Being Mindful - Tools To Understand & Manage Anxiety
- REEL Team
- Apr 23, 2023
- 39 min read
Updated: Nov 26
Read the transcript here
all right and I'm also going to see about turning on the caption I can help so everyone thank you so much for being here today I am Cali Turk I am one of the co-founders of REEL and we are here for our session on being mindful tools to understand and manage anxiety and this is a really special session for me uh because I'm getting to host Andrea wachter who is someone I just really admire and it was brought a lot to my life and I'll be excited to introduce you to her in a little bit before we jump into that we'd like to just give anyone who's new to real a quick overview of who we are and why we do these kinds of programs so we are a non-profit that's based in Silicon Valley our focus is really on helping twice exceptional students thrive in school by raising parent and educator awareness and understanding of the best ways to support them using practical research-based strategies so we do all kinds of workshops and offer resources and programs and events and we're excited that you've joined us today for this one in case you're not familiar with what twice exceptionality is since that's a term we'll probably be using sometimes today twice exceptional people are those people who have really distinguishing strengths they have high ability or potential in one or more areas it could be an academic area or creativity but they also have a complex challenge like dyslexia dysgraphia dyscalculia ADHD autism and these things mixed together to make a very unique lived experience for the twice exceptional.
um like I mentioned we have all kinds of resources on our website please feel free to go to that and you can look at our Tui topics and get information on a wide range of topics that are very specific to the twice exceptional learner we also have a few other upcoming events on May 4th we'll be having our regular parent support group with PHP it's a nice night just to get together casually with other parents of twice exceptional kiddos to get support and ask questions on May 9th we're hosting Dr Tasha Oswald of Open Door therapy talking about what it's really like to walk the 2E parent path what are all the ins and outs the ups and downs and how do we navigate these great kids and then on July 11th we will have our next bi-monthly parent support group you can learn more about those on our website and register that's where you RSVP to get the zoom links and then if you would like to see all of our previous events you can check out our YouTube channel where we'll also post this recording um you can also tap into any of our other resources including our private Google group for parents so we'll put the link to that in the chat if that's something you'd like to be involved in it's a great place to ask questions get answers we do have Facebook Twitter and I already mentioned our YouTube channel we do offer educator workshops on a wide variety of topics too many here to go into but just know if this is the kind of information you'd like to bring to the Educators in your life that is something you're doing and we would welcome the chance to do that for you uh just to make a note that someone is not muted so if you could please mute yourself that would be great um and uh that we are a non-profit now we got our non-profit status of just a little less than a year ago today if you find our programs to be valuable to you we'd really appreciate your support in helping us continue to make sure to offer these programs for free to everyone who needs them.
um so I wanted to say just a few words uh before we start talking to Andrea about why we're having this program today on anxiety management for parents and this all really came out of a project that I did because I'm also a Bridges graduate school student I'm getting my doctorate there and we had a class on social and emotional learning and we needed to write about an intervention strategy and as I reflected about an intervention strategy that had really helped me most in my parenting with my kids and I think helped my kids a lot it was really attending to my own emotional regulation you know and I had learned from various people through time that the more I could show up in in a calm in a calming way or in a way that appropriately matched the emotions my child was having the better it was going to be for my child in that experience and and so what I decided to do was really look at why is that important and what does the research say about it and and how did it connect into my own life so why it's important is that when we attend to our own emotional needs and and we have that emotional stability we're actually creating stability for our child too we're giving them a space that's that has a lot of stability to it for whatever they're going through and it's really important for them to have that stable space if we are emotionally dysregulated then the whole ship feels like it's going like this um it's also really good for modeling you know a lot of what children learn is what they see modeled almost more important how we act sometimes than what we say they're both very important but when I show up and in a way if I show up in a way that is very stressed and nervous and anxious it really sends a signal to my child that this is a stressful nerve-wracking situation it actually just increases the stress for them but when I show them how I can show up when things are difficult in um with with a more within a calmer way that still is serious if you don't if you look like you're showing up with no emotion then that's not sending the right signal either but if we're showing them like wow like we know things can be tough and and this is how we work through it it's that model for them so that when they're going through these situations when we're not around it's most likely what they're going to default to and then there is a lot of research that just shows of the importance of the co-regulation that I am when I am regulated I am sending a signal to my child that fight flight or freeze is is it's oh like we're okay we don't need to fight or fly or freeze up or if we are we can work through it and and there is actually a human experience it's it's really a human experience to go through these things and we can go through them together and that helps just everyone regulate better and the research really backs all of that up like that stuff you'll hear but it actually the research really does and and I and I am a little bit of a nerd about the research because of going through a doctoral program but parents are the central influence in our children's lives and that's important for every child that that's all children that's not just twice exceptional children but it is especially critical for the development of the gifted or twice exceptional child who may be uh more easily dysregulated than a neurotypical child and we really provide that core base influence in their lives um that co-regulation is it really can shape how our kids regulate themselves for the rest of their lives.
