The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How You Can Use the DARE Response to Conquer Your Fears | KEV Talks #5

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

Anxiety sucks. Heart palpitations, weak legs, upset stomach and on and on. But, anxiety also presents an opportunity for us to unfu*k ourselves. To not let anxiety win. To change our mindset. To live.In Face Anxiety: Using the DARE Response to Conquer Your Fears I share 5 tips, tools and techniques that my wife, me and many others have used to face our fears head on. It's not easy by any means, but it can be done.The 5 Tips, tools and techniques:The DARE ResponseCreating your own sceneConsider doing things afraidTake small steps...but stepChange your self-statementsI will...I will not...I hope you, a friend or other loved one finds this episode helpful. If you do, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, subscribe and share.Read more about the DARE ResponseRead or listen to Unfu*k Yourself by Gary John BishopHave a plan, stay informed and get involved,KevinKevin Pannell, PMP | Creator & Host KEV Talks and You-Jitsu PodcastsTwitter & Instagram: @pannellkgWebsite: https://kevtalkspod.com

Marcus Aurelius says, reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears. What does this quote from over 1500 years ago have to do with a podcast in 2022? The immediate connection is because I listened to it on my drive for work out of town as I listened to the book Unfuck Yourself by Gary John Bishop. It was in my Audible library. I hadn't listened to it. I think my spouse had listened to it. And I thought, you know, this is very relevant because I wanted to share some of the tools and techniques that I've used to address anxiety that others have used that are proven. And it thought, you know what, this is how you unfuck yourself. And it also has to do, I've read, I've mentioned Reddit. There's a lot of great subreddits out there. It's a great site for

people to commiserate. But the problem I see with that is they commiserate, right? And some of the rules in those subreddits are that you can't share resources. You can't just say, go get them. And I get it. That's not a tried and true fix for everybody to look better and think better and do all that kind of stuff. But it does make a difference. And at some point, we have to put the work in to unfuck ourselves. But to not put it the way that Gary John Bishop put it, let's dare to face anxiety. Let's use these five tools, tips, techniques to help you get off the couch, out of your bed, out of your house, back into the world, back into the gym, wherever it is that you're afraid of going or afraid to do. But first, let me fly over to the

studio. Hello, fine listeners. Where do you find yourself today? Let me know. KevTalksPod.com. I find myself on the 14th floor. It was an interesting superhero landing coming through the window, but I did it. That's what you got to do sometimes, right? So let's be superheroes for ourselves. Let's dare to face that frigging anxiety. That sucks, right? It doesn't matter what the catalyst is. You could have had it or seemingly been born with it and had a traumatic event when you were a kid and when you're an adult. Stress overtook your PTSD, a whole bunch of different things, but anxiety is no fun. Heart palpitations, shortness of breath, sweating, nervousness, weak legs, all the signs and symptoms. I've had them. Sorry if you've had them,

but let's dare. In fact, let's start with our first tool, first of the five, which is the DARE response. I found this in probably like some of you listening, my mad grab for a solution for what's going to make me feel better, what's going to help me not be so nervous about every little thing after I had my panic attack or just I'm stressed out or before I fly or I haven't flown yet, so that'll be my next test. But it's the DARE response and it wasE. response, and it was founded by anxiety coach Barry McDonough, and he and his wife and another psychiatrist or psychologist, I apologize, on the D.A.R.E. team have this together. I read the book called D.A.R.E. The New Way to End Anxiety

and Stop Panic Attacks. It's a short read. I highly recommend it. I'll put that in the show notes, and let's jump into it. So D.A.R.E. is an acronym and it stands for step one, which is D or diffuse. So this is really talking smack. And I mentioned this in the previous episodes that I get into this. So really, what if I feel faint? What if I fall down? Well, what if you do? What's going to happen? What's the worst? And for some folks with anxiety, the worst is you think you're going to die. You think you'll hit your head, you'll get embarrassed or whatever it is. But what we do is we don't run from anxiety. We face it head on kind of like a bully, right? So let's not let this anxiety bully us anymore. That's what I'm saying. And so their big thing, their big response is so

what? Okay. Yep. We feel weird. My palpitations. I know my health are cleared, right? I know folks that have anxiety, myself included, or have dealt with anxious feelings or times have health checks. And your doctor's like, yeah, your heart's fine. Your lungs are fine. Your blood's fine. All this stuff's good, right? It's stress.

