040: 5 Tips to Help with Anxiety

As someone who has struggled with mental health and anxiety, I know it can be riveting to try to figure out how to navigate the thoughts you’re facing when a panic attack comes out of nowhere.

Scroll down for a video & free download of my 5 tips from this episode!

In this episode, I talk about embracing all aspects of our humanity, the good, the bad, the beautiful, the challenging - each part of it. I specifically touch on how I’ve learned to add new tools to my anxiety toolbox to help me overcome feels of anxiousness as they come about.

You’ll hear my tips as I walk you through what I’ve learned about overcoming anxious thoughts and feelings and how you can incorporate these strategies in your own life.

What you’ll find in this episode:

A segment about a review and how we all can relate to perfectionistic tendencies
What I’ve learned about adding tools to my anxiety toolbox
My 5 tips for coping with anxiety
How you can take up new practices to bring more peace into your life

I also created a video and lettering collage of my tips from this episode. Watch below!

Want to download the finished version of the lettering collage in this video? I'll send you a full color and a black & white version.

I always love to learn what helps YOU, so I've been talking about this on my social media pages too. You can check out this video and more tips from our amazing community on my Instagram page here.

Read the transcript of the episode below:

 CTC Ep 40 5 Tips to Help with Anxiety

It is completely normal to feel worried or anxious from time to time. Sometimes our levels of anxiety begin to really interfere with our life. Today, I want to talk about five steps to help your anxiety.

Welcome to the Committed to Create Podcast. I'm Lisa Funk, and I am so excited to hang out with you here as we talk about the power of creating with our hands and our minds. I like to keep it real, remind you that you are not alone and share specific ways that creativity and mindfulness can help us live even more meaningful and joyful lives. I am so glad that you're here.

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to my house to my big blue couch. We are hanging out again today and I'm so glad. We are going to start out with a segment called Our Creative Community.

For today's segment, I wanted to highlight a review from one of the members of our creative community and a review that she left for the podcast.

She says: "I've been meaning to write this review since day one of the podcast. Every time I listen, I get more than inspiration for creating and trying to let go of my perfectionist habits.

But I also learned things about myself. We are very similar, so I related so much to every topic and I always feel like I just had a great therapy session after. I like to picture we just had the conversation on your big blue couch and every time you mention it, I smile. The biggest takeaway I've had from this podcast was the unrealistic, perfect expectations I was placing on myself for something I had never tried before. Had it been anyone else, I would have recognized how crazy that was. This expectation paralyzed me from pursuing a major interest of mine because I couldn't live up to what I was demanding for myself and feelings of selfishness for taking that time.

Just for me, I'm happy to report lettering is now one of my favorite activities to do, to relax and create, and actually takes the pressure off. I'm so grateful for Lisa's heart and passion in this space. It comes through the microphone and inspires me every time. Thank you so much, Amy Nelson."

Amy. I love you. I love all of you so much. I'm so grateful you shared this because I think that we can all relate to those perfectionist tendencies that we have and the hesitancy to try something new because we're afraid that we're not going to be good at it, and why waste the time? And I am just beyond thrilled to hear that you have given lettering a try and that it has become a relaxing and fun practice for you to be creative and to enjoy a mindful activity.

I just want to encourage all of you who may be feeling the same that you too can set those things aside. Recently, I was on a podcast with my friend Rachel Nielsen of the 3 in 30 podcast. And in that show, I said, when we learn to allow imperfection in our creativity, we learned to allow imperfection in ourselves. I know I've said that before, and I'm going to say it again because I think that we are so hard on ourselves and we expect so much.

And it's so unrealistic and it's just not a fulfilling whole way to live. And it's not fun. I think that you can agree with me on that. And so it's just a great way, I think, when we start a new hobby or try something new, especially when we're not sure if we're going to be good at it, it's a great way to kind of take a look at our perfectionist tendencies and to kind of work through them.

And I really do think it's this perfect little microcosm for the rest of our life and how we can start to show ourselves some compassion and some grace and realize that we should not be expecting perfection. And that that's not really the point.

So I'm just grateful to hear all of you who leave reviews. Amy, send us an email and we are going to gift you one of our online courses for free. I am so grateful for every review. And just knowing that this is helping you encourages me to keep going. And that is our segment for today.

