The Hilary Silver Podcast - Cure Your Anxiety Forever, What Nobody Is Telling You

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

Episode 4: The ONLY Cure For Anxiety. What No One Else Is Saying   Introduction Welcome to Episode #4 of The Hilary Silver Podcast, "The ONLY Cure For Anxiety. What No One Else Is SayingToday," Hilary challenges the conventional understanding of anxiety, revealing why it is merely a symptom of deeper issues rather than the core problem itself. Join us as we uncover the root causes of anxiety and learn practical strategies to eliminate it permanently. Hilary dives deep into the mechanics of anxiety, debunking common misconceptions and providing a fresh perspective on how to effectively eradicate it by fostering a profound connection with oneself. Whether you're occasionally anxious or dealing with it on a more chronic level, this episode offers transformative insights and actionable advice to help you lead a calmer, more fulfilled life. Ready to transform your relationship with yourself and conquer anxiety for good? Let’s join the conversation.   Episode Highlights: Understanding the true nature of anxiety as a symptom, not the core issue. Exploring the root causes of anxiety and how to address them effectively. Practical strategies to permanently overcome anxiety and build a stronger relationship with oneself. Episode Breakdown: [00:00:00] - Opening thoughts: Making a decision about your well-being. [00:00:28] - Introduction to the prevalence of anxiety and its impact. [00:01:58] - Why treating only the symptoms of anxiety is a temporary solution. [00:03:00] - Anxiety as a symptom of deeper, unaddressed issues. [00:04:00] - How avoiding primary emotions leads to anxiety. [00:07:00] - The concept of anxiety as a 'warning light'. [00:10:00] - The cycle of self-abandonment and its role in perpetuating anxiety. [00:15:00] - Empowering oneself to handle life's challenges without anxiety. [00:20:00] - Final thoughts: Embracing life's uncertainties with strength and trust in oneself. Listener Takeaways: Recognize Anxiety as a Signal: Understand that anxiety is not the main problem but a symptom indicating deeper issues. Address the Root Cause: Identify and confront the underlying emotions and situations that trigger anxiety. Empowerment Through Self-Trust: Develop a trusting relationship with yourself to handle life’s uncertainties without fear or anxiety. Continuous Self-Support: Commit to being your own best support system, ensuring personal growth and resilience. Resources The STOP Technique Disclaimer: The Hilary Silver Podcast The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of anyone else. The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only.  Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by the host. The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. The content here should not be taken as medical or psychiatric advice. The content here is for informational purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical or psychiatric questions. Contact information: [e-mail]

Can you solemnly swear to promise yourself this right now? It is a decision, everyone. It is just a decision. You are going to decide right now, no matter what happens in this life, you will be okay, no matter what. Here's why. Hi, it's Hillary.

Welcome to the Hillary Silver Podcast. Everyone feels anxious sometimes, right? We all do. But it's reported that 40% of adults actually have anxiety, which means that they live with the feeling of being anxious most of the time or much of the time. And in my opinion, that is absolutely no way to live. So wherever you are on that spectrum, feeling it sometimes and occasionally or feeling it a lot of the time, it is my hope that by the end of this episode, you will be able to solve this problem in your life once and for all, and potentially even never having anxiety ever again. Yes, I know that is a bold statement to make.

It's a very big claim to make, but I've seen it happen in my work over the years again and again, and I know how to fix it. So in this conversation today, I am going to be sharing with you what is really going on when we have anxiety and what we need to do to actually fix it once and for all. And just a quick reminder before we get started, please follow the podcast, rate, review, and subscribe. It tells the algorithm that you like this, you want more of it. It gets us into the circulation and gets us noticed in a sea of over 3 million active

podcasts right now. And also, please share with your friends and your family and people that you care about because word of mouth is still always the best way to grow. So thanks in advance for your support. Okay, let's just start off the conversation by talking about the symptoms of anxiety. You already know what these are most likely. And if you don't realize that they're symptoms of anxiety, but you're feeling it now, you will know exactly what it is.

