Episode 113: Managing the Long Road Of High Functioning Anxiety

In today’s episode, today I wanted to share the experience of living with High Functioning Anxiety from the perspective of one of my clients.

I can talk about the Voices In Your Head all day long.

I work with clients every day living with High Functioning Anxiety. I live and breathe this language and these techniques.

The Monger, the BFF, Your Biggest Fan–I literally wrote the book. 

But today I wanted to share the experience of living with High Functioning Anxiety from the perspective of one of my clients.

Michelle Steinhour came to me a few years ago consumed with self-doubt, insecurity and constant questioning. It was showing up in her marriage and in her work. She was looking for practical strategies that would help her feel less doubtful about herself.

I introduced her to my Coach in Your Pocket and Michelle has seen a big shift in her anxiety. But, as she reminds us in today’s episode, it’s a life-long process.

Michelle is in the trenches. She’s making the shifts and doing the work. She’s walking the path of the Happier Approach every day by listening in to the Voices In Her Head and reminding them who’s really in charge. 

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How Michelle manages her BFF and Monger.

• What she has done to encourage the voice of her Biggest Fan

• Some of the biggest changes she has seen since hearing from her Biggest Fan more often

• How the support from her spouse has made a big difference

• Why planning to have kids has made her love this work even more

• The Feelings List PDF

+ Read the Transcript

Intro: Michelle: I'm happy that I have more of a coping mechanism for my anxiety, because it was really running my life, 2, 3, 5 years ago. And now I feel like the anxiety is there. I'm living with it, but it's not running my life.

Nancy: Michelle came to me a few years ago, looking to feel less doubtful of herself.

She was consumed with self-doubt insecurity and constant questioning. It was showing up in her marriage and in her work. Today, she's doing the work and living the happier approach. She's listening in to the voices in her head and reminding them who is really in charge. But as she said, it's a lifelong process.

It's easy for me to talk about the voices in your head, the monger, the BFF, and your biggest fan. I wrote the book. I work with clients every day on practical strategies for living with high functioning anxiety. I live and breathe this language and these techniques, but today I really wanted to share Michelle, in her own words, she's in the trenches and walking the path of the happier approach every day.

Your listening to the happier approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith.

Recently Michelle started working with me via my coach in your pocket and has seen a big shift in her anxiety. I wanted you to hear her very human story, someone that is in the trenches, making the shifts and doing the work.

Michelle and I talk about how she manages her BFF and her monger, how having support from her spouse has made a huge difference. The biggest changes she has seen since hearing from her biggest fan more often, and why planning to have kids has made her love this work even more.

Michelle. I'm so excited to have you here. Thanks for taking the time to come and chat with me. I wanted to get a real life person's perspective on the three characters that we've been talking about this month. And so the first one we're going to start with, logically, is the monger and I know you have a special name for your monger.

Michelle: yes, I do. I had almost forgotten about that actually. Yes, that wonderful. My friend, the monger, I call her Gerdy. yes. I don't know why, but it just came to me one day. I was like, she sounds like a Gerdy, just, yeah. Yeah. That's hilarious. Yeah, so I don't, yeah, just that like pesky little voice that just comes up and yeah.

And Gerdy just fit it. I'm like, oh, darn it. Gerdy you little, just one of those voices. I'm like, no, not again Ugh. Beat me down. So yeah, that's the name for her?

Nancy: I love that. So tell me, how does Gerdy show up? Can you give me an example from recently,

Michelle: I teach classes in the evening sometimes which is super fun.

And actually recently probably the most recent example where Gerdy was just like, oh no, Michelle you suck. Like you're just, you're not going to come out from this. Was I was teaching class and we give surveys to our students to see how the class is going. See if they like it, if they hate it. If they're feeling challenged unchallenged and so my boss emailed me and I teach with a couple other people.

So emailed the group and said Hey, thank you for doing the surveys. We got the surveys back from the students and a couple of them are feeling unchallenged and are not really liking the class. I just wanted to have a meeting with y'all to see if there was some way we can brainstorm to challenge those kids.

And Gerdy told me, she was like, oh no, Michelle, you suck. Like you haven't been doing enough in class, your lesson plans stink, your collaboration, stinks with these teachers. Like all of it is just terrible because these surveys came back. Like you should just hide in a hole and not teach again. And that was genuinely the reaction I have when I read this, I was like, oh my goodness.

And the words were pretty much what I said, just Hey, is there some way we can brainstorm challenging them more. My boss wasn't mad. It was just a statement. And I, all of a sudden was bawling on the couch, reading this email,

Nancy: (Laughing), I'm laughing in understanding, not laughing at you.

Michelle: (laughing) Yes, I appreciate that. Then, my husband walks in and he's what's going on? I'm like, I just got this email. Oh, I don't know what to do. And he was like, okay let's take a step back here. Let's not think so black and white yeah. What can we do, what do you think might help these students in this class?

And, yeah, so that was really helped me step out a little bit where I'm like, all right. Gerdy. Yeah. Now this is just one class, just a couple surveys. But yeah, but it happens so quickly for me, at least that sometimes I don't even know, that the voice is turned up so loud for me.

Until I'm bawling on the couch and I'm like, wait a second.

Nancy: Yeah. I know that Isaac, your husband is, has become a big help to you in, and I think spouses really can be and helping us pull back the blinders, so to speak. How has that. How has that evolved? How have you guys, grown together?

Michelle: Oh yes. I am not going to lie in the beginning. It was awful. Cause I was just so far down in the hole and the rabbit hole of the monger that I just couldn't even come out. And sometimes in the beginning when he would say kind things are like, Hey, let's think this through. Or what if this, I would just be like no, Isaac, you're wrong. How dare you not say that I suck too. Side note: never say that husbands (Laughing)

Nancy: (Laughing) that's a cardinal rule.

Michelle: But yeah. And then so slowly with The work that I guess I have been doing with the Monger noticing her voice more and asking Isaac for what I need a lot of times too.

We have gotten into this groove where both I recognize it more and he recognizes it more. And I think I've helped him along that path of saying, “Man, I just really like I think this is the monger.” And I would explain Gerdy to him and he's oh, okay. Okay.

So now like I would point it out to him and he can recognize it along with me a little bit. And that's taken a while too. It's not oh yeah, day one. And now it's been years. But now we're on such a better groove where he says, “Hey, like you definitely don't suck. This is the monger. Let's not look at it in black and white and you're doing this great and that great.”

And I can finally also listen to him much better and be like, “oh, okay. Yeah. You're right. Let's consider that instead of totally shutting them out. “

Nancy: Yeah. Because I think it's you so want to believe what the Monger's saying that sometimes it's hard to get that perspective.

Michelle: Yes, Yes because it makes so much sense in the moment.

Nancy: Yes, exactly. And it was interesting. I did a presentation a few months ago and. The spouse, came up to me and said, my wife has a Monger. That's so loud. And he's said, “I look in the mirror and I see myself and I'm like, yeah, you look pretty good. and I'm overweight and short., I know I have some issues.” he said, “but I look at my pretty good, you did a good job with what you have and she looks in the mirror at herself and she only sees bad. She would never look in the mirror and say, it looks pretty good.”

Oh. And he said ,”that's just so foreign to me.”

And as someone who always looks in the mirror and, doesn't say it looks pretty good. I was like, oh, what would that be like to look in the mirror and to think. You look pretty good.

Michelle: Yeah. That's so true. Yeah. I do think about that with other people too.

Cause I'm like, oh my gosh. I would never tell so-and-so Ugh. yipes. It's such a foreign concept to be just as loving to ourselves as we are to our spouses and friends, Yeah, so that, yeah, that's difficult. Yeah.

Nancy: Okay. So one of the things, one of the ways, and you know this already, but one of the ways the monger shows up is, or we can recognize, we know the monger's playing there is when we have a 10 reaction to a two situation.

Michelle: Yes. Sorry. I laugh because for the longest time I had no idea. I was like, no, I'm totally not having a 10 reaction, but anyway, that's why I laugh.

Nancy: So the question is given that is something that I know you've worked on a lot can you give us an example of that? Just any time you've had a 10 reaction to a two situation.

Michelle:. Oh man, I am not going to lie. It happened today where I was like,

maybe I'm not the best person for this interview.

Nancy: That's awesome not for you, but it's awesome that you recognized it.

Michelle: Yes, I did. And it took me. Pretty much half the day. It started at the beginning of the day. So I guess, long story short this Christmas party at work change days.

So there were some people that couldn't make it one day. And they were like, Hey, can you do a Wednesday instead? And I was like, oh, No I have something that evening. Let me try to move it. I think there'll be okay if I try to get out of this thing I had in the evening, but I'm not sure. Let me text three people and ask them, let me text my husband and see what he thinks.

And it was all about this Christmas. And I was just legitimate freaking out. I couldn't do my work today. I was just so unfocused and just worried about, should I miss the Christmas party? Should I miss this other commitment in the evening that I had? I'm not sure. And then all of a sudden, the middle of the day, I was like, wait a second.

This is a Christmas party. This is one day. And you just went through all the list of I'm sure either way it happens that if I end up having to miss this prior commitment, I'm sure they'd understand. And vice versa. If I was like, really, they can't find another person I have to be there.

It's all gonna be okay. But I had to laugh at the end of the day. I was like, oh my goodness, this is just one evening. And it's for some sort of Christmas, it's not even like a. A crazy thing. Yeah, so it took me all day, but I pulled out of it. Yeah. So it's just funny how those get us though, that it's oh my gosh, this is such a huge deal.

And I think we talk about the like high energy a lot and all day it's just that high spinning energy.. I think that's why I stayed in it first or why I tend to stay in the 10 reactions so long. Cause I feel like we love the feeling of that, go and constantly turning and ah and then when I finally accepted, I was like, either way, it's going to be fine.

There was just that moment of silence and calm. I was like, yeah what is there to think about now? I have to go back to my word. Yes.,

Nancy: yeah. Cause that is the benefit of that high energy is that it keeps you here. Spinning and thinking and who should I call and what should happen and did a lot.

And so it's, so the drama, yes, it really is. And to recognize that you're in the drama. It is challenging.

Michelle: Yes. And I have to attribute that to just practice too. I've even gotten my husband on board with that where he's says, “I'm pretty sure this is a 10 reaction and I'm going to give you that it's maybe a three or four problem.”

Like we have that lingo. Which is totally awesome

Nancy: . Yeah. Cause that can be challenging for the spouse to say, I think this is a 10 reaction because sometimes you're so into it. You're like, no, this is NOT. (laughing)

Michelle: . Yeah. (Laughing) Some days are definitely better than others where I'm like, no, shut up. You're wrong,

Nancy: ,God love them.They're treading on thin ice with they approach that. But my husband does it to me too so REALLY!?! Is this really that important. And sometimes it can come out at them, at our spouses that we can have the 10 reaction to something they did. I'll do that a lot.

I use this example a lot. My husband doesn't consistently clean ALL the dishes in the sink. He has some idiosyncrasies around dishes let's say, and it really doesn't bother me, but it will become a 10 reaction.

If there's something else bothering me, I will totally take it out on the fact that he doesn't do the dishes. That will be the thing I get frustrated about

Michelle: Oh yes. Oh, you know what? That makes me feel so much better though, because poor Isaac, honestly, I have the same. If something is funky or I'm having anxiety about something unrelated. I'll be like, you know what? I just can't do everything around here. Isaac, I'm vacuuming. And nothing was dirty. Nothing was, we didn't need anything cleaned, but yeah, I totally get that.

Nancy: Yeah. So the hard part about recognizing the 10 reaction to a 2 situation is then to ask “well what's really going on. What's really underneath this the hopped up energy? And so that's where I think that is a harder oh, you harder thing to do, like it's because then you really got to get clear and start facing what's going on. Start facing. Yeah.

Michelle: The toughest part acknowledging. Yes, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah.

Nancy: Okay. So the next character that we talk a lot about is the BFF, and that seems to be the hardest one for people to really identify. They know when I describe it, everyone's oh yeah, totally. I totally get what you're talking about, but when you're in everyday life, it's hard to pick out.

Do you agree with that? I

Michelle: I do agree cause I, I think for the longest time I was that way as well until I think, I can't remember this specific moment, but there was a specific moment that I was like oh, this is the BFF. It finally clicked. And I was trying to think of another moment that was similar.

For me, that, that comes up like, The BFF comes up. And I thought again at this whole email thing while I was crying on the couch all of a sudden this voice popped in and was like, It's not your fault. It's those other teachers faults. Like they definitely should be stepping it up and they should be contributing more.

And you know what?. And so actually the BFF for me, I know when I'm in that voice when I get really judgy of other people and start naming the reasons that things are, the way they are and in a very spiteful way. I feel like that's a big key to the BFF.

Whereas if I talk to my husband, he'll be like don't be too hard on yourself because this is something extra that you added. You don't have as much time to commit to it is as you want it to. Or things like that. Whereas my BFF would be like, you know what, it's definitely those other people and you know what?

We have too many students in the class anyway. And that's the problem when it's that's not the problem at all.

Nancy: I think that challenge of the BFF is that for a lot of people. And that's why I include her in the book for a lot of people. She is their voice of compassion. You're like the idea of suddenly being like, oh wait, that isn't a good voice.

That voice doesn't have the best intentions for me when, before that was how we got compassion.

Michelle: I'm so glad you do include her in the book. Because, yes. I think the only thing that really tipped me off to her was that I still felt crappy afterwards. And I was like, man, I have named all of these reasons why I am amazing and everybody else sucks.

No, I'm just kidding, but yeah. Yeah. And I still was like, man, this still didn't solve, like I still have anxiety. I'm still worried about this. And I think that was the only thing that really tipped me off to wait a second. And then when you gave her a name, I was like, oh my goodness. Now it's clicking that both of those voices like when they come in together, usually for me that they both just try to, out play each other. I guess the monger and the BFF. Yeah, the monger and the BFF for me, like the monger gets really loud and then the BFF gets really loud and calms me down. But then, yeah, just that black and white thinking, I guess just gets amplified.

And then it's wait a second. Nobody wins here. I'm not feeling like a winner.

Nancy: Because that's what I think is fascinating. The longer I've done this, work with the happier approach, the more I realize it is an energetic thing. Yeah. Because something you and I have been working on is how energetically. You're like, everything's wow, it's really stressful. I don't know what I'm going to do this I am just overwhelmed. And there's just so much going on and, oh my gosh, it's just so exhausting. And, but your voice is way up high and talking, animated fill in the blank.

You could be saying. It's a beautiful day and sunny and gorgeous, but the words coming out of your mouth are negative. The tone is the same as is positive. And so I think, like you said, when your BFF and your monger are talking, you don't feel good. Yes.

Michelle: Yeah There's just that spinning energy and you're right.

That has been something that I've been really trying to work on. Cause I. Very much a oh, everything's fine. Yeah. I got this going on and that, but everything's really good. I'm grateful. I'm saying all the stressors and then yeah, and then later I'm like trying to express my feelings and I just can't because I just keep going oh everythings up here..

And to take it down and really really figure out what's going on and really dealing with those feelings. And that feeling sheet that you have also really helped me it gave me a tool for digging into those feelings and really acknowledging what was going on without judging it too.

Which is just so hard.

Nancy: Yes. Especially when you first start, I think. Yeah. Not judging the feelings is challenging because it's new. I think the pattern is you always want to be able to justify the feeling like I don't, I'm feeling angry. I shouldn't be feeling angry.

Why am I feeling angry? There's nothing to be angry about. Or I'm feeling sad about that letter from my boss about the theater, And to be in the class your teaching and then to be like, I shouldn't feel sad? What's the big deal.?Like we talk ourselves out of it instead of allowing it

Michelle: right.

Yes. Which, and it does like we just don't want to have that pain. Like we don't want to go there cause it does. I mean it hurts. It's painful, it's difficult. But definitely with this work, I. have found through the practice that I would rather go there now because of the long-term effects. I feel like just now in my life, I am able better able to handle those feelings because I know how to process them better through practice.

It really is a huge long-term effect with this work that I'm so grateful and that's what keeps me going through, like trying to choose the okay, let's sit down and just acknowledge what's happening here. Yeah. Yeah. That makes, that makes a lot of sense

Nancy: .What do you do to call in your biggest fan? And it doesn't have to be ask,

Michelle: oh man,

Nancy: Sometimes people have a different way of doing that. And so I'm just curious and if it is ASK, that's great. But if you have a different things, you do what would that be?

Michelle: I know I guess there are a couple of things throughout the years that I'm like, okay, I know I calmed down when I do this, usually taking a walk is a huge thing for me.

And I'm by myself, like taking a walk outside by myself really helps me drop into my body and yeah, getting my body moving for some reason just really helps. With the whole spinning of the mind for me, I don't spin out as much and I can drop down more into my heart and hear that voice of Hey, that sucks that the email, that some kids are not having a good time and are feeling unchallenged like that really sucks.

And let's sit down with our boss and brainstorm a couple ideas. So yeah, taking a walk, getting moving like that really does help for me. And. I'm an introvert. I have to say that up front. But also just sitting in silence, having some really just good white space for me helps me hear that voice a lot better too.

And I don't know if this is okay to say, but my faith is a big part of my life. So God is a big part that I feel like he really helps guide me in that voice of the biggest fan. I have this inner peace too. Which is, it's hard to explain. I always, when I bring that up, I feel like people are like, oh gosh, she's crazy.

But I do have this. I feel like people know it when they feel it, but just my chest tightens a lot when I get anxiety and I get a little bit short of breath. So when I call in that biggest fan voice I do feel my chest drop. I feel like I'm taking deeper breaths. Just my whole chest feels calm and looser, and that, I feel like that starts at least with me with my faith. And God, like I'll talk to God and and that will start to loosen my chest and I'll be like, okay. Things are. Okay. So that's how it plays out for me, at least. I don't know if I described that very well, so yeah, that and the walking that's how I get into my body and silence.

For me just having some silence where I'm not doing busy work Even I can get into that trap around the house where I'm just doing dishes and laundry and oh, I'll think of something else to do in that and that, and I just never sit down and process my feelings. I don't even, I'm like, ah, just to have that silence and sit is really good for me.

And I can hear the biggest fan a lot better than.

Nancy: I think it is such an energy. Even when you were describing the sitting on the couch and how, I that was such a great example of how the monger is you suck, you're terrible. This is, it's all your fault. And then your BFF steps in to be like no, it's everyone else's fault.

Or they've put too many people in the classroom or it's this and this. And then your biggest fan can step up to say, Yeah, there are too many people in the classroom. Yeah. There might be issues with the other teachers and we can figure this out by talking to her and see what she has to say.

Cause she's not threatening us. We're just trying to figure this out.

Michelle: Yes. Yes. That's. Yeah. And that's exactly. I had to go through like the crying. And then, yeah, and then that judgment of everybody else. And then I was like, wait a second. And now with all this practice, I'm like, wait a second. That doesn't really sound right either.

Like with the recognizing the BFF. And then, as soon as I say wait a second, That's not right either. Like that story doesn't really make sense. Then I'll be like, wait a second. I'm like, yeah. There's parts of that story. That makes sense. Yeah, there's a little bit of, maybe we have too many people in the class.

And then that kind of gets me brainstorming yeah, with the biggest fan, yeah. And maybe I can do a better job with collaborating with the other teachers, with the lesson plan. And this still really is hard and it sucks. And maybe I need to ask for help more. And, we were rushed because the technology in the room didn't work and, things like that, that, yeah.

I feel like helped me get to the biggest fan.

Nancy: I do want to hear. If someone's just starting this work, so go back in your brain to when you were just starting, what would be like three tips or however many you want to give to someone to, to help them?

Michelle: Man, that's such a good question.

Gosh, I don't know if this is a tip, but gosh, it always just sucks in the beginning. That's why I think if I would go back and tell myself. Something, I would definitely say Hey, this is a long road. This is not I think you would tell me this and other people would be like it's not going to happen like tomorrow.

And, but I think in the beginning I still believed it would now years later, I'm like, oh yeah, I, this is life man. This is just. This is how it rolls. Like I think we get better at coping with it. And I think your book does an amazing job at giving, us coping strategies and different ways to hardwire our thinking.

And that's. Practice for life is probably the first and second thing. I don't know. It was I had a really big journey I can in the middle of this big journey was a small journey of me really accepting myself .I don't even quite remember how it all came about, but there were a lot of things that I was doing because the monger was just really making me hustle and think that I should be doing things.

And so it's been really exciting to watch myself let go of some of those things that the monger has pushed me and all of these rules that Gerdy has given me. So it's been really. Awesome. I just feel more myself now than I ever have before, which is really awesome.

And I didn't expect that from this work. And then thirdly, it's been really helpful to have somebody to, to work with. I've had you and Isaac has been a huge part of this. I think finding someone to help you find those voices is really important.

Talking to someone and I'd be like, man, I suck at this and that. And they're like, That doesn't sound right. I don't think you suck. And then solely I'd be like, oh my gosh, that's Gerdy again. Oh yeah. I don't really suck at that. So that has been really really powerful and I so appreciate all those people in my life who have helped me out with it.

Nancy: Yeah. Yeah. I totally, I think you can't do this without having someone there pointing it out to you or being able for you to double-check it with

Michelle: right. Yes, I think that is huge

Nancy: Because I think that's, what's so powerful about the Voxer work. Yeah, that it's in real time, you can be checking out that voice instead of a waiting to come into the office.

And it's three weeks later and you've, you've had 50 other Mongo attacks, so who really cares

Michelle: and they're all the same.

Nancy: right?

Michelle: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think one other thing I would, that was just huge. The long-term effects of this work Anxiety was pretty much just running my life.

Like the hustle was just running my life 2, 3, 5 years ago. And now with this work and with the different voices, I feel like anxiety is there, but it's not running my life. Now I have my life and anxiety comes up and now I can deal with it. Instead of that was my life was the anxiety. Yes. Just all the time.

Yeah.

Nancy: The thing that's amazing is I know you guys are, in the next couple of years, hoping to start a family and that, so often I see clients who are doing this work because they see the anxiety in their kids. And so that you have somewhat figured out before you have kids.

And so raising them, you can help them decipher this stuff is, cause genetics. No offense, your kids are probably going to have anxiety,

Michelle: poor, little darlings.

Nancy: And so maybe Isaac's genetics will win out and it won't be, it won't be the case, but that you have these skillsets in place to teach them. It's just such a victory for you to put, to not really passing this down to the next generation in this, with the same skill sets.

Michelle: That's true that I remember you did say that to me one day and that really hit me cause I was like, wow, I can, I really actually do feel like I'm capable to help them through the navigating that anxiety, which is amazing. I don't think I ever would have said that phrase, a year ago. Yeah. So it's, that's really amazing. Very cool. Cool.

Nancy: Okay. We wrapped up that last little bit in, in good time. So thank you so much for doing this and sharing your personal experience.

I know that's not always easy. And so I really appreciate you being vulnerable enough to hop on here with us and just thank you for having me.

Michelle: You are so welcome.

---

If you don’t do it, who will? If you’re not hustling, pushing, and keeping it all together yourself, nothing will get done.

Look, you don’t need me to tell you that. You tell yourself every day. There’s that voice inside your head constantly pushing you to do more, be more, and get closer to perfect.

And there are all the people--your family, friends, and random people on the street--who congratulate you on how productive you are.

Mixed messages, am I right?

I know I’m right because I’ve dealt with high-functioning anxiety too. I know what it’s like to relish the accolades that come your way one minute and shame yourself for being so tired and overwhelmed the next.

And, I’ve been working with women like you living with hidden anxiety every day for over 20 years as a coach and counselor.

I wrote The Happier Approach to give you a framework for dealing with your anxiety and start living happier.

The Happier Approach will help you understand the voices in your head and what to do with them. It’s not another woo-woo self-help book that asks you to think positively and live your best life. It’s a practical guidebook for getting out of survival mode and finding a genuinely happy and productive life.

Know someone who has High Functioning Anxiety and a VERY LOUD Monger. The Happier Approach makes a great gift.

Find The Happier Approach on Amazon, Audible, or Barnes & Noble!

---

Episode 112: The Voices In Your Head–The Biggest Fan

In today’s episode, I am talking about the Biggest Fan. Your Biggest Fan always has your back and is wise about the struggle. Your Biggest Fan is the how. She is the one who will help you achieve your goals and be happier. 

This month we are talking about the 3 characters that chat at us throughout the day and are at the There is a voice in your head. 

She is the voice of kindness, generosity, and wisdom and I call her the Biggest Fan.

Of the 3 characters that are at the core of the Happier Approach, she is the best of all worlds. 

She holds the goals of your Monger (to be safe and secure) without shaming and belittling you. She provides the support and encouragement of your BFF (“you are awesome”) without giving you a free pass to do whatever you want.

Your Biggest Fan always has your back, acknowledges your feelings, can see options, is wise about the struggle, and uses your values as guiding principles. 

Your Biggest Fan is the how. 

She is the one who will help you achieve your goals and be happier. 

All this month we have been talking about the voices that carry on in your head. If you haven’t already, go back and take a listen:

• In Episode 110 we talked about how the Monger, that mean voice that shames and belittles you, telling you that you’re not good enough.

• In Episode 111 we talked about how the BFF has an amazing talent of always being able to justify any behavior and how she shames and belittles other people in your defense.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How to identify the kind voice of the Biggest Fan even when you don't think you have one inside you

• What steps you can take to access the voice of your Biggest Fan

  • Acknowledge what you are feeling

  • Slow down and get into your body

  • Kindly pull back to see the bigger picture

• What some of the challenges of accessing our Biggest Fan can be

• How the voice of your Biggest Fan has been silenced for a long time and how she will become louder as you listen to her more and more

• How to be gentle with yourself and identify that the success you want is a learning process

+ Read the Transcript

With tears in her eyes, Sarah walks out of the conference room and makes it to the bathroom just before the waterworks begin. My boss just screamed at me in that meeting. I knew the project was behind, but I didn’t think we were THAT behind. How did I miss it? I spent all week organizing customer feedback. I didn’t realize he wanted us to be writing the copy already!

It doesn’t take long before the inner voice of her BFF has her back. “Come on, girlfriend, your boss is such a jerk. I mean to publicly call you out like that is just rude.”

Sarah says to herself, I need to hear from my Biggest Fan. She starts with:

Sweet Pea, stop torturing yourself! This is so hard. Doing it wrong sucks, especially when you thought you were doing it right! I get it that you are scared you might lose your job. That is understandable after getting yelled at. It is just embarrassing and humiliating to be yelled at in a staff meeting.

Let’s take some deep breaths. It’s okay to cry; getting yelled at in public is the worst. Let it out, and then we can figure out what comes next.

This is totally avoidable. Next time, let’s double-check (even triple-check) with him on what is his top priority. I know it is annoying (and let’s admit it, sometimes scary) to double-check, but it’s better than this feeling right now. Your co-workers get it. They have been called out before too. And truthfully, getting fired is probably a bit extreme. Go talk to your boss, clear the air, and figure out next steps.

See how her Biggest Fan helps Sarah find the middle ground? Her Biggest Fan is kind and understanding but also wants her to do her best and succeed. She isn’t enabling. She isn’t belittling. She is just there, a kind, wise, motivating voice.

She is the best of both worlds, self-compassion, and motivation. She is 100 percent kind and wants you to be the best version of you. Maybe even a version you can’t see yet.

“You’re listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I’m your host, Nancy Jane Smith.”

This Month we are talking about the three characters that chat at us throughout the day and are at the core of The Happier Approach. Today, we are on the last character, the voice of Kindness and Wisdom; I call her the Biggest Fan.

Your Biggest Fan is the key to quieting your Monger. She is the one who will help you achieve your goals and be happier. Your Biggest Fan is the how. She is kind, generous, and wise and always has your back. She’s the best of both worlds. She holds the goals of your Monger (to be safe and secure) without the shaming and belittling, and she provides the support of your BFF (“you are awesome”) without the free pass to do whatever you want.

Your Biggest Fan is the voice that says,

“You are having fun. Slow down and take a breath. Do you really need another drink? You have been kicking butt on your workouts this week. You want to get up and work out tomorrow, and you feel so much better when you work out. You can stay and have fun without drinking more, so you won’t be hungover tomorrow.”

“Yikes, that is totally scary that your boss called you in tomorrow. Take a breath and do a quick stretch. It will all be okay; no matter what happens, we will figure it out. Let’s do some brainstorming. How can we best prepare for that meeting?”

Your Biggest Fan has this wonderful combo of kind, wise, and honest (sometimes brutally so).

As a simple reminder:

Your Monger shames and belittles you.

Your BFF shames and belittles other people in defense of you and has the amazing talent of always being able to justify any behavior.

Your Biggest Fan always has your back, acknowledges your feelings, can see options, is wise about the struggle, and uses your values as guiding principles.

The #1 thing I hear from clients when I discuss the Biggest Fan is, “I don’t think I have one of those.” Let me be the first to say that you do have a Biggest Fan. Trust me. Even when you don’t think you do, you do. You have that voice inside of you that wants you to succeed.

Your Biggest Fan is probably quiet right now, which is why you might think you don’t have one. She has been ignored for so long that her voice is meek, but over time, as you listen to her more and more, she will become louder and louder.

I have found 3 steps that work to access your Biggest Fan Voice. The first step is to acknowledge what you are feeling. This is so important because when we have HFA, we tend to ignore our feelings. We ignore our experience because we tell ourselves we SHOULD feel a certain way. By Acknowledging our feelings, we are starting to build that self-loyalty which is so important to decreasing anxiety AND decreasing the voice of our Monger.

Feelings can be a tough subject. There are a lot of preconceived ideas around feelings and how we should or should not experience them. We have A LOT of judgment around feelings, good feelings, bad feelings, positives, and negatives. That is why this step is simply to acknowledge your feelings. Not judge them, justify them or determine whether or not they are okay.

Frequently throughout the day, I will say to myself, what are you feeling? And then, I will pull out the feelings sheet (attached) and name 7-8 feelings. I always have the tendency to judge them, so I will repeat to myself, you ARE feeling this way, it is what it is. For much of my life, I willed myself to feel a different way, or more likely, my Monger willed me to feel a different way through belittlement and shame. Giving myself permission to just label the feeling and acknowledge it has made a HUGE difference in building loyalty with myself and hearing from my Biggest Fan.

