Overcoming Anxiety at Work w/ Natalyn Lewis of Ascend EQ | builders podcast

0:00I get to work every day with CEOs and executive management teams and entrepreneurs who still struggle with the fact that they get emotional. Like, why am I overwhelmed? Why am I emotional? There's still a lack of understanding out there. That's what I'm all about is I really want people to understand what's actually happening.

0:21Today, I'm speaking with Nathalyn Lewis. She goes by Natty. She is the principal at Ascend EQ, which focuses on emotional wellness for business professionals. Natty tells a story about a debilitating anxiety attack she had about 10 years ago, the result of which she pivoted her career to focus on this. And anybody who faces any kind of stress at work will get a lot from this conversation.

0:52Hi, Natty. How are you? Good to see you today. I'm doing so well. Thank you, John. Thanks for having me on today. You got it. So I want to just get started. You have been really open about an anxiety attack that you had 10 years ago or so that prompted you. It really seems like it was a watershed moment in your work life, in your career, in your life. Caused you to study anxiety, try to understand it, and ultimately leading you to research and focus your career on emotional intelligence. Before we get into what you do now, can you sort of take us back to that time and describe what happened and why this was so impactful for you?

1:28Yeah, absolutely. I had been in a corporate career for 12 years up to that point and had left corporate America and had started three of my own companies. I'd been a collegiate athlete and basically just had lived my life in this world of high achievement. And I found myself pregnant and I ended up on bed rest for at six weeks into my pregnancy, I was dilated to a three. So anybody who knows pregnancy knows this is not okay. And I ended up on an almost eight month bed rest. and when I came off of that bed rest, I didn't know who I was. My body was not the same. My life was not the same. I went from being this person who was engaged and high achieving to not knowing what to do with myself and what to do with my day and I started to feel a tremendous amount of high pressure in my chest.

2:15I would go through moments throughout the day where I thought I was having a heart attack and one morning, it just got worse and worse and worse and I just continued to ignore it. I thought it was all just stimulating from just the health battle I had been facing in my pregnancy. And one morning I was in my closet and I got hit so hard. I thought I was having a heart attack, but then I couldn't breathe. And then all of a sudden my arms and my legs went numb and I was curled up in the fetal position, unable to move my arms and my legs. And I was petrified. I was humiliated. I didn't understand what was happening to me.

2:49I got to the hospital and they ran test after test after test after test. And every test that came back inconclusive, they would continue to say things like this could be a mental situation. This could be an emotional situation. And every time they said that, I got more and more like mortified and embarrassed. Like, how is it possible that I could be having a mental situation or an emotional situation that would literally debilitate me? Incapacitate you. I was incapacitated, paralyzed. And it was an entire day in the hospital of Tess and a series of things before they sent a social worker into my hospital room to talk to me about my children at home.

3:26And something happened when this woman walked in and started talking to me about my ability to be a mother. It was like somebody flipped a light switch on with so much energy and passion that everything turned on. And all I wanted to do was get out of there. And I was mad at my husband for texting family members. telling them I was in the hospital because now I had to tell them and I didn't want to tell anybody. No one was to know that I was in the hospital because I was having an anxiety attack or a mental breakdown or whatever people were going to call it. And I, the, the fear of what someone might think of me because I didn't have my stuff together and that's not who I am.

4:05I'm a collegiate athlete. I'm an, I'm a business owner. I have my crap together and that got rattled hard. And, uh, It was this moment, though, that when I was in that room and that social worker walked in and questioned my capacity to care for my children when I felt something very physical and very mental, like a literal light switch flipping on. It was that that I couldn't stop thinking about. I couldn't stop thinking about how did that work? How did I go from literally, I knew I was incapable of moving my arms and my legs. I was doing everything in my power to move those things. how did I go from that to fully functional in a second and I couldn't stop thinking about it and it led me to study it one of the hardest parts to hear when you're relaying that story is obviously a very painful one is that you you felt embarrassed and it's like it's like uh we're not embarrassed if we catch a cold or we're not we're not embarrassed we're not embarrassed if uh you know we get we get the flu or whatever and I think this is changing but there is um or perceived or concerned about having some type of mental or anxiety challenge.

