For this episode of Owning It I introduce a skill that has massively helped my day to day anxiety, especially as I approach anxiety-inducing life events where my amygdala wants to say 'no!' and run for the hills but my prefrontal cortex knows that maybe, this is something I should do, maybe it would be good for me. It's something I wanted to talk about now as we start to emerge from lockdown and life gets back to normal and we'll be spending less time at home and have more chance of confronting ...
Jun 08, 2020•20 min•Season 3Ep. 9
In another of my shorter solo episodes that make up season 3, I wanted to talk through some of the books that had the biggest impact on me when it came to my own management and understanding of anxiety, as well as changing my perspective on it and allowing me to get to a place where the idea of owning it was possible. Also within this episode I offer a simple breathing exercise utilising the Ujjayi breathing technique that is my absolute favourite when I need instant calmness in my body. I hope ...
Jun 01, 2020•20 min•Season 3Ep. 8
In this solo episode, I talk through exactly what I do when I feel anxiety rising, which happened again just last week. I talk you through my practise of taking pen to paper, exactly what kind of questions I ask myself and how I put myself back in the driving seat which helps to ease the anxiety massively. The most important thing? Employing the Assess and Address technique and asking yourself 'what vulnerability factors are at play here?' I hope you find this episode helpful. Please support the...
May 25, 2020•17 min•Season 3Ep. 7
In this solo episode, the 6th of this season which is more geared towards helping us cope better during Covid-19, I take a look at some recent research that has emerged about how we are getting on working from home. Unfortunately, there is a huge increase in anxiety for several reasons, and that's understandable and okay but there are things we can do to put us back in the driving seat which will positively impact your symptoms of anxiety. Couple these with the mindset approaches we've been work...
May 18, 2020•19 min•Season 3Ep. 6
In this solo episode, alongside a therapeutic breathing exercise to help relax the mind and body as you listen, I offer 8 common misconceptions we can have about anxiety that serve only to enhance the anxiety itself. These are 8 beliefs I held that quite literally held me back from getting to a point of owning it and feeling better. I hope these will be helpful reminders for you too, especially as we navigate our way through the pandemic. If you find the series helpful and want to support it fin...
May 11, 2020•16 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Another solo episode as part of season 3. This time I am introducing you to the concept of Comfortable Neutrality which is essential for increasing confidence and an incredibly helpful tool for down-regulating our anxiety response. It is an idea put forward in my second book The Confidence Kit (which is out now in the US/Canada but called 'You Got This') and once you wrap your head around it you can start to practise it daily. This episode also includes a meditative body scan. If you'd like to s...
Apr 27, 2020•13 min•Season 3Ep. 4
For this episode I am joined by financial expert and author of How to be Good with Money , Eoin McGee. Right now financial anxiety might be an issue for a lot more of us than would normally be the case, thanks to the impact of the pandemic. It's certainly something I am feeling and as such it's something I wanted advice on. Knowing how to manage financial anxiety, with practical steps, will not only be helpful now but always stand to us should we ever find ourselves struggling against this very ...
Apr 20, 2020•42 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Hi guys, in this second episode of season 3 I am drilling down into some of the content explored in my second book, The Confidence Kit. I am looking at the comfort zone model and the importance of what's called a stretch zone experience when it comes to owning our anxiety and building our confidence. I talk through the ideal scenario so that we are not feeling excessive anxiety at any point but are not so stuck in our comfort zones that we are not growing our challenging our anxiety so as to ens...
Apr 13, 2020•13 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Hello dear listener and welcome back to season 3 of Owning It The Anxiety Podcast. I am back a little sooner than planned with slightly different episodes than planned and for that we can blame the pandemic, hurrah! I know anxiety is at an all time high right now so I want to be there for people who need reassurance via the podcast. For season 3 it will be just me releasing weekly short episodes that will offer a coping mechanism, a how-to or something useful that I hope will help you to feel mo...
Apr 06, 2020•20 min•Season 3Ep. 1
While I'm in between seasons but we are in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic which is all kinds of anxiety inducing, I wanted to create this short 8 minute long coping skills episode that also plays like a meditation that will soothe your anxiety and give you practical advice to implement once you've finished listening. This is a tough time and the anxiety that goes with it is enormous. Understanding the anxiety and how much sense it makes, not trying not to feel it and not berating ourselve...
