Life, in general, can cause you to be and become anxious AF. And when you’re an entrepreneur whose livelihood depends on you bringing in sales and making money on your own, that anxiety can grow even stronger.
I’ve always been an anxious person. It comes from a mix of the shit that happened to me during my childhood, including an accident when I was 14 years old, along with being a super ambitious, motivated person who’s always got a new project or goal going on.
And over the years as I’ve become a full-time entrepreneur, that anxiety has gotten a lot worse. The feast-or-feminine of being a new business owner; the day-to-day worry about how I’ll make money or pay bills; it caused my anxiety to shoot through the roof at times.
Let me be clear here, I’m OK with uncertainty and I love being an entrepreneur and working for myself. I wouldn’t change it for the world.
But that doesn’t mean anxiety isn’t sometimes a part of the equation.
Anxiety is one of the those things that can stop you in your tracks. It can cause you to blow situations and worries totally out of proportion. It can take over your whole life, paralyzing you with fear of the unknowns.
There are a lot of ways to deal with anxiety: some people get on pills. Some people see a therapist. Some people use CBD.
Whatever works for you, works for you. You gotta do you in life.
But that stuff doesn’t work for me.
I’m 100 percent totally against pills of any kind. I won’t even take aspirin.
Talking about my struggles just makes me more anxious, because I know I’m creating more of it by focusing on it and talking about it. So therapy is out for me.
I’ve tried CBD, but honestly it hasn’t done much for me. It doesn’t change how I feel, it just makes me tired.
So I’ve had to find my own ways of dealing with and healing my anxiety. And after 7+ years of being a full-time entrepreneur, I’ve found what actually works for me.
Doesn’t mean I don’t still get anxious sometimes. I do. But now I have the tools to deal with it head-on, immediately, instead of just allowing myself to feel and be anxious all the time.
I’m going to share these tools and resources with you here today.
I’m also going to preface this with the following disclaimer: I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. I’m simply sharing what has worked for me, personally, when dealing with my own anxiety.
Some of this stuff is gonna seem strange to you, because you’ve likely been told or taught wrong information about it. So if you’re someone who suffers with anxiety and you’re reading this, I ask that you read with an open mind.
It never hurts to try something different. What do you have to lose, right?
With that, here are the 5 things that have helped me to eliminate and manage my anxiety, so I can move forward every day and live my purpose in the world.
1. Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT; also known as “Tapping”)
I discovered EFT in 2014 when I was really diving deep into my spiritual journey. EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Technique and it helps you release stuck emotions and energy that’s being held in your body.
How it works is you tap on specific meridian points on your body while speaking, out loud, phrases that create an emotional charge for you.
There are tons of free EFT videos on YouTube, on every topic under the sun, including anxiety. And every practitioner has their own way of doing it.
My absolute favorite EFT people are: Brad Yates, Kai Ashley and Kim Eibrink Jansen. Brad Yates is my daily go-to. (Yes, I tap daily, on all different topics.)
EFT helps me deal with and release anxiety in the moment.
2. Breaking A Sweat Regularly
While exercise might not be your favorite thing, if you suffer from anxiety, you’ll want to reconsider this option.
Not only does breaking a sweat make you feel so freaking good, but it also releases endorphins into your body that chemically shift what’s going on inside you.
It’s an amazing way to get rid of anxiety on a day-to-day basis. Not to mention all the other benefits of exercising, like being healthier, having a stronger, leaner, more ideal (for you) body, etc.
For the past year, I’ve had a consistent practice of breaking a sweat 4-5 times a week (and now I’m up to 6-7 times a week!!). It has totally helped transform how I feel on a daily basis.
And it keeps my anxiety at bay.
3. Your Hidden Mind
Anxiety is most often caused by fear and worry, about the past and about the future. This happens because you have stuff programmed into your subconscious mind that is triggering this anxious response over and over again.
When you deal with and reprogram your subconscious mind, it releases the hold anxiety (and many other things) have on you. Old memories in your subconscious mind trigger the behavior patterns and emotions that come up for you on a daily basis.
Your Hidden Mind is a memory reconsolidation and reprogramming tool that allows you to release the emotional triggers your old memories cause, freeing you from the behavior patterns and looped ways of thinking and feeling that are no longer serving you.
I’ve been using this tool pretty much daily since 2016, and it has absolutely changed my life in so many ways. Not only does it help me release anxiety, but it helped me to overcome the procrastination habit that used to plague me and it’s made me more motivated, happier and healthier.
You have no idea how much a simple memory can be triggering you. Until you use YHM to release it. Once you do, you’ll be blown away.
While Your Hidden Mind is a paid tool, it’s worth every single penny.