It's anxiety. It's whatever. So don't forget that when you're feeling bad. But let's use Barry McDonough's first step, which is to diffuse and tell that anxiety, so what? The second thing is to allow it to be there. This is really hard, right? Because we don't want to allow things that make us feel bad to keep making us feel bad or to come into our head. But you should know, and you probably do know if you're anxious and you listen to this, or you know someone that's anxious, please share this with them that staying at home, being covered in bed, excuse my voice there, is worse because then you sit there

and you ruminate about it. And that's not what we want to do. And we'll get to one of the next steps here a couple steps from now that reminds us we need to keep thinking about things. So allow it. Allow it to come in there. I accept this. I know it's an anxious feeling. I know my heart is strong. I know I'm having palpitations, but my heart's fine. It's anxiety. It's, it's my body. It's a feeling, right? Feeling isn't necessarily truth. Um, it's just a way that our, our body is stuck in this fight or flight, right? It's going, Oh, there's always a danger. There's, but there's not, there's not always a danger. Just please hear that. Please hear that. There's not always a danger. Just please hear that. Please hear that.

There's not always a danger unless you're in a dangerous situation in war and combat or an abusive situation. Then do your best to get out of there, make it through the war, those kind of things. But in general day-to-day life, there's not always a threat, right? Not always a threat from the standpoint that your body always needs to be ready to go, ready to go. That's different than just being kind of vigilant and paying attention, right? Being street smart. So, okay. So D we're going to diffuse a, we're going to allow it. We're going to let it come in there instead of trying

to get rid of it. And then we're going to run towards it. We're not going to run away from it. This is the part that I think is very hard and can be frustrating. I know it was frustrating for me when I would have big spikes of this and feel bad and be like teary-eyed, so nervous or something. And especially when I hurt my calf and had a boot on, I couldn't exercise to get a lot of this stress out. So I would go for a walk, right? And I've mentioned Joyce Meyer's great statement, well, why can't you just do it afraid? And that's one of our steps here today.

And it's sometimes you just got to do it. You got to take that step, go for that walk, get out there, go to the gym, do those tasks, get out of your bed, get dressed, start with getting out of bed, making your bed, right. Getting off the couch and folding the blanket you were using or, you know, wherever you're huddled over. If you don't want to go out, start by just stepping outside, right? If you live in an apartment or a house, you haven't been out, just step outside, step back inside, but run towards it. Don't run away run away from it right we're not tricking our brain um as they say in the dear response you know and by running towards it we kind of say you know what i like

this anxiety this anxious feeling is also which is they talk about in the book and in many of the videos on the dear response youtube channel turn it toward good energy, nervous energy, right? That gets you going. You're nervous to do that presentation, right? You're so anxious. Okay. So how would I do that? How would I walk through that? This is a good day-to-day example, right? First, you can be like, cool. What if I bomb in my talk? Okay. Whatever. I was asked to talk at this event. I was asked to speak to this group. That's pretty darn good, right? So what bomb okay what what's the worst that can happen then allow it you it's natural to be nervous before a crowd right so allow it to happen hey i accept this anxiety it's going to help me stay on point will i miss some of my points if i don't have

notes or a teleprompter yeah i've done that in speaking engagements before and sometimes it's hard to remember that one good point of the talk but but that's just happened. So allow that anxiety to help drive you getting up on stage, then run towards it, right? I'm excited to do this talk. I'm excited to feel anxious about it because it's a great opportunity. And then E in the DARE response using this public speaking example is to engage, right? Engage in something. So now that's actually your opportunity for the DARE response to engage in an activity, engage in your speech, engage in your meeting, engage in your fitness routine, engage in a walk around the neighborhood and the community meeting and the church service

and whatever you're going to do, but focus on that. Focus on what someone is saying. Focus on what you're saying. Focus on the task, like go fold laundry. If you're in the house and you get an anxiety kind of spike kicking up, do something so that your mind is not stuck on it. It's so easy, I guess, and not easy, right? Because you're still feeling bad and it's not easy for anybody, but it's the easier choice to sit around and not do something or to commiserate on a message board or that it is to get up and go do something or to commiserate on a message board or that it is

to get up and go do something. And for those of you that have already taken those steps, bravo, well done. You went on the walk, you went to the gym, you did the public speaking, you applied for that job, you wrote that paper, and you're doing it with anxiety, bravo, right? You are using the dare response. You are telling anxiety, I don't give a crap what you're doing or, Hey, I'm glad you're here. What's the worst that could happen. I'm going to allow you to do it. I'm going to run towards you and let this go down. And then I'm going to gauge in an activity. So I don't think about you anymore. So this is the day response and a very

quick summary. So look up day response on YouTube. Um, Barry McDonough and the other folks have done a great job. The book is really good too. It has some good tools. It talks about a whole bunch of different things, health, anxiety, flying. And I highly recommend it, obviously, because I'm talking about it. The second thing is to create your scene. And I got this from my wife, and maybe I'll have her on the KevTalks podcast in the future again. She was on People Process Progress, if you remember, quite some time ago. I think that was episode 10, either 10 or 20. I'll double check. But so, and before I share this second tip or tool or technique from my wife, I also want to mention, I just listened to that kind of prompted this again to listen to Jocko Underground, the

