Heroes in Business - Andy Hahn, Perspectives on Anxiety and Stress

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

There are 3 kinds of anxiety, developmental anticipatory and traumatic. Knowing the difference is so important in knowing how to cope. There are 3 kinds of stress, too much, too little and just right in this episode of Fearless Living with Dr Andy Hahn.

Hi, my name is Andy Hahn, and this is episode 66 of Guided Self-Healing, Fearless Living. And again, if you want to find us, you can always find us at lifecenteredtherapy.com. And today I want to talk with you about anxiety and stress. And I want to offer what might be for many of us different perspectives than the ones we may usually come up with. So I want to start with anxiety, and I want to talk about three different time orientations to anxiety, the present, the future, and the past. future and the past. So let's start with the present. And if you have present-oriented anxiety and it's natural, you might say it's developmental. What does that mean? Let's suppose I am going to ride a bicycle for the first time and I get anxious. Well, it may just be, of course, that all my anxiety wants

to tell me is that I'm at an edge, but it's sort of like feel the fear and do it anyway. So if you can say to yourself, you know, this is the first time I'm riding a bicycle, so of course I'd be anxious, but everybody might get anxious if they're riding a bicycle for the first time. And it's natural and it's normal. So perhaps what I could do is I could feel the anxiety and feel it in my body and bring my attention to it and let it say whatever it wants to say about how scary it is to get on the bicycle for the first time. And then we could be with that anxiety, of course. And we could say, I got it. And I'm here with you and I'm holding you.

And you get to be here, but you're not going to run the show because I'm the one who is bearing witness to you. You might say, I'm feeling anxiety, but I am not anxious because it's not my identity. It's just an experience I'm feeling anxiety, but I am not anxious because it's not my identity. It's just an experience I'm having. And I can be with the experience without identifying with the experience. And then, of course, you can get on the bike. So that's present-oriented and developmental.

Now let's think about something future-oriented a little bit bit, which might call anticipatory anxiety. So let's suppose you're going to get on the bike again. And this time you still feel anxiety, but something about it feels different because you talk to yourself about it, but it's not doing anything for it. It's staying there and it's like uh really trying to get your attention so this time when you drop into it you say something like oh i'm realizing now that the truth is i'm not ready to get on that bicycle and if i do something really bad it's going to happen i'm just not

ready yet and perhaps my friends are doing it. So I want to be as cool as they are, or perhaps my parents are pushing me a little bit and I'm not ready. So this is, you know, it's kind of a way of setting a boundary about what you really anticipate is going to happen. And then when you drop into it and you ask the sensation that's associated with anxiety, like let's suppose your heart's beating fast or you're feeling sick I'm trying to prove something but it's not right for me yet at which point hopefully you can then say you know this isn't right for me yet and I'm going to speak my own truth and and hopefully be able to care for myself if I get you know teased or pushed or whatever and just be able to speak what's true for me

and say, it's just not the right time for me. And listen to yourself. Right? So that's the second kind. Then there's a third kind of anxiety. And that one we might call traumatically based. And let's take a different example. Let's suppose I'm an adult and I'm going to start a job for the first, a new job, and I'm feeling very anxious. And I try, you know, the one about developmental and I say, look, Andy, you know, it's just a new job. Anybody might get anxious, you know, it's a, you know, it's just a new job. Anybody might get anxious. You know, it's a, you know, there's a lot of change here and et cetera. Okay. And so I listen to the anxiety and I speak with it.

And it sort of like says, thank you for listening to me and I can back off. And it's not exactly anticipatory anxiety either. It's not like somebody was pushing you or you were comparing yourself to friends or anything like that and then saying, oh my God, something horrific is going to happen. But it's really something about the here and now. And at that point, it's probably something traumatic. And let me tell you what I mean. Let's suppose the first day you went to school, for example,

you went to school and you had developmental anxiety and then you got beat up by a bull, let's suppose. And let's suppose you couldn't handle it. So you're now stuck being, you know, five years years old even if you're 50 years old and so when you go into this possibility of your new job in the first day of your new job suddenly you're having profound anxiety but when you tune into it then you say you, I've checked in and it's not just because it's normal developmental anxiety because, you know, I tried to talk with you, but that didn't do anything. And it's not anticipatory anxiety about something in the here and now. Because it's not like I'm trying to set a boundary against somebody who's pushing me or, you know, whatever.