and so I so I tried a bunch of different strategies to help work on my own stress and emotional regulation through the years because you know I think about being a parent of twice exceptional kids is really is really hard and really beautiful but there can be just a lot of dysregulation along the way and part of what I really appreciate so much about Andrea is she helps people really know like you know what like this is all okay like this is totally it's a normal way to feel it's a normal thing and I can become aware and attend to things that I'm experiencing and label them and then work with them and so my hope today is that we can really talk about some of those tools and strategies of how how do we become aware of like anxiety our own anxiety and how do we work with it and you know and so I do get to introduce you to Andrea which is such a pleasure for me because Andrea has been such a a kind of a guide in my life of someone that I keep referring back to when I'm going through different things um so she is a psychotherapist and she's an author of the book getting over overeating for teens and several other books for adults.
she has been on lots of amazing podcasts and radio shows doing work and helping people to understand themselves and work with themselves in healthy ways she has an incredible amount of courses and tools available online for mindfulness anxiety relief depression relief all kinds of things I mean I really strongly encourage anyone on this call to go to her website which I'm going to put in the chat so no one has to remember it but go to her website and look at her courses um you know they're very reasonably priced and they're just really brilliant um I have found them to be just a wonderful tool in my own life so I've done a bunch of them already and um she has some really amazing free meditations on inside timer that I've loved using she just put together a really creative course on helping parents and educators help teens with mental health challenges which I know is something that a lot of our real community experiences um but she really focused what she's going to talk to us about today are some of the ways that we as parents and caregivers can better tend to our own anxiety and stress which I think is really just going to be wonderful so welcome Andrea and thank you so much for coming today.
thank you so much for inviting me I'm honored to be here and I love what you said about um you know parenting is hard and beautiful and I can feel that it comes from your heart and so um yeah I was thinking about just before I give some sort of tools to help with anxiety I wanted to just talk for a few minutes about what anxiety is so I think of it as a false alarm you know we're designed to actually feel anxiety or fear stress if we're in Danger and our our nervous system is going to do what we need to do either we're going to fight or we're going to flee or we're going to freeze right and so we that system was really designed brilliantly for physical danger like you know there's a you know grizzly bear or there's um you know we're at the edge of a cliff or we're in some immediate danger and instead what's happened in our culture is you know there isn't the physical danger that much you know I'm sitting here I'm not in any imminent danger at all my nervous system hasn't gotten that memo so when I'm worrying you know oh what if people don't like my talk today you know or or what if oh my gosh this is going to happen that's going to happen when will I be worrying about the future or when worrying about the past my mind is worrying like I said something really dumb you know yesterday I shouldn't have said that why did I do that so I could be sitting here perfectly safe and but my body reacts.
as if my life is in danger right if I if I am thinking um oh my gosh oh what I said before the talk started I sound like such a dork or oh my gosh you know what you know I'm starting to get a tickle in my throat what if I start coughing right the the thoughts can trigger like cortisol hormones in our body blood pressures Rising um so so I was thinking well that's kind of a long-winded way of saying anxiety is kind of it's it's it's when our body is reacting to thoughts because the primitive brain doesn't distinguish between real danger and a thought that will not harm us so to me that's really important that once people know that my I like to say my thoughts like to make me think that I'm in danger but actually I'm safe and when you said that to yourself anxiety starts to decrease we could be in Mortal Danger that's a different story right and then your nervous system is going to do what it needs to do right to get to safety so but but mostly most of the time the thoughts make us think that we're in Danger that's something awful is happening when actually we're safe so I I really think it's useful for people to notice what's in my mind right now you know I'm not in a grizzly or you know I'm just sitting here but wow what am I saying to myself.
um and so I would say wow just like that my my chest my shoulders are starting to drop just like wow just being aware that oh I'm not really in danger here my mind is telling me I'm in danger so so the the I used to have really bad anxiety I still get it for sure but I had really crippling anxiety that led to addiction and eating disorders and and and so I was on a path to heal all that and once I learned these tools I really wanted to share them with people so the first thing I want to talk about is you know being aware that your anxiety is a thought problem so if you find yourself with anxiety and your you're not in imminent danger you want to get curious about what am I saying to myself I call them mental storm warnings because they're the mental storm warnings that you might not be aware of so you could be in your child could be like you know doing whatever they're doing and you're like oh my gosh why can't they just do XYZ and you think you're getting anxious because of their behavior but really you're getting anxious because you're talking to yourself about their behavior you're saying something like what's wrong with them why can't they just you know stop doing this so you really want to get curious about the mental storm warnings and give it a name some people call it you know the part of me that freaks out some people call it my little kid you know whatever you want.