The reason Acknowledging what you are feeling is the first step is because it is a bit of an intellectual exercise. When you hear your Monger (or BFF) talking to you, and you are in a frenzy of drama or shame, the LAST thing you want to do is slow down and get into your body, you WANT to stay in the frenzy so acknowledging what you are feeling is just a small way to break through that frenzy and calm yourself a little bit.

Which brings me to the next step, which is: Slow down and get into your body. On this one, I encourage you to do a full-body movement, dance, wiggle touch your toes. Just taking a deep breath or sitting up straighter won’t cut it. You need to break the frenzied mind, and the ONLY way to do that is to move your WHOLE body. Those of us with HFA spend too much time in our heads, to the point where we forget we have a body. The number of times I practice this step and remember, oh yes, I actually have a body is incredible to me.

And the 3rd step, Kindly Pull Back to see the Big Picture.

The key part of this is kindly. Too often, when we pull back, we get lost in a sea of judgment. Our Monger tells us, “You are doing it wrong,” “You will fail,” “There are too many options.” We get wrapped up in justifying or proving why we are feeling a certain way. So when we pull back kindly, we are giving ourselves lots of love and wisdom. Pulling back kindly and being open to all the options allows us to move beyond the traps of the Monger and find solutions that will move us forward.

This last step is where the Biggest Fan shows her kindness and wisdom. So what does this look like, you might be wondering? Here are some signs:

Our Biggest Fan doesn’t use shame and belittling when looking at options. There is no “should” or “other people do it” in her vocabulary.

She always has our best interests at heart. She is kind, not judgmental, and she doesn’t lead us down a path that will hurt us eventually (like our BFF might).

This final step in the process is what separates the voice of the Biggest Fan from the Monger and BFF. Because our Monger keeps us stuck in a tunnel of absolute thinking, we have blinders on to any other options. The first two steps, A. Acknowledge what you are feeling and B. Slow down and get into your body, allow us to give ourselves empathy and get into our bodies long enough so we can pull those blinders off and do the final step. During this final step, we can look around and see all we have missed. We can see all the choices and options we have. If we jump to this step immediately, we might not have our blinders completely removed. We might still be blinded by the Monger, so the options and choices we brainstorm won’t be as varied.

Make it a game. See how many options you can brainstorm. As you limit the judgments in your head, you will be amazed at how many ways you can solve a problem.

Again, the three steps of ASK:

Acknowledge what you are feeling: When the Monger tries to shame and belittle you, the Biggest Fan acknowledges what you are feeling (e.g., you must be tired, scared, angry, sad, etc.). She labels your feelings and normalizes whatever your experience is.

Slow down and get into your body: When the Monger tries to speed you up and make everything more intense, your Biggest Fan allows you to slow everything down, encouraging you to take a break, pause, and breathe.

Kindly pull back to see the big picture: When the Monger just sees doom and gloom and engages in black-and-white thinking, the Biggest Fan sees lots of colors. She encourages you to think of different solutions, brainstorm, and see the other colors. We tend to be harsh on ourselves when we are looking for new solutions. As we shift from black-and-white to color, the Monger might step in more. That’s why doing it kindly is the key.

Sometimes we need an outside perspective to help us hear/see our Monger. Ask someone you love and trust—your spouse, your best friend, a sibling—to lovingly remind you when you are engaging in one of your myths, or you are being exceptionally harsh on yourself. This can be hard, so prepare yourself for lots of do-overs.

Having that outside help can make the process easier. I made a lot more progress when my husband lovingly mirrored how often I was trying to “do it right.” The more he pointed it out to me, the easier it was for me to see the habit, and the more frequently I could access my Biggest Fan.

Spend more time on accessing your Biggest Fan rather than listening for your Monger. Randomly throughout the day, do something physical, get into your body, and tap into your feelings.

For so many years, our Monger has convinced us she knows better, so initially, working with our Biggest Fan is going to take some trust. Being open to the idea that kindness can be motivating and shaming ourselves makes us more stressed and miserable is key.

Pretend that your whole life, you were told spinach was bad for you. Your mom hated spinach and didn’t want it in the house, so she told you that spinach was bad for you and never bothered to tell you differently. And then suddenly in your 20s, you hear spinach is good for you, and you are like, “What!?!” you can’t believe it. You do a lot of research, and everything you read says spinach is healthy. But when you first start eating spinach, it feels like you are going to die because your brain is telling you this is bad for you, even though you have done all the research and you know it might be different. But you have to go against your brain and trust it is good.

That is a tongue-in-cheek example, but it illustrates the point that our Biggest Fan is good for us, but we don’t trust her at first. Our Monger tends to be the first responder. She is always the loudest and quickest. One of my favorite mantras has become “First thought wrong.” When I hear my Monger chatting at me, I will say to myself, okay, first thought wrong! Then I will ASK to hear from my Biggest Fan.

Finally, go easy on yourself. You have spent your life being an overachiever, so your tendency is to overachieve on quieting your Monger as well. Remember, you are a work in process. The process just takes time.

Scenario: You binge-watch the Crown rather than working in the yard as you had planned.

Monger: You are such a loser. On top of being lazy, you can’t keep your word. You said you were going to do yard work. You already have the worst-looking yard in the neighborhood, and now you wasted yet another day doing nothing.

BFF: You work so hard during the week. You deserve to do nothing. Screw the neighbors—they don’t have lives anyway. All they do is take care of their yards. You have a life, and you know that there is more to the world than just keeping a pristine yard. Enjoy your day of nothing.

Biggest Fan: (A. Acknowledge what you are feeling) It is okay to be conflicted. On the one hand, you must have needed a day of nothing, and you did say you would take care of the yard. (S. Slow down and get into your body) Stand up and stretch, take some deep breaths. (K. Kindly pull back to see the big picture) The truth is, you love this show and being able to binge-watch is a special treat. Soak it up and enjoy! And the lawn does need to be mowed. You love driving past the house and seeing the yard look nice, so maybe tomorrow after lunch, you can just do some quick cleanup.

---

If you don’t do it, who will? If you’re not hustling, pushing, and keeping it all together yourself, nothing will get done.

Look, you don’t need me to tell you that. You tell yourself every day. There’s that voice inside your head constantly pushing you to do more, be more, and get closer to perfect.

And there are all the people--your family, friends, and random people on the street--who congratulate you on how productive you are.

Mixed messages, am I right?

I know I’m right because I’ve dealt with high-functioning anxiety too. I know what it’s like to relish the accolades that come your way one minute and shame yourself for being so tired and overwhelmed the next.

And, I’ve been working with women like you living with hidden anxiety every day for over 20 years as a coach and counselor.

I wrote The Happier Approach to give you a framework for dealing with your anxiety and start living happier.

The Happier Approach will help you understand the voices in your head and what to do with them. It’s not another woo-woo self-help book that asks you to think positively and live your best life. It’s a practical guidebook for getting out of survival mode and finding a genuinely happy and productive life.

Know someone who has High Functioning Anxiety and a VERY LOUD Monger. The Happier Approach makes a great gift.

Find The Happier Approach on Amazon, Audible, or Barnes & Noble!

---

Episode 111: The Voices In Your Head–The BFF

In today’s episode, I am talking about the BFF the voice we most often use to counter our Monger. Our BFF enables us to rebel against the voice of our Monger. When we get tired of our Monger criticizing us, we bring in our BFF for a little self-compassion.

This month we are talking about the 3 characters that chat at us throughout the day and are at the core of The Happier Approach. 

Last week we talked about the Monger–the mean voice tells us we’re not good enough. Today, we are going to talk about the voice we most often use to counter our Monger: the BFF

Our BFF enables us to rebel against the voice of our Monger. When we get tired of our Monger criticizing us, we bring in our BFF for a little self-compassion.

Our BFF is the one who always has our back. She is the type of BFF who is always willing to risk getting into trouble and is always there to defend us.

But she is not about holding our feet to the fire or keeping us accountable. 

She is very good at finding justification and someone else to blame. She is all about helping us feel special. She is kind and wants us to feel good about ourselves. In her mind, responsibility, accountability, and restraint do not apply. 

Listening to our BFF can be risky. Our BFF loves false self-compassion and uses it as a way to give us an excuse to just do whatever we want.

Our BFF can make us feel awesome, but she can lead to trouble.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• Where our BFF shows up in our lives

• What Self-Compassion means to our BFF

• How the BFF isn’t really helping the situation or looking out for our best interests by stirring up drama with our Monger

• How to find the middle ground between “soldiering on” through the cruelty of our Monger and the false self-compassion of our BFF

• Previous Episode 110: The Voices In Your Head–The Monger

+ Read the Transcript

With tears in her eyes, Sarah walks out of the conference room and makes it to the bathroom just before the waterworks begin. My boss just screamed at me in that meeting. I knew we were late on deadlines, but I didn’t think we were THAT late. How did I miss it? I spent all week organizing customer feedback. I didn’t realize he wanted us to be writing the copy already!

Then she hears her old friend the Monger, “You are going to get fired for this mistake. Did you see how angry your boss was? You totally missed the boat on this one. How could you be so irresponsible? Funny that you stayed late to work on the customer feedback, and that wasn’t what was important. Yet again, you have your priorities mixed up.

It doesn’t take long before her BFF has her back. “Come on, girlfriend, your boss is such an A-Hole. I mean to publicly call you out like that is just rude. You had like five projects last week; how were you supposed to know that the copy was most important. They say communication is the key—where was the communication?!”

Her Monger is quick with a rebuttal, “You are the employee. It is your job to know when stuff is due. You should have asked, but you are such a wimp you were too afraid to ask.”

“Ha! Too afraid to ask. That is rich,” says her BFF, “you deserve to have some respect. You work your butt off around here, and for what? No one even tells you what is due when. It is so disrespectful. You are practicing compassion here, so you need to be kind to yourself and give yourself a break. He should have been clearer. He saw that you were working on the spreadsheet. Why didn’t he say something?”

“Come on. The bottom line, you messed up. You are going to lose your job. It’s as simple as that,” declares her Monger.

And around and around they go.

“You’re listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I’m your host, Nancy Jane Smith.”

This Month we are talking about the three characters that chat at us throughout the day and are at the core of The Happier Approach. Last week we talked about the Monger, and today, we are going to talk about it with the voice we most often use to counter our Monger: the BFF.

Your BFF enables us to rebel against the mean voice of our Monger. When we get tired of our Monger criticizing us, you bring in your BFF for a little self-compassion, but it often ends up going overboard into false self-compassion (aka doing whatever you want). Your BFF loves false self-compassion.

Your BFF is the one who always has your back, is always willing to risk getting into trouble, is always there to defend you—that BFF. She is not about holding your feet to the fire or keeping you accountable but is always able to find a justification and someone to blame. She is all about helping you feel special. She is kind and wants you to feel good about yourself. In her mind, responsibility, accountability, and restraint do not apply. Listening to her can feel awesome, and she can be trouble.

To Your BFF, self-compassion means:

You are always right.

They are always wrong.

You deserve whatever your heart desires.

Fun is #1.

She will protect you to the death.

Your BFF enables you to rebel against the mean voice of your Monger. When you get tired of your Monger criticizing you, you bring in your BFF for a little self-compassion, but it often ends up going overboard into false self-compassion (aka doing whatever you want). Your BFF loves false self-compassion.

Last episode, I talked about my quest to quiet the Monger. This quest started because I watched my Dad, a man in his 70s ravaged by Parkinson’s with Dementia who looked back on his well-accomplished life and still didn’t feel good enough. His Monger convinced him that no matter what he did, he was a failure.

As I started on this quest, I read as much as I could about how to quiet the inner critic (aka Monger). The advice was to love yourself no matter what (aka practice self-compassion), so I became obsessed with the subject of self-compassion. I chatted with clients and friends. I practiced self-compassion exercises like repeating positive mantras and telling myself how awesome I was.

To be honest, the idea of loving myself no matter what was radical and foreign. It sounded great, but it wasn’t something I could do 100 percent of the time. Hell, I couldn’t even do it 20 percent of the time.

The problem was twofold: One, my Monger voice was painful and stressing me out. Two, when I practiced what I thought was self-compassion, it would lead to a short respite, but in the end, it made my Monger more fired up. I realized that just finding self-compassion was not enough.

I was living in this constant back and forth between the extremes of my Monger and the false “do whatever you want” version of self-compassion. Ultimately, my Monger always won. She always convinced me that I wouldn’t accomplish anything without her constant correction.

I started exploring self-acceptance, self-compassion, and the idea that you are supposed to talk to yourself like you are your own best friend. I spent a long time getting to know my inner best friend (I call her my BFF). She was kind and nice, but I quickly discovered she was more of an enabler.

She was the opposite of my Monger, encouraging freedom and kindness to counteract my Monger’s shame and belittling. Unfortunately, I also quickly noticed that all my BFF did was fight with my Monger. Yes, she had my back. Yes, she wanted me to be happy. But she wasn’t really helping the situation or looking out for my best interests. She was just stirring up drama with my Monger.

I noticed the same issues with my clients. The more we explored self-compassion, the more confused they became. We uncovered the practice of false self-compassion, where we equated loving ourselves with a free pass to do whatever we wanted. Their BFF would encourage cake and chardonnay, only to be met with the Monger suggesting they were fat alcoholics who didn’t deserve such treats.

Let’s see how Sarah’s BFF is chiming in after the meeting went south. As Sarah drives home from her terrible day, she calls her best friend and shares all the drama of the day. She throws her co-workers under the bus, blames her boss, and deflects all responsibility of the day. Her best friend is supportive and immediately starts chiming in how much people suck and how hard it is to be a good employee with the lack of support we receive. Sarah stops at the grocery store to pick up a pint of ice cream and a bottle of wine and throws in a bag of chocolates for good measure. She deserves it! It has been a crappy day! At home, she tells the whole story again to her spouse; her BFF has fine-tuned it now to showcase how the world is conspiring to get her, and if it wasn’t for all the incompetent people she works with, this would never have happened.

She pours herself a glass of wine, grabs some chocolates, and starts the nightly duties of dinner, homework, and bedtime. By the time the kids are in bed, Sarah is 3 glasses in and ready to devour the pint of ice cream. Her BFF tells her that she is fine; she deserves to eat as much as she wants. In the spirit of false self-compassion, her BFF is taking Sarah down a dark, miserable road. Yes, her Monger isn’t chatting at her, she isn’t being negative on herself, but she is definitely sabotaging her goals and her relationships.

She has already picked a fight with her spouse, yelled at her kids, and her mood is miserable. She crawls into bed and passes out, angry and feeling alone, justified that no one understands her plight.

Here are some ways your BFF shows up:

Overindulging and Numbing, That 3rd glass of wine, the whole pint of ice cream, shopping with no regard for your budget, or spending the whole weekend hiding out bingeing on Netflix these are just some of the ways your BFF encourages you to blow off steam and decrease the pressure of the Monger.

I DESERVE, your BFF’s love to tell you that ‘you deserve’ things. This language is a sign that you are in the trance of the BFF. Have a bad day? You deserve a glass of wine! Have a good day? You deserve a glass of wine? She can justify anything. The question to ask is, do you want it? Saying you deserve takes the power away from enjoying it. If you WANT the 3rd glass of wine, drink it in good health, enjoy every last drop, not because you deserve it but because that glass of wine will add to the enjoyment of your life.

Judging: Your BFF loves to judge other people in order to protect you. She is the first to point out when someone else has failed, looks bad, or is not doing well. In an effort to have your back, she will quickly point out others’ flaws to make you look better.

Causing Drama: Your BFF also LOVE drama. Drama deflects from reality. She loves to complain, whine and encourage you to share the story over and over again. She can make everyone else the problem and you the poor misunderstood hero.

Whenever I notice myself displaying any of these behaviors, I recognize that it is my BFF talking which usually means my Monger has been chatting as well. Wherever the BFF is, so is the Monger.

This war between the BFF and the Monger plays out because we live in an all-or-nothing world. We try so hard to do it right, and we are wound so tight in the goal of following all the rules perfectly that we go from one extreme (Monger = complete rule-following) to another (BFF = doing whatever you want).

Because she is the opposite of your Monger, your BFF tends to perpetuate the problem. She just gives your Monger more ammunition.

I won’t disagree that listening to your BFF is fun and easy. She always knows how to have a good time, and she is a welcome relief from the voice of your Monger. For years I was stuck here, going back and forth between my BFF and my Monger. I told myself I was channeling self-compassion and being kind to myself, but in reality, I was just making the problem bigger and more confusing. Their constant arguing and battle of wills left me on a hamster wheel of worry and anxiety.

I also see this with my clients. They get stuck in this pattern of “soldiering on” and listening to their Monger and then releasing the pressure with their BFF’s false self-compassion.

Finding that middle ground is hard, but it is where the magic is. Because sometimes you need to take responsibility. Sometimes it isn’t all about fun and deserving. Sometimes it is about getting stuff done. If we want to fully embrace our lives and do hard things, we have to get stuff done even when it is uncomfortable.

Next week I will be talking about how to get in touch with THAT voice, the voice of kindness and wisdom, your Biggest Fan. See you next week!!

---

If you don’t do it, who will? If you’re not hustling, pushing, and keeping it all together yourself, nothing will get done.

Look, you don’t need me to tell you that. You tell yourself every day. There’s that voice inside your head constantly pushing you to do more, be more, and get closer to perfect.

And there are all the people--your family, friends, and random people on the street--who congratulate you on how productive you are.

Mixed messages, am I right?

I know I’m right because I’ve dealt with high-functioning anxiety too. I know what it’s like to relish the accolades that come your way one minute and shame yourself for being so tired and overwhelmed the next.

And, I’ve been working with women like you living with hidden anxiety every day for over 20 years as a coach and counselor.

I wrote The Happier Approach to give you a framework for dealing with your anxiety and start living happier.

The Happier Approach will help you understand the voices in your head and what to do with them. It’s not another woo-woo self-help book that asks you to think positively and live your best life. It’s a practical guidebook for getting out of survival mode and finding a genuinely happy and productive life.

Know someone who has High Functioning Anxiety and a VERY LOUD Monger. The Happier Approach makes a great gift.

Find The Happier Approach on Amazon, Audible, or Barnes & Noble!

---

Episode 110: The Voices In Your Head–The Monger

In today’s episode, I am talking about the Monger and how she is such an important part of understanding and managing our High Functioning Anxiety.

There is a voice in your head.

It is a horrible voice that tells you that you are a slow, stupid loser who will never succeed. It tells you that everyone but you has it figured out and that at any moment you are going to be found out for the fraud that you are.

That voice in your head? That is the voice of the Monger.

Everyone has a Monger, but those of us with High Functioning Anxiety have an exceptionally loud and nasty Monger.

Many of us aren't even aware of how much the Monger is talking to us. We know that we are feeling anxious or stressed, but are unaware that it is coming from an internal voice–a voice of belittling, name-calling, and just plain nastiness. 

This voice can viciously chatter at us all day, every day, and we just push through.

There are other voices in your head–the BFF and the Biggest Fan–but of the 3 characters that are at the core of The Happier Approach, the Monger is the loudest of them all. 

That is why we are starting this month's series about the voices in our head by talking at length about the Monger and how she is such an important part of understanding and managing our High Functioning Anxiety.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• Where does the Monger come from?

• How the Monger is like a first responder whose mission is to keep us safe and how she uses shame, belittling, guilt, and negativity to complete that mission

• How despite what we think, we don’t need the Monger’s shame and belittling to be successful

• How the feeling of “enoughness” that we crave will never be found as long as we keep listing to the voice of the Monger

• Why fighting back against the Monger on her terms doesn’t work and what to do instead

• And how admitting that we don’t need the Monger’s shame is an important step toward moving past it

+ Read the Transcript

You walk into work feeling good. Your current project has been a little bumpy, but you feel on top of things now and know all will be well. As you pass your boss’ office, he calls you in. A little nervous, you sit down, and he explains to you that there is going to be a project meeting that morning, and you are responsible for leading it. The point of the meeting is to give a progress report on your project and help explain why it had been bumpy and where it is headed. You smile confidently and walk out of the office. As you walk down the hall, you feel your neck tense, you have pain in the pit of your stomach, and internally you immediately start freaking out.

Logically, you know you can do this presentation. Yes, there were bumps, but they are all explainable, and all have been dealt with. Logically, you know that no one really cares as long as the project keeps moving along and you hit the deadline. But logic is pointless because emotionally, you think, “I am a terrible project manager. I am going to suck at this presentation, they are going to nail me to the wall, and I am going to get fired right on the spot. I should never have gotten out of bed this morning”.

“You’re listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I’m your host, Nancy Jane Smith.”

That voice? The one that tells you you’re a terrible project manager and you should have never gotten out of bed? That is the voice of the Monger.” That is the voice of the Monger. For the past five years, my work has been about helping people quiet their Monger.

I have talked about the Monger at length in previous episodes, but she is such an important part of High Functioning Anxiety I wanted to dive into her again.

Your Monger tells you that you are always behind.

Everyone else has it figured out but you.

They will see you are a fraud.

You are a slow, stupid loser who will never succeed.

Everyone has a Monger, but those of us with High Functioning Anxiety have an exceptionally loud and nasty Monger, and many of us aren’t even aware of how much she is talking to us. It can chat all day, every day, and many people are just unaware. They know they are feeling more anxious or stressed, but they are unaware that it is coming from an internal voice - a voice of belittling, name-calling, and just plain nastiness.

This Month we are talking about the three characters that chat at us throughout the day and are at the core of The Happier Approach. Today, we are going to start with the loudest of them all: your Monger.

A Monger, according to Merriam-Webster, is “Something that attempts to stir up or spread something that is usually petty or discreditable.”

That voice in our head is your Monger, and she is trying to stir shit up. Our Monger tells us how much we suck, that we are total failures, terrible parents, worthless employees, and all-around losers. (Sound a little harsh? Listen to yourself one of these days, and I bet you’ll see that I’m not too far off.)

It chimes at us throughout the day - creating doubt, anxiety, depression, insecurity, and overall “stuckness.”

Experts disagree on where this voice comes from. Theories range from it being your ego, your lizard brain, your limiting beliefs, even your parents limiting beliefs. You can call it your evil twin, gremlin, vampire, demon - or, as I like to say, your MONGER. Regardless of how you refer to it or where it came from, it’s THERE, and QUITE honestly, the bottom line is how she got there doesn’t really matter. How your Monger got there is not as important as what her behavior is and how her behavior affects you now.

Remember that scenario with your boss? He asked you to present your progress on the big project, explain the bumps in the road, and get everyone up to date on how things are moving forward. Simple enough, right?

Well, your subconscious treats this scenario like a house fire. Deep in your brain, the toaster has overheated, the drapes have caught on fire, and the smoke alarms are going off.

Your Monger is like the first responder, pulling up at the scene, sirens blazing. She arrives and springs into action, prepared to do whatever it takes to secure the scene. She will do whatever she thinks it takes to keep you safe and secure. Just not as lovingly as the fire department and paramedic first responders.

The truth is, like the real first responder, the Monger’s job is to keep us safe. Her sole mission is to scan the environment for any potential harm, risk, or danger and protect us from it. Her mission is to keep us safe from failing. That is a great mission. She is very helpful when we are walking down a dark street alone or preparing to do something scary. But in everyday life, we don’t need quite that much protection.

I have found that she has three main rules to help her complete this mission:

1. Don’t make a mistake. This is where your perfectionism comes into play. You, Monger, is vigilant that the only way to avoid criticism is to be perfect (a friendly reminder, this is impossible)

2. Don’t stand out. Your Monger loves for you to blend in; if you blend, you won’t get criticized. She encourages you to constantly compare yourself to others so you can make sure you aren’t too outside the norms.

3. Don’t be too vulnerable. Heaven forbid you share what is really going on. If people KNOW you are weak, then they can really criticize you.

If any of those rules are broken, she uses shame, belittling, guilt, and negativity to move us back in line. Ironic that she is helping you avoid criticism from the outside world when her criticism is 1000 times worse.

Going through our day-to-day world, we are going to break one of these rules and feel the consequences. But if you want to do something big? Stretch yourself out of your comfort zone? Well, that is when we get into REAL trouble. When we try something new or take a risk (no matter how small), our Monger gets scared and wants to keep us safe.

Unfortunately, your Monger has a perfect memory. She catalogs and recalls every failure, mistake, or doubt you ever had and isn’t afraid to use them against you on this mission to keep you safe. In an attempt to protect you from making a mistake, she will remind you of every failure you’ve ever made.

If we attack our Monger using her methods, it rarely works. If we tell our Monger to shut up, she will just fight back harder.

But what I want you to hear is that, yes, our Monger is harsh. Yes, she can be annoying, belittling, and downright nasty. And she is still a part of you. She is there to keep you safe. Her methods might be nasty, but her intent is a good one.

So telling a part of ourselves to “shut up” or “quit being a bitch” just doesn’t work. Fighting shame with shame never works.

The whole point of this work is that we need to be KIND to ourselves,

Just like the evil witch who locked Rapunzel in the castle to keep her innocence safe, your Monger convinces you that she is there to protect you. That you need her to keep you from looking stupid or failing. But really, this is all just a bunch of propaganda. Lies, pure lies! You don’t NEED her, AND you don’t need to be yelling at her either. I know it is a confusing idea. But shaming a bully doesn’t work. The only way to work with a bully is to not give it too much power.

The problem is WAY too many of us believe that we NEED our Monger to be successful. You don’t need to be shamed and belittled to be successful. This is the part that no one believes, so I will say it again: you don’t need to be shamed and belittled to be successful.

One of my favorite stories about this idea that we need the Monger comes from one of my best friends, you might have heard this one before. Years ago, I taught a class on the Monger and was sharing similar information as I am now, and after it was over, one of my best friends came up to so excited me and said, “I LOVE this information,” she beamed, and I did too because I KNEW she had a very loud Monger and then she said with a smile, “But I am not going to implement any of it, because I still need my Monger. I mean, I won’t get anything done if I don’t have my Monger.”

I laughed with her, and we joked around about eating bonbons and watching too much TV if she didn’t have her Monger. But the conversation stuck with me. Over the next few days, I realized that’s how I feel too. I secretly believe I won’t get anything done without my Monger. At the time, I didn’t realize this was my HFA talking.

And we laughed and joked around about how her Monger was helping her, blah, blah, blah. As I got home, I realized that’s kind of how I felt too, that I won’t get anything done without this Monger.

The truth was, even as I taught about the Monger and shared with people the dangers of this negative voice, I was secretly getting eaten alive by my own Monger. This was when I decided I needed to do something about this Monger thing. It needed to stop.

My friend and I weren’t alone, whenever I would speak about the Monger, I would always get pushback. They believed they needed their Monger to be successful. They believed that without their Monger criticizing them, they wouldn’t get out of bed to work out, stop at one drink, speak up at the meeting, or rush across town to make it to their kid’s soccer game.

Why are we listening to something that is causing us pain? Because growing up, we learned that at our core, we are useless human beings, and without the constant direction of our Monger, we would be lumps on the couch, bingeing on Netflix and doughnuts while our home and lives lay in ruins. But the problem runs deeper. It isn’t the voice itself; the problem is our belief that we need the voice to accomplish our goals in life.

Because we believe that we need the voice of the mean, shaming Monger, the idea of giving ourselves compassion and kindness is completely foreign. Our Monger convinces us that the one thing we need the most—kindness and compassion—is the thing that will keep us unsuccessful and unhappy.

Because your Monger believes she is there to keep you safe, protected, and successful, she acts like she is your friend. But in reality, she is making you miserable. She is constantly preying on your insecurities in order to keep you small and part of the status quo. She drives you to be perfect when perfection doesn’t actually exist (even though she is really good at convincing you it does).

You want to feel successful, fulfilled, and happier, yet you have this voice in your head chiming in all day long about how you missed the mark. You will never feel successful as long as you are listening to the Monger. She will always make you feel insecure. Your search for feeling “enough”—powerful enough, strong enough, happy enough, successful enough—will never be fulfilled as long as you are listening to her.

We wouldn’t do this to a child, would we? Take Joey, who enters second grade unable to read. Truth be told, there are lots of reasons and people to blame, but the bottom line is Joey can’t read. Joey’s teacher doesn’t say to him, “You are so stupid, how did you make it to second grade without learning how to read? Wow, your parents really failed you.” No, Joey’s teachers meet Joey where he is. Because he can’t read and they can admit that, they don’t waste time beating him up about that fact. They simply help him read. They help him get to the root of the problem (e.g., his fear or lack of desire or knowledge) in order to move past whatever is in his way.

If Joey’s teachers were critical of his inability to read, he might be motivated to learn simply to avoid their criticism, but he would dread school and not be excited about learning new things. But if they meet him where he is, accepts that he can’t read, and skip the part where they beat him up about it, he can learn a lot faster and develop a love of learning.

Admitting that we don’t need the Monger’s shame is an important step in moving past it. Because the truth is we can’t change anything until we own it. Our Monger keeps us stuck in blame and criticism. She never allows us to move past the shame so we can see what we need to do to move forward.

The bottom line is– and I know this now to the depth of my being– I don’t need my Monger to be successful, and neither do you. We are going to accomplish more by accepting ourselves where we are and working with what we have rather than constantly berating ourselves. I promise you will accomplish more without listening to your Monger. You will be happier, more successful, and sleep better.

When you notice the Monger blaming and criticizing you in an attempt to motivate you, try to remove the blame and criticism. Try to separate fact (what you need to own about the situation) from fiction (the shame and criticism).

Think of yourself as an eight-year-old child. What would you say to that eight-year-old who needed some motivation? Would you criticize her, or would you kindly offer solutions?

This idea of self-kindness is something I look at in detail in Episode 101; give it a listen. In upcoming episodes, as I unveil the other characters, I will be offering more tips for quieting your Monger.

---

If you don’t do it, who will? If you’re not hustling, pushing, and keeping it all together yourself, nothing will get done.

