Anxiety: How Do We Handle Feeling Anxious as an Enneagram 5?

you're welcome For that future, Cody, listening to this, are we recording? Yeah. Okay Talking about anxiety make you anxious? Sometime. In what context? This context. No. Okay, good. That wasn't a good one. so Cody. Yep. What does it feel like when you're anxious? Like, A ten year old is squeezing my neck as hard as they can. Why a ten year old? never gonna get through this one. So, Cody. Yeah. What's something funny about anxiety? Why funny? What is happening? I don't know.

I think we just move on.

Hey, so guess what? What's that? I found out I experience anxiety. How'd you figure that out? Well, I let myself feel things. Yeah. And one of the big things that I feel a lot is anxiety. Yeah, yeah, that's, that is, that tends to be how it happens. Yeah. I, you know, after last summer with everything that happened and me opening up in that way and stop, you know, stopped running from my trauma and, you know, face it head on and did the work start healing.

It's been, it's been a crazy, Wonderful year in that regard. Yeah Really really hard and just really really transformative and rewarding but in that you know, I really gave myself permission to feel on a level that I hadn't experienced before and Discovered how much I actually feel anxiety a lot of the time And how much I have spent so much energy and time wasting trying to avoid that feeling. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's more of our existence than we think it is.

And that's probably true of everybody, but man of fives, especially, I feel like we've got to all fight it somehow because it's, it feels out of control. And so it's kind of like such a, an antithesis of our fiveness to be. Feeling anxiety and feeling like you're spiraling, which is often how it feels. Yeah. And that's the thing is I, I didn't realize, like I, I, I intellectualized it. I was like, Oh, anxiety is this. And. I don't experience this.

I, but I do have all these things, but you know, that doesn't count. And then like, I, I, I thought my way through of like, Oh, I can be rational and reason about this and work my way through. And I don't have anxiety. And, uh, that was all nonsense. And then when I started to, you know, really let myself feel, I, I just had this aha moment of, Oh, this is what anxiety feels like. And I know this feeling, but I didn't connect the two that it was anxiety, you know?

I just thought, you know, my nervous system was, was stressed at that moment, which kind of part of anxiety. Right. And, uh, but I didn't, I didn't recognize it as that. And I thought that, You know, my superior intellect would allow me to, you know, get rid of all anxiety in my life because it's all nonsense and man.

Did I get myself into like a world of hurt? Yeah. Well, and also too, like how much our body remembers these things. And so, and we already don't like feeling our body and acknowledging our body. And yep. Wanting to be in it. And I think, you know, anxiety pulls us into our body so much, you know, and, or you do.

You find that if you try to do the work to be more present in your body, you feel anxiety like I think it works both ways because the more you explore what your body is feeling and the more you're aware of it, the more you find those places that your body is holding that anxiety, whether it's I get it a lot in my back and in my neck, you know, I feel whenever I'm whenever I go through about of knowing and acknowledging and just being super aware of how anxious I am. It's always that next step.

Week, I'll throw my back out somehow, or like, it's just all of it's just so tense, you know, and so, I'll twist wrong or sleep wrong and it's, it's all over. And so it's usually, it's usually around that if I'm having like really bad nerve problems or muscle problems, it's because it's all in there. And it's just that you, I think it, there's whole books written about that kind of thing. And I've, which I really should read. I have them. I've, I've tried to read the body keeps score.

Multiple times and I've read, I think I've read the whole book, but in so many parts, cause I'm like, I think this is where I was, or I'll just pick up where my bookmark was. I need to read it all at once and like actually absorb it. And so, but it's, that's a, that's a great book. And it's, but you don't like thinking about your body. Like think about it. Yeah. So often we're just floating heads, right. And that's, that's our dream. That's why float tanks are so appealing to the fives.

I don't, yeah, it's, it's a weird thing how anxiety kind of finds you, I think, especially in, in, in our kind of current society too, like just the way that things are built, the way that our day, what our days and weeks look like, it's, it's, it's like, it's kind of built into the system that we bury that anxiety to function and, and that we always feel anxiety as in, like, we're kind of always in that sort of like the survival, like You know, fight, fight, flight, or flight, or freeze,

fight, fight, or freeze, sure, there we go, flight, flight, I don't know, flight fright, this, this, Halloween yeah, so, I think that we're kind of always in that state, I guess, and I remember reading that somewhere, and it's like, we're constantly pushed to that state, at least all the time, and so, it teaches us to bury those feelings all the time, anyway, and as fives, we're like, that sounds great, Let's just keep burying it in mine. I think I've told this story before.

I'm sure I have, and I have a song about it that, you know, anxiety found me in the most intense way when one random, like, Monday afternoon when I was taking a shower, right?

So like, You just, you don't know when it happens, but man, when it happens, like for me, it hit me, and I had to live with it every second of every day for about a year, and it would not go away, like every couple minutes, I would rethink of the same, my brain would try to intellectualize it, but because there was an insane amount of trauma around the thing I was feeling anxiety about, It couldn't intellectualize.

So every time it would start to think about and process the thoughts, I'd reenter into a panic state, like a panic attack. And so I didn't know how to process it. And so I think it was just a really, it was a really new experience for me. And also. absolute hell because I was so aware of the anxiety and feeling it in my body at all times and I've never experienced anything like that before and haven't since thankfully.

