How to Deal with Anxiety and Start Living a Happy Life | Jesse GIUNTA RAFEH | TEDxSouthLakeTahoe

[Applause] what do you want to achieve in your life what do you need in your life to be happy these sound like positive motivating questions right in fact a lot of self-improvement gurus start their sessions by asking questions just like these and don't get me wrong if you have a specific goal in mind these work but if you're one of the hundreds of millions of people around the world who suffer from anxiety then just hearing a question like this can make your stomach turn happy i should be happy but i'm not what's wrong with me achieve oh no i haven't achieved anything there are so many things i should be doing right now if you have anxiety any question that asks what could be wrong with you will have your anxiety saying i'm so glad you asked here's a list of all the things wrong with you get rid of that that's why in my psychotherapy practice i never start sessions with asking questions like these i usually start with how are you doing simple as that and the power of this question lies within its simplicity for whatever is on the surface whatever is below will start coming up and if you've run a therapy practice long enough you start to notice patterns in how people answer these types of questions and over the past 15 years i've noticed a generational shift in what young people think they need in their lives in order to be happy young people used to come into my office and say things you know what i need to be happy jesse a benz a house that new louis vuitton bag now young people come into my office and say things like i want to have a job that makes a difference in the world i want to have an impact on the environment i want to be a part of ending systemic racism this is very different than what you hear about young people in the media right netflix watching uber eating me me me kids these are not the these are not the daydreams of lazy attention attention-seeking attention-seeking entitled people these are the genuine hopes of a generation that wants to make the world a better place to live in but what happens when big dreams meet reality anxiety low self-worth panic attacks and a crippling sense of doom it turns out big dreams get weighted down by big expectations external expectations like i need to have a job that pays the bills and my student loans oh and allows me to save one million dollars for that deposit on the one-bedroom apartment i want and i need to have the perfect relationship but if i can't have that then i need to have the perfect uncoupling and i need to work harder than my peers and make time for networking and cultivating hobbies what so i have the perfect work-life balance oh and i can't forget to make time for self-care and then there are the internal expectations like i gotta show up super confident even when i'm breaking down inside i have to be understanding and empathetic and accepting of others even when jealousy bubbles beneath the surface and i gotta be confident manifesting fearless best version of myself every single day these are all shoulds and when added together it can feel like they're crushing you but what do all these shoulds have to do with happiness you might ask well here's a fun scientific fact about happiness our brains are not wired to be happy our brains are not wired to be happy they're wired for survival to protect us we feel like we're these evolved beings because our technology has advanced so far and we're living in these modern times so far away from caveman times but the reality is our brains haven't changed we hear a noise in the restaurant and we still look behind us to see if there's a saber-tooth tiger hiding behind the coal rack in order to maintain our social standing we're still posting our stories on walls and in order to find mates to increase our survival chances we still go clubbing that's why when we're working on our big goal to reduce climate change and we're this close to finishing up our 20 step plan to replant the amazonian rainforest what our anxiety is worried about is why is mike not texting me back because 200 000 years ago it would have been a matter of life and death if caveman mike didn't text you back gave mike he doesn't matter much anymore but we don't know that we didn't get the mic update none of us did luckily for mike but that still begs the question why when we have access to all these resources information and even technology to tackle anxiety why are anxiety rates rising across the world and it's not because of mike it's because we can see where we want to go on an intellectual level but we're still triggered by our survival mind we feel anger frustration insecurity jealousy shame and we want to jump from that to i want to be positive manifesting best version of myself so we put on the meditation app and listen to the soothing podcast but we listen to these intellectually we hear that we need to let go and our brains process that we need to let go but we don't get it emotionally and then we feel bad that we can't make the jump and we think what's wrong with me and then we go on instagram and we're like clearly everyone else has this figured out i should have this figured out too there's that again and the spiral of anxiety starts once more legendary psychoanalyst karen hornai who laid a lot of the modern framework for how we think about anxiety said that in neuroses were split between a real self and an ideal self and our constant struggle to live up to this ideal self takes us further and further away from happiness this is what she calls the tyranny of the shoulds is it any wonder why people are crippling under the weight of their shoulds is it any wonder why multiple studies are reporting huge increases in people seeking mental health treatment for anxiety the pandemic has laid bare how unattainable our external expectations are of us keep working full-time switch to working from home switch to homeschooling your children and don't forget to learn a new skill all the while