Break the Cycle of Anxiety & Worrying | Ben Eckstein

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25:40So there's environment. You brought up being in your car, driving home after work. There's specific people in your relationships with those people. For some, our boss causes more worry. I know for me, my mom causes more worry. So there's conversations or relationships that will evoke. There's environments that will evoke. Then there's past experiences or trauma that will evoke it. But starting at first, just to recognize, okay, worry is coming up and let me kind of sleuth what's behind this worry and are there patterns to this worrying that is coming up again and again where I'm hungry after work.

26:19I had a big meeting with my boss I knew wasn't going to go well and now I'm going to ruminate the whole ride home. You start to see the patterns to, oh, this worrying is popping up repeatedly in these areas. what do we do with that awareness? Because I feel like that's the one thing that typically is a pretty easy step for many of us of like, oh, my mom causes me to worry or oh, yeah, I'm always worrying when I have a big project due. But what we actually do with that awareness, I think, is a key step that we need to unpack for our audience. Yeah, agreed. Yeah. And I think a place where people get stuck a lot, right?

26:54So like, I think, as you pointed out, like just being aware, that's the jumping off point, right? Like you need that. It's a prerequisite. If you're going to have any intervention, you have to be aware. But then, yeah, you need to pivot somewhere, you need to do something. I think there are a lot of different approaches to this. And again, there's, there's no correct answer to it. I think you have to find what works for you. But, you know, I think to one degree or another, it's going to involve these strategies to kind of disengage from it, right? So like, you're feeling that pull to figure something out to solve this problem, right?

27:27Like something is pulling you inward to turn it over in your head. And your job is to figure out, okay, like how do I refocus that attention elsewhere? Could be outward into a task that you're doing. It could be a thing that I sometimes recommend that people do is to just get like even the step of getting really concrete around what you need to do. So AJ, you had mentioned like this idea that, hey, some of these worries have solutions. There's something you can do. Some don't. Some of these things just don't have answers. You know, hey, I want to know how this thing is going to go next week. It's like, well, you don't get to know until next week, right?

28:05Like that's it. You know, there's no way around that. And I think sometimes these bigger life questions, you know, did I choose the right career? Did I choose the right partner? What's the meaning of life? You know, there's some big existential stuff that we just don't get to have concrete answers to. And so I think one thing that a lot of people kind of miss is that these kinds of questions, if you just keep them in your head, you can spin around forever, right? Like you can puzzle over it. You can look at every angle. You'll never get to an answer. But when we say those things out loud, you know, and I sometimes will have people do this exercise that it's a little embarrassing, but I kind of like it.

28:49So one really classic sort of intervention for worrying is to do this thing called kind of worry time. So during the day, you notice that desire to worry. And what you do is you jot down the thing, you know, I'm worried about my finances and you jot it down. And then you schedule this worry time for the evening where, you know, in the moment you say, okay, I'm not going to worry, but I have my worry time. It's going to be seven o 'clock tonight. I'm going to go and I'm going to carve out 20 minutes to worry. And that's fine. You know, it's an intervention that a lot of people use. A lot of people like it.

29:19It's always felt a little weird to me, this idea that A, that it's that easy to just delay it and kind of forget about it. Sometimes it is. But then B, like, I've always said like, well, if we're trying not to worry, why are we scheduling time to worry? Something about that doesn't quite feel right to me. But so here's the tweak that I like for that one, which is, okay, you know, jot this thing down. You have it at the end of the day. But if we're going to spend time worrying, What I want people to do is stand in front of a mirror and say it out loud. And the reason for that is every single person, when they do that, they immediately recognize how preposterous these worries are, right?

29:54Like how much of a waste of time it is to be trying to solve these unsolvable problems. And I think just that very act of saying it out loud, because now it kind of hits differently. These things that we turn over in our head, things can get pretty wild in there, right? A lot of us will let these absolutely insane things bounce around in our head. But the second we say it out loud, now all of a sudden we have this check with reality. It hits different when we start to enter these things into the real world and our surroundings. So I think sometimes looking at ourselves in the mirror, saying it out loud, all of a sudden we're going to have a really different reaction to that.