5:15And my daughter, she just started high school. She's wore a sweatshirt this week that said mental health matters. And I was thinking to myself, I think when I was going to school, I wouldn't have worn something like that. No, well, we wouldn't even have thought to wear it, right? Yeah. Because mental health wasn't something that was discussed. Yeah. And I do agree with you. I think it's changing. I think it's still an evolutionary process in the business world, though. I'll tell you, I get to work every day with CEOs and executive management teams and entrepreneurs who still struggle with the fact that they get emotional when, like, why am I overwhelmed?

5:53Why am I emotional? Why do I feel all of the stress? What is happening to me physiologically when I'm in these high-pressure moments? And I think there's still a lack of understanding out there. There's a little bit more tolerance and a little bit more acceptance. And there's still a big chunk of ignorance. And that's what I'm all about is I really want people to understand what's actually happening. You talk with CEOs and they're some of your clients. I have a friend who's a CEO and he says, you know, it can be a little bit of a lonely job. Because everybody, quote unquote, is reporting up to you.

6:30So you don't necessarily have that support system. Is that part of what leads to anxiety, that feeling? I think part of it is loneliness. It is definitely lonely at the top. And I really think the big piece of that loneliness that leads to it is where do they share their thoughts? Where do they share their concerns? I mean, if you really think about the root of identity or the root of anxiety, you can kind of take on a concept and think very often it starts with a singular thought. Like our numbers are down. Revenue is down. and they're like, why is revenue down? Is marketing doing their job? Is production doing their jobs?

7:06Profits coming in? Okay. What's happening in the marketplace? How is this election going to affect our revenue numbers? What if our revenue numbers don't climb back up? Am I going to have to do layoffs? If I have layoffs, what's going to happen to the people? And if the people have things happen to them, that's on me. And if someone's life is like, oh my gosh, what about so-and-so? She's pregnant right now. What about so-and-so? His dad's in the hospital right now. I can't lay these people up. And what happens is it's the squirrel of thought that started with one thought. Well, other people in the organization very often have somebody to bounce that off of.

7:36And CEOs and leaders of spaces tend to keep that internal. And it squirrels in there. And they don't have 20 concerns because they don't think about that squirrel one time. They think about that thing like a really bad mixtape from the 80s on repeat. It just keeps going and going and going. And when you've thought about 20 concerns, 200 times, you don't have 20 concerns. You have 4 ,000 and 4 ,000 concerns would overwhelm anyone. And even as I just went through that little exercise of thought, I would bet anybody listening to that is like, oh my gosh, I've had those exact thoughts before. I've listened to that exact mixtape before.

8:13And I want you to think when I just repeated it, what did you start to feel in your heart? Did you feel your heart rate increase a little bit? You feel your mind start to race just a little bit. For some people, they start to feel a little heat in their ears, a little prickling. That is the basis and the ground piece of anxiety as it starts with a thought, but we, that thought creates a picture and the outcome of that picture is what's creating that anxiety. And, and it is, it, a lot of that stimulates in these leadership positions because there's no one to express the thought to. So they hold it and they process it and they stuff it and they create that narrative and put it on repeat.

8:52I know that you have, through your years of research and the start of a business, you've created a framework for understanding and dealing with it. I want to maybe start out that conversation by trying to create an analogy with EQ or mental health with physical health. So when we think about physical health, I think I know, I think many people know what the building blocks to that are, you know, exercise, nutrition, sleep, wash your hands, you know, all that kind of stuff. What are the building blocks, if you will, a couple of them or one of them or whatever for heading off anxiety or reducing its impact?

9:30You know what? Ironically, they're so similar. I think this is one of the one of the fallacies that we have is that there's mental health and there's physical health. And the best way to actually have emotional and mental health is to treat it physically. Our body is having a very physical experience because of the emotions. And when we'll actually engage with it physically, it's so much better. With each one of my clients, they will notice notably different anxiety levels if they wake up on time and on purpose in the morning. If they start their day with a little bit of movement, a little bit of sunlight and some electrolytes.

