Podcast Builder Club
Podcast Builder Club

Episode 27 · 11 months ago

How to Manage Content Creator Anxiety Feat. Sherianna Boyle


Overwhelm and anxiety are very common, especially among creative people. If you’re finding yourself up against a lot of negative feelings, it’s important to learn how to get out of that negative space so you can be the best version of your creative self.

In this episode, Travis chats with Sherianna Boyle, a podcaster, radio personality, and author, who specializes in processing emotions related to anxiety. Travis and Sherianna discuss:

  • How to identify Anxiety: Telling the difference between anxiety and stress.
  • Ways to resolve Anxiety: Emotions come along with anxiety and it’s important to create space to process those emotions.
  • The Seven Steps to Emotional Detox: Sherianna discusses the process that is the premise for her books and how you can apply it.
  • The science behind this method: There have been studies that have found real benefit to a lot of the processes discussed, such as meditation and using vibrations.
  • How Anxiety impacts behavior: Anxiety can negatively impact social interactions.
  • Reactivity: A different way to think about anxiety and how we tend to manage it in less-than-healthy ways.

Memorable Quotes:

  • “Your emotions matter. Processing them matters more.”
  • “That top layer is just what your brain and your nervous system are exposing...you have to get that shovel and dig into the dirt a little deeper to see what’s underneath that feeling.”
  • “Reactivity is [...] how we make the uncomfortable comfortable.”
  • “If it’s not love, it’s probably a reaction.”
  • “If you’re spending all this energy worrying and doubting [...] you’re not opening up your brilliance to creativity”

Links to Resources:

Emotional Detox Podcast and Radio Show

Emotional Detox, book by Sherianna Boyle

Emotional Detox for Anxiety, book by Sherianna Boyle
Cleanse Gift: Calm Your Mind Meditation

Have you ever felt overwhelmed thatthat tightness in your chest or anxiety when it comes to your podcast contentcreation or just life in general? Well, if you have you're not alone, and thisepisode is definitely for you today- I'm joined by Sheriana Boyle. She is apodcaster, a radio personality and she's an author and we're talking aboutkicking anxiety in the face. That's right in this episode, you're going tolearn how to identify anxiety versus stress she's, going to give you anentire system on how to process to overcome anxiety, get out of thatnegative space and start being your true creative self and a whole bunchmore along the way. So, if you haven't started your journey into unpackinganxiety or just dealing with two thousand and twenty overall, I reallywant you to check out this episode. It was a blast talking to her and I can'twait to share it with you. How can somebody identify thosefeelings or if they have anxiety itself, anxiety is most known for chronicthinking and chronic worrying, and one of the big distinctions between anxietyversus stress because stresses, we all have stress. It's part of life, it'snot going anywhere, so it'sit's actually good for us somelevels of stress because it keeps US motivated. It keeps US focus. It givesus courage, really the courage to get on the air and do at podcast, sometimesthose nerves, kind of keep. You keep you motivated a little bit anxiety. Onthe other hand, is it feels more devilitating? It feels like it feelslike a weigt. It feels like it keeps you stock. Sometimes you getoverwhelmed, you might feel like things are out of control. I hear that a lot and the thing with anxiety, that'sdifferent than stress is strest. You typically have a reason rike getting onthe air interviewing someone that you don't really know or maybe you'r. maybeyour Uncomi' a little nervous that there's a reason for that right. Thereyou don't know the person it's new, it's different, but with anxiety theredoesn't have to be a reason. So that means you can wake up with it. You canliterally wake up and all of a sudden, you're, anxious and you're like I don'tknow why I just woke up yeah like nothing's happened today, and I justfeel anxious and that's the big distinction before between okay. Thatmakes a lot of sense and I hadn't thought about putting it into like thecomparison between anxiety and stress, which most people probably sort ofmeled together now. The reason I really am happy to have you on the podcast. If,because you're, actually a content creator in a podcaster yourself, youhave the emotional detox podcast your author, you're doing all kinds of things incontent creation, so this is going to make a lot of sense tomy audience, so your book is called...

