What If You Could Be Anxiously Empowered? How To Turn Anxiety into a Driving Force for Success #202

What if feeling anxious was a good thing?
What if you needed to experience anxiousness to become not anxious?

In this episode, you'll learn exactly how to use anxiety as a weapon for good to move forward with what matters the most to you!

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Be strong, and let your heart be courageous, all you who put your hope in the Lord.
Psalm 31:24

Transcript

202 \\ Anxiety Gets a Bad Rap - How Anxiousness Can Help You Move Forward

Jen: [00:00:00] What if feeling anxious was a good thing? What if you needed to experience anxiousness to become not anxious? Hey, if you've been neglecting your mental health, you know, basically lying to yourself that everything is going to be okay, or you choose to block out the anger, hurt, and frustration you're experiencing with your man, you're becoming an expert fire starter, sis.

You keep stacking wound upon wound until one day, that mouthiness from your stepteen, or what often feels worse, the cold silence of that teen ignoring your very presence, is the kindling spark that sets your relationship ablaze. In previous episodes, I've referred to these as Who is that monster in the mirror moments, you know, when after the fire has torched you, you're left in a heap of ashes, you're staring at yourself in the mirror, wondering who is that woman and asking, how did this happen again?

In this week's episode of the Empowered Stepmom Podcast, I'll help you shift those feelings of anxiety and less than into power pellets that fuel your success. to protect your mental health and help you begin to see how anxiety signals that something important is about to happen. In lieu of dissociating yourself from the moment, you'll learn how to use that moment to do the next right thing that works for you.

Heads up, sweet woman. This will take practice. Practicing the strategy and let's not allow strategy to become a bigger than life or bigger than doable word. A strategy can be as simple as one small thing you do each time you experience an anxious signal. the mission of the Empowered Stepmom podcast is to empower you to overcome anxiety, to take back your power and to truly experience joy as a stepmom and beyond.

Whereas it's an oft quoted refrain of stepmoms in [00:02:00] most every nation on earth, "I don't have any control in my own home,". 

On this podcast, we focus less on control and more on influence. As a woman anointed and appointed by God to lead your family with your man to take dominion, to be fruitful and yes, experience fruitfulness in your relationships, it's high time to focus on what is in your control, the God given dreams in your heart and the unique talents and gifts you have to be an incredibly joyful and influential stepmom.

I'm your podcast host, Jen Rogers, certified professional life coach, ongoing recovering control freak, inspirational speaker and Bible teacher. For too long I allowed anxiousness over my feelings of everything at home, being out of my control when my step kids were with us.

That anxiousness led to overwhelm, distance in my marriage, negative self-talk, and intense doubt about, well, it felt like almost everything. That killer thinking negatively influenced my actions. I felt like a pawn in an evil game of chess gone horribly, horribly wrong. I lost my identity when I blended and it took me years to figure out how to kick anxiety to the curb, take back my power and use my influence in my own home.

Now I'm on a mission to help you well, prevent forest fires, in your relationships. I invite you to give full permission to feel all the fields and then, get to work on politely or not so politely excusing them from infiltrating your course of action and instead to use them as intel, powerful intel that's signaling there's something important here for you to take note of so you can choose your next course of action.

There's a reason why we are called to read God's word every single day. And there's a reason why we are directed to put on God's divine [00:04:00] armor of protection and wisdom. Sometimes we need a friend to encourage us. Other times we need a coach to show us the ropes and remind us of not just what's important to us, but to help guide our steps.

To uplevel our skillset. And that's exactly what you'll find inside the Empowered Stepmom Academy. A guide and a mentor. Hey, that's me! Hi there, I'm Jen. To lead you on your incredibly powerful Stepmama journey. You do have power, sis. If you're tired of feeling exhausted, less than, overwhelmed, and powerless, it's time to do a Psalm 46:10.

Cease striving in your own power. Instead, use the wisdom and power of God and his heavenly army of soldiers to join ranks with and take back power and dominion in your own home through the biblically based empowered Stepmom Academy principles.

Head on over to stepfamilypodcast.com/Academy to enroll. It's the perfect time to say yes to you because, well, it is December, and we know there are some big things happening in December. So, ask for the gift of power and joy during this season of giving. It's way better than what could feel like, well, Coal in your stocking all year long.

