Protecting Your Peaceful Vibe When Everyone Else is Freaking Out – Episode 468

Does it seem like a lot of people around you are freaking out? Anxious about money, the economy, politics and the future?  Is it even possible to maintain a peaceful vibe in the midst of all this anxiety? Yes it is possible and in this episode Ted talks about how to maintain a sense of calm and peace when it seems as if anxiety is like a wave threatening to overwhelm you. See what Ted has to say as he works himself to maintain his peaceful vibe yet still stay informed and taking care of business.

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Listen to this Podcast now:

I don’t know about you, but a lot of people around me are kind of freaking out. There’s a lot going on, and the vibe of anxiety is very, very heavy in the air, particularly here in Southern California, where we have had these devastating wildfires. It’s almost as if everything’s been uprooted and many people have been uprooted, not only in Pasadena, but in the Palisades.

Just the other day, I was invited to speak at a group of Realtors, offering them some guidance on how to work with people that have lost homes and businesses and take care of themselves as well. They were very appreciative. And of course, so was I to be there talking with people that were on the front lines of working with people that had been negatively impacted by the fires.

In addition, I find that a lot of people are getting sick these days. It’s raining here in Southern California, rain that we definitely need, but it brings a host of other problems. Everybody’s inside, breathing on each other. That’s when people start getting sick.

Also, people are very worried about money. There is a lot of money anxiety out there right now, uncertainty about what the future holds.

News outlets and social media try to incite people and make them feel not good, but angry and afraid.

This is in large part due to the recent election. There are many changes happening very fast and that is scary for many. Things are moving very fast and there is a lot of news. This is creating a lot of anxiety in people, regardless of whether they’re red or blue. Many people in the country don’t know what to expect especially here in SoCal. I’m encountering people that are anxious and worried about all these things that I’ve just mentioned.

And so, for these reasons and many others in our personal lives, there’s a lot of anxiety in the world. Even me, Mr. Calm Guy, I’ve been feeling it. I’ve been feeling that kind of low-level unease like, “Oh man, I wonder what’s going to happen?”

If I go on social media, if I read articles, I find myself walking away either angry or anxious, and I don’t want to be like that.

So today I want to talk about and make sure that you have at the top of your mind some basic things that you want to do to remain peaceful, calm, at ease and immune as much as you can be to other people’s fear and anxiety.

If you’re watching me on YouTube, you can see that I’ve got my peaceful vibe going on. I’ve got my salt lamp there I’ve got my peaceful vibe fresh cut flowers. I’m wearing my peaceful vibe, nice warm sweatshirt hoodie.

So, just a description of how I’m trying to keep my peaceful vibe going on in spite of everything going on around me. I’m doing everything I can to stay rooted in calm and mindfulness.

Let’s talk about being informed. It’s important to be informed. However, we’re very suggestible and our minds are very open to social media, to the news and to other people’s opinions as well, and that’s great, however, until it starts impacting your ability to function and be productive and feel calm and mindful.

When your exposure to social media or to the news or other people’s opinions starts making you feel anxious or paralyzing you, that’s when it’s time to step back from those kinds of things. I listened to an awesome podcast the other day, I think it was the Daily Podcast about digital drugs. It was very, interesting to hear how people are turning towards digital drugs. So, there’s not only our regular addictive substances such as alcohol and gambling and drugs, but now there’s digital addiction too.

Even myself, the other day, I said to myself, I’m not going to go on social media until noon time, but I found myself wanting to read something, wanting to get that hit of adrenaline, like, “Oh man, there’s something going on out there and it’s making me angry!”  And I had to say, “No, I don’t need that right now. There are other things I need to do.”

We want to watch out, be alert and protect ourselves from the collective freakiness by being very careful about our consumption of social media and news. These things can be very triggering to our subconscious minds, and that is what they are designed to do. Let’s be very clear about this: much of news media, as well as social media, is predicated on advertising. It’s called the attention economy, right? I’m sure you’ve heard that term before. When our subconscious minds gets triggered because somebody out there is saying you should be afraid of this, or you should watch out for that, then we start walking around with that feeling of unease, and this can really turn into full blown panic.

We don’t want that to happen, because when we’re in that state, we’re not effective. We can’t contribute our natural gifts to the world, and we can’t make the world a better place if we’re hiding out and freaking out and panicking. Now I might be overstating it, but for some people, maybe not. So, I would suggest that if you feel that you’re being negatively impacted by what you see on social media or news media outlets, take a break, take a news fast, a social media fast, step back, maybe a day, maybe a week, totally up to you. Give yourself a break from all of that “Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, this, that, this, that, this, that!”

Just breathe. Meditate. It’s one of the best things you can do, even if it’s just five minutes, sitting there, eyes closed, breathing. The positive impact of this cannot be over stated, the ability to sit and breathe and tell yourself in your mind, right here, right now, everything is okay. That’s an incredibly important message to send to your subconscious mind, and meditation or positive affirmations is a perfect way to do that.