30:31And I think for a lot of people it does become a lot easier to say, like, all right, I got to move on. That's not worth my time. So that scheduling it out and then following through with the worry, the step in your mind of actually verbalizing it to yourself in the mirror makes it quite striking to recognize, okay, some of these things that are bouncing around in my head don't actually mean anything now that I've shared it. And I certainly wouldn't share it with anyone else. Like I'm embarrassed that I'm even sharing it here in my bathroom. For sure. And I think even a simplified version of that is just, again, saying it out loud or writing it down, this just kind of acceptance.

31:11You know, I think saying, writing down that sentence, I can't have an answer to this. There is no answer. I'm not going to figure it out, right? Like that, again, I think we, there's a part of us that kind of knows this, but I think when we make it official in that way, by saying it out loud, writing it down, again, it just kind of hits differently. And I think it often gives people that little, I don't know, something solid to be able to kind of move forward and accept. What I enjoyed about the book, and I recognize that no one thing is a silver bullet for everyone. It's a collection of tools and practices that might work for you in some scenarios, might work all the time.

31:48Very similar to our curriculum and what we train our clients on is recognizing all these great tools that you have at your disposal. And sometimes they're the perfect tool for the job. Sometimes it's a combination of tools. So let's keep going around this awareness. Once we've recognized and brought awareness to it, what are some other things we can do to start to reorient ourselves and break that worrying rabbit hole that we can put ourselves in? Yeah. As you mentioned, right, like these, they're all, you need a toolbox, right? There's, there's no one thing that's going to be the answer. I think another important component of this is attention.

32:24And so when people are worrying, they're turning their attention to this, a doubt or a concern, right? Like that there's this turning attention inward. And I think what a lot of people struggle with is this idea of sort of flexible attention, right? So like being able to direct our attention where we want it, when we want it. And at the end of the day, that is, it's a muscle, right? Like it's a thing that we have to build and practice. and that ability to kind of wield our attention and put it wherever we want to put it, it's a thing that we have to work at. And so I think a lot of people, again, just assume, hey, I'm not good at this.

33:03I'm never going to be good at it. That's just how it is. I get immersed in my thoughts. They kind of commandeer my intention and that's all there is to it. And again, I think we have to sort of accept that, no, this is something you have to work at and you have to practice. And so this is something that I will often encourage people to do is to say, okay, you have to carve out some time to practice building that attention muscle. If you want to have any hope at doing it in the moment where this stuff is coming up. And I think this is sort of one of those universal truths of any of these interventions that if you only try to do it in the moment where things are really hard, they're really charged, you're feeling really anxious, you're feeling really mad, it's not going to go very well, right?

33:45Like you have to get that practice in, in times where it's a little bit easier. It's a little more of just an easy layup and, and, and you can build that muscle so that in the moment when you need it, it's a little easier to kind of access that. So that attention building, there are a bunch of different ways that, that we can do this. And, you know, for folks who want to kind of dig into that, you can Google attention training techniques. There's lots of stuff out there, but what I usually try to have people do is to just kind of practice pivoting. So I always think about attention as sort of this spotlight, right?

34:20So that we all have awareness and this is sort of this broadest layer that, you know, awareness is, I always think of it like the floodlights up or, you know, the stadium lights go up. You can see everything. Everything is illuminated. That's awareness, right? That in this moment, we are aware of lots and lots of different things. In an ideal world, we are putting our attention on just this one sliver of it. So right now, the three of us, we're paying attention to each other. We're focused on this conversation. But the reality is our awareness is much broader, you know, that we might have some awareness of how we're feeling, how awake we are.

34:56Are we hungry? What's going to happen later today, right? There's all sorts of stuff swirling around. And our job is just to narrow that focus, you know, to use sort of the spotlight rather than the floodlights. And so in order to do that, we have to kind of practice. And so what that looks like is I will say, okay, we are going to first practice this sort of open awareness. So notice all the things pinging around, notice the sounds of the traffic outside, notice the feeling of, you know, your feet on the floor, the feeling in your seat, are you hungry? Notice everything, everything that's just popping up.

35:31And so in that moment, we're not trying to control it. We're not trying to corral it into anything. It's just that open awareness. And then we want to pivot. And so I think that pivoting to, okay, now we're going to put our attention on one specific thing and we're going to keep it there. And in that moment where we're just putting our attention on that thing, again, could be a physical sensation, could be something we notice in the room, could be anything, but we're going to put our attention there and you're going to notice your attention getting pulled away. You're going to hear some other thing.