10:05So if I wake up and I wake up on purpose and I consume some electrolytes in some cold water and I take a little walk outside, even if I do this for five minutes, the amount of reduction of anxiety over the course of the day is staggering. Wow. It also makes a difference how you work out. Like John, if you are the kind of person who has a flight response to high intense situations, I need you to move. I need you to actually move, not on a stationary treadmill or a stationary bike where you don't actually move anywhere. I need you to move, actually move. And if you're somebody who has a natural fight response to anxiety or high stress situations, I need you to have an intense release of energy.

10:47So you'll have people who are naturally flight doing HIIT workouts. people who are naturally fight doing a walk in the morning. And they're like, I don't know what it is. I'm moving in the morning, but it's not helping. And it's because they're not honoring their body's voice for anxiety. It's interesting you say that this year. For the first time ever, I just think of something new to do at the beginning of the year. And I joined a boxing gym and I'd never done martial arts. I'd never done a sport where you're like striking something. And the kind of the release I get from punching the bag, it just makes me feel so good.

11:25Yeah. I'm kind of trying to think about in the lens of what you described. You may be a natural fight response to a circumstance. Yeah. That's really interesting. So I want to ask another question about emotional intelligence from a different angle and trying to understand it. So I was thinking about there's EQ and emotional. There's IQ, I guess, like natural intelligence. And I think with IQ, I think a lot of people would think it's something you're born with. But with EQ, is that true? What components are like inherited versus taught versus learned? I think everyone from my experience, I get to work with people from all walks of life.

12:05So I work with executives of billion dollar corporations. And I also go in the prison once a week and teach people these same skills. So every walk of life I have seen. And I would say from my personal lived experience that everyone is born with a different window of tolerance. And we have an opportunity in that to grow that window of tolerance or to lack understanding for that and react to it every time. And so I think there are people who are born with a smaller window of tolerance. I think the rest of it is often learned. And I think the vast majority of it comes from having lived experiences that push against that window of tolerance more and more and more without listening and without understanding until we no longer understand how to stay inside that window of tolerance.

12:52So if you take, for example, a child raised up in foster care where they were in a constant state of not even knowing if they would have a bed that night or food that night or basic physiological needs, they were constantly pushing on their window of tolerance for just the stress of survival. while another child who came home every night to a stable foundation with a home with a loving parent or parents and had their physiological needs met would not have had the same push against that window of tolerance that that child did. However, in that same home, there might've been discontent and disagreement, and there might've been a constant threat to emotional safety where my parents might get divorced and they might have that thought every day.

13:35That child's getting pushed against the window of tolerance in a slightly different way. But both of them are having an opportunity to either expand that window or lack understanding and start shooting outside of that window, either in hyper arousal or hypo arousal. And that's where I think that happens. So I think people are born with a slightly different window of tolerance, but I think our life experience pushes against that differently. And I really think it's whether we're raised in an environment that pushes it so hard that we don't even get a chance to understand it before we've lost it, or whether we had an opportunity to learn how to expand it over time.

14:16That's really interesting. And you used the term understand a few times in your last answer. So I want to maybe use that as a segue into your framework. And so you have a three-step framework, I might be oversimplifying, about emotional intelligence. And the first one is understanding your emotions. And, um, and like I, like I get that phrase, but it's a, but it's easier said than done. I w I would think, how does somebody go understanding their emotions? Is it just saying I'm angry right now, or is it something, something different than that? A little different than that. So we have, we have seven, like there's seven components to the overall framework, but the basis of what I teach this on is this.

14:55Most people look at emotions as the end result of the behavior. I get phone calls and they're like, I need to work with you because I keep losing my temper or because I have so much stress at work that I'm taking it out on my family and my relationships are suffering from my stress at work. So it's the behavior of losing the temper or the behavior of lack of control of the emotion that they want to address. And my thing with them is, guys, we cannot come at this from a space of behavior because we won't be able to actually change anything. We have to actually start with a base level of understanding.

