Connect with Candice → ⁠https://candiceesposito.com/⁠

In my opinion this is the most important step of the Calm Living Blueprint, of setting yourself free from fear, free from your struggles with anxiety.

• Values alone aren’t enough. Our journey begins only when we start taking action.
• When we move forward guided by our values, we feel a sense of meaning and purpose, even in the face of major challenges.
• Even if we think a goal is impossible we can still keep moving towards it. You don’t have to believe that you’ll achieve it. You just need to take action.
• Every little step counts. Each and every step is an important part of the journey.
• Oftentimes, moving in a meaningful direction will give rise to uncomfortable feelings – fear, self-doubt, anxiety. Therefore, we better learn to make room for those painful feelings if we want to achieve our goals.
• We can’t stop the difficult thoughts and feelings from popping up, but we can stop investing our energy in struggling with them and instead focus on the task at hand.
• Commitment doesn’t mean you never give up or never go off track. Commitment means that when you do give up you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back on track again.
• The actions of social confidence come first. The feelings of social confidence come later.

You can download a copy of this episode’s transcript by clicking here.

If you chose option 2, it’s time to get moving …

Take a moment to clarify your next step and then take action. Take the action you commit to.

Connect with Candice → ⁠https://candiceesposito.com/⁠

So up to this point we’ve been placing a lot of our focus on the painful feelings you struggle with and the painful thoughts you get entangled by … basically, all the things that you don’t want. But we haven’t yet focused on what you do want – what sort of person you want to be, what sort of relationships you want to build, what you want to do with your life to make it richer, fuller, and more meaningful.

So let’s get clear about what you really want.

What are you here for? What makes your life worth living? It’s amazing how many people never consider those questions, just going through life following the same routine, day after day.

The whole point of what we’re doing here is, sure, to help you overcome social anxiety … but at a deeper level it’s about helping you to live a rich, full and meaningful life.

The reality is that you don’t just want to overcome social anxiety. You want to be able to live the life you want to live – make new friends, date, get a new job – whatever that is for you.

Here’s how to gain some clarity…

• Knowing what matters is about identifying your values and living your life guided by those values.
• Values are our heart’s deepest desires: how we want to be, what we want to stand for, and how we want to relate to the world around us.
• Values are like a compass. A compass gives you direction and keeps you on track when you’re traveling. And our values do the same for the journey of life. We use them to choose the direction in which we want to move and to keep us on track as we go.
• Values are far more empowering than goals because they’re always available to us. In any moment you have the choice to act on your values or not.
• Values are here and now (goals are in the future).
• Values never need to be justified.
• Values often need to be prioritized.
• Values are best held lightly.
• Values are freely chosen.

You can download a copy of this episode’s transcript by clicking here.

I encourage you to download and complete the Life Values Questionnaire.

Connect with Candice → ⁠https://candiceesposito.com/⁠

In this episode we are going to swerve back to discussing one of the steps of the Calm Living Blueprint, the blueprint to overcoming social anxiety.

Pure awareness. A powerful aspect of the mind that has largely been ignored by western psychology. And as you get to know this part of yourself you will further transform your relationship with difficult thoughts and feelings of anxiety and fear.

• One of the things that’s important to recognize is that there are two very distinct parts of the mind. There’s the part that we’re all very familiar with – the part that thinks, imagines, remembers, analyzes, plans, fantasizes and so on – the “thinking self.”
• And the other part of your mind that doesn’t think, can’t think – it just notices. It notices whatever you’re thinking and feeling and doing and seeing and hearing and tasting and so on – the “observing self.”
• As your thinking self thinks about your experience, your observing self registers your experience directly.
• The observing self:
• Pure awareness is about connecting with that part of you that is separate from your thoughts and feelings and that provides a safe and constant viewpoint from which to observe and accept them.
• It’s this place where, no matter how great the pain is, it cannot harm you. Knowing that, experiencing that can help you stop running from your pain.

You can download a copy of this episode’s transcript by clicking here.

Download the action worksheet here.

Grab an index card or a small piece of paper. On one side of the card write out 3 negative self-judgements that you have. “I’m not good enough. I’m not smart enough. I can’t talk well.” Whatever those are for you.

Then on the other side of the card write out 3 positive self-judgements. “I’m a good person, I’m kind.” Again, whatever applies to you.

I want you to carry the card around in your purse or a bag for the next week. Pull it out several times a day, read both sides, then put it back in your purse or bag again.

That’s it. That’s all I’m going to tell you. Let me know what noticed, what you observed from this exercise by leaving me a comment on iTunes. And we’ll follow up with this in the next episode.

Connect with Candice → ⁠https://candiceesposito.com/⁠

Is inflammation causing your anxiety and depression?

