is going to make itworse, Okay.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Nobody's going to get a little bit of a question.
That's not the one.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
No, no, I made the mistake one time of calling my
sister.
I was like I'm having chestpain and I was hoping that she'd
be like look, you're fine.
Okay, I was like 25 at the time.
I was like there's, you'reprobably fine, it's probably
just a panic attack?
No, she just kicked me off theside of the cliff.
She was like oh my gosh, what?
(16:05):
If you're dying, you should goto the hospital, okay, so that's
what happened.
I went to the hospital.
I was completely fine, it wasjust anxiety.
But having people that are notgoing to make it worse, people
who are like, okay, let's sitwith this, what do you think can
help?
Do you need a hug, do you wantto go for a walk, do you want to
turn on a show?
And essentially it's just.
(16:27):
You know, when you have a baby,like under a year old, they
start crying.
You don't know why, right, andwhen my kids were babies, people
, they'd be crying.
My gosh, my son criedconstantly.
He didn't have call like he wasjust whiny, but you know he'd
be screaming and crying andpeople would be like what's
wrong with him?
(16:47):
I don't know.
He doesn't talk, he doesn'ttell me Like Well, what do I do?
I don't know.
You just start throwing thingsat the wall and see if something
sticks, and it's essentiallythe same thing your body's
crying, you're having a panicattack.
So you know, just like a baby,you know, you bounce them for a
little bit.
Does that work?
No, okay, let's feed it.
(17:07):
Nope, that didn't work either.
All right, let's change thediaper.
And it's the same thing withyourself, and that's an analogy
that we could carry on into allsorts of directions of personal
growth and self help is that youhave to parent yourself, and
the same thing is here, you know.
So take care of yourself.
You start having this anxietycome up and you're like, okay,
(17:29):
let's see if you need some water.
Do you need some water?
Did that help?
No, and water always helps, youknow, but only like at the
moment you're drinking it.
Usually, as soon as you likeput it down, you're like, okay,
now what?
Let's go for a walk, let's dosome yoga, let's do some
stretches, let's turn the TV on,let's turn the TV off, you know
(17:49):
, let's minimize distractionscompletely, let's turn off all
electronics, let's.
Maybe we're overstimulated,maybe we need some silence,
because then we can get intolike neurodivergency and how
we're more prone to panicattacks because we have that
emotional dysregulation issues,and so overstimulation becomes a
thing, and sometimes we justneed silence or sometimes we
(18:12):
need loud music.
It's just a matter of figuringout what tools that you need to
put in your toolbox so that youcan pull them out when you need
to, and it's important to notethat it's really hard sometimes
in the moment of a panic attackto figure out what are my tools.
I don't know what are my tools.
Someone help?
Speaker 1 (18:30):
I don't remember any of my tools Somewhere.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, yeah.
So I always.
You know we're all about doingvision boards, right, and we do
vision boards for our goals, butthere are a lot of other things
that we can use vision boardsto that are beautiful, which in
one being a list of anxiety tool.
You know your tools so that allyou have to remember in the
(18:56):
middle of an anxiety attack isokay, where's my board?
And you go, look at your boardand you're like, okay, let me
try this, Let me try that.
And then you know what, ifnothing else, it gives you a
distraction away from youranxiety so that you can better
ride it out, because you feellike you're actively working
towards getting to the other end.
And if you have 50 things onyour board and you go through
(19:19):
every single one of them, you'reprobably you know that took
like two hours, that took likethree hours.
Now the anxiety attacks over.
Did one of them work?
I don't know, but you feelbetter now.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, I love that analogy of the one-year-old,
because no one in their rightmind would just start screaming
at that one-year-old going youshouldn't feel like this, don't
feel like this, just get better.
Just put your big boy pants on,let's go.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
And yet that's how some of us can treat her, at
least in Gen X.
We're very warrior, specific,want to get things done, want to
be productive, and so my motherwas always like my feelings
didn't matter.
So when my anxiety came up, Iwas like, oh, we'll just shove
that down, we'll just ignorethat.
But the thing is, it never wentaway.
(20:06):
It just got worse and worse,because once your nervous system
is stimulated in that way, it'sreally hard to bring it back
down if you don't have thesetools.
So I love that, because whatare we going to do with a
one-year-old?
We're going to try to take careof them in a calm way, because
screaming at them is certainlynot going to get them to stop
(20:27):
screaming back.
