Episode 41: How to Kick Anxiety to the Curb
“Anxiety sucks period. And it’s sometimes an invisible disease because no one can see the thoughts in our mind. We can. We control what we put in, so that what we put out is our truest potential.” - Erin Diehl
Do you consider yourself a perfectionist or people pleaser? Perhaps you have a bad case of imposter syndrome or suffer from social anxiety? If so, this episode is perfect for you, and know you are not alone. Today, Erin shares her experience with anxiety and how she has successfully kicked it to the curb.
In today’s episode we will discuss:
Naming and identifying your anxiety
Erin’s five proven tips to help you overcome your anxiety
Mindset shifts that reframe your way of thinking
Links from show discussion:
Sign up for the improve it! 5 Day Challenge (scroll to the bottom to put in info)
Failed it! Fam: If you liked today’s episode, please head over to iTunes to rate us and give us a review. Your review helps us share the #fails of the world, so we can all learn from these “gifts.” Week by week, we unwrap the stories of fails’ past and present, and we’ve got a lot more “giving” to do! Your support means the world.
About Erin Diehl:
Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the failed it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and patio dinners with her husband and son, and their eight pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! Podcast on Instagram and facebook, and you can follow Erin here on Instagram. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
Show Transcript: Hey, failed a fam. I am going to read a review from one of our failed it! Fam members before we get into today's episode. And this review comes from claritynow23. Claritynow23 writes "Yes. And. Yes, I failed. And I now know what didn't work for me and what I'd need to try next to reach my goal emphasis on try. Erin's podcast is reminder to us all that we have to try things outside of our comfort zones to grow and that we might fail, but we'll never reach our full potential. If we don't try. And this podcast is packed with pioneers who have tried and failed, but who have also tried and succeeded. Erin does the work for us by seeking out a variety of failure, resumes, and success stories. So we can find inspiration one episode at a time, a must listen.
First of all, because I hope that's what this podcast gives you is some clarity. So claritynow23, send us an email info@learntoimproveit.com. And we will send you a three week improve You e-learning course of your choice. You can choose from any one of 10 options on things like thinking quickly on your feet, how to overcome sales objections. We've got a whole list for you. I want to say thank you for taking the time out of your day to leave us a review failed at family. Here's your reminder. If you could leave us a review, we would appreciate you. It really does help us bring more people to this family, help us share the failures of the world. I sound like a broken record over and over, but if you could leave us a review, we would appreciate it and we will read it every single week.
One of your reviews and then provide you with an e-learning course. And these are just amazing courses. There's three weeks in link. You get them every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, via email there's PDFs, worksheets, audio. You may hear a familiar voice. So please do think about leaving us a review. Just head over to iTunes, give us five stars, write a comment. It can do it from the comfort of your home in your bedroom slippers. Where's my slipper squad at anyway. Thanks so much Claritynow23. Let's get to fail on it. Hey, failed at fam today's episode is for you. So I asked you if you wanted an episode on how to handle anxiety and I got an overwhelming response of yeses and I'll be honest. Okay. Sometimes I do a poll on good old social media, that social media, and I don't get a ton of responses such as the life of a failfluencer sorry, am I right?
Or am I right? So today's episode topic. Anxiety seems to be something that is on everybody's brain. Now let me start by saying this. If you suffer from real panic attack, provoking anxiety, and you have been prescribed medication by a medical doctor, please take your medication. I do not have a medical degree, but I do have a stellar degree and media communications from Clemson university go tigers. So I want you to take the following advice today and apply what you will. So today's episode is to give you some tangible tips that have worked for me. Now, again, this is not medical advice. So please take what you will apply it and take what works for you. The tips I'm going to give you today are based on my life, my anxiety story. And I have figured out what works for me through good old fashioned Google free podcast, YouTube and years of suffering from something that I actually never labeled until about 11 years ago.
So let's start right there. The fact that I've had anxiety for a really long time and was never, was never able to label that feeling of, Oh my God. I'm literally going to put myself that cloudy had that over-caffeinated overstimulated crazy fog brain until one day. My mother-in-law who is a psychologist, looked to me and said, you have anxiety. Now, let me tell you this was before John and I were married. This is when we were first dating. So it's over 13 years ago. And I didn't know her as well as I know her now. And when she said you have anxiety, I looked around like, who? Me? Like, like there was somebody else around me, but it was just her and I on a walk outside in Florida. So she was clearly talking to me. I wanted to reject that notion. And I thought, first of all, is it that obvious, right?