Emotional Detox. Your podcast is calledemotional dtox and I have you know, experimented as a person withanxiety with lots of different ways to resolve those anxieties of youknow: Therapy Medication, Yoga Breathwork, you know meditation to namea few. You know these are all things that I'm constantly putting it in themix, but I don't know if I know what is in emotional detox. Is itsimilar to like, maybe like a Social Media Dtox? Can you let us know alittle bit more about what's behind in emotional Netox, emotional dtax issomething I had to flash out because it's loosely out there, but no onereally dove into the topic. So it's a framework. I found the foundation ofemotional detox. Is that what I always say is your emotions matter, processingthem matters more and what I mean by that is every time you have a symptomof anxiety, and this is written in my book, emotial detox for anxiety. Everytime you have a symptom of anxiety, there's going to be an emotion thatcomes along with that. Now you have a choice. You can. You can pay attentionto the symptoms, which is what we've been doing for most of most of tour,research and and treatment of anxiety is okay, you're, having, for example,you're having trouble, sleeping or you're nervous, or you have the chronicworrying or maybe have some physical things like tension or that stomachsproblems with your stomach or you just your immune system. You get sick a lot,you don't just don't feel good right. Those are symptoms of anxiety and youcould certainly say. Okay. How can I make this go away? What do I do to makeit feel better and all those things will absolutely help you, but whenemotional detox looks sad is well how about we? How about we look at it fromanother angle and ha bit. We ask ourselves whatemotions are going along with that and what I have found is a lot of thosesymptoms are actually ways that we cope and manage anxiety. So I'm going to exmexchange the word symptom with a management system, so we go into worryas a way to manage an emotion and what are those emotions? Well, you're, notgoing to really know what those emotions are until you actually processthem, you might be able to nail it just thinking about it off the cuff, butthat's going to require more thinking. That's going to require analyzing,that's going to require a lot of judgment and self criticism of eitheryourself or others. So why not give yourself an opportunity- and this iswhat emortional detax does to learn, how to actually process an emotion whenyou process it, then you gain information and very often what whatthose symptoms are due to.

Is there not actually due to emotionsthat are happening right now, although that feels that way, they're actuallydue to emotions that you buried in the past. So if you've buried, fear oranger, that's can chip okay. So that makes a lot of sense. And so whatyou're saying is that for every you know, anxietyal feeling, let's just say you know your your sort of fear ofmissing out or something there could be, or there is an emotional thing, that'sliving underneath in the soil, theyre like anger, or you know, fear or one ofthose feelings that that top layer there is just what your your brain andyour nervous system are sort of exposing to you, but you have to kindof get out that shovel and kind of dig into the dirt alittle deeper to like see. What's what's what's underneath that thatfeeling yeah so on the outside, it might look like your content for yourpodcast, or maybe your followers or what the comments right. That's goingto elicit a response right. You could have anxiety over just someone says acomment about something or or doesn't say a comment that can havpen that wayand the reality is the person or situation didn't cause that emotion.That emotion was likely already there. It's just you've really done a good jobat bearing it and putting it aside and avoiding it or or actuallymisinterpreting, what's really happening. So we could. We could spendall this time and energy on saying, okay. Well, that's why I feel this way,but that's a lot of that. Obviously, that wastes a lot of energy and it'sincredibly draining, and then you become like this fix it. I got to fixit. I get to make it better. I got to do better, I'm you know, and thenyou're have all of that kind of stuff going on when you could really just getto the root of it and the reality is all of us. I'm going to say all of ushave emotions that we've baried in the past and that's because we were justtrained that way. We were trained to manage them. We weren't trained to feelthat yeah. So I'm personally doing a lot of work. Sort of you know all thetime, but at the end of the year I get more reflective and I consider myself ahighly emotional person, and I know that you know emotional people have a lot ofstrengths, but they can sometimes have a lot of weakness when it comes tothings like reacting to a negative comment or interacting like that. So you know how does somebody you knowwe've? I curtersorp established that, like you, you can identify your anxietybut like that's, not what you want to put a bandait on we're looking more atthe foundation of emotions. So you know what's like an exercise, that you couldrecommend that somebody could do to...

