Coming Home w/ Dr. Marian Jefferson

How to Assess Anxiety and Identify Your Triggers with Dr. Marian Jefferson and Joyan Chan of Finding Joy with Joyan

January 19, 2024 • Dr. Marian Jefferson

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This podcast originally aired on Finding Joy with Joyan. It originally aired on January 17, 2024. Links to the original airing can be found below. Many thanks to Joy and her staff for a wonderful experience. 


Discover the intricacies of mental health as Dr. Marian Jefferson, an esteemed expert in social services, joins us to demystify the complexities of anxiety and the value of coaching and counseling. Gain an understanding of the different faces of anxiety, including Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), social anxiety, and panic disorder, and learn how to distinguish normal stress from an anxiety disorder. Dr. Jefferson expertly guides us through the importance of recognizing personal triggers, setting realistic expectations, and cultivating coping mechanisms to not only manage anxiety but also enhance overall joy, peace, and happiness in our lives.

Embark on a journey through the landscape of emotional wellness, where we probe into the nuances of dealing with anxiety within relationships, particularly when chronic ailments or heavy stressors are at play. Dr. Jefferson underscores the criticality of open communication and community support, from friends to faith groups, in lightening the load of caregiving. Furthermore, she briefs us on the spectrum of professional interventions—from therapy and medication to meditation and mindfulness—that can reinforce our mental fortitude. Whether you're navigating your own mental health challenges or supporting someone else's, this episode equips you with the insights and tools for a healthier, more balanced life.

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Joyan has been featured in numerous magazines, publications, and shows and has spoken at many industry events. In March 2022, Joyan was awarded the Outstanding Leadership Award on stage in Dubai, UAE. In the same year, she was also named a successful person by Britishpedia. During her interview with the publication house, she said, “Because I took the courage to take the path less taken.”

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We look forward to having you back with us for our next episode, where we'll continue to explore the wonderful world of aromatherapy and its role in promoting mental and emotional well-being. Until then, take a deep breath, relax, and be well. I hope to hear from you soon. Your feedback is most welcome.


www.linkedin.com/in/marianjefferson
https://warriorspurse.com
Connect1@warriorspurse.com
MHFA@warriorspurse.com

Speaker 1:

Joining us today is the esteemed founding director of Warrior's Purse Non-Prophet Processes. Over 20 years of invaluable experience in the field of social services, demonstrating a profound dedication to the well-being of the military veterans, their families and the broader community through her counselling, coaching and consolidation on health and well-being. Her remarkable leadership is marked by a heartfelt commitment to fostering a supportive community and making a positive impact in the lives of those she serves. She's here today to empower you to cultivate a positive life and a positive mental well-being. So, ladies and gentlemen, help me welcome Dr Merriand Jefferson.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Thank you. It's a privilege to be with you, joy. I'm looking forward to the rest of the day.

Speaker 1:

Now. It's a joy to have you on our show today because anxiety I think I told you before anxiety is a topic that we have not yet touched on and you will be the first one to talk about it, and I'm really excited I come back to learn more about anxiety and basically how to manage it. Well, because I believe, at some point of time, most people right we suffer from anxiety, panic attack, depression, mental health challenges in general, so something that I personally experienced and struggled in the past. So, yeah, I would love to talk to you about that and learn more about how we can really live a life with more joy and peace and happiness. So, but the first place that I will start with you is you told me there's a difference between coaching and counseling, so I just want to know what is the difference between coaching and counseling?

Speaker 2:

Well. So with counseling in particular, you are bound by laws of wherever the state is or province that you where you practice, and so there are certain rules and regulations that you have to adhere to. In coaching, I would say that your relationship with the person is going to be contingent upon specific goals that they want to meet in a fairly short period of time, whereas counseling for some people lasts a good amount of time because they're working on lifelong issues. Usually when they enter into counseling, such as anxiety that has taken a hold of them for not just a few weeks, but maybe after a specific incident has occurred or maybe there's a chronic issue. But with coaching, we would say, okay, let's set a goal for dealing with anxiety when related to stage fright. Let's just say that. And then, once you have achieved that goal, you can continue to work with the coach. But you'd work with the coach on another goal, right? So I think of the difference starkly as a coach on a basketball team or a baseball team, and so if you're on a baseball team, you might work on your pitch, right? But then, after you have perfected that, then you'll strengthen that in certain areas so that you can even become even more professional and adept at not just your pitch but now the technique and all of those kinds of things. And once that's done, then you move on to the next thing, and so coaching and counseling is a bit like that, and so I have the counseling credentials.