Look, you don’t need me to tell you that. You tell yourself every day. There’s that voice inside your head constantly pushing you to do more, be more, and get closer to perfect.

And there are all the people--your family, friends, and random people on the street--who congratulate you on how productive you are.

Mixed messages, am I right?

I know I’m right because I’ve dealt with high-functioning anxiety too. I know what it’s like to relish the accolades that come your way one minute and shame yourself for being so tired and overwhelmed the next.

And, I’ve been working with women like you living with hidden anxiety every day for over 20 years as a coach and counselor.

I wrote The Happier Approach to give you a framework for dealing with your anxiety and start living happier.

The Happier Approach will help you understand the voices in your head and what to do with them. It’s not another woo-woo self-help book that asks you to think positively and live your best life. It’s a practical guidebook for getting out of survival mode and finding a genuinely happy and productive life.

Know someone who has High Functioning Anxiety and a VERY LOUD Monger. The Happier Approach makes a great gift.

Find The Happier Approach on Amazon, Audible, or Barnes & Noble!

---

Episode 109: How To Feel Less Stress During the Holidays

In the spirit of the season, I am going to explore Four Holiday Landmines that can take your High Functioning Anxiety through the roof and offer some tips to help you ease your anxiety and enjoy yourself.

I come from a long, proud line of women dealing with High Functioning Anxiety. And never is this more apparent than during the holidays.

Take my mom, for instance.

She loves the holidays and wants to make them as fantastic and magical as possible. But, as those of us with High Functioning Anxiety will understand, she has a tendency to overperform and over function during the holiday season. And, as a result, the expectations and responsibilities of the festivities can be overwhelming. 

This is why I thought it would be appropriate to conclude this month’s conversation around High Functioning Anxiety in our everyday lives by taking a closer look at how High Functioning Anxiety reveals itself during the holidays.

In the spirit of the season, I am going to explore Four Holiday Landmines that can take your High Functioning Anxiety through the roof and offer some tips to help you ease your anxiety and enjoy yourself. 

In today’s episode, Four Holiday Landmines:

• Quietly meeting or exceeding everyone else’s expectations of perfect gift-giving traditions

• Desperately trying to recreate the perfect holiday get-together even when you’re missing loved ones

• Single-handedly balancing conflicting needs and expectations while you share space with friends and family

• Anxiously attempting to follow through on unnecessarily high expectations for holiday preparations

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How to start accepting ourselves as we are so we can start living the moment

• How we can have happiness without devaluing the daily experience

• 3 Myths of When-Then thinking

• And recognizing life’s daily opportunities so we can experience life more deeply and fully

+ Read the Transcript

I fell into the chair, my back was killing me, my feet felt like they might fall off in protest, and my head was pounding. “How have you done this all these years?” I said to my Mom in exhaustion. She laughed and said, “I LOVE Christmas! And it is exhausting for sure!” This was the first year my Mom started handing me the torch of being Mrs. Christmas. The first year she really let me behind the scenes of her magical Christmas workshop, I couldn’t believe it. When being on the receiving end of her work, everything seemed so effortless. Presents were wrapped perfectly, customizing the wrapping for each person. The food selection was endless and delicious, and the kitchen was always clean. But behind the scenes, I saw how much work it took to make everything appear effortless and holly jolly. Starting with Thanksgiving, I don’t think my Mom sat down once until after New Year.

Let’s be honest the holidays are the epitome of mixed emotions. Joy, Peace, and Jolly Merrymaking are combined with Exhaustion, FOMO, anxiety, and self-doubt. The holidays have it all! The PRESSURE around the holidays is immense.

“You’re listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I’m your host, Nancy Jane Smith.”

All this month, we have been talking about High Functioning Anxiety and how to see it playing out in your everyday life. As today in the states is Thanksgiving, and we have officially entered the Holiday season, I thought it would be appropriate to talk about High Functioning Anxiety and the holidays. I know you are going to be surprised to hear, my Mom has High Functioning Anxiety :) Yes, she LOVES the holidays, AND yes, she Overperforms, over functions, and gets overwhelmed as we all do. Which is why I wanted to do this episode looking at how High Functioning Anxiety reveals itself during the holidays.

Like the meme I shared last week said, “It’s the Holiday season. Time to replace my everyday anxiety with my fancy holiday anxiety.”

In the spirit of the season, I am going to explore four landmines during the holidays that can take your HFA through the roof and offer some tips to help you ease your anxiety and enjoy yourself.

The first landmine Gift Giving

Every year someone asks me how they should address changing how they give gifts. My first answer to this question is that if we are even going to THINK about this very challenging conversation, it needs to happen WELL before November or December. Honestly, this conversation needs to start in January. There needs to be a lot of groundwork for this conversation.

So often, people will say to me that they want to buy homemade gifts or do a secret Santa rather than the big gift-giving frenzy we have done for the past 30 + years. It makes sense–you want to have less consumerism, spend less money on stuff that will eventually end up in the landfill, AND, quite honestly, gift-giving for people with HFA can be exhausting. We put so much pressure on ourselves to find the perfect gift that letting this search go and changing this tradition is a wise idea.

And yet, for some people in your life, gift-giving is a year-long event. They take the whole year to find the perfect gift (and enjoy it!), not to mention it is a tradition and changing traditions can be hard.

Two things I see happening the most around the holidays. First, we forget to look at the issue through the lens of the other. We don’t think about how much joy your cousin who doesn’t have kids gets from buying everyone in your family a gift. She starts in February and buys lots of little presents for everyone in the family. She would be devastated if gift-giving was ended.

And secondly, because those of us with HFA love rules, we tend to get stuck in black and white thinking. There are LOTS of ways to do gift-giving; it doesn’t have to be tit for tat. It doesn’t have to be big extravagant gifts. This is why the ongoing conversation is so important.

So if you want to change how your family does gift-giving, lay the groundwork early, make tiny changes and try to see it through the lens of your other family members.

Which takes me to the second land mine Missing Loved Ones.

Change is inevitable, we all know this, and yet when changes to traditions happen, we can become sad, angry, or even bitter. When we have HFA, we LOVE traditions, predictability, and knowing expectations. But Traditions change. People get married, have babies. Our loved ones grow older, and deaths can rock us to the core. So if your holidays are changing this year, here are some tips:

Acknowledge how the change feels.

Yes, you should be happy for your brother who just had a baby and has decided to spend Christmas with his partner’s family this year, AND You are going to miss him. Both are true. The tendency is to fall into blame and shame. Blaming his partner for taking him away from your family or getting angry at him for not being strong enough to stand up to his partner’s! ALL that drama can be avoided when we acknowledge all that we are feeling– the anger, sadness, disappointment, and excitement of having a new little one.

Maybe this year it’s YOU who can’t be home for the holidays, or you are going to your in-law’s house for the first time.

Maybe you have recently lost someone, and you are doing the holidays without them for the first time. Again, allow yourself to feel what comes up. There is no right way to feel when we are going through a loss. Give yourself room to feel how you feel. It is ok to feel sad, and it is ok to feel joyful. We put so much pressure on ourselves to feel a certain way around the holidays.

Make sure to ask yourself how do I want my holidays to feel, and throughout the coming weeks, be intentional about what you do or don’t do to celebrate.

The 3rd landmine Sharing space.

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE my space. I love, no I need my own space. I need time to regroup, and during the holidays, this can be hard to come by. There are so many people who might only see each other once a year, and here they are sharing close living quarters. This is another time when you might decide to change it up and stay at a hotel (again, give your loved ones LOTS of notice on this one). But if you are sharing space for a few days, here are some tips:

Be honest with yourself. The tendency is to push yourself too far and convince yourself you are fine. Then all of a sudden, you are imploding (or more likely exploding), and your family is like, what the hell just happened? So to avoid this drama, be honest and take time for yourself.

I have noticed that when I need space, I tend to play with my phone more. I will constantly be checking social media or refreshing to read useless facts. Now, rather than just sitting there not engaging (because I am on my phone), I will leave the hustle and bustle to take a walk, sit quietly alone, or even lie down for a nap. I remember the first time I did this. I thought it was going to be a big deal; people would wonder where I was and think something is wrong. I had quietly said to my husband, “I am going to take a break,” and he said ok. When I returned to the celebration, I realized no one had missed me. I wasn’t greeted with “are you ok?” or where were you?” I was greeted with “hey, welcome back” (As if they hadn’t even noticed I was gone!) Feel free to step away from political conversations as well. Some people LOVE debating politics, and some people hate it. Either way, be true to yourself and take a break. You don’t have to engage.

The 4th landmine is Holiday Expectations and Preparations.

This is where your HFA can kick into high gear. (Hi Mom!!) Yep, we can pour all of our anxiety into holiday prep. Finding the perfect gifts for each person on our list, holiday decorating, the family photo for the holiday cards, and making sure your kids experience a fun-filled, holly, jolly holiday. PRESSURE. It is A LOT of pressure. Too often, our HFA kicks in, and we are obsessed with having the most amazing house on the block or meticulously placing each ornament on the tree. I can remember how stressed I would get when we would buy our Christmas Tree. It HAD to be perfect. No holes, no saggy branches. I would hem and haw and look at all the choices.

And then, one year, I realized, with all the ornaments and lights, it doesn’t even matter. And my favorite trees are the ones that have a little character. Perfection is overrated.

Here’s a little secret: Sometimes, all that doing, planning, and prepping bring you joy. I LOVE cooking for my family when they come into town, breakfast casseroles, cakes, cheese balls, and cookies. I love finding new recipes, getting up early the days before the holiday, and hustling around the kitchen. Just like my Mom loves being Mrs. Christmas. All that work brings her joy. There is a fine line between feeling joyful and feeling overwhelmed.

When you stop enjoying what you are doing – when you are frustrated, angry, or demanding – then it is time to ask yourself, why am I doing this? One of my favorite questions to ask myself (especially around the holiday season) is: Will this matter one year from now? Will I remember? And more importantly, will anyone around me remember?

It is a powerful question that I saw play out first hand at Thanksgiving last year. We had spent Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle the year before, and it was a wonderful feast. I remember lots of laughter and delicious food.

So I was surprised when my aunt was going over the menu for Thanksgiving, and she quickly said, “And the stuffing WON’T be dry this year! I promise.”

My husband looked at me and said, “Do you remember the stuffing being dry?”

And I laughed and said, “I don’t even remember the stuffing!!”

My aunt looked at us puzzled and then started laughing. Yep, she had spent the past 12 months beating herself up about something that none of us remembered. Her Monger was hammering her for something that only mattered to her.

When it comes to last year, I remember feeling connected, peaceful, and joyous. I don’t remember the stuffing.

Keep this in mind when your start pushing, hustling, and stressing over the holidays.

If I asked you how do you want your holidays to feel? I bet you would say something like peaceful, happy, and jolly. But too often, we allow our HFA to take over, and the holiday becomes about drama, stress, and exhaustion.

There is one last thing that I want to cover, and I will make this quick.

It is ok to say No.

You DO NOT have to say yes to every invite. Parties, festivities, and merrymaking – pick and choose. Say yes to the activities that you will enjoy and say no to the activities that will drain you. You don’t have to say yes to everything.

AND let’s be real– there are going to be events that you have to say yes to even though you don’t want to go. Because of this, energy management is key. For those “obligation” events, make sure you have a plan to manage your energy. Maybe you and your spouse drive separately so you can go late or leave early. Have a sign with your partner or co-worker so you can quietly let them know when you are stuck or overwhelmed. Take regular breaks. Go outside to get some air, head to the bathroom, etc.

Energy Management is also key if you are looking forward to an event. You want to have enough energy to enjoy yourself. You don’t want to be tired and cranky for your favorite holiday gathering. Often we get so caught up in our to-do list we forget to enjoy the fun parts of the holidays. Remember to make sure that you are taking the time to look up from your holiday expectations and planning to actually enjoy the holiday. That is one thing my Mom taught me– as hard as she works to do a fantastic magical Christmas, she soaks up every minute of the holiday, too. Her HFA can run the show, but it doesn’t get in the way of her celebrating the holidays.

Finally please don’t forget the most important part of the holidays. Kindness. Kindness to yourself. Kindness to others. We are all human beings with our own doubts, insecurities, and fears.

---

Episode 108: Why Shame Is At The Root Of High Functioning Anxiety

Shame is at the root of all anxiety. The more you can start building resilience around your shame, the more you can heal your High Functioning Anxiety.

Shame is at the root of all anxiety.

Everyone who struggles with anxiety has an underlying belief that they are unworthy, unqualified, a fraud. This belief causes them to worry and anxiously ruminate over feelings of shame and unworthiness. 

We expect people with generalized anxiety, the kind of anxiety we've come to know through TV and memes – hiding out, not engaging, numbing – to respond to these feelings by disappearing into themselves. This reaction is triggered by their shame.

But not you. High Functioning Anxiety sends you down a different path.  

No, your response is to over function. Your High Functioning Anxiety has you convinced that the way through the shame is to push yourself more, to accomplish more, to people please, hustle, and polish it all to perfection. All of this in the hope that you can relieve the feelings of shame and anxiety. 

This month on The Happier Approach we’ve been talking about how High Functioning Anxiety plays out in your everyday life. And no conversation about High Functioning Anxiety would be complete without talking about shame. 

Listen to today’s episode to learn:

• How shame plays out in the everyday lives of people with High Functioning Anxiety

• What the difference is between shame and guilt

• How to know when you are acting out of shame by learning to identify Three Strategies of Disconnection:

  • Moving away from your shame

  • Moving against your shame

  • And moving toward your shame

• And practical approaches to building shame resilience

  • Acknowledge the shame and ask for real empathy for what you are feeling

  • Give yourself kindness and compassion around your feelings

  • And start paying attention to your rules and then lovingly remind yourself to let it go

References & Resources:

• Psychologist Linda Hartling’s Strategy of Disconnection.

• Brene Brown Daring Way

• Her video on empathy

• And my book The Happier Approach

+ Read the Transcript

“Maybe you shouldn’t have shared that information about your Dad, I mean, the only thing people who are sick have control over is when they share the information.” And with that sentence, a fellow counselor sent me into one of the biggest shame spirals of my life.

I had just shared with my small group at a conference that after getting approval from my Mom, I had written a blog post about my Dad’s dementia in order to educate people on the horror of dementia. Afterward, this counselor pulled me aside to share with me her thoughts on my behavior.

What happened next was ugly, I immediately smiled and said, “Thanks, you are right. Maybe I shouldn’t have shared my dad’s health on my blog.” and she nodded at me knowingly. As we returned to the main conference. I thought, what just happened!? Why am I thanking her for calling me out on something that is none of her business?!?!

“You’re listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I’m your host, Nancy Jane Smith.”

This month we are talking about High Functioning Anxiety and how to see it playing out in your everyday life. No conversation about High Functioning Anxiety would be complete without talking about Shame, Shame is at the root of anxiety.

I spent the next few days of the conference in a huge shame spiral, obsessing about my Dad, worrying that I had betrayed him. I was ruminating about my qualifications as a counselor, daughter, and caregiver! That one conversation turned me into an anxious mess.

All of the symptoms I talked about last episode came out in full force. I spent the rest of the conference over-performing, trying to prove to myself and everyone else that I was a capable counselor I took tons of notes and attended every session.

I called my parents multiple times to check in and made sure I was a loving, kind daughter. I laid awake each night, playing and re-playing the initial confrontation and my thought process behind writing about my Dad. Why did I do that? That was so stupid, I told myself over and over again. Each night rather than being social with the other attendees, I hid out in my room, numbing on movies and room service.

Shame is at the root of all anxiety.

Here’s how it works:

You have the underlying belief you are an unworthy, unqualified, fraud and that causes you to have anxiety to worry and over ruminate about the shame and feelings of unworthiness.

And then high functioning anxiety sends you down a different path. What we expect with generalized anxiety, the kind we’ve come to know through TV and memes, is hiding out, not engaging, and numbing. Anxious people disappear into themselves--and shame is often the trigger that pushes them there.

But not you.

No, your response is to OVER function. Your High Functioning Anxiety has convinced you that the way through the shame is to push yourself more, to accomplish more, to people please, hustle, and polish it all to perfection. ALL in the hope that you can relieve the feelings of shame and anxiety. You think things like “I will show them” or “Who is SHE to judge me? I will own her one day.” or “she won’t be saying those things when I have achieved ____ (hello when-then syndrome) as opposed to Generalized anxiety where the response is to protect yourself by using the coping mechanisms of hiding out, not engaging and numbing.

This mix of shame and high functioning anxiety is why all the attempts to stop people-pleasing or stop being a perfectionist don’t work UNLESS you start dealing with the shame and anxiety. That is not to say that all people who engage in people-pleasing and perfectionism have HFA, but I want to make the point that if your attempts to loosen up your people-pleasing and perfectionism haven’t worked, it might be a deeper problem.

So what is shame? I think a great way to define shame is to clear up the difference between shame and guilt. Frequently clients will say to me, I have a lot of guilt, but what they really mean is shame.

As Brené Brown explains so well, guilt is I DID something bad where Shame is, I am Bad.

The beauty of guilt is that you can rectify it. If I did something bad, I can apologize, fix it, make amends change the behavior, etc. Let’s say You forget to pick up your husband’s prescription at the store. When you get home, he asks where it is, and you immediately feel guilty, so say, “Oh, I totally forgot to get it! I am sorry, I can head out after we eat and pick it up.” You did something bad. You apologize, you make it right.

As opposed to shame, there is nothing you can do to fix it because YOU as a person are flawed. Your response is, “I am such an idiot! I can’t believe I forgot it, let me head out right now and get it.” You miss family dinner because you are out picking up the script and drive like a maniac because you are so full of anxiety as your inner dialogue keeps playing what a terrible forgetful loser you are and how you HAVE to get better organized.

Frequently we take an action that we did wrong and turn it into the fact that who we as a person is wrong and rather than simply apologizing for an honest human mistake, it becomes a shame spiral about how irresponsible you are.

Another example, you forget a meeting at work. You forgot to put it on your calendar, again honest human mistake. You feel guilty, you go to your boss you apologize you ask how can you make it up or what did you miss, you have a good conversation you move on. With shame you spend the whole day in your office and beating yourself up for missing the meeting because that means you are a terrible employee and then your anxiety steps in to tell you that you will probably get fired.

To avoid shame, we often opt for a “strategy of disconnection.”. Psychologist Linda Hartling (2000) identifies three such “strategies,”

The first strategy of disconnection is Moving Away

This involves withdrawal hiding, silence and secrecy

You work really hard on a project at work only for it to be met with a wondrous thud. So you Grab your pint of ice cream and head for the couch and a Netflix binge.

Common thoughts “I am a failure, I am never going to succeed, I should just give up now”

The second strategy of disconnection is moving Against

Which involves becoming aggressive (yep, even passive aggressive), trying to humiliate someone else and being judgmental.

A fellow Mom calls you out for missing 2 volunteer days in a row. As she walks away, you think, “Who do you think you are to tell me THAT” “Look at what she is wearing today, and she is going to criticize me!?!” Next time you see her, you mention how easy it must be to be a “non-working Mom.”

The third strategy of disconnection is moving towards

Which involves people-pleasing trying to earn connection again. This is what I did when the woman at the conference called me out for sharing my Dad’s illness. This one was the most challenging for me to understand, and ironically it is my go-to. I think because it seems so counterintuitive, and yet I see it all the time in my office. People who say nasty things to my clients and they turn around and try to make them LIKE them more.

What I love about knowing these ways of disconnection is they help me recognize when I am acting out of a place of shame. So when I notice myself talking about someone or worrying about getting someone to like me or hitting the “yes I am still watching” button on Netflix, I know to check in with myself and see if shame is showing up.

Because shame is so tied to anxiety, what can you do about it?

The first step you will always hear me say is Acknowledge it. Acknowledging is just so important because it is something we do not do. Especially people with HFA, we have become masters of ignoring, denying, moving on to the next thing. So we engage in one of the shame defenses and push even harder to prove ourselves. The problem with this ignoring (other than the obvious) is that it keeps you stuck in unhealthy coping skills you. BUT when you can acknowledge it, you can do something about it. You can start shifting the belief that you are unworthy and broken and start recognizing you are human, and sometimes being human is HARD, but that doesn’t mean you are broken or unworthy.

And then Be kind to yourself, another one you hear me say all the time also because we don’t do it, and it is totally counter-intuitive to us.

I have a funny story about that, in 2014, I became certified in Brene Brown’s Daring Way, which is her methodology to build shame resilience. According to Brené there are 2 ways to combat shame

1. Empathy. Seeking out people who can relate to you and give you real empathy. If you haven’t watched her Video on Empathy I HIGHLY recommend it and even if you have, I highly recommend a re-watch just to refresh you.

2. Self-Compassion. Being kind to yourself, giving yourself some grace and love.

   I walked away from that certification training and had spun it to be 70% Empathy and 30% self-compassion. So, I went back to my office and started doing groups around The Daring Way and I would teach people to seek out empathy talk to others, get support etc. And then my clients who attended the groups would come back to me and say it just isn’t working. They would say, “I talked to a bunch of people who were empathetic, and I still feel consumed with shame.” Then I saw Brené Brown in an interview with Kristen Neff, who is a leading expert on Self-Compassion and Brené said “I struggle with self-compassion”, And I realized man I do too. And then it hit me, “oh my I took Brené’s unconscious bias about self-compassion and applied MY bias about self-compassion and poured that on my clients who also had a bias against self-compassion and the result was teaching them that empathy was more important than self-compassion. When in reality, empathy was just easier (for US!) than self-compassion. People with HFA can find other that support them and give them understanding what they Struggle to do is support themselves.

   The truth is you can line up 10 people who genuinely believe you are a kind, gentle good person who can talk you down from a shame spiral and you feel great for 5 minutes after but if YOU can’t give yourself kindness it goes nowhere. You end up repeatedly telling the story about how much you suck and what a terrible parent you are, you receive support and then BAM you feel crappy 10 minutes later. So you go back out into the world and tell the story AGAIN and the pattern happens over and over.

The problem is 2 fold, because people with HFA struggle so much with their emotions they tell the story as if it were a news report. “This person did me wrong, I feel crappy” and your friend chimes in with “yes they are terrible what an awful person, you are awesome forget about them.” So your friend isn’t really giving you empathy about how you are feeling and what you are experiencing she is giving you support around your news report.

What is missing is the actual feelings and emotions behind the story, “I feel defeated, miserable, sad and completely unworthy. This interaction has rocked me to my core.”

And secondly, Empathy without self-compassion doesn’t solve the problem. You HAVE to be kind to yourself and give yourself some love.

When I was in a shame spiral during the conference I told everyone I could about this terrible woman who shamed me but I never acknowledge how much it really HURT me. How it did rock me to the core how it did question whether I was a good daughter and therapist. Now common wisdom is to say, ‘Stop thinking that way you are giving her your power, why are you allowing her to take up space in your brain.” Which is a true statement but that statement doesn’t work until AFTER you acknowledge your feelings. AFTER you drop into your body and say wow that really hurt. I feel sad about that and just allow yourself to feel it. THEN you can say is there an action I need to take (this goes back to the idea of guilt vs shame, sometimes you did do something wrong and you need to make amends), do I need to talk with my Dad about this situation? Now for me this was more complicated because my Dad had dementia so checking with him about sharing his story was impossible but I did check with my Mom again and we had a conversation about it. And finally you can say ok time to move on, I need to stop giving her my power. And as a heads up you might need to repeat this process, acknowledge the feelings, give yourself some love, tell yourself time to move on.

In addition to empathy and compassion another idea is to start paying attention to your ‘good person rules’ People with HFA have a lot of Good person rules

These are usually super rigid and when you really look at them, they are a little silly

Such as “A good Mom is always willing to play with their child.”

A good spouse goes to bed when their partner is ready.

A good Mom makes dinner every night.

A good friend texts back right away.

A good worker always says yes.

Start paying attention to your rules and start to loosen them up a bit. Ask yourself is this rule valid? Honestly, sometimes we have a hard time deciding if these rules are valid or not. So it is helpful to check in with your partner/child/co-worker and verify the rule…I will often say to my husband I notice this silly rule that a good wife always makes dinner and he will usually look at me with wide eyes saying No not my rule at all. Hearing that from him starts loosening the rule and then next time when I hear it I can kindly say to myself, No sweet pea, that is not valid, let it go.

Shame is at the root of HFA so the more you can start building resilience around your shame the more you can heal your HFA. Acknowledging the shame, Asking for real empathy of what you are FEELING, giving yourself kindness around your feelings, and THEN lovingly reminding yourself to let it go is the key.

---

Episode 107: Recognizing The Signs Of High Functioning Anxiety

In our podcast this week I talk about how to spot high functioning anxiety symptoms and some ways to address them that may benefit you and your mental health.

In our podcast this week I talk about how to spot high functioning anxiety symptoms and some ways to address them that may benefit you and your mental health. As a mental health coach, I have talked openly about my own experience with high functioning anxiety and how I came to understand it.

Even as an anxiety coach, I still find myself wrestling with the signs of high anxiety and how to navigate my way through it. That’s why in this podcast I break down everything you need to know the signs and symptoms of high functioning anxiety and how it plays a role in our everyday lives. While similar, high functioning anxiety isn’t the same as classic anxiety so let’s explore it a bit more by looking at the symptoms that can help you define your anxieties.

Top High Functioning Anxiety Symptom: Outward Perfection, Inward Anxiety

On the outside, you appear to be the most “with it” woman anyone is ever going to meet–calm, cool, and collected. But on the inside, you are an over-analyzing storm of self-doubt, stress, and anxiety. 

Those of us with high functioning anxiety have developed coping skills and have become so good at hiding our anxiety, even our friends and family would never guess what lay under the surface. 

But these coping skills have left us feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and still full of anxiety. And what makes it worse, everyone around us sees us as being able to handle anything and just keeps piling on more and more. 

The 10 Symptoms of High Functioning Anxiety

The truth is, high functioning anxiety is more than just feeling anxious. Which means that coping with it can seem like a challenge. The truth is it starts with recognizing when your high functioning anxiety is running the show. 

Once we start learning to recognize the signs of high functioning anxiety and developing the coping skills to deal with our anxiety, we can start calming the storm and finding the ease that we are looking for. 

Symptoms of high functioning anxiety include:

• Procrastination

• Seeking constant reassurance, AKA Praise me, please!

• Control freak

• Busy busy busy

• Lots of negative self-talk

• Fear of letting people down

• Lack of sleep

• Numbing

• Physical symptoms

• Everything is “fine!”

Do these sound familiar? If you’ve been living with mental health anxiety or HFA your whole life these feelings may not seem unusual to you. In fact, you may have defaulted to believing you need to push harder before you find some type of relief from your anxiety.

“Our HFA becomes a double edged sword. On one hand, we have anxiety, a very real condition of overthinking, over-analyzing and constantly doubting ourselves, which is totally exhausting. And then on the other hand, the coping mechanism of choice is pushing, doing, achieving, which causes us to feel totally exhausted.”

Tips On Coping With HFA 

So what should you actually do about it? Even as an anxiety specialist, I have to remind myself of these 

• Be kind to yourself. Remind yourself that you are human and that this doesn’t mean that you are broken or flawed

• Be curious about how you are feeling and make checking in with yourself a habit

• Make the time throughout the day to regularly get out of your head and into your body

• Sometimes I have to remind myself to stop and check in with my feelings of anxiety or worry and fear. Simply acknowledging my mental state and how I am feeling helps me cope.

Sometimes I have to remind myself to stop and check in with my feelings of anxiety or worry and fear. Simply acknowledging my mental state and how I am feeling helps me cope. 

References & Resources:

• The Feeling List PDF

• The DSM

• My book The Happier Approach

• Learn more about working with me through on-demand anxiety coaching!

+ Read the Transcript

On the outside, you look totally on top of it. You're a spouse daughter, sister, friend, employee, and volunteer. You can multitask like a boss and you appear, confident, driven, professional, successful, and responsible. Yet on the inside, you overanalyze every conversation and interaction you have. You believe there is a right way. And if you think hard enough, you'll find it. You feel the need to over clarify everything out of fear you'll be misunderstood and start a conflict. You worry about how other people feel even when it's to your detriment. You constantly stress about what others think of you and you know one day they will find out you're a fraud. You say you're sorry for everything, and you're way too over forgiving. You find yourself taking the blame for others to spare their feelings. And you hustle hard so no one will see this version of you. Those of us with high functioning anxiety live double lives. The outside version, capable, on top of it. And the inside version, stressed, worried, and over analyzing.

You're listening to The Happier Approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith. All this month, we are talking specifically about high functioning anxiety and how to see it playing out in your everyday life. The challenge of high functioning anxiety is that from an early age, we learn the way to deal with our anxiety is to overachieve. The more we're doing, the more people depend on us, the more praise we receive, the less anxiety we feel. Over time, this push for praise, accomplishment, and achieving becomes addicting. And we find ourselves doing more and more without the anxiety relief that it once brought us. Our HFA becomes a double edged sword. On one hand, we have anxiety, a very real condition of overthinking, over-analyzing and constantly doubting ourselves, which is totally exhausting. And then on the other hand, the coping mechanism of choice is pushing, doing, achieving, which causes us to feel totally exhausted.

The coping mechanism that used to help is now hurting us, but we feel we can't stop it because it's all we know. It starts with recognizing when your HFA is running the show. High functioning anxiety is so normalized if not rewarded in our culture. In this episode, we're talking about the signs of HFA, because when we can recognize the signs, we can start developing new coping skills to deal with our anxiety. First, let me start by saying high functioning anxiety is not a diagnosable disorder. The usual symptoms of anxiety are present for those living with high functioning anxiety, including catastrophic thinking, excessive worry and irritability. As I shared at the beginning of the episode, people might experience racing thoughts, feeling restless, and an overwhelming sense that they're never doing enough. But according to the DSM, people with anxiety have clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Meaning that their anxiety holds them back from doing things. They often want to hide out, avoid activities or say no frequently. But those of us with HFA, we have the opposite reaction to our anxiety.