So on the slight end of the spectrum, when we feel anxious, we might feel agitated, restless, uneasy. There's just this discomfort that we're feeling. It's a dis-ease in the body. And that can lead to physical symptoms like stomach ache, kind of like a butterflies in the stomach feeling, headaches, feeling tension in your body, all the way to the other side of the spectrum, which is when somebody is having a full-blown panic attack. Those are actually very scary and land people in the emergency room sometimes because they think they're having a heart attack, which is heart palpitations, racing heart, shortness of breath. You can't catch a breath, maybe break out into a sweat. It's very, very scary. Here's what I want you to know. While all of those are symptoms of anxiety. Anxiety in itself is a symptom. And this is what has been missing

from the conversation at large in the medical community, in the mental health community. That is what's missing. Treating the symptoms of anxiety is going to send you on a wild goose chase of living in reaction mode, putting out fires, white knuckling it. You're going to send you on a wild goose chase of living in reaction mode, putting out fires, white knuckling it. You're going to be always waiting for the next panic attack to come. You will be taking medications the rest of your life. You're chasing symptom control. And because these symptoms are so uncomfortable, it makes sense why the larger community here to help people are actually addressing symptom control because who wants to feel any of that stuff? Nobody does. It can be

actually very debilitating. But when you're only treating the symptoms and you're not treating the root cause and core issues that's causing the anxiety in the first place, you will continue living with anxiety and treating and treating and treating and treating. And again, that is just simply no way to live. Anxiety is a symptom of a much larger and deeper problem. I remember one evening during all of the COVID stuff, I was in the kitchen making dinner and my family was buzzing around and we had the TV on in the background and one of the world news programs was playing in the background. And there was an expert on, of course, talking about how to deal with anxiety because during COVID, everybody was feeling a heightened sense of anxiety. It was just the way of the world at the time. And what this expert was saying is make sure that you are getting plenty of sleep, Have good sleep hygiene. Make sure that you're exercising every day.

Eat healthy food, blah, blah. Meditate. Go see your doctor. Go see a therapist if you need to. And I just became infuriated. I started screaming at the TV. I was so mad because that does not help anyone. We can do better than that. So either the medical people or the mental health people either don't understand what is really causing

anxiety or they're not willing to address it. They're not willing to say what needs to be said. So be glad that you are here with me right now because I will say it. The bigger, deeper issue is a lack of a relationship with self. It truly is. And now we're going to break it all down. So I consider anxiety a secondary emotion. It is not a primary emotion. We feel anxious. We get anxiety when we are not dealing with or feeling the primary emotions that we really don't want to feel. That's what's happening. So something's going on in your life. There's a relationship problem, a work problem, a something something problem that's going on in your life, triggering you to feel a certain way, lonely, scared, confused, frustrated, worried about something that you don't know how to handle

or whatever. So there's some kind of triggering experience in your life causing you to feel something that you may not want to feel because it's uncomfortable. So you stuff it away for a rainy day, but you never go back to it. You eat it, you drink it, you busy it, you Netflix it away, you do whatever you can to avoid it. So anxiety is what happens. It's like when you shake up a soda and the gas just gets more and more condensed and it gets like, you know, and then you finally crack the soda bottle open and it like explodes everywhere. That's your anxiety. The soda bubbles bubbling up to the surface. Anxiety is your deep self, your deepest self trying to get your attention. Hello, Hillary, Hillary, I am in here. You are not paying attention to me. And if you don't pay attention to me,

something major is going to happen. Your anxiety is actually your friend. It is your indicator light, your warning light saying, hello, hello, alert, alert, warning, warning, danger, danger. You are not listening to me. Something's going on that you need to deal and feel. Okay. Deal with it and feel it. So anxiety is what's happening as a by-product of a primary feeling that you are not handling a primary issue that you are sweeping under the rug and you do not want to deal with. So until you are ready to have a look at what's really going on and to feel the initial primary feelings in the first place, you're going to live with anxiety. But I, again, it's your friend. Anxiety is your cue. If you're feeling anxious, instead of just having a Xanax or going for a 10 mile run or getting busy or going partying or doing whatever you do to cope with that, to self-medicate,

to numb out, I challenge you to say, oh my gosh, I'm anxious right now and get really curious with yourself about what the fuck is going on. Because this is something only you can ask yourself and only you can answer and it will unlock everything for you. So that's part of the problem. Anxiety being a secondary emotion is your inner self screaming at you, trying to get your attention. Now what happens next, the next layer of this is over time in your life, when you've done this again and again and again, ignore yourself, dismiss yourself, minimize yourself, get busy. Turning your back on yourself in your biggest hour of need is self-abandonment, self-betrayal, okay? You are deserting yourself.