Mar 15, 2020•8 min•Season 2Ep. 20
This is the final episode of season 2 but worry not I will be back before you know it with season 3. This episode explores anxiety and pregnancy as I am currently pregnant. You don't have to be pregnant to find this helpful but if you are anxious about the prospect of having kids or becoming pregnant - especially dealing with morning sickness - you might find this useful. PRE ORDER MY NEW BOOK HERE Support me on patreon here . Order yourself (or for a friend) a copy of my new book, Everything I ...
Mar 03, 2020•27 min•Season 2Ep. 19
For this episode I am joined by fellow journalist and podcaster Aisling Keenan (her podcast is Private Education which is all about sex and relationships, she has a live event happening in Dublin soon and tickets are available here ). Aisling is a very open person but something she's never discussed openly is her experience of OCD with which she was recently diagnosed. I wanted to understand more about this condition as it's so wrapped up in misinformation and it's so often trivialised. If you'r...
Feb 03, 2020•57 min•Season 2Ep. 17
In this episode I have taken the opportunity to answer as many questions as I can fit into one listening. I cover everything from where I'm at with medication, whether or not going vegan can help with anxiety (can't say that it does unless your anxiety is related to eating meat), how I cope with the fear of the fear, what I do for the physical symptoms of anxiety and much more. I will probably do another episode like this in the coming months as there are so many questions I didn't get to but an...
Jan 27, 2020•38 min•Season 2Ep. 16
This week it's just me for a brief solo episode to hone in on some of the less obvious drivers of anxiety. I'm focusing particularly on social comparison here and in future episodes will look at imposter syndrome, perfectionism, people pleasing and the likes, all of which can enhance our levels of anxiety without us really being aware. Here I offer my practical approach to handling social comparison induced anxiety, what I've done to make it a whole lot easier and why temporal comparison is more...
Jan 20, 2020•16 min•Season 2Ep. 15
This week I am so happy to be joined by the man who goes by one name only - Bressie. Bressie has been a major support for me through my own experience of owning it and getting my first book published and despite his hectic schedule and his own brilliant podcast - Where is my mind podcast - he took some time out to sit down with me and have a long chat about his own experience. What was happening in his life when his anxiety reached its apex, why he decided to share it with the world, what change...
Jan 13, 2020•52 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Maybe you are the anxious one and you're feeling like a burden or extra anxious because of the effect you think your anxiety will have on your partner. Maybe your partner is the one struggling with anxiety and you're not sure how best to support them and you don't really understand what they're going through. Maybe you've met someone you really like and you're not sure whether or not to broach the topic of anxiety and reveal that you experience panic attacks. All of this is covered in this speci...
Jan 06, 2020•46 min•Season 2Ep. 13
This week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Blindboy - of the very successful The Blindboy Podcast - and author of his latest book Boulevard Wren and other stories. Blindboy tells me about his experience with anxiety as a young adult, the origins of that anxiety, how he looks after himself these days and everything he learned from his psychotherapy studies. We also talk about anxiety among men and how to get comfortable with uncomfortable feelings. Blindboy has a unique way of articulating...
Dec 23, 2019•53 min•Season 2Ep. 12
www.patreon.com/carolineforan - please sign up as a patron to support the podcast if you're finding it helpful! This week I am joined by Anette Kelly of Little Penny Thoughts (a huge online platform for positive self-talk and wellness from within workshops around Ireland and the UK) to talk about her experience of anxiety, how it was generated in the first place by poor self talk and how she turned things around to ensure her self talk was serving her well, which eventually became her most power...
Dec 16, 2019•49 min•Season 2Ep. 11
People pleasing is a big driver of anxiety. For this episode of Owning It I am thrilled to be joined by New York Times Bestselling author Sarah Knight. She wrote the Lifechanging Magic of Not Giving A Fuck and has gone on to write a whole series of No Fucks Given Guides, the latest of which is Fuck No: How To Stop Saying Yes When You Can't, You Shouldn't Or You Just Don't Want To. Sarah shares her own inspiring story of anxiety with me, how life has changed since her days as a book editor in Man...
Dec 09, 2019•39 min•Season 2Ep. 10
In this episode of Owning It I am diving into the subject of sleep with sleep expert Tom Coleman. We talk about the importance of sleep for regulating emotions, how a sleep deficit affects anxiety and how anxiety affects our sleep. Crucially, Tom offers his best advice on how to improve our sleep, our ability to fall asleep and to stay asleep. We talk generally a lot about what's happening at a biological level with anxiety too. I got so much from chatting with Tom and I hope you do too. Tom has...