We have the desire to achieve more as a way to manage our fears and doubts. So when others see us, they perceive us as an achievement-oriented perfectionist and highly motivated. We're so good at hiding our anxiety, even our friends and family would never guess that our behaviors are because of our anxiety. HFA can be a very lonely place to be. You develop coping skills to deal with your anxiety, but those coping skills leave you feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and still full of anxiety. And to make it worse, everyone around you sees you as high functioning and keeps piling on because they perceive you as being able to handle anything. So today, I want to talk about the 10 symptoms of high functioning anxiety so you can start to recognize them. The first one, my personal favorite, is procrastination. True confession, I'm a master procrastinator. In fact, I cleaned my whole office yesterday rather than write this podcast episode. Procrastination goes arm-in-arm with perfectionism, which is another big sign of high functioning anxiety.

We procrastinate because we're so worried about making it perfect, which is what was so frustrating when I was trying to write this podcast episode. Because I love talking about high functioning anxiety, I love helping people with high functioning anxiety. I am passionate about helping people with this condition because it's so debilitating. And I love doing my podcast, it's one of the favorite parts of my job. And yet here I am procrastinating about something I really want to do. That procrastination is directly linked to my anxiety telling me it has to be perfect. Because I care so much about this topic and my podcast, I convince myself there's no room for error. If I procrastinate until the last minute, then I can blame the imperfections on the deadline. "I ran out of time. That's why it isn't perfect." Does that sound crazy or what? Faulty logic for sure, but those of us with HFA frequently play with faulty logic and try to gain the system to prevent our anxiety from rearing its ugly head. Number two, you seek constant reassurance, aka, "Praise me, please."

People with high functioning anxiety love praise. Praise keeps the anxiety at bay. As anxiety and worry grow, we can lose sight of those thoughts being irrational and unrealistic. In order to try to calm those thoughts, we need constant reassurance from those around us. So we seek out praise. We do things that will earn us praise. We are the first to say, "Yes, of course. I can do that." The more responsible we are, the more praise we get. And the more praise we get, the less we worry and doubt that we are okay, that our thoughts are irrational or unrealistic. At least, that's what we tell ourselves. Again, back to that faulty logic. Number three, being a control freak. Being called a control freak is common for people with high functioning anxiety. By controlling the environment, the people and situations around us, we are controlling our anxiety. One of the ways that many people I know who have high functioning anxiety game the system and make their anxiety work for them is as party planners, they know how to host a party. Yip, that is totally counterintuitive.

Why would someone with a high need for perfection and a lot of self-doubt want to host a party? By hosting a party, they can control the situation, the people, the environment, the timing. Hosting can decrease some of the anxiety that comes with parties and it's also one of those behaviors that masks our anxiety. Because we're so good at hosting, no one would know we're dealing with anxiety the whole night. And talk about a lot of praise, when we host a good party, we get lots and lots of praise. Number four, busy, busy, busy. The busier you are, the more you can avoid the anxious negative thoughts. My clients are some of the busiest people I know. This busy is more than having too much on your plate, this busy is a deep seeded need to keep pushing, keep doing. It is a sense of trying to outrun all your doubts and insecurities by pushing yourself as hard as possible and getting as much praise as possible. Ironically, people with high functioning anxiety frequently say to me, "I just want some time to relax. Some free time to do nothing."

But when they get that time, inevitably their anxiety consumes them so they fill it up as quickly as possible with stuff. A great example of this is when you're in the car alone and finally have a chance to relax, listen to your favorite music and chill. But people with high functioning anxiety fill this time with educational podcasts or news. And the estimated arrival time on the GPS becomes the time to beat. They turn it into a competition, challenging themselves to beat the GPS arrival time as if there will be a team of cheerleaders giving you praise when you arrived three minutes before your GPS says you will. Number five, you experience a lot of negative self-talk. Negative self-talk is at the root of high functioning anxiety. Everyone has a monger, that negative inner critic. But people with HFA have a cruel unrelenting manipulative monger. When I was doing my book tour for The Happier Approach, I realized that some people had an annoying voice that was critical at times. But those HFA have a voice that never stops.

Our monger is like wearing a straight jacket, keeping us stuck in black and white thinking and afraid to engage in our lives for fear of doing it wrong and being hammered. Many of the behaviors I describe, procrastination, busy, busy, busy, being a control freak, are all the ways we cope with our very loud mongers. Number six, one of your biggest fears is letting people down. The fear of disappointing someone, making a mistake, or worse, hurting someone without realizing it can be crippling for those with high functioning anxiety. The push towards overachieving comes from a need for appreciation and love. And we feel, or as that evil monger tells us, that appreciation and love only come if we earn it. So we are constantly vigilant about what other people think about us. Ever spent the evening obsessing when someone doesn't reply to your text message, assuming it's because they're mad at you? Yip. That is high functioning anxiety rearing its ugly head. Number seven, lack of sleep, aka, rewinding, replaying and over-analyzing. People with HFA usually have insomnia.

Falling asleep isn't a problem, but inevitably you'll wake up at 3:00 AM spinning out about a recent conversation, your to-do list, or worrying about an upcoming project. People with HFA are master analyzers. They replay, rewind, and overanalyze just about everything. No matter how well a conversation went with somebody, you'll always replay that conversation in your head fearing that you may have said something wrong. Replaying, rewinding over and over making sure you didn't mess up. Because with HFA, we fear people finding out that we are full of doubt and insecurity. Number eight, numbing. People with high functioning anxiety are masters at numbing. Alcohol, food, shopping, social media, phone apps, TV, exercise, anything that will shut off our brains and bring us some quiet. Often, the only way we can do that is through numbing. This is another one of those symptoms that feels like it's helping but in reality, it's hurting us. Numbing actually makes our anxiety worse. When we overspend, overeat, over-drink. Or overindulge, it often causes a boomerang effect of more anxiety. Number nine, physical symptoms.

Another way that HFA is different from regular anxiety, rarely does someone with high functioning anxiety experience a full blown panic attack. They might feel overwhelmed, hyper stressed or anxious, but the pain and "feel like I'm going to die" sensations that comes for a panic attack, they don't appear very frequently. But that doesn't mean you don't have physical symptoms. In addition to the lack of sleep, there is indigestion, high blood pressure, irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, and backaches. People with high functioning anxiety tend to think these symptoms are normal or just the price of doing business. But these are our body's way of sending us signals that our anxiety is out of control and we need to make some changes. Recognizing these symptoms can be challenging because we live so much in our heads sometimes forgetting that we even have a body until it's screaming at us so loudly that we end up with raging headaches or severe IBS. Number 10, "Fine. Fine. Everything's fine." People with high functioning anxiety tend to be very even keel, at least on the outside.

"Never let them see you sweat" is a mantra that you believe to the depth of your soul. They pride themselves on having it all together, being peoples go-to person, and always being able to say yes. Negative emotions, sadness, fear, doubt, anger, well, those feelings, they're just not acceptable. So people with high functioning anxiety develop a tendency to not only ignore their bodies, but they also ignore their emotions. They concentrate so much on the outside world, keeping other people happy, earning praise, accomplishing and doing that they have no relationship with their internal world. They've stopped listening to themselves and they've lost any sense of loyalty to themselves. People with high functioning anxiety are some of the most loyal people you will ever meet. They will go to the ends of the earth for their loved ones and anyone on their inner circle, but often at the expense of their own health. Okay. So you've listened to all the symptoms and you're like, "Yes, that's totally me. Okay. So what do I do about it?" Here are some of my tips. When you notice any of these symptoms, be kind to yourself. Be kind to yourself.

Remind yourself you are human and anxiety is something you're dealing with as a human. It doesn't mean you're weak or broken, it means you have a tendency to see the world through an anxious lens. That's it. Be kind. Be curious. Randomly throughout the day, ask yourself, "How am I feeling right now?" I will include a feelings list in the show notes, but you don't have to do anything with that feeling. Just start acknowledging that it exists, that's what's important. Notice you have a body. Again, randomly throughout the day, get into your body. Set reminders on your phone to do a full body stretch, or engage in the five senses meditation. Take a few minutes to go through each of your senses, "What am I feeling? Seeing? Hearing? Tasting? Smelling?" I love this meditation and I don't really like meditations, but I love this one because you can do it with your eyes open just about anywhere. And it immediately brings you into your body. Also, when you're in the bathroom, actually look in the mirror. So often we don't really see ourselves in the mirror.

I will say silently to myself, "Hey there, sweet pea. How's it going today?" That simple act of acknowledging my humanness is so healing. Simply noticing as I did yesterday, that my coping skill of procrastination isn't helping the situation and lovingly encourage myself to buckle down and get to work helps decrease the effects of the anxiety. High functioning anxiety can be controlled. It involves noticing when you're living from a place of anxiety and slowly bringing yourself back into your body. Yes, I know it's completely counterintuitive to what your body is telling you to do. But trust me, it works.

---

Episode 106: The Benefits Of High Functioning Anxiety Are Destroying You

The benefits of High Functioning Anxiety are the things you’ve accomplished, the accolades you’ve won, and the praise you receive from the outside world for being so with it. While we appear to have everything under control at the end of the day, what we really crave––a sense of calm and ease––is still painfully out of reach. 

To your family, friends, and coworkers, you’re the one who always has it together.  You look out for all the details, attend all the meetings, make sure the bills get paid and plan the next vacation to Disney.

On the inside, you’re wondering if you're the only one who cares or is even capable of getting things done. 

If you don't do this, no one else will. 

Everything you have, you have because you were willing to be the one who went the extra mile. 

Except...

Living and thinking this way isn't sustainable. This level of control and anxiety is negatively affecting your relationships and your health, both mentally and physically.

And it doesn't have to be this way. 

Yes, we are the ones taking care of business and yes on the outside, those of us with High Functioning Anxiety appear calm, focused, and on top of it. 

But this isn’t what’s going on inside. Inside we are stressed, angry, and resentful that no one else cares as much as we do.

The challenge is that we are hooked. The benefits of High Functioning Anxiety are the things you’ve accomplished, the accolades you’ve won, and the praise you receive from the outside world for being so with it. We live off of this. 

This can’t last. While we appear to have everything under control at the end of the day, what we really crave––a sense of calm and ease––is still painfully out of reach. 

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• Making time to center ourselves so we are prepared for the chaos of the day

• Creating boundaries so that work doesn’t encroach upon our personal lives

• How to slow down and be present so we can more thoroughly engage and enjoy our daily lives

• A.S.K.:

  • Acknowledging what you are feeling

  • Slowing down and getting into your body

  • And Kindly pulling back to see the bigger picture

• And how learning to know our values and live with intention while being kind to ourselves can help our anxiety from taking over.

+ Read the Transcript

But I get so much done. The more stressed I am, the more productive I am.

I don’t want to let anyone down. They are counting on me.

Those are all common phrases of people with High Functioning Anxiety. The challenge with HFA is the benefits, the praise you receive from the outside world for being so together and accomplishing so much.

“You’re listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I’m your host, Nancy Jane Smith.”

Today, I want to share the day in the life of Abby.

Hi, I’m Abby!

Abby deals with High Functioning Anxiety. To the outside world, she looks and behaves very differently than her internal world. We will get to see both her inside and outside world.

My alarm goes off at 5am. It was not a good night’s sleep--I kept running through my to-do list and figuring out how I’m going to tackle it all.

I throw on the workout clothes that I laid out last night. I hop on the treadmill and let the news blather on in my earbuds while my brain continues to work through my to-do list--the project at work, my youngest’s upcoming birthday, and--of course--Thanksgiving right around the corner.

Meanwhile, Abby surprises her with some much-needed coffee--but instead of being grateful, she’s just startled.

Ack! You scared me!

He mumbles something about never being able to win and leaves the room. After a quick post-run shower, she’s in the kitchen, helping the kids prepare their breakfast and lunches. The usual morning chaos:

I help my kids with some last-minute prep for tests, make sure backpacks are organized and sign some permission slips. But I can barely concentrate on the task at hand because I’m also worrying about the conversation I have to have with an employee today.

Her oldest is complaining of stomach pains and is spinning out about her Spanish test at school. She asked Abby to check her homework 3 times last night and is constantly worrying about being perfect. Abby can see herself in her daughter and adds that to her list of worries, passing on her own anxiety.

They all pile into the car, she drops the kids off at school, and then Abby heads to work.

Like usual, I’m the first to arrive at the office, so I head straight to the break room and start the office coffeemaker so I can start in on my second pot for the day.

She doesn’t know how she would do it without coffee. Abby’s boss walks by her office and compliments her on her drive, and asks if she has time for a last-minute meeting.

“Of course!”

Abby says with a smile, she can move some stuff around to make it work. And then she remembers…

I have to leave on time today or I won’t make it to my son’s soccer game and I promised him I would be there.

Her head starts pounding and she slugs down some aspirin and dives into her email. She chases the aspirin with coffee and a couple of antacids for good measure. It is such a catch-22 she needs the coffee after being up most of the night but her stomach is killing her!

At lunch, Abby is so nervous about her conversation with Sarah that she eats 3 pieces of pizza and 2 donuts. Now her stomach is even more upset! She calls Sarah into her office and worries that Sarah will think she is a raving Bitch for talking to her.

Hey, Sarah--I noticed some balls got dropped this week. I know stuff happens but the truth is that these mistakes have been impacting the other people on the team.

Sarah explains all that she has going on and that she is so overwhelmed and Abby gives her some strategies for planning her time better. Sarah leaves the office smiling and Abby hopes it helps her performance in the future--but at the same time, she can’t help worrying that Sarah really didn’t understand the seriousness of her lack of performance..

After Sarah leaves, it takes Abby almost 2 hours to focus on work because she just keeps replaying the conversation over and over.

The last-minute meeting with Abby’s boss goes long and Abby is going to have to take work home if she wants to make it to the soccer game. Her boss apologizes, but Abby is quick to reply:

“No problem, thanks for including me! I am excited about this new project!”

On the way to the soccer game, Abby is driving like a crazy person. She curses out the person in front of her for going too slow and lays on the horn if they are a second slow at the light. She makes it 3 minutes ahead of her GPS. At the soccer game, mentally she spends the time re-hashing the meeting with her boss:

Why did I agree to that new project!? When is am I going to have the time for that?!?

After the game, Sandy reminds Abby that her husband signed up to bring the snacks to the Saturday tournament.

“Sure thing! No problem!”

As soon as she gets in the car she calls her husband to yell at him for agreeing to bring snacks, it is the youngest’s birthday on Saturday!!

“We don’t have time to juggle all of this!!!”

At home it is after 7 pm Abby heats up leftovers…

Thank god for leftovers!

...and calls the kids down to eat. They share their day, and the kids head back to their rooms to wrap up homework. Abby and her husband head to the TV room to enjoy a glass of wine and relax.

Abby’s daughter breaks out into tears she is so stressed about her Spanish test and keeps obsessing over every answer. Abby helps her with some breathing techniques she learned and tries to calm her as best she can. Abby can so relate to her daughter.

I hate seeing the pain in her eyes. I hate how stressed out she is all the time. I just want her to be able to relax.

As Abby and her husband settle in to relax, Abby fills her wine glass for the 3rd time and pulls out her computer. Really, her husband sighs, this is the 3rd night in a row you have worked.

“I know… I hate it but I have to get this report done before next week and I am so behind. I promise I will be 100% focused on family this weekend.”

Abby turns out the lights and checks on all the kids before she crawls into bed next to her husband. It has been a long day but she is grateful for her life.

Abby is a little more buzzed than she wants to be, but lately, unless she is drinking she can’t fall asleep her brain is just too active. She crawls into bed and wills herself to sleep. She does her usual go through her mental to-do list and writes on the pad next to her all the things she doesn’t want to forget. She takes 3 deep breaths and tries to relax. Hoping sleep will come easier than other nights. Tomorrow she does it all again.

Does any of this sound familiar? High Functioning Anxiety is so challenging because there is an external persona and internal anxiety. HFA is more than just being busy or keeping up appearances. HFA is a constant worry, pushing of yourself to do more, achieve more and be the best. On the outside you appear calm, focused, on top of it and on the inside (and to those who know you) you are stressed, angry, dealing with headaches, stomach aches and a constant feeling of dread.

Let’s run through Abby’s story one more time with strategies in place to deal with her HFA.

The alarm goes off at 5:00 am Abby jumps out of bed. As her feet hit the floor she does a quick stretch and takes 3 deep breaths, she is trying to ease into her day. As she hops on the treadmill she puts on a show she loves and reminds herself:

This is my time.

As her mind keeps jumping to her to-do list she brings it back to the present. When her husband surprises her with coffee, she is startled but then starts to laugh...

Oh coffee! Thank you so much!

…She startles so easy and how cool that he brought her coffee, she gives him a kiss and he heads back upstairs to wake the kids.

Abby feels the water on her and smells the soap in the shower. She runs through her to-do list and reminds herself to do one task at a time. She gets caught up in the morning chaos but is able to settle herself in the car on the way to work singing along to her favorite song.

At work, Abby makes the coffee but decides to skip it for herself. Abby’s boss walks by her office and compliments her on her drive and asks if she has time for a last-minute meeting:

“Of course! But I might have to leave early for my son’s soccer game.”

No problem he says.

At lunch, Abby goes for a walk around the block and picks up her favorite sandwich. She sits in the park near her work and makes a plan for her conversation with Sarah later that day.

I’m feeling anxious and uncomfortable--but that’s okay, it’s normal. I’m going to let myself feel that way--and still rock this conversation.

Before the conversation, Abby does a full-body wiggle to remind herself she has a body, she gets so caught up in her brain! Abby and Sarah make a plan to improve her performance, they set goals and guidelines and agree to meet in 2 weeks to see the progress. After the meeting, Abby gives herself a high five!

PHEW! That went much better than I thought!!

Abby ducks out of the last-minute meeting early:

“Thanks for including me! I’m excited about helping out with this project as I have the capacity--but for now, I’ve got a soccer game to get to!

And she drives to her son’s soccer game. She wants to speed but reminds herself to slow down and take it easy. At the game, she so badly wants to check her phone and catch up on some emails but she keeps herself focused on her son’s game and his 2 goals!. When Sandy, reminds Abby that they are responsible for a snack she asks:

Hey, would it be possible to switch with someone else? My youngest’s birthday party is that day and I want to help--but it’ll be better for everyone if I bring snacks a different day.

Sandy says she will send her an email of the other parents she can ask to switch with.

At home, during dinner, everyone goes around the table and says one thing that went well and one thing that didn’t during the day:

I had to have a tough conversation with a team member today--but it went really well! Those things are never easy but I’m getting more comfortable being uncomfortable.

After dinner, Abby sets the alarm on her phone for 30 minutes she just has some last-minute work to do and she knows if she doesn’t set the alarm it will go on forever. Abby’s daughter comes downstairs in tears she can’t sleep because of her anxiety. Abby encourages her to share what she is feeling and they both get on the floor and do some stretches to get out of their heads and into their bodies.

Remember, nothing is as important as your health. I know we can handle this together whatever happens.

Abby decides she is going to find someone for her daughter to talk to and maybe herself too, this anxiety stuff has gone on too long.

She pours herself a glass of wine (her first for the night) and sits down next to her husband on the couch, he turns off the TV and they share their days. She gives him a hard time for signing up for a snack and he agrees to email the other parents to find someone to switch with. Abby heads up to bed earlier than usual, she is excited to read her new book. She leaves her phone in the kitchen and goes through her bedtime ritual before crawling into bed.

High Functioning Anxiety is something we have to develop coping skills around. These coping skills work best when we practice them throughout the day, not just when we are feeling anxious. I use the acronym ASK to remind myself to Acknowledge what I am feeling, like Abby acknowledged her doubt and insecurity before her meeting with her employee, Slowing down and getting into your body, as Abby slowed herself down repeatedly during the day, stopping the rush rush rush rush, actually feeling the soap and water in the shower, taking a walk at lunch, doing one task at a time taking breaks throughout the day to remind yourself you actually have a body and finally Kindly pull back to see the big picture doing one task at a time taking breaks throughout the day to remind yourself you actually have a body and finally Kindly pull back to see the big picture, recognizing what is most important to you and making decisions around that. As Abby did when she picked her son’s soccer game over the last minute work meeting. Knowing your values and living with intention while being kind to yourself can help our anxiety from taking over.

Anxiety is hard-wired into our systems, and even though it is rewarded by our culture it is NOT healthy. It can do serious damage to our health both mentally and physically.

---

Can you relate to Abby’s secret life?

I want to help you dial back the overwhelm and overthinking with a set of tools designed just for people like you. It’s not woo-woo. It’s not trying to positively think your challenges away. And I’m certainly not going to tell you to start living your best life.

I work one-on-one with women like you to deconstruct why anxiety creeps upon you and give you something to do about it.

Here’s how it works:

First, we meet for an extended 90-minute session to uncover your stories and habits. You know, the ones that keep you stuck.

Then, you continue to work with me on-demand through an app that lets you leave a message for me any time you start to feel anxious or whenever you feel the Monger attack. I’ll get back to you with action steps for moving through the discomfort and finding peace. Plus, you’ll continue to meet with me for monthly sessions, too.

With Coach in Your Pocket, you can contact me whenever your anxiety kicks in and receive feedback and tips. No more fitting in weekly appointments and you receive real-time feedback when you need it--without waiting for your next appointment.

---

Episode 105: How To Stop Checking Boxes And Start Living Life

In today’s episode, I examine how When-Then thinking is keeping us stuck. How it is preventing us from accepting ourselves, living in the moment, and seeking solutions from within.

I didn’t want to experience life–I wanted to master it.

I was too caught up in my goals to enjoy what was right in front of me. I figured that when I checked all the boxes on my goal list, then I would finally be happy:

• WHEN I have a life partner THEN this experience will be awesome

• WHEN I am thinner THEN I will be happier

• WHEN I am less busy THEN life will be more peaceful

• WHEN I am more present THEN I will be content

And because I wasn’t present in the moment, not living in the moment was holding me back  

We live our lives in When Then statements. We spend too much of our time waiting, hoping, wishing for our broken selves to be fixed so THEN we can be happy. 

What if you aren’t doing anything wrong? What if happiness isn’t something you attain permanently? What if you are thinking about it wrong?

All this month we are looking at how self-help isn’t doing us any favors and is leading us astray, particularly those of us with High Functioning Anxiety who love looking outside of ourselves for the answers.

In today’s episode, I examine how When-Then thinking is keeping us stuck. How it is preventing us from accepting ourselves, living in the moment, and seeking solutions from within.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How to start accepting ourselves as we are so we can start living the moment

• How we can have happiness without devaluing the daily experience

• 3 Myths of When-Then thinking

• And recognizing life’s daily opportunities so we can experience life more deeply and fully

Research and resources mentioned:

• Psychologist and researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky

• My books on living with High Functioning Anxiety

• And how you can work with me one-on-one

+ Read the Transcript

"This is so much fun," my said friend said to me as we walked through the Local Arts Fair on an early summer day. The place was buzzing, and it was fun to be out and about. I smiled and nodded. It was a beautiful day, but all I could think was WHEN I have a life partner, THEN this would be awesome.

I spent most of my 20s and 30s living that phrase. No matter what I was doing, it was always WHEN I have a life partner THIS will be better.

I also had other WHEN-THEN's. WHEN I am thinner, more accomplished, less busy, more present, in better shape, THEN I will be happy, peaceful, content, etc. WHEN I get THERE, then I will be happy. But the When I find a partner THEn everything will be better was my catch-all. A life partner was going to be my saving grace. Every problem I had got lumped into not having a life partner.

We live our lives in When Then statements. We spend too much of our time waiting, hoping, wishing for our broken selves to be fixed so THEN we can be happy.

What if you aren't doing anything wrong? What if happiness isn't something you attain permanently? What if you are thinking about it wrong?

"You're listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith."

All this month, we have been talking about the ways the self-help industry keeps those of us with HFA stuck. When-Then thinking is one of the most toxic. The challenge with When Then is that it keeps you from accepting yourself, it keeps you from living in the moment, and most importantly, it keeps you chasing something outside of yourself. People with HFA don't trust themselves. I mean, why would they? Most people with HFA believe most of their personality needs to be fixed. So the When-Then combo is an easy one for them to follow.

It doesn't have to be something as specific as my when I find a life partner. It could be when I get better organized when I have a regular meditation practice when I stop people-pleasing or procrastinating.

When-Then thinking is a trap. AND it is a favorite phrase for those of us with HFA. At our core, we believe we are broken, so part of our identity is the need to improve.

We also love checklists. Tell me what I need to DO to improve, and I will do it. That is the attitude I had for much of my adult life. But then I realized it isn't about WHEN or SOMEDAY it is about who I am now. I have to be kind to this person I am right now not when I check everything off the list or BECOME my dream person.

If you think about it, it is less about who you want to become and more about not liking who you are now. People with HFA are in perpetual motion. So when I say to my clients, what if you are already there? What if this person is who you will be forever? They always look at me disappointed. This is why in episode 101, we talked about Radical Acceptance. Radical Acceptance is key to breaking up with When Then syndrome.

But something else is missing. It is more than just radical acceptance. We need to change the goal.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, psychologist and researcher in the field of happiness and positive psychology suggests that we put too much emphasis on our initial experience. So we believe the when/then mentality and WHEN we are happy, then everything will be blissful and greatly. But happiness never lasts. On the flip side, we believe when something goes wrong, THEN we will be always miserable. So the first myth is the when/then. When I get married--when I have a baby then I will be happy. And the 2nd myth is if we are unhappy, it will last forever. If we get a divorce, make the wrong choice, etc THEN we will be miserable. We get wrapped up in that black and white thinking, clutching like mad to the idea of happiness at any cost.

What if the point isn't happy? What if the point isn't to be content? Or to find peace or anything positive at all?

What if the point of life is to experience it? Experience life and all it's messiness.

As I say that, my whole body exhales.

For too many years, I clutched tightly to the reins of life. I didn't want to experience life I wanted to master it. Winning, doing it right, shifting my attitudes, building my skills that was the goal. Beating my anxiety, conquering my Monger (aka inner critic) were the goals.

We get so caught up in the surface. We miss the depth of life. We concentrate on the happiness of a wedding and the bliss of a honeymoon. We miss the juicy underbelly of the depth that comes when you lean into your spouse and get curious rather than scream and yell at them. Or when the doctor says your spouse has a cancer diagnosis and you lean into him/her and say, "we got this." When you wake up tired and exhausted from minimal sleep due to a sick baby and your spouse hands you a warm cup of coffee, that is happiness. But we miss that because we are so caught up in permanent happiness.

I still default to grabbing the reins, I still default to telling myself when-then but now I know that is a myth. That thinking sends me down a spiral where I miss out on my life.

Now I am going to be honest, this way of living is a bit counter-cultural. Living your life based on experiencing as much as possible rather than chasing happiness goes against all most all the Instagram quotes, self-help advice, and personal growth memes out there, which instruct you HOW to live. Those of us with HFA don't need any more instruction. We are drawn to it like moth's to a flame, but it is counter to what helps.

You don't need more directions coming from outside of yourself, you need to get to know what is going on inside of yourself. It starts with replacing the value of happiness with the value of experience. When you replace the value of happiness, you are no longer drawn to the myths that Sonja discussed. You won't make decisions based on if you will immediately feel happy or unhappy. Instead, you will make decisions based on the opportunity to experience life.

And as far as my life partner, yes I did find one. And he is amazing. AND he definitely isn't the answer to all my problems. He did not fix me. In fact, he brings all his problems issues to the table. If I had one wish it would be to go back to my younger self and say live your life. Partner no partner, it isn't better it is just different. Don't miss what you are doing, thinking that will fix you.

Rather than beating yourself up for never getting married, because happy people are married. You will recognize that life isn't a bunch of check-boxes, life is daily experiences, minute by minute of talking, seeing, soaking up life. There is no when then there is just now. And when we just when-then we miss the depth that comes from truly living. And that depth, isn't guaranteed happy, that depth includes sadness, exhaustion, joy, anger, peace, doubt, fear, bliss, contentment, in one big messy experience

---

It's no secret that I have a bone to pick with the self-help industry. The solutions it sells leave women living with hidden anxiety--women like you--with more stuff to be anxious about. Or worse, it turns you off from getting help completely.

I want to help you dial back the overwhelm and overthinking with a set of tools designed just for people like you. It's not woo-woo. It's not trying to positively think your challenges away. And I'm certainly not going to tell you to start living your best life.

I work one-on-one with women like you to deconstruct why anxiety creeps upon you and give you something to do about it.

Here's how it works:

First, we meet for an extended 90-minute session to uncover your stories and habits. You know, the ones that keep you stuck.

Then, you continue to work with me on-demand through an app that lets you leave a message for me any time you start to feel anxious or whenever you feel the Monger attack. I'll get back to you with action steps for moving through the discomfort and finding peace. Plus, you'll continue to meet with me for monthly sessions, too.

Working with me this way is an incredibly efficient and effective way to deal with your anxiety in the moment--without waiting for your next appointment.

One of my clients said: "It is extremely powerful to have professional advice and wisdom every single day. Being able to get support in real-time on anything you are worrying about or having panic attacks about or things that you struggle with daily has led me to managing my anxiety much better and helped me see what works best for me when I try to manage it. I found that it is just as—if not more—effective as one-on-one sessions."

---

Episode 104: Self-Loyalty Starts With Better Self-Care

In today’s episode, I take a closer look at self-care and how it isn’t just yoga, bubble baths, and breathing apps. Self-care done well is the ultimate in self-loyalty.

Recently my husband had an extended hospital stay. 

The number one question I received from my well-meaning friends and family was: How are you going to take care of yourself while he is in the hospital? 

“The best I can,” I told them. But this just did not satisfy their curiosity. 

They wanted to hear about all the bubble baths, yoga, and meditation I had planned for this stressful time. But I knew better. There wasn’t a bubble bath in the world that was going to make this easier. 

My husband was in the hospital. It was going to be stressful. I didn’t know what to expect. The self-help industry's idea of self-care wasn’t going to be any help.  I was simply going to do the best I can.

All this month we are looking at how the self-help industry has sold us a bunch of toxic information. And for those of us with High Functioning Anxiety who love looking outside of ourselves for the answers, this toxicity is especially troubling.

