Easing Anxiety – Like 1, 2, 3

So, I don't want to do this, but I'm thinking, tell our listeners what I'm like when I get into the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson.

And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. When you get anxious, you get short and snappy. Yeah. And a lot of times- I mean, really, really mean. Oh, gosh, you're going there even more. A lot of times it happens when we're about to go speak publicly.

And here we are- It's only the big public events. Yeah. And we're supposed to talk on marriage and we're about to get up there and he's like so snappy and, oh, it's so hard. So I need help. Well, maybe. We all need help.

We all need help. I mean, because, and let me ask you this, would you say overall I'm an anxious person? Not at all. Yeah.

Isn't that interesting? I'm really not. I'm pretty carefree, but man, there are moments.

And can I tell you a secret? Uh-oh. Like, that creates real anxiety in me before we get up. Like, I'm just trying to shut all of that down and then saying, don't take it personally. Don't take it personally. Yeah. I'm so sorry.

That's all right. I know it does that. But, you know, and that's what we're going to talk about today.

Not just anxiety in me or in adults, but actually with teenage girls or adolescent girls. And boys have it too. But we've got Sissy Goff with us today. It's so exciting to have you back for another day. Sissy, welcome back to Family Life Today. Oh, I love being with y'all. And I love that you just shared that story.

Isn't he the best? Oh, that's so cool. I know. And as a grandparent, yes, y'all are grandparents.

As a grandparent, but as a parent too, I mean, I say to parents often, one of the best things we can do for the kids we love is to manage our own anxiety. And so to be aware of what gets stirred up in us, I mean, they learn more from observation than information. We talk about that all the time. Yeah.

And we're going to let you help us and help our listeners. But in those moments for me, I feel like I can't stop it. Yeah. You know, I know it's happening. I know I'm being snappy. I know I'm actually being mean.

And I know we're walking literally on stage and she's looking at me like, and now I'm supposed to speak beside you and you're going to toss it to me. And I'm mad at you, right? Because you've been such a jerk. I'm not usually mad at you. I know, but it does hurt. Because I know where it's coming.

You can see it closes her down and that's the last thing I want. So what are we going to talk about today? So if y'all were sitting in my office, I would say I love for families to come up with a code word. I think code words are fantastic where it's not that you're lecturing or correcting, but you know, because y'all have talked about this and maybe because you've talked about it with me, you could say, remember the thing we talked about with Sissy? Yeah. And then, you know, immediately to start doing some of your square breathing. We could just say, hey, remember? Yeah. And Dave and I just see him start putting this square on his leg, which if you don't know what that is, we'll talk about it. But make sure you go back and listen to our previous talk with Sissy about this because she's written a great book.

It's called Brave A Teen Girl's Guide to Beating Worry and Anxiety. And so we've already talked about your therapist. And so you counsel and sit with teenage adolescent girls from what, six, seven years old on up?

Yes. This is your daily routine. This is my daily job, Monday through Thursday, counseling kids and families.

Which sounds crazy scary, but when I picture a yellow house with a white picket fence and five dogs, I'm like, I think I would go there. Me too. You know, for counseling. But you know, we ended our last session with you, session. It's like we're having counseling. I like it.

That's good. Yeah, we need help. And you need to review it a little bit because you're talking about what you do, how you help an adolescent girl work through her anxiety. And as I listened to you previously, it's like, this isn't just for adolescent girls.

This is for all of us. So start again. Just review one and then take us, take us further. So yes, these are my first three go to.

So this, you could just consider these episodes as like six months of counseling. Okay. So there you go.

This is good. Yeah. Free. And the best thing is we're not paying. Yeah. Listeners, you guys, this is free.

This is amazing. So starting always with breathing. So if you are going to draw a square on your leg, I call it square breathing.

Now I did have a little girl who said, can I call it flower breathing? So you can draw any shape that you want to work. She's a creative.

She's creative. We're doing this to do what? We're doing this because our blood flow has shifted away from the prefrontal cortex, which helps us think rationally and manage our emotions. And it's gone to the amygdala that is fight or flight. And this helps to calm down a child, even a parent. It helps to help calm down anyone.