But it's crazy how such deep seated things sometimes with some of us, you know, we experienced things, we bury it for so long and it's so ingrained in us that when it does come out, it's like fully out of control. And it's, it's a terrible experience to be terrible experience for anybody. I would think. So I realized that I'm experiencing anxiety a lot and realizing how much of what I was doing was trying to avoid that feeling.

Yeah. but I didn't, really understand how much I was feeling anxiety until I Did not have anxiety for a whole week. I went out to Laguna Beach for work and We were I had supposed to be doing a presentation at a board meeting on Monday. So I flew out on Friday because I have some friends in the area. And Saturday morning I met one of them for for breakfast. And then we were supposed to meet up later in the day. And then I went to go get lunch by myself, and, I was feeling off.

And I went back to the hotel, and by that evening I was like full on flu. Like I had not, I had not been this sick. Um, Probably since I was a kid, it was awful and, uh, just like full body aches, really intense. Yeah. Like my whole spine hurt. Like it was, it was, it was rough and you know, and then I had, you know, the coughing and the fever, like just, I know I had to have had a crazy high fever. Um, I was getting delirious at points.

Um, And so I ended up spending five days or yeah, four or five days. In a hotel room, sick as a dog by myself. Yeah. And that experience forced me into my body like nothing I had. And I finally got to the point where I just gave in. I surrendered. I was like, okay, I'm gonna let myself feel this. I'm gonna be here experiencing it.

And in this like weird way, it, it, I almost felt like coming home and I reconnected with a part of myself that had been so disconnected from, and I didn't really realize it at first, but for the next week after that whole experience, I didn't feel any anxiety.

And it was such a stark contrast that I, it was so noticeable to me because I, I would even before that often get like flight anxiety, well, pre, pre 2020, for whatever reason whenever I'd fly, I would have some pretty severe flight anxiety, which I hadn't experienced before. And then that went away after this experience too. And and I, so I didn't. I experienced any anxiety for like a week.

And I remember after I came home, our three year old, was Like I was, I was sitting there eating at the table and he just was coming and like jumping on my back and all this stuff and just, you know, being a three year old. Yeah. And I was just sitting there casually, nonchalantly having a conversation with Amy and it was like, it wasn't even happening. And she's just like, she's freaking out. She's like, what is happening right now? Normally by that point, I would have, I would have like.

I've been so on edge after, you know, five minutes of that, that I would have either had to, you know, set them aside or go somewhere else or something, cause I just, or definitely would not be able to carry on a conversation. Right. Yeah, for sure. And it was just like, nothing was happening and I didn't, it didn't feel it. It was so weird. And, and that's, you know, one of the things that really clued me into how my nervous system is a big part of this.

Uh, and so I've been, and then once I kind of got back into the, uh, Work routine and stuff like that. It started to come back. but ever since I've experienced that, I'm like, okay, my body can get into the state. How can I do it more often, but without being really, really sick? Yeah. Yeah. so I have, I've, I've experienced like fleeting moments of that. A lot of it comes through different things that I've been doing with meditation or with the cold plunging and stuff like that.

Yeah. Breath work a lot. Yeah. But that, that experience changed me though, because it gave me, like, it showed me what it's like to be anxiety free for a little bit. Yeah. Like, I felt like I had superpowers, man. It was like. I bet if I could just live this way, how much I would do or not do, you know, like, yeah, just how much more I would probably enjoy life. Yeah. And I mean, I wish I could, I wish I could figure that out.

I've tried a lot of those things as well. Not consistently enough that it probably made it much of a difference, but I did also get on two different anxiety medications and that worked really well. Um, So that's that. That's, that's my story. Are you, are you, I mean, are you feeling better? Like you said, what does it mean for you to work for it to work really well?

Well, so I, what I was experiencing was an interesting, what I found was, is that I had a base level of anxiety that was, didn't feel connected to anything. It was just constantly happening. And it was like, you know, feeling like your heart kind of gets up into the bottom of your neck and you just feel that like tension and, I was, went to the, almost like a stereotype. I went to the doctor like, is there something wrong with my heart? And they were like, do you feel anxious?

You know, like, well, I don't know what anxiety is. So I don't know if I feel anxious. And at this point I really didn't know, but it was because of the panic attacks that I had had that I was like, Like there was this some kind of extreme happening and I wasn't really sure and part of it may have been also related to high blood pressure, which I found out that I had during that time, too.

And so, um, the, you know, they put me on some blood pressure meds and that also kind of helped alleviate some of that.

But Yeah, I mean, and I got lucky the first couple of anxiety meds that I tried really worked for me And I know that's not everybody's journey It's sometimes can be really hard to find something that works But it did treat that base level where it put me back into a place where I was then able to even Mentally address the panic attack anxiety, which was a completely different bubble of you know trauma and triggers and things that Was causing it and so But I think part of it

was I couldn't I couldn't really address it because I was always in a state of anxiety and I Was I was like that for a long time and of course it wasn't until you know A lot, a lot of processing and therapy too that I was like, Oh, I've had anxiety since I was born.

Like there was moments all of a sudden, all these things started coming up where I was thinking about how I was as a kid and like how that tied into you know, always control things, how the, what kind of anxiety meltdown I would have if my mom didn't sit me down and tell us everything we were doing that day, everywhere we had to go, what all of the errands were. And if anything went out of order. or anything changed, I would lose my mind and this was like at three and four years old.