but but the second part of that is the Inner Loving Adult so the inner loving adult is someone who or some part of us that has we we can breathe we can calm ourselves down we know we're not in danger and we know that our thoughts are the danger the mental storm warnings so we want to build up what I call the inner loving adult that is the part of us that says wow you know you're so worried right now because you're thinking blah blah blah but you're really not in danger or I can understand why you're so upset right now you're thinking they should be doing XYZ or you're thinking that something's going to happen but really okay you're okay and so I want to say that we don't want to pretend that anxiety is not there so if you're having anxiety you want to acknowledge it like it's real I'm having it I don't want to I'm not interested in pretending that I'm not having it but I am interested in getting curious about what am I saying to myself that's causing this to happen and that's the loving adult is the part of us that can do that so does that does that make sense it makes a lot of sense.
and you know what so one of the things that I really appreciate about that is like I think if we were to just think like oh it's just thought and we just like try to push it away maybe or or say like this isn't real it's not as effective as acknowledging I'm really experiencing something here and I need to attend to the fact that I am experiencing something that isn't feeling good and so let me make space for myself to attend to it yeah and in my in my book getting over overeating for teens and also the companion book for like you or parents or Educators I called in that book I actually called it the thinking self and the wise self I said the thinking self is always going to do what it does it's going to think you know it's what thinking cells do but there is this the wise self who understands and I say you know that the thinking self is sometimes great you know we need to problem solve we need to use our thinking cells but sometimes the thinking self starts to freak out and say and go to worst case scenarios and and and start just really catastrophizing and making us think we're in danger and so the wise selves like okay your thinking self is really freaking out right now you're having these kind of thoughts but the wise self knows like you're gonna you're gonna be okay yeah so if we think about like we're we're having this mental storm warning like this is happening or something bad is going to happen or we should this or we should that or I shouldn't have done this or I did it wrong these are all mental storm warnings does that mean those thoughts aren't accurate.
well I wouldn't say they're not accurate I would say these thoughts are causing you suffering right now so any thought and any thought can be causing you suffering so what you want to do like the I shouldn't have done that you know I was so whatever or they shouldn't be doing that or I'm so worried that this is gonna happen like if the thought is causing you suffering you want to get curious you want to get curious about what's the loving thought to myself right now the loving thought to yourself is going to be wow you're really upset you're really worried right now you're really stressed right now what do you need like so what I learned in my own recovery is like so I would if I was having anxiety I would have always gone to food as the first tranquilizer and so what I learned was wow I'm I'm really worried right now and and so the Inner Loving Adult learned to ask what do you need you know and some people might need to journal some people might need to call a friend or a therapist or a sponsor or whatever some people might need might want to put on some you know soothing music some people might want to go for a walk and nature you know so what you want to do is learn how to not make yourself wrong for the feeling that you're having because like you were saying that's going to compound it but you want to get curious about oh what is what's going on you know what are the thoughts what's going on and what support could you use and so I think with our kids too if if if we really truly do think they shouldn't be doing something that they're doing or we you know we don't agree with something they're doing to just kind of notice this is stressing me out but to not come at them from that place of I'm stressed out and you're doing it wrong but to attend to that first.
right and especially with 2E kids you know I have a I have a son who is 2E and um you know they already he already has enough should have I should have gotten that done I shouldn't be taking this long I should you know so if I come at him like that then it's just gonna shut him down right yeah right well I'm very glad we're here I know you're going to have a few main strategies to share so let's let's get into those sure so once you're sort of getting curious and you're realizing like okay my anxiety is not because of what's going on out there it's what I'm saying to myself about what's going on out there what I'm saying to myself about my kids it's not it's not really them you know we obviously we want them to show up and do their chores and get to school on time and all that but we want to attend to ourselves first so what I learned with that and that's why the first strategy I want to share is that when you're aware of what you're saying to yourself you want to identify that mental storm warning you want to say I'm calling it like a story because it is a story I'm making up a story that something terrible is going to happen or a story that whatever is happening shouldn't be happening which they're both painful and so once you have the story you want to bring yourself back to the present moment so for example I'll use this presentation because it's like fresh and on my mind so the story could be oh my gosh what if I say something um you know what if the technology doesn't work what if you know I'm just sort of like what if what if right and so when I was preparing for this I felt that anxiety and so the the mental storm warning was like these thoughts and so I would return to the present moment which is right now I'm just sitting here at my computer and if I start thinking about giving a talk then my my body reacts but if I say to myself no no no right now I'm just having lunch right now I'm just you know whatever I'm doing then my body calms down.