Yes. And so really as a grownup, anytime you first feel anxiety coming on or anger in those moments to do some deep breathing is really going to make a profound difference. So to draw a square, see I'm deep breathing as we're talking about. So to draw a square on your leg and with each, in each corner, pause for three seconds of slow square, 20 seconds of deep breathing resets the amygdala. And so it's going to get you back in your right mindset, really. So it's going to dilate the blood vessels of the brain and shift the blood flow away from that amygdala.

And you said that it's best to do this when your child is at a two rather than an eight out of 10. Exactly. So you're kind of, you're helping to train them like, oh, it's coming, so let's breathe before you get out of control and hysterical. Exactly. And one of the really fascinating things about the amygdala is that over time it develops, it becomes hyper responsive and develops what they call a hair trigger response. So actually the more often the amygdala takes over, the more likely it is to take over. Whoa, that's a little scary.

I know. It is, which is why I really am having families even do some breathing preventatively when they're not anxious. I think those apps like Headspace and Calm Kids, there are some great apps, even just an Apple Watch will help you breathe.

And if you have a smart watch yourself, you can breathe with your kids and say, let's take some deep breaths just when you're driving in the car. I can't wait for the day when Ann looks at me and says, what are you doing right now? So I'm just resetting my amygdala. I love it. That's awesome. But anyway, that's step one. So that's step one.

Yes. So basically when we do that, and I forgot to say the way that I describe anxiety with kids is I will say it's kind of like the one loop roller coaster at the fair. You know, we all have thousands of what are called intrusive thoughts every day. So I'm driving across a bridge and I think, I hope I don't go off the bridge. That's an intrusive thought. If I have anxiety, I might think, oh no, I'm going to go off the bridge. Oh no. Oh no. I've got to be really, I'm going to go off the bridge. And it gets stuck in this loop. And so that's the way I'll say it to kids in my office and they'll say, how did you know? That's exactly what it feels like.

Wow. What are some of the common things a kid's thinking? They may not be thinking going off the bridge, but what are some thinkings? It's fascinating because basically if we tracked development, I could almost tell you what the thoughts are with different ages because basically it's the scariest thing they can imagine at a certain age. So younger ones, it's often something bad happening to my mom or dad. We get a little bit older, it's being embarrassed in front of my peers, or I cannot tell you over the years, really pre-COVID, how many girls I saw who their loop was about throwing up.

They just got completely fixated on every time they felt the littlest bit off in their bodies, they would think, oh no, I'm going to throw up, I'm going to throw up. So, and then they get a little bit older and it's often performance-based, I'm going to fail on a test, something like that. And I remember the first time I think I really realized how significant those intrusive thoughts. I had a girl who was so bright and so conscientious and wanted to do the right thing all the time. And she came to me one afternoon and she said, I cheated on a test today, sissy. And I knew this kid wouldn't cheat.

And I said, tell me what you mean. She said, well, I was sitting in class and I thought I really want to do well on this test and I don't want to cheat. I would never want to cheat. I'm not a kid who cheats. Oh no, I just kind of looked at my friend. Does that mean that I cheated?

I don't want to cheat. Oh no, I think maybe I cheated. And it kept going to the degree that she went up to her teacher and confessed that she cheated. This exact scenario happened with one of my friend's daughters.

Exact thing. So, okay, the deal is, because what happens is it morphs like we're saying. I mean, it's like whack-a-mole anxiety because as soon as you start to think, my daughter is really fixated on this, it goes away. And then it comes back as something else.

And research says that kids often go two years before they ever get help. And I think that's why. Because it comes up as this one thing and then they shift developmentally and so it goes away.

And then it pops up as all of a sudden they're afraid to get on a plane. So it keeps morphing. So that's part of why we do number three.

So maybe I need to go back to two. But basically it's never about the thing. So, I mean, it's really anxiety forever.