Granted, that also sounds a lot like Asperger's. And so, you know, being on the spectrum probably has a lot to do with my anxiety. And so I think it was really hard to narrow down in the beginning, like what, what was going on and even how to begin to address it. And it, yeah, it took a while. It was kind of just a lot of exploration, trying to figure out. How to, how to address it. With the meds, do they, do they just dull the anxiety? Or do they dull other things too?

I think that's been my main concern in trying them. Depends on the Like personally. Yeah, and it depends on the, it depends on the medication too. I'm on the um, I I think it's like the generic version of Welbutrin. And for me, it works really well in only doing, like only attacking the anxiety. And then I didn't feel any difference. Yes. Otherwise, except for that, maybe I felt a little bit more emotionally equipped to handle really stressful situations.

But, but I could, and I wouldn't say that it actually takes away the anxiety. That's the weird part. It just makes me, it almost, it's almost like it separates me from it, if that makes sense. Like I, I can detach from that anxiety and not necessarily feel it, but I don't know if it's. It's, if it's really ever gone, I think it just, it's more like subdued.

and, and, you know, there's, there's times and trigger, you know, whenever things happen in my life that I'm reminded of unresolved trauma in my past. I think that there's also, it's just really hard to, it's hard to, hard to go back and forth on what the big traumas are and what the small traumas are. But if I've got the small trauma under control or at least subdued a little, then the big traumas don't feel so big.

If that makes sense, like before it would feel like I was spiraling out of control, whereas now I feel like I, you know, shallower, short and shorter breaths. Like, I feel like I can't get a good breath. I feel like really like almost hypomanic, you know, and it's a kind of gives me a different feeling when I'm feeling a lot of anxiety. Whereas like before it would be like I was having a full on meltdown and I thought I was having a heart attack. Like, like, am I dying?

It was the level of anxiety I was feeling. And so in that way, I guess it brings all of it down just a little bit. That makes sense. Yeah. So do you think we're more susceptible to anxiety as fives than maybe some other types because of how much we live in our heads? Yeah, I'd say so. For sure. Yeah, because I mean, like we were saying in the beginning, like the less in touch with your body, you are, the easier it is to hide that anxiety.

And I, cause I think my thing is, I think it, most people at some point in their life feel anxiety and have an issue with anxiety, but we all handle it differently. And fives.

Don't handle it because we aren't that bought that mind body connection is oftentimes severed on purpose Like we're always like like I think of it like, you know when you sent you a water hose, you know Yeah Always cutting off that flow, you know and trying not to not to acknowledge it and because of that reason Anxiety is just another thing in the body. I don't want to acknowledge sickness or Anxiety or what other ailments might be going on in my body like that's separate.

I don't need to deal with that, you know and so I think that it's so easy to just kind of dump it all in the same bucket and not worry about it. There was a study I'd heard about a while back and I'm probably going to botch the details on this. Maybe I can look it up and share it at some point and everybody can fact check me. But the, my main takeaway from, from it was that the anticipation of an electric shock causes more trauma, much more trauma than the actual shock itself.

Yeah, I remember reading that like the whole study and how they did like measured it and yeah, which is which is crazy.

Yeah And I think that's that's a big part of what I like how we experience anxiety as fives is it's all in that anticipation of the really bad thing and Then oftentimes the really bad thing never even happens But we do so much damage to ourselves and sort of living in that space and physically doing damage Yeah, it actually Anxiety often is the reason we die earlier, you know, it's kind of crazy and if we would just let ourselves experience the things Yeah, like it

would be it take way less toll on us. Man. It sounds so easy. I know, right? If we would just experience the things we're experiencing but man, like that taps into so many fears though. Like, and I think that that's oftentimes what, at least what holds me back is, you know, so much of my life have avoided feeling just because of what it might mean if I feel them. Right.

And it's, and, and, and, and also too, like how we project, like I've taught, definitely talked about this before, like when people get upset or when they're crying and like, I'm not, empathizing with what they're crying about. So I'm like, stop crying. I don't want you to cry. This is annoying. This is really inconvenient for me right now. And so, you know, I feel like I projecting that and knowing how I, how I feel about other people feeling things. Turn it on yourself.

It's amplified by a hundred, right? Like I'm not going to feel anything. I'm not going to be that weak and just be pouring my emotions all over the place for everybody's inconvenience, you know? And I think that, you know, that kind of plays into it a little bit is like kind of the fears of what it might mean if we feel the things and deal with it. What will that uncover?

Yeah, a hundred percent. What else have I buried under there that I forgot about? You know, you start digging them all up. I don't know. Just leave that dirt settled. Hippopotamus. Yeah, I think a big fear that I've had before when trying to address my anxiety is that being reliant on other people. Yeah. Yeah. A place I go to a lot is that story that I don't need anyone and that I can handle on my own.

And, you know, I am not going to be a burden on other people and, you know, and therefore I can use that excuse and say that, you know, other people's anxiety are a burden on me and then I don't have to deal with those either. And like, there's just like a, there's something in there that live, you know, self reliance that it's definitely. Put some roadblocks there for me in trying to deal. With the anxiety on my part. Yeah. And it connects to so many parts of our life.