Is she inside my head? Can everyone around me see the nervous thoughts? Is this what I'm thinking on the inside being portrayed on the outside? I don't have anxiety. I have my ish together, which at the time I was traveling to every major state fair in the country as the head of the national dog diving competition. That is not a joke. Go back to episode 15, my failure resume to get the full skinny on that one. So this was a different time in my life. And we were on a walk and we started to discuss what to do when this feeling of anxiety arises. Now, until that moment, I did not know that it was weird to have explosive diarrhea before auditions. I am sorry, failed at family, but we are there. Okay. We've been through that. This is episode 41. I'm going to say explosive diarrhea.
Now I didn't also know it was weird to spend nights thinking about what I should have said or how I made that person feel or literally worrying for weeks on end. What someone I met recently thought of me was abnormal. I literally thought didn't everybody have these issues. I was so used to this constant loop in my head. I didn't understand back then that concept of people pleaser or perfectionist or imposter syndrome, or even the words, social anxiety. And as I walked and talked with her, we decided that I should give these feelings a name. And that would help me identify when anxiety was happening to me. So failed at fam for whatever reason, I decided to name my anxiety, GUS.. Just going to say one more time. Gus now Gus and I are BFF. I mean, we are the kind of BFS who are super, super different, but we have an understanding and love of each other because we've just known each other really well for years.
It's almost like you had a friend that you've known since childhood and you've grown in different directions, but you're still friends because you have that like, you know, history, that's Gus and I, okay. So GUS and I decided to shake hands and I started to really realize when he wanted to show up in my life and what I could do about it. Now, one day I will never forget it. Gusshowed up really hard, like a drunk uncle at a wedding who won't get off the dance floor, kind of show up. Okay, now I'm going to caveat this story. I'm going to tell you, as anxiety may show up for you at work, it may show up at school. It may show up with your family or friends, and it has so many different ways of sneaking up on us. But this one time I will never forget was when I was in my late twenties, living in Chicago, John and I had recently gotten engaged and we were in the middle of planning our wedding.
Now there was a lot of hubbub about where the wedding would be since we lived in Chicago and we had our, I had two living grandmothers who couldn't travel and they lived in the Southeast and South Carolina. So I was working in recruiting at the time. And we lived in downtown Chicago and I hopped on a crowded bus to get downtown to the loop at my job. And if you've ever been on a Chicago bus in the middle of rush hour, going to work, you know that you are probably standing in somebody's armpit. This is pre COVID. Okay. Standing so close to a person in the middle of winter, holding on for dear life to a pole above your head in the middle of somebody else's armpit. Okay? Now I'm on this bus. And somehow I realized, I forgot my engagement ring that day. Now, repeating this back, the that this gave me so much anxiety sounds so silly, but for whatever reason I tweaked out on this bus, it triggered me in some way.
It was almost like, Oh no, I forgot my ring. You idiot. Which led me to be like, Oh, are you not grateful? You ever now this engagement ring, this husband, where are you going to get married? Why aren't you planning your wedding in Chicago? Why are you trying to please everybody and do it in the Southeast? And I started to get cold sweat on the back of my neck. Okay. I was standing on this crowded bus and then all of a sudden this cold sweat happens and I lose my vision. And I've had migraines before growing up where I've lost my vision, but this was something on a completely different playing field. So my entire body started to cold sweat, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. And I was about to hurl and I was in the middle of the bus. So I pushed my way to the front.
And I told the bus driver, please let me out. And the bus driver replies this, this isn't a stop. So I said, "stop the bus." So this bus driver was very kind. He pulled to the side of the road. He let me out, which was not a bus stop, but just the side of the road. And I bent over in pain and just started crying. I felt sick. I had stabbing pains in my entire body and I felt Gus all around me and knew I was having a full blown panic attack. Something I've never had in that way before. So this is if you're listening to this and you're like, okay, girl, you forgot your wedding ring, big whooping deal. It wasn't the act of leaving my wedding ring. It was everything behind it. And the stress and anxiety I felt because we were paying for most of our wedding.