Hey there, this is episode number 202 of the Empowered Stepmom. I am so excited to be in your earbuds today. Let's rock and roll.

Jen: [00:00:00] Many experts will tell you that kids who are punished for having emotions become anxious adults, that those emotions that we suppress in childhood, they can become intolerable and they show up in different ways in our adult life.

Now, listen, I'm no psychotherapist, no psychologist, none of those things. I'm a step mama in the trenches and I have figured some things out and I know that there are things that have occurred in my second marriage where I responded as though I were in my first marriage, and I was not married to the same guy and I praise God that I am in a healthy, holy marriage. It's really exciting. And yet I know that even though we've been at this over nine years, from time to time, there are things that come up that my husband will say or do, something that triggers a memory in me.

And I want to respond the way that I responded when I was 10 years old. Or the way that I responded in my previous marriage. And it's taken practice to recognize, Whoa, wait a minute. My body is feeling some anxiety. I'm feeling some tension right here. And I need to know, “Hey, that is helpful intelligence for me;” that that is a signal for me to pay attention, to stay alert, that something happened.

My body shifted, the temperature in the room shifted, if you will. And I need to pay attention. Because alarm bells are going off. that's really how I have moved forward in those situations that especially challenged me that when I'm feeling tension, it really means something important is about to happen.

Now, if I go off, if I fly off the handle and I lose my cool, There is something important that's going to happen. I'm going to need to apologize for that later on. And I'm going to need to work through that remorse and that sorrow for inflicting some pain on somebody else because I was in pain and it has me thinking.

My husband often says that hurting [00:02:00] people hurt people and we do. When we're hurting, we're less aware of the hurt that other people are feeling. So listen, when you're feeling anxious, if you can shift the thought to, This is a huge clue for me that there's something important going on. It really can change your mindset about how you're going to address it.

If you allow yourself to spiral downward, it feels more out of control and it feels like you can't do anything about it. And there are a lot of things that you can do. The most important thing and really the main point of episode number 202 is this, that you can create change. You can do something different.

And here's the thing. You are the only one who can change what you do and how you change what you do is by surrounding yourself with people who will encourage you to make those decisions that align with what's important to you or they align with Your values, the things that are really important at your core.

And what I found in stepfamilies, I was just having a call with a coaching client yesterday, and I was reminded of this,  that when we feel uncomfortable, sometimes that uncomfortability is because there's something not aligned with a value we hold dear. 

A common one would be in stepfamilies would be, respect. When women don't feel respected by their step kids, which is a common experience by the way, when women don't feel respected by their step kids, there's a value conflict there that they believe that children respect adults.

And when that doesn't happen, there's a value conflict there. Or women might think, Hey, I would never behave that way in that situation. And so because that decision to not behave in a certain way is steeped in a [00:04:00] value. It's really, again, at its core, a value conflict. The thing is when we all come together in families.

We have different values, and blending, it takes time to create your own family values. And here is the real truth. Your family values may not align with your own personal values. So, for example, when I think about some of the parenting decisions I have made, they are different than decisions that my husband would have made.

And at the core, there's a value there where we don't value the same. Things. Yet we have a plan in place and let me just be honest here. Does it stress me out a little bit? Yeah, I experienced some stress. There's a little bit of, Oh my gosh, this is really frustrating for me. And yet I know as the stepparent, I must defer to the biological parent.

It, I can never win if you will. If there's a winning and losing in families, I can never win when. I take charge when I do something that is against what my husband would want to do. It just doesn't work with his kids and his kids know it. And whether or not I like it, well, I don't like it. Okay. Let's be clear.

I don't like it. That is, well, gosh, that's just one of those things. It is. Exactly how it goes down in blended families. You can foster, you can say, we have a culture of respect in our home. It's going to take time to get there. And the way that respect looks, it may look different than what it did in the family you had growing up or in a previous marriage that you experienced respect differently.

The thing is, you must, as we always hear, and I'm even rolling my eyes as I say this, but we've got to pick our battles. We just do. We need to pick our battles. So what do you want to fight for? And what do you want to fight against? And what are you willing to Just let go. [00:06:00] And these are the kinds of things to think about in advance before they happen.