Speaker 2:

But the coaching I found was helpful, because many of my patients began the relationship stating that they had a stigma or a way that they thought about counseling that was not helpful for them, and so they came into the counseling relationship with a lot of anxiety. How long is this going to be? How many questions are you going to ask? When will this be over? Those kinds of things before we even begin the process of working, and so we have to learn then how to cultivate a relationship with the person across from you. But you can't do that until you're able to set them at ease. So a lot of the beginnings of counseling is indeed coaching.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, before we talk about how to manage anxiety, what exactly is anxiety? How would you define it?

Speaker 2:

I think that's a great question. Anxiety is a natural response to stress and everybody has stress. When it becomes excessive and persistent, it can lead to various symptoms and these may include symptoms like restlessness, excessive worry, muscle tension and difficulty concentrating. It can be disruptive to your sleep, to your eating habits. It can be disruptive even to the way you visualize, see and understand the rest of the world in response to what you're experiencing in the moment.

Speaker 1:

So are there different types of anxiety or there's only one type?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there are various different types of anxiety. There's a type of anxiety could be a generalized anxiety disorder, known by the acronym GAD, and a generalized anxiety disorder means that there's not one specific trigger for your anxiety. We just talked about a couple of seconds ago, stage fright, and stage fright isn't just for people who are actors or actresses. It could be as simple as I have to go take this test and test. Taking itself may be a trigger for anxiety, whereas in the classroom you master everything, you're good at conversation, you know all the answers, but when it's time to take that test, you know you don't fare as well because anxiety overcomes you. But with someone with generalized anxiety, the triggers could be multiple and vast, to the point that some people may not even understand what the triggers are for them, and so then they are diagnosed with generalized anxiety if the anxiety persists for about six months or longer.

Speaker 2:

Social anxiety is another form of anxiety, and the social aspect of this definition gives it away. It could be just having difficulty with being around other people or having difficulty with talking. One example that I like to tell is a young man meets a young woman and he's been thinking about what to say to this young woman that he has taken a like into and he goes over what to say in his mind consistently and he feels confident now that he's worked this through. But when he gets there to talk with her, he finds no words, and that's a social anxiety. Or being amongst people that you don't know, this could be a form of social anxiety. How do I begin a conversation? What do I say in the conversation? And this could be pretty frightening or anxiety producing experience for some people. So in addition to that, you have panic disorder, and so the panic disorder is the anxiety moves to a place where you experience something that doesn't just trigger anxiety, but it causes you to panic and lose control over the situation.

Speaker 2:

And when people experience panic, their fight or flight senses are activated and really they just want to do anything to get out of there. And so those symptoms that we talked about earlier the restlessness, the irritability, those kind of things those are just off the charts and they want to do anything to quell that, but they feel helpless to do that. So when people are in a panic, they can have some of those same symptoms. They may sweat profusely, they may have difficulty breathing, they may even be angry, feel like they're backed into a corner and maybe even want to fight, or feeling helpless and want to just cry, and it may appear to you that that person is out of control, but really what is happening in their body is that their body and their brain are not necessarily working well together to help them to calm themselves.

Speaker 2:

Everybody experiences anxiety, but for some people, depending on what the trigger is, it's difficult for them to self-regulate, and so they move into this kind of panic, if you will. And while everyone experiences stress, anxiety disorders involve persistent and disproportionate levels of anxiety that can significantly impact the way that they move throughout their lives, the way that they are able to work or have relationships, take care of themselves. Some people's disorders are crippling and disabling, and so that's preeminently important when you're dealing with someone whose life has been so disruptive. They must seek professional help.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so I have so many questions, but the next question I want to know is so you mentioned about triggers a lot in our last part. How do we first know what triggers our anxiety?

Speaker 2:

I think, maybe sitting in a quiet place, when you're not, when you haven't been triggered, to think about what are some of the things that are happening when I feel, so you can say when I feel restless, I'm in this situation.