In today’s episode, I take a closer look at self-care and how it isn’t just yoga, bubble baths and breathing apps. Self-care done well is the ultimate in self-loyalty.  

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How the idea of self-care has gotten out of control

• The 3 main issues of self-care are for people with HFA

  • How we associate busyness and stress with prestige and status

  • How we have made self-care synonymous with self-indulgence

  • How we wrongly believe that we are undeserving of self-care

• How we can go about building self-loyalty

• And what we can do to define self-care for ourselves

Research and resources mentioned:

• The Journal of Consumer Research on busyness and lack of leisure as a status symbol

• My books on living with High Functioning Anxiety

• And how you can work with me one-on-one

+ Read the Transcript

Recently my husband had an extended hospital stay. The number one question I received from well-meaning friends and family was, How are you going to take care of yourself while he is in the hospital? I replied, “the best I can.” And they always persisted, “no, really how”? I felt like they wanted me to say, “well, I will start each day with yoga and then use a calming app throughout the day to make sure my breathing is normal, and then I will make sure at the end of each day I will take a bubble bath.” I mean, come on?!? My husband is in the hospital. It is going to be stressful. I don’t know what to expect, and I am going to do the best I can. The idea of Self-care has gotten out of control. It isn’t just yoga, bubble baths, and breathing apps, self-care done well is the ultimate in self-loyalty.

“You’re listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I’m your host, Nancy Jane Smith.”

This month we are looking at how the self-help industry has sold us a bunch of toxic information. And for those of us with High Functioning Anxiety who love looking outside of ourselves for the answers, this toxicity is especially troubling.

These caring, loving people aren’t trying to be difficult. I believe they have fallen prey to the self-help’s toxic definition of self-care. Which is no matter what is going on around you if you do enough self-care you will always stay zen and calm. This just isn’t true. First thing, Let me put your mind at ease, you aren’t doing self-care wrong, we just have a warped definition of what self-care is.

So how did I do self-care during my husbands hospital stay? I regularly took breaks to chat with close friends and family and usually walked around the hospital while I was chatting, I set up a caring bridge site so I didn’t have to update everyone all the time, I went home each morning and cooked a good lunch for my husband and I. I would turn on some music, dance around the kitchen to blow off steam and cook us a good lunch. I love cooking and good nutrition can be hard to come by at the hospital. So my version of self-care looks very different from the yoga and bubble baths, but it works for me. Because it is mine.

For the sake of this episode, I am defining self-care as consistently checking in with yourself and making sure you are taking care of your needs. Self-care can look like taking a walk, reading a book, eating a chocolate chip sundae, saying no, having a drink with a friend, cooking a healthy meal, finishing a project that has been bugging you for a while. In fact, self-care can look like anything at all as long as it is something you want to be engaging in that brings you peace and or joy.

I believe there are 3 main issues with Self Care for those of us with High Functioning Anxiety

So the first issue for those of us with High Functioning Anxiety, self-care is usually the LAST thing on the list. We are so busy doing and checking things off the list, we forget about self-care. Which is probably why so many people kept asking me about it before my husband went into the hospital. This is also why it is so important to expand the definition of self-care from yoga, meditation and bubble baths to something with a bit more wiggle room.

When we do practice self-care we make it yet another SHOULD on the list. Self-care becomes something we have to WORK on instead of something we just DO. Rather than making it a practice to regularly check in with ourselves and see how we are feeling, and what we might be needing we push and push ourselves to the point of breaking and THEN we WORK on self-care.

In fact, Journal of Consumer Research has published research showing that Americans associate busyness and stress with prestige and status. How impossible is that? We SAY we want to be less stressed, to find more joy but we equate busyness and stress with prestige and staus

We use Fitbits and Meditation apps all in the quest for self-care. But for those of us with HFA they become another thing for us to monitor and compete against ourselves and others on. Self care requires no money. It doesn’t have to be the latest app, class or weighted blanket. Self care is simply listening to your self with kindness.

The second issue is that because we are so uncomfortable giving to ourselves we have made self-care and self-indulgence synonymous. We overspend, overeat, over drink, and over device all in the name of self-care.

Yes, self-care is individualized and it is also nurturing. Self-care doesn’t give us a headache or stomachache the next morning. It doesn’t cause our anxiety to fly through the roof because we ran up our credit card or have a hangover. Self-care is gentle, kind and nurturing. Somewhere we learned that self-care is supposed to make us happy at the moment, but in reality, self-care might not make us happy at the moment and still might be the best thing for us. Every morning my dog wakes me up bn 5:30 and 6am. Every morning I think Ugh, I wish he didn’t do this. He greets me with his tail wagging and is so excited to go on his walk. We walk through the streets of our litte town usually not seeing a soul because it is so early. Every day I dread our morning walks, and every day I LOVE our morning walks. They make me feel better, they give me time to think, the allow me time to bond with my dog, and sometimes we can catch the most glorious sunrise. This is self-care, I don’t bound out of bed excited to face the day and see the sunset. But I know on the days I walk the dog, I feel better, and my day goes better.

The third issue I have found with my clients and myself with High Functioning Anxiety is we get caught up in deserving. When there is something we enjoy or activity that makes us happy we tend to put off doing it. Sounds crazy right? But I bet you can relate. Have a stack of library books on your nightstand? Because one day you will sit outside on your deck and read. Love painting? I bet you dream of one day taking your paints to the park and painting. Know that journaling and working out in the morning helps you feel better and yet you never do it and not because you are lazy but because everybody else’s needs come before yours. We procrastinate and put off what gives us energy. We tell ourselves one day, once everyone is out of the house or when we deserve it THEN we can do the thing we love. This isn’t about deserving, this is about being human and living a life where you get to do things you love.

Usually, at this part of the episode, I give a strategy or for practicing the subject at hand.

Today’s tactic is simple and easy. The goal is to slow down the go-go-go mentality so you can check in with yourself and start building self-loyalty. Self-loyalty means checking in with yourself first before looking to the outside world for direction and advice. Self-loyalty means you know what you feel, want, need, desire and hope for. For many people with HFA self-loyalty is a mystery. They have spent so much of their lives running away from their thoughts, feelings and needs being curious about them feels downright wrong. So today I am going to share some simple tips for building self-loyalty so you can engage in more self-care.

Set the alarm on your phone to randomly go off a few times a day, or create a ‘rule’ that every time you get in the car, hit a stoplight or hang up the phone you have to check in with yourself. Whenever you hear the alarm or do one of the rules Ask yourself how do I feel? what do I need? Or engage in the 5 senses meditation. When your alarm goes off, ask yourself what do I see, hear, feel, touch and taste? You can do it with your eyes open and it can take as little as 30 seconds to as much as 30 minutes...it is up to you.

Building self-loyalty is a key part of getting out from under the constant search to better yourself. Learning how to create unique individualized self-care rituals can help you reduce anxiety and be more engaged in your life.

---

It’s no secret that I have a bone to pick with the self-help industry. The solutions it sells leave women living with hidden anxiety--women like you--with more stuff to be anxious about. Or worse, it turns you off from getting help completely.

I want to help you dial back the overwhelm and overthinking with a set of tools designed just for people like you. It’s not woo-woo. It’s not trying to positively think your challenges away. And I’m certainly not going to tell you to start living your best life.

I work one-on-one with women like you to deconstruct why anxiety creeps up on you and give you something to do about it.

Here’s how it works:

First, we meet for an extended 90-minute session to uncover your stories and habits. You know, the ones that keep you stuck.

Then, you continue to work with me on-demand through an app that lets you leave a message for me any time you start to feel anxious or whenever you feel the Monger attack. I’ll get back to you with action steps for moving through the discomfort and finding peace. Plus, you’ll continue to meet with me for monthly sessions, too.

Working with me this way is an incredibly efficient and effective way to deal with your anxiety in the moment--without waiting for your next appointment.

One of my clients said: “Having this seemingly on-demand access to Nancy helps me build awareness around my feelings and manage my anxiety with real time feedback. And honestly, the mere fact that I can contact her anytime creates a feeling of awareness and reassurance that’s been invaluable.”

---

Episode 103: Achiever Fever–How To Quit The Need to Succeed Without Losing Your Edge With Claire Booth

In today’s episode, I discuss with Claire Booth, author of The Achiever Fever Cure: How I Learned to Stop Striving Myself Crazy, what it takes to start flourishing without being a high achiever.

You’ve heard that winning isn’t everything but deep down you know that isn’t true. Striving to be the best is how you keep your edge.

In the last episode, I discussed the self-help industry’s positive thinking problem. In today’s episode of the Happier Approach, I discuss with Clair Booth, author of The Achiever Fever Cure: How I Learned to Stop Striving Myself Crazy, what it takes to start flourishing without being a high achiever.

Claire was a successful but stressed-out market research entrepreneur and executive suffering from what she calls "achiever fever"—constant striving coupled with chronic feelings of inadequacy. Sick and tired of feeling miserable--but ever the self-help skeptic--Claire decided to try anything that might bring relief, from mindfulness to martial arts, from spending ten days in silence to "smiling" at her spleen. At first, Claire was fearful that slowing down and softening up will mean losing her professional edge. 

Instead, she discovered a more joyful and purposeful life, one that also turns out to be good for business. 

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• What Achiever Fever is and how to know if we have it

• The dark side of being a high achiever

• Identifying and naming our inner judge

• Meditation and the life-changing act of chopping vegetables

• The connection between alcohol and anxiety

• Living life as opposed to just logging life

• And what we gain when we give up the Achiever Fever

• Find out more about Claire Booth and the Achiever Fever at claireboothauthor.com. 

Research and resources mentioned:

• The Achiever Fever Cure: How I Learned to Stop Striving Myself Crazy by Claire Booth

• The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

• The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober by Catherine Gray

• Sober Curious by Ruby Warrington

• My books on living with High Functioning Anxiety

• And how you can work with me one-on-one

+ Read the Transcript

Claire: And he said, you’re basically logging. I don’t know if this is his words are my words. They’re good—either way. You’re logging time as opposed to living time. You’re just trying to get through it as opposed to get from it. The joy is in the learning. And I thought, no wonder I haven’t had any joy in my life because looking back, of course, I’ve learned all sorts of things, but I didn’t luxuriate in the learning.

It’s only as a result of doing this inner work and where I am now that learning for the sake of learning is one of the most pleasurable things in life. And I went through years of my life with that and understanding.

Nancy: Self-help books make it sound so easy. Take a big old mess of a person, implement a proven system. And then voila transformation. The system has magically fixed and healed all the messy, broken bits. Self-help books rarely show the during. The messy, middle, the part where things go wrong, expectations are unmet frustration and boredom set in.

But my guest today did just that with full honesty and integrity. You’re listening to the happier approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. And I’m your host, Nancy Jane. My guest today is Claire Booth.

Claire is the author of the book Achiever Fever: How I Learned to Stop Striving Myself Crazy. Claire was a successful but stressed-out market research, entrepreneur, and executive suffering from what she calls achiever fever, constant striving, coupled with chronic feelings of inadequacy. Sick and tired of feeling miserable, but ever the self-help skeptic, Claire decided to try anything that might bring relief from mindfulness to martial arts, from spending ten days in silence to smiling at her spleen. At first, Claire was fearful that slowing down and softening up will mean losing her professional edge. Instead, she discovered a more joyful and purposeful life. One that also turns out to be good for business. In the Achiever Fever Cure, Claire shares her struggle, how she recognized the struggle, and how she worked through the struggle. And most importantly, how that struggle is ongoing, even confessing her secret hope to be in a car accident so she could stop writing the high functioning anxiety roller coaster.

I wanted to ask Claire about how she knew she had achiever fever and that it was a problem? How did she ask for help? And what her journey has been quiet her achiever fever? It definitely was non-linear. I love my conversation with Claire, and I know you will get a lot.

Nancy: Claire, I’m so glad you’re here. Thank you for showing up and sharing your story.

Claire: Absolutely. It’s my pleasure.

Nancy: So I just want to say thank you so much because there are so many self-help books out there that make it sound so easy. As if you can just poof, you’re healed as long as you meditate so many times a day and do so many things.

And I really appreciated your honesty throughout this entire book about how you struggled and how you recognize the struggle, and how you work through the struggle. Your integrity and honesty were incredible.

Claire: Thank you

Nancy: Okay, so let’s back up a little bit. What is Achiever Fever, and how did you know you had it?

Claire: So, Achiever Fever is the dark side of achieving. And I’ll say right up front there’s nothing wrong with achieving. There’s nothing wrong with having goals. There’s nothing wrong with feeling good about working hard, working towards something accomplishments. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Where it does go wrong is where we start tying our identity, our happiness, our self-worth to our achievements. And we find ourselves saying things like, I’ll be happy when. Or I’ll be a success when and it forces us into this future state so that we end up living our lives in a constant hurry or worry state of mind. And we completely forget the fact that our lives are happening right here, right now.

How did I realize I had it? The hurrying and the worrying had been my normal state for as long as I can remember. Ever since probably middle of junior high, I think, when I started tying my identity to getting good grades and then started tying my identity to getting into the right school and doing the right degrees and that type of thing.

All it takes is somebody to say, Hey, you’re really good at this. And it just adds wind to the sails. And so I just glommed onto this. Oh, I’m an achiever. Okay. No, I’m not just an achiever. I’m a high achiever. And so that became my identity, and I had to protect it at all. Because it’s who I was, who I thought I was.

So I lived my life in that way with all of the accompanying constant anxiety and worry and rushing and box-ticking. And list-making until it got too big to bear. And the way that came about for me was I stopped sleeping. I got really bad insomnia. It was a number of things that, that came into my life at one.

The majority of it was, I was working for a large global corporation. I had moved to Seattle. I was opening their Seattle office, building it, building the team, getting the clients. And I was the face of it. I was responsible for it. And so, for an achiever, it’s just a platform to excel and to prove how good I am, look like, check me out, look what I can do.

And I put so much pressure on myself that I would lie awake. And think those thoughts around what if this happens? What if I can handle this? What if that falls through? The what-if scenarios and get bigger and bigger. And before I knew it was three o’clock in the morning, then four, then five. And that happened for a number of nights. I knew something was very wrong when I started fantasizing about getting into a car accident.

Nancy: That’s my favorite part of the book

Claire: I can laugh about it now, but back then, I was. Desperate to just get into a car accident.

Nothing too brutal. I didn’t want to be maimed, and I didn’t want my insurance rates to go up. I just wanted something that would not impact my car too much but would send me into a coma. I just wanted to be in a coma. I wanted to be in a hospital bed, pumped full of drugs, and just left to finally sleep for four days because I was doing so well at work.

But I wasn’t able to do the basic human function of sleep. And I remember being constantly envious and jealous, just looking at other people when I was on my way to work or when I was anything from a drug store to a grocery store and just looking at everyone else and thinking, how do you guys do this?

How do you sleep? Why am I such a bad human being? How can I not do this? When I finally did get into a car accident? That was a major wake-up call for me, my very first wake-up call. It wasn’t actually enough to really wake me up, but it got me on to sleeping medication. And as soon as I was on sleeping medication, my goal became to get off the sleeping medication.

It was about five or six years later when I started my own company. I started getting insomnia again. And it was, yeah, it was about five years into running my company. And again, everything was going really well. We were successful. I was building this business, but I just couldn’t find any happiness for enjoyment in it because I, again, that anxiety and the insomnia were back. It was a comment that an employee gave me.

That was the real wake-up call.

Nancy: So tell us about that. Because it’s hard to break the addiction to achieving, so what was the comment that started that?

Claire: The comment was I thought that I was doing a good job hiding all of this anxiety and insomnia and depression, for that matter. I thought I was doing a great job hiding it. I would be on at work.

And then I would take it home and worry and cry and drink a bunch of wine and try to find something on Netflix that I that would hold my focus, which of course didn’t exist because my mind would just go off in a thousand directions. I did have my employees each year do a review of all the senior leaders.

And one of the comments that I read in my review, this is all done anonymously. One of the comments was I know what kind of day it’s going to be as soon as Claire walks in the front door.

Nancy: Wow.

Claire: And that was my holy shit. They see this. They see what’s happening. And I thought, for sure, I was hiding it. And so that realization, that recognition that my mask was slipping, was so humiliating for me.

It was embarrassing. It was humbling. And the big thing was I realized that I was going to become a liability to my own company if I couldn’t do something. So yeah, that, that was where I finally held my hand up. No more. I enough, I can’t live my life like this anymore,

Nancy: Which is interesting because that is the complexity I think is that you gain so much with everyone saying nice job and way to go, and I can always count on you and, and then ticking all the boxes of achieving.

You get so much. And then yeah, I paid the price with this anxiety, and I pay the price with not sleeping. Yeah. But I get all this stuff that I’ve been told I should want. And then to recognize now, wait a minute, my mask is slipping, so I’m not going to get all the positives anymore if I don’t get this under control.

Claire: Yeah. And those highs that elation that I used to feel when I did achieve something like we got this great big new client, or we hit this particular target or something that I would do. I’m a climber and a swimmer. So I swam a particular time, or I climbed a certain grade that elation would last anywhere from 30 seconds to maybe a couple of hours, and maybe I could extend it with a bottle of wine into the evening, but the next morning I’d wake up and think, okay, what’s next? What’s bigger. What’s better? What’s faster? What’s next? This idea that I had, that there was a finish line, just got moved a little bit further and a little bit further and a little bit further.

And I thought, wait a second, this doesn’t make sense. All these things that I think are going to make me happy, all they end up doing is making me miserable. Like this doesn’t make sense.

Nancy: And that becomes the breaking point. Light can come in to be like, okay, what do I need to do next?

Claire: Yeah, it’s that intuitive, experiential recognition of knowing deeply, knowing that reaching a particular something or getting a particular something, or making a certain amount that intuitive understanding that it’s not going to make a difference and you need to be able to see the pattern. I think you need to live long enough to see the pattern. This happened to me when I was in my early forties. I guess in my world, that was what it took for me to finally see that there was a pattern here that was not serving me.

Nancy: Because I was just going to ask you, do you think it’s an age thing?

Claire: I think that because more people are talking about vulnerability, especially millennials are being more vocal about their feelings and emotions. We, I’m a gen X-er. We didn’t talk about this sort of stuff ever. I wanted to portray myself as a confident, strong person.

I wouldn’t dream of telling anybody that I felt like an imposter. I didn’t feel like I was strong enough or that I had this insomnia or anxiety. That’s the thing. But millennials now are so much more vocal about it. While I do think some lived experiences required the awareness of achieving not being the meaning of life, it doesn’t require you to hit 40 to figure it out. There are so many self-aware 20 somethings that I’ve read, or that I’ve felt that I’ve read books. God, how have you figured this out already? Good on you. Yes. Yeah. And then I’ll find myself going down what was wrong with me and doing it again. Here we go.

Nancy: Exactly. (Laughter)

Claire: How are you so much better than me? (Laughter)

Nancy: Because I do. I know in my practice. That most of my clients are in their thirties and forties. And when I start getting clients up in their fifties and sixties, the path is so well-worn to be an achiever that they have a harder time unhooking it, because it just isn’t worth the effort. And in their thirties, they’re a little more like this isn’t something’s off and we can talk about it and they could be like, oh yeah, I can flip this.

And it still takes work. And I’m not saying woo, it’s done, but it’s a little less ingrained gen X mentality that we were taught.

Claire: For all the good, the internet has done. It’s also led to this five quick fixes and the hack and the five steps and doing the inner work.

It’s work. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes a lot of strength. It takes strength that I didn’t know. I actually had, I thought strength was a physical thing. And I used to think the stronger I got physically, the more confident I would be, the more strong I would feel mentally. And now I realize it’s actually exactly the opposite.

Nancy: Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that I loved is that you shared, you started working with Ian and, he agreed to help you. And right after you said yes to him, you immediately, as you’re walking away thought, no, I can’t do this, I have to keep achieving this as self-indulgent and this’ll take too much time. So I loved that you admitted that. Sometimes I’ll have a potential client call me and then they’ll they want my help and then they’ll be like, yeah, no, nevermind, I can handle it. So tell me about that process for you about Ian.

Claire: So there are so many people out there that are equipped to help people that are struggling with anxiety and depression and insomnia, for whatever reason, but until you are ready, it doesn’t matter how good that therapist or counselor coach is until you are ready to face the music, nothing is going to happen. Ian was my climbing coach. And one day this is just a few weeks after I’d realized, like I’m done living my life like this sucks. I hate this. I want to change this, but I didn’t know how, I didn’t know where to start. I didn’t know what book to read. And I remember I used to go to bookstores and I would go to the business section and look through the books, trying to find something that would.

And that’s the way I used to think about it. I just want to be fixed. I want it to problem gone. And I pick up these books and they, in the business section, they all tended to have the same theme, which is like work 150% and strive, and they just ended up stressing me out. And I thought this is not the way.

And I was too scared to go to the self-help section because I had this perception of well, people that are in the self-help section, there are a completely lost. Like anyone that’s going to go to that section, they are crazy beings into crystals and Woohoo and hippies and yeah, that’s just so not for me.

And had, I just gone into that goddamn self-help section from the beginning, but I wasn’t ready. You have to evolve in the way that things are going to evolve. You can’t get ahead of your own evolution. As somebody once said, I had this desire. Like I knew I wanted to change. I had this desire, my mind, I still just didn’t know how it was going to happen.

And then one day when I was in my in a climbing class, I overheard my climbing coach talk to a fellow classmate. And he was talking about this new program that he was thinking of offering called the transformation program. And it was for people that were stuck and wanted to change something.

And I think he was talking to this fellow classmate about his or her weight. This person wanted to change their weight. And I remember hearing him say the word transformation and I don’t think I’d ever really heard that word properly before, but when I had the awareness that I wanted something and I was searching for something, even though I didn’t know how to do that or where to go. And then he said transformation. It was just like a magnet. Like I was just straight to him. I actually know the way it actually worked was he said it and I under my breath, I said, yeah, God transformation. Wouldn’t that be great?

Like, it just fell out of my mouth. And in that life-changing moment, he heard me. Wow. And he came to me and said, What is it that you want to change? And I just said everything. I want to change everything. And I remember getting so emotional and worked up just finally saying I want to do everything.

I hate so much about my life. And that’s where we started. Wow. It just takes that one person. Sometimes the person that wants to change needs to be ready and needs to hold up their hand and say, yes, I want to change. Once that happens the way the world seems to work, call it the universe, call it awareness, call it whatever you will find your person, it’s when you’re ready.

The teacher appears.

Nancy Yes. Yes. I agree.

Claire: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s the case for anybody that is looking to change. They just have to say it. I want to change and the right thing or book or personal, whatever it is will come into their life. And I don’t think that’s magic at all. I think that’s just once you’ve got it in your awareness, you see the world in a different way.

Like you’ve got a new filter. You’re searching, you’re looking, you’re more attune to people and books and things that may help you.

Nancy: Yes, I totally agree with that. So one thing Ian worked with you on was hearing your inner judge. That is the work.

And it’s also one of the hardest things to do is start paying attention to that voice. You call it the judge, I call it the monger, but paying attention to that voice. That is for so many of us. That’s your voice. There is no separation between the two. So how did you start separating?

Claire: So the voice just like my state of normal was the state of being in a hurry or worrying.

My other state of normal was having this really nasty voice in my head that would just yell at me and scream at me and tell me I was doing things wrong or tell me the thing that said most often was you should be better. You should try harder. That was the big one. And you try harder each time.

And that voice had been with me for long as I can remember. And there’s a story that I tell in the book about when I was seven years old on the playground and I was standing by the swings. I was on my own, it was a school play ground. And I remember the voice in my head saying something like the reason you’re here on your own is because you’re boring and the other people, the other kids don’t like you.

Nancy: Wow.

Claire: That was the earliest memory I can. That I can remember of that before the voice. And it’s been with me ever since, and I just listened to it on autopilot. That voice is it’s our ego. It’s our protector. It’s the thing that pushes us. But it also is so dominant that we can’t hear those other voices as well, but the voices of creativity and wonder, and love and gratitude.

When we’ve got such a loud inner critic, it’s just, it just dominates the conversation. And so it had been so dominant for so long that I didn’t even know to question. And I didn’t even, the voice was a part of me just like my hand was a part of me and my leg was a part of me. And Ian drew my attention to it.

When I did this climb, it was the very first time Ian and I met. But I was doing this climb and I fell halfway through the class. I remember getting really angry about it. And I think I said out loud God damn it. And he lowered me down and he’s wow, what was that? And I said, every time I do this climb, I fall on this one spot and I’m never going to get it right.

And I just yell at myself and I hate myself and I hate climbing and I hate everything. And this is the way my life seems to go. And he’s oh, okay. I think we’ve got something here we can work with. And he said for you, he asked me, first of all, to name that voice, that to me, it was just like a what are you talking?

What voice? This is me. I don’t understand. Yeah. I never ever thought about this before. I didn’t have to think about it that long. I’m like the judge just judges me all the time. Tell him what the judge would say, like you’re bad, you should try harder. You should be better. You should be faster.

You’re not as good as everyone else, that’s sort of stuff. And I said I feel like I have the world’s loudest inner critic. Nobody has a voice as powerful and as mean, and as nasty as mine, surely nobody does. And I honestly believe. I really did. I honestly believed that.

And I said that and he’s there’s actually a lot of people with a voice just and I remember feeling a mixture of two things. My first reaction was complete and utter relief. Like I remember feeling floaty, like weightless, I can’t possibly be as, as, almost as soon as I had that, lovely, wonderful oh, the second thought was like a competitiveness.

Nope. Nope. Mine. Mine’s bigger. Mine. Mine’s just different. (laughter)

Nancy: You’re going to win on that one too. (laughter)

Claire: I’m going to win on mine. Mine’s much louder, much nastier than anybody in the entire.

Nancy: . I can so relate to that too.

Claire: That’s where it all began. It was taking that inner nasty voice and people have different names for it.

Like you say, yours is the Monger mine’s the judge. But until we name it, we don’t really know how to look at it. And by naming it, it became a character in my life as opposed to my life. And I was able to watch. This voice is a character called the judge and was able to uncouple who I was my larger self.

And I had no kind of spiritual understanding of self at that time, like I do now, but I was able to uncouple, myself from this character called the judge. And once we can separate ourselves that way and observe those thoughts that’s the game changer. That’s the game changer. Yeah, that is the game-changing.

And then the work really begins..

Nancy: I just had a client this past week who was so excited Because she could recognize her judge. She was like, there it is. That’s my judge. And then and then later we were talking and I was like, I, most of my work is helping people recognize the judge.

But the work that really begins once you recognize it. And she’s no, you’re kidding. (Laughter)

Claire: There’s more!?!? (Laughter)

Nancy: She was so excited. I’m like, you shouldn’t be, this is exciting. And there is more

Claire: well, here’s what I thought would happen in that gym that day. When I named the judge and I realized, wait a second, this isn’t me.

This is just a part of me. The gym that day feeling positively giddy. Like I had fixed myself and I went home and I felt on top of the world and I was like, blaring my music and I was so excited. And then I was brushing my teeth. And my eyes traveled down to my stomach and the judge just there, it was, I was like, what?

No, I’m supposed to be fixed. What’s going on?!?. But what happened in that moment? Yeah. I caught the judge and that’s the work is to catch the judge, catch the thoughts, catch what it’s saying. And then and then start writing them down, which isn’t as difficult an exercise as it might sound because our judge tends to say the same things to us over and over again.

And there’s a, in the survey that I did of other achievers, one of the questions that I asked them was on a scale of one to 10, how strong is your inner critic with one being like what inner critic? I don’t know what you’re talking about. And a 10 being this thing won’t shut up. And the average score among achievers was a seven out of seven. It was an eight and a half for women slightly less than a 7.5 for men. I think I’ve got that. But I then asked if you feel comfortable on the survey was completely anonymous. Please write down a couple of thoughts that your inner critic tends to tell you one.

I was so gratified to see the responses. Like people actually took the time to write down what their inner critic said. Wow. And some of them, and I write about it in my book. I put some of them in the book. Some of them are so dark, so bleak. My eyes just filled with tears, reading what people say to themselves and they tend to be along a couple of different themes.

The first being I’m not enough. I’m not good enough, smart enough, strong enough, as good as this person, as good as my sister is good as whatever the case is. That’s the first theme. Another theme is I’m an imposter. People are gonna see that. I don’t know what I’m talking about. People are going to see that I’m making this up.

People are going to see that I’m not nearly as good as I want them to think that I am. Those are two key themes and certainly themes that my judge would run on repeat.

Nancy: Because it is interesting when you think about, when I hear achieving, I automatically assume corporate business owner, entrepreneur achieving, sometimes the achieving is just being the best mom, it’s that, it’s back to that finish line keeps moving.

It doesn’t have to be, I have all this great success. I could just, I just have to keep achieving in my own life. Whatever that definition is for me.

Claire: Oh, absolutely. It can be, I have a cleaner car than anybody else’s parking lot. Yeah. It’s that mentality being an achiever. And I, this insight dawned on me at the end of a 10 day silent retreat was being an achiever, isolates you from other people as an achiever.

You have to see yourself as an individual. And when you’re an achiever, you need the underachiever. So you need to make sure that there are enough people around you that aren’t achieving as well as you are so that you can keep yourself on top. Yes. Yeah. So you’re being in that world in a very competitive comparative mindset.

And we all think relatively that’s how we operate as human beings. But when you call yourself an achiever it’s like that next level you have. You have to tell yourself, you have to hold yourself up to a higher standard, which means you need to see everyone else’s either as threats or not as good as, and it’s a miserable way to go through life miserable.

Yeah. And that’s why I, that’s why I called it a fever because it’s a delusion. It’s a delusional state, when you’re suffering from a fever and you’ve got these weird hallucinations and you don’t know if it’s day or night or if you’re hot or you’re cold to me, that’s what happens when you are in this achiever fever.

You, you just lose perspective of what’s real and what’s happening and who people are and who you actually are. And yeah you’re just in a weird fever state.