latest one there, because he has a great reminder and a great prompt for all of us that are trying to share things and make the world better in some small way. And what he does is he got a Q and a question, a question and answer from somebody that said, you know, I'm, I'm an artist. I like drawing. I like painting. I like music. I like all these different things. I'm very artistic, but I, I can't finish projects. Right. And so overall, of course, if you listen to Jocko podcast, you know, pick one, you know, try it, focus on it, finish it, et cetera. And then he expands, right?

There's so many people within, you know, unfinished manuscript or two chapters of a book or something like that. But think about the art, think about the product, think about the knowledge you have, the experience. And even if you change one person and you put it in the world, it can make such a huge difference. And so I hope can make such a huge difference. And so I hope this is making a huge difference. That was just kind of a cool prompt, good timing for me to prep this episode. So thanks, Jaco, again for that and all the stuff you've done for me in my life. So number two, create your scene. This is the one for my wife. So

my wife, as she mentioned on the podcast, she had postpartum depression after I think our first two children. And we have three boys. And so she saw a counselor, right? And one of the tools that she was given was to create your scene, right? So of course, I mentioned postpartum depression, not necessarily anxiety, but this is a tool I think can be really good, right? So anxiety, you can be fearful of body sensations or thoughts or the thought of doing something. So this has to do with creating a scene in your mind that is ideal, right? Is it sitting on a beach listening to the waves? Is it hiking through the woods in a mountain?

Is it sitting on your couch eating Doritos, right? Is it something that brings peace to your mind or calm to your mind? Consider that a tool, right? It's kind of a way to not directly, you know, address the anxiety, like the dare response. And the dare response is great. Now you've used it and use it every now and then for myself, but it's not the be all end all, right? No, no one response, no one tool is the be all end all. So that's why I'm going to share five and pick one or a combo. But this create your scene is nice. It's kind of like visualization, right?

So if you're swirling, if you're thinking, oh, it's dark. No one likes me. I can't go out. It's scary. And, you know, sometimes that's just it. It's hard to fight that. Think about, close your eyes, think about or just in your mind's eye, try and imagine what is your scene that brings you

serenity, tranquility, zen, calm, whatever you want to call it, and try and stick in there, right? Try and put your mind in there. We can't do that all the time, right? If you're walking, you got to pay attention. But if you're at home, if you're somewhere still, just give that a try. It's something that my wife said works for her pretty good. And you know, give it a shot. Number three is consider doing it afraid. And I've mentioned this a couple of times, but this was so impactful to me. And I think spoke so much from Joyce Myers. And she actually said one of her friends said it to her, someone she knew said it about somebody else because they were anxious and didn't want to do things. And they said, well, why can't you just do it afraid? And we can. We can do so much when we're

afraid. Imagine the men that stormed the beach on D-Day. They were terrified, and look at what they did. Imagine the first women suffrage folks that were fighting for voters' rights. Terrifying, right? But we can do things afraid if we believe it's something that we should do. And the last thing I'll talk about mindset, but we can do all those things. And a lot of what we can do, and I've mentioned this, I think we mentioned it when I talked to Dr. Tracy Marks, and it's in all the, a lot of mental health literature or kind of how do I get help with X, Y, and Z, mental health wise, but neuroplasticity. So how can our brain bounce back? How does it repair itself? How can we change it? Well, with our mindset, we can change how that works, right? So we can change how we respond to

anxiety. With the DARE response, we can change how we picture anxious scenes by creating our own scene. And we can change how our mind works by saying, you know what? I am going to do this afraid. I am afraid to walk down the street for whatever reason. I am afraid of crowds. Maybe it's from COVID, from sickness. I am afraid of going to the gym because I haven't been there and people are going to laugh at me. You know what? Forget those people anyway. But if you hear what I'm saying, just consider doing something afraid and get that feeling a little bit, right? Don't freak yourself out because the next thing, number four, is take small steps. This is practical advice for anything. Don't just jump into the heavyweight division

of, you know, or heavy weightlifting. Don't just run a marathon out of the blue, right? Don't just go into a big crowd if you're scared of crowds. Take little steps. Go around a few people, then a few more people, then go in a mall, then go in a big outdoor space. Try and scale it up. Try and scale up what you do in the gym. First, I'm going to do some push-ups and stuff at home for a few weeks. Then I'm going to walk outside and do some push-ups.