All right. So now we are going to get into the topic for today, which is five tips to help your anxiety. Now I'm going to leave a little disclaimer. I am not a doctor. I am not a psychiatrist. I am not a psychologist. I am someone who has experienced anxiety. And I'm going to share some things that have really helped me in the past and that continue to help me because what I also want to say is that anxiety or getting help for it is not something that we generally can just check off of our list one time and never deal with it again. Oh, how I wish that I could be completely healed and cured from every mental health issue that I've ever had, but that just is not the case.

Now I will say as time goes on, I am just adding more and more tools to my toolbox. So I believe that when you struggle with depression, anxiety, you name, whatever it is that you might struggle with, that the goal for me is to add these tools to my toolbox, because I used to just get so frustrated when I would spend so much time and energy, trying to fix myself, trying to be cured, and I would feel better for a time and inevitably something would come up again and maybe it wasn't as extreme as in the past, but I would be so annoyed. I would just be like, are you kidding me? I have worked so hard to get my mental health under control and for it to come back was just devastating. And honestly would make me spiral way deeper and darker than I might have without that line of thinking.

When I, now I'm just able to accept what feelings come. I don't spiral as easily because I don't go down that road. The road of, I can't believe this is happening to me again. I've worked so hard. This isn't fair. This is so ridiculous. Okay. Sometimes I still say this is ridiculous. And sometimes I might still say all those things, but I know that it's not helpful to dwell there.

You know, I'm still human, so it's not like I just, you know, have all the positive thoughts all the time. No way. That is definitely not true, but I know that that's a inclination of mine that I kind of have done in the past, and I know that it's not helpful.

So I'm just here to say that anxiety is not something that we can necessarily knock out a hundred percent. If you can, or you have, I'm so happy for you. For most of us, it's something that even if we learn how to deal with it, we're still going to have it show up every once in a while. So we just have our tools in our toolbox and we are going to try to add some more today.

I hope that I might be able to share something that is helpful, some experiences that I've had and what I do.

When anxiety comes up for me now, like I said, in the intro, feeling stressed or anxious from time to time is so normal and sometimes can be helpful. You know, sometimes it alerts us to something that is alarming. And that can be helpful. And at the very least extremely normal, but sometimes we experience anxiety in such high levels or in such frequency that it can really start to interfere with our lives. And I do want to recommend that if that is you, that I really recommend seeing a doctor, seeing a therapist take care of yourself.

Just because anxiety has become more commonly talked about and just because it's something that is common to experience doesn't mean that we should just accept that we feel that way or allow it to really take a toll on us.

And so. While I'm going to share some tips that helped me when this comes up, this is not for extreme cases. If you feel like it's really taking, taking a toll on you, I really, really want to encourage you to go to therapy.

Find a doctor, ask a friend or a family member to help you to make an appointment. Cause it's hard sometimes to do it on your own. If you can do it on your own, go for it. But I know that it's really hard when you're struggling to do the research and find someone. So if you're feeling great right now, I also recommend getting a list of recommendations from people just to have in the future.

And I have talked about this before, because you never know who might need it. If you might need it. If one of your children might need it, if one of your good friends might need it. Mental health is such a serious thing. And having a list of recommended psychiatrists, psychologists therapists in your area, or online can really be beneficial. That's just a little tip for you.

So I have mostly struggled with a lot of depression since I was a teenager, but I have also experienced extreme anxiety at times. I'm not going to say it's the number one, you know, mental health struggle I've had, but I definitely can tell you, I know what it's like to be so certain that you have like a very serious health condition happening and it's turns out to be anxiety.

I don't want to say it's "just anxiety" cause anxiety can be a really big deal. But it turns out that you're not having a heart attack. You're not losing the ability to breathe. You are having an anxiety attack. And I know multiple people who have called 9 1, 1 gotten into an ambulance, gone to the hospital because they believed they were having a heart attack and it turned out to be severe anxiety.

I hope that you don't know what that feels like, but if you do. I just wanted to send you the biggest virtual hug of all time, because it is so hard. It's so scary and it can manifest in so many different ways. You can feel heart palpitations, shortness of breath, chest pains, nausea, lightheadedness.

Sometimes you feel dizzy. Some people experience numbness, not to mention all of the thoughts that can go racing through your head feeling like you're losing control or feeling a lot of fear.

One thing that really helps me is to remember that anxiety, over time, as we were developing as humans, served a purpose to help us scan for danger beyond high alert and was trying to keep us safe.