But I'm still feeling profoundly anxious. So then you could drop into anxiety. Let's suppose you're feeling sick to your stomach. Like I am right now. A little. And you say, teach me. What have you come to share about anxiety? Where are you beginning, and what's happening, sick to stomach?

And suddenly, you have this memory, or it's almost like you feel like a five-year-old. An image pops into your head, or just a felt sense. And suddenly you say, I'm remembering right now, being five, like I'm walking into that school and someone's looking at me and like they're coming at me and like they're going to beat me up. And so then what we need to do is to say, OK, I got it. So it's not me as the 50 yearyear-old or whatever who's going to work. It's really me as the five-year-old who's going to school for the first time. And I have listened to you. And I'm holding you.

And I'm accepting you. There's nothing to be ashamed about. You know. And just being able to say that is maybe enough and if it's not you need something else and that five-year-old might say something like i need a hug or i need you to tell me you know you'll be with me or i need you to help me unfreeze or whatever. And then you give them what they need. And then miraculously, the work isn't so overwhelming. So a brief description of these different anxieties. Normal anxiety.

Anticipatory anxiety that is like built in a normal situation, but you're realizing you have to listen to a deeper part of you. And traumatic anxiety, where the real problem is that you're still living out the past. And the way to find out, as I always say, is to find the sensation that's associated with the anxiety. And choose to bring all your attention there and become the sensation. And then say, sensation, what have you come to share about anxiety? And is there anything more you want to say about who you are? Anything.

And worlds will open. So now let's talk about stress. And we might say that there are many different kinds of stress and stress has gotten a bad name, you know, but if you think about it, there's too much stress, which is what's gotten a bad name because too much stress leads to a kind of overwhelm, right? Oh my God, I'm getting bombarded and there's too much but not enough stress actually leads to sort of a polar opposite problem which is that there's nothing inspiring us or there's nothing we're aspiring to doing so there's no edge for us we're just like hanging out and we're not trying anything

that you know gives us an opportunity to master something new. So, you know, either one of those stresses actually can take years off of our life, interestingly, because too much stress will do take years off our life. But also in a funny way, not enough, what we might call them, a different kind of stress can take two years off our life, because we don't have a sense of passion and purpose we're just like hanging out and like so the very act of non-stress becomes stressful so what we're looking for is the optimal amount of stress you know something that really is a little bit at our edge and not over our edge but really really at our edge. So we are kept, you know, invited to come forward and not just to stay still and do nothing new.

So we've had a little look today at anxiety and three different types. Developmental anxiety, which is what one might say is appropriate you know so if i you know i'm starting a new job and i can say well andy anybody might feel anxious here but it's okay i can hold it because i'm feeling anxious but it's not my identity or anticipatory anxiety usually based on something that isn't just developmental, but that I have to listen to a deeper voice that's saying, you know, this may not be the right choice for you. Even if it sounds like it's rational, it may not be the best choice what you're doing. And there's a better choice. And you have to listen to what I have to say,

and tune into a deeper part of you that just knows what's true, that gut knowing. And then once you know what's true, knows what you desire, which is a kind of heart knowing. So these aren't head questions, right? It's our gut that knows what's true for us. It's our heart that knows what we desire to do, given what's true for us. And then our head can help us figure it out, but it doesn't know what's true, and it doesn't know what we want. So this is about bringing our attention down and in, so we're really listening to a deeper part of ourselves, our deepest intuitive knowing, and our true heart's desire, what's really true for us. Even if, of course, we've had reasons that are seemingly rational not to go on.

And then, of course, there's traumatic anxiety, and that's when we find out that really we're stuck in the past. And then we talked about three kinds of stress. Too much, too little, and just right. Sort of like the three bears. So having said all this, thank you so much. Too much, too little, and just right. Sort of like three bears. So having said all this, thank you so much. And again, of course, you can reach us at lifecentertherapy.com, and you can reach me at ahan at lifecentertherapy.com. And I, of course, welcome any comments, reflections, and questions.

Thank you, and have a great day hi hi hi i just did a my first of four podcasts how are you oh are you doing four yet tonight three yet tonight I have three more to go. I just did one on anxiety and stress. What did I say? I don't know. I don't know. You said this is how we