Inflammation is our body’s basic reaction to protecting itself to whatever it perceives to be harmful – toxins, irritants, infection, stress, and as we’ll talk about later, even thoughts or emotions.

Essentially inflammation is the body’s attempt to heal itself. So a certain amount of inflammation is actually a good thing.

The problem comes in when that inflammatory response gets out of hand or becomes chronic in nature.

You’re probably familiar with a lot of conditions already where this is known to be the case … rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, allergies, and so on.

And you’ve probably already heard about the link between inflammation and outside influences like environmental toxins, junk food, smoking and alcohol.

Pollution, a doughnut, puffing on a cigarette or downing a martini – those are all pretty easy to understand, how they might cause inflammation or harm to our body. All are outside sources.

But, did you know that our bodies can create inflammation all on their own, with no outside influences as triggers?

Our thoughts, moods, stress levels, and even our social lives can trigger a cascade of inflammatory reactions in our bodies that can lead to all those conditions I mentioned earlier, as well as anxiety and depression.

And that’s what this podcast episode is all about. Learn about what you can to decrease your inflammation levels… and, as a result, heal anxiety and depression…

• Researchers have discovered that being anxious, depressed or stressed also has an effect on inflammatory chemicals in our body.
• And the chemicals associated with those emotional states change how our immune, cardiovascular and hormonal systems function.
• Current research suggests that the pain of social injury is very similar to the pain of physical injury like arthritis joint pain or a sports injury. And in large part, this has to do with inflammation. They affect the same regions of the brain, and they can be just as painful, maybe more so for social pain.
• The methods we are using in the Calm Living Blueprint, the step by step process we talk about each episode, not only will that help anxiety and depression, but it is also anti-inflammatory.

You can download a copy of this episode’s transcript by clicking here.

“Do not let your thoughts play havoc by worrying about what may happen, and what may not happen, but instead, ask yourself the question what is there in this that I cannot endure? You will then discover there is no situation which may arise that you cannot deal with effectively.”

– Marcus Aurelius

Connect with Candice → ⁠https://candiceesposito.com/⁠

Your mind is like a time machine.

Yup, a time machine.

It’s lucky for us that our mind can conceptualize the past and the future. It’s a hugely useful ability. It allows us to reflect on and learn from the past and to predict and plan for the future.

As we grow older, our mind gets better and better at doing tricks like conjuring up the past and the future. But, unfortunately, this often creates problems.

As children, we can easily live in the present, but by adulthood our mind is like an out of control time machine that constantly pulls us back into the past or forward into the future.

As a result, we spend a lot of time in the past reliving old hurts, failures, rejections and mistakes. Or, a lot of time in the future worrying about everything that could go wrong.

And, meanwhile we’re missing out on life in the present.

It’s hard to get any satisfaction or fulfillment from your life if you’re not actually present to appreciate it.

So one important part of overcoming social anxiety, and really any so called “mental health issues” is learning how to do that – to shift from time machine mode to appreciating what’s here and now.

And… you guessed it… that’s exactly what I’m going to teach you how to do in this episode.

• The one thing you’ll notice about confident people is that they are very engaged in whatever it is they are doing.
• When we keep our attention on what we are doing and are fully engaged in whatever task we’re doing, then it doesn’t matter what our minds say. Our thoughts just come and go.
• It’s about paying attention with openness, curiosity and flexibility.
• Even if your experience in this moment is difficult or unpleasant, you can be open to it and curious about it without running away from it or fighting it. And, flexibility comes in when you can consciously direct or focus your attention on different aspects of your experience.
• It’s humanly impossible to be anxious and present in the moment at the same time. You can’t do it.
• The more fully we can contact our here and now experience, the more effectively we can act and the more fulfilling life becomes.

You can download a copy of this episode’s transcript by clicking here.

Choose any one of the simple mindful techniques we went over in this episode or that are in the handout and practice it whenever you feel yourself starting to “zone out” or “flip out,” whenever you’re entering a stressful situation or at any opportunity you have throughout the day.

Connect with Candice → ⁠https://candiceesposito.com/⁠

 In this episode we’re going to learn how to handle painful feelings – feelings of anxiety and fear and depression. How to open up and make room for them, how to drop the struggle with them.

Opening up to them and making room for them sounds a bit counter-intuitive doesn’t it? The opposite of what you probably want to do. “Why would I want to do that, Candice?” I know, it sounds a bit strange, a lot different than probably what you’ve been told. But keep listening and I’ll explain exactly how it works and how you can start implementing this in your own life right away.

• Instead of trying to get rid of unpleasant thoughts and feelings we open up and accommodate them. We make room for them and allow them to just come and go.
• It doesn’t mean you like them, or that you want them or that you approve of them. You just stop investing your time and effort in fighting them.
• The more space you give those fears and anxieties, the less impact and influence they have on your life.
• We use this when it helps us to live the life we want to live. It’s not about resignation or tolerating or “gritting your teeth and putting up with it.”
• Remember the acronym NAME – Notice, Acknowledge, Make space, Expand awareness

You can download a copy of this episode’s transcript by clicking here.