It's not as much about the throwing up. And whatever it is, it's not about that thing. And when we do that, we go into what researchers call the content trap, where we make it about the thing. And then when it shifts and it's about something else, we can't help. So, okay, so let's go back to number two and three.

I keep getting myself off track. So we start with breathing. That's number one. Number two, we want to get them out of that loop. Whatever it is they're fixated on. Cheating on a test, throwing up, something bad happening to my parents, I'm going to fail in my track meet, whatever it is. So what we use is a cognitive behavioral therapy tool called grounding.

They're called grounding techniques. And if you've ever had anxiety and you're listening, you can relate because it's like you spin off. Anxiety does not reside in the present. It resides in the past or the future. So I'm rehashing something that already happened or I'm afraid of what's going to happen.

I'm afraid of walking out on the stage and I'm going to mess up my words or whatever. So we want to pull them back to the present moment. The best thing to do that is anything sensory related, which is why I like the square breathing on the leg because that tactile sense of drawing on your leg is sensory related. And so my favorite game that I'll play with kids or tell them to play by themselves and they can do it at school, they can do it anywhere is five, four, three, two, one. You think about our senses. We have five senses. So I will say to somebody sitting in my office, tell me five things you see right now.

And I'll have them, you know, if we were going to do that, we could do that right now in this room. I'll have them tell me five things they see. Tell me four things you hear. Tell me three things you feel. Tell me two things you smell.

Tell me one thing you taste. And especially the smell and the taste require us to stop and really focus on those sensory, that sensory data that's coming into our brains. And so that pulls them out of the loop.

Really? Or with teenagers, I will have them do math, like count backwards from a hundred by sevens because that, you know, that would take focus for you. Yes, exactly.

Or you can even say, tell me everything you see in this room that's the color red. And if you're driving your child or you're with your teenager and they're really anxious about something, you just do that with them. And then they have to focus on whatever that is. Also, you talked about scripture earlier, having them recite scripture back, that can have that same grounding, almost meditative type of thing that we do. And so we want to pull them out of the loop in that way because it's going to shift their focus.

And then number three, my favorite thing to do with kids is I have them name their worry. So we all have this voice and I don't mean if something's really wrong with us in terms of mental health, but we have this voice that talks to us in the back of our head. And it can be a critical voice. It can be a worried voice, like you're going to fail, your stomach's fluttering, you're going to throw up, you know, anything. I mean, we all have those voices that communicate to us. And as grownups, we know that voice isn't true. But when you're a kid, especially if no one's ever talked to you about it, you think that voice is true.

And so to give that voice a name reduces its power. So to call it the worry brain versus the smart brain, or I'll call it sometimes the worry monster with little ones. I call it with teenagers, I call it the worry whisperer because that's what it does.

It just whispers these lies really into the back of our mind that we believe is truth. And so that way, they can say, I'll have kids come in and say, you know, they name it all kinds of funny things. I have one younger girl who named her worry monster Bob. I have no idea why she picked Bob.

But it doesn't matter what they name him. But she'll come in and see me and say, well, Bob's been bothering me a lot lately. And I would so much rather her think it's Bob than something's wrong with me. And I have this voice that's telling me these things because when it's somebody else or outside of myself, I can fight with it better too. And so teaching them really to talk back to that voice, like with younger ones. I mean, I'll even have them stomp their foot and wag their little finger and they can use words they wouldn't normally get to use, like stupid.

You're not the boss of me, stupid. I'm not listening to you. And they strengthen their own voice rather than that voice. And the cool thing is, as we talk about these tools and anxiety, the same tools work no matter how it surfaces, no matter what it's about. And so that way, when it was about something bad happening to you and all of a sudden they're afraid of getting on a plane, you can say to them, sounds like Bob's back to me.

What'd you do with Bob last time that worked? Because that's what we want to go back to. It sounds like scripture, taking your thoughts captive. Does it? Hey, I was thinking the exact same thing. Yeah.

I mean, it's like, no. 2 Corinthians 10, 5 is you're grabbing them. Yeah, you're not going to control me.