The problem is that now our bodies going to high alert for small issues. So we have high levels of anxiety for low level situations. We're not fearing for our actual lives. We are stressing about saying the wrong thing to a neighbor or our kids' grades.

Now I'm not saying that it isn't important if you're feeling stressed about saying the wrong thing at a party that you went to. What I am saying is that the levels of anxiety don't necessarily match the levels of the problem or the situation.

This is something that we talk about with our kids when they have really big reactions to things. We talk about, okay, is this a big problem or is this a small problem? Let's talk about what big problems are and what would warrant a very big reaction and what small problems are and how we can, you know, use some tools so that we can respond appropriately to the problem, whether it's a big one or a small one. So often there's this miscommunication between our body and our mind and what's actually happening.

So today I wanted to talk about what often happens when we feel anxiety and what I think can cause the anxiety to be much worse than it is. And then I want to give my five tips for what helps me with anxiety.

So. Anxiety is a feeling that we feel it's often caused by our thinking. Not that we are aware of that at the time, generally for me, what happens is that I start having the physical manifestations of anxiety.

That's the first thing that I notice when I have found that makes it worse is fight or flight. So in fight, we would resist and fight the anxiety. And when you think about this, anytime we resist anything, it often increases. So when we resist the anxiety and we're just fearful of it, and we're freaking out about the anxiety.

It increases the anxiety and it causes so much extra suffering. So there's the anxiety itself, which we'll get into kind of dissecting that later. But what can amplify the suffering is the resistance to the anxiety. The, oh no. Oh my gosh. I'm feeling anxious again. Oh no. Here we go. This is going to be terrible.

Okay. Let's just stop here also and say that you are completely normal. There's nothing wrong with you. You're not broken if you experienced this. And if you have these feelings and these thoughts that I'm describing right now, the only reason why I know what these thoughts often are, is because I've had them myself many, many times.

So let's just get that out of the way you are not alone in this. Okay. I promise you. So I think it's helpful to see, okay, when anxiety does show up for me, am I fighting it? Which would be this resistance to it and kind of freaking out, trying to resist it. Or am I going towards flight, which would be trying to run from it, ignore it, numb it, not pay attention to it, avoid it.

And that can show up in a number of ways when we're trying to numb you pick your numbing activity of choice. There are many out there, and also all of these numbing activities that people often name: Netflix, retail therapy spending, super long time on social media.

None of the things that we do to numb like those activities in and of themselves, aren't inherently wrong. There's nothing wrong with watching Netflix. There's nothing wrong with shopping. There's nothing wrong with scrolling social media. It's when we are using this as an avoidance tactic to run away from a feeling, that we will probably find that the feeling doesn't actually go away. We try to run to another room and not confront it, not accepted and allow it. We want to just avoid it. And that is another technique that a lot of us use when anxiety comes up.

So the reason why I go over the fight and the flight that many of us do is so that we can start to become more aware of what we are likely to turn to and to do when anxiety comes up.

What I want to recommend that we do when anxiety comes up for us is to accept it and allow it. And I don't know about you, but for me, someone can say that and I can be like, okay, but what does that actually look like?

You say, don't fight it, just accept it, but I don't know how to do that. So I'm going to talk it through with you.

So a couple of years ago, I had an experience where someone said something to me and, oh my gosh, I had so much anxiety about it. When I thought about it, I got a pit in my stomach. I just felt so sick about it. And then I would also find myself having a super tight chest, shortness of breath, trouble breathing. I mean, I wasn't having like actual trouble breathing, but I wasn't taking deep breaths. I could just feel tightened.

And it was so uncomfortable. And sometimes I would feel those feelings before I even remembered what it was that was causing them. So sometimes you may not even be aware of the situation or the thought that may be involved if, if there is one. And so for me, when this happened, I did a few different things.

The first tip is to name it. When you recognize that it's happening, say. This is anxiety.

One of the reasons why this helps so much is because anxiety thrives in this kind of vagueness when it's like, oh, something's wrong? And I just can't, I just don't know what's wrong. Something feels wrong and it feels overwhelming and I'm stressed and anxious and I can't breathe, and you spiral.

When you can stop and be aware and name it. That is huge. That is the beginning of taking some of the power away from the anxiety.

So I really recommend saying it out loud as well. If you're around other people, that'd be tricky, but if you're by yourself or with a trusted person, say out loud, this is anxiety.

And right here, I want to remind you that you are not your feelings. You are a whole, worthy incredible human who is experiencing anxiety. You are not anxiety. Okay. So you're having the experience.