So I love that analogy.
That was so great and just areally good example of how we
can better care for ourselves,and I really love that.
You were like we have to rideit out, which I think is really
where I stand with it we have tobe super compassionate to
ourselves.
I know on the days where I haveanxiety last week was Mercury
(20:51):
retrograde.
We might still be there, butI'm trying to pretend we're not.
And during that week, oh, itwas like I had technology issues
, I had health issues, and I cango into this place where
everything's wrong and I justkeep trying to push ahead and
yet I have tears as I'm tryingto do my work and instead what
(21:16):
I've really learned is thepractice of slowing down, like
you said.
Okay, we're feeling we'rehaving an off day, so that means
I'm probably going to get lessdone than I expected to.
It probably means that I'mgoing to have to take extra time
and it's going to be harder forme to focus.
And so, if I can get into thatcompassion of slowing down,
(21:40):
which is just unlike most GenX,it's really a gift and I've
gotten much better at it.
Like I was just like, ah,technology issues, I'm taking
Thursday and Friday off.
I don't care, I'm not dealingwith this and, like even today,
I've had some anxiety over theweekend, so, or yesterday,
(22:00):
especially when I went back towork.
So I'm like you know what, I'mgoing to re-record that podcast
and do a couple other things,and then the rest of the day I'm
going to step into that innerlittle girl of mine and go have
some fun rather than, you know,working my butt off.
And I'm actually going to gopaint this afternoon, because
that's what brings my stressdown, that's one of my tools.
(22:24):
I also love that you were likewe need to have this list of
tools or a vision board orsomewhere where these things are
put that we can refer to,because so often when we're in
our sane mind, we're like ohyeah, I can try breathing, I can
try yoga, I'll just go drinkthe water, I'll eat some fresh
food, I'll do something right.
(22:45):
But then when we're in thatpanic state or in that anxious
state, it's so hard to rememberthose things.
I mean, for me, it's hardenough to get my like inner
teenager to calm the hell downand be like we're doing this,
we're taking care of ourselves.
So, in order to remember thosetools as well, I think that
(23:05):
that's so essential, and I oftenhave my clients.
I'm like just have that listnearby of things that you can do
.
And the other thing I think isin Alcoholics Anonymous, I
believe is where this came from.
Is the HALTS Hungry, angry,lonely, tired, sick, iodine,
(23:26):
paramanipause, pms, whatever itis that makes you really
uncomfortable.
When we're in that spot, wehave so much more access to
getting into an anxiety statebecause often our brain's not
working right, our body's reallyuncomfortable and I know, at
(23:46):
least personally for me, when mybody's uncomfortable, my
anxiety can shoot up reallyquickly because my brain starts
going why am I feeling this way?
I shouldn't feel this way, Ishould feel a different way, and
you know what's going on.
And then I can get into thatpanic state, right, and then my
brain is like feeding thatstress and anxiety to my body
(24:07):
and my body's reacting to it.
So I think that it's reallyimportant for us to understand
that there could be somephysical discomfort that's going
on that we are not payingattention to.
I love that so much because,yeah, go feed yourself, go get a
little rest, go have some water, whatever it is that you need,
(24:28):
try all of the things and thencome back to it.
But I think the one biggestthing that we talked about was
this permission to slow down,like allowing ourselves the
permission to be like okay, Iknow I maybe had 110 things
planned for today, but maybethree are going to get done and
that's going to be okay.
(24:48):
And I'm just going to sit herewith us, because I think that
the one thing that people do iswe often think like happy is the
only way that we're supposed tofeel and if we feel any other
way, we start getting anxiousabout it, like if I'm angry or
I'm sad especially angry, a lotof us weren't allowed to be
angry when we were little, solike we feel shame when that
(25:10):
comes up.
And so really getting in tunewith what am I feeling?
And this is a process that hastaken me like 10 years to really
sit into and go, wow, what isgoing on for me right now,
without trying to explain itaway or justify it or whatever,
(25:30):
and I can just be like, yeah, mybody's feeling anxious today.
That is so interesting, andjust being curious about it
rather than judgmental.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Surrendering to whatever is given to you today.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
I love that Surrendering.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, yeah.
So I think that's somethingthat we can never have.
We can make plans all day long,but we have to really step back
from the attachment of.