So your mission today, should you choose to accept it is to think about those situations, maybe your top three that bring you the most angst. It could be the holidays. I mean, the holidays, they're right around the corner. By the way, if you need some help planning for a holiday, head on over to stepfamilypodcast.com/celebrationplanner . I've gotten a lot of great feedback that the planner has helped husbands and wives have great conversations about how the holidays are going to go down, because there are things in there for you to think about that you may not think about on your own in planning for the holidays.

And even though you may be listening to this, post-Thanksgiving or Christmas, you can still download that planner because it's great for family gatherings or birthdays or any of that stuff. So anyway, head on over to stepfamilypodcast.com/celebrationplanner and download the holiday guide so that you can plan that and remove some of the anxiety because a lot of the anxiety we experience is because of the unknown because we're not on the same page because we make assumptions about what the norms are for the holidays.

And, uh, those assumptions, they just, well, they, they just don't turn out so well. Let me just say, based on personal experience, it's better to have a conversation about what the norms are for the expectations for your holidays, for your celebrations.

Let’s return to our regularly scheduled program of episode number 202 and how to squash anxiety.

Your mission today, should you choose to accept it is to think about those situations, maybe your top three that bring you the most angst.

Then identify how you want to show up regardless of how other people show up, identify how you want to show up. Do you want to show up calm? Do you want to show up polite? Do you want to show up respectful? Do you want to show up confident? How do you want to show up?

Jen: Next, identify the [00:08:00] anxiety trigger that goes off for you. What happens that you recognize you are experiencing anxiety in these top three situations?

The trigger could be something as simple as the words that are said to you, or your body can react. You can have a hot flash or a cold flash, for example. So write down whatever that anxiety trigger is.

You have three things right now. You have the situation that creates the anxiety. You have how you want to show up and you're identifying the anxiety trigger that goes off for you. So what's next? What's next is drawing from that how you want to show up and deciding when this happens, this is the next small action I will take.

Sometimes it's as simple as saying I need a few minutes and then I'll be back to carry on with this conversation. So that would be you are exiting the situation for a moment to gather yourself before you come back. It could be that you have a canned phrase that you are going to say in response whenever this happens. And that's you building confidence in yourself, reminding yourself, Hey, I have this alarm bell going off.

I know this is an area that challenges me and I want to grow and I want to show up this way. So I'm going to respond in this way. As you practice this, you will iterate your way to more confidence and you will get more experience as you learn more about what works best for you.

The thing about this, again, what I said at the very beginning is a strategy. It sounds like it's this big complicated deal, but it can be so simple as in practicing these little things, which really is part of what we practice inside the empowered community as far as. Stacking one small habit upon another.

So a habit of recognizing when we experience anxiety. That's the first habit. and then you stack a small habit on top of that where you say, okay, when this [00:10:00] trigger goes off, this is the next thing. Again, it does take practice to build your confidence and to learn what works best for you.

The whole thing is, is that you want to keep your eye on the end goal. And the goal is how you want to show up.

And finally, you know, the expression that you save the best for last. I'll save the best for last. The best part is what you can do. The most powerful thing that you can do is pray about this situation is to pray about these times when you experience anxiety, so you can get God's direction on how you can move forward.

The great thing about prayer is, it's powerful inside community. So if you have not joined us inside the empowered community, we would love to welcome you, whether it's inside the Empowered Stepmom Academy, whether it is inside the Facebook group, no matter what the method is, we would love for you to join us.

So be sure to check out all the links in the show notes so you can join us inside the empowered community.

I am always interested in hearing from you after you listen to an episode. So whether you leave a five star review or you send us an email at friends@stepfamilypodcast.com , let us know how this episode lands for you. I'm going to read the latest review from Blue Wild and Blue Wild, thank you so much for taking the time to leave a review.

The five-star review from December 1st, Preparing to Blend. Jen has been so very helpful in my journey for getting prepared to blend.

I was needing some guidance on what to do with my situation, and I'm very blessed to have found her. You won't be disappointed. Hey, thank you, Blue Wild. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a five-star review. Do what Blue Wild did. Get a little wild and leave a five-star review.

All right, I'll catch you next week.