so you're so you're in the mental storm warning when you're rehearsing the future or when you're rehearsing the past or you know when you're making up a story about something that's going on out there and so the antidote to that is to come back to the present moment right now here I am right now so bringing yourself back to the present moment now it might be that you're in the present moment and something is going on like it could be that your child is you know whatever they're doing and you don't like it and then you want to address what to do about that but your mind can bring you into the future it can bring you into all the what-ifs it can bring you into shame or whatever about the past all of those things are going to activate your your nervous system but when you breathe and just bring yourself back to here I am right now in this moment and trust me like I said I used to have debilitating anxiety so I do have compassion and understanding for how hard that can be but I really want to let you know there is hope and and you can you can do these things so so the first thing is getting the story it's really a story that I'm making up it's mental storm warnings and the antidote is to come back to the present moment so some strategies that I find really helpful with that one is to do some breaths whether that's box breathing or the 478 breath which I can just tell you real quick because it's so simple but it's so powerful so you don't have to do this now but I'm just going to tell you about it so when you do the 478 you breathe in for a count of four.
you hold it for seven and you breathe out for eight and so doing that like three or four or five times actually sends a signal to your body that you're safe even though your body is like reacting as if you're in danger so it's it's really simple but it's so powerful and I just learned actually last night I was taking a class on on nervous system work and I learned that it's it's the out breath so that's why it's the longest in the 478 it's the outbreath that sends that signal to your body oh we're safe so so you can just take some slower breaths out that that tells your body we're safe and then I also I do a lot of what's called grounding so you just come back to what are my five senses so you could ask yourself like even right now like I could say oh right now I hear birds I hear my wind chime I feel my the desk you know under my hand I see sunlight you know so you just want to like bring yourself back to the present moment with your five senses and that's super calming to the nervous system so breath work five senses and the other thing I'd like to do is I have sort of a meditation or practice that I do that is like I say my name like Andrea you're okay Andrea you know what you're doing you're safe you know you've done this a million times because I had that I had had this I had a situation where I had a panic attack once and so I was like terrified that that was going to happen again that's a mental storm warning that was my thought but I'd bring myself back to the present moment I'd say Andrea you're okay.
you know you've you've been through way worse you're safe so just that that you know you can do this is another kind of present moment thing just repeating to yourself I'm safe or you know I know this is hard but I can do this or I've been through worse than this before you know these kinds of affirmations people find very soothing so breath work five sentence affirmations and then you know if you have it like if you're in line at the at a you know the market and you're feeling anxious you could just pull up your phone and pull up a meditation so I do so much free stuff on Insight timer I do a lot of like calming anxiety stuff and so that could help too yeah so those are some present moment practices does that make sense yeah so you're so so in terms of if we're if we find ourselves in that mental storm warning of like the what-if or or should or whatever it is going on in our minds that is causing us suffering we need to name that and then we need to bring ourselves back into the present moment and there's all kinds of different tools we can try to bring ourselves back into the present moment right yeah and just the awareness alone that oh this is a thought problem so I have somebody might say oh but but this terrible thing is happening.
so so that terrible thing might be happening but it's your thoughts about it that are making you more distressed so it's like to be in the present moment with it you know or or yeah and to notice what am I saying to myself like if I'm saying to myself this is terrible they should be different they shouldn't be doing this those are all going to increase your stress level so so so yeah and so this is this is actually like this is bringing me to the next piece which is sort of changing the thoughts so first you might identify the thoughts that are I call them untrue unkind or unhelpful and then you want to replace the thought so this is a cognitive behavioral therapy strategy where you notice what you're thinking and then you offer yourself a more true kind or helpful thought so to say so so the thing is a lot of us are walking around like beating ourselves up or worrying and we're not even aware of it and so the first piece is just being aware of it and then the second piece is saying to myself okay I'm thinking this so this is causing my suffering what would be a kinder thought what could I tell myself that would be more helpful more kind more true so it might be something like you know you're doing the best you can you've been through harder things than this before you know there's no emergency here like you know you know I have my favorite calming phrases so there's no emergency here this is as bad as it gets I'm going to be okay those are some of my favorites and I just really encourage people to learn some you know calming thoughts and there's also something really powerful to that when we when we say those things out loud.