I was trying to please my family, by having it closer to all of our family in the Southeast, I just didn't have anything figured out yet. I, it just cumulated into this massive attack. Okay. So it was then that I realized I was going to have to get a handle on this anxiety or my anxiety was going to handle me. And I realized, Gus, you are a part of my life, but you are not my life. So what transpired from that was nine years of trying to figure out how to kick this anxiety to the curb. So that I was the one in control of my bus. I am the driver. Gus you get kicked out. I'm driving. Okay. So the following five tips I'm going to give you are tried and true methods that have helped me personally, this or these, I should say five tips are for the failed at fam who works from home, who doesn't take breaks, who gets in their head, which is the saying, we say a lot on the improv stage being in your head.
And so you're thinking constantly about work, about life, about your relationships. And I've really taken these five tips and put them into practice to help me control what I can control my attitude, my effort, right? So these five tips are my go-tos for all those things. And I help one or a few of these, all five can serve you today. So my failed family let's dig in. All right. You know, I love to name things. So I'm going to name my first tip. And I've said this before, if you were a member of the failed at fam, you know it move it is tip number one. And that means exercise. Now that sounds easy to say, but do you do it daily? Ask yourself that question. I have created an entire episode on morning routines. Please go back to episode 10, to hear why this morning routine has changed me mentally and physically.
I'm going to shout out to one of our failed at fam members, Kim Magnus. If you're listening today, she has taken this episode and applied it into her life over the past year and has noticed transformational results. Episode 10 morning routines moving your body for 30 minutes a day, sends endorphins to your brain. I exercise not only for the health benefits, but for the mental benefits. It is mental clarity. It is me time. It is you time. It's time that you can expend energy on yourself so that you can give it to others. There is so much research out there about the health benefits of exercise. And I'm not going to give you scientific data, but I'm going to give you human data. Exercising gives mental clarity period. Okay? That is, I am walking, living proof. Kim is walking, living proof. Our new Madam VP, Ms. Kamala Harris said she works out every morning, regardless of how much sleep she has gotten. Now, it is the best way to start the day. She says she was actually on a run when she found out that she won. So if you don't believe me, believe Kamala. Exercise helps people with all different sorts of stress levels. So that's number one, move it. All right.
Hey, failed at fam, are you looking for a challenge? Do you want more confidence, more bravery, more support and more creativity in your life. Are you stuck in a rut and meet a creative spark that will get you thinking outside of the box and help you see things with a new set of eyes will never fear my friends. The improve it! Five day challenge is here. It's a five day challenge sent to you five days in a row via email that gives you prompts to help you improve your confidence and be more brave. We also give you tips on how to better support your team as well as tricks to get the creative juices flowing. All of this is free. That's right free 99. We want you to experience the fundamentals of improvisation at work. So we are shining some light and a little magic on you and your inbox to sign up, head over, to learn, to improve it.com and scroll to the very bottom of our webpage. You'll see a prompt that says, want to learn more about improve it from there in or your email. And you're all set and ready to rock this challenge. We cannot wait to improve your it, whatever it may be.
Number two, be still. And what do I mean by this? Find something like meditation that helps you be still for 10 minutes a day. So every morning I exercise and then I meditate for 10 minutes. I write down my morning I am statements was, which is something we did our vision setting series on this podcast. And then three things I'm grateful for. I found meditation when I was going through my infertility journey and I never looked back and actually failed at fam or going to do a couple of episodes specific to infertility coming up on the show. So know that you're going to hear more about that, but, Oh my gosh, there are so many apps, so many free YouTube videos, or you can find a mentor you like online to help you meditate or be still. So I am a huge fan of Gabby Bernstein.
I have gotten into all of her books and I just subscribed to her miracle membership online, where I get access to tons of free meditations. I shouldn't say free. I pay for this membership. I get access to a lot of her meditations. All right. Now, before Gabby, I used another paid app called breethe. The purpose is to get still. So when we get still, we can actually receive messages from the universe, source God, whoever it is that you call higher power. Now I can tell mornings when I don't meditate, I feel off. I feel less control of my day because I'm allowing the day to control me. Meditation tells your Gus or your anxiety to scram, and it calms the thoughts in your head. It has the ability to heal so many. So I want to encourage you feel that fam try it today, or just spend that time working on you.