That's how things have to go,because rent, as soon as you get
comfortable in a situation, arent is going to be thrown in
there anyway.
So the only constant is change,and things are oftentimes going
(26:09):
to change in a direction thatyou weren't expecting.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
So, being adaptable, and that doesn't mean it's bad,
though, right.
No, it's just our body that'sreacting to it.
I mean, a lot of times thingsdon't go my way and they
actually go better than I betterfor me in the end.
So it's really sitting in thattoo.
So let's review some of thesetips that we have so far.
Just so in case people haven'tstarted taking notes, we're
(26:33):
going to have them start takingnotes right here, because one
thing that we can do is, in themoment, right, we know that it's
gonna be helpful to figure outwhere is this anxiety coming
from, but in the moment whenwe're having the anxiety, it's
probably not the moment for usto start questioning you know,
where is this coming from?
(26:53):
Could it be this, could it bethat, could it be that?
Because then we start likebringing up even more
nervousness and anxiety.
So, in the moment, what we cando is, I always say take a
breath, breathe.
After you do that, what is itthat you do to manage your
(27:14):
anxiety?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Most of the time, I just get irritated.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
There's the honesty.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Yep, no loud music helps me a lot and going for a
walk.
So I put, because I amneurodivergent and that
overstimulation gets me a lotand for a long time I was going
to get so irritated.
People are like you can'thandle too many people, like
someone talking and they'rebeing the TV on and then the
fans on, like you can't handleall of these things.
(27:44):
But you can blast loud music inyour ears and be just fine.
I'm like, yeah, I don't get iteither, but that's what helps me
.
That's one thing.
Yeah, I completely get that.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
When I go to a bar and there's so much noise around
, or a restaurant where it'slike open and it's very loud, I
can't even decide on something,and I don't know that I'm
neurodivergent, but I can't evendecide on food.
We've left places withoutordering, because it becomes so
overwhelming to my senses tohave all of that going on.
(28:17):
And then and I also have somefood issues, especially in the
past, and so it's like I alreadyhave this issue with food and
now I'm trying to decide whatI'm going to eat and there's
like all this overstimulationgoing on.
So, yes, I love that.
You're like so honest andyou're like I get irritated with
myself and I do too.
(28:38):
I mean, I really do too, andthat's like almost a flag to me
is like why am I getting so meanto myself?
Why am I getting so irritableand like angry at my body?
And that's usually my, my clueto go okay, something's going on
here and you need to just takea breath.
So, after you get irritatedwith yourself, then what?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I usually put my headphones on and play some of
my favorite songs.
I have a specific playlist thatis only positive, upbeat,
energizing, top things that Ican also sing to, so that kind
of like helps me distract myselfand recalibrate my energy
levels.
And then I'll get my dog andI'll go for a walk.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Oh, animals definitely help too, I think, at
least for me.
So that is beautiful.
So that's another thing thatyou've prepared for yourself is
this playlist of things that aregoing to make you feel good in
the moment, to help you kind ofshift up your energy, yep, and
then go for a walk, which Ithink is you know.
I always think activity ishelpful, especially for us in
(29:49):
midlife.
A lot of us don't do a lot ofactivity and we really need to,
because it helps push thosehormones through our body and
out the liver and everything.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, I figured out about five or six, something
like years ago, that I couldliterally run from my anxiety.
So anytime my anxiety got bad Iwould go for a run and I
understand most people can't.
A lot of people can't do thatLike.
I even can't do that for a longperiod of time.
In the the weekend I totaledthe two vehicles.
(30:23):
I busted my knee in one ofthose.
So it does fine usually for themost part, but I can't run for
more than like X amount of time,x amount of days without it
flaring up.
And then I have to like wear abrace and stuff.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
So you know, it's just about.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
You have to figure out your body and what works
best for you.
There's mountains of tools thatyou can use and you're
definitely not going to needevery one of them.
You may only need three, youmay need 50, you know and just,
and even then it may be more ofa just getting to the other side
rather than anything helpingwith it or lessening it.
(31:04):
But just for the most part,really, you just have to
surrender to the feeling and becompassionate with yourself and
be like there's nothing wrongwith me.
This is just how I'm built andit's okay.
There's just some people arebuilt like this.
And is it irritating?
Yes, but every single one of uson this planet has something
(31:25):
built into us that's irritating,right?
Something that we have to dealwith, something that we have to
live with and learn how tomanage.