Then I'm going to walk outside, do some push-ups Then I'm going to walk outside, do some pushups and some air squats. Just there's so many, you know, routines and things. And if you need help, you know, kevtalks1120 at gmail.com or, you know, fill out the feedback form. I also have Penelope Fitness Club YouTube channel where I have exercise things, but just take small steps, right? Just try. If you try, then you've done something, right? You've done more than sit around and ponder and commiserate and let this just fester and fester. And it's hard to get there. I get it. It's hard to get out of the low place, the dark place, the scared place, the shaky place, the uncomfortable place. But if you consider the response, if you create your own scene in your

mind, if you can consider doing it afraid, take small steps a little bit at a time. And certainly all of this combined with if you really need to talk to a professional, right, they can help you work through some of these give you more tools. But these are things that have worked for me work for others I've talked to that I've read about to that have worked for a lot of folks. And the last thing I will say does have to do with us having to take some ownership of our mind, right? And this I heard in the unfuck yourself book that I was listening to the audio book.

And it really does have to do with how we talk to ourselves in our mind shapes our mind. And this is one thing that Gary John Bishop also mentioned neuroplasticity. So I was like, man, I've heard that a lot, but I've been reading a lot of mental health stuff lately. But, you know, when you think about how you talk to yourself, I'm always going to be afraid. I can't do this without these pills. I just am no good at exercise. I can't be around crowds. I can't do that. I don't like my job. Well, you're telling yourself everything sucks. So everything sucks. Right. And I get it. Right. I've, I've, you know, been so anxious. I'm sitting there doing those stress coloring books just to focus. Cause I'm, you know,

had felt so nervous and thinking about horrible things and all that. And, you know, taking the time to work through slowly through some of these and use the tools that I talked about and getting rest or trying to and cleaning up my diet a bit, a big difference. But just try to change your mindset. And these are two things that I really liked from that audiobook so far that are good starts and I'm only on chapter three. So Gary John Bishop in Unfuck Yourself says, I will either go to, I will or I will not, right? And so think about those two ways you think about, and I'll use this gym as an example because it's a big thing, right? I will go to the gym. I will work on my fitness. I will improve my health. I will get to X goal, right? So you tell yourself, I am going to do this. I will go outside of the house. I will go for a

quarter mile walk, half mile walk, mile walk, whatever. Start with those small steps, right? Consider doing it afraid. Create the scene in your mind and say that you will do something, right? Or say I will not, right? I will not accept sitting in my house alone and afraid all the time. I will not accept not exercising and getting more unhealthy. I will not accept isolating myself from other people. I will not accept isolating myself from other people. I will not accept it on and on, right? So you can tell yourself you will do something. You can tell yourself you will not do something. And as I say this, I kind of picture some of the responses I've seen on Reddit and heard in other places about, well, I just can't do that. That's

not me. Don't tell me that. It's not that simple. So it's not simple. It is not simple, well, I just can't do that. That's not me. Don't tell me that. It's not that simple. So it's not simple. It is not simple, right? To deal with anxiety, to fight through it, to fight it, to tell it to fuck off, honestly, and to try and unfuck yourself and to dare against anxiety. It's super hard, but humans have been doing super hard things for thousands of years, right? So think about some of the good things. Like we have power, we have water, most of us have food. And this is, you know, another book that I'm reading about, you know, the world's not quite as bad as we think. I mean, there's some bad stuff, but we have all these, all these amenities. We have internet frigging everywhere on all devices, all over the place, which gives us access to, you know, libraries that our ancestors would have dreamed of. So we don't have to hunt

and gather, right? We're not going to freeze to death, mostly, most humans, because we didn't get a shelter built in time, right? Just think about that. And I think we're so disconnected from our past, right? Past human lives, past way that we used to live, that it's easy to forget all that. So tell yourself that you will do something, that you will work towards something, or that you will not accept the way something's going or the way it could go if you keep letting anxiety win. and don't let it win. Don't. I thank you so much for listening to this pretty short episode. I hope it's helpful, right? I hope you consider looking more about the dare response of creating the scene in your head that brings you peace and tranquility.

Consider doing things afraid, right? Sometimes we just have to be afraid to take those small steps towards whatever goal you want that you either will work towards, will achieve, or to remove the things that you will not or that you won't accept. So I thank you for accepting the KevTalks podcast into your playlist. Please share it, leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and I will see you on KevTalksPod.com your playlist. Please share it. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts. And I will see you on KevTalksPod.com. If you have guests, if you want to be a guest, if you have ideas, let me know. There's a feedback form and also a guest form there.

I am at P-A-N-N-E-L-L-K-G on Instagram and the Twitters. And I do have a KevTalksPod YouTube channel. Thank you so much, everyone. I will see you next time. But for now, of course, I have got to fly.