...sort of pause and see if they couldfigure out, because that's something I struggle with like what is the emotionunderneath? I don't. I don't always necessarily know so what could besomething you could do to sort of investigate? What's underneath thatanxiety, so in both emotional detaxs andemotional detax for anxiety, I created the system for that and it's an theacronym of cleanse and it's seven steps and it starts with the SE and it endswith the e and what I, what I found is that I would use a tool, for example,breathing and- and it would definitely make me feel better, but it wouldn'treally shift things in the way that I had hoped to. It felt like it kind ofgot me through the moment I, and- and that certainly is empowering when yousee yourself able to get through things where you normally would have maybewent into reactivity about, but the seven steps basically teach you how tonumber one. You have to get centered really have to center in yourself andand get into your body first and then the next step. I call it's a al. It'scalled look inward, and in that step it's really identifying the emotionswithout getting into the story, and that's where people get tripped up.They go into this story in their head, so they think. Okay, I feel nervous, Ifeel frustrated, and then they run stories like this, probably not goingto work out, probably wasting my time. There's too much competition Y, a I'mrelating it to your your audience and and once you startrunning those stories. What what you're doing is? You are actually covering upthe emotions which, if they were processed, they could actually help you.So what that second step does the look in word? Is it teaches you how toidentify it and it interrupts the story so Sur, I'm sorry! This is so awesomeBu. I want to sort of like unpack a couple things so going back to seecentered we're talking about like sitting still maybe upright like whenyou're talking about centering yourself. Are you are you talking about? You know putting yourself in acomfortable position to be able to start to look inward. Is that what thewhat center ot means? Yes, so the clear I call it clear reactivity, which is achoice and it basically you're saying to yourself when you sit in acomfortable seeted position, and I recommend that you do it on a regularbasis. This isn't when you're in the throws of reactivity. This is a regularpractice like you would sit in a seated meditation, the difference betweenmaybe a meditation- and this is you're choosing to say you well number one. Wetone the Vegas nerve, so the vegast...

...nerve comes out the brain stem and itgoes all the way throughout your whole body, Intersex, almost every Oregon and it comes out through the colon andthere's many many ways that you can tone that nerve and so that step one isabout. Let me do a couple things to tone. My viggast nerve before I startidentifying my emotions so couple of things, one, a simple next stretchwould be toning. Your nerve, taking a deep breath, is toning, that Vega Starso similar approach, but different mindset and as far as okay, I'm Goinnatone my nerve, because I want to let my body know when I identify this emotion.I am not looking to revisit this in my life, I'm looking to process it, andthere is a big difference with the big mistake people make. Is they sit down?They get centered and then they're starting to repeat the story thatthey've told themselves that basically they identify with instead of looking at the feeling that that storycreates. Is that semi, accurate? Yes andsometimes what people do? is they sit down and everything starts to come up,and then they find ways to either discourage that ordistract themselves or they shorten their meditation or whatever it is. Itmight be conscious if might be unconscious Beso. I believe it's reallyimportant to make a very conscious choice to just sit down, go through acentering exercise and acknowledge. I am choosing to acknowledge that everyday there are some emotions that come up to be processed every single day,whether you like it or not, they're there, and what I'm doing is I'mcarving out space for that to occur and I'm really honoring them. So when I'mcentering myself and basically saying I'm choosing to go into a state ofprocess, Oka Awesome and I'm choosing to go into a state if it's this remindsme there's a lot of parallels to me, sort of with Buddhism where you're likeyou have to face the thing you're running from in order to process it,and so it makes a lot of sense to me as somebody who's read a lot of books inthat vein, all right, so we've covered CNL. What would happen in, let's say ENA so, for example, al I would throw insomething like you know, being being on a podcast makes me feel rightbeing hosting a podcast makes me feel you would breathe into that you. Letthat emotion to come up, come up and there's a lot and you don't get into it.So, for example, things come up, nervous, excited, doesn't even mattergood, bad and different. You just let it come up. That's the whole point e is he is when we, I call it admit, andit's basically a mantra, so you add a...