like I'm okay or I'm safe there's something about like saying it so so we can experience it in our in our bodies even more yeah you could write them down on some index cards and put them in your car you know just read them during a red light you know or before you go to bed just get them in your in your system so that it's almost like we're we're teaching our systems like we're safe we're okay and so the more we we feed it those things then it's going to go there you know in a time of stress otherwise you know you're going to just what comes naturally which is probably stress or worry or or what have you so we want to be training ourselves so we're always training ourselves so it's like we might as well train ourselves to have more calming we're feeding ourselves you know and which is why like limiting the news or limiting social media you know you want to stay informed we all want to stay informed but it's like you're feeding yourself stress and fear you know versus calming you know calming affirmations calming thoughts and then being aware of just yeah being aware of what are you saying to yourself and then what can you replace it with so I love this I used to when I first started my business I was terrified I had a lot of shame about not being a licensed therapist and I it was really hard for me to and so I I would feel so anxious when I was going to when I had to present my services to people and so my very dear friend who I used to have an office with wrote me little index cards about all the reasons why it was going to be okay.
and you know and so I would pull those out and read them all the time when I was feeling that anxiety and that fear and it really is remarkable how it can help you it really can so so and so so when you know when I worked in residential treatment with a lot of kids I they would say to me you know it's like well well I should you know I should be getting better grades I should be doing and I'd say okay do you think those shoulds are helpful do you think those shouds are helping you and and and it'd be like no they they make me feel bad and so so and so we don't want to make ourselves feel bad right like what I discovered for myself but also you know with my clients is when we when we are kinder to ourselves we do better you know when we're loving to ourselves we do better so making ourselves wrong shaming ourselves like and so much self-compassion research has come out um Kristin Neff is a researcher who's really big she's um she's been on Oprah's podcast she's been on all kinds of podcasts and she's been researching self-compassion for I think over 20 years and what she has found is that self-compassion is the piece that people are missing so she calls it self-kindness common Humanity where you acknowledge like I'm having a hard time and then mindfulness so if you just do those three things it can help you so much to lower your stress or your anxiety so self-kindness common Humanity mindfulness so I'm having a really hard time right now I'm having a lot of anxiety or I'm having such a hard time with my son or or whatever you know everyone has hard times okay that's the common Humanity part so we don't want to feel isolated and alone.
so it helps to acknowledge like I'm having a hard time and everyone has hard times so that's a little different than the mental storm warning of like oh my gosh this is horrible nobody else has to deal with this so you want to acknowledge the hard time and then say yeah everyone has hard times and then mindfulness is just being in the moment so again breath work or five senses or a meditation or an affirmation or a walk in nature so those are kind of just some strategies just to be in the moment with hard times and then the last strategy I wanted to mention today is sort of I sometimes call it spiritual beliefs and and this is optional you know it's not it's not for everyone but um I think for some people they're not in the present moment like when their their mind is spinning out and they can catch their stories and they can catch their mental storm warnings and they can come back to the present moment but where they have a hard time is when they have something going on that's making them want to be in the future they they know something's coming up or they have something from the past that is causing them suffering and so what helps me more than than getting myself back into the present moment is is having this set of spiritual beliefs so for me personally my spiritual beliefs are that my higher power or God or the universe whatever is always taking care of me and always guiding me.
and so so that's my personal belief but it really can help lower anxiety if someone believes that so and another piece of the spiritual belief thing is the radical acceptance which is that whatever's going on is supposed to be going on so one of Cali's kids is supposed to be doing what they're doing right now no matter what they're doing so if it's time for us to intervene or say something that's gonna happen but when we fight with reality and say they shouldn't be doing what they're doing we suffer that's that's I think Byron Katie is a spiritual teacher author and she has this great phrase when I fight with reality I lose but only 100 of the time and so and so that that if you can really get with whatever's supposed to be happening now is happening now that can calm your nervous system so even you know during covet it was a real struggle for many of us you know and so just like okay this is what's happening right now you know that that can be really calming but when we fight with the present moment the irony is we still get the present moment but we also get the suffering that comes from fighting with it you know so you know in I'm really big into 12-step recovery as well and in the 12-step world they have these prayers they have the Serenity Prayer and it's really it's just beautiful so it's God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
so so there's you know the radical acceptance part and that's going to help lower your anxiety to accept what you can't control and to know what you can control so sometimes it's more soothing for me to to move into that realm of like acceptance acceptance acceptance you know this is just this is what's happening this is what I'm being asked to be with right now and if that doesn't resonate with you fine just get back into the present moment you know and but I think for some people it may so so I wanted to mention it another another sort of spiritual belief that works for me is that um everything is happening in Divine timing Divine order for my highest good so that kind of like really helps me I take I take a deep breath and I just think everything's in Divine timing Divine order for my highest good so that helps me and I also really believe that wherever I go I am divinely guided and protected so if I'm when I remember to say that which I don't always obviously but when I remember to say that before like say like I had to fly somewhere I would say wherever I go I am divinely guided and protected and it just you know I still might think like oh but what if the plane crashes but I'll have that thought you know I'll still have my anxiety but I'll just think wherever I go I am divinely guided and protected you know so it's just it's like a coping strategy to sort of calm your nervous system in the face of things that we really can't control right.