I will control you. And so it's taking those thoughts captive and like putting them in a cage and saying, no, you will not have control of me like that. And is some of this, like, where do these thoughts, is some of this spiritual warfare? Is this some of this from our past? Where do these thoughts come from? All of it.

Yes. I think some of it's definitely spiritual warfare. I think some of it's our past that we've internalized. Sometimes a voice that we've had that's critical.

And it's so in the books, all three of the worry books, I define anxiety as anxiety is an overestimation of the problem and an underestimation of ourselves or themselves. And I read a study once that I have always remembered. And especially because I worked with so many girls that talked about how when something goes wrong in a boy's world, he blames someone else. This is true. I never do that ever.

We raised three sons. That's why I'm laughing. Yes.

And when something goes wrong in a girl's world, y'all know. You blame yourself. It's just me. It's my fault. Exactly. Okay. Why? Why? Both of you went, oh, yeah, yeah.

And I knew. Why is that? You know, I think we, gosh, I think there are a lot of reasons. I think we internalize voices a lot. I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get things right. I think we often don't feel comfortable being angry, being disappointed. I think girls just naturally want to please.

And so those negative emotions we end up turning on ourselves. Is that why anxiety is higher for adolescent girls? I think it's part of it.

Part of it? Yes, I think it's definitely. And as a matter of fact, we were talking in our break about how frequently now I feel like anxiety is tied to birth order. And it's the oldest girl. And part of that is because I think that oldest girl often feels more like they have to be compliant and they want to please.

And this is kind of a different subject. But one of the things that I've learned over the years is that moms really unknowingly, and y'all please hear me say this with a lot of grace. Moms are hardest on the oldest girls without meaning to. But I think I think some of that is exactly what we're talking about. I think that voice as women that we have inside of our heads, that's critical. I think it's easy to put that voice over onto the oldest daughter without having any intention of doing that.

They just feel like an extension of you. Yes. Now, let me ask this. Does what you just walked through those three steps, does it apply to a temper tantrum? I'm looking at you, but right behind you is your namesake, Bruce Goff, our audio engineer who has little toddlers. He has two daughters. He's asking what every dad and mom of little children who, you know, temper tantrums are a part of life.

He's asking that question, does this help? Yes, absolutely. So what the hard thing with a little one, though, is they wouldn't jump to number three unless we help them connect the dots. So starting with breathing. I mean, I have a two year old nephew that I'm with a lot these days and we will often just say take some deep breaths just when he's getting really riled up about anything.

So doing that, doing the grounding, I think can be fantastic with them. And then I would I mean, the little the little girl's book is actually a workbook and I have them name the worry. And I think we do have to connect the dots for them because the confusing thing about a temper tantrum is they don't understand why they're acting out either.

They don't understand what's going on. And and in the Braver, Stronger, Smarter book, I have a feelings chart and it's actually little faces of my dog, Lucy, which makes it way more fun. But we have feelings charts in our offices everywhere and actually sell them on our website RaisingBoysAndGirls.com because with a little one, it's so helpful to go back to them and say, pick out to me some things that you're feeling.

So if you have a little one, here's where I would start. OK, wait, let me give you the scenario. OK, good. So you're in the mall and you've just come out of the toy store, but your child really, really wanted that toy. And so you're like, no, we're not going to get that toy today.

Maybe we'll do this another day or for your birthday. They come out of the mall and they just scream and they're laying on the floor or you're in the grocery store line and they see the candy. They want something.

But you say no. And they just stretch out and they just fling themselves to the in the back of the cart or wherever. And this is screaming. This is a friend of ours. Not that this ever happened to me.

Not our children. Right. Right.

So, I mean, the hard thing is you've got to catch it early. OK. So when you say no and you get ready, you said no. So you think, OK, it might happen. Right.

And you already know that your child struggles with this kind of behavior. You have created a system where they can earn brave beads because brave beads are also for flexibility. And it's an actual bead.

It's an actual bead, a marble, a pom pom, something like that. And so what you would do is to say, no, we're not going to get a treat right now, but I want you to take three deep breaths. And if you can keep the deep breaths going and we can walk out of the store and you can be kind, you're going to earn a brave bead when we get home.