Nancy: When you were in the middle of the year of you, as you called it, you had, and I loved this phrase. You had the fever to get over the fever, and then you went skiing and Ian talked to you about, I don’t know if that went together, but it was in the same chapter in the book

Claire: Yep, they definitely go together.

Nancy: And then Ian talked to you about learning for the sake of learning. And I loved that. So tell us about that lesson

Claire: Because I did this year long program, I found that as the months went by. And I was learning more and more, and my world was expanding and I would wake up in the morning with a smile on my face, thinking like, what am I going to learn today?

Everything just felt new, but at the same time there was that nagging thought oh, you’ve only got six more months.

So yeah, I got the Achiever fever about getting rid of the achiever fever. And then yeah, so I went skiing. And skiing was not part of my childhood at all. So I learned to ski in my thirties and my partner, Chris, and all of his friends are excellent elite skiers really good skiers. And so when I joined them to start skiing, I was such a beginner, but struggling to be one of the group.

And so I wanted to get from complete novice to elite level skiing as fast as I possibly could. And I would push myself as fast as I could. And as hard as I could to get to where I wanted to be. And there was one day where we were back country skiing, and I was so far behind the group and just getting angrier and angry with myself.

And my inner judge was just screaming at me. Like you’re a loser, you’re an idiot. What are you doing out here? You suck. And I fell into deep powder and I couldn’t get myself out and of course I’m flailing around and I just hit that point where I’m just like screw it. I hate this. I’m done. I, this is where I die.

This is where my life ends in this deep snow. I tried my best and I give up, I went in, I obviously didn’t die because here I am. And I went into go and see Ian the next day. And I told them about the story. And he said, how long have you been skiing for? And I said at that point it was a few years.

It’s like, how long has Chris and his friends been skiing for him? Their entire lives. And he just looks at me like, do you see what I’m getting at here? And he said, You’re basically logging. I don’t know if this has his words or my words, but they’re good. Either way. You’re logging time as opposed to living time.

You’re just trying to get through it as opposed to get from. And the joy is in the learning. And I thought no wonder I haven’t had any joy in my life. Because I, looking back, of course I’ve learned all sorts of things, but I didn’t luxuriate in the learning. I tried to get it done as fast as I possibly could.

When I was doing my PhD, I tried to get all the coursework that would take people two years. I tried to get a done in a year, like just push through as fast as I could. And. It’s only as a result of doing this in our work. And where I am at now, that learning for the sake of learning is one of the most pleasurable things in life.

And I went through years of my life with that and understanding that.

Nancy: And I think that is almost, I don’t know, but I think that’s almost as pivotal. That lesson is almost as pivotal as recognizing the judge.

Claire: Yeah. And they all go like stepping stones, right? Like just stand the judge in order to rise down the next thing.

And then I needed to learn how to meditate in order to understand the next thing and off it went from there.

Nancy: Speaking of meditating, I love how you talked about being present, how you were so judgmental of the phrases being present and being in the moment because I just so related to that.

You talked about chopping the vegetables that was, life-changing tell us about that.

Claire: To this day. That is one of the most memorable moments of my life. All my life like you said, I would hear people say it’s all about being present. You just got to be in the moment.

And I would think who has time to be present? That’s so stupid. The more that I was reading because I was working with Ian, but I was also reading a lot because I was so interested in all of this. I’m a deeply curious person under all that achiever fever. I still had a very deep curiosity.

And I was like into the self-help section at this point too, that was a whole new world for me as well. Like I walked in I’m like, where have you been all my life, all this stuff. So I started reading all of these things and every book, every podcast, every documentary. I was with them until they all started to say the same thing, which was and was meditation.

It would bring up meditation. And I thought I really enjoy reading about meditation, but I don’t want to. I have no interest in doing this because I thought I was going to be bad at it. And I only wanted to do things I was going to be good at. And I was going to be terrible at meditation. I thought also, I didn’t want to do it because I was too scared of what I might learn.

Like all these weird, horrible thoughts that I made. Kept down for so many years and all of a sudden they start bubbling up and what if it’s too much? And also it just looked really boring. I couldn’t imagine anything more boring and unproductive and I have work to do and workouts to do and friends to hang out with and Netflix to watch.

Like who wants to meditate. It got to the point where all the books were saying the same thing and it, I couldn’t not see it anymore. I go, okay fine. And I did, like a couple of minutes and then I extended it to five minutes and then I extended it to 10 minutes and it was excruciating. It was full on excruciating until it wasn’t, something just shifted for me.

And I think it was I attended a meditation group and I remember being there and thinking Other people do this too. And everyone here looks totally normal. It’s almost like it took my achiever a fever to meditate because while they were meditating, I wanted to be like, I wanted to do what they were doing.

I wanted to, and I wanted to do it well. So I had to take it seriously. Then I started to be able to meditate for longer periods. And to this day, I only meditate for 20 minutes at a time. Like I don’t need to sit there for hours and hours. Although I’ve done silent retreats where I have sat there for hours and hours.

That’s a different thing, but it was the meditation that helped me understand how to observe my thoughts and to help me understand that we are not our thoughts. We can, we just watch the thoughts. And I used to think meditation was about stopping the thoughts. Yes. I think a lot of. I think that, from what I understand, that people that I’ve talked to, and of course you can’t stop your thoughts.

So people try it and think that was a waste of time because I wasn’t able to start, like nobody can stop their thoughts right. For extended periods of time. So yeah, once I was able to start observing my thoughts, I started to see how many of them there were and the way that Ian described it to me is think of your thoughts as boxcars on a train.

And you just watch the thoughts go by because soon as you have a thought, there’s another one right behind it. And another one right behind it. And another one right behind it, you can’t really hold onto one for too long because there’s another one coming right behind it. And so I watched my thoughts and saw yeah, he’s absolutely right.

And sometimes you’ll jump on those box cars. Honestly, You’ll ride it to the next station, and 10 minutes go by because you’ve been in this state of worry or panic or anxiety or regret or whatever the case is, where you’re just mulling over this thought over and over and over and over again.

And then I started to become aware of when I was doing. And started saying to myself up, you’ve jumped on a box par again. Okay. You can jump off. There’s another one coming by shortly.

Nancy: I love that analogy.

Claire: And then eventually Ian said, you’ll start to be able to experience the gap between the box cars. So that short, very short minute period where there’s no thought

And Eckerd totally talks about this a lot in the power of now as he calls it, and I won’t get into that, but I write about it in the book. So as I started doing a little more meditation and started to learn what being present actually was, and that I was capable of being present and what that felt like there was a, it was about a month after I started doing this and I was chopping vegetables because I’ve always liked to chop a bunch of vegetables on the Sunday for meal prep.

And that day I was listening my playlist on Spotify or something, and I was chopping cabbage and kale and carrots. And all of a sudden I just got this really weird feeling that I’d never had before. And it was like, my heart just filled up to wanting to burst this feeling of.

What I now understand was just enormous love and gratitude. Just watched it washed over me and I had to steady myself on my kitchen island because I was so overwhelmed by this feeling. I’m like, what? Oh my God, what is this? I was crying and cry, like sobbing. My body was wracked with sobs and as I was sobbing, I saw that I wasn’t sobbing because I was sad or I was angry.

I was frustrated. I’m like what? I’m trying to intellectually understand it, knowing that there’s nothing to understand. Like I intuitively got that this was one of those moments where I was a hundred percent present. And in those moments, that power of now that I could totally talks about that is what life actually feels like.

I mean that, that is open for us to experience whenever we can be truly purely present and let our thoughts go, that space exists. And that was a very tiny taste. My very first taste, at least that I’m aware of experiencing that space. And unless you’ve been through something like that, it’s very hard to describe it.

But I think maybe people that have a spiritual background, people that have, have a very strong relationship with God, perhaps can, they know what I’m talking about. And I’m way out of my league here on this sort of stuff, but I. That feeling is something I never experienced before.

And no, no achievement had ever felt anything like that.

Nancy: Nicely said that’s what I love about the book is you really do lay out. I just thought of this as you were talking. Because that’s another stepping stone. In this process is having that realization because I remember the first time I read the power of now and I was like, what?

Just what are you talking about? Like I just could not get it. And then after I’d done a few of these stepping stones in your process, I was, I would read it again and be like, oh, this, I get it. On another level. I was able to get the power of now. In a different way. Like it’s like it that’s one of those books that just keeps revealing itself.

Each time I read it in a different level.

Claire: I read that book 20 years ago and I remember reading it in my office with the door closed because. I’m supposed to be working, right? This is what the large global corporation I was supposed to be working, but I would sneak this book out of my desk and read it because I was absolutely riveted by it.

I cannot recommend that book, highly enough, different books, land for people in different ways. Boy that book. Yeah. That landed. That really landed. Yeah.

Nancy: I’ve had a number of people say that to me, that book was a life-changer for them.

Claire: There’s a reason. It’s a, it’s such a huge bestseller. There’s something to this one.

Nancy: So something you talk about. And you mentioned it today and you mentioned it in our interview. You talk about it in the book is and a lot of my clients have talked about this wine and achieving and. And that they go together. So can you talk about your journey, how wine has played a role in all this?

Claire: So I used to use emphasis on use wine as my as my stress management tool. So I would get home at the end of the day would be, I don’t know, maybe 6 30, 7, 7 30, whatever time I worked. And the first thing I would do was come upstairs, open my fridge and grab my bottle of wine and I’d pour myself an enormous glass.

And I would be thinking about this glass of wine, some about 3:00 PM. And halfway through the glass, the world would finally start melting away and the judge would become a little quieter. That’s really what the wine was there to do was to quiet the judge and then I’d have my dinner and then I’d have another glass of wine.

And then I think if I leave the bottle, it’ll just go off. I should drink it. And all the other excuses that I told myself, I. I would maybe go through a couple of bottles a week, but it wasn’t the quantity. It was how I was using it. So once I started to understand how our minds work through this process, I started to see that I was using wine. And so I thought, okay, I’ll try something and I’ll take all the wine out of my fridge and I’ll replace it with something else, because I knew that was my habit. That was my default behavior was to open the fridge, grab a bottle of something. So I thought, okay, I take the wine out. I will go in and grab something else.

Let’s see if this makes any difference. And it wasn’t actually as difficult as I thought it was going to be. So the wine started coming down and then in November, 2018. So that was 10 months ago or something? Eight, eight months ago. I was in Japan, my partner and I were in Japan. We went there for three weeks and we drank every single night.

And we would say to each other in the restaurant, do you want to drink tonight? And one of us say, no, not really. Like we had a drink last night when I another one tonight. And then we’ll say we’re on vacation. Oh, I realized at the end of the 24 nights that we’ve been in Japan, we’d had a drink every single night, even nights, we didn’t even want one.

And I woke up one morning after I’d had that realization and this voice in my head, not the judge, some other. The voice reason said stop drinking and it was so clear and I thought, wow, that’s, when you just hear those voices from, they just make all the sense. Yeah. I heard it. I realized like this is an important thing I need to pay attention to.

And then I immediately talked myself out of it. I’m not going to stop drinking. I love drinking. I love going out with my friends and having a bottle of wine. Of course, I’m not going to stop drinking, but the. The power of the stop drinking didn’t go away. And I often do a dry January, so I thought, okay I’ll do a dry January.

And I got to the end of January and realized I hadn’t missed it. I didn’t, I wasn’t jonesing for a glass of wine. I wasn’t chosen for any alcohol at all. And I thought why put it back into my life? I’m not missing it. So I did a dry February and then I did a dry March. I haven’t drunk since December.

And what I’ve realized is that the awareness that I gain from being sober is so much more interesting to me than then the detachment that I used to feel from being drunk. Yeah. And I enjoy that state of awareness that I’m now experiencing. So much, I don’t want to let it go. I don’t know if this is a forever thing by any stretch, but it’s just a, it’s something in my life that I’m enjoying so much.

And I’m there’s books out there called the joy of being sober for sober, curious, more millennials are cutting way back on their alcohol. And if I miss the alcohol because of the taste, I would drink it. But I’ve noticed the only times that I want. Is when I’m with friends and I’m afraid of being judged for not drinking.

Yeah. And that is not a good enough reason for me to drink at all. It’s just an interesting thing to notice like, oh, I’m feeling.

Nancy: That’s awesome. Yeah, because I am I’m going to devote an episode of this podcast to this drinking idea, because it is such a common thread. And I did a similar stop drinking a couple of years ago.

Because almost exact same story you just told. And I was at the time Brooke Castillo, who had a stop over drinking program. The heart of the program was that you had to decide 24 hours in advance if you were going to have a drink and how many you were going to have.

I put so much pressure on myself to drink in social situations. And so it was, it took a year. I did it for a year and it was like how you’re doing it. Like I just kept re-upping every day doing it. And and now it’s so freeing that I, now I have a choice. Yeah,

Claire: that’s good.

Nancy: When in the past, I didn’t feel like I did, I had to drink because it would have been, I would have been judging myself so much.

Just exactly, as you said, because I had judged so many people for not drinking. And so it released me of all of that. Like I made it through a Christmas and that Thanksgiving and new year’s and my birthday and I didn’t drink and it was fine. So I can do anything was where I got, crazy empowering

Claire: Isn’t it?!?. I never thought I’d be able to say. I don’t drink and I’m proud of it and I don’t miss it and be truthful about that.

Nancy: And it takes your anxiety through the roof

Claire:. It really did. Yeah. Oh boy. I used to wake up and think, oh, why did I say that was so dumb? Yeah. It’s so much more about what you gain than about what you lose.

And I used to think I used to get so fixed it and I was like I’ll lose this. I lose the social, lose that that, but I never thought about what I might gain.

Nancy: Yes. Yeah. That’s very well said. Yeah. Okay. One last question. I, so I really encourage, like I said, I encourage people to buy the book and I don’t want to give away all of the experiences because I know there’s so many more ahas than we’ve covered in this book, but I’m curious, have you.

Have you lost your edge? How has losing the fever helped or even hurt you’re achieving ways as they say.

Claire: That is such a good question. I’m worry about using the word achieving. I don’t want to use that word anymore, but I don’t know a better word for it other than maybe flourishing.

There are a few things in my life that have happened as a result of this book where I can honestly say, now I am flourishing. My business is flourishing. So as a result of all of this work, all this inner work, a few things have happened. One, my business has doubled in size. Wow. So I have, stats to show that all this work there’s a business case for it.

I, am in the best physical shape of my life, because when you get rid of your achiever fever, you also get rid of those constant self doubts and the worries. And so I’m able to perform at a level of physical. That I wasn’t able to before, because I don’t have the doubt and the worry holding me back. So I watch myself now, whether it’s swimming, climbing, lifting, weights, whatever the case is, and I realized that I could not have ever have done what I’m doing now.

As an achiever, huh? Yeah, there’s, it’s opened up so much more for me. My relationship with my partner and my family is so much more fulfilling and I’m so much more open and we have deeper conversations. I sleep like I don’t have insomnia. I haven’t had insomnia in years. Wow.

Okay. Occasionally I’ll have a bad night’s sleep. And that’s my cue that okay. Something’s off. Something needs to be looked at what’s, what’s going on here? I’m just a truly happier person who no longer worries. I don’t. And just to be able to say that to me is still so shocking.

Given, given how many hours I used to devote to worrying and now, a warrior will come in and I’ll be like, oh, there you are. I see you. There’s nothing I can do about you right now. Thanks. Thanks for coming in. You’re not helping me at all and it’ll go away. It’ll just leave. Wow. Be able to be that much more focused on present on whatever it is that I’m doing.

So I would say, as a result of all this work, I am flourishing and edge is an interesting word. If we take it in its truest form, an edge is a sharpness. And I have much more of a laser focused than I used to have because I’m able to be so much more present. But what I think I have more than that is, is as like a softness that I didn’t use to have before, like a much more of an open house.

I don’t look at every person I meet anymore as a possible business opportunity. I look at them as a possible friend. Yeah, my mindset’s just completely shifted.

Nancy: Because it’s interesting because the answer is have you lost your edge? The answer is, yes, but it doesn’t matter.

I’m not looking for that anymore. So it doesn’t matter

Claire: Or I’ve lost the edge, but I gained I’ve gained heart. Yeah. I guess is really the only way I can put it. I’ve gained gratitude. I’ve gained love. I’ve gained. I didn’t like myself. Let alone love myself. I love myself. Now. I’ve gained. And it’s only when we can love ourselves that we can love others.

So I’ve gained the ability to truly love and cherish people in my life.

Nancy: Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much for agreeing to chat here and share your experience and your wisdom and it’s, the achiever fever cure people. You need to go read this book. Thank you so much, Claire.

Claire: Oh, thank you so much

Nancy: More about Claire Booth and the achiever fever at ClaireBoothauthor.com.

---

Episode 102: The Dangers Of Positive Thinking

Today on the Happier Approach we examine one of the most toxic ideas pushed by the industry: positive thinking.

In the last episode, we started pulling back the curtain on the toxicity that exists in the self-help industry. Today on the Happier Approach we examine one of the most toxic ideas pushed by the industry: positive thinking.

One of the most misleading concepts that the self-help industry teaches is the benefit positive thinking – change your thoughts and stop feeling so negative! If it were that easy – if all we had to do was put on our rose-colored glasses – why are so many people still depressed, anxious and overwhelmed?

It is my theory that the self-improvement industry is selling the wrong thing. We don’t need to simply “think positively.” Instead, we need to quiet the cacophony of positive thinking messages that come our way on a daily basis--and listen in to our own inner peace.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How the message of positive thinking is holding us back and even harming us

• Where our belief in the positive psychology movement originated

• How research contradicts the claims of the positive psychology industry has been selling you

• And practical tools and resources that you can use in place of just “looking on the bright side”

Research and resources mentioned:

• Journal of Personality and Social Psychology study by Prof Brett Ford and Prof Iris B. Maus

• The Happier Approach System: A.S.K.

• Gabrielle Oettingen

  • Her book Rethinking Positive Thinking

  • And her W.O.O.P. system

• Peter M Gollwitzer

• Oliver Burkeman’s book The Antidote: Happiness for People Wo Can’t Stand Positive Thinking

• My books on living with High Functioning Anxiety

• And how you can work with me one-on-one

+ Read the Transcript

9.9 billion dollars. That’s how big the self-improvement market is, according to the organization Market Data.

Now, I don’t have to tell you: 9.9 billion dollars is a lot of money.

All that money is being spent to convince you that you could be happier, less stressed, and more fulfilled if only you followed this method or read this book or another.

Now here’s my question: If the self-improvement industry was so successful, why are so many people depressed, anxious, and overwhelmed?

It is my theory that the self-improvement industry is selling the wrong thing. We don’t need to be improved; we need to be accepted. One of the most dangerous things the self-help industry teaches is you need to think positive, change your thoughts and stop feeling so negative!!

“You’re listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships, exploring the challenge of living with High Functioning Anxiety. I’m your host, Nancy Jane Smith.”

Last week we started pulling back the curtain on the toxicity that exists in the self-help industry. One of the most toxic ideas is positive thinking. Years ago, when I first started my private practice and would teach on living happier, I was a big proponent of think positive and the idea of change your thoughts, change your life. I would write about it, teach about it, and believed in the power of positivity. It was around the time of my Dad’s diagnosis with Parkinson’s that the crack in the positive thinking mantra began to begin. You might be thinking, what is positive about a Parkinson’s diagnosis, but trust me, I found it. Well, at least we found it early, or we can research it and build our battle plan. No sadness, no anger, just push on, soldier on, buck up, and think positive. It started showing up in other areas, too; my relationships started to suffer because I couldn’t handle anything ‘negative.’ It is hard to have real relationships when you are a ‘high vibes only person.’ It left me feeling disconnected, disenfranchised, and frankly bitter. I realized all this positive thinking left me feeling worse about my life, not better. Positive thinking felt great initially, but over time, it left me feeling empty and cut off from myself. But it wasn’t until a few years ago that I finally began speaking up about the dangers of positive thinking and how especially for those of us with HFA, it can be keeping us stuck

Those of us with HFA have a habit of ignoring what is really going on. Because High Functioning Anxiety is rooted in the belief that we are flawed and unworthy. As a coping mechanism for our anxiety, we wall off the “unpleasant parts” of ourselves. So we LOVE the idea of positive thinking because it gives us permission to avoid the parts of ourselves that are not acceptable. As a result, positive thinking is something we tend to take a little too far. Positive thinking keeps us from being rooted in reality, accepting ourselves no matter where we are

First off, let’s talk research. Well, let me be honest and say the research in the positive psychology industry and especially the self-help industry is controversial at best. When Martin Seligman started the Positive Psychology movement, he talked about shifting the focus away from a disease model and pathology. Sounds good right? Focus on the positive, the problem is his movement went from one extreme to another-- happiness became the new holy grail.

The Positive Psychology movement began devoting time and energy to research. Which showed the positive effects of changing your thoughts and being more positive in general. What we now know is much of that research was not replicable and was peer-reviewed by people who shared the same beliefs. So a bit of groupthink was happening in the Positive Psychology world.

The idea of ‘be more positive is that you will achieve more goals, be more productive and feel better if you are positive. Much of the research that was done measured the immediate results of changing your thoughts from positive to negative. So let’s say you get in a fight with your spouse over who should who is doing more. You leave the house in a huff and in the spirit of positive thinking, start naming all the things you are feeling positive about in the moment, saying to yourself, “He is a loving, father and I am just going to concentrate on his positive traits”. You do feel better initially. I mean who wouldn’t. You are thinking warm, fuzzy thoughts. And they are true thoughts, but they are avoiding what is really going on. Many of the positive psychology research is studying this immediate, initial response which is usually positive. You will feel happier in the moment.

The issue is later. Long term. One week, 4 weeks, 6 months later when you haven’t dealt with this problem. When you are more frustrated than ever at your spouse’s lack of help and/or lack of appreciation. When you have stuffed down all those ‘negative emotions in order to feel positive, will you be happier? I found the answer to be no, and so do many of my clients. Let’s say her name is Mindy. Mindy grew up in an overwhelming household. She survived a toxic childhood and thanks to her diligent attention, she saved her brothers too.. As she sat in my office, she said, “I survived, and I am so proud of that, I don’t really want to go there again.” But the issue was every Father’s Day every year on her Dad’s birthday every year on her birthday not to mention all the other celebrations that involved happy-go-lucky fathers, she was reminded how terrible her childhood was. Her alcoholic father was not one of those happy go lucky people. But Mindy had survived by thinking positive, she was in perpetual motion and the words ’at least’ or ‘but on the positive side’ were regular parts of her vocabulary. She came to see me because her anxiety was through the roof and she was constantly lashing out at her spouse and kids in frustration.

In a study of more than 1,300 adults, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers found that subjects who reported trying to avoid negative emotions in response to bad experiences were more likely to have symptoms of mood disorders, such as anxiety and depression, 6 months later, compared with those who embraced their negative emotions.

Lead researcher Professor Brett Ford: “It turns out that how we approach our own negative emotional reactions is really important for our overall well-being. People who accept these emotions without judging or trying to change them are able to cope with their stress more successfully.”

In fact, he goes on to say, “Maybe if you have an accepting attitude toward negative emotions, you’re not giving them as much attention,” speculates Prof. Mauss. “And perhaps, if you’re constantly judging your emotions, the negativity can pile up.”

So, here’s a radical idea. What if there are no such thing as positive or negative emotions there are just emotions. What if there is no such thing as positive thoughts or negative thoughts they are just thoughts, and we need to accept them as the data they are. NOT judge them, ridicule them or try to change them. Just accept them as the data they are.

The truth is suppressing our thoughts means we can’t accurately assess our experiences. If we can’t learn from the lows, we can’t enjoy the highs either. We are human beings, and the goal is to experience a wide range of emotions. I am beyond grateful that I learned this lesson early on in my Dad’s Parkinson’s diagnosis. Our relationship grew after his diagnosis because I could really show up for all of it the good and the bad. I wasn’t forcing myself to think positive and so I didn’t have to force him to either. We could just be there together in a hard, exhausting situation.

Secondly, so-called negative emotions are warning lights — they alert us to potential issues or danger. They grab our attention so we can focus on what we need to change or solve.

In our work together my client Mindy and I spent a lot of time doing what I call “embracing the and”. When Mindy would say I get sad on Father’s Day but then I tell myself, you survived be happy! I suggested she say to herself, Father’s day makes me sad because I never had a dad that would play with me and support me AND I am happy I made it out as quickly as I did. Over time Mindy learned her negative emotions weren’t that scary, they were just emotions. As she embraced the and and practiced other ways of honoring her self her anxiety began to decrease. She began to give herself kindness around all the anger, fear and sadness that came up and accept that they were just as much a part of her as the positive stuff.

So in addition to embracing the and, what can you do? Today I am going to share 3 ways to talk to yourself when you feel those unpleasant thoughts and emotions.

The first approach is the approach that I share in my book the Happier Approach, so taking the to the spouse argument example, rather than hopping in the car and immediately trying to change your thoughts to the positive, you practiced the Happier Approach System: A.S.K. you acknowledged what you are feeling. Then you slowed down and got into your body (some type of full-body movement, stretching for the sky, touching your toes, or wiggling your whole body) and finally you Kindly, pulled back to see the big picture. This is where you can determine what your spouse is doing to annoy you, why it is annoying you, what you need to ask for moving forward.

So later that night when you come home and see your spouse, you will have honored and accepted what you are feeling. And you will be ready to listen, share and solve the issue at hand.

The second approach is brought to you by Gabrielle Oettingen is a leading researcher and psychology professor at NYU. She has done a lot of research in the field of positive thinking and through her studies she has proven that positive thinking does not work in the long term she says: “Positive thinking can make us feel better in the short term, but over the long term it saps our motivation, preventing us from achieving our wishes and goals, and leaving us feeling frustrated, stymied and stuck. The more that people ‘think positive’ and imagine themselves achieving their goals, the less they actually achieve.”

The system that she has discovered is called WOOP and stands for wish outcome, obstacle and plan. So again taking the example of your spouse and your argument

WHAT IS YOUR WISH? What is your most important wish or concern?

I wish to stop keeping score and fighting over who does what. To just appreciate each other for what we bring to the table.

WHAT IS THE BEST OUTCOME?

If your wish is fulfilled, where would that leave you? What would be the best, most positive outcome?

Outcome: to fight far less, to have more joy day-to-day because we could be able to talk through when we are feeling underappreciated without being so defensive.

WHAT IS YOUR MAIN INNER OBSTACLE?

What is it within you that holds you back from fulfilling your wish? It might be an emotion, an irrational belief, or a bad habit. Think more deeply—what is it really?

The fear that he will take advantage of me, that I will ALWAYS be doing more because I am such an over-achiever and he is ok with what is.

MAKE A PLAN

What can you do to overcome your obstacle? Identify one action you can take or one thought you can think to overcome your obstacle.

PLAN: To be open and honest with yourself, to own when you are feeling underappreciated and ask am I appreciating myself? Is this take THAT important? And where can I ask for help?

She details these findings and her approach in her book Rethinking Positive thinking you can also check out her website woopmylife.org

And the 3rd approach is by the psychologist Peter M Gollwitzer and his colleagues at New York University have used a strategy called ‘implementation intentions’, in which people form plans about future action using ‘if-then statements:

“If I start to feel angry at my spouse about feeling underappreciated, THEN I will ask myself am I appreciating myself? Or If I am appreciating myself and still feel anger, then I will be honest with my husband and ask for help rather than pouting.

And finally, I want to share one of my favorite books on this subject written by Oliver Burkeman entitled: The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking

Burkeman writes in The Guardian: {Research] points to an alternative approach [to happiness]: a ‘negative path’ to happiness that entails taking a radically different stance towards those things most of us spend our lives trying hard to avoid. This involves learning to enjoy uncertainty, embracing insecurity and becoming familiar with failure. In order to be truly happy, it turns out, we might actually need to be willing to experience more negative emotions – or, at the very least, to stop running quite so hard from them.

This week I challenge you to experience ALL your thoughts and emotions, they are not something to be controlled or changed, they are simply information.

---

It’s no secret that I have a bone to pick with the self-help industry. The solutions it sells leave women living with hidden anxiety--women like you--with more stuff to be anxious about. Or worse, it turns you off from getting help completely.

“At this point, I’ve made my case that positive thinking doesn’t always create positive results. In fact, for women like you dealing with hidden High Function Anxiety, positive thinking can be really dangerous.

Of course, the self-help industry doesn’t want you to know. The solutions it sells leave you walling off parts of yourself. Feeling less authentic and more anxious.

I want to help you dial back the overwhelm and overthinking with a set of tools designed just for people like you. It’s not woo-woo. It’s not trying to positively think your challenges away. And I’m certainly not going to tell you to start living your best life.

I work one-on-one with women like you to deconstruct why anxiety creeps upon you and give you something to do about it.

Here’s how it works:

First, we meet for an extended 90-minute session to uncover your stories and habits. You know, the ones that keep you stuck.

Then, you continue to work with me on-demand through an app that lets you leave a message for me any time you start to feel anxious or whenever you feel the Monger attack. I’ll get back to you with action steps for moving through the discomfort and finding peace. Plus, you’ll continue to meet with me for monthly sessions, too.

Working with me this way is an incredibly efficient and effective way to deal with your anxiety in the moment--without waiting for your next appointment.

---

Episode 101: Positive Thinking Vs Radical Acceptance

I’ll be sharing the tools and resources I use with myself and clients to quiet the cacophony of positive thinking messages that come our way on a daily basis--and listen in to our own inner peace.

Listen to the full episode to find out:

• How the self-help industry is especially dangerous for those of us with High Functioning Anxiety

• How I almost single-handedly kept her local Borders afloat (spoiler: I didn’t)

• Why “radical acceptance” changed everything for me--but what I had to do first before I could fully accept myself (you can start this today)

• Why leaning into your value for loyalty is the key to building a new relationship with yourself and your anxiety

Research and resources mentioned:

• The Science Daily research study

• Tara Brach’s book, Radical Acceptance

• And Tara Brach herself

• Nancy’s books on living with High Functioning Anxiety

The solutions the personal growth industry sells leave women living with hidden anxiety--women like you--with more stuff to be anxious about. Even worse, it can turn you off from getting help completely.