36:02You're going to notice some other thing, some thoughts going to pop up. And we just want to kind of gently shift our attention back to that one thing. And then there's a third thing that I have people do, which is then to pivot that around, you know, to bounce around. So, okay, notice, notice this feeling, notice that thing, right? Like move it around and kind of keep it there. And so I always think of it, the name I give it is sort of a burpees for your brain, right? Like that we're moving from one thing to the next. And it's that open awareness. It's that really selective attention. And then it's that moving the spotlight around to a few different things.

36:33And we just want to practice this. You know, it's that attention muscle that we're flexing and there are these different versions of it. And I think as we practice these skills, we build the muscle, we get better and better at it. And I think if we do this over time, then in those moments where we're really struggling with it, we're going to have a little bit better ability to kind of use that attention muscle in the way that we need to. So I just want to kind of underscore this. It takes practice. This is not a thing that you do one time and then you're really good at it. You're going to have to do it over and over again.

37:04But again, I think if you are someone who gets immersed in those thoughts, where thoughts show up and you are just at the mercy of those thoughts, your mind goes inward and you're in it, figuring it out, then you probably need to strengthen that attention muscle and figure out how you can have a better kind of sense of control over it. If you're still overpaying for wireless, it's time to say yes to saying no. That's Mint Mobile's whole thing. Their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no BS. And that's why I love Mint Mobile Premium Wireless Service for just 15 bucks a month.

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41:26Yeah. I, you know, I think that experience, that kind of intolerance of uncertainty, everyone experiences this a little bit differently, right? That, so that threshold, you know, I think for a lot of people, we're going to say, Hey, 99%, that's good enough, right? Like we're, we're going to call that we're okay. It's good. That's a yes, right? Like that, that's good enough for some people. It's never enough, right? Like that, that, that little sliver, no matter how unlikely it's enough to kind of get you going. And I think, I think you see this a lot with things like OCD and anxiety, you know, all right, I've checked that lock once, I've checked it twice, I've checked it 10 times.

42:03It's really unlikely that it's unlocked, but we can't rule it out, right? Like that there's still that little sliver of possibility. And for some people, that's enough to kind of keep you going. You know, I think it takes a lot of practice. And so I think the kind of behavioral reinforcers here, I think are really important. So thinking about something like OCD, where essentially what we would do there is we'd say, all right, well, we have to practice not checking that lock. And as you do that, as you get accustomed to that experience where you don't check it, or maybe check it once and you walk away, at first, that's going to feel really intolerable.

42:35It's going to be really anxiety provoking. But as you practice that and do it a bunch, eventually that's going to feel good enough. And so I think that idea of intolerance of uncertainty, that it's another one of these things that we actually can get better at and improve at, but it takes this really conscious effort to kind of retrain ourselves in whatever the thing is. You don't have to like it. I think that's an important point here. So like I would love to know that I'm going to live a long, healthy life. My kids are going to be happy and also live long, healthy life. Like I would love to know all that stuff.

43:09And the fact that I can't know these things is uncomfortable. And I don't think there will ever be a world where that's not uncomfortable, right? I think this is not to be too bleak about it, but life is kind of painful. Sometimes there's some hard stuff. There are some things we can't know and we have to learn to be okay with that. And again, acceptance, being okay with it, that doesn't mean we like it. It just means we accept that there's not an alternative, right? And so when I think about acceptance, like using that example, what would it even look like for me to say, Hey, I don't accept that.

43:42I can't know that my kids will be okay, right? Like, what does that even mean, right? Like, we have to, there's no other option. And again, we can be mad about it, we can, it can make us feel uncomfortable. But at the end of the day, these things that we can't know, we can't know. And so I think practicing that acceptance, I think in some ways, it's a thing that gets easier. And it's a thing that we can learn to live with. But I think there probably will always be some kernel of, hey, this doesn't feel great, but I'm fresh out of other options. You know, if I have to accept, I have to accept reality is what it is.

44:17And I think it's important to point out that there are external factors that are driving this uncertainty and also trying to hijack our focus. And I think that is another reason to empower you to look to exert more self-control over your attention instead of letting the devices and the notifications and the pseudo productivity and all those external forces hijack it. Because we've seen now that these companies have built entire industries off of your attention. It's the most precious resource in the world. So you practicing and developing a skill set to strengthen your ability to focus when need be and allow yourself to take off focus when need be is a really powerful skill towards success, towards creating great relationships, fulfillment, and ultimately living a life in line with your values.