All right. So if you're like, I'm not into meditation, first of all, you don't have to sit and put your hands in a meditative position. I lay down and I put my hands upright. So like, if you're laying down, face your palms to the sky, if that's not your jam, do something that works on you. So I'm actually going to give you a free resource we have at improve it. If you're like, I just want something where I'm still I'm working on me. It's called the improvement daily five challenge. It is free. So we have five days of challenging yourself to become more brave, supportive, creative and confidence. There's audio. So you hear this amazing nasal twang voice. There's a meditation on one of those days. If you are into that, if not skip it and you can get this for free on our website, learntoimproveit.com.
Scroll to the bottom And you'll just fill out putting your email address. And it comes to you five days consistently, Monday through Friday. And it is a five day challenge for you, free for you. So meditation or any form of self-help that allows you to be still and focus on you has the ability to calm your brain. It's like a computer. We can't function with a million different tabs open. We shut down the computer, literally shuts down. If you have too many tabs open consistently, right meditation or taking things like the daily five challenge allows you to stop and focus on one thing. You, my friends. So if you can train yourself and your brain to do this, and the 10 minutes a day, you give yourself, you can train your brain to go to this. When your anxiety AKA, your Gus wants to take over.
Now, by the way, I encourage you to name your anxiety. It's fun. It's way more fun to say Gus than anxiety. So name yours. All right, so that was tip two. We're going to tip three. This one is called "monitor your java" failed at fam. I want you to get real with yourself. If you're driving, look in the mirror. If you're laying down or on a walk, pull up your, your iPhone and turn it on selfie view. I want you to ask yourself how much caffeine do you consume on a daily basis? One cup, two cups. Four is a venti. Your go-to do you constantly have an eye Twitch? I will say this. I did not discover a love of coffee until I was in my twenties. And then I should have invested in Starbucks. I now know my limit. Okay. Two cups in the morning before 11:00 AM.
And that is it. Anything else gives me that eye twitch and an explosive heartbeat. I also talk more than usual, which I'm sure is shocking to all of you, but when I can literally feel my heartbeat from caffeine, I know what's too much, too much. Caffeine produces that feeling weekend. When we have anxiety, you know that feeling right before, you're about to give a presentation, have a crucial conversation, or meet with somebody for the first time, that sort of butterfly feeling you get on a swing. When you go to high caffeine gives us that same effect in those moments. We don't think clearly, but we are fueled by the caffeine. So decide what amount of caffeine gives you enough of a jolt to be alert, but doesn't make you feel like you just did the drop at splash mountain at Disney world. Okay? Then I want you to limit yourself to that amount.
It will give you the headspace you need to combat your Gus. And that is important. We can't think clearly when our heart is racing. All right, this fourth tip may be my faith cause it's new to me and I'm digging it. It is called Holy basil leaf, Holy basil leaf. So I heard this from one of my online gurus. And again, I'm not a doctor nutritionist, nor am I super into taking vitamins. However, I found a supplement that has helped me tremendously in the past few weeks. It is called Holy basil leaf. Say it again. And it has truly changed my anxiety levels internally. So I heard about this on another podcast, about anxiety with one of my favorite online gurus, Rachel Hollis, I immediately went to Amazon and purchased and I used the Gaia brand and we'll link to that in the show notes.
And it's not the basil that you cut up and you put in a caprese salad, okay. This is in a capsule, in a pill. And it just works wonders. It is natural. All right. It is a supplement, a vitamin that you would find in the vitamin section at whole foods. Okay. It, I take it in the evening right before bed because it does make me a bit drowsy. And I'm one of those people that medicine just affects me immediately, but Oh my God, the effects have been crazy. It's an herb that is used to curb stress. So if you don't believe me, Google, Holy basil leaf and anxiety and see what comes up. I truly feel a difference in my day to day with just taking one a night. Now the recommended dose is two a day. I just do one. I don't know a single person who works for this company or anybody that sells Holy basil leaf.
Okay. So this is not an ad. It is not a soft sell. I'm just telling you that by taking one of these in the evening, which for me is when my anxiety runs wild, I'm more calm. I sleep better. And I awaken with a fresher mind. So for me again, I said, I told you this, but I feel that anxiety most in the evening, when I'm thinking about the next day, I'm thinking about a project that needs to be complete, that isn't complete yet, or a workshop we're doing or conversation I'm going to have that hasn't happened yet. And I take one of these capsules with some extra sleepy time herbal tea, and it's smooth sailing. Y'all okay. I did read on the label to consult your doctor if you're pregnant or breastfeeding. So my friends creating life, talk to your doc, but truly it's a vitamin and or supplement.