And if anxiety is yours, thenyou can always be like well, at
least it's not XYZ.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
You know, right, there are a million worse things
it could be.
And like I truly believe thatwhat you're just saying is like
the key is to slow down and bekind to ourselves and just be
like, yeah, this is what's goingon for me right now and that's
okay, and I can try these things.
(32:01):
They may not help.
They may at least be a fiveminute distraction, right, so
that I can give myself a littlespace between me and the feeling
.
But yeah, having thingsprepared that you could at least
try, right, it at leastdistracts our brain from
thinking about our anxiety andlike, okay, let me try this.
(32:23):
And that, for me, took so muchpermission, like I had to give
myself permission to be kind tomyself today.
I know I had things to get done, like last Thursday and Friday.
I know I have a pile of thingsto do, and is anyone going to
die if I do not do these things?
No, no one's going to die ifthese things get done next week
(32:45):
instead of this week, and it'sall going to be fine.
But it took me a long time justto get to that point, and so I
really encourage people just tobe able to sit with it, not
overly question yourself, nottry to solve it while you're in
anxiety, like that's non anxietytime.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Well, I'm sure sometimes, sometimes it can be
helpful for people to questionit, because, especially if it's
like trauma based, but you'renot aware that it's trauma based
, so what triggered this isalways the first thing that I do
tell my clients to askthemselves in the moment because
in the moment's the best timeto trace it back.
(33:30):
Because if you're out of it anda lot of us, honestly when
we're out of it we don't want tothink about it, we don't want
to go there, we're out of it,it's not something we deal with
right now.
That's uncomfortable, I don'twant to be there.
But if you're in the moment youcan be like, okay, what set
this off?
And then you can kind of backstep and back trace the sequence
(33:50):
of events and then start askingwhy and stuff.
But, If you can't answer any ofthose questions, is a pretty
good inclination that it istoxin or food related.
Maybe you're like my body'sdoing it.
I don't know my body's doing it.
It's not me.
I'm telling myself to chill outlike nothing's wrong.
(34:12):
I'm aware that nothing's wrong,we're fine, but also, yeah, on
the other side of the scale,though, definitely being present
in the moment as much as youcan.
So engaging all of your senses,that's something getting into
your body, grounding your energy.
It's essential oils, somethingto smell, it really helps a lot
(34:33):
because that is directly tied toour olfactory system, which is
directly tied to our emotions,which can help calm the body.
So, yeah, it really justdepends Some people it
definitely may make them moreanxious, but then maybe we can
just slow down and focus on onequestion at a time and creating
(34:53):
space around it so we're notoverwhelming the system.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, I get like 100 questions going on and I feel
like I need to have the answerto each single one of them.
But what I love about what youjust said is this using
essential oils is really great,and it's because it's like using
one of our senses.
And whenever we use our senses,we become more present because
we become more in our body,which I think is really
(35:19):
important.
That's why they do that thingwhere like can you see?
five things Can you hear threethings or whatever, but that's
all about getting into our body,which is why I love like what
you do is like yoga, andmeditation is one way If I can
calm myself down to go actuallysit and do it.
It's one of the ways, becauseit's about again getting back
(35:40):
into my body and out of my brain.
If I'm moving my body, andespecially with yoga and there's
specific poses and everything,I'm more focused on how my body
is showing up than asking myselfa lot of questions.
So I love that you're like.
Well, for some people likequestioning it in the middle
might actually be helpful.
(36:01):
As long as we're here's the tipsthat I heard from Savannah was,
as long as we're to focus onone question at a time and if
we're getting overwhelmed by thequestions, then we can go.
Okay, maybe I should thinkabout this later.
For me personally, my brainjust doesn't feel like it comes
up with any good answers whenI'm in anxiety, so I have to go
(36:22):
away.
I might review what justhappened, because for me, I
think it's a lot of.
It is food triggered as well,because I can go oh yeah, you
ate that gluten pizza and nowyou're feeling all ratchety
inside right.
Like, yeah, now it's all that'sgoing to your brain and so we're
(36:44):
just going to have to ride thisout.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah, that's why you need to pair it with being
present, because our brain doesstart coming up with all sorts
of things that are wrong, right,it's like you start questioning
, you're like, oh, oh, there'sthis other thing that I was
totally trying not to thinkabout today, but that's
bothering me too.
That's, you know, stressrelated.