I want to help you dial back the overwhelm and overthinking with a set of tools designed just for people like you. It’s not woo-woo. It’s not trying to positively think your challenges away. And I’m certainly not going to tell you to start living your best life.

I work one-on-one with women like you to deconstruct why anxiety creeps up on you and give you something to do about it. Click here to learn more about working with me through on-demand coachinng.

+ Read the Transcript

Things have gotten out of hand. Live your best life, think positively, high vibes only! Frankly, it's become toxic. Just yesterday on Instagram, I saw one of the classic posts saying, "Train your mind to see the good in every situation" or another personal favorite, "life is too good to be anything but happy.'

The self-help, personal development, self-improvement industry, whatever you want to call it, has gotten out of hand. I would even argue that parts of it have become toxic. Over the next few episodes, we will be taking an in-depth look at specific messages shared by this industry that might be making your anxiety worse.

"You're listening to The Happier Approach—the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith."

Researchers at the University of Montreal found that consuming self-help books actually makes people more stressed. Lupien, one of the lead researchers, said, "It seems that these books do not produce the desired effects. When we observe that the best predictor of purchasing a self-help book is having bought one in the past year, it raises doubts about their effectiveness. Logically, if such books were truly effective, reading just one would be enough to solve our problems," Not to say that ALL self-help books are crap, there are quality books out there, we need to be discerning of them.

The first glaring issue with many of these books is they boil everything down to the idea that you are broken. If only you were skinnier, had better boundaries, were less of a perfectionist, stopped people-pleasing, or were more positive THAN you will feel better about your life. They are constantly sending the message they have the answer to your problems, and you need to follow their simple system to achieve it. Of course, you feel more broken, more defeated, and more lost after reading it. So you pick up another book hoping THIS one will free you of all your ills.

The self-help industry is especially dangerous for those of us with High Functioning Anxiety because, at our core, we believe we are unworthy. This belief of unworthiness manifests in anxiety. We hustle, overanalyze, ruminate, worry and overperform to keep those feelings of unworthiness at bay. So yes, we are ripe for reading self-help books. My bookshelves used to be covered in them; I might have helped my local Borders bookstore stay in business for as long s they did because in my 20s and 30s, I was there every weekend looking for a book that would heal me. That would finally make my pain go away. I know if I could just find that simple answer, everything would be better. Self-help sells quick answers, another thing those of us with HFA love. Simple solutions, and then we find afterward we can beat ourselves up when those simple solutions don't work.

So you can see the cycle, feel broken, have LOTS of anxiety, recognize that is all this bad behavior you are engaging in, look for a solution outside of yourself via books, courses, or gurus who are offering simple, easy solutions. When that solution inevitably doesn't work, you blame yourself more and head out looking for the next solution because maybe THIS one will give you the peace you are looking for.

Make it stop! A few years ago, I started listening to Tara Brach; she wasn't a guru, she wasn't making tens of thousands of dollars, charging hundreds of dollars for her program. She was a Buddhist practicing psychologist who was open and honest about her own struggle with Radical Acceptance. I was hooked. She was the first person to introduce radical acceptance to me and how it would look if I practiced it. In fact, this quote changed my life ("This moment ask yourself, do I accept myself just as I am? Without judging yourself, simply become aware of how you are relating to your body, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors." Talk about a breath of fresh air.

Her message was like a drop of water in a sea of self-criticism. I couldn't believe in the power of radical acceptance because I was so very broken. I had swallowed the lie that I couldn't be accepting of myself because if I did, then I wouldn't be a 'good person. I would be giving up on myself, doomed to be broken forever. But I kept reading her book, listening to her words and It took me a few years of dabbling in radical acceptance, dipping my toes in the idea that acceptance of myself was the key. Eventually, I realized the idea of pure acceptance was just a bit too radical for me. If acceptance was Mt. Everest, I had spent the past few years stuck at base camp 1. I decided maybe I should try being kind to myself first.

I started with what seemed like a radical idea at first, "You are not broken, you do not need to be fixed". Yes, you are human. Yes, you are put on this earth to be the best version of yourself and learn as many lessons as possible, AND you have been brainwashed into thinking you have to always be improving to be accepted. What if rather than going outside of ourselves to find the most effective simple solution to fix yourself, the journey is to go inward and be kind to what you see there.

Rather than beating yourself up for having soft boundaries, be kind to yourself. You learned soft boundaries over time, maybe in your childhood, maybe in your first marriage. But having soft boundaries has served you, AND learning how to have more rigid boundaries might serve you. Learning how to set boundaries is challenging and takes a long time. It isn't a simple solution. It isn't one and done, it is repeated baby steps over time, and each time you mess up (which is inevitable), it requires more kindness from you.

One of the values almost all my clients with HFA share is a high loyalty value. They are VERY loyal to anyone in their inner circle, and yet, they frequently turn their backs on themselves. The only way to make change, the only way to come to peace with your anxiety is to stop turning your back on yourself. Stop ridiculing, belittling, and fighting who you are. When we can build loyalty with ourselves, be kind to ourselves, have our own backs, we can see the hustle, ruminating, and control is all a ruse to hide our own flaws. And when we accept our flaws, the need to keep that ruse alive becomes less.

Will you always have anxiety, probably. The need to hide our flaws is hard wired and strong. But that doesn't mean we have to fall victim to it every time. That means that when we notice our anxiety, we can say, "Oh yes, there you are again. Trying to protect me from myself, right? This time I don't need protection, I see me and I am kind to me so keep moving." Yep, that sounds simple, and it is anything but simple. Building a relationship with yourself with kindness and loyalty as the foundation is counter to everything we have been taught. It takes time, and that time includes repeated failures, periods of getting stuck in looking outside of yourself, reminders that you can do it and cycle and repeat. But this work is 10000 times better than the constant unfulfilling need of thinking I am broken and THEY can fix me. Now I want you to say I am NOT broken, and I do not need fixed. I am human, amazingly wonderfully human.

And if you want a book to read, pick up a copy of Tara Brach's book Radical Acceptance it is unlike any self help book you have read. You can also listen to her weekly sermons via her podcast and or her website. They are full of stories, humor, and wisdom.

It's no secret that I have a bone to pick with the self-help industry. The solutions it sells leave women living with hidden anxiety--women like you--with more stuff to be anxious about. Or worse, it turns you off from getting help completely.

I want to help you dial back the overwhelm and overthinking with a set of tools designed just for people like you. It's not woo-woo. It's not trying to positively think your challenges away. And I'm certainly not going to tell you to start living your best life.

I work one-on-one with women like you to deconstruct why anxiety creeps upon you and give you something to do about it.

Here's how it works:

First, we meet for an extended 90-minute session to uncover your stories and habits. You know, the ones that keep you stuck.

Then, you continue to work with me on-demand through an app that lets you leave a message for me any time you start to feel anxious or whenever you feel the Monger attack. I'll get back to you with action steps for moving through the discomfort and finding peace. Plus, you'll continue to meet with me for monthly sessions, too.

Working with me this way is an incredibly efficient and effective way to deal with your anxiety in the moment--without waiting for your next appointment.

Like the show? I would love for you to subscribe on your favorite podcast player and then head over to Apple Podcasts and leave a review. Do you know someone who struggles with High Functioning Anxiety? Tell them to listen as well. I am so excited to share with you the Happier Approach.

---

It's no secret that I have a bone to pick with the self-help industry. The solutions it sells leave women living with hidden anxiety--women like you--with more stuff to be anxious about. Or worse, it turns you off from getting help completely.

I want to help you dial back the overwhelm and overthinking with a set of tools designed just for people like you. It's not woo-woo. It's not trying to positively think your challenges away. And I'm certainly not going to tell you to start living your best life.

I work one-on-one with women like you to deconstruct why anxiety creeps upon you and give you something to do about it.

Here's how it works:

First, we meet for an extended 90-minute session to uncover your stories and habits. You know, the ones that keep you stuck.

Then, you continue to work with me on-demand through an app that lets you leave a message for me any time you start to feel anxious or whenever you feel the Monger attack. I'll get back to you with action steps for moving through the discomfort and finding peace. Plus, you'll continue to meet with me for monthly sessions, too.

Working with me this way is an incredibly efficient and effective way to deal with your anxiety in the moment--without waiting for your next appointment.

Like the show? I would love for you to subscribe on your favorite podcast player and then head over to Apple Podcasts and leave a review. Do you know someone who struggles with High Functioning Anxiety? Tell them to listen as well. I am so excited to share with you the Happier Approach.

---

Episode 100: Looking Back My Favorite Episodes

Today I am celebrating Episode 100!  Yippee!!  I am looking back on my top 7 episodes and giving you some behind the scene look at what I was feeling/thinking as I recorded them and a bit of back story. 

 Show Notes and Links:

Episodes I mentioned:

Episode 003 Why Positive Thinking is Keeping You Stuck

Episode 022: A Ban on Unsolicited Advice

Episode 034: Why Pay Twice?

Episode 068: My Dad, Grief and Living Happier

Episode 072: The Power of A.S.K.

Episode 082: The Warm Cozy Sweater of Our Monger

Episode 094: Lessons Learned in Iowa

+ Read the Transcript

Hey, gang. So glad to be here again. I have made it to episode 100. I cannot believe it; this is episode 100. Today, I just wanted to share some of my favorite episodes and give you a little tidbit behind the scenes about each of them, and also to share some behind-the-scenes of what's happening here. I've hinted around that I'm doing some changes, but I haven't come clean with them, so I wanted to give you a little sneak peek behind that and what I've been dealing with and feeling, how loud my Monger's been chatting, and how I've been dealing with that. So, we will dive right in.

After this episode marks the end of an era. No, not really, the end of the Happiness Hacks podcast. Don't panic. I'm still going to be here, but I'm kind of switching things up after this episode. I'm going to be taking a short break while I switch things up, just probably a month, not the six-month break that I took earlier, while I get clear on what this new thing is. Since my work focuses on type A personality and hidden anxiety that I call high-functioning anxiety, I want this podcast to reflect that in a more succinct way. I've always been talking about those messages, but it's less about hacking happiness and more about living with hidden anxiety, and I want the podcast content and the name to reflect that. That's going to be coming up.

At the end of this episode, I'll be sharing more about my process with that and how my Monger has been raising its ugly head. I think it's just fascinating, and you may relate to how our Mongers are so freaking sneaky. They are so sneaky. Even I, who am a professional Monger slayer ( I like to think), struggle with how wily my Monger is.

But first, let's dive into the seven episodes that I love the most or have the most fondness for in of the hundred that I've done over the past few years. The first one is Episode 003: Why Positive Thinking is Keeping You Stuck. If you've listened to the previous 99 episodes, you know I'm not a fan of positive thinking. But when I specifically did this episode, this was early on in my podcasting, obviously, just Episode 003. It was scary to say positive thinking keeps you stuck because many people, in my profession, love positive thinking. It is a big factor in the wellness industry to think positive and be grateful, and I believe those are keeping us stuck and prevent us from really feeling the feelings, at least for my clients and the people I work with. When we get stuck in positive thinking and gratitude, we use it as a weapon against our feelings and against what's happening. So if something bad is happening in our lives, we turn it into positive thinking, or we try to switch our brains.

Just yesterday, I posted something on Instagram. It said, "Choose Happiness." And then it said you can't choose happiness because it's a feeling and we can't control our emotions. I believe that's why positive thinking keeps you stuck because it doesn't allow you to deal with what's happening. As someone who said on the Instagram post, choose acceptance. That is precisely what I wanted people to be doing, choosing the acceptance of whatever is happening with them rather than just trying to do positive thinking. So tune into Episode 003, and you will hear more of my thoughts on this.

My next favorite episode is Episode 022, A Ban on Unsolicited Advice. This episode was originally a blog post, and I wrote it years ago. Honestly, I wrote it because I was so overwhelmed by a particular friend's advice. Because I am conflict avoidant and was conflict avoidant at the time that I wrote this, I wrote this blog post to get all my feelings out. My friend realized it was about her, and we had a great conversation about it afterward.

But, this is one of my favorite episodes, and it's one of my favorite blog posts because I do believe we need a ban on unsolicited advice. It is the first thing we do when someone comes to us with their suffering is we offer tips to help instead of offering empathy, instead of just saying, "Wow. Thank you for sharing that. I have no clue what to say to you right now, but I love you," or, "I appreciate you," or give them a hug. We don't need to be fixing everything. I love this episode, one, because it has a personal story behind it, but mostly because I love the message. I think we all can get better on giving advice, and not offering advice, and just being there for people when they show up.

Then, Episode 034 Why Pay Twice? is my third pick. This is a sentimental pick. This is advice from my dad that he gave me years ago. Not just to me. It was a general philosophy of his of why pay twice. The general example I give is if you go to the movie and you pay for the movie and then the movie is terrible, why sit through the movie when you have already paid for it? Why pay twice by sitting through the movie?

In this podcast, I get into a lot more examples and why this is just a deeper piece of advice than don't pay for a movie and then sit through it if you hate it. It is about the choices we make in our lives and that we will convince ourselves we can't do something because we've already made a choice. That's a concept you're paying twice. You're doubling down on your misery. And why do that?

I love this podcast because it's written for my dad. I love this because this was originally an article, and it appeared in Juice Squeezed, which is the first book I wrote. The number one thing that people quote back to me is people will say, "I read your book Juice Squeezed, and I loved the why pay twice advice. It changed my life." Then, people will give me examples of how it's changed their lives. So not only is this a sentimental pick because it was my dad who gave me the advice, but it also is such practical good advice. It's rare that you hear something and you're like, "Oh, yeah. You're so right about that," and then you can apply it deeper, and deeper, and deeper. I highly recommend you check out this episode because it gives some deeper level advice on the concept of why paying twice.

Then we are at number four, and this is Episode 068, My Dad, Grief, and Living Happier. This is by far the most personal episode I've ever done. I recorded it in October after my dad died in January of 2017. His death rocked my world. I still feel the aftershocks of his death. He was just my biggest fan and my rock. I just love my dad so much, and I miss him so much every day.

I wanted to do an episode about grief because I wanted to have that conversation. Because so often after someone dies, we forget that there's still suffering. We're still trying to adjust to life without the person who died. That goes on, and on, and on for years, we're still trying to adjust to that. I think in our culture the more we can talk about, "Yeah, I'm still missing him. Yeah, there are days that I still cry on my way to work," because that's normal. After a friend of ours loses someone, we forget that they're still grieving years later and we forget how hard it is. Grief can be such a lonely thing, and so this episode was kind of how to help other people that are grieving, how to help you if you're grieving, just an honest conversation about my process and what it was like after my dad died.

His death profoundly shaped my work. I think if he had not died, I would never have written The Happier Approach. A friend of mine said that The Happier Approach was like a love letter to my dad, and in so many ways it was. It makes me tear up just thinking about it now. Because he dealt with high-functioning anxiety and he had a very loud monger, and so that book was a way of helping him and me and stopping the pattern that had profoundly affected his life and trying to help other people so that that pattern doesn't continue. I'm very grateful for him, and what he's taught me, and how he affected my life so that I could continue this work that I'm doing.

Then, number five is Episode 072: The Power of Ask. I love this episode because this is the first time I chatted about The Happier Approach. I chatted about Mongers, I chatted about inner critic and anxiety, but I'd never really talked about the system of how to call in your Biggest Fan and what that looks like. This was my first step into talking about The Happier Approach, and talking about ask, and getting into the nitty-gritty of my work, and the work of The Happier Approach.

Now, I will say this is the first in a three-part series. So I did cheat a bit because all the parts don't count as three episodes. I just posted the first episode, but there's also two more that follow this, episode 73 and episode 74. They continue the conversation of ask. So technically, I guess I have 10 favorite episodes. You can head on to episode 072, The Power of Ask, and dive into the concepts in The Happier Approach.

Then, number six was Episode 082, The Warm, Cozy Sweater of Our Monger. I struggle with the idea of the warm, cozy sweater of our Monger. It's not my favorite analogy, but it is one that gets repeated back to me a lot. Clients use it a lot, so it stays with people, but I wish there was a better way of saying it. But, I wanted to show how the Monger isn't all bad, and it does provide us comfort because she keeps us safe and prevents us from taking too many risks. We put her on like a warm, cozy sweater. When we first put her on, she's warm, and cozy, and makes us feel safe and protected, and oh yeah, I don't have to do that. I don't have to be putting myself out there. Then, over time, the sweater gets itchy, and she, the Monger becomes harmful, and annoying, and belittling, and is keeping us stuck. We realize that the sweater that was warm and cozy has turned into the super itchy straight jacket, and we want to get it off as quickly as possible.

That's why I came up with the analogy was a way of illustrating we first start listening to the Monger; it can be comforting. That's why she's so hard to break up with because she is comforting. Even when the sweater gets itchy, at that point we don't know how to take it off, and we get stuck, thus we go back to episode 72, and we hear about the power of ask. But really, this monger sweater idea is a powerful analogy. I wish there was a slightly better way of doing it because it doesn't fit 100%. So if you have a better way of coming up with that, that illustration, please let me know. You could send me an email. But, a lot of times clients will come into my office, and they're like, "I keep wearing the sweater. I keep putting on the sweater. I keep putting on the sweater." That's just a great way of recognizing how the Monger, we keep wearing it. We keep choosing it, even though we know it's going to keep us stuck.

Then, the seventh episode that is my favorite is episode 094, Lessons Learned in Iowa. This episode was different than all the other ones I'd done before. I mean, I received a lot of notes and emails about this podcast, and so that's why I included it in the seven top episodes because it touched a lot of people. I wanted to highlight it again.

For me, Lessons Learned in Iowa, it was about a trip. My mom and I took a trip to Iowa to visit some family friends. They're farmers in Iowa. We used to visit them when I was a kid. The husband served in the military with my dad, and so they'd been friends forever. He knew my dad. There was a lot of sentimentality to the trip. But more so than that, personally, it was just all these lessons I learned about how to be a human and how to be whole-hearted. It was just an amazing trip that I hadn't planned on having all these a-has that I had there. I highly recommend you tune into that episode to hear a different way of doing things. I think in our current climate culturally we are so quick to judge and be outraged that this episode was just kind of warms the heart and gives you hope that there is good out there in the world and that we can be useful, and we can do better. So, I highly recommend episode 94.

Those are my seven episodes from the past 100 that I have enjoyed the most and wanted to give you a little insight to each of them so you can go back and listen to them if you like. I appreciate everyone that has listened for the past 100 episodes, who have emailed me, or Instagrammed me, or gotten in touch to say how this podcast has touched their lives. That is incredible to me because this podcast was something I just started. I call it my garage, garage band podcast because I just did it in my office and edited it myself. It's been very piece together and fly by the seat of my pants, and this is what I want to talk about, so I'm just going to start talking. That's been fun.

I want to up my game when it comes to the podcast, so this is where my Monger has been coming in. I teased at the beginning of the episode, that I want to talk about high-functioning anxiety, and hidden anxiety, and the stress and overwhelm that we're all dealing with. But, I want to do that differently with this podcast and make it a little more professional, take myself a little more seriously, not just fly by the seat of my pants all the time and be editing it on the fly, but intentional about what the message is. I'm going to be doing interviews, and more research, and just having it be a little more professional and a little more in-depth so you can get more out of it than just hearing me chat, which is excellent. I love hearing me chat, too, (ha!) but to have a little more depth to it.

Ever since I made that decision, which was months ago, I have been paralyzed by my Monger. It wasn't until recently a friend of mine has just been like, "I think it's your Monger. I think it's your Monger, and she's holding you back. You're taking your podcast out of the garage, and you're making it a professional thing, and that's scary." It was like, "Oh, yeah. That's why I'm procrastinating. That's why I'm spinning out on perfectionism. I'm getting in my way all over the place with this thing." It was a humbling moment to recognize how much our mongers play there and we don't recognize it.

I wanted to share with you all that something new is coming, that I'm working on this more in-depth, more professional, more focused podcast. But also, I too have been struggling with my Monger. I think any time we're trying to level up, go to the next place and be more intentional about our lives; our Mongers get louder because it's scarier. That's why it's crucial then to practice ask, and acknowledge what you're feeling, and slow down and get into your body, and pull back and see the big picture because our mongers keep us with those blinders on, and it's just very paralyzing.

So if you are getting ready to do something big or you have some great idea, and your Monger is in your way, I'm here with you. I feel you. We can do this together. We can make changes. We can grow, get our Mongers out of the way, and bring in that biggest fan, and do it differently. I will see you guys soon. I don't know exactly when that will be, but I will be coming down the pike with episode 101 with a new look and similar message. It's just going to be on a deeper level with more interviews, and research, and more oomph behind it. I hope you will keep listening and tell your friends about it. I will see you when I'm back with episode 101. So in the meantime, though, here's to living happier.

---

Episode 099: The Curse of "I'm Fine"

This week I had an ah-ha when I noticed I was stressed to the max but was telling myself 'everything is fine.' My body was screaming stress, and my anxiety was in full force, but my mind was trying to convince me it was no big deal. This is a classic pattern of High Functioning Anxiety listen to see how to recognize the pattern and what to do about it.

+ Read the Transcript

Hey, gang. So excited to be back here. Today I want to talk about the way to get through anxiety. We all know this starts with feeling your feelings. We all know this because I've talked about it ad nauseum on this podcast, but that's way easier said than done, which also is something I talk about a lot on this podcast too. We have to acknowledge what we feel because the anxiety keeps us trapped up in our heads in this "Ah!" frantic energy, and we need to drop back down into our bodies and acknowledge what else is going on other than just the frantic energy that's happening around us.

This week, I had a fascinating realization on this whole phenomenon of stress, and the curse of I'm fine and how we deal with it when we have anxiety, especially high functioning anxiety. The more stressful things that happened in our lives, the more we convince ourselves we're fine. You would think that the more stressful things that happened in our lives, the more the wheels would be falling off, and we would be crying and stressed out and giving ourselves all this extra love because we're so stressed out.

But no, actually, the opposite happens. The more stressed out we get, the more we convince ourselves we're fine and that everything's okay. I'm going to give you an example just to illustrate the point. Let's say you have a stressful week. It's Sunday night, and you're heading into the week, you know it's going to be stressful because the kids' activities are picking up, they're in full swing. You have a project due at work, and your partner is going to be traveling for part of the week. Oh, it sounds very stressful.

As the start of the week, you say to a friend on Monday morning, "Oh my gosh, I am so stressed out. This week is going to be packed. We have so much going on." And your friend says, "I get it. I'm here if you need me, I have a light week, so I can help out if you need some help." You're so appreciative; you say "Yay, thank you so much." you give a big hug and you move on. And then Tuesday hits and your oldest comes down with strep, the dog escapes and runs all over the neighborhood, and your car gets a flat tire. And on Wednesday, your husband, who was supposed to be home that night, calls to say his flight is delayed, and he's hoping to make it home by Thursday.

So your stressful week, "has turned into hell." And what happens is you act like everything's fine. The more stressed out you get, the more you say, "It's fine. I got this." And then I bet what happens is your body starts showing you you're stressed. You might have indigestion or headaches. You can't keep a thought in your head. You're extra grouchy, and the tensions run high. But in your mind, everything's fine. You got it. The plate is full, but you're on top of it. It's this opposite thing that happens.

Your body is screaming with stress, but your mind has taken over. I would argue that your Monger and your BFF have taken over and are telling you, "Just keep going. We got this; we got this." And so you are in pure survival mode, and there is no way when you're in pure survival mode, you're going to start acknowledging your feelings. It's just not going to happen. So this aha came to me, this realization of this pattern, came to me this week with me.

And we got a new dog last Sunday. He's absolutely adorable. Waterson is his name. He's this beautiful black lab, 14 months old, and he's a handful. We're trying to get him acclimated to our house. We're trying to get him acclimated to our cats. It's a lot, and so that alone would be a lot. But then on top of that, I had a bunch of doctor's appointments this week. We had some issues in our personal lives, just stuff has been happening that's put on the stress, our plate is full, and it was Thursday afternoon, and I couldn't keep a thought in my head. I feel like everything keeps flying out of my brain without me even thinking about it. I'm just dropping balls all over the place.

And I thought, "Well, wow, I only do that when I'm stressed, but I'm not that stressed. I mean, we don't have a lot going on. I don't know why I'm acting this way. I don't know what's wrong with me." I just kept going, and more and more stuff kept piling onto the plate, and my indigestion crept up, I started getting a headache, and I thought, "Wait a minute, you are stressed. When is it enough stress for you to acknowledge it?" It was just kind of this aha that I feel like I passed this threshold.

I go along with all my stress, and then I hit this threshold where it's just, I've crossed over into survival mode. When I'm in survival mode, that means I'm also in denial mode of what's happening, and so I completely ignore my body. I completely ignore everything around me, and I plow ahead with the attitude, "I got this, I'm going to keep going. Just moving forward on automatic." Meanwhile, my anxiety is through the roof. I'm driving my husband crazy because I have all this anxiety. I'm over analyzing every little thing. My anger and irritation are up higher. All because I'm ignoring what's going on and this happens all the time.

I say to myself, I say to my clients and I probably, venture to guess, you can see it in your life, too. What's happening is your Monger is running the show. You're overwhelmed. Your Monger steps in to remind you how overwhelmed you are, how many balls you've dropped, how much you suck, everything that's going wrong. And so your BFF steps in, and remember your BFF is the voice of false self-compassion. Her favorite thing to do is to blame other people. She's going to blame your husband for traveling. She's going to blame the dog, she's going to blame your kids for having too many activities, and she's going to get you all riled up in a sense because she's blaming everyone around you. And she's going to say, "Go ahead. Have that third drink."

She's going to encourage you on Wednesday night when your husband calls and says, "I'm not coming home until tomorrow," to drink that bottle of wine. Then, Thursday morning you wake up, and you have a hangover, and your Monger is even louder than she was before. That argument between those two keeps you in this high stakes anxiety. It's overwhelming. You can't handle it, so you go into auto mode because you know how to do auto mode. You're good at white knuckling it. You're good at toughing it out and holding it together and soldiering on. That is one of your strengths.

And so it's recognizing when you were soldiering on and toughing it out, and your body is screaming to say, "Whoa, there's too much going on here. We need to figure out how to take care of ourselves." That combination, the more stressed we get, the more we ignore our bodies, the more we ignore the messages of the Biggest Fan who's there whispering saying, "Oh, Sweet Pea, whew. We need to slow down. We need to do this differently."

A couple of weeks ago I posted on Instagram about a habit that I have that when I go to the bathroom, I don't look at myself in the mirror because I'm always onto the next thing. Usually, just onto the next thing and not paying attention. I've been trying to do this practice of looking in the mirror and touching my hands over my heart and saying, "Okay, Sweet Pea, what's going on?" And giving myself a check-in.

This week, as I was super stressed out and running from thing to thing, I stopped doing that. I stopped checking in with myself in the mirror. A, I didn't even notice I wasn't doing it; but B, it was a real recognition of, "Oh my gosh, I am in such a survival mode. I'm not even doing the things that I know make me feel better." And that is to stop and check in and see what's happening because our Monger convinces us there's no time. We have to keep it going. We have to keep plowing ahead. We can't be stopping. Ah, there's so much to do. There's so much to do. There's so much to do.

Underneath our calm, "I'm fine. I got it all together," is this hyper energy, this hyper high functioning anxiety energy. And the only way to get rid of that crazy energy is if we slow down and we acknowledge what we're feeling, and we say, "Oh my gosh, I am so overwhelmed right now. I am so frustrated that I have to drive the kids everywhere. I am so lost and confused about this project that we have for work. I don't know how we're going to finish it all. I am so overwhelmed with all the responsibilities I have, and I need to figure out how to do this differently."

And then, when we slow down and get into our bodies, and then we can say, "Okay, wow, my head hurts. Oh my gosh, I have horrible indigestion." We could take some deep breaths, do a little dance, get it a wiggle and then we can pull back and see the big picture and say, "Oh yeah, remember on Monday when your friend said, 'I have a light week, and I'd be happy to help.'?" Maybe I could call on her and say, "Could you pick the kids up on Thursday? I need to stay late at work and figure out this project."

When we get out of the fight or flight mode, when we get out of the soldiering on and the sucking it up, buttercup, and we're able to acknowledge what we're feeling, slow down and get into our bodies and kindly pull back to see the big picture. We can see we have other options that someone offered to help, maybe fast food and pizzas are how the week's going to roll, and we're just going to be okay with that. And we're going to try to sneak in our fruits and vegetables where we can. Maybe it is a week that we are going to have to ask the kids to step up and help out because dad isn't here and I'm losing it, and so we can ask for help.

All of that stuff comes when we kindly pull back to see the big picture. But here's the glitch, the pull, the pull of the good girl, the pull of the perfectionist, the pull of, "I got this, I'm fine," is so strong, it's built into us. It's so much a part of us, and it's such a place where we find pride that it hurts us. It's hard to go against that voice. That's where I just am saying, "I hear ya. I get it. I understand how hard this is, but I also know that we can't keep doing this. We can't keep pushing ourselves to the point of headaches and backaches and indigestion and overwhelm and stress and insomnia and all those things our bodies are screaming at us. We can't keep doing this, and so we have to find a different way. I hear you that your high functioning anxiety has helped you get to where you are, but I also hear you that it's hurting you."

This hard wiring is hard to un-wire, but it's possible. I caught myself this week and then in the past I would never have caught myself. This aha would never have happened. For me to be able to say, "Wait a minute, listen to your body, what's going on?" That's a huge win. I'm still in the middle of the week. It was still stressful when that came to me. I wasn't just, "Sucking it up, buttercup." I wasn't just plowing forward. I was able to stop, and so I encourage you to find a way you can stop. Is that putting a sticky note in your car to that says, "A.S.K." So you acknowledge what you're feeling. Is it starting your morning every day by looking at the day and saying, "Wow, where is this day going to be stressful? Where can I put in a break? Where can I take care of myself?" And just understanding the day and doing some pre-planning, so you don't get into the fight or flight mode.