45:08So it is something worth pursuing and recognizing that, well, there's marketing forces that are creating fear and uncertainty and doubt like never before. In every device, every screen that we encounter, they're hijacking these systems to take advantage of us. So it is on you to strengthen them. It's important to strengthen them. And when you do, you actually do develop a better relationship with yourself, a better relationship with worry, and also a better relationship with others. Because what I've found, and I feel quite fortunate that I don't spend a lot of time in worry, I actually attract a lot of people into my life.

45:45They find a lot of comfort in being around me when I'm not in that panicked, worried state. And right now, you might not recognize that you have such a bad relationship with worry that you're actually pushing away other relationships with people because you're not managing your worry in a healthy manner. And it makes it hard to be a partner. It makes it hard to go into business with you. It makes it hard to be on your team when worry has hijacked your attention. It's created more uncertainty and doubt in your life. And it's created an obstacle to the goals that really matter to you. So I know we're saying, hey, these are tools and you need to practice them.

46:21But I just want to highlight the value there is in practicing these. Because I know when we talk about a lot of the soft skills on the show and the mindset stuff, we have a lot of listeners who will spend hours at the gym and will fine tune their diet and every calorie that goes in their body. But then they don't often think about these other areas where if they put in some practice and some effort around controlling their focus and their attention and recognizing the difference between uncertainty and doubt and using that to their advantage to manage worry, man, it unlocks a whole other side of things that makes life exciting, invigorating, and draws people in to your life.

46:57Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. And I want to highlight something here that I think would really help our listeners, and that's recognizing that maybe you're not a worrier, but we all have people in our life that we care about who do worry. So how do we approach those relationships with people that we actually want to be a great partner for? We want to be a great friend. We want to help our family member who's in this worry trap, what advice do you have for those who are trying to manage other people's worry? And I know the cliche, don't worry about it. We know how terrible that feels when you're in that worrying spiral.

47:33Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think what most people are tempted to do, and I think what comes naturally to a lot of people is to kind of reassure other people. You know, say, oh, yeah, like you said, you don't have to worry about that. Everything's going to be okay. And it usually falls flat because the reality is we can't know. I don't know that everything's going to be okay, right? I don't have that ability to promise everything's going to work out. And so, yeah, I think there's something not quite genuine about that response where we reassure people in those moments. And I think what usually goes better with most things is to kind of validate.

48:08And we're not validating, hey, that you should be worried about this thing. We're really just validating, hey, it's hard to feel worried, right? You care about this thing a lot. You want it to work out. That's awesome, right? It's great to have passion about things. It's great to care about them. I see how much that matters to you. I see that you care a lot. It's hard not to know. And so, yeah, I think we want to kind of validate and really ultimately give people this confidence to get through that. And I think that when we reassure or when we start worrying and kind of falling into that trap, I think we're missing this opportunity to learn that we're actually capable of being uncertain.

48:47We're capable of getting through it without doing these things. And so, yeah, I think whether it's you or you're doing this for a loved one or a friend or whoever, I think really just instilling that confidence of, hey, like, you can get through this thing, right? That it's hard, it's uncomfortable, but you are capable of having that experience without having to escape from it or having to make it all right or having to get these sort of false promises that everything's going to be okay, right? Like, you don't need that. And so, yeah, I think it is important that we don't just try to make the bad feelings go away or we don't try to just give someone this false sense of certainty.

49:24But instead, yeah, we kind of accompany them and let them feel something uncomfortable and let that be all right for a little while. Yeah, I actually enjoyed the phrase, let's worry about that together and allow them to express some of those worries. because much like you are sharing in that exercise with the mirror, you know, once we get these worries out of our head and we have someone who's really going to genuinely listen and not just saying that dismissively, it does bring about a sense of peace of, hey, I verbalized some of these worries. Wow. And sharing that with my partner and my best friend, I realized, well, that was really silly.

49:58I've done a lot of training in this area. I've had a lot of situations like this in the past that it did go well. So it's unfounded. Or it might just recognize a pattern for you of like, oh, hey, actually, when I'm in these situations or this environment, it causes a lot of that. So let me replace that. Let me change that. Let me put on the podcast. Let me go for a walk and get out of this office that's really cramped. It doesn't get a lot of natural light and allow myself that opportunity to get to that choice point, as you were saying, to recognize the worry, not let it override our system and work to a place that we can move our focus and attention to its action that doesn't allow us to ruminate.

