Conquer Anxiety & Live a Live of Peace | Jefferson Fisher EP 423

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:10What did you realize about yourself from those eight days of panic attacks that you were holding on to, that you were resisting, or that you were not ready for yet? It was a sense of, don't let them down. Like that was a... What, the number? The number of people watching or following? Yeah, because they'll comment, they message, they say incredibly nice, art-celled things. I still get to read them. And they're just the kindest, kindest things that you go, I do not deserve to read what I just. Yeah, I mean, you just feel like an immediate sense of don't let these people down because they really do depend on that advice for whatever reason.

0:51That daily message you give them. They've chosen the guy in the car, in the driver's seat. They want to hear what his thoughts are on X, Y, and Z, which I love. I truly do love it. And I hope I do it for the rest of my life. But it is in that moment, in the very first beginning of me saying, okay, this is happening. Like this is, I guess this is happening. That was a immediate sense of settling into that expectation. I also learned that I was getting a bad habit of holding my breath when I was working or doing things. So you weren't breathing as your body was like. Yeah. I know that feeling, man.

1:31Yeah, so I was reading, and part of that panic attack is the same sensation you get when your body's drowning. It's because I'm holding my breath, priving myself of oxygen, and my body is like kicking in. Flexible. Yeah, you got it. It needs more oxygen. You got it. And so without me just thinking in the day, I was catching myself more and more holding my breath. Or shallow breathing. Yes. That's what I'm saying. Barely breathing. Of course I'm alive, but it's like I'm holding it more than I'm letting it out. And I'm not fully utilizing my body, which tells me that there's that tension, that tightness.

2:09Yeah. So once I realized that I was holding my breath, that's what taught me of, okay, let's fix that. Right. Because once I started fixing that, much, much, much better. Yeah. There's something I've learned over the years about, and I'm curious how you approach this. And I don't always get it right. And it doesn't always work for me. But a psychological strategy. When someone is, quote unquote, attacking me. Or is saying nasty things about me that I don't believe are true. Or maybe it's just, I don't like the way they're saying it. And I don't want it to penetrate my heart and my soul. And be reactive and defensive.

2:49Right, right, yeah. Regulated and frustrated and all these things. One of the psychological or therapeutic strategies that I learned is to imagine either a field, an energetic field around me that I can see it, but then it bounces off the words, the intention, the energy. It comes and then, boink, it just goes around me and I'm like water off and done. I feel like there's a Star Wars reference, but yes, that's exactly right. Or what I'll do is I will separate the ego from the self and I'll have the ego over here next to me psychologically. Yeah. And an image of it, the ego of me here. Yeah. I'll just say, oh, they're just speaking to the ego.

3:36Yeah. The detachment. They're just speaking over here. Right. They're not actually speaking to me. Yeah. They might be looking at me, but it's just redirecting right here. Right. And, oh, this doesn't affect me. Yeah. They're talking to that guy. Yeah. And I saw, I think it was Selma Hayek one time talk about this. She was giving an example somewhere, a line about how, you know, if someone spoke to you really poorly in Spanish and you don't speak Spanish, you're not going to get defensive. Right. You're just going to be like, okay, so just act like it's a different language. What have you learned to support yourself psychologically and emotionally and spiritually?

4:12Yeah. when this feeling of panic, stress comes your way or when potential attacks come your way emotionally? So very similar to yours, I, in my mind, I visually have a trash can. Oh, okay. All right. And I can see it. It's one of those big, huge gallon ones. It's just the black, shiny. It's, yeah, you got it. Yeah. I see what they're saying. It's just a shoot. So I can see the words coming and I'm sipped because the issue they're telling me is not the real issue. And so if I hear something that's offensive, that's not nice, I just, okay, that's trash. Let me just, I'm just, in my mind, I grab it with my right hand, lift up and throw it.

4:56Wow. Like that's what I'll do with my thoughts. And I'm sifting to where if they might've led with something that was snarky, our inclination is to grab onto that and send it back. Yeah, send it back. Instead, if I throw that word away, if I just trash it, and then I found the one word that they said at the very end, that was the one word. If I focus on that word, then it all starts to kind of crumble. But that's, I just imagine a trash can.

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6:26Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.