Take that time every day to put positivity and peacefulness in your mind, so that you’re focused on doing what you need to do, which is not spending all of your time, traumatized or freaking out or being angry about what you see in the news.

Now, I want to be very clear that there are things going on at the national level that we definitely should be concerned about. So, call your congressman, write your representatives, all of that is very important. And I know many people feel very strongly about what’s going on.

Do what you can do to speak out and speak up. However, sometimes there’s only so much we can do, so being over informed can be a negative thing. You need to get that balance between being informed and being triggered to be and scared. I hope what I’m saying is clear.

Screen time. How much time are you spending on your screen? The blue light interferes with our sleep. Come on, I don’t need to talk about this. You know what’s going on right? Go to any restaurant. People are no longer talking to each other. They’re on their screens. Try to limit that screen time. Be very aware of the pull. As I mentioned before, I’m trying to stay off my screen, other than checking text messages from clients, trying to stay off my screen until noon time, which I learned from many one of my clients and I think it’s a great idea.

Here’s the other thing, there’s a lot of people out there that seem to create a lot of drama. Drama creators, and I don’t mean like theatrical productions, I mean that they want to get you involved in their drama. They want to get you involved in their anxiety.

Hey, lend a listening ear. Be a shoulder to cry on, but don’t allow yourself to get wrapped up in somebody else’s anxiety or drama. This is very important. You have to protect yourself from other people’s stuff. It does not have to be your problem. It’s okay to say “I’d rather not talk about that right now. I don’t want to talk about politics right now.”

Or, “I understand that you’re you have some issues or challenges or problems. So, let me ask you, is there something you can do about it? Are you looking for some advice, or do you just want to vent? If you just want to vent, I have five minutes to listen to your vent, and then I’ve got to move on. Or if they say that they’re looking for some suggestions, you can forward them this podcast or one of my many other podcasts to talk about how to bring down anxiety.

We need to keep those boundaries and protect ourselves from people that want to suck us into their drama or anxiety. And we know who they are, and everybody has people like that in their circle. We don’t want to be mean, we don’t want to be insensitive, we want to be compassionate, but we need to take care of ourselves.

In addition, get outside, get outside into what’s real. All of this stuff that we read, that we are exposed to, it’s on a three inch by five-inch piece of glass called a screen, or your laptop. That’s what information is today. Images on a screen. You want to pull yourself away from that screen and get outside. Look at the sky, look at the birds, look at the trees. I was standing outside yesterday watching the rain. It was very soothing, very calming, very peaceful. The cleansing impact of the rain is really a wonderful thing to experience.

Get out and see things that have been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years, mountains, planets up in the sky, phases of the moon. These things are real. These things are part of who we are, and getting in touch with these things is incredibly important if you want to maintain that peaceful vibe.

Here’s the final piece of it. Your peaceful vibe is created by you, not by anybody else. Reading things may help. Listening to peaceful music may help. But what you have to do is you need to generate it from inside. Within each of us, there is a calm, still peaceful place. It’s there. I promise you. You need to find it, connect with it, and practice connecting with it so that you can connect with it more easily and more quickly when your peaceful vibe is threatened by everything that’s going on out there. That’s why meditation or yoga or breath work is so important to get used to and get very good at connecting with that peaceful place within. You need to nurture it. You need to develop it. You may not be interested in becoming a Zen master, and maybe you like being edgy and really on top of things and you like debating and that’s great. But don’t let it overwhelm you or trigger anxiety.

That’s what I’ve got for you today. This is coming from my own experience with clients, and with people around me. This vibe of anxiety, I am not going to let it mess up my peaceful vibe. So, I’m playing a little bit more guitar, reading some very cool inspirational stuff and I’ve got my fresh cut flowers from Trader Joes, salt lamp, my oil diffuser, my sage and all of that stuff. You might think it’s nutty or woo woo but they work for me and you want to find what works for you, but whatever you do, definitely do it.

So, I’ll leave you with a couple of quotes to end out this podcast. First, one of my favorite authors, Wayne Dyer, said:

“You cannot always control what goes on outside, but you can always control what goes on inside.”

It takes practice, right? It takes practice controlling what goes on inside, but we can get better at that.

Here’s another quote by director David Lynch, somebody we just lost. He said:

“Stay alert, do your work and don’t worry about the world going by. Get your butt in gear and do what you need to do”

Watch Ted in Your Head on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gWblQ1A9_UY

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If you’re feeling that anxiety, if you need a little support protecting yourself from anxiety around you, you can reach me for a complimentary half hour phone consultation by going to https://TedMoreno.com/contact

Send me a little email or give me a phone call and leave a message. I’ll get back to you within 48 hours. I’ll answer any of your questions, and if you’re ready, we’ll schedule your first hypnotherapy session.

Thanks so much for tuning in. Take good care of yourself and someone else.

Ted