so there are sort of three big things that you've kind of shared with us so one was like be in the present moment and there's lots of tools that can help with that the second one was like kind of change the thoughts and there's lots of thoughts you can try out and the third one is kind of being at peace with what's actually happening in the moment right now so accepting what's happening even though that can be hard so even though things are hard you can find peace in the acceptance of actually this is happening right now yeah it's just allowing things to be what they are you know and not and not it's like it's such a funny thing to say like well that shouldn't that's not what should happen because that is what's happening so so it's just letting you know if you if you're feeling let's just say you're feeling ashamed or guilty because you yelled at your kids so the thing is your shame and guilt might make you think you're never going to do it again but the thing is you probably will until you learn the tools you know so just to be just to be with that like okay that happened it's not ideal I wish it didn't happen but it happened so now what can I do so the inner loving adult again is going to help like wow I don't I'm not proud of how I showed up just now and you know and can I make amends can I apologize can I you know if they're a little bit older or maybe they can understand a repair I think that that's a really important part when we do in fact make a mistake.
with our kids is making the repair later after you've calmed down whatever that looks like for your child and making them understand like actually it was my thing it wasn't you right I got I got really worked up and I wish I had shown up differently I'm sorry yeah it's a huge um piece of modeling that for our kids about taking accountability and making repairs I think that goes such a long way so okay so we we actually have a few questions um and some of them are kind of tied to this so do you want me to go ahead and ask you yeah let's do it okay so the first question is if you are having a stress anxiety trigger also noticing a physical response such as chest tightness etc would you first address the body and or mind response I love that great question it's a great question so so I think and I've actually heard contradicting like some people say start with the body some people say start with the mind so this is what works for me I first want to notice what am I thinking and so I'm gonna like use the words okay that's a mental storm warning okay I'm really anxious and then I want to start doing something physically so for me you know I'm going to I'm going to take some breaths you know and I'm gonna start taking some slower outbreaths or I'm gonna start doing the 478 breath and and so what I think is we want to notice both you know what are my thoughts what's my body doing let me you know maybe let me put my hand on my chest and give myself a little love or you know just like notice it so but but sometimes we're so unaware of our thoughts you know that's the thing that's that's really surprising to people how when they start to become aware of their thoughts they'll they'll they don't even realize how much they're you know battling themselves all day long so so I think both are important I think both are important but for me I like to notice what's the thought going on you know what's the story I'm making up.
because because otherwise you might you might notice your body then and then like a minute later you feel anxious again because you haven't addressed the mind side of it so yeah you know but but that's the thing I wanted to say like we can get ourselves calm you can take these breaths you can do these strategies we're talking about you can get calm but then you start thinking again you know right so so you kind of want to get in there and notice like okay that's a mental storm warning that's a story and you know and to not make yourself wrong for it so so the the thing is I used to I used to have so much anxiety I'd wake up anxious I'd go to bed anxious I'd be anxious all day long and so what's happened is I know the strategies now and so when something when I start feeling anxiety I I might be anxious but then within minutes I'm sort of starting to work with it as opposed to it just spiraling and spiraling so the more the more you the more tools you have and the more you practice them the better you're going to get at pulling yourself out or not getting in so far into the spiral so you want to kind of do an intervention as quickly as you can you know before it before it just spirals and and I just think it's it's important to also say that like you know I I really believe in you know I really believe in getting support and that could be by learning tools online it could be doing meditations it could be going to 12-step meetings if addiction is involved um you know individual therapy you know a lot of people I sometimes I say to people like so imagine you're sort of going down this path and you're like oh I'm gonna spiral I'm gonna spiral and you know you have like your favorite therapist or like some favorite meditation or some favorite resource and that can pull you over and and kind of bring you back to the center so so the more support we have and the more we use those supports the better were prepared for the storms you know yeah yeah.
absolutely I I have like my little stack of things I go to when I'm like oh I need this you know right like I have my I know the people I call I know I have a journal that I write in I have I mean I have certain music that I listen to like I have I have this list of things I go to that soothe me and the more we have that and practice it the easier we can access it and kind of bring ourselves out of the spiral before we're down there at the bottom right you know to your point it's like I have my tools but I continue to experience anxiety so it's not that I experience the anxiety so much less than I used to but it's that I now have the ability to identify it and to work with it to attend to my nervous system in a way that I wasn't doing before right yeah and and we don't I always say you know I teach all these tools and strategies we don't want to make it so that we're using these tools to avoid anxiety we don't want to think oh I'm just going to be serene and calm all the time we're going to have it but we're going to start to use the tools to work with it so yeah yeah yeah okay another question so when a child doesn't have insight how do you then teach them mindfulness when they don't understand the need for it.
