but why are you here why did you click on this
video or sign up for this course now if you're in the paid course take a minute in your workbook
and write down your goals for the course if you're on YouTube write down your goals in the comments
section now I'm not going to waste your time I'm not going to teach you how to cope with anxiety
I'm gonna ask you to take radical responsibility for your anxiety so that means I'm gonna ask
you to change the things that you can change but I'll teach you the skills to do that so
let's start with a story in this video you'll learn why many attempts to reduce anxiety or
manage stress backfire and what to do instead [Music] now many people just want their anxiety to
go away they just don't want to feel it they they imagine that if they didn't feel anxious their
lives would be so much better and so they set that as their goal they their goal is my goal is to not
feel so anxious but when your goal is to feel less of something you essentially have to cut something
out of your life and the problem with that is that your world shrinks and then as it becomes more
miserable then your anxiety actually grows now let me give you an example researchers wanted
to explore how anxiety impacted people so they decided to interview a group of 8th graders who
were in the process of auditioning for plays and trying out for sports teams and of running for
school counselor and the researchers asked the kids to rate their anxiety on a scale from zero to
ten and about half of the kids said oh I am really nervous and they rated their anxiety at a seven
and eight or a nine and of these nervous kids some of the kids auditioned and some of them didn't now
in the follow-up researchers asked the kids who tried out anyway they said you were really nervous
why did you try out and the general response was auditioning was the only way to get into the play
I had to face my anxiety in order to accomplish my goals and then they asked the group of kids
that had high anxiety and didn't try out they asked them the same question and they answered
I didn't try out because that was the only way I could make my anxiety go away the only way to
make your anxiety go away completely is to avoid the things you care about in life now just like
those kids who decided not to audition if your only goal is to feel less to feel less sad to feel
less stress then you'll end up shrinking your life away now I told you that this course is about your
relationship with anxiety now sometimes when we have to interact with a difficult person like a
family member or a co-worker all we want is for that person to go away we don't want to have to
deal with the discomfort of interacting with them so we avoid them or we fantasize about quitting
our job or divorcing a spouse right and with some people we can cut them out of our lives but if
our only tool in relationships is to separate from difficult people we're going to end up very lonely
because all close relationships have difficulties instead in real close relationships we learn new
skills we learn how to communicate clearly how to set healthy boundaries how to ask for what
you need how to problem solve assertively right when you learn how to do this the difficult person
won't bother you so much and you can get all the joy that healthy relationships bring so instead
in this course I'm going to teach you how to get better at feeling I mean yes your anxiety probably
will decrease but way more importantly the goal of this course is to make your life awesome again to
fill your life with the things you care about the people and the experiences that you've cut
out the dreams and the accomplishments that you're afraid to try and to bring richness and
joy back to your day instead of worry and fear so what was the difference between those two
groups of kids they both had high anxiety but one of them decided that their goal was worth it
to face anxiety and the other set decided that the thing they wanted most was for their anxiety
to go away the difference was not the level of anxiety but how the kids related to their anxiety
now with those kids when the next audition came around which group do you think was more anxious
which one felt better about themselves which set felt more confident which set of kids decided to
audition again most likely the group that tried it the group that faced their anxiety but motivation
matters when facing anxiety so here's the thing that most people don't understand about anxiety
when your main goal is to make your anxiety go away you believe it's the anxiety that's ruining
your life and you imagine that if your anxiety went away then you'd be happy and while anxiety
can be really uncomfortable it's not actually the anxiety that's ruined in your life it's your
attempts to escape anxiety that are actually decreasing your quality of life don't believe me
let's look at some common examples social anxiety you stop going to parties because you don't want
to feel anxious there you constantly worry about what you said in an attempt to figure out the
perfect thing to say so that you don't have to feel anxious when you say the wrong thing so then
you begin to worry and feel lonely all the time okay someone with OCD they fear that they've
touched something with germs and this thought makes them anxious so they engage in a behavior
like hand washing to make that feeling go away but the feeling comes back so they wash their hands
a hundred times to try to make that feeling go away but even though their skin is raw the feeling
comes back then they just avoid going outside to avoid feeling anxious about touching something and
before long the quality of life has gone way down now sometimes the way we attempt to avoid anxiety
aren't nearly as obvious we may seek constant reassurance from our spouse to avoid feeling
anxious about whether they love us or we may constantly worry to try to prevent ourselves from
feeling disappointed if something bad does happen yes you'll learn a lot more about worry later but
you do it you worry to avoid anxiety and worry also fuels anxiety another way is we may convince
ourselves that we're worthless and broken so that we don't have to risk uncertainty and the anxiety
of trying and failing so how has anxiety impacted your life take the time to fill out your workbook
what have you cut out of your life due to anxiety um what situations people experiences
opportunities have you lost due to trying to not feel anxiety for many people anxiety has
robbed them of Joy or more accurately how they interact with their anxiety has robbed them of
Joy they feel sick and worried when they should be relaxing or it's made it hard for them to do their
job or succeed in school or they withdraw from friends or stop going places in this course I'm
going to teach you a bunch of skills to decrease your anxiety to better understand your anxiety
to change how you think and feel about anxiety and how to make space for and tolerate anxiety
but the goal of this course isn't just to make your anxiety go away trying to not feel something
is what's called dead people goals the only people who don't feel any anxiety are people who are dead
so to do that work to get better at feeling which will sometimes be uncomfortable you're going to
need something you care about more more than just making anxiety go away so in this course I'm going
to be asking you to do hard things so that's why I need you to get really clear on what is your why
what kind of Life do you want to be living now I'm not going to ask you to just suck it up to
just deal with anxiety I'm going to teach you a bunch of skills to lower your anxiety but if your
only goal is to just feel less anxiety I can tell you where that will lead you to a life that is
constantly getting smaller the only way to feel less is to cut the things you care about out of
your life you avoid performing and then you avoid going places and then you avoid acquaintances
and you procrastinate schoolwork or you break up with your partner and your life gets smaller and
smaller and smaller and you know what you're left with depression and anxiety now when I painted
that picture did you feel like that sense of hopelessness of like that dread and that like cold
shutdown like is your goal in life really about not feeling the Paradox of anxiety is that the
more we try to make it go away the more messages we send to our brain that this anxiety thing is
really important and your brain actually makes it louder it increases the neurons around anxiety and
it makes you more anxious so if we want to change our relationship with anxiety we need to focus
on what we do want not what we're trying to avoid so what happens if you imagine being able to do
the things you love like write about that what if you imagine being around the people you love
boldly chasing your dreams traveling the world loving intensely dancing wildly speaking your
truth and living your life what does it feel like if you imagine that does it feel a little
light do you feel a little bit of excitement and it's not unlikely that you feel a little
twinge of worry or anxiety so what is it what is the life you dream of this life is gonna include
joy and excitement and a little bit of discomfort so I want you to do a visualization exercise what
makes you feel alive you can write about this or you can sit and imagine it for five minutes what
lights you up how does this feel in your heart in your legs and your stomach in your chest and
your head right in detail about what you would do on a day where anxiety no longer controls
you where your choices had nothing to do with your feelings of anxiety what kind of person do
you want to be what do you want your life to be about what character traits do you admire in
others spend a lot of time on this we're gonna come back to it and if you're in the full course
there's a space in your workbook to explore this further okay [Music] it's day one from my 30-day
anxiety skills course you can check out the whole thing on my website links in the description
below thanks for watching and take care foreign [Music]