Speaker 2:

Or when I feel afraid, these are my thoughts, when I feel that I want to pull away and just hide, these are my thoughts, these are my feelings. And as you are able to walk through those things, then when does this happen? Does this happen in the morning? Does it happen in the evening? Does this happen in an academic setting? When does this happen? Does this happen in a work setting? Does it happen when I'm given an assignment and I don't have any confidence that I can do it, or I don't have what I need to accomplish it? And so you're asking yourself these questions to identify the trigger, and the trigger may not be immediately or readily known to you. It may take not only that writing exercise, if you will, and that thought exercise, but sitting with someone who could help to walk you through that path and ask you questions to help you to realize what is happening when you're experiencing certain things.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so why do people develop anxiety? Because I remember. Here's my own personal experience. I remember I have never experienced anxiety before, never, ever in my entire life. Depression, yes, but not anxiety per se. But I remember just I can't remember which period of time, but it was quite recent, like last year or something that I suddenly felt anxious like without any reason. So why do we? Like all of a sudden develop anxiety or panic attack.

Speaker 2:

I think there are certain neurochemical imbalances as well, so it may not be necessarily connected to a lack or an inability to cope with stress, because there are certain things that we might experience that, again, are not readily available to us and so, not being fully aware of your situation, I would walk you through those same questions that we talked about earlier. Is it a time of year For some people? I had a patient who was very irritable around a certain time every year and it would last for a few months, and she became very frustrated in coming in to see me and she said I can't figure it out, and it led her to consume substances in order to calm herself. And that had gone so far that now she was consuming substances not just once a day but several times a day to feel calm. And so, as we walked through that process, we discovered that she had lost her mother in the winter months and that her mother but her mother became sick and then she had died in the winter three months after that. So that three months period sort of held for her in her body a memory that it was responding to.

Speaker 2:

Her body and her mind was responding to the memory of that loss and even though she felt that she had grieved that loss, there are certain aspects of the loss, aspects of the loss that she hadn't yet dealt with, and so Bessel Vander Koek has written a book called the Body Keep Score.

Speaker 2:

So, even though she believed she had moved on, her body remembered the stress and the trauma of that loss and around anniversary time it would come up again in her subconscious. But she was not really aware. Cognitively, she was not aware of what was going on. So once she was able to point to her trigger, which was the loss of her mother, then we developed a plan to honor her mother. We talked about her mother and what her mother meant to her. We talked about good memories, we talked about memories that were not so good for her, so that she could have a full picture, to be able to hold and sit even in the discomfort of that and learn how to cope with that discomfort, so that it didn't overwhelm her and that she was in control of even those moments. Because everybody not only feels anxiety, everybody experiences suffering to some degree or another, and our goal in therapy is not to help people never feel anxiety or never feel suffering, but how to cope with anxiety and how to suffer well.

Speaker 1:

So how can we differentiate between normal stress, because stress is normal in our day-to-day life, work relationship, right? How do we differentiate between normal stress and a more serious anxiety disorder?

Speaker 2:

Right. So remember, we talked about anxiety as a natural response to stress, and so when we see that we are experiencing stress, but it causes us discomfort that we cannot cope with well, then we have to do things about it. Our first line of defense is develop different coping mechanisms, and so if cooking every day stresses me out, then I need to find another way to cope with cooking every day, and so for me, as a busy professional, what helps me is to understand that I don't have to be a chef in the kitchen cooking a five course meal in order to satisfy the needs of my family, and so I had to simplify things. Or I don't have to come home and cook a meal. I can cook several days in a row and have that already done. Or I can make things that we use as a base where people can come in and put things together, and they don't necessarily need my help. And so now I'm not stressing when I'm at work because I didn't take the chicken out of the freezer before I left for the day. That's a simplified way of looking at it.

Speaker 2:

But if I'm in a relationship and the relationship has soured and I want to continue the relationship but I feel like I've done everything I could, and so every time I walk into the house and I see this person, I am triggered by the fact that I believe I'm in a place that's untenable for me. It's not making me happy, I'm not adding to anything because of this stressful, anxiety producing situation, and I want to run. And so here again, we'll walk through the value of this relationship. What do you really want out of the relationship? Do you want to leave, or are you just frustrated because you don't have enough answers to be able to speak to the situation that you're in? Are you frustrated because every time you come in, you feel helpless? Are you frustrated because your feeling is you're not getting what you need? Are you out of the relationship from the other person and have you talked through that? What are some of the things that you have done? And so it may not be that you have to consider changes that are life-altering, but it may just be that you have set expectations and now that those expectations are not met, you're dissatisfied and you feel that in the core of your being and you just don't like that, and so that affects the rhythm of life, not only internally as it relates to you, but also in the relationship as a whole, and the other person is feeling that too.