(37:07):
And so, coming into the presentmoment, so shutting everything
else out, is like we're nottalking about tomorrow, we're
not talking about yesterday,we're talking about right now,
in this moment, not an hour fromnow, not an hour ago, right now
, in this moment, am I safe?
(37:28):
Am I cared for?
Am I?
Is everything around?
Is there any?
Is there a burning building?
Is there, is there someone?
Speaker 1 (37:35):
drowning that needs to be rescued.
Safe or uncomfortable is what Ialways ask my clients.
Okay, I'm just uncomfortable,this anxiety is really
uncomfortable, I can deal withthat, but like that helps our
brain at least start separatingthat because I don't know the
whole reason is because, like,our brains have this really
(37:56):
beautiful feature of likeseeking out right, seeking out
what is at risk, and the thingis like we don't have bears
chasing us anymore, we don'thave like lions, and so our
lives are pretty safe physically, and so whenever this
discomfort comes up, our brainkind of flags it as the same
(38:16):
thing and it's like discomfortis often growth, maybe not an
anxiety, but in life thiscomfort is often growth.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Yeah well yeah, we're designed to focus more on the
negative than the positive,because focusing on the negative
helps keep us alive.
So that's why the news worksthe way it does, that's why we
pay so much attention to it theway we do, and the positive kind
of slips through the cracks.
You know, you think back toyour past, where we can detail
(38:49):
you all the trauma that happened.
We can detail you all the badthings, all the things people
did to us, what they said, howthey said it, what they were
wearing.
You go towards the good, though, like tell me some good things
from your childhood.
It's very generic, it's veryoverlay.
It's like oh, you know, wecamped a lot.
That was fun.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Exactly because our brain doesn't log those things
the same way.
I think that that's soimportant.
I know that this could go intoanother hour long conversation,
because I already have all thesethoughts and I also want to
make sure that our listeners cantune in to another week.
But tell us a little bit aboutyour podcast and then tell us
about this gift that you havefor us.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Sure.
So the podcast is called AlonVibre Flow and the overall thing
, because I kind of moved onfrom it, didn't move on from
anxiety, it expanded, it turnedinto healing all sorts of things
, because anxiety again is thealarm system, it's something
wrong, it's the tip of theiceberg for all of this other
(39:55):
stuff that needs to be healed.
So our focus is healing theindividual for the purpose of
creating a better world, becausewhen we heal the one, it
vibrates out of us and toucheseverybody in our lives.
And that's how we heal theworld.
Because that's exactly how wemessed up the world, right In
the opposite direction, whentrauma pattern got passed on to
(40:17):
another person, got passed on toanother person, and now we're
all traumatized and hurt andneed healing.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Hurt in each other.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
You know, hurt people hurt people.
So, healed people heal people,and that's the focus of the
podcast, and I offer coachingconsultations and I do that
through the chakra system.
So we walked through the chakrasystem because, you know,
there's so many facets that wecould focus on and people get
really overwhelmed.
They're like I know that I needto heal things, but there's so
(40:45):
many areas that I need to healand I don't know where to start.
Well, the chakra system helpsus.
It gives us a place to startand gives us a step by step
place to go.
So I offer a free online chakracourse and it's through emails
and they're really in depth, andI have both audio, video and
(41:09):
written content in that so thatyou can.
It's really in depth.
So if you want to DIY, I'm allabout DIYing everything.
If you don't want to book aconsultation, call I have all of
the tools laid out in thiscourse that you can at least get
yourself going.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Start with some tools .
Yeah, beautiful, and all thoselinks to her podcast and to this
free gift is going to be below,so go check it out, Go follow
Savannah and her content and sheis going to help you bring that
anxiety down and also workthrough some of these other
things that need to be healed.
(41:49):
Thank you so much for being ontoday.
I really appreciate everythingthat you had to say, because I
needed a slightly differentperspective of anxiety as having
it your entire life so, or atleast since your 20s.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
I was still pumped up from time to time.
Oh no, it definitely was fromthe get go, I don't remember.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Because usually when I have clients that tell me that
they stop speaking, when theywere a child, there was some
kind of anxiety going on,whether that was trauma or
otherwise.
Yeah so, but thank you so muchfor being here.
I just love having you on.
Thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it.
And thank you, shifters, fortuning in.
I appreciate you too.
(42:30):
We'll talk to you next week.
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