Every time that you're upset about something or have struggling with something and you refuse to listen to you, to sit with you, to see you, and instead you do all the other things to avoid it, you are abandoning yourself. And what happens when you abandon yourself or you betray yourself in those moments? You learn that you can't be trusted. And there's the break in the relationship with yourself. It's a dysfunctional relationship

with yourself. You want so badly to trust yourself, but again and again, you can't. You are the worst betrayal. This is betrayal of the worst kind because you're doing it to yourself. And I'm going to give you a little analogy. It's as if your best friend in the whole world or your child called you in the worst day that they're ever having. They're in tears. They're distraught. This horrible thing just happened to me and I don't know what to do. And they're so upset. And you say, I'm sorry, too bad. So sad for you. Click. And you go live your life. Tra la la. That's what you're doing. You're hanging up on yourself. You're walking away from yourself

when you need you the most. So over time, you have learned you can't be trusted. You can't be trusted to really listen to you. You're not a good listener. You can't be trusted to hear you, to see you, to witness you, to support you, care for you, look after you, because you keep doing these behaviors that have taught you over time, you kind of suck basically. And that's what's happening. So this is your relationship with you. And when that is your relationship with you and you don't have self-trust, then the next thing that follows is that you live with uncertainty. So of all the things that we talked about a moment ago, feeling lonely or frustrated or sad or confused,

feeling uncertain is the greatest indicator of feeling anxiety. Okay, so think about it. We're anxious when we're uncertain about things, right? Well, there's a lot of things to be uncertain about in this world, especially if you don't trust yourself. So those of us who have a greater need to feel certain are going to struggle more with anxiety. Yes, it's true. So learning how to live in a state of uncertainty is one of the keys to solving anxiety forever. And how do you do that? Not by focusing on all the external outcomes that you can't control,

but by focusing on the internal, which is you, that you have 100% control over. So what happens is we live in a world where there's a lot of uncertainty. We cannot control politics, the economy. We can't control crime rates. We can't control what our partners are going to do, what our children are going to do. We can't control what happens to us the moment we walk out the front door every morning. There's a lot of things in our lives that we can't control.

Outcomes. Okay. And we're so, we chase after controlling the outcome that we drive ourselves crazy, but we can't control that. So trying to control something that is beyond our control will drive you insane. That's where all this neurotic, neuroticism comes from and running high on anxiety, having anxiety in your engine. If anxiety is fueling your engine, that's what's happening with you. So recognizing that there's a lot of uncertainty in this world and that there's nothing you can do about certain things means that the best thing to do is to turn inward. And develop this relationship with self to learn, oh my goodness, I can trust myself. And it starts by listening to you, paying attention to you, tuning into you, being there for you, getting your own back. You have to stop the self-betrayal. So it starts with feeling the feelings that you may not want to feel. And, and anytime that you find yourself anxious, that's your cue to go back to what might be the primary feeling

in the first place. Okay. And all the what if thing is part of the problem, the what if thinking, well, what if this happens? And what if that happens? And what if this? And what if that? And the what if thinking is always negative or bad. And in those scenarios, we're playing out the worst case scenario, right? Aren't we? We're like, we're never saying, well, what if this great thing happens? Oh, I guess I'll celebrate. We know we're going to celebrate if the good things happen. But the reason that we're what if-ing the worst case scenario is because we are concerned

that when those things may come to pass in our lives, we won't be prepared and we won't know what to do. So we're worrying about it now. Excessive worry and fear about the unknown, just in case it happens, you can be prepared for it, is making you miserable now. And that shit may never happen. And if it does, it doesn't mean that all of your worry is going to make you prepared and it certainly isn't going to prevent it. Does this start? I hope this is making sense, breaking it all down this way. And it's actually quite simple, isn't it? It's not that complicated. So what

we're learning here is to trust self, to build self. And again, as I started to say, number one is to feel your feelings. Number two, I'm going to leave you with two powerful mindsets and things that you need to do to get past anxiety for the rest of your life, for the rest of your life. So number two, because number one was feeling your feelings. Number two is to know that no matter what happens in this life, you will be okay, no matter what. This is relationship with self. No matter what happens, you will be okay. Can you solemnly swear to promise yourself this right now? It is a decision, everyone. It is just a decision, a decision. You're going to decide right now that you believe, no matter what happens in my life, I know I will always be okay.

Here's why. Because you've got you. You will count on you, rely on you, fall back on you. You will get your own back. You will take care of you. You will do whatever is necessary to keep yourself safe, to keep yourself happy, to keep yourself well. You will do the hard thing, the scary thing, the uncomfortable thing, the unpopular thing, if you must, to do what is best for you because you matter the most in your own life. Get your own back.