Montra in there and what we're doing iswe're increasing vibration in the body and and so that way, if anything kindof came up like a little bit of a trigger right, because that can happen,wend get triggered by our motions. That e is going to just bring you so muchcomfort, which is a mantra, and it's not very log again. The whole processis about ten minutes and then, after you go into the a which is you go intovisualization, just a very quick visualization of where you want to be.Where how do you? How do you want to feel in your body? What would that looklike from a visual? You want to feel calm. You want to feel confident. Wheredoes that look like in an image and then the end, which is nourish, whichis takes you further into that? And there's got guide points there and thenthe asses surrender and that's when we move into that free? Well, that thatspace of allowing you have to allow yourself to become thisthis. You wantto come, become whatever it is from inside out not outside in it's notabout starting where what you want to look like it's about being thatvibration, and then you end in the e, which is the ease, which means the IMspace that I am consciousness, so you vibrate confidence, you vibratereassurance, you vibrate trust and, and that's the cool I like that, a lot. SoI do have one quick question about sort of the Montra. So do you recommendsomebody come up with her own Montra? Do you have recommended Montres in thebook or The podcast like? How does somebody find their Montre and whatwould like make make up a good one? So I like a mantra where people don'tattach too much, meaning to it because again, meaning can get triggering forpeople. They start wondering what am I, what am I reciting, and so I recommendjust the Montra hum just the hum the m sound. That's it because there's everybodyhums right, there's, no meaning to that, and it's extremely valuable for yourbody, the vibration of the hum and there's a lot of science behind the humbelieve it or not. There's there's been many books written on it, so I that's the one that I personally use.Woll yeah, I I mean humming is essentially vibration right. So, ifyou're trying to get into a positive vibration state yeah like do you have any quick bits on thescience behind humming, I'm just curious yeah. That really intrigues me.As far as you know, scientifically. What does ahume put you at ease? Is it the repetition? Is there anything you couldchear on that? Well, Montes are all about repetition. Rob Montres are aboutrepeating so the little different than affirmations. You might say two threetimes you might just hang it on your wall. Montra is actual practice ofdevotion. It's ind, so I recommend that people don't mix a match. Their Montrasjust kind of pick, one MONTRESA sound,...

...just syllable as far as the hum. It isincredibly as far as the health benefits it tones the vegas nerve likenobody's business, the think of it like a tuning for and- and it is yeah yeah-it's incredibly toning and it will lower they've done studies an strokepatients. It will lower blood pressure, it willincrease circulation oxygen.It's some great for anxiety, top everything, it's just all somethingthat you want to do on a regular basis. Think of when you're born, I mean youmake noise right, you make sounds and Montra issound. Vibration is sout and that's really great yeah. That's. It makes alot of sense and as podcasters, what are we doing? We're we're making soundright. So I think this is something that could beeasily implemented by somebody who may be feeling- and I really like how youlaid it out in a stepby step scenario that you go through these things thatjust one thing you're, not just you're, not just meditating you're, not justbreathing you're, putting them all together to get yourself closer to thatend result which is feeling better feeling lighter. You know how does this? How does anxiety playinto behavior say? Like you know, new habits or positive habits?Maybe somebody's anxious and they're, not feeling like they're reaching theirfull potential are ther connections between anxiety and behavior. Oh absolutely, I think the biggestthing is people see themselves as very often they feel lone. They feel unsupported when they haveanxiety and it can cause them to sort of judge those around them andmaybe kind of run stories in their heads and not communicate, not askquestions and make assumptions and mine reads, and that creates a lot ofconflict and then, of course, anxiety comes with a lot of fear of conflict.So a lot of times people- don't you knowthey created in their head, but they don't want it to happen in their lifebecause they don't want to deal with it because they don't feel they have theenergy for it for whatever it is, so they just kind of shove it under therag and pretend it's not there, and maybe they dive more into work and theyoverextend themselves. They go above and beyond what they need to really bedoing, and then they can crash and burn that way. So those are all behaviors. That anxietycan that you know it's there and distancing yourself from other people,or a lot of social anxiety is happening now, especially with he pandemic.People are they're, MI, they're, missing connection, but they're alsogetting a little nervous about getting...