Number two, tip number two is to allow the sensation and describe it. So this is where I really like to dissect what anxiety feels like, and it could be different for you than it is for me.

It could feel different to you from one day to the next or one experience to the next, but taking the time to say, okay, let's see, we're going to be real factual about this. I am feeling tightness in my chest. I'm feeling churning tightness in my stomach. I am breathing really shallow. I can feel my shoulders are up to my ears.

That is a very common one for me as well. Like my shoulders just tightening up so that they're really high. And allow those sensations.

Okay. Tip number three is to breathe, breathe, and breathe into those areas of tightness.

So there are many different breathing techniques and you can choose what works for you. For me, it just helps to imagine that the area that feels tight, maybe my, you know, tightness in my chest or my stomach. When I breathe in, then I imagine all of the oxygen and the air going to that area. And then breathe out and imagine just filling up that area of my body with breath. With air because you feel sometimes like you're suffocating and so breathing into that helps to allow the sensation.

It helps me to be there and to accept it and not to tense up tighter, which is what I do when I'm resisting it and fighting it is that I tense up even more. So allowing it. Is breathing into it, relaxing into it.

Not trying to get it to go away. Saying, okay, this is anxiety. I'm experiencing anxiety. I feel it in my stomach. I feel it in my shoulders. I'm going to breathe into it and allow it. I'm not going to be in a rush for it to leave. The irony with anxiety, depression, most mental health struggles, is that the more we resist them, the longer they stick around. So by allowing it and not being in a rush to get rid of it, it passes faster. It's counterintuitive, but it really does help.

Number four is to tell yourself a positive mantra or affirmation, and you can do this speaking out loud. You can do this by writing, and it is so powerful, especially if you can think of some affirmations ahead of time to have in your tool belt and your toolkit in your toolbox that are going to be there waiting for you for when this happens.

And you can tell yourself I am safe. Even though your brain wants to tell you that this is super scary and super overwhelming and super terrible and it's never going to go away. You are safe. This feeling can't kill you. It can be super uncomfortable, but it's not going to hurt you. You are safe.

This is why I wanted to create the next volume of the Daily Mindful Lettering book. When I asked you guys what topic you wanted me to cover, without question, the highest responded to the highest rated answer was anxiety. Stress and anxiety.

And so I decided to have that be the focus of this next book, that by the way, I just finished today, I'm so excited. I just sent it to the printer. Hopefully we'll get our first sample next week and we'll be able to release it the week after that. Um, actually I'm hoping to get the sample the week that you're hearing this podcast, because I'm recording it ahead of time, because I really want you to be able to have these in time for mother's day and time for spring.

And I just, this is my work. Like, this is so powerful. So one of the first affirmations that is in the book is I am safe. Breathe it in. Sometimes it's hard to just think these things without writing them or saying them because our thoughts like to chase each other around and by saying it out loud and by writing it down, It helps us to really focus on it and really internalize it.

It is so powerful, mindful lettering. You guys, if you haven't tried it yet, you don't have to be good at it. It is just super powerful to do. So. I want you to have a mantra or two or five in this new book. There will be 30 because they're 30 days of lettering, affirmations for peace and calm and one of the first ones, like I said, is I am safe.

So if you need to borrow one to keep right away to remind yourself, and I like to put my hand over my heart on my chest and another hand over my belly sometimes, if not, for sure the hand over my chest really helps me. And I just say, I am safe. I'm okay. I'm going to be okay. I'm safe.

Because our brain wants us to believe the opposite. That we have a high anxiety situation for a high level problem, but it's normally not a high level problem, even though we think it is. It isn't normally when I say high level problem, like life or death, that would cause that level of intense anxiety.

And number five is to journal. To write, to get it all out on paper, everything that you're thinking when you have the chance, if you're walking or moving or not with a pen and paper that's okay.

But when you have a chance, number five is to write it all out because that is a super effective tool for recognizing what thoughts are happening in your mind and reminding yourself that you do not have to accept all of those thoughts that may be causing anxiety for you.

And in next week's episode, I am going to go further into anxiety inducing thoughts, and how to combat them. But even if you are not analyzing those thoughts, just writing and getting it out of your head is very powerful.

Now there is no right or wrong way to do each of these steps. There are many other things to do, and you might have things that really work for you. There are physical things that you can do to move your body that can really help as well.

