The next time you find yourself feeling down, lost, full of anxiety or just energetically off, it’s time to get back to the basics and reconnect with yourself. This episode covers 6 key questions to ask the next time you just don’t feel like yourself:

Are you laughing?

Are you sleeping?

Are you moving?

Are you nourished?

Are you creating?

What are you consuming? 

…and I’m not just talking about eating better. Our constant ingestion of information, misinformation, opinions, comments and doom scrolling social media can often pin us under the weight of other people’s energy. Let this be a quick reminder of the foundational tools needed for reconnecting with yourself – for both ourselves and our relationships. 

In this episode, we’re talking about:

• Things that can cause unexpected anxiety
• Why the anxiety we feel might not even be our own
• Staying connected with yourself and the power of being comfortable with ourselves
• Gaining understanding of how things, people & seasons impact you
• How to create more joy in you life
• How we mistreat ourselves without knowing it
• How we’re impacted by other people’s energy

This is an exercise I often do with my clients whenever these feelings come up. It seems so basic, but when it comes to relationships, it’s almost impossible for other people to get to know us if we don’t even know ourselves. Please listen, let me know if these questions are helpful, and if you’d like to dig in deeper with me, I have private coaching opportunities available: email me info@emilygoughcoaching.com or DM me on Instagram @emilygoughcoach. I’d love to connect!

CONNECT WITH EMILY

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Email: info@emilygoughcoaching.com       

REFERENCES

Episode 263 | The Value In Being Alone On Purpose (Whether Single Or In A Relationship)