And it has really given me a newer calmer way of life. I've been taking them since the middle of January, which truly, and honestly, I was having some crippling anxiety with people pleasing and us moving and a new year. So this has really made a difference. So Holy crap, get you some Holy Basil Leaf, failed it! Fam. We'll link to it in the show notes. So my fifth and final tip is shut up. Your Gus sounds mean, but it's actually the opposite. This is a strategy I've implemented. And I have created on my own. And to be honest, my anxiety, like I said, was through the roof in the middle of January so much so that it was literally keeping me up at night. And one night I woke up and this strategy popped in my brain and I've been using it ever since. So for the first step, you do have to name your anxiety.
So Gus is my guy right? At whatever your anxiety is to you. And as you know, I've got guests there all the time, trying to bring me down on the reg. So when he gets really loud, I call it shut up Gus. And here's how it works. So when your head is swarming with what you could have said, you shouldn't have said, or what is going to happen on that work project? Or why isn't that friend calling me back? Is she mad at me? We need to realize a few things. Number one, people don't really care about us. They are consumed with their own brain, their own Gus, their own self-doubt. So that's the first thing. Okay. The second thing, and this is the most important is a sure fire way to combat Gus, kick him in the pants, tell him to shut up and sit down because you are the driver of this bus and you are moving.
So here's an example of how it works. All right. I, a few weeks ago I was worried about something I wish I didn't say to a family member. I was spreading endlessly about it. I'm thinking, Oh my gosh, this person hates me. Now. My life is over. Why did I do that? Should I book a therapy session? Yada, yada. All right. So I went to bed thinking about this thing. And I woke up thinking about this thing for weeks. So when I, I literally woke up in the middle of the night and something said to me, quick name five things that you're thankful for right here, right now in this moment. And I quickly listed five things. My husband, John, my son, my dog, my bed, the roof over my head, my health. All right. That's six because I'm a three on the Enneagram and an overachiever.
But you know what? It worked. That mindset shift helped me flipped my script. So instead of worrying, I went to witnessing how grateful I am to have these things. Those things were right there in front of me in that moment too. So literally my dog was there because Bigg Diehl, my eight pound toy poodles sleeps on my head. So I thought, okay, that feels better. I'm in a better mindset. And I went back to sleep. So when I woke up and that feeling of anxiety, Gus creeped up again, I did the same thing. I named five things in my brain super quick. I was grateful for. I was basically telling us to get out of my head and stop messing with my hashtag mood. Anxiety is negative energy. Negative energy gets in the way of our goals, our ambitions and our relationships. So when you can get your Gus to shut up and kick them in the pants with positive thoughts, it has no choice, but to go away or to move to the side or feel like it just got a Swift kick to the private, because you have been louder with your positive thoughts.
So if you're about to do something scary, like talk about a work deadline you missed, or have a candid conversation or provide feedback as a leader, or have an important talk with a loved one. I want you to try this method of shutting up your Gus or your anxiety. First, I promise you an instant mood switch. Then Gus will have to get off the bus at the next stop because you are driving it down the highway of positive vibes. You know what I'm saying? So just a quick recap, failed at fam number one, move that body for 30 minutes a day and be grateful. You can do that because not everybody has this luxury. Number two, I want you to be still and meditate, do this for your body. And for your mind, you can find online mentors like Gabby, Bernstein apps, like breathe or Headspace, or you can even Google free meditations.
You have so many resources. If you have internet, you have resources for this. So number three, I want you to monitor your cups of Java. Figure out the limit before your eye twitches, and then do two times less that, okay. And then number four, get that Holy basal leaf on. I am not kidding. And then number five, I want you to shut up your Gus and tell him to scram because you are driving this bus failed at fam anxiety, sex period. End of sentence. And it's sometimes an invisible disease because no one can see the thoughts in our minds, but we can, and we have the ability to control what we put in so that what we put out is our truest potential. In order to reach that, we've got to get our anxiety in check. I believe in you. And I know you can, and you are doing great things. So let's go failed at fam and as always Fail Yeah.
Hey friends, thanks for tuning into failed. It I'm so happy were along for the ride. And if you enjoyed today's show, head on over to iTunes to rate and subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes drop every Wednesday. I'll see you next week, but want to leave you with this thought, what will you fail at today and how will that help your future successful self? Think about it. I'm proud of you and you are totally failing it. See you next time.