You don't get into the, "I got this," place. You catch yourself before you get there and you're able to put in some buffer rooms. Any of those, there's a lot of ideas and a lot of ways to go around this. I am going to stick in the show notes a PDF on your feelings, and I want you to take a look at that. It's also in my book, The Happier Approach. I have a page that's devoted to the feeling, so if you have The Happier Approach, you can pull that out, and it's beneficial to look at that to be able to see, "Okay, wow." And maybe saying, "I'm feeling angry, but really underneath that anger, I'm seething, or I'm super frustrated or irritated or, wow, I am feeling insecure right now." This feelings list helps you tap into what else is going on other than just, "I'm angry at my husband for being late."

What else is under there? I'm feeling lost, and I'm feeling like a bad mom. I'm feeling insecure and being able to acknowledge those feelings makes such a difference, and it helps prevent that pushing externally, that drive to get everything done because that's what the mode we go into. We get into this mode where we're just about accomplishing, and we forget that we're human beings who have a body that needs us. It requires attention. We need to pay attention to our Biggest Fan. That's her saying, "Come on, Sweet Pea. We can do this, but we got to take care of ourselves."

---

Episode 098: Ok, I think I have High Functioning Anxiety. What do I do about it?

In episode 097, I described High Functioning Anxiety today I am looking at what do about it and why just overcoming perfectionism or setting boundaries won't work.

+ Read the Transcript

Hey everyone, so happy to be back here and chatting with you all again. I have to say as a little aside that since I have given myself permission to give some wiggle room around this podcast and not be so militant about getting it out every Tuesday, once a week, or every other week. I have so much more joy about doing the podcast, and I have been more on top of it for doing the podcast.

And best of all, it has been fun. So it was a great lesson to me in the power of loosening up and releasing some of those rigid rules that we have on things. And I was curious in your life, is there a place where you could release some rigidity? And it might help loosen things up and bring more joy into your life. Or into that specific activity.

So give it a try. It’s worked for me, especially with this podcast, and I’ve seen it in a variety of other areas in my life, and that’s been fun. So wanted to share that tip with you all. But now, let’s get onto today’s topic because I’m excited about it. Clearly, I hit a nerve a couple of weeks ago when I did episode 97, and I talked about high functioning anxiety because I heard from so many people through emails and direct messages saying, “Yep, that’s me. Have you been in my head? Oh my gosh, I have high functioning anxiety.”

And so today I wanted to talk about what you can do about it. So the tricky thing about high functioning anxiety and dealing with it is multi-leveled. One, it is challenging because underneath everything, you have anxiety, and to deal with the anxiety, you have developed coping mechanisms. It’s these coping mechanisms that a lot of the self-help industry deals with; perfectionism, people-pleasing, focusing externally, all of those things that we do, the push, push, push and the hustle, and all the traits I use to describe high functioning anxiety in episode 97.

We do those coping skills, so we don’t have to feel the underlying anxiety. And so it isn’t about the coping skills and fixing the coping skills because if you start to try to fix people-pleasing and you set a lot of boundaries, and you start saying no to people, the anxiety rises within you and is so overwhelming that you’re just easier to go back to people-pleasing.

So it’s a twofold problem. And then underneath it all, it’s a secret. It’s this shame that you have about having the anxiety and feeling this way. And so because of that, because your Monger is demonic, as my husband likes to say mine is because your Monger is so loud, you don’t tell anyone that you’re dealing with this anxiety. And whenever we’re living in secret and in shame, it makes things that much harder.

So because of that those three factors, the coping skills, the secretiveness, and the actual anxiety, it’s a little challenging to deal with this high functioning anxiety. It’s not impossible, but it does require some new ways of looking at it than you probably have been looking at it. And that’s what I want to talk about today.

So specifically, today, I want to be talking about the coping skills you’re dealing with and you’re using to work with your anxiety. And that’s how I think we can start to make change is when we can start recognizing the coping skills. And once we start recognizing the coping skills, then we can start seeing the anxiety and dealing with the underlying anxiety.

If we spend so much time trying to fix the coping skills, we’ll never get to the underlying anxiety because it’s way too much to deal with. I’m going to tell a story to illustrate how this will work. Let’s take the example if you’re at work and your boss gives you a project, and you immediately are like, “Of course, I got this,” because people-pleasing is what you engage in, and you like to be there for other people, and you get a lot done, and you’re the go-to person for your office.

So when your boss comes in and says, “Hey, can you do this project?” You’re like, “Of course, I got this.” And so you add it to the pile of stuff that’s on your desk, and it’s one more project in the long list of projects. And then you get home, and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, why did I do that? Why did I say yes to that project? I should have said no, blah, blah, blah.” And you beat yourself up for not saying no.

Next day you go into the office, and your boss comes in and has another project for you to do. And you immediately are like, “No, I can’t do it. I have too much.” Some freak of nature hits you, and you say no to him. And after he walks out and he says, “Okay,” he walks out, you are consumed with anxiety of who do you think you are? You can’t say no; you’re going to lose your job. You’re the one that everyone counts on. What are you thinking? Oh my gosh.

On and on and on and on and on, your Monger goes. And so your anxiety goes through the roof because you’ve said no. And that is a prime example of how High Functioning Anxiety hits us because we go against the coping skill and the anxiety freaks us out. Or we’re working with the coping skill as you were the day before, and you said, “Yes,” and then you’re freaking out because you have too much to do.

So what do you do? How do you cope with this? Well, the first thing you’re going to do, and you’ve heard me say it 1,000 times, but I’m going to say it again, is you got to practice A.S.K. At that moment when you notice, I said yes, and I meant to say no, that’s when you say what happened there? What did my boss trigger in me? Why did I say yes?

Oh, I said yes because I’m worried about what he’s going to think. I said yes because I’m scared that I’m going to lose my job. I said yes because I’m super insecure. And then you slow down and get into your body, and however that is, and then you can kindly pull back to see the big picture, to be like, “Wait a minute, I just got an excellent review. I’m good at my job. My boss says I’m good at my job, and I’m not going to be good at my job if I keep saying yes when I need to be saying no.”

So that K piece of A.S.K. is so important because anxiety and our Mongers keep us stuck in rigidity. As I said at the very beginning when I was talking about my podcast and how opening up and seeing giving myself a little more wiggle room has helped with the podcast, and me getting it done really helped with my anxiety.

And so the way to do that, K, kindly pull back to see the big picture. The only way to get there is if you are checking in with yourself. And that’s why Acknowledging what you’re feeling and Slowing down, and getting to your body are such an important part of the process because you have to be able to connect with yourself.

And anxiety pulls us outside of ourselves all the time. So even if you are numbing out, which is another coping skill of people with High Functioning Anxiety, or you are overly controlling, having a ten reaction to a two situation, all those things we do to cope with this anxiety feeling. When we can slow down and get into her body, and when we can acknowledge what we’re feeling, then we can kindly pull back to see the big picture, and we can see the wiggle room.

But as long as we’re engaged in the coping mechanism, we won’t be able to pull back and see the big picture and start building that loyalty with ourselves. The biggest way to ease your High Functioning Anxiety is to start building a relationship with yourself, building loyalty with yourself. And the way to do that is to start being curious about what is important to you. What do you want to do? What are your feelings? How do you feel about the situation?

Because when you have High Functioning Anxiety, you’re constantly looking outside of yourself. You’re looking outside of yourself to find the right answer, for someone to tell you the right thing to do to make someone else happy, to even when you numb out, you’re looking outside of yourself. You’re looking for the shopping or the T.V. or the food or the alcohol to make you feel better.

You aren’t looking internally. And so that’s the big message here that we need to start one, recognizing what our coping skills are and what we’re doing in the world to prevent our anxiety. And then two, practicing A.S.K. when we start feeling the anxiety, when we start noticing that coping skill to step in and say, “Wait, what is going on here? What am I feeling?”

Yesterday on Instagram, I posted a picture of myself in the mirror because I was talking with a client this week in and I had shared how I realized that I will go to the bathroom, I’ll wash my hands, I’ll do the whole spiel, but I won’t ever look in the mirror. And it’s not because I’m don’t want to see myself it’s just that I’m always onto the next thing. I’m moving so quickly through the bathroom to get to the next thing that I don’t pay attention to myself.

And so even the practice of just looking in the mirror every day when I go to the bathroom and checking in, being like, “Hey, how are you doing?” And seeing myself has helped in building that relationship with myself. So I’m not just this computer that’s moving through the day, trying to read what everyone else is telling me to do and making sure I click all the boxes.

The more we can slow down and get in touch with ourselves and see ourselves. And that’s why the power of the bathroom looking in the mirror is so important because it allows you to slow down and see yourself. And that’s how you can start building a relationship with yourself that decreases this High Functioning Anxiety piece. So as I said in the beginning, it’s complex because you have three different things you’re working with. You’re working with the coping skills; you’re working with your anxiety, and you’re working with the shame and the secretiveness about how you’re feeling.

And so the more we can start getting in touch with ourselves, acknowledging our experiences, paying attention to what we’re feeling, noticing what is coming up for us, and giving that some credit, the more we can start decreasing this anxiety and stop looking outside of ourselves for all the answers.

So practical tips on this are looking in the mirror when you go to the bathroom and engaging with yourself. But secondly, it’s paying attention to those coping skills. What are the coping skills you’re using? What are your preferences and coping skills? And when you notice that coping skill kicking in to recognize that it’s anxiety.

That’s your Monger talking. That’s anxiety talking. And then engaging in a practice that I prefer, which is A.S.K., or whatever practice you have that decreases your anxiety and helps you get in better touch with yourself. But it’s noticing that it’s not saying it’s not changing the coping skill necessarily. The coping skill is a sign that you have anxiety and that that’s what you need to be dealing with.

It’s not that you need to stop people-pleasing. You do need to stop people-pleasing, don’t get wrong, but it’s more so that the people-pleasing is there, so you don’t feel anxiety. It’s not people-pleasing in and of itself. It’s the people-pleasing that is helping you from dealing with your anxiety, and that’s what we want to be dealing with.

We want to be dealing with the anxiety. We want to be dealing with building loyalty to yourself so that when you start to feel anxious, your first reaction isn’t one of these coping skills. Instead, your first reaction is to deal with the anxiety.

---

Episode 097: What is High Functioning Anxiety?

Today I am looking at the term High Functioning Anxiety. What is it? Why I think it is important to differentiate from anxiety and how to know, you might be dealing with it.

Transcript:

In our podcast this week, I talk about my own personal story with it and how I came to notice the signs of high functioning anxiety in myself. I also talk about what high functioning anxiety is and I came to love working with people who also struggle with this very same issue. 

Even as an anxiety coach, I find myself struggling with the voice in my head who tells me what I’m supposed to be doing and lets me know when I appear to be doing it wrong, or what I like to call a “Monger”. I felt that same voice getting louder when it came to podcasting. Having these kinds of feelings is a classic sign of high functioning anxiety. 

I’m guessing that you can probably relate to how I’ve been feeling about podcasting I discussed in this week’s episode:

“I have a very loud Monger who tells me that the rule is I’m supposed to do a podcast every week on the same day and prerecord them and get them out to you and be rigid about it. And that is just not how this podcast thing works for me right now.

And so I  appreciated the wiggle room that some people gave me to say just show up. I don’t care how often. So that was so sweet, and it was a great reminder to me how our Mongers can insist that we do something and keep us rigid without us even knowing it.”

If you’ve ever felt like anything other than perfection was unacceptable and that you must follow how you’re “supposed to” do something to the exact letter and feel a weight of anxiety, you may have high functioning anxiety.

So What Even Is High Functioning Anxiety?

If you’re familiar with anxiety, you may have a general understanding of how it works and what people with generalized anxiety disorder may be experiencing. But high functioning anxiety may be a new term that you’re not as familiar with—and high functioning anxiety is not the same as general anxiety. 

The truth is that high anxiety is not considered a separate diagnosis of general anxiety, but the way people with high functioning anxiety may experience different signs and symptoms is what makes it different. I believe high functioning anxiety deserves its own separate category because how you cope with it is very different.

One of the biggest indicators that you may have high functioning anxiety? You know what it’s like to seem calm, cool, and collected on the outside but are internally battling with the constant storm of self doubt, stress, and anxiety.

What Is It Like to Have High Functioning Anxiety?

Personally, my experiences with high anxiety symptoms always seemed to be different than everyone else's. I always knew I struggled with anxiety but I never related to people who suffered from panic attacks and constant worry. 

“I don’t have a lot of fears or phobias. I don’t have obsessive-compulsive. I just had this low running anxiety all the time. And so I would put myself as a type A personality more so than anxiety, a control freak and uptight and that sort of phraseology that I would use.”

Can you relate to those feelings of what it’s like to have high functioning anxiety? It took me a while to really understand that I didn’t have many of the same symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder many others had.

It wasn’t until I read Sarah Wilson’s book First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, that I began to wrap my mind around what I was experiencing and the world I was living in inside my mind. I related to the way that she described anxiety and it helped me realize that I have high functioning anxiety. 

“It was very different from anything I had read before about anxiety because she wasn’t coming at it from a mental health, generalized anxiety disorder perspective. She was coming at it from this is what I deal with my anxiety. And so it was just a refreshing, an everyday look at how anxiety played out for her.”

It wasn’t until then that I realized anxiety played a much bigger role in my life than I had ever realized. I was able to finally start recognizing and labeling things in my life as signs of high functioning anxiety. From there I was finally able to do more than just cope with anxiety, I was able to face it.

In my work as an anxiety coach, I’ve found that the first step to overcoming high functioning anxiety is to understand that it’s not the same as regular ol’ anxiety and realizing that anxiety has a big impact, despite that you’re not experiencing classic symptoms of generalized anxiety. 

What Does High Functioning Anxiety Feel Like?

One important thing that I’ve learned is that people with high functioning anxiety are high functioning; they may not always appear to be timid and worrisome like those with general anxiety. In fact, on the surface, those with high functioning may seem calm and collected. It’s what’s going on on the inside that is different. 

“They have high-level jobs; they get a lot done. They’re very able to multitask and be on top of things. These are the people that you count on to really go out and go forth and do it. 

But the thing that is happening is underneath all of those high functioning skills is a white-knuckling approach — a toughing it out, holding on for dear life. But you look one thing, and you’re feeling another. And that is a big part of what high functioning anxiety does.”

When I started to notice the reoccurring signs and symptoms of high functioning anxiety in myself, it helped me come to realizations about what it feels like to have this kind of anxiety. 

It’s commonly overlooked and I had even been to an anxiety specialist for years! Getting therapy for anxiety always made a difference in my life but I was always too busy trying to cope with my anxiety rather than face it head on. 

On the surface, those dealing with high functioning anxiety may seem like very Type A people. They may be seen as the control freak, the overachiever, the busy bee. One common way people will describe themselves who have high functioning anxiety is they’re an “anxious overachiever.”

“And so that’s what happens with high functioning anxiety. You have coping skills to keep you from feeling your anxiety. And so it’s a double edge sword in that the coping skills can become over the top. And then when you remove the coping skills, you have all this anxiety, and you don’t know what to do with it.”

Dealing With High Functioning Anxiety

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been like me, coping with anxiety throughout the course of your life. When you finally realize what’s been going on you may be wondering how to get rid of your anxiety.

Often, people confuse high functioning anxiety with an acute amount of stress. That leads them to believe that they don’t need to be seeking help or taking action and that once the stress goes away, things will be better.

“And then the last assumption that I want to talk about is the idea that I don’t need to get help because it’s not that bad. This is just “life stress.” 

And I hear that all the time in my office. I’m just a little stressed. I’m just a little overwhelmed. It’s more than that, people.

I’m here to tell you if any of this is resonating with you, it’s more than just life stress. Not everyone in the world feels like this.”

I believe if you’re struggling with mental health, anxiety, or high functioning anxiety, you should consider consulting a mental health coach, anxiety coach, or other mental health professional.

If you’re wanting to dive deeper into the understanding of high functioning anxiety, listen to the full podcast. I have an in-depth conversation surrounding anxiety and coming to terms with your own thought process. 

Helpful Resources:

• My book: The Happier Approach

• Learn more about working with me through on-demand anxiety coaching!

• Book I recommend: First We Make The Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety by Sara Wilson

---

Episode 096: Resistance or Procrastination

Today I am sharing my personal story of both Resistance and Procrastination when it comes to the Happiness Hacks Podcast. Sometimes it is hard to tell which you are experiencing. I hope this episode helps!!

+ Read the Transcript

Hello, everybody. Woo, it has been five months since I have been here recording a podcast for all of you. I just vanish. I completely vanished. I didn't say I was doing a season end. I didn't wrap it up. I just completely vanished. And so, in today's episode, I'm going to be sharing what's been happening behind the scenes, why I completely vanished, and how I dealt with both my resistance and my procrastination around this podcast. Because the number one question I get when I talk about the Happier Approach is figuring out who's talking. Is it my BFF? Is it my Monger? Or is it my Biggest Fan?

Before I get into all that, I want to revisit those three voices and go over those definitions again because it's been a minute if you get that information from this podcast. So, our Monger is that inner critic voice, the critical voice that's constantly telling us that we're not doing enough, we're not living up to enough, where we failed, has a memory that goes on forever, and can always bring up where we need some work and what our failures are.

The BFF is our counter to that. So, the BFF is the pressure release valve when our Monger has been pushing us way too hard. Then, our BFF steps in to be like, "Do whatever you want, honey. Have that third drink. Binge-watch Netflix. Eat the bag of Oreos. It doesn't matter. Take a break. You deserve it." So, the BFF gives us a lot of slack and eases that pressure that the Monger's been putting on us.

So, the middle road of those two voices, and the place that I like to live from, is the Biggest Fan. The Biggest Fan is going to be the voice that's saying, "Phew, I know this is hard, but we're going to keep on going," or, "I know you messed up there, but it'll be okay. Let's see how we can improve for next time." The Biggest Fan, I like to say, is that voice of kindness and wisdom that both the BFF and the Monger are missing.

So today, as I said, I want to talk about my journey over the past five months while the podcast has been on an unexplained hiatus and why you haven't been hearing me chat here in the podcast. The last podcast episode I recorded was September 23rd, I think, to be precise. I would say I was white-knuckling through podcast episodes starting probably in August. By white-knuckling, that means my Monger was in charge, and I was recording episodes because she was telling me that I needed to do it. It was purely from her shame, and her belittling, and the voice in my head telling me that I was a loser if I didn't record a podcast. That was the only reason I recorded those last five episodes. So, my heart wasn't really in it, but I was coming to the microphone because I felt like a loser if I didn't.

So, what happened because I had was running purely on Monger motivation is what always happens when we're running purely on Monger motivation. I got burnout. I got tired of hearing that voice. The shame, and the belittling, and the criticism just became too much. And I would associate the microphone and this podcast with shaming and belittling. So, who wants to record anything if the constant message running in your head is that it's imperfect, that no one's listening, that no one cares. All that criticism that my Monger was giving me built to a head at the end of September.

So, I decided to pull away, and I nowhere near was planning on taking a five-month break. So, that's why I wanted to share what happened to me in that process because I think it might be helpful for you to see how the Monger, and the BFF, and our Biggest Fan's show up and how we choose to deal with them is the key to this whole process. So, I want to explain how I dealt with them. And it was by in no way perfect. Just to give you a sample or a behind-the-scenes look at how it works, we're doing this work, actively doing this work of the happier approach.

So, I would say all of September, October, and November was a full-on rebellion against the podcast. I was judging all podcasts. I was very much living in the space of the BFF, and the BFF was like, "Take a break, girl. We're done with this podcasting. We're just going to take a break, and we're just going to do whatever we want." So, I've very much lived in a world of justifying why it was okay that I wasn't doing a podcast, ignoring the fact that I felt like I wanted to be doing a podcast. I was just in this place of rebellion and judgment and full-on not touching it. And so, very much the BFF was in control of my decisions at that point when it comes to the podcast.

I think that happens a lot in our lives that we push ourselves so hard with our Mongers, and they run the show, and so then the BFF has to take over. You know, and a common example of this would be if you're on any diet. A diet is a great example of if you're restricting. Your Monger's coming in and judging you based on what you ate, and if you're a good person or a bad person based on what you ate or how much you've worked out. It's easy to fall into that Monger world within that type of situation. So, you can do that for a prolonged period. Then, it gets too much, and so your BFF in and says, "Eat whatever you want. This is too hard," and so all the weight that you might have lost, you gain it back, plus probably a little bit more, which is why there's so much controversy about the diet culture working because that dynamic plays out very strongly in that particular example.

But, it shows up all the time. It shows up any time that you are pushing yourself or white-knuckling yourself to do a project or to do something even you love, like I love this podcast. If the Monger has taken over, your BFF will eventually step in, and you'll pull back completely.

So, September, October, November, completely BFF was running the beast. She was in charge of my podcast recording, or lack thereof. Then, in December and January, a few of my colleagues and friends started asking me what was going on, like why was I so resistant to the podcast. And I started getting curious about what was happening. I realized I still didn't want to record the podcast at that time. I was very much in the BFF world. But what started coming up for me was resistance. A lot of times, we call resistance procrastination, and they're two different things.

I have learned in the past year that a lot of times, when I slow down and listen to that resistance, I can grow to another space. But, so often, we don't sit and listen to the resistance because our Mongers step in to tell us that we need to be doing something differently, or we need to be doing it better, or we need to be whatever we need to be doing, period. So because we need to be doing, we don't allow the space for the resistance. That is the hardest part about resistance, especially for those of us that have high-functioning anxiety.

Because if you have high-functioning anxiety, you want to be doing, doing. Tell me how to do it, and I'll do it. Tell me how to feel my feelings. Tell me how to acknowledge what's going on. Tell me how to slow down and get into my body. This resistance piece is a little fuzzy, and so that means we need to slow down and be curious and create space for what's going to come up.

So, fortunately for me, December and January are slow times in my world, so I was able to have space. People aren't expecting me to be recording podcast episodes and having my podcasts go gangbusters. So, I was able to slow down and just observed the resistance. I would talk to my friends about it. I talked to my husband about it. And as stuff started coming up, I started just noticing it wasn't that I hated the podcast. It wasn't that it was a terrible thing. It was just I needed to make some adjustments to how the podcast was going.

This leads me to another thing that happens very commonly when we're dealing with Mongers, and BFFs and all this stuff is like I said, the Monger will take charge. It'll be telling you what to do. That gets to be too much, so you bring in the BFF, and the BFF is like, "Do whatever you want." Then what happens is we are like, "Okay, I got to reenter the force. I got to get back into the podcast," or, "I got to get back into my workout," or whatever the project is for you. I got to get back in there. I got to get back into the arena. A lot of times, we'll tell ourselves, I can't get back into the arena unless I do something totally different. I can't come back to the same podcast and just say, "Hey, guys. It's been five months. Sorry." I have to do a new podcast, and revamp everything, and come up with a new plan, and change how I've been doing everything. Sometimes that is true. You'll notice over the next couple of months; there are going to be some changes here.

And sometimes you just have to come back and be like, "Okay, I'm ready. You know, it was burnout. I took a break, and here I am," and that you realize there are little changes you can make that can improve the process. So, it isn't that, going back to the diet analogy, it isn't that I need to restrict my calories to 1,200 calories or that I need to be working out five days a week every day for an hour. I can make some slight changes. I can start eating more fruits and vegetables and noticing how they make my body feel. I can, you know, try to move my body every day, see how it feels when I move my body, and have some curiosity around that.

So, I don't have to be living in these extremes of black and white and good girl and bad girl that my Monger tends to put me in. I'm a good girl if I record my podcast every week, and I get it out on Tuesdays, and it's super militant, and I share it in all my social media channels, and I put it in my newsletter. All of those rules I had for the podcasts were weighing me down was one problem.

And then, the idea that I couldn't just come back in, I couldn't just step back into the podcast. You can't just come back into a new workout plan without a whole big workout plan. Nope. I could just start walking, see how that goes. So, I can just come back here and start recording my podcast and see if anyone listens. Because what happens is our Mongers tell us, "No, no. It has to be perfect. It has to be relevant." You know, I had a lot of Monger messages this morning when I knew I was going to record this podcast about how it was going to go poorly, and what it was going to get messed up, and all that stuff. So, paying attention to the BFF and the Monger.

Okay, but I've gotten a little sidetracked here on the whole resistance piece because the resistance piece is where it's at. It's what I want to be talking about. I like to think that the resistance is what makes the pearl in the oyster shell. And what makes that pearl is time, and grit, and just things happening and allowing that space for that curiosity in that space and that whittling down and shining to occur, we need to take a step back, and we need to honor the resistance.

So, what's the difference between resistance and procrastination? That is the big question. And so how I found out that answer was when I worked with a colleague of mine, and we brainstormed a new plan for the podcast, which you'll be seeing that coming out in a couple of months. I'll have a lot more details on that later. I still wasn't recording any episodes. We agreed to a new plan, and then I was going to come back here and record episodes. This was probably a month ago we decided this, and I haven't been here. You know, every day, it's on my to-do list. Every day I push it back. The bottom line, it wasn't getting done.

So, this week I was talking to this friend of mine, and she said, "Hey, I haven't, you know, no podcast. What's going on? I haven't heard of yet." And I was like, "Yeah, you know, I just need to do it." Now I am in the place of the Biggest Fan needs to step in here. Now I am just procrastinating because my Monger is telling me, "You're not relevant. No one wants to listen to you. It's not going to be perfect. You've been gone for five months. Who do you think you are?" All of the messages that she tells me.

So, I realized that my Monger was running the show. So, we're out of resistance. Resistance is no longer in the game. It was pure procrastination because I had a plan. I knew what was happening next. I felt good about what was happening next. I'm excited about the direction that I want to take the podcast. That is just pure procrastination that was preventing me from turning on the mic and coming here to chat with all of you.

So, what's the difference then? What's the difference between the resistance that I was feeling this fall and the procrastination that I was feeling? Well, the biggest thing is the resistance was bigger. It was louder. I felt stuck. I couldn't record a podcast even if I forced myself to. I was just well beyond the white-knuckling of the Monger. I was burnt out. So, that is a different level of resistance than the low-level procrastination of, "Oh, I'll do it tomorrow. Oh, I'll do it tomorrow. Oh, I'll do it tomorrow." I mean, in the fall, the podcasts didn't even hit my to-do list because I just knew I couldn't do it. It just wasn't happening. So, that resistance voice was very firm, and I knew I had to start listening to it because it gave me no other choice.

So as I always say, the best way to tell whether it's resistance or procrastination is to practice ASK. When I would practice, ASK in the fall around this topic of the podcast, and I'd call in my Biggest Fan. I acknowledged what I was feeling; I would acknowledge the annoyance, doubts, and insecurity. I would slow down and get into my body, and I'd pull back to see the big picture and try to figure out new ways of doing the podcast, I couldn't move forward. My Biggest Fan would step in and be like, "I don't have anything for you. We're just going to keep hanging in this resistance and see what happens."

Now, when I practiced ASK yesterday around the same topic after I talked to my friend and was like, "What's the problem?" my Biggest Fan was like, "You just got to do this, girl. We got to get on the mic and make this happen." So, there wasn't that stuckness. By practicing ask, I could get to the other side and see, "Okay, this isn't just resistance. This is procrastination."

The biggest reason I was able to figure that out is because I trusted myself. I knew that if I listened to myself if I was calm that it would work. Years ago, that wouldn't have happened because I would have been so worried about what does everybody else think? I need to be consistent. This needs to happen. Oh my gosh. I'm such a loser. And I would have been looking to the outside world to see what would happen. What I would have done is I probably would have just blown the whole thing up. So, the same resistance would've come in, and I would not have had the patience to sit with it, to see what comes up, to brainstorm other ideas, to look around and see the little changes I could make. I would have just ended the whole thing.

So when I look at my past, I have a lot of history of that, that I'll start a project, I'll hit resistance, I'll blow it up, and then I don't come back to it. So, that's where I realize now when I see this in my clients, too, that we miss out on little things in life because we do that blow-it-all-up thing rather than really sitting and calmly facing the resistance.

So, I tell you this story, one, to explain where I've been and why I haven't been here. But, I also tell you this story so you can start recognizing that this stuff isn't linear. It isn't like you master the Monger and the BFF voices, and then they don't snag you, or you practice ASK, and everything's okay. No, no, no. That is not it. It's not a nuanced process. It has a whole lot of ups and downs.

I was able to share this with you today in a pretty linear way. In September, this happened. In October, this happened. In January, this happened. But it didn't happen like that. I was all over the board. I mean, I doubted everything, was doubting myself. I did a whole big spiral down into the rabbit hole, as I say. So, it wasn't linear and smooth. For the sake of sharing the story now, I can look back on it and tell you how smooth and linear it is, which is how these stories go.

But, I want you to recognize that this process is messy, and it takes us all over the board. But if we're willing to go into the mess, we can come out with something new. And that's the piece that I had missed years ago that I was never willing to go into the mess. I was never willing to see the gray. I would just go in. If it didn't work out, I blow it up. If I could push my way and white-knuckle my way through, I would. So, paying attention if that's a pattern for you. Is that something you're doing that instead of just being willing to sit with the uncomfortableness of the resistance, are you pushing past it and blowing it all up?

Secondly, I want you to recognize when you're in resistance and when you're in procrastination can be tricky. I know the more you pay attention to what you're feeling, the more you can figure it out. Because like I said, resistance feels like a block, like a stuck. It's a hard no, and it's sometimes unexplainable. That's uncomfortable because we are used to pushing ourselves through anything. So, procrastination is usually covering up shame and criticism.

I knew the feeling was different these past few weeks because I wanted to do it. I had the intention. It was on my to-do list. But then, the shame and the criticism would come up, and I couldn't face it. So, I needed to practice with my Biggest Fan and make sure she was there by my side as I was doing this and getting ready to record this so that I would be okay with that.

So, that is my summary, my explanation, not justifying, but just sharing where I've been and what I've been doing in the past five months. Hopefully, you can hear yourself and see if there's a place in your life where you're facing some resistance to being able to slow down and take that in and see what it brings up. Because in our culture, when we hit resistance, we either plow through or completely back off. And sometimes, we need to sit there and see what comes up. So, that's what I encourage you to do if you're in a place of resistance.

---