Dec 02, 2019•56 min•Season 2Ep. 9
In this episode of Owning It I am joined by comedian Des Bishop who's about to go on tour with his new show Mia Mamma. We sat down to talk about his experience of anxiety, what it was like for him growing up in NYC and then leaving for Ireland alone at the age of 14. Now in his 40s, Des is keen to gain a better understanding of his anxiety so that he can own it too. From catastrophising to personalisation, we look at the common mind traps he sometimes falls into as well as talking about how the ...
Nov 25, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Is your neurochemical landscape vulnerable? In this expert episode I'm joined by Stephen Travers, of stravershypnosis.com who helps me to gain a further understanding of what's happening in our brain when we experience anxiety. At points we get very technical but I strongly believe that knowledge is power in the face of anxiety. Specifically, Stephen is a Havening practitioner, so we look at exactly what Havening is, how it might be of help to you and what you can expect, among other alternative...
Nov 18, 2019•51 min•Season 2Ep. 7
For this episode of Owning It The Anxiety Podcast I am joined by Irish radio's most loved duo, Dermot Whelan and Dave Moore (more commonly referred to as Dermot & Dave, of Today FM fame). Both of the lads share their respective experience of anxiety along with how they look after their mental health today. We talked about everything from anxiety when you're a parent (which is something I've yet to experience) to the role that gender plays in our experience of mental health issues and ultimat...
Nov 11, 2019•55 min•Season 2Ep. 6
This week I talk to rugby star Ian Madigan about how he manages his anxiety, what he's learned in training as a professional athlete that he can take off the pitch and apply to his personal life, how we can become more resilient, the importance of positive self affirmations and lots more. You'll enjoy it if you're a rugby fan but being into rugby is in no way essential to get something from this podcast (sure I don't have a clue about the rules of the game!). Brilliant life skills and advice tha...
Nov 03, 2019•42 min•Season 2Ep. 5
For this episode of Owning it I sit down with Sex Education actor Tanya Reynolds. She's British, she's one of the soundest people I've interviewed and she was so honest and forthcoming with her anxiety story. It's something she's still very much dealing with, particularly her social anxiety. We talk about learning to accept our anxious nature, why the world needs us anxious people, how to cope when you want to be in control of everything but you can't be, letting go of the damaging word in our v...
Oct 28, 2019•47 min•Season 2Ep. 4
In this episode of Owning It I explore one of the big triggers of anxiety: travel. It's something I've really struggled with but have worked very hard to get on top of to the point that I now enjoy several big trips a year (assuming I've saved up enough money that is!) From addressing the worst case scenarios to stocking up on what will make you feel more at ease, I hope to cover it all in this brief episode. Enjoy. European Owning It book on Amazon US/Canada Own It on Amazon The Confidence Kit ...
Oct 21, 2019•19 min•Season 2Ep. 3
In this episode I am joined by Hannah O'Connell, an incredibly acupuncturist and the one woman who honestly brought me back from the brink of feeling like I would be forever stuck this way. She reassured me that there was a way through anxiety and with acupuncture I could get some massive relief of the physical symptoms that were ruling my days. We talk about what acupuncture is, how to understand it and what to expect if you go down that route to manage your own anxiety Order yourself (or for a...
Oct 14, 2019•45 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Welcome back to season 2 of Owning It The Anxiety Podcast. I will be joined again by lots of wonderful guests who kindly share their experience along with a series of experts who will help to shed more light on our experience of anxiety. First up, Ryan Tubridy sits down with me to talk about everything from men and mental health, performance anxiety, caring less about what people think of you, how he keeps his own wellbeing in check, the differences in how generations experience anxiety, what we...
Oct 07, 2019•54 min•Season 2Ep. 1
In this episode of Owning It I am joined by Sile Seoige to talk about the power of breathing as a tool for anxiety and how to implement it daily. You already breathe, all day long, so this is a tool that's there for the taking but one we rarely appreciate. Sile walks me through a gorgeous guided meditation as well as dispelling some of the myths about deep breathing and meditation. This will be the last episode of season 1 so please do subscribe to be notified of episode 1 of season 2! Order you...
Jul 24, 2019•47 min•Season 1Ep. 25
This week I am joined by one of my favourite actors - Charlene McKenna. You will know her from Peaky Blinders but it was a little show at home called Raw where I first discovered her. I met Charlene in NYC to talk about anxiety and straight away we realised we were two anxious Annies cut from the same cloth. We talk about fear conditioning, dealing with the anxious child inside of us, the habit of asking ourselves 'what if' and thinking about the worst case scenarios, and how she got through a b...
Jul 17, 2019•39 min•Season 1Ep. 24