You can go for a walk. You can lay down with your feet up, you can start dancing. You can kind of like rub the material on your pants, um, just to kind of ground yourself and feel that friction, you can try to get your feet grounded into the earth. There are lots of different techniques for how to cope with anxiety.

And so this is by no means an exhaustive list, but those were just five things that I often do when I'm feeling anxiety that I have found to be really helpful.

I am so excited for this new volume of Daily Mindful Lettering to come out in a couple of weeks. I just know that it's going to be a blessing to you.

And it's got the 30 days of lettering affirmations. It has little words of encouragement for each of those days, as well as of course lettering practice, which is super relaxing and such a fun skill and hobby to learn.

I just want to thank you for being here. I love chatting with you and keeping it real. I still will find anxiety creeping up. I am not a robot and neither are you. And so it's totally okay to feel this and to try to learn some skills and some tools that can help. And also it's okay to get help. It does not mean anything is wrong with you.

I have been to years of therapy and taking medication. I've done special supplements. I've done all kinds of natural things and been to many doctors and there is no shame in this game, my friend.

You might look at me and be like, yeah, that's fine for you. I just, uh, for me... No! You can't say that. You can't say that you don't think it's bad for me to do it, or you don't see anything negative about me doing it, but you do for you.

We have to eliminate the stigma for everyone. We have to take care of ourselves. We cannot feel inferior or less than, or that there's something wrong with us. If we struggle with experiencing anxiety or depression or anything that might be plaguing you, it is not who you are. It is what you are experiencing, and getting help with that is amazing.

So whether it's going to therapy, going to a doctor, getting medication or whatever feels right for you, or maybe it's not as severe. And so taking up a meditation practice or a mindful creativity practice, like mindful lettering, whatever you can do, that's going to bring more peace and calm to your life.

I just want to encourage you to do it. That you matter, your mental health matters, your creativity matters, and it is not selfish to take care of yourself. It's not, do not feel bad for prioritizing your mental health.

Okay. All right. I'm going to get off my little soapbox now, but just know, know that I love you.

And I am grateful that you take the time to listen to the podcast. It's something I love doing, and I hope that it makes a difference for you. My hope for you in listening is that, you know, you're not alone and that, you know, someone can relate to how you feel and that we can all be encouraged to experience our humanity. The good, the bad, the hard, the challenging, the beautiful, the joy, and to not feel ashamed of any of it. Let's be here for it. Take care of ourselves and take care of each other. I'm here for you.

Okay. If you want to be one of the first to know when this book comes out, this Daily Mindful Lettering book, the next volume, head over to hand lettered design.com.

Scroll to the bottom and enter your email there. I'm going to be sending all of the information to my email list, and you will be sure to not miss it. If you're on that list, it's going to be out in time for you to get it if you want to give it as a Mother's Day gift, a Mother's Day gift to yourself, you don't even have to be a mother to give yourself a Mother's Day gift, or a gift any day of the year. This is a lot cheaper than therapy, but I also recommend therapy.

I hope that you have a great day. I love being here with you and I can't wait to talk to you again next week.

Links:

My episode on the 3 in 30 Podcast with Rachel Nielson
Daily Mindful Lettering

Ready for a fun activity to feel less stress? Come get our FREE Guide - 5 Creative Steps to Less Stress & More Joy while it's still available: http://CommittedtoCreate.com/lessstress

I hope that my podcast has left you feeling inspired and excited to create the life that you want. If you’ve enjoyed listening to this podcast, I’d love for you to subscribe so you can continue to hear more. Want to get to know me better? Connect with me on my website or on Instagram to keep up with everything that is going on with me and my business.

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Jennifer L. IN LOVE!! What a perfect idea! I am a plant mama too, like Lisa. I also manage a great deal of anxiety. I got into lettering a couple years ago as a creative outlet and discovered a multitude of treasures in the lettering community! This book that Lisa created with her daughter is just perfection! It's all the feels for me! Thank you both!!!
Cinthanie C. EXCELLENT BOOK! I really enjoy taking a minute each day to slow down and apply my hand to something that is not only emotionally supportive but relaxing and fun to do!! The mantras for everyday are very helpful for me. Thank you for your work and bringing such a high quality product into my life!

Daily Mindful Lettering Kit: Live With Love

Daily Mindful Lettering Kit: Peace & Calm

040: 5 Tips to Help with Anxiety

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Podcast

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