15:28And if you understand what's actually happening, you'll shift the belief of what is really going on with you. And we will adjust a different behavior that will actually solve the problem. And so from that space of understanding, what I mean is I want people to get a master's degree in recognition. So if I could encourage, if I can encourage anyone listening to this to do one thing, I would say right now, I want you to get a master's degree in recognition of three things. One, what is your body doing when you feel stress and anxiety? It starts at the toes. Are your feet getting itchy or numb? Are your legs wanting to move?

16:02Do you, in your stomach, do you feel like hamsters just got released in there? Or you've been riding an elevator all day long or it hurts? Does your heart race or does it constrict? Or do you feel like somebody just put a weight on it? Do you clench your jaw? Does your throat feel tight? Do your shoulders start to pinch up and it actually pinches right here? Do you get a headache? Do you get hot? Do you get cold? Do your hands get clammy and sweaty? Do your pits sweat? Does your head sweat? or do you get cold or do you freeze up? Do you get tense? If you will number one, getting master's degree in recognition, stop being afraid of the physiology and start looking at it, leaning into it.

16:40What actually do I feel physically? If you'll get a master's degree in that piece of recognition, that is the basis of the framework of understanding because we have to understand that I am having emotions and thoughts, but my brain and my body are inseparably connected, which means that is going to be a physical experience, not because I'm broken, not because I'm some kind of emotional wuss, not because I can't control my mindset or have a positive mindset, because you are an emotional being having a physical experience. These things are inseparably connected. Don't be afraid of them. Recognize them because that is your body's natural alarm system going off for your good to tell you that right now, for whatever reason, you don't feel very safe.

17:24Maybe you don't feel safe about a big decision you have to make. Maybe you don't feel safe about what's going on at home and you're about to go home and your relationship's been on the rocks for a minute and it feels a little unsafe to go home. It feels unsafe to have the kind of conversation you have to have with your employees. Maybe it feels unsafe to make the financial decision that's weighing on you. Whatever that is, that is your body's natural way of trying to protect you, but we don't like it. So we tell our body to shut the heck up. I don't want to listen to that. Turn off. Stop talking to me.

17:55I don't want to feel any of that. And if we do that, the brain doesn't know how to do that. So it's just going to get louder. And that alarm system is going to get louder and the physiology is going to get louder. And next thing you know, you're going to go from having a little bit of a speedy heart rate to feeling like you're having a heart attack until you've stopped long enough to pay attention. So the first step is master's degree in recognition of what's happening physiologically second is I would encourage you to recognize what in that physiology do you want to do? Do you want to move? Do you want to hit something?

18:24Do you freeze up and then everything's like the lights are on, but no one's home? Do you just start people pleasing? Yep, whatever, whatever. Because there's four responses, fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Fight and flight are natural, freeze and fawn are learned. If you can identify which of those four you have a greater tendency to do, Everybody will do all four at some point in time, but we all come with a natural tendency. I think I understand the fight, flight, and freeze. What's the fourth one? Fawn, which is people-pleasing. That means you literally go into a place where it's just like, whatever, like whatever it takes to keep the peace.

18:57Like, okay, wait, that's what you want to do? Great. Then that's what we're going to do. So which of those four do you have this feeling like you have to do? Like if you're in a space of conflict, if you have a really tough decision in the office, If something's going on in your business and there is conflict, do you feel like you just have to shut off? Like you just want to shut the computer and run away. Do you feel like you want to pick up the computer and throw it across the room? Do you feel like you sit at your computer and you can't it's like, why can't I think of something? Why am I freezing right now?

19:28And then you move to your phone and just start scrolling aimlessly. Or do you just start figuring out what do I have to do to keep the peace? let's say that um that i that i've recognized that my response to stress or anxiety is is freezing okay i've i've recognized that yep are you at the stage then what like like what would what's your what's your plan of attack what's what's how do you are you trying to are you trying to change that are you trying to understand it you just want to understand it right now and then you lean into the first one so if your physiology for example is that my heart races really fast and I freeze.