It's a great opportunity to earn one. But you've got to catch it early. And every child's different. But, you know, their jaw tenses up or their little face turns red or you can see their fist. You know, whatever it is that's kind of their sign.

That's when you want to start to say it. Or you know what's coming. You know, it's fascinating to think that this helps for little children, but it helps for adults. And I got to be honest, I was thinking, wow, I'm going to become a better golfer. If I just do this before the golf shot, you know, what are these thoughts in my head? You're not going to be able to hit this. And you use the word grounding. You're not allowed to ground a sand wedge in a sand trap.

Anyway, I'm kidding. But it is like it calms your soul. I mean, of course, I love the tactile part, you know, where you're touching your leg and drawing a square or a flower or for me, a football, whatever you want to draw. You just need 20 seconds of that to be able to reset. But what a great.

Yeah, it's practical. It's like taking scripture that says capture every thought, be anxious for nothing. It says, let me help you do that, because it can become just this verse that I can't do it and I throw it away because I tried, but it doesn't work.

Or there could be the peace of God that passes all understanding, which is verse seven of Philippians four, six and seven. That can flood me, but I got to participate so I can sort of allow God to be able to give that and to be able to do that for your children. What a gift.

What a gift. And so take us now to the adolescent girl or even teenage girl that just will not talk about any of this with you as a parent. What can we do?

Do we take them? And how do we know when to take them to a therapist? So I have told a lot of parents.

I've gotten that question a lot. And I have said because, you know, adolescents are just so tricky and they often won't talk and they'll talk to somebody else way before they'll talk to you. But I mean, I wrote that book.

I tried to really recreate what it would be like in my counseling office if I was meeting them for the first time. And so I have said to parents, I don't even want you to say a word. I want you to go buy that book and put it on their bedside table and never mention it. Really?

And then a weekend. Did you see that book I put on your table? Just curious what you think. I tell parents often and I have in the beginning, I have these guidelines for reading the brave book and I kind of talk about some of those things. Don't ask them questions directly.

The work is theirs, not yours. There's some real direct things I say to parents. But one of my favorite words with parents of adolescents is to be breezy. You know, the more intense we are, I think they hit this place. This is my problem right there. So I think the more direct we ask them, they feel so awkward inside of themselves as adolescents and I think they get so awkward about intimacy, especially with their parents.

And so when we're asking those direct questions, we just get shut down. I'm writing it down. Breezy. Hey, that's our new code word.

There you go. I'll just say breezy. You're pretty breezy though. No, I'm saying to you. No, I know.

But you are as a parent. Yeah, I'm too breezy. No, that's good.

The wind blows right through me. It's good to have a combination maybe. So, you know, one of the other really cool things that I came, so when I started writing the first books on anxiety, I read 23 books about it because I just wanted to be really well versed in it. Well done. Well, I was twitchy myself for a while. I think I was anxious. But one of the other fascinating things I came across was that in, in most households, there is one anxious parent and one non-anxious parent. Yes. And the non-anxious parent often gets dismissed.

And I think that's the breezier parent. What do you mean, dismissed? Like, you're not watching. You don't see what's happening. You're not as aware as I am of what's going on in this moment. We have had this conversation.

Many times. In our bed at night, like if, you know, if the kids are out as teenagers, I'll lay there and I'll think, I know they're doing something. Like, trouble is happening tonight. Hey, honey. Draw on the square. There you go.

Start breathing. Those are, those are lies coming to your head. But it's based, I think one of the parents and a lot of times it's the mom because we see so much. And maybe it's the wife, the woman. She's seeing and she's tracking with our kids more. And if this is an arrogant comment, I would think you're not as in touch, Dave.

But really what you're saying, no, they're breezy. Celebrate that. And it's so important. And you need that voice to counteract where you go in your head. Because probably it starts in a genuine place. But I mean, I talked to so many parents who say I was never anxious until I had kids.