Don't sacrifice yourself, throw yourself under the bus to make somebody else happy. Because when you do that, you've betrayed yourself and now you have uncertainty. You're saying to yourself in those cases, when you do stuff like that, when this person comes along, I'm going to do what I need to do to make them happy. Now you suffer. You're not getting your own back. When this situation comes about in your life, you're going to do whatever you need to do to not rock the boat and make everyone happy and be the peacekeeper.

And even if that means sacrificing yourself, you just taught yourself, you don't matter. You're not going to take care of you. You're not going to get your own back. Now you have uncertainty. So we're going to unravel all of that and knock that shit off right now. We're not doing that anymore. So to recap so far, you're going to feel your feelings when you're feeling them. And if you're not feeling them when you're feeling them, you're going to feel anxious.

So you're going to take anxiety as your cue to go back and be honest with yourself and be curious about what's really going on here. What am I really feeling? What's eating at me? What's bothering me? Number two, you're going to believe that no matter what happens in this lifetime, whatever happens today, whatever external outcome happens, external situation, external circumstance, you're going to be okay no matter what. You're going to prove it to yourself time and time again. You're going to build evidence in your life that you are trustworthy, that you will get your own back. There are many times in your life where you've already done this and you're just not giving yourself credit for it

because the worst thing in the world could happen to any one of us. And maybe it has already happened to some of you listening. Maybe you've lost a child. Maybe a child has gotten terribly sick. Those are kind of some of the worst things that I can think of. You know, a partner dying, getting sick, divorce happening is very, you know, destructive to our lives. It's very upsetting. It's there's all kinds of terrible, awful things that can happen to us. A lot of them have already happened to you and you're not giving yourself credit for having overcome that. So that leads me to the third and final lesson for today, which is that you need to believe that everything that happens in this life is happening for you, not to you. Everything that happens is happening for your benefit. It may suck for a while.

It certainly will. You may fall apart and crumble and melt into a puddle on the floor, and you may not get out of bed for weeks if something terrible like that happens to you. That's totally normal and understandable and it makes perfect sense that that would be. But then what happens after that? You will get up and carry on. and how we make meaning out of these things that happen to us that seem meaningless, that don't make sense, is we make sense of them. We, it is up to us to decide what meaning we are making of these things. And if you choose to believe that everything happens for you rather than to you, you won't be a victim. You will find how these things will strengthen you, grow you, stretch you, expand you.

A tree grows stronger in the strong wind. The resistance, it's in the struggle, in the hard time, in the hardship, in the challenge, in the pain that we grow stronger because we are tested. So when you believe this, you don't have to be afraid of whatever horrible, awful, what if thing that may come your way, because A, you will handle it, you will get through it, and you will be okay. And number two, it's working in your favor in some way. I will tell you right now, personally, every time I find myself in some kind of a slump, in a struggle, in a squeeze time in my life, it's uncomfortable as hell.

And I hate it the way that it feels. But when I'm in it, what I'm saying is I'm learning something right now. I don't even know what I'm supposed to be learning right now, but I know I'm supposed to be learning something and I am looking for what I'm supposed to be learning right now, but I know I'm supposed to be learning something and I am looking for what I'm supposed to be learning. The universe is teaching me something right now about myself that I needed to learn and didn't realize it. And so it's a gift, even if it's the most difficult, excruciating process to trust that process. Can you see how this will eliminate anxiety?

I don't fear those difficult times. I don't want them to happen. Don't get me wrong. I don't wish these things on myself or anyone, but things are going to happen because that's life. What are you going to do? Not leave your house forever? Then you'll die of loneliness. Okay? So these things make you bulletproof. Instead of spending your life in anxiety, trying to dodge every bullet that may come from any direction in your life, you can just relax and settle in and feel calm and have peace of mind that whatever comes your way, bring it on. I've got this. I can handle it.

And everything always works out in my favor. That's it. That is how you really never have anxiety ever again. You don't need medicine. You really don't. You don't need just deep breathing and marathon running and eating healthy and getting good sleep. You need those things. Yes. But you need this first and foremost. Nip it in the bud. Go to the source. And I promise you, putting these into practice is going to eliminate your anxiety potentially forever.

And if you do feel anxious, you know exactly what you need to do. So thanks for listening, everybody. I really hope this was helpful. Please don't forget to rate and review and subscribe, and I'll see you in our next episode. Thanks so much for joining the conversation today. I hope you learned something new or heard something that inspired you to take action in a new way as your greatest champion and someone who truly cares about your love, happiness, wealth, and success.

I always want to encourage you to ask yourself this question. How have I contributed? You are the only person who can ask this and the only one who can answer it. This doesn't just change your life. This changes everything. Thank you.