20:04Then I'd say, okay, so we're going to slow down your heart rate and we're going to unfreeze the body. So we're going to do a couple of breathing exercises that slow the heart rate. And then we are going to literally shake at the end of that breathing exercise. And then after you shake it up, I want you to get up and walk. And I want you to move for 90 seconds. Because if we will, if we'll shake it off while we're moving, if we, if you're walking and then you just the occasional, like just shake it off while you're walking, it will take a freeze person who couldn't form a sentence 90 seconds ago can walk back to their office, sit back down and type out the most beautiful communication because they didn't lack capacity to communicate.

20:39They lacked capacity to connect to the communication. Let's say that the freezing happens in a meeting. So it's something where I'm sitting around at a table and I'm freezing. Are you recommending that the person start the breathing exercises then? We teach people how to do what we call boardroom regulation. And so like under the table, you start with your toes and you curl them in your own shoes. And then you intentionally flex your calves and now intentionally flex your quads and then intentionally flex your glutes and then flex your abs. No one can see that you're doing this. And I want you to hold that space of tension for 10 seconds.

21:18And then I want you to release it on purpose. And then I want you to just roll your feet, shake your feet under the table and then do it again. We call it under the boardroom table regulation. Nobody knows. If you get hot, I want you to never walk into a boardroom meeting without a cup of ice water or a really cold water bottle that is your constant companion. Because when you feel it coming, I want you to drink the ice water and regulate. And if you really feel it coming, I want you to actually put it in your hand and hold on to it and just sit there and have your hand on your cold water bottle while you're in the meeting.

21:51These things do unbelievable things to keep what we call our lid down when we recognize the physiology. Because what really anxiety is, if you were to look at Dan Siegel's hand model of the brain, is it's our prefrontal cortex where all of our logic and rationality is happening. If we feel anxiety because our alarm, our emotional alarm is going off in the amygdala, it will literally do what we call flip the lid. It'll disconnect the prefrontal cortex to the brainstem. Oh, wow. So the reason we're sitting there in the boardroom and we're like, why can't I remember what I was going to say here? Why can't I remember what I prepared for this?

22:29Because your prefrontal cortex where all that beautiful wisdom and knowledge and unbelievably wonderful experiences that makes you a brilliant business leader is not driving the bus right now. It's literally disconnected. Okay. So I'm at the stage where I've got my master's degree or maybe my bachelor's degree at understanding where I am. And then I say, okay, well, I'm in, I'm in freezer. I'm hot and I've got these tactics I can use in the boardroom or, or right after. Are there, are there tools that I can have to, um, I don't know, maybe, maybe, maybe stop the anxiety from happening or reduce, reduce the physical manifest manifestation of that.

23:10Absolutely. Because you're in a window of tolerance and the longer we've gone without doing anything about it, our window of tolerance is shrinking. As we start to exercise tools intentionally with understanding and we start to actually exercise an understanding here, what's happened over time is your alarm system and your amygdala has gone off and you have ignored it. So it has gotten louder and louder and louder and louder. Well, once you start paying attention and you intentionally shut off the alarm instead of just letting it run over you, it doesn't have to get so loud. you will notice a decrease in the physiology and you will notice an increase in the expansion of your window of tolerance so if my window of tolerance to actually handle stress increases and the physiological cues coming into me decrease i can handle substantially more and stay here in this nice whole brain situation okay it's about active engagement does that make Yeah, it does make sense.

24:10And so maybe I'll segue the question into, so, okay, so you've recognized, you have some tools in your tool belt for increasing the window of tolerance. And the goal, I think that you state on your website with your business is transformation. Yes. And I'm curious what causes things to last. You know, we've been talking about, you know, physical versus emotional. An analogy might be my son a few months ago got his braces off. That's a transformation. Crooked to straight. But it's not going to last unless he wears his retainer. Sure. You know what I mean? That's exactly right. So what's kind of like the, is that a fair analogy?

24:52What's the, how would you put that into terms for your business? Yeah, absolutely. So it's the third step actually of the master's degree, which is what we call the chain analysis or going back in your life and starting after we've figured out the physiology and we know what we are and we're kind of regulating into that. We go backwards and I would say, okay, I want you to go back and not look at what happened in the boardroom. What happened earlier? What happened before you got there? How did your morning go? And I want you to find the links in the chain that are actually building to this because it's not a singular event.