Speaker 2:

How do we know that? If you just think about it, have you ever held a baby close to you? And the quiet baby that someone puts in your arms now becomes restless and irritable and kind of moving about. They're uncomfortable, right. And we say all the time that the baby senses that you're not comfortable holding this baby right and they say everything's going to be OK. She trusts you, just hold her, love her, help her to know that you're secure. And she's secure as you hold her right. Because that child senses what's happening with us. Even though they're an infant, they know that something isn't right. That's anxiety that that child is feeling. They're sensing your anxiety because as human beings we are linked together just that way, and so a way to really cope with those situations is not to say the situation must be fixed and repaired in this moment, at this time, because that's not reasonable.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so you want to set a reasonable expectation partner with the person that you're struggling with, and that may be as simple as putting the kids to bed early and setting aside a time for just a communion between the two of you. It may not last, but for 20 minutes, but setting even what we call fair fighting rules, that there's no put downs, that we're going to lift one another up, that we're going to focus on one area that we want to discover. You know, have new discovery in whether it's how we communicate with the other person, sharing with the other person you know what makes you anxious and getting buy-in from that other person. Now, sometimes you know you need to have someone to help you facilitate these questions. We have at Warriors, purse preparing and rich marriage and relationship counseling, because sometimes you know those situations are, you know, untenable and not safe to do by yourself because it just gets out of sorts, if you will. But I think that if we take that example, realizing that there are some things that we can do and you have a coach that could help coach you through that, I think that those relationships can be restored, along with the anxiety decreased, because now we have a realistic expectation of what we're looking at.

Speaker 2:

You know, sometimes you may be in a relationship with someone who has a chronic ailment. Your expectation was that you would live happily ever after and none of these things would touch you. But if you're a caregiver, you're constantly under stress and nobody really talks about the life from the caregiver's aspect and the anxiety and the frustration and sometimes the anger and irritability that comes with that job. And sometimes you need somebody to help walk you through what you can anticipate but also how to take care of yourself. You need family, and if you don't have family you have to do what I call manufacturing family. That means that if you've got a friend that is closer than a brother, that friend is family. You know, if you've got people from your church or your community that will be present for you, pull them in because that can help you to share the load so that you're not feeling that kind of stress. And, you know, get some education about what is happening.

Speaker 2:

So a lot of times anxiety is because we just don't have enough information about what's happening, and so our mind is cast in the future and we think about the worst possible outcomes. And it doesn't have to be that way. That requires training. You know, once you've experienced a stress or stressor, your your, it imprints on your brain and it can determine how you will respond to the next stressor, and so you need an intervention. So when you identify what the what, the triggers are for it.

Speaker 2:

Then you walk through the options that you have. How will I think about this? How will I behave? How will I take care of myself? Are there other places that I can go to separate myself just for a moment so that I can be able to think differently about the situation and come back with fresh eyes? All of those things, I think, can help when people are experiencing anxiety On the panic side.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes anxiety and panic disorders require not just coaching, but long-term therapy or a combination of both. And sometimes it also requires that you take medication, and some people don't like the idea of medication prescription medication and I get that. And so we work with people also to do more natural things, some of the coping skills we haven't talked about meditation, mindfulness, exercise. I have people that I work with who are deficient in certain vitamins and just in adding those, in exercising, getting into the sun, eating well we have health coaches as well Doing those kinds of things. They have been able to see a difference in their daily lives, especially around the ability to cope with anxiety, if you will.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I know you published a book because we haven't yet talked about the coping mechanism, the healthier coping mechanism. So your book is all about the five-minute skills to master your anxiety and panic attacks. And I'm telling you guys, this is a book. If you're struggling or suffering with anxiety and you're not ready to maybe work with Marianne, but you can buy her book and learn about the skills to cope with anxiety and panic attack in a healthier way. I would say so go get the book and if you have any questions you can ask her directly. But so, marianne, when do we know? So people can go and buy the book, they can read about it, they can learn more about anxiety, the knowledge, educate themselves. But when is the time to get professional help?