...back out there at the same time,because well one we're all wearing sticking masks on our face and it makes it really awkward to connect.Let's face it. It's not the same, and people are very guarded, so anxietyjust makes you it. Does it really just shrinks to you? I think it makes youfeel small and it may can sometimes make you feel I think overwhelmed, and that can bringa lot of conversations into as far as behavior that you know I have no timeand I do everything and that kind of those kinds of th holling q of thingsyou tell yourself and you get into the cycle that actually will increaseanxiety, as opposed to reduce anxiety, and I think the same thing works withvibrations with positivity definitely work with negativty. You can get into anegative loop and you have to break that loop somehow, so you had mentionedreactivity, you know- and this is a new term to me-so forgive my you know, ignorance, so to speak. What are what are a coupleways that we could you you said clear, reactivity right. Is that h? Would youhell you phrase it? There are some terms and emotional detak that I had tolay out, because I realized that some things needed to change, meaningthe way that we define things, and so reactivity is a term that I suggestpeople use rather than anxiety, right, I'mjust having a reaction, and I don'tknow how, if that feels better to you, but it certainly feels better to me andbasically, what awhatreactivity is is it's a trigger? We get triggered andthat's normal everybody gets triggered, meaning something comes up. Maybe somebody sayssomething or something happens and you have a reaction. It could be. Aninternal reaction doesn't have to be an external where I say something or theysay something to me, but I internally, I feel something get tight orconstricted, or sometimes I feel like clog dap or he in the body that can besigns of a trigger and then what happens. Is We go into reactivity,which I define is how we make the uncomfortable comfortable. So I'mhaving a trigger, and now I want to make thatmore comfortable. So many of us have learned sort of ways to kind of pretendlike everything's. Fine or people please like let's say that somebody'supset with you and you're feeling it like. Oh boy,maybe I shouldn't have said that maybe I shouldn't have you know canceled,that appointment at whatever it is, and...

...then you maybe tex them and say: Oh I'm,so sorry or you just kind o. that's that could be a sign of reactivitybecause it's your way of actually managing. What's coming up for you, so,rather than feel the feeling you you do something outside of yourself to try tomake it better or to make it stop. So there's many many ways that we go. Ifind it absolutely fascinating to found out all the ways that we try to controlor manage our feelings.It's so much easier, just to feel them, but yea we've been trained to do thatyeah. I love that n. There was two things that you mentioned there insteadof looking at you know what the problem is. I actually have a posted note thatsays what's the opportunity here. So when something comes up, that's notnecessarily the best thing in the world. I try to look at it and say like whatwhat is the opportunity behind this? What is this going to teach me and thensecondarily we were talking about. You know reactivity, as far as likemaybe people pleasing- and I think you know something that's often overlookedis. I also have another postedote, I'm like Mr Post an none over here, butit's just as weight a little longer. It says wall wait a little longer right.So before you respond to that email or that text message. You know- and I think this is everything thatyou've explained in sort of that, that cleanse process is like you know, get into a good space and don't justreact and use reactivity to your advantage and that you know coulddefinitely help reduce that so 'm, I'm I'm loving us.This is really great information, because not everybody is at this place in theirlife yet so I think it takes. You have to be in the right place to want tostart this journey right. So I've been doing this for several years and Idon't think I'll ever stop, because my life is improved by adding thesedifferent techniques in to reduce my anxiety, but for somebody who's listening rightnow who may have never meditated or thought about these things, where's thebest place for them to sort of start their journey into in emotional detoxsor into an emotional detox for anxiety. Well, I will tell you what I've heardas far as feedback from people who have read the book and it really what itdoes. Is it's provided me in sight on how their journey began into thisprocess and what they often will say is the part about the reactions theydidn't realize, because there's so much in there about different ways that wego into a reactivity and it's really looking at. Is this an emotion or isthis a reaction and I think we've confused people so the best way I cansay it is...

