My son/daughter suffers from anxiety, what can I do?

Fear also known as anxiety put simply is not real. The only place that fear or anxiety can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It’s a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do at present and may not ever exist.

This creates enormous pain and discomfort in our life,  which is once again, an illusion and unnecessary.

This rushing into the future or holding onto the past is completely powerless and actually takes away from the amazing gift of now and the present which is right in front of you.

This pain, fear, and anxiety will continue to take different shapes throughout your life until you once and for all dig deep beneath the surface to realize it's actually you that's creating this anxiety in your life. Through not being present and making assumptions on how circumstances may turn out or what others are thinking. If this time has taught us anything it's got to be that our world is completely unpredictable and as great as it is to plan and set goals at the end of the day the power and only place we can ever make any kind of change or action is in the here and now.

For me, this has been an ongoing work in progress and one that I still find myself sometimes being reminded to come back to the now and not chase the rabbit (also known as thought/ego) down the hole and into the abyss.

With baseball, it took the shape of the possibility of a bad game. What if I strike out tonight or my swings do not feel the way they should. Some days it would get so bad I wouldn't want to go to the field. But what I found was the anxiety and fear of a projected negative outcome was actually 100x worse than the actual worst-case outcome. I struck out, who cares. Get over yourself Trent, people will leave the stadium and trust me they will not be saying for weeks on end can you believe Oeltjen struck out. 

It sounds almost laughable breaking it down in this way but I can tell you when you're in it, it's absolute torture and you feel there is no way out. I would feel my world was coming crashing down. My heart rate would spike, my entire physiology would change, my muscles would tense, my eyes wouldn't adjust they should to a 95mph fastball, and all of this from my living room. I wasn't even at the stadium yet!!!

I'd gotten lost into the future and making up an outcome which was absolutely terrifying me. The same fear you would feel if a saber tooth tiger was in the room. At least it sure felt that way!

Coming from this place, now wonder I felt exhausted by the time I got to the game. This was the issue with my swing during those times when I felt I just couldn't find it. I would spend endless hours upon hours in the cage yet the issue wasn't in my mechanics it was internal, I simply wasn't present, no longer in that flow state.

Think about how you might be doing the exact same thing in your life? At work what's the thing or the person that you absolutely dread facing and you've already made up that outcome of how something's about to go well before you've even arrived at the office or stepped into that zoom call.

It takes quite a sense of self-recognition to ask the honest question of is this real or am I entirely making this up? Yes, you may be right but it's still an assumption an illusion of what's real or not. Once you've come to grips with what's real or not the next question is can I be with this? Is the world going to end if I strike out if I don't finish the race, if someone doesn't see your point of view or you have a disagreement with a colleague at work?

Absolutely you're going to be ok and honestly, this is the way!! Being completely transparent, facing different point of view and staying present is how you're going to access and evolve the best you.

This is the wall!! We must face it and what we find is, it's actually not nearly as bad as what we envisioned. The hardest part is picking up that phone, speaking up or stepping into that batter's box.

Usually, what we find is, on the other side of that uncomfortable conversation or stepping out of that comfort zone is the most invigorating, energized feeling imaginable!!!

Go get it today!! Step up and remember it's all going to be OK