Our, all of our relationships, everything, it starts affecting. Because I can definitely feel a lot of anxiety and I want to pull away, I want to, I feel like if I just, if I just get into my safe space, where everything makes sense, then every, it'll be a lot easier to kind of just deflate this balloon, you know, and, but it doesn't work that way.

We need other people, and that sucks, and I don't like it, and it puts, like, it puts you in a place of emotional vulnerability, which no, nobody likes. Right. You know? I won't say nobody, but I don't know about any fives, at least. I don't, I definitely don't like it. I'm, I'm working my way up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I at least don't want to pour it now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel, I feel it's like when you go to like go to the gym, like I don't want to go to the gym.

I dread going to the gym. But when I do go to the gym, I usually leave going, I'm glad I went to the gym. And I feel, and you feel a lot of those same, almost like euphoric feelings sometimes when you do open up and you do allow for those moments for people to kind of come in. And, and a lot of times what most, I feel like what, what we need the most from other people is just someone that will.

break our own inner narrative, like, cause we're, you know, a lot of our anxiety, I feel like for me, a lot of my anxiety spirals out of control when I, that those lies keep repeating themselves in my own, in my head of like, whatever I think it is or whatever it's speaking to about fears of something or whatever the, whatever the issue is. And in reality, Is any of that stuff probably gonna happen? No. And so having somebody else be like, What? That's what you're No!

Like, why would you think that's gonna happen? You know, and like, just hearing that, you're like, Ugh, okay, maybe I'm overreacting. Yeah. And that's, but that's like everyday basic anxiety. That's not like trauma anxiety. Right. There's definitely a difference. Dude, have you seen Inside Out 2 yet? I have not. Oh my god. I lost it when we went and took the kids to the theater to watch it. I spent half the movie just like tears rolling down my face. Yep. Because they introduce a new character.

Hmm. Wonder what it is. Yep. And, oh man, so, so relatable. Hmm. It's so bad. Interesting. Yeah. And it's just all about that fear of the future, like what's going to happen, and doing all these calculations to try to figure it out and then we just like fry our brains. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and, and break our own hearts, literally. Very physically. Um, Yeah, I mean, I need to watch it. I need to, I need to watch it for sure.

It's been on my list, but it's definitely a struggle feeling, afraid of even dealing with the anxiety. I think it's just such a, it's such a loop we can get into for ourselves and, and feeling like, Dealing with the anxiety makes us less than, I think, is also like something for me. It's like, if I'm already thinking about it as a weakness, then why would I want to talk about it and bring it up if it makes me look like I'm, like, it makes me feel inadequate or makes me feel like I'm not enough?

and that's definitely part of, part of, I think, the fear of wanting to even deal with the anxiety. Why would, why bury it to begin with? And It's just like it tackles all of those insecurities when you deal with it because it's, I feel like it's like a, you know, it's like a something that's a center point that everything comes like it all ties to that thing. Or at least it has like, it has its own like arms and everything, you know what I mean?

All these different buckets and that kind of affects it, poisons the water and the whole thing, right? And so it's just like a, it's like a cancer that just eats through all of your emotions. Mmm, fun. Yeah. But that, now, obviously I'm talking more at that point. I mean, sure, everyday anxiety maybe, but like, definitely, like, anxiety that's stemming from some type of trauma in your life. That is a, that's a completely different beast that takes so much work.

And, but like, if you don't, that really, it really does eat away at you. Like, there's just so many parts of your personality that don't get to flourish

because it's constantly having to put all these resources into managing this thing. thing that you're trying to keep, you know, captive and not let it out of the, out of the box. It's like a Pandora's box, right? I went to try this new, I mean, new to me kind of thing. I would, I thought I was going to a chiropractor and not really being a chiropractor. And, uh, basically.

I lay on this table and take deep breaths and focus on my breath and then they come and like do little, like minor stretches and taps on my back and I'll roll over the dude on my, on my ribcage too. And it's the way he explained it is like bringing my awareness to these places to let my body heal itself, especially in the nervous system. You know I it sounded a little woo, but I was open to it, and I definitely noticed some shifts for me and Really how so just not as on edge All the time now.

It's hard because I was doing other things at the same time sure so you don't know what it was Yeah, I don't know exactly what it was I, I do know that my body's kind of craving it. I can tell. Like, when I think about it, it's like, I need to do that again. Oh. Like my body's telling me that. Yeah. So, maybe there is something to it. I don't know.

Well, I think about, like, The all those studies that came out about like we like tapping on your face to relieve anxiety and your forehead like there's pressure points in Your forehead for sure, but like I don't know about yeah There's like there's a it's a it's some kind of an exercise that you can do that when you're feeling anxiety because they teach children This about like tapping it's like tapping on your forehead and your cheekbones and like around this part of

your face And it's supposed to like drop your blood pressure and relieve anxiety. Huh. And it also helps you to focus and like, there's all these things that it, it, all these benefits to it that supposedly is what they say. And, but it's like a pretty common practice, I think. And so it's like, not, it's not as like out there woo woo as anymore as it, as it maybe was at one point. But, cause I've heard about it from multiple places now.

And And I've always kind of like, tried it, you know, like see what it does. And it is something about bringing your attention to something and focusing on it. Kind of makes everything else fade a little. And like, and, and, and so at the very least for me, it's almost just like a centering exercise where it's kind of like, if you do do something like that, I think it does kind of like help center you at the very least.