50:34So I'm curious in putting together the book and working through your own worries, is there any one tool that you discovered that was a huge unlock for you personally? I concur with that. I am fortunate in that I tend to not get too stuck in these things. But I think, and maybe this is just knowing myself and the kinds of things that work for me. So I'm pretty stubborn and a little obstinate about things. And so like, I know what's helpful for me is knowing this kind of system of reinforcement, knowing, okay, so like, if I worry about this thing, I am unintentionally going to perpetuate this cycle where I need to worry in order to make things better.

51:19And right, like that I'm, I'm kind of feeding my brain all the wrong information that this is this helpful thing, right? So I, I know that that's not what's helpful. And so I think just that desire to kind of dig in and make sure that I'm not shooting myself in the foot here, right? And so I, with that cycle, I always think about this idea of like, kind of like algorithms, right? So like, if you go on, whatever, Facebook or Instagram, and you see an ad for, I don't know, shoes, and you click on the ad, you're going to get more ads for shoes, obviously, right? Like, that's what happens, right? The algorithm learns what you like, what you think is important, what's interesting, and it feeds you more of it.

52:00But our brains are doing the exact same thing. So when we engage with worrying, we pay attention to it, our brain is saying, hey, this is interesting, it's necessary, it's keeping you safe, it's helpful. You're feeding it all of this positive information, and it's going to keep perpetuating this cycle. It's going to keep feeding you more and more of this stuff. And so, again, I think what's helpful for me is knowing like, all right, I know this, right? This is my job. I do this for a living. I teach people about this stuff. I can't be perpetuating that cycle, right? Like that I think just knowing how this stuff works, I think for me, that's the most important part.

52:38You know, I think having the knowledge puts me in that position where to then engage with it would make me kind of a hypocrite, right? Like that I don't want to be in that position, right? I want to be the person who's doing, practicing what they preach and doing the things that I know are effective and worthwhile. Yeah. As we've self-identified as non-worriers, I'm curious for those in our audience now who tend to be on the more worrying side, are there other characteristics non-worriers have that we might want to model or bring into our life if we find ourselves constantly worrying? And I think it's really instructive, right?

53:14Like to look to those folks who are not worrying. And I do want to, I don't want to pat myself on the back here too much, right? Like that I think in a lot of the ways that I don't worry, I think some of them I've gotten lucky, right? Like maybe that's genetics, but I don't know. But, you know, I don't mean to take credit for all of that. But I think there are still these things that we can look to that I think are really helpful and instructive there. You know, you mentioned perfectionism before. And so I think the absence of perfectionism, I think is a really important thing here, right? So like that willingness to kind of accept, and it's not mediocrity.

53:51We're not saying like accept doing a crappy job at something. We're saying be effective essentially, right? Like that we, I think there's that idea of, you know, work hard versus work smart. And I think that's really all that we're saying here is that rather than doing as much as we possibly can, rather than trying to beat this problem to death trying to figure it out. We're going to notice where it's effective and where it's not effective. And we're going to cut our losses. And it's going to be painful sometimes, but we're going to have to accept, hey, this isn't worthwhile anymore. Keep moving, move on.

54:26So yeah, I think that ability to kind of embrace good enough, which doesn't mean you can't excel and do great things, but it means that you know where to draw that line. I think that's hugely important. I also think being compassionate with ourselves is a really important part of this. And just to kind of like connect those dots, let's say I take that, the big test on Friday and I bomb the test. If I'm sitting there saying like, oh, what a jerk you are. You suck at this. You're awful. You're never going to succeed, right? Like if I'm really mean to myself in that moment, I'm going to make everything harder, right?

55:03Like I'm not going to want to study. I'm going to give up. I'm going to say, oh, I'm no good. I'm never going to do well at this, right? Like that critical approach, which I think a lot of people assume is going to help to drive them. It's going to hold them accountable. It doesn't really do that. You know, that when we're really mean to ourselves, when we're really critical in that way, we're actually making things a lot harder. And we end up in that place where we don't even try. We kind of give up. And so I think being compassionate, saying like, all right, yeah, you bombed the test. That doesn't make you a monster.