and I would say you know I don't I don't work with a lot of children and so that's one thing I want to just disclaimer but I would say modeling is so powerful you know and and I would say you know just to talk through it like wow you know I'm feeling really worried right now because I'm thinking blah blah blah so I'm going to stop and take some breaths you know so it's like using language and modeling language you know of like this is how I'm doing this these are the tools I'm using and and so that's the that's the best I can do on that question great um is there anything unique to working with the adult child relationship that is different from just an adult working on themselves in terms of the triggers yeah so I think with an adult child relationship you know I think um it's hard when you know I have an adult child and I it's hard because I want you know it's like I'm still I'm his mom and I have a lot of concern for him you know and yet he's an adult and so I I really think that knowing what's in our Circle of control or not and learning to let go is is really important and hard and so I think um I think you know I think any of the strategies we're talking about today will help just to work with your own thinking and get yourself calm.
um and to and to notice what what's your mind making up about it because it could be your mind is making up some terrible story about what might happen to them and so you want to notice that that's just a story it might happen it might not happen but you want to be noticing what am I saying to myself because that's where your stress is from is from what you're saying to yourself about it so and then and then some of it again is you know is just coming back to you know whatever your spiritual beliefs might be about trusting or or just coming back to you know to taking care of yourself and what's in your control and not making yourself so anxious about what's in their control yeah it's it's such a hard one right because like I mean my son's not I have not yet hit that with him yet but I also feel like I can already see it coming like at some point he's going to have to be an independent you know man in the world and I'm like I I already like want to like have like a helicopter fly over him the whole time you know and at some point I'm going to have to just like let go and trust that he is okay and and it's and it's he's going to have his path and I've done the best I can to to care for him and support him and guide him and at some point that's on him and it's really hard to not like want to over insert yourself.
right right well that's a part that's you know that's a part where sort of the spiritual beliefs might help because I do believe you know we're all on our paths we're all being guided and you know just so it's it's not all on his shoulders you know there's there's help involved you know it's it's beyond ours it's beyond our control yeah yeah well you you said something in there that was like a more casual comment but I wanted to just Circle back to it which is you said it's like knowing what's in your Circle of control so maybe that's a tool we didn't quite talk about yet is like understanding what's in my Circle of control and what's not and staying really focused on what's in my Circle of control right so once you're aware and I think you know I think with time everyone becomes aware like okay I can't control that so so now I'm not going to use my precious energy trying to you know change something I can't change I'm really just going to go for what I can change and can I do it with kindness and compassion which you know sometimes we can't but you know that's the goal you know yeah so I guess sort of a follow-up comment I wanted to make on that earlier question too is like I think you know when we are working with our kids around their mindfulness and you know if they're seeming to have anxiety or something like that really focusing on that Circle of control so rather than trying to control how they experience their emotions making sure you're really attending to yours.
and then when you're in a calm moment with them to be able to like bring it up with them of like I notice when you seem stressed it seems to happen around this time you know or it seems to happen around this I want to help you like have tools so you can like feel better to just kind of name it in a non-stressful moment with them so that you can work with them on it but rather than us like trying to control their experience yeah and also that's where it helps to know their triggers so if they're if they're if you know like okay there's certain times of day or certain situations where they have more triggers then getting support for that whether that's outside of you you know that's where it might be really nice to have a therapist that they can connect with so that so that it's not all on you to you know to teach them how to do it and and and it might even be more powerful if it's coming from someone outside of yourself you know so knowing what the triggers are um whether yours or theirs and and learning to navigate the triggers you know how do I how do I handle it when my kids freaking out or you know how do I stay calm in the face of that those are such big important pieces yeah and if they might even say this to your kid when they're freaking out that like I think you're having a really hard time I want to help you but I need you to let me know what you need right now like I don't know what you need do you want a hug do you want do you want some space you know do you want me to just be quiet so like asking them what they need rather than trying to guess what they need or impose what we think we need to do.