Yeah. There's something about when your out breath is longer than your in breath. Like, you can't be in that sort of panic state, like your body won't let you when you, you slow down your breathing, but there's something about your, your exhale being a little bit longer than your inhale. Yeah. And that's one of the things that they would have me do when I'm on the, on the bench or on the table.

And it's supposed to kind of get you into that, like, They kept using the word parasympathetic state. So I like that kind of almost theta brainwave state. Yeah. Um, Yeah. So I've also been doing Wim Hof. So, you know, I've been doing, what is that? So it's, uh, well, technically that's a guy's name, but he developed, he developed this breathing technique. And I do that before I do cold plunging, which I've been doing a lot of lately.

And so basically you do 30 breaths where you inhale really deeply and then just kind of like relax and let it out. Don't try to push it out. Okay. And you do that 30 times in kind of rapid succession. Mm hmm. All right? And then you, on the, on the last one, you exhale all the way. Mm. And then you hold your breath for as long as you can. Yeah. And I've gotten up to like a minute and a half. Holding out your breath. Yeah. Exhale is crazy. Like no oxygen in your body.

Well, you do, you do have a lot of my breath in. Yeah, you do have a lot. Because of how you've been doing those breaths beforehand. Oh, but you're not taking any in. So you're just and is it just like absorbing the oxygen is what is what it is? Like, I don't know what's going on. It's kind of strange, but I could think like if you're doing it really fast, maybe it's like a way of like getting it in your bloodstream, maybe. there's oxygen in your blood, but not in your lungs. I guess.

And then and then after you kind of hit Where you can't hold it anymore, you take a big breath in and hold that for like 15 20 seconds. And then you squeeze your whole body while you're doing it. And then you just relax. And so that's one round and you do that three times. Wow. And by the end, it's like, I feel like I'm on something like I, I am like seeing spots, but I'm like, I'm like tingles all over my body.

Yeah. But it's just this like such relaxed, almost high kind of a feeling like reset your nervous system. It feels like it. Yeah. That's what it sounds like. Yeah. And, and so when I, then when I get in the ice, I think it's not quite as a shock to my system. I mean, it's still, it still sucks. Sure. But it's, yeah. You know, your funny thing, how I learned about this.

So there's a guy that he was, he was a contestant on survivor a few seasons ago and I followed him on Instagram and found out after the season was over and everything because he would get all the contestants from that season together and he would do this but apparently he had taught classes on exactly this like so I remembered him talking about the breathing that the whole exercise and then plunging right after and so it's exactly that thing whatever this thing

is and so that's the first time I ever heard about it and I thought that sounds crazy and then the more I saw his videos on it I was like I kind of want to try it now it sounds really interesting so yeah that is it is really fascinating that it would you That it would work. I would love to experience that because I hate the cold. Like I hate it. It makes me It makes me angry.

Like I just have like a I want to throw things like I just don't like cold water And so the thought of doing it you gotta come try man I yeah, I do and but the thought of doing it as a as a part of the experience from the breathing too I think would be that's like an interesting experiment out together. I just want to see how it feels. Yeah. Yeah

Okay. So we've talked about what it feels like to really feel anxiety and be very anxious. Not want to deal with it and not want to deal with it. what are some experiences you've had where you've noticed the anxiety

Not be there or be so diminished. It's not really an issue. What does that feel like for you? What are you able to, to do in that state? I don't know how to talk about it. Well, anytime I've ever taken THC or shrooms, I feel zero anxiety. And honestly, shrooms was the best experience because I felt no anxiety for days afterwards.

It's like, and I've, I've read studies on how psychologists and doctors are starting to use like the, a pill form of shrooms, all natural to microdose so small, you don't feel any psych. Psychoactive effects, but you, it, it reduces anxiety and makes you, uh, it puts you into a state in which you are much more able to handle emotions and actually feel them and deal with them and, and explore them.

And so, it makes sense perfectly that that would happen, but you know, it's funny. I think about there's, there's random times in my life that I remember feeling no anxiety. One of them was one of them was I'll go, I'll go in chronological order, go back to a few years ago, I was kayaking down One of the main rivers, the Koei river here. And we were kind of kayaking and just floating down really.

And there was a point in which I, for whatever reason I was in the water, I think I was just hanging onto a tube and Madison had, she was in his kayak and just pulling me and I was like, this is the best. And so I was just floating and it's so deep. And so where we were, and so I remember there was this point where all the trees were like, coming up over the, the you know, the river and it was just like shaded and it was really hot out, but the water was really cold.

And, uh, it was just this experience of like euphoric, like it's so much so that it, it, my, I knew it's like, you've ever, you've ever been in a moment where like, you know, your brain's writing it as a core memory when it's happening. That's what I felt like.

And I think whenever that happens, for the most part, it's usually in those This almost euphoric moments where you're just so relaxed and also so present like you just you're able to take in that information and and And absorb it without over processing and you're just in the moment You're just there and granted I've probably had to eat my body at that point too But it's there's something about it that like those moments that Always stick in my brain and another one was on my

bachelor trip when we were at the beach. Yeah, lo fi beats just playing in the speakers. It was cool It wasn't too hot But we were just all hanging out and just sitting there best Yeah, it was the best. It was THC that time too. Yeah But Yeah, you know and it's like they're in in those moments.