...when I was going through my emotionaldetaks, I just labeled it this way it's kind of like you're posted. No, if it's, if it's not love, it'sprobably a reaction. HMM Intru, I'm not if I'm not in aspace of love, iti'm, probably reacting, and a lot ofus have been taught to sort of overanalyze these emotions, whereas Ijust kind of slide them into the reaction spot which tells me what do Ineed to cleanse? You cleanse theree actions, you don't cleanse the emotions.So when you're releasing something you are releasing the behavior the thought,the attitude, the mindset, whatever it is, that you're doing to cover uporavoid the emotion is what you're cleansing you leave the emotions alone.Let them be theyre amazing. They will go into a state of processingautomatically. You just have to clear the first. You have to become aware. Sothe first step that you ask is have to become aware of the way that you reactand cover up your emotions. That's number one. It helps to sit down andcenter, but I think now that the your audience can kind of hear it from thatframework. We can start to walk around after this and say: Okay was that. DidI allow myself to feel that or di did I just cover that up? Did I just kind of shut that door right and if I didthat's interesting about me, that was a reaction and that's something that Icould choose to clear and then you would go through those seven steps, andyou say you know I choose to clear this way of being and just feel what'scoming up. Naturally, because the reality is those emotions they're. So you could.You could spend a lifetime trying to figure out where they are and wherethey came from, but they're even beyond that. So why? Why use all yourbeautiful time and energy that way just clear the reactions and let them dowhat they do naturally, and and they will give you unbelievable support- andyou know they work along the laws of the universe, so they're very good forcontent, creating once you overfa emotion that you'regoing to really start to get your creative potential going yeah, because if you're spending allthis energy worrying and doubting- and you know thinking about all thesethings- you're- not opening up your your brilliance to creativity to beable to be exposed right. So if you'R, if you're feeling you know all thesenegative feelings, you know your gift. Andour positivity isn't going to comeout. So it's something that I think...

...everybody needs to at least be aware of,which is why I was really excited to have you on the show. So you actuallyhave a gift for the audience, which is your cleanse gift, the the meditation.So I could ave linkd to that in the shows. Yep Yep yeah, it's called comyerminor, editation yeah, so people can have that experience and- and the bigthing is, I think, if Hif, if there's one thing, watch your phone, becausethe phone is a big way that we we interrupt. Emotional processingchecking the phone. You know when you're in the car- and you have amoment and you're like okay, guess I'll look at my phone or in the grocery line.Guess I'll look at my phone, that's an opportunity for you to actually processsomething, and one of the main ingredients that you need forprocessing is oxygen. So, just by choosing to take a breath and bringthat oxygen in the body you, you are basically saying I'm choosing to go tocreate some emotional processing right now, yeah, it's funny how we forget tobreathe. You know we hold our breath, we're tents, we you know so, takingthat breath and yeah I mean I'm a big fan of everywhere. I go. I look aroundand everyone's looking at their phones, no one's, no one's looking up anymore,and you know I have to force myself becausethe the software people and everyone has made everything so addictive thatyour doamine, it has to happen. So You keep looking at the phone, but actuallyjust like sort of existing with something existing with yourself andagain sort of going back to like you know. If you're, if you have theawareness that something maybe is off, then it start, then you can start thatprocess of taking a look at it. So, first of all, I want to thank you forall your wisdom and knowledge, and I hope that the people listening willtake this one step further and the ways that they can sept take that next stepwith you is first of all, the emotional detox podcast right, that's availableeverywhere. Yes, so I have the the PODCAST, which is it's called emotinaldetacts. Now that one's being that's a new season, I actually have aradio show so I've emotional detox on healthy life, dot nat, which is also onmy website, Sherryana Boylecom, so the emotional detax radiohs been going onfor a while, and then I also have the podcast I've two things wow, so you're like adultyou're, likedouble DIPP and you're, a double crater and then of course, you're you're, an author and people can getemotional detox for anxiety. You just mentioned it's in barns and nobles. Ipresume it's on Amazon and all the other places online that you can findthat book. So in in that book you, you know you're, spelling out more detailinto some of the things we talked about today. So I highly recommend that ifyou are feeling like you're, not centered, or you thinkthat you could reduce your worrior overwhelm while you're being a content,crator and just a person in two...

...thousand and twenty right, two thousandand twenty is probably basically a dictionary definition ofanxiety. So if you can't be clear enough to behealthy, mentally you're not going to make your best work, you're not goingto make the best podcast or the best youtube channel, so I higly recommendthat you at least take Sherryanup onor on her her cleanse gift. Do the meditation seehow it makes you feel and is there anything else you'd like to share withthe podcast therapy audience while you're here? Just that your think ofyour emotions as medicine? That's ait there theyre, when they're processedwhen they're withheld right, but they're they're like your medicine, andthey will bring you so many gifts in your life, including New People andpeople that interview and content and they're just their incredible resource.Well, I'm n want to express my gratitude for sharing all thatknowledge. Thank you so much, and I can't wait to do the meditation hereand dig into the radio show and the podcast and the book and everything. Sothank you. So much for being here thanks fravis.

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