Speaker 2:

That's a great question, I think, if you're at the point where it's significantly interfering with your daily function. For some people it may be they wake up in the morning and they turn the alarm clock off over and over and over again. They pull the covers back over their head and they say to themselves I just can't do it today because of the anxiety. It could not just be that they're ready to say this is anxiety because, again, as you mentioned earlier, some people don't know the difference between anxiety and anything else. It may be that what you know, that you're in a state of emotion that you can't cope with and it's challenging you now physically, mentally, emotionally and physically. I think it's time to get some help. I think if it leads to again physical symptoms and it lasts for a while, I think you need to seek professional help.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, that's so true. Earlier also mentioned about decaying. So for yourself as a counselor, as a coach, how are you, while you're helping someone, others, navigate their anxiety, panic attack, how do you handle the emotion at all? I came with hearing about your clients, drugers and challenges, and the question is, how do you take it off your own mental health while supporting others in their mental health journey?

Speaker 2:

I think that's an excellent question. In the field, we say every counselor needs a counselor. When you're practicing and studying to become a counselor, one of the things that you have to do is you have to receive counseling from a counselor so that you know what it's like to sit on the other side, but also so that you understand what it's like to put your things, put your burdens down, your thoughts and share with someone else your struggles, just to have someone listen to you or maybe even help you problem solve. That's the first thing is that you need someone to talk to. As a professional, I have those because I have a great support system. The second thing is awareness and mindfulness.

Speaker 2:

As I am aware that I'm facing difficulty and, in some instances, things that I have absolutely no ability to change. Then I have to think about who can support me in a place where it's just going to be hard. I have to learn to live within certain boundaries. I have good support system there as well. Exercise, eating well, living well, spirituality I'm a person of faith as well. Reading music all of those things helped me to cope.

Speaker 2:

I love massages. I love going to get my nails done, my mani-pedis I love doing all of those things that's scheduled in to my life as if it were a medicine, because indeed it is. It's part of the coping that I need in order to keep the wheels oiled, if you will, to keep me moving down the road, so that as I move through the difficulties that I can feel a sense of how do I put this, feel a sense of safety and security in what I'm doing. Not that everything is 100 percent the way that I would like for them to be, but it is reasonable and I can set reasonable expectations for myself without placing burdens on other people, which again can be frustrating for people when you feel like something should be some way and it really isn't.

Speaker 2:

The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, on page 417, says and acceptance is the key to all my problems. Today, a lot of anxiety really starts from a place of I can't tolerate this. I won't tolerate this. Things shouldn't be this way. The reality is when you can say things are the way that they are and I need to learn how to either live with it or learn what I need to change it because it is within my power to do, then things will be immensely better, I believe, and then you can learn again to cope with the things that you can change and change them, and then to suffer well when there are things that you cannot change.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that is powerful. Yeah, because I think, for the most part, the reason why we have anxiety is because we are trying to change the things that happened in the past that could never be changed. So we are trying to change other people that we also have no control of. So that's why I believe that's part of the reason why we all feel anxious from time to time, and what we have, truly what we have control, is this moment, right here, right now. So it's a pleasant moment. That's where mindfulness comes in. That's why meditation is so helpful. So thank you so much for coming to our show today and meet our listeners, despite the situation over there. Thank you so much for being here and being present with all of us today. Now, tell my listeners where they can learn more about you, where should they go to get a book, and if they want to work with you, where should they go.

Speaker 2:

So the book is Five Minute Skills to Master Anxiety and Panic Attacks and you can find that book on Amazon and we are doing pre-sale on our website, which is warriorspursecom. If you want to get in contact with me, you can give in contact with me. My email is connect1adw warriorspursecom or mhfaadw warriorspursecom. It has been a pleasure to talk with you today, Joy. I have certainly enjoyed my time on your podcast. Thank you again.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you so much for taking your time out to share with us so generously, and you have been very kind with your time today. So listen, guys, I hope you learned a lot from this episode. I hope you find this episode extremely helpful so we can all nurture a positive mental