Yeah, that's definitely true. I'm sorry I did that. You're breezy. I like it. And now, now you're going to appreciate it. And now we have no kids living in the house, but hopefully it'll still apply to grandchildren. But I would say to our listener, go get the book.

It's a great tool for you, but I never thought of doing what you just said. Maybe if you've got, how old would you say the girl needs to be to lay it on her nightstand or whatever? So I think if she's 11 and under, I would get her braver, stronger, smarter. Okay. If she's over, if she's 12 and up, I'd get her brave.

Yeah. And you would put it by her bed or by? I would read braver, stronger, smarter with her.

Okay. Brave, I would put on her bedside table. But if you, if she does talk to you, I mean, I told a parent, a mom and a daughter last week that they're really close.

The daughter's 17. And as they were leaving, I said, I want you to buy one. And I want, I said to the daughter, I want you to write in the margins.

And it's actually a journal. I mean, it's meant to be kind of question and response. And then I want you to go to your mom and let her read that chapter because I want her to understand you better. Which that's kind of an inroad to an adolescent's heart. If you say, cause you know, they all feel like my parents don't understand me.

So if you can say, I just want to understand what's going on more. And I bought one for myself so I could read it too. They would love that.

And if they act, if they roll their eyes and say whatever, you know, still, secretly they would love it. That's really good. Wow, sissy, thanks. That's been great. Oh, y'all, it's been so fun to get to talk to you.

Thanks. How we interact with and communicate with our teenagers, especially around subjects like anxiety and fear, how we hear from them about what's going on in their own heart. This is not easy and they don't make it easy for us as parents. It takes skill on our part to know how to engage with our teens so that we can help them and we can point them in the right direction. We can point them to faith instead of fear. We can point them to what the Bible has to say and help them in the midst of the anxiety they're dealing with. This is at the heart of what Sissy Goff has written in her book Brave. The subtitle is a teen girl's guide to beating worry and anxiety.

And I think honestly, it may help some moms and dads of teenagers to understand how we can deal with our own worry and anxiety as well. We have Sissy's book available. You can order it from us online at familylifetoday.com or you can call to order at 1-800-FL-TODAY.

Again, the title of the book is Brave. It's available online at familylifetoday.com or call to order at 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. I have to tell you, one of the things that the team here at Family Life is really excited about as we look toward a new month, look toward September, is the fact that starting in September, we will be hosting Weekend to Remember Marriage Getaways in dozens of cities all across the country. And of course, for the last 18 months, we've had to cancel those weekends to remember.

It's exciting to have them happening again this fall. We're very busy here at Family Life Today. One of the reasons I mention this is because our team is also hoping and praying here in the last week of August that in every city where Family Life Today is heard, there might be two families who would join us as monthly donors to Family Life. We call them legacy partners. And if you are one of those two families to join us in your community, we'd like to send you as a thank you gift a certificate so that you and your spouse, or someone you know that you'd like to gift this to, can attend one of the upcoming getaways as our guest. The certificate is our way of saying thank you for helping to support the ongoing work of Family Life Today as a monthly legacy partner. Legacy partners are the backbone of all that we do here at Family Life. And in addition to the certificate to attend a Weekend to Remember Getaway, we'd also like to send you a copy of Dave and Ann Wilson's new book, No Perfect Parents, and access to more than a dozen messages from Dave and Ann, some of which have been heard on Family Life Today, some of which have not.

You'll have access to those messages. All of this as our way of saying thank you for becoming a Family Life Today legacy partner. And would you join us in just praying that in each city where this program is heard, there might be two families who would step forward and say we're going to join the team?

If you'd like to be one of those two, you can become a legacy partner by calling 1-800-FL-TODAY or simply go online at FamilyLifeToday.com and the information you need is available there. Thanks in advance for joining us and partnering with us in the Ministry of Family Life Today. And we hope you can join us back tomorrow as we continue to explore how we as parents can help our teenage daughters who may be experiencing unusually high levels of anxiety, fear or worry. Cissy Goff will be back with us again tomorrow. Hope you can be here as well. On behalf of our hosts Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.