55:34It doesn't make you a horrible human being. Like, all right, you bombed a test. Like, that's okay. You messed up. You're human. It's fine. You can learn. You can grow. You can do better the next time. That ability to approach it with that kind of flexibility and compassion, I think is really, really important. Where I would kind of connect this stuff with worrying is in saying like, if I have that test coming up and I know that my worth as a human being is riding on that test, I'm going to get pretty stressed out about that, right? Like that's going going to start to drive worry. And so like, if I know, hey, if I'm on that test, it's going to be awful.

56:08I'm now going to just tear myself down in all these different ways. Then yeah, of course, that's going to spur worrying, right? Of course, we're going to get sucked into that. But I think if instead I know, hey, I have the test coming up, I really hope I do well, I'm going to work hard at it. But if I don't, okay, there'll be something to learn. And I can try again, then yeah, I'm going to be much less likely to get stuck in having to perfect it and having to kind of pour over and over and over again. I like to take the retrospective approach. So I can think very clearly in my mind around a few moments of panic-stricken worry in college and grad school, and then with the business that, you know, zoom out a year, five years later.

56:52And that negative thing that I worried about, one, didn't come to fruition. And even in the case where it did, the one that I can recall, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought, and I don't carry it to this day. And I think that ability to zoom out, and if you don't in the moment feel that ability around this one specific thing, to retrospectively look back at the practice MCAT that you bombed and you were freaking out about because you hadn't put in enough prep hours, or the midterm that you knew that you were going to fail going in and then you did. And guess what? You can't even remember the grade you got that semester on that English Lit course that you had.

57:34You know, I think contextualizing and retrospecting a lot of those big panic-stricken worrying moments in your life can really help you as you have these come up again and again to turn the temperature down, to not allow them to overwhelm you in that important way. And I know in the past, we've had episodes around habits and how people want to remove bad habits, but you can't just remove a habit. You can't just remove worry. You have to replace it with something because it is an activity that is self-soothing to you. It is something that your attention naturally gravitates to. And for some of us, it might be food.

58:13For some of us, it might be social media. For some of us, it might be worrying. and you can't just replace the snacky food with nothing. You can't just replace the social media with nothing. So what do you recommend our listeners replace worry with or what should they be looking at around some activities that they can engage with in place of the worrying? And again, I think this partly goes back to that thing we talked about before and saying like, hey, you have to figure out how it's functioning for you. So I like that idea of like, yeah, worrying is kind of self-soothing. It's bringing you some comfort.

58:45Well, then, yeah, what else can you do, right? Like, yeah, can you change into sweatpants and watch a show that you really like? Or, right, yeah, can you go hang out with friends and feel some comfort there, right? Like that I think you, yeah, have to figure out how it's functioning for you. And then, yeah, tailor your approach accordingly. And yeah, it won't be the same for everyone. But it does require that kind of active assessment of, hey, like, what is this doing for me right now? And how do I pivot to something that will be a better fit for me? and I for sure agree that you know I think that kind of perspective taking is really important and I the one that I usually like to do is kind of the hey like what's going to end up on your tombstone and I think you know Ben failed the calculus test right like nobody cares right like it doesn't matter like that's not what's important and I think it it's a really good way of putting some of this stuff in perspective that hey it sucks to fail the test it sucks to you know lose a job or to mess up, to make big mistakes, to, you know, we are all going to screw up.

59:43But at the end of the day, I think these are usually not the important things. And I, that's not to say they're insignificant in the moment. Sometimes they have an impact, but I think when we get to the end of the day, certainly when we get to the end of our lives, these are not the things that really stand out. So yeah, I, I really like that perspective taking as a way to just kind of put it back in focus. I know one other strategy that we implement in our coaching program with our clients who have a lot of anxiety around socializing and connecting with people and maybe due to some past frustrations or lack of experience in that area or now in a totally new environment with people they feel less comfortable with is this concept of diffusion and recognizing that you can often fuse your entire identity to thoughts and emotions.

1:00:35And unfortunately, that can be really difficult to break. And one of the strategies that we talk about is actually taking a step outside of yourself in that moment and talking to the five-year-old version of yourself going through that worry. Or, you know, maybe it's the college AJ going through that worry around the final. You know, how would you approach it speaking to that AJ, the 20-something AJ or the 18-year-old AJ versus, you know, the 42 year old AJ and getting so wrapped up in it and giving yourself an opportunity to diffuse from that emotion, that negative feeling that is associated with this event or this outcome that you really want.