Between now and the next episode I recommend practicing making room for your feelings, just like we did right now in this episode. As soon as you realize you’re struggling, just run through the exercise. You may want to write down the key steps.

Here’s a worksheet you can use to practice.

Connect with Candice → ⁠https://candiceesposito.com/⁠

In this episode we’re going to take a bit of a break from mindfulness practice to focus on nutrition, in particular how to calm anxiety with food.

More and more research indicates that diet affects mental health. Now, the research examining diet has focused more so on generalized anxiety and depression than social anxiety specifically, but I think there are definitely some lessons we can gleam from these studies that are certainly applicable to social anxiety, too.

Find out the specifics by listening to this episode…

• Processed foods increase reactive oxygen species, causing oxidative stress that may contribute to the development of anxiety.
• Reactive hypoglycaemia is when there is an excess fall in blood glucose (blood sugar) levels that causes your body to compensate by releasing epinephrine and norepinephrine (sometimes also referred to as adrenalin and noradrenalin). It also triggers the “flight or fight” response, which itself can manifest as anxiety, palpitations, sweating, tiredness, depression, forgetfulness, nervousness, poor concentration and irritability.
• Eat foods that have a low glycemic index.
• Excessive caffeine intake can cause symptoms that are indistinguishable from those of anxiety disorders like nervousness, irritability, insomnia and palpitations. And research shows that people with anxiety tend to be more susceptible to the anxiety-inducing effects of caffeine.
• Consider doing a 3 or 4 week trial of completely avoiding caffeine – coffee, regular tea, chocolate – to determine if caffeine is a contributing factor to your anxiety or not.
• Long term alcohol use can reduce levels of critical nutrients needed for brain function, such as B vitamins. Treatment of alcohol use in patients with SAD has been shown to reduce anxiety levels.
• Anxiety has been reported to be one of the adverse effects of the artificial sweetener aspartame. Avoid artificial sweeteners.
• Ruling out the possibility of food allergies and intolerances is an essential step to take when investigating underlying causes of SAD.

Testing to consider:

• Kryptopyrrol to rule out the possibility of pyroluria
• Food intolerance testing
• Celiac panel if suffering from digestive symptoms
• Glucose tolerance test to rule out hypoglycemia

You can download a copy of this episode’s transcript by clicking here.

Choose one of the areas discussed in this episode and work solely on that. The one that you believe if you were to change could make the most impact in your life and how you feel.

If you know that you probably drink too much coffee, start weaning off of it. If you know you eat drink too many soft drinks start with cutting those out of your diet. If you know you aren’t having a source of protein with each meal and each snack start by adding more healthy protein into your diet.

I’d love to hear how you make out with the changes you make… please let me know by leaving a comment below.

Connect with Candice → ⁠https://candiceesposito.com/⁠

What do we do when those negative thoughts impact our behaviour or hold us back from doing the things we want to do?

For example, having the thought, “I have nothing to say” may lead to avoiding social situations or trying to get out of a social situation. Having the thought, “I blush too much” may lead to trying to hide your face.

So how do we deal with these negative or uncomfortable thoughts and prevent them from ruining our lives?

That’s what this podcast episode is all about… unhooking yourself from your thoughts so they no longer run your life. Listen to find out how…

• The human mind has evolved to think negatively.
• And that’s why, no matter how hard we try to think positively, we can’t stop our minds from generating negative thoughts.
• Be wary of any self-help books or programs that claim stuff like “erasing old memories” or “eliminating negative core beliefs” because it doesn’t happen. The latest research in neuroscience tells us that our brains do not eliminate old neural pathways. Our brains lay down new ones on top of the old ones.
• Our thoughts do not control our actions. Negative thoughts aren’t really the problem.
• Negative thoughts only become problematic when we get caught up in them, when we give them all our attention, when we believe them as the gospel truth, when we allow them to control us. This is called fusion.
• When we defuse from our thoughts – when we separate ourselves from our thoughts – they have little to no influence on us.
• Even just recognizing the thought as unhelpful can lessen its influence on you. However, you can go a step further and unhook yourself from your thoughts using any one of the defusion techniques discussed in this episode.
• Negative thoughts are normal. Don’t fight them. Defuse from them. You can take action even in the midst of negative thoughts.

You can download a copy of this episode’s transcript by clicking here.

The moment you notice you’ve been hooked by a thought, acknowledge it and use one of the techniques we went over. You can download a list of techniques, along with their instructions here.

Notice what happens. If you notice high expectations popping up unhook yourself by saying, “I’m having the thought that this should magically solve all my problems.”