so um we have another question which is how to become more aware of triggers and any courses or suggestions for how to teach kids about that how to practice an ongoing way to become more aware might be butterflies in the stomach or so noticing what your triggers are or perhaps you already know and getting getting support whether that's with an individual therapist whether that's Gathering tools whether that's finding favorite meditations um so I missed the question because I went on to a I went on to a tangent about triggered so how to notice triggers so can you can you repeat that yes it was um how to become more aware of triggers and any courses or suggestions for how to teach kids about that how to practice an ongoing way to become more aware there are if if somebody after we've sold inside timer so much like I said it's free and all the meditations are free if you have the insight timer app or if you go to the website and you put in um helping children or kids I think there's even a section for kids there's lots of courses there that and and meditations that are about helping children um get grounded and be calm and label their feelings and work with their nervous systems so yes I don't have any particular courses for children but like you were saying Callie you you use some of the tools with your kids and I think that's you know that's there um so yeah doing a search on insight timer with um children or helping kids that that could will bring up a lot great thank you.
well I think too the more we become mindful of our own triggers and we understand how to notice our triggers that helps us then help our kids do that as well like because we are feeling more mindful ourselves then we're able to work with them more mindfully and maybe even in the calm moments have those conversations about I'm noticing you know that um this this particular sound seems to trigger you do you notice that as well you know do you notice and then to be able to have those conversations in those calmer moments about if they're notices and yes yeah what they might want like I was saying like I was saying before it's helpful to gather tools when you're calmer so that you have access to them uh and that your body experiences calm more often same with our kids it's like to try to get them to process their talk about or explain something when they're in the thick of it might not be realistic but later on you know what was going on for you and can you draw it and can we talk about it and where could you feel it or so yeah trying in the moment and then if not later is always another chance and I also think for our kids who are Autistic or have ADHD they can have a lot more sensory triggers than we realize and that is um another Avenue that you can explore as a parent is a sensory evaluation so that because they may not even understand like why certain things are bothering them in their bodies and it's it's something to do with their sensory system so in terms of just exploring triggers that's another that's just another Avenue.
uh you used a word I wanted to ask you about before we close up which is havening what is havening I was very curious about that evening it's in one of my anxiety relief courses so maybe you didn't maybe that's not the course you took I had two of them um or I took it but it wasn't the one that I stuck with me so I need records I need to be retaught havening is kind of like creating a Haven for yourself havening was discovered by a neuroscientist well twin brothers neuroscientist and um they found that there were three areas of the body that when these areas were stroked with calm intention that it sent the most calming messages to the brain that they could actually see brain waves sometimes it's called delta waves or Delta therapy or Delta touch because it these three areas generated the most delta waves in the brain which are the calming brain waves that come when we're in deep meditation or deep sleep so the three areas are the palms of the hands and it's so ironic because during covert but it was like washing their hands but but doing it really calmly and you can see how that feels to you like what area feels the most effective for you and this is something you could do you know anytime I mean someone could be in a business meeting and just like under the table doing self-havening the other area is uh the upper arms so from it's kind of like giving yourself a hug too but from the shoulders down to the elbows and you just find your own pace your own pressure that feels right to you you can switch you know and then the third area is uh the sides of the face and I learned this from an anesthesiologist in New Zealand who teaches very simple ways to do now self-havening is when you do it on yourself obviously havening is when you go to someone and they do it to you but self-having is just so accessible this anesthesiologist he found it was so effective on his patients before they were going onto anesthesia that he gave up his practice and he just does havening full time now with people so it can be really soothing but you can play with the different parts the sides of your face the upper arms or the hands I even came up with a way I did this in my class oh I did this in my new depression relief course to take one long stroke so that you end up doing uh kind of getting too there you could even start here and kind of get all free but some people resonate more with one area than the other but you can notice sometimes people will write to me in my classroom and they'll say you know I thought that was ridiculous I listened to it but I did it tried it anyway I rated my anxiety or my depression it was like an eight or nine and I swear to God it's like it's a one now I just you know they thought oh gosh how is this going to help me and they try it and with the rating before and after they really people really notice calming effects I think it's amazing to me when I do it it feels different depending on which hand I have on top that's interesting yeah and it could help if you add in calming statements like I'm calm my body is relaxed everything is okay I feel safe that can help too.
yeah well Andrea this has been an incredible hour I'm so grateful for you for taking the time to meet with us and share your immense wisdom and insights um with our with our group and I hope that everyone who came or who watches the video gets a good tool or tip that can help them to kind of work on that regulating themselves just because we feel better right when we're when we're regulated when we feel better we do better so and we can't always feel feel good I mean life is not all feel good moments but we can use strategies to help us ride the waves better so yeah I always say it's not always going to be 70 with a libraries but when it's stormy we have clothes and we have umbrellas and we have things that you know that help us through the storms so I will send you the name of the therapist who just happened to put out a flyer yesterday I think and you can just on our website and see if see if that's a useful parenting group awesome thank you for having me thank you so much thank you so much it was so lovely to hear from you thank you I'm so glad