facing a collective global trauma that hasn't seen a precedent in over a hundred years and even worse our internal shoulds have been amplified i should have been more prepared for this unprecedented global event i should have been more productive why have i not taken over the world from my new kitchen slash office we've ended up with an even bigger gap than we had before all this between the goals we set for ourselves and where we are right here right now the gap is huge the bridge is missing and we don't know how to build it this all sounds a bit grim i know but here's why knowing this is actually good news when we know that our brains are not wired to be happy we can immediately dismiss all the bad advice we get about anxiety and happiness people say be happy because happiness is a choice not true people say don't be stressed just let it go not true you can't just let it go even elsa the patron saint of letting it go when she sang this song she locked herself in a castle and didn't speak to anyone for half the film letting go is not a song and dance number say think positive and thinking positive could be a step in the right direction but it backfires when we're trying to jump from anxiousness to that positive affirmation we're trying to embody a client recently came into my office after having read a blog about affirmations and she said jesse i've been saying my affirmations every day i don't feel more beautiful i don't feel more confident i don't feel more about ease about money and my relationship still sucks and now on top of all that i feel like i'm failing in affirmations is there an affirmation for saying better affirmations so what should we do instead face the anxiety head on and meet it with compassion and love we're trying so hard to be emotionally evolved that we forgot to just give ourselves permission to feel what we feel anxiety isn't the bad guy it's a signal that we need to make a change in our lives it can give us awareness to do something different awareness to work on ourselves awareness to create change anxiety can be an indicator in a relationship that something is off it can be a ping here are some messages you received in your childhood that you still need to work through it can be that feeling that i felt in the pit of my stomach around giving this talk that motivated me to work on it every day and ask for help when i got stuck therapists are trained to listen it's usually you the one that does the talking noting anxiety has the potential to create momentum anxiety can be a motivator to take action to make things better for the future the time when anxiety backfires is when we deny or judge it when we deny anxiety it tends to grow like a wildfire until we're frozen with fear and can't make any progress when we judge ourselves for having a specific feeling that's when we're in the should spiral again and it goes something like it's so stupid i'm having feelings about this why can't i just get over it versus it's okay that i'm scared this is what i do with myself it's okay that i'm scared and then i ask myself what do i need go for a walk call a friend make progress on the thing that's making me anxious or as my client came to the rocking decision i know i'll volunteer at my local candidate's office when we give ourselves compassion and love that's when we start to have a better understanding of ourselves and that's when we can start using anxiety to our benefit so how do we start building that bridge towards a happier life gratitude is a great practice and i highly recommend it but it focuses on the external you're grateful for things outside of yourself in order to be happy so if your only way of dealing with anxiety is gratitude journaling then essentially you're placing your happiness on the whim of events outside of your control because it's not gratitude that eliminates anxiety but compassion we need to focus on the things inside of ourselves in order to be happy and we can do this through self-appreciation exercise so instead of asking yourself what are three things that i feel grateful for today you ask yourself what are three things that i did today that i feel good about and you can say things like i feel good that i open the door for the elderly man trying to walk into the store i feel good that i made a homemade lunch i feel good that i help my friend with a problem i feel good that i took time to take a walk i feel good that i'm watching a ted talk right now you focus on the things within your power and within your control your cultivating self-love because the better we feel about ourselves the more empowered and confident we become and that's when we're using anxiety in a productive way when's the best time to do this anytime although i recommend to my clients that they do it at the end of the day that way it gets ingrained in the unconscious mind this actually changes the neural pathways so the next time caveman mike doesn't text you back over time instead of your brain seeking external validation it will go to self-appreciation because you are now cultivating the validation from within as for mike it won't stop him from not texting you but it will stop you from caring so my hope for this talk is that instead of running from anxiety or masking it or trying to beat it into submission is that you actually deal with it practicing self-appreciation allows you to see more and more of who you are and who you have the potential to be but whether it's through my self-appreciation practice or finding a therapist or just admitting it to a friend you know i'm not abnormal for feeling this i can face it i can create change and my sincere hope is that if you walk this path long enough the next time you think of your list it will be a list of all the things that you love that you did thank you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 294,926

Keywords: Depression, English, Happiness, Health, Life, Self improvement, TEDxTalks

Id: YxzP1U5ZUvY

Length: 16min 51sec (1011 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 01 2021