4. Working With An Upper Cervical Chiropractor
I was going to list this one first, because honestly this is truly the thing that has helped me the most with anxiety, pain from an old injury, and totally transformed my health, physically, mentally and energetically. But I figured if I listed it first most people would be skeptical and just ignore it, and maybe not even read the rest of the post.
It’s very unfortunate that “chiropractor” has a negative connotation in so many people’s minds, mostly due to the chiropractors out there who only deal with symptom relief, but don’t deal with the actual cause of ALL pain, disease and inflammation in the body… pressure on your brain stem.
When you have pressure on your brain stem, it pinches off nerve flow, which breaks the communication between your brain and your body. And then weird shit starts to happen, like pain, disease, inflammation, “random” symptoms your doctor can’t explain, and, of course, anxiety (as anxiety is a nervous energy, and pressure on your brain stem is directly related to nerve disconnect).
I fell off a building when I was 14 years old, and a year later, began having the most excruciating pain in my neck and back. It was insane. And things spiraled from there.
Pain. Inflammation. And anxiety like I had never known before.
After 15 years of trying literally everything out there–all of which worked temporarily but never solved the problem–I found an Upper Cervical Chiropractor and my life transformed practically overnight (and that’s no lie).
After my first adjustment I woke up the next morning with ZERO pain… and I hadn’t woken up with no pain in 15 years. After a few weeks the pain was completely gone. After several months, other things started improving too, like my mental clarity and focus.
And after years of healing (I celebrated 5 years this year), the problems I used to suffer from, including anxiety, are a distant memory.
If you suffer from anxiety (or pain, disease, inflammation or “random” symptoms your doctor can’t explain), I would be willing to bet all the money I have to my name that you have pressure on your brain stem, and that an Upper Cervical Chiropractor would totally change your life as you now know it.
Go ahead… try to prove me wrong. But trust me, you won’t be able to.
5. Asking Two In-The-Moment Questions
The final anxiety tool I want to share with you is something I learned from my mentor.
Anxiety is a fear-based emotion, and it usually gets triggered by thoughts of the past or worry about the future. And when you’re an entrepreneur who’s still struggling financially–or just having a moment of struggle–it becomes so easy to get caught up in worrying about what could happen.
What if you can’t pay your bills next week or next month? What if clients stop hiring you? What if it all just falls the fuck apart and you have to go back to a regular job?
These are all normal thoughts and fears, especially when you’re an entrepreneur. And, of course, thoughts and fears like this are going to cause anxiety.
But you don’t have to accept this.
There are two questions you can ask yourself whenever anxiety, worry or fear about the future or the unknown come up for you. These questions have helped me to manage any day-to-day moments of anxiety that come up for me.
Question #1: Do you ultimately believe you’re going to make it?
Your answer to this question is everything. Do you, in your heart-of-hearts, actually believe that you’re going to make it? That you may not have what you want right now, but that you will have it some day in the very near future.
Do you believe that? Do you believe you are going to make it? Do you know and believe in your vision and what you feel you’re destined for?
If the answer is a resounding YES, you can move on to the next question (and if it’s not, well, you’ve got more to deal with than just anxiety).
Question #2: Can you get through today?
When I was struggling hardcore financially, this question literally saved my life. It got me out of the fear-based thinking and worry mindset, and forced me to focus on the present moment.
And no matter what bills I had coming up the next week or next month or whatever else I was worried about, I always had what I needed to get through the day. Even if it was just needing some cash for gas or to buy food.
I was never without what I needed. Usually you aren’t either, you just think you are, because you’re focusing too much on the future and worrying about the unknown.
And that shit will cause insane amounts of anxiety.
Focusing back on the present moment and realizing that, in this moment, you have. everything you need to get through today, will help you release the anxiety, worry and fear.
Let today be today, and focus on tomorrow tomorrow.
These two questions have changed how I operate on a day-to-day basis, and any time I find myself getting caught up in worrying about something that’s happening in the future, I bring myself back to the present by asking myself, do I ultimately believe I’m going to make it (duh! Of course I do!), and can I get through today?
I know this was a super long post, but hopefully the resources and tools I’ve shared here will help you deal with your anxiety like they’ve helped me to deal with mine.
You don’t have to suffer with anxiety any longer. There are ways to deal with and release it… in the moment and for good.
If you have questions about anything, I’m always happy to give you an answer. Just leave ’em in the comments or send me a PM.
Dream life or bust,
jen
P.S. If your story is giving you anxiety because you feel overwhelmed trying to revise it, you’re in luck! My Story Revision Workshop launches later today. I’ll be walking you step-by-step through the revision process I use to revise all of my stories–novels and screenplays–and you’ll have the opportunity to revise your story during the workshop. Stay tuned!!!