1:01:13Yeah, I think diffusion is really important. And I think it in a similar way where we were talking about kind of, hey, like you have to be aware of this stuff before you can do anything about it. Yes, some people get really immersed in these experiences and they need something to help them to kind of take that step back. And, you know, that tracks, you know, that I think when we are experiencing more intense emotions, they're pretty consuming. You know, I think that's, that's sort of just what our brains do. If we're really mad or we're really scared, right. That we, we get pretty in the moment about it, right.

1:01:48Like that we lose that sense of being able to kind of observe ourselves and step back from it. And so I think it's often a thing that we have to start doing really intentionally with exercises like, hey, like, what would you say to five-year-old you or, you know, that I think we need to pull back. And I, I, I think for me, the simplest version of this is just a statement of like, hey, I, I notice I'm having the thought that whatever, right? So like that, that shift from I'm a failure to I notice I'm having the thought that I'm a failure, right? It just, it puts it in this completely different contexts.

1:02:24And I think we can then notice it, we can observe it, we can choose how we respond to it. But it doesn't have to be a thing that's just accepted as fact or reality. But it's just, it's an experience we're having. And we ultimately have a say in what we then do with that and how we respond to it. But yeah, that prerequisite of, yeah, but you have to notice it and step back first is really important. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Ben. It was a beautiful place to stop and give our audience lots to think about and hopefully some tools that our audience can use, especially those who find themselves in a worrying loop that can keep them from reaching their goals or living a life of their values.

1:03:03Where can our audience find out more about the work you do, Ben, and your book? Yeah. So my book is called Worrying is Optional. It is available on Amazon. It's also available through the publisher, which is New Harbinger. I'm sure they'd love for you to go there, but most people will go to Amazon anyways, which is fine. And And then you can find out more about me. I have a website, which is www.bullcityanxiety. Bull City is Durham, North Carolina, which is where I'm located. So yeah, bullcityanxiety.com. And then you can find me on social media and that's at Bull City Anxiety. Great. Well, thank you so much for stopping by.

1:03:40It was a pleasure.

1:03:50Thank you for listening to another episode of the Art of Charm podcast. And this is the part where we showcase one of our X Factor members. Take it away, Chris. Hey, everyone. My name is Chris Raftery. I'm a financial advisor. And I joined X Factor to build better relationships, really, with my friends, at work, and also with my family. and x-factor really helped me not just with the course material and listening to and reading about all the ways i could improve but also in helping me implement all of these different teachings giving me an outlet and a network to practice these things to troubleshoot in a way a lot of situations I was going through and really provide some real world applications and have fun along the way too.

1:04:48So the thing I'm looking forward to the most is continuing to develop. They say iron sharpens iron and being able to work with the other guys in the group has really proved that. And I'm looking forward to continuing to build better relationships with the existing folks that I hold near and dear to me, but also meeting new people out there. So, you know, looking forward to hopefully meeting you guys in the future as you join the X factor. So it's worth it. Thank you very much, Chris. And it was a pleasure working with you too, and good luck to all your future endeavors. If you've gotten value out of this or any of our podcasts, please head on over to your favorite podcast player and rate and review the show.

1:05:32It means the world to us and and it helps others find the show. If you've listened this far, you're probably somebody who understands the value of building meaningful connections and expanding your network. Well, do we have something special for you today? Imagine a world-class networking program that helps you grow your social capital, not just through random handshakes and business cards, but through your general interests and core values. Introducing the Social Capital Training, your gateway to mastering the art of authentic networking. Whether you're a professional looking to climb the career ladder an entrepreneur seeking partnerships, or just somebody who wants to enhance their social skills, our free social capital training is designed for you.

1:06:11It's not about collecting contacts, it's about cultivating connections that matter. What makes our program stand out? We focus on leveraging your unique interests and values to create powerful, lasting relationships. Ready to take your networking game to the next level? Head on over to theartofcharm.com slash SC and watch your free social capital training today. Don't miss out on this opportunity to transform your social life. That's theartofcharm.com slash SC for your free social capital training. Elevate your network. Elevate your life with social capital. All right. Before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery.

1:06:51Until next week. Go out there and crush it.

1:07:21Yeah, but I remember you. Oh, yeah, I remember you. It was a bad day, but I found it a wrong way.