Episode 302 | Self Love & Loneliness: Learning To Like Yourself

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TRANSCRIPT

If we are mistreating ourselves, we are not going to have the same quality of relationships that we want and mistreating ourselves can come in a variety of forms. But when we really care for ourselves, including the way that we talk to ourselves, the way that we, you know, what we put into our bodies, what we put into our minds, that matters. I’m Emily Gough, a human connection, coach, writer, and speaker with an insatiable sense of curiosity and adventure, always asking more questions and using the power of stories to teach, learn, and grow. We boldly explore relationships, connection, and the nuances and complexities of the human experience with compassion, honesty, and a sense of humor. With both solo episodes and highly curated guests sharing incredible stories, experiences, and expertise, the room to grow podcast takes the entire idea of growth to the next level. All while covering the uncomfortable topics many of us would like to avoid. There’s always more room to grow. Let’s do this. Hey. Hey. Welcome back to The Room to Grow podcast Emily here and I wanna share a little story with you. There was a moment a couple weeks ago, and this is not super unusual necessarily, but I, I woke up just with this weight of anxiety. on my chest. And I couldn’t really figure out why. That, that was sort of the weird part for me. I’m like, okay, usually there’s like a specific reason, um, something I can tie this to somehow, even if I’m worrying about something unnecessarily, there’s usually something. And I couldn’t even figure out what the thing was, which then makes a little bit harder because I, I can’t even necessarily do anything about the thing. If I don’t know what the thing is, I’m going to have a harder time doing something about it. And, you know, I also think that, that all of us are, uh, much more tapped in to the collective than we maybe think that we are. And sometimes we can, especially if you’re, uh, someone who’s very sensitive, very empathetic, empathic. to you can pick up on other people’s energy, sometimes even the sort of the energy of the collective a little bit. And whenever anxiety creeps in, I have multiple tools that I use. There’s a wide variety of things that I could talk about here. Some things I have talked about before, but often it’s about the basics. Often, it’s about the basics and the very foundational pieces that we may have let kind of slip by the wayside and you know, the busyness of life and all the things. So there’s a few questions that I want you to ask yourself. And these are ones that I ask myself too. And I do kind of a check in like, are you laughing? Are you sleeping? Are you walking, you know, moving, exercising, all of those things? Are you nourished in every sense of the word? I don’t just mean the food that you put in your body, that too. But are you, are you nourishing yourself and the way that you treat yourself? The way that you talk to yourself? The way that you relate to others? Are you creating, whatever that looks like, whether it’s, uh, writing, you know, uh, art, whatever, whatever that looks like for you. Are you creating something? It can be coding for, you know, what, music, whatever it is, whatever that looks like for you. And what are you consuming? And, and that again, sure, that can also mean food. That can, that can also mean information. That can mean the energy that you are choosing to consume. Social media. Are you getting caught in the doom scroll and spending all of your time on there? That can, that is scientifically proven to Bring up a lot of anxiety and sometimes even depression in people, like we have to get really honest with ourselves and to take note of where we can make a shift and be really intentional about the way that we’re caring for ourselves. Because sometimes the seemingly smallest things can have massive, massive impact. You know, there’s, there’s even, um, shamans. We’ll ask if someone comes to them and they’re depressed or anxious, any of those things. The four questions are one is when did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop feeling enchanted by stories? And when did you become uncomfortable with the sacred territories of silence? Some variation of those four questions are ones that shamans will ask when someone comes to them anxious or depressed. That’s really powerful because I’ve talked on here so much, and I will continue to, about the power of being comfortable with ourselves, the connection that we have to ourselves, the relationships that we have to ourselves, above and beyond the relationships that we have with others. We talk about those a lot too on here, but I was even speaking to, um, a dear friend yesterday and, and she’s been in a long term relationship for quite some time. Um, and she said, you know, I find that That the more years go by, the more work I have to put into making sure to. Stay connected to myself, not just to my partner, but to myself and to my sense of self. It, she feels like she has to almost exert more effort into that. And that makes sense to me because when you’ve been with someone for a long time, it can be really easy to get sucked into the day to day, you know, the life together, especially if you’ve got kids and, you know, all these, all these like crazy extracurriculars, like everything that’s going on, right? It’s just really easy to get lost in life. And to lose yourself in life that you are creating and bringing it back to these foundational pieces and asking ourselves if we are doing these things for ourselves because no one else can do these things for us and really being intentional about cultivating how we feel in relation to ourselves. These, these are things that are difficult to manage sometimes and to carve out time for, but we have to be really intentional about it. There’s a couple of episodes that I’ll reference in relation to this. Episode 263 is all about the value of being alone on purpose, whether you are single or in a relationship. And episode 302 is all about self love, loneliness, and learning to like yourself. And all of these can be really important. Also gaining a deeper understanding. of who you are and how certain things affect you, impact you, um, how certain people, situations, circumstances, seasons, any of these things, like knowledge is power. And when you can gain deeper knowledge of yourself, that is where the true connection to your sense of self starts. Because it’s, it’s difficult for other people to get to know us if we don’t even know ourselves. We have to really cultivate that. And having a stronger sense of self means that you will be able to show up more powerfully. And I mean that in the best possible ways in your relationships. And those are also really attractive qualities, too. Sorry, this is, I’m recording early in the morning again, I feel like my voice is squeaky. Again, I have not really, I need to just start, you know, actually talking to a few people before I record an episode. Lately, I’ve been recording early in the morning and now I get to un record and I’m like, wait, did my voice just squeak? But these are the things that we have to look at is, is really cultivating the relationship to ourselves and really taking care of ourselves. on every level. We can’t expect others to do that for us, but creating joy in our lives, not just sitting around waiting for joy to appear. You know, I, I typically speaking of seasons and stuff like that. Um, historically I have sometimes had a tough time. In January, January, and kind of like, you know, some of the winter months in general. But January, I can sometimes just feel very blah. And I was really tired of that being my story. I was really tired of that being my story. So I started to rework that. And last, last year I wrote down that for January 1st, 2023, so this, this past January, that I was going to make it joyful January. I was determined I was going to make it joyful January. And what I did was I kept, uh, I called it a joy journal and every single day I may have talked about this on the podcast before, I can’t remember. Every single day I would, um, write down the things that brought me joy that day. And because I knew I was tracking it every single day, if I was nearing the end of the day and I felt like I didn’t have anything that could go into the joy journal, I would then go and do something even super small, like, like making myself a hot cup of tea and just like really savoring it or something like that could be that the smallest possible thing to do. I put in my joy journal and it also made me look for the things throughout my day that brought me joy, even in the smallest, smallest ways. And I had a great January. I had an awesome January. It made such a difference, but I had to be really intentional at times about not only, you know, looking for those moments, but actually creating those moments and being really mindful of how I was treating myself. How was treating my body? How was I, how was I treating my mind, my soul? How was I talking to myself? All of these things matter and they really add up. And that’s not to say that you will not have very real concerns come up in life that can be a little bit anxiety inducing. Of course, that is, that is part of, uh, you know, that living this life. But these are some of the things that you can look at. And I was going to say manage, but manage sounds, um. very sort of clinical. I want you to approach this with, with a little bit more joy. Like how can I, how can I laugh more? How can I treat myself better in terms of sleeping and walking and moving and all these things? I have a holistic background, holistic health background, and I feel so strongly about how much all of these things impacts our relationships. If we are mistreating ourselves, We are not going to have the same quality of relationships that we want. And mistreating ourselves can come in a variety of forms. But when we really care for ourselves, including the way that we talk to ourselves, the way that we, um, you know, what we put into our bodies, what we put into our minds, that matters. Those things matter. So the next time you have a moment where you were, you know, maybe feeling some things come up, feeling some feels, first of all, ask yourself if that’s even yours. Because the conclusion that I came to that that particular day was I was like, I don’t actually think this is mine. I think that I was sort of picking up on energies from other people and even just kind of like from the collective and stuff. And I couldn’t actually figure out anything that was wrong for me personally. And I was picking up on some other energies. But we still need to focus on these other pieces. And asking ourselves, ourselves, these questions. So let me know. I’m over at EmilyGoffCoach over on Instagram. I’m looking forward to hearing all about how this goes for you. Thank you so much for listening. If you want more, one of the most common questions I get is where do I even start doing this work? To create deeper connections and better relationships, I’ve got a free 15 page guide for you called where do we begin? This is the very foundation that you need to start building healthy relationships with others and with yourself. This is my gift to you and multiple people have referred to it as life changing. You can find it over at roomtogrowupodcast. com or check the show notes to go download it and have it sent straight to your inbox. Thanks so much and stay tuned for more episodes weekly.