Let your mind try its best to dissuade you and then do the homeplay anyway.

Do these techniques at least 5 times per day. The more the better. And if don’t use them notice how your mind talked you out it, what reasons did it come up with, what old stories did it tell you?

Connect with Candice → ⁠https://candiceesposito.com/⁠

 If you recall from episode 2, one of the myths surrounding social anxiety (or any fear or anxiety for that matter) is that you should be able to control what you think and feel.

It’d be nice if life were that simple, but that’s actually a complete fallacy. This myth, this illusion of control is so prevalent in our society (it’s even touted by many of the so-called experts and gurus) … so I wanted to devote this episode entirely to shattering this illusion.

Because as long as you’re wrapped up in the illusion you’re caught in a vicious cycle. You tell yourself, “I have to fill my head with positive thoughts. I have to get rid of the negative thoughts.” Sure, you can do that temporarily, but the so-called bad thoughts eventually come back.

Then what happens? You feel bad about having the thoughts. You feel like you failed at getting rid of them.

You see how it becomes this vicious cycle?

Well, I say ENOUGH of that.

Listen in…

Key Points

• Even though your life depends on it, you can’t control the anxiety.
• We equate feeling good with the idea of happiness. And if you believe that illusion of course you are going to invest a lot of time and energy in trying to decrease the bad feelings and increase the good feelings in order to be happy.
• Examples of control strategies can include everything from the use of alcohol or drugs and suicide attempts to comfort foods, exercise, prayer, and meditation.
• First you ask yourself, “What have I tried doing to get rid of these difficult thoughts and feelings?”
• Next you want to ask, “How has it worked in the long run?”
• Finally, you ask, “What has it cost me when I have over-relied on these strategies?”

You can download a copy of this episode’s transcript by clicking here.

Notice when you are “tugging on the rope.” When does the tug of war happen? What triggers it? What are the consequences?

Ultimately, it’s about taking a good, honest look at how control is working in your life – is it taking you in the direction of the meaningful life you want to live or is it taking you in a direction of struggle and suffering?

You can download a worksheet that will help you do this by clicking here.

Connect with Candice → ⁠https://candiceesposito.com/⁠

In this episode we are going to shatter some common, widely held myths surrounding anxiety, fear and confidence that may be stopping you from living the life you want to live. These myths are like rules for the game of life, but they are the wrong rules!

You can never win if you are playing by the wrong rules.

So let’s find out what those myths are and teach you the real rules of the confidence game…

Key Points

• It’s not about reducing or eliminating your so-called symptoms. It’s about transforming your relationship with your thoughts and feelings so you no longer think of them as symptoms.
• You’ve been learning the wrong rules since you were a child. They’re promoted in Hollywood movies, magazines, by pop psychologists, self-help gurus, hypnotherapists, motivational speakers, and the so-called “common sense” advice we get from professionals and relatives.
• Myth #1: Happiness, confidence are our natural or default states.
• Myth #2: If you’re not socially confident, you’re defective.
• Myth #3: Fear is a sign of weakness.
• Myth #4: Fear or lack of confidence holds you back.
• Myth #5: Confidence is the absence of fear.
• Myth #6: You should be able to control what you think and feel.

Episode Transcript

You can download the transcript of this episode by clicking here.

HomePlay

Increasing your self-awareness is always a needed first step. It’s important to notice all the little things you do each day to avoid or get rid of unpleasant thoughts and feelings and also notice the consequences.

I recommend you keep a journal or spend a few minutes each day reflecting on this. You can download a simple form that will help you do this by clicking here.

Connect with Candice → https://candiceesposito.com/

“Life is a daring adventure, or nothing.” - Helen Keller

Welcome to the first episode of the Calm Living Blueprint podcast. Thank you for joining me and taking the time to listen. My name is Candice Esposito and I will be your humble host the Calm Living podcast series.

The format of this first episode is going to be a bit different than future episodes. Being the first one I thought I’d introduce myself. You’re probably wondering, “Why should I listen to her?” “Is this going to be worth my time?” “What’s in this for me?”

And I totally get that. Those are all valid questions.

So I want to first of all answer those questions for you so you can choose whether to keep on listening or not. I’m going to explain why I decided to start this podcast, and, more importantly, how it will benefit you and why you’ll want to keep listening in the future.

Could you benefit from being more psychologically present, more in touch with your values, more able to make room for the inevitable pain of life, more able to distance yourself from unhelpful thoughts, beliefs and memories, more able to take effective action in the face of emotional discomfort, more able to fully engage in what you’re doing, and more able to appreciate each moment of your life no matter how you are feeling?

If you answered yes you’ll want to keep listening.

And to keep reading, I recommend you download the Episode Transcript.

Let me know about your experience with anxiety by sharing a comment below…