I long for those moments like yeah, oh my god I do find that they seem to happen more often now But I think it's because I there are times where I can I can get you just you're just high all the time No It doesn't hurt.

No, I It's being conscious of those moments and be well being able to be present enough to acknowledge You When you can like when to feel those moments And I think that the more the more where you are the more those moments will happen because it's there's a certain Gratefulness for life and for living that comes with those moments, and I think that I've been feeling that a lot more especially as I get older and you just think about aging and how life is you

start thinking about Kind of what life is and how to be appreciative of it and to be grateful for the people in your life and your life and everything good in your life kind of helps me to Kind of help those anxious feelings subside on their own. And then I can take in that information and just be in the moment and enjoy it for what it is. And yeah, it's hard to do though. Like it sounds like a guru type thing, but, and I definitely can't do it all the time.

So like, let's not set me up to be a guru, but nobody was doing that.

Okay, I'm glad, I'm glad. Oh, that was good. You know, the first time I remember experiencing this was the night that Amy was in labor with our first. Wow, okay. Because we, you know, I was her birth coach. I was, we got there and like to the birthing center. And it was because we really wanted to have the baby in the birthing center and not in the hospital. And they were kind of attached to a hospital.

And the policy was that like 41 weeks and five, so 41 weeks and six days, like that's your limit. If you go to 42 weeks, like you have to go to the hospital. And we were at 41 weeks.

Weeks, six days in the evening when we we drove to the birth center because she had started labor So if it had happened eight hours later Yeah, that's crazy we're doing all the tricks to try to get that thing started Yeah, and we we went to so we went to the birth center and we got there and she was only one centimeter And the midwife, normally they probably would have sent us home, but she knew that like we were at that deadline.

So she let us stay like this just to kind of see if it would progress. And, we did really well. And so, but it was just me and Amy in a dimly lit room. The midwife came and checked on us maybe once an hour, but from, I don't know, like 11 o'clock at night until like 6, 630 ish in the morning we labored together, you know, I was with her and I was, you know, holding her and helping her get into different positions and putting pressure on her back.

She had a really bad back labor and it was just like, And, and her, her contractions they, they started at like three minutes apart. Like they, they didn't, they didn't like increase really in that regard. They just increased in intensity. So it was just like, For like eight hours.

She was every three minutes two to three minutes She was having these like really really bad contractions great back labor and everything and it was yeah And so I was like with her in that and it was this very primal experience Hmm, and that was the first time I really remember Being in the moment being present Being in my body for a sustained period of time. Yeah And and it was and it felt amazing and then One of the nurses just like completely ruined it.

I was so upset because I had like Amy wanted it filmed and so I had set up my brother's GoPro And I didn't have, um, I like, I never used one before. And I didn't know how long the battery lasted and it barely lasted at all. And so when it was time to start pushing, like I went to go try to turn it on and it was dead. Yeah. And so then I tried to, so then I'm like panicking because I knew this was important and I didn't have a backup plan.

And so I like propped my phone up on the counter and hit record. And in that there were a couple of interactions with this nurse where so I had taken my phone out to start videoing and, and stuff. And, but I only did it because I knew that Amy wanted me to do it, but it looked as if I was leaving my wife in labor to try to take like, like mess with my phone. And like the, the nurse made a little comments and stuff about it. And so I had propped it up.

On the counter to record and to go back over with Amy and she moved my phone. Oh, and like basically put it down to where we didn't capture any of it. But I, and, and at that point I was already like holding Amy. I couldn't do anything about it. And I saw it. And so I, I missed this moment because it pulled me out. Cause I was so upset, you know, and I got back in my head. Right.

And so then that part of it was just it just was like a blur to me but leading up to that was just this it's hard to even put into words, I, I felt so connected at this like base deep spiritual Physical level. Yeah. And, and it felt amazing. And again, that's not something I would be able to or want to replicate on a day to day basis. Right, it's a lot. It's like, how do you, how do you, like, use other techniques to kind of get you closer to that? It's like, it's a pretty intense feeling.

It's like saying, uh, I want to experience ayahuasca every day. Oh yeah. You know what I mean? Like I've thought about trying ayahuasca at some point in my life. Do I want to do that all the time? Like I've heard it's a pretty intense experience and that's what that feels. That's what it sounds like. That was the, what does it remind me of when you're telling me this story? Cause I was kind of feeling anxiety thinking about it. But, uh, but yeah, I don't know. It's it is.

I definitely notice that when I try to deal with that anxiety and I try to get past it and because I mean, the thing that anxiety does for me the most is definitely takes me out of the moment and like, and that's kind of what you experienced, right? Like the, suddenly that anxiety of the phone now is entered in. Like cancer spread to everything and ruined it. And I think that it ruins connections with your family. It ruins, you know, the, it's, it's so hard to, to build those connections.

And, and, you know, if, if you're, Us being in the place that we are in our life now, you know, it's like I want to find those deeper connections I want to grow emotionally. I want to find you know, that that the the next level of Human existence, I guess you know like yeah and But to get to that growth, you can't you can't go there with anxiety. You can't take it with you And so it's just so hard. Oh, man.

I just had a realization why we're talking here you, cause you said that anxiety pulls you out of the moment. Mm hmm. I don't think that's what happens. I think that it's our response to the anxiety that pulls us out of the moment. Yeah. Because the anxiety is actually a signal to like pull us in to the moment. But we treat it, but because it's so uncomfortable for us, cause it's pulling us into our bodies. Mm hmm. We treat it as a signal to like, Remove ourselves from the moment.

And, and so maybe if we can learn to stop that signal, you know, like short that circuit and we can retrain ourselves to view it as, as a, uh, an opportunity to lean in. Yeah. Then maybe that would help a lot. Sounds like a software update. You think you can just like plug that into my brain? We're coding it up right now. It's like, how, how the hell do you do that? Focus on that part of it.

Uh, I mean, it's, it's more figuring out how to trigger that anxiety in a controlled manner on a regular basis. So that's the way I do cold plunging. That's why I do the breath work because there's even with the breath work, it's that moment of, I feel like I'm going to die because I can't breathe. But I can, I, and so my body starts to panic, but I can, I can talk myself through that and like calm my body and know that I'm, I am fine.

You know, And it's, that's just finding things to do like that, that where you can sort of like Run those rewire those like neural connections. Yeah. I think is a way to go about that. Or at least I've, I've noticed it's improvements for me in doing that. Hmm. Yeah. Just like that pattern interrupt. Yep. Yeah, for sure. That makes sense.

One lesson that I learned in this journey over the last year with anxiety is that it helps a lot to also like just be open about it. Yeah. Like I was struggling with a lot of anxiety around work and just some different things that were going on there. And it, it caused, it made it so hard for me to stay engaged.

Because I, because I was experiencing so much anxiety, so there was that, my response to that is to pull back, but then I'm like, but I can't pull back because it's my job, and so then I have to take, everything takes so much effort to like, to do. As a, as a result of that, because you're spending so much energy first, just to like, you know, re engage and, and then like, what do you have left? And then you're, and then you start having a whole other set of anxiety around, well, guess what?

Now I'm not going to be able to do as well at my job. Right. Which then just like sets this whole trigger again. It makes the anxiety even worse. And I was just spiraling. Yeah. And then you feel like, especially when you're in a leadership position, it's like, I can't talk about it. And, you know, cause I need to be. You know, I need to be strong and confident for my team, you know, the beacon. Yeah.

Um, And you know, I can't share it with my coworkers or share it with my boss and, and you know, it's just, which makes it even worse. Right. And then I just started having conversations and realize, Hey, guess what? Pretty much everyone else experiences this too. And, and it helps. And then by like showing as an example, like you can talk about it and, and you know, just get it out on the table and then.

and when you do that, then that, that it's a safe place for other people to do that, which means they're getting their anxiety out and they're not holding it in, uh, which just sort of frees us all up. And so the more that we do that. I think the better will be definitely more efficient. Yeah. I mean, if you need an incentive and I'm not, I'm not saying like dump your trauma on everybody, but yeah, but there's at least a way to get like, like that release valve.

Yeah. I mean, things faster in isolation, they just do. And like, that's where all of those, like, uh, like untrue negative narratives like build. Right. And I think that, you know, yes, bring it out into the light, let people hear it, but also to, yeah, I think that you're right. It's crazy how How helpful it's been at different points in my life to find that we are all just going through something. All of us are at all different times, and we usually have experienced the thing altogether.

And it's so easy to feel alone in that, I think, if you're not bringing it up. So that's definitely something that It's it's good.

I've tried to watch out for yeah, and there's there's the feeling alone And then there's also the lie that you tell yourself that no one else will understand because that gives you an excuse Yeah, just stay in it, you know Oh and like there's that weird twist to have like a little bit of superiority like, you know It's just another thing that you're keeping from people. So you're like, I'm the dark troubled Soul, you know, that's like for me. It's like yeah, I'm the dark troubled artist.

I always have been I knew it. I knew it. I Found the Johnny Cash in in part of my soul And we and look and we I mean I've you know It's easy to idolize those characters in movies and TV shows and you see, you know examples of them. And so Yeah, it's like you think that that's just like the best way to handle it I'm gonna drink my whiskey and a hole in the wall bar and just like Drink my anxiety Yeah, how's that work out? It doesn't work out. Well, I am I no longer drink alcohol.

I Had to eliminate that entire thing from my life Yeah, yeah, so yeah, and it's like It's, it's, it's, it's like a, it's just really hard to not, I mean, we're also just naturally overthinkers and I think that that's also such a huge part of how we can feel like, I wonder how often I spiral up my own, I, I, I spin up my own anxiety just because I'm overthinking something. I felt anxiety.

I think it's been seasons now since I talked about this, but back in the day when I remember I can still feel that anxiety of trying to figure out how to make a live stream work because of all the pieces and constantly in like, when I can't, uh, when I can't. Solve the puzzle quick enough, you know what I mean? And like, but that applies to anything in life. If anything is this problem that I can't really figure out how to solve.

And I'm looking at it, if I'm all angles and I'm trying to, you know, you start overthinking and that causes anxiety too, because then you feel like you're losing control. Right. And that's actually the, like with my job, the main source of the anxiety was it was a puzzle. I felt like I didn't know how to solve this. Like I finally came across a problem that I couldn't solve. Yeah. And it was the worst. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? I still haven't solved it.

Uh, but I've at least made progress. Yeah. You know, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. When it's hard to not let like the negative parts of our, our personality come out to like, trying to be a perfectionist and like you just start like spiraling out of control. And it's, and for me, that's just like, that's definitely what I struggle with.

If I, if I stop talking to people and you find me, It's trying to do some new, create some new system or workflow for something in my office and I've been working on it for days at a time. You're like, it's like, it's time to stop me and go, what's wrong? What's going on in your life? Cause something has led me. It's driven me to that point. Um, Yeah, for sure.

It's. I don't know, it's, I think that's been one of the biggest things is like trying to, trying to be more present, trying to find trying to be mindful of not trying to overthink, not trying to spin out of control, and, and, and also, the, the mindfulness piece is a really interesting thing because I feel like it's such a, It's such an easy thing for us as fives to not want to be mindful because, you know, again, being mindful means being in touch with your body and your

surroundings and all of those things. And that just also so happens to be how you defuse an anxiety attack. So if you're ever having one I remember I've, I've had a few anxiety attacks at this point and it's, it's, I found it's good to like, you know, you literally, I literally just sit down on the ground, put my hands on the ground and just think about where I am and you know, uh, what, what's going on around me. I'm in a safe place.

Like, you know, and it's like, it's centering yourself on like, Uh, being, just feeling your surroundings is something that I've found just kind of settles, settles everything and like slows my heart rate and I learned that from a TV show. But then of course, of course I've read about it, but I was like, Oh, I remember thinking, Oh, that's accurate. But I, when I think about it, I remember it. And it was from, uh, uh, it was from the newsroom and Aaron Sorkin show, of course, of course it was.

But uh, yeah, so I don't know. I think there's definitely things that we can do to try to like be more aware of things that, because as a listener, hope, I'm sure that you have experienced anxiety. So I hope that you're maybe in a place that you want to deal with it. and try to be better at managing it because it, it sure does. Poke at a lot of the things that we don't want to experience or deal with, you know, it enhances all of those things.

Yeah, I mean, in our response to it, normally what we end up doing is severing that connection. Yeah. Which is where we miss out on the fullness of life, so we're kind of Separating in all aspects.

Yeah, we really give into the anxiety So I don't think it's worth saying to you that like I think I you know It's I've we've talked to a lot of fives since we started this show Yeah a lot of fives and they got to hear a lot of conversations and and hear a lot of responses in every episode and find out about so many other perspectives from a five, or vantage points, I guess you could say, you know from different fives on how they see things and i've You Something that I've

definitely felt like a strong kinship from is that I feel like all of us The biggest myth I want to maybe the one of the biggest misconceptions about fives and why people don't understand This is because it's not that we want to sever those connections We I think fives uniquely can interpret more information a lot of times than other personality types I think that we are so observant We have the ability to be superheroes and take in so much about a moment and

appreciate so much about a moment and all the details and remember those things and then find ways to then put that back out into the world in our relationships or in our work or in, you know, creating art or whatever that thing is. You know, we might even have as, as everyone does, we have our own unique perspective on that and fives at their best can deal with these things.

We can feel those emotions and, but we can, and maybe we can feel them even more intensely and maybe find better ways to manage those feelings and like be experts and feeling things, you know, there's, there's ways, there's ways to be. It doesn't make you less of a five or less of a cerebral type or less of an intellectual to feel it actually makes you more of those things. Yeah, and it makes you more whole.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And. I think we just, we've got to lean into, into letting go, lean into letting go. That's our next book. Lean into letting go by Josiah Goff. Oh god, it's getting late.

Um, I think the, you know, you had said that we don't want to sever those connections. But that's how we try to maintain control. And so I think there's one big takeaway. It's that you've got to give in to the chaos. Yeah Much like me in that river.

You just got to let let yourself go with the go with the flow Yeah, you got to go the flow Man, it's such a great place to be because like I would I would venture to I would venture to say I'd venture to throw This out there to all listeners is I bet the majority of us can think of a time in our life where we felt the most blissful or the most, you know, relaxed or content.

And in that moment where you going with the flow, where is that a moment that, that, that was your pattern interrupt was that you decided to let go in that moment and just let it be what it is. Cause I, I would just venture to say that might be that, that was probably a component of that, you know, if not the proponent of making that, that, that's that a moment happen. I wonder if. Disintegrating a little bit to seven helps us with that. Mmm. Ooh, that's a good conversation.

Yeah. Because we always look at disintegration as an unhealthy or bad thing, but But there are positives. Yeah, there are positives to it. Yeah. For sure.

Yeah, I would say that's probably true because in my, in my most disintegrated Times in my life, even if I was being unhealthy I was being carefree and I was being like it is what it is And and so I think even in my most unhealthy places I had that component of and maybe that's what made it feel so good That was what was the release the emotional release was that I was doing the thing You That I probably should have been doing all along when the wrong context.

Yeah, you know, it wasn't helping me It was hurting me, but in the right context that same behavior could be the most healthy thing you do hmm Just let go, everybody. Just let go. We'll just let go. You know? And, uh. Hopefully, we'll be happier. I don't know. Hopefully, we accomplished something with this conversation. I don't know. Do we ever. Do we? I hope so. I hope so. Everybody's still here with us, I hope. Well, hey, welcome to Season 5. Season 5. Season 5. It's good to be back.

It was an intense conversation to have in the beginning about something we, again, don't understand all of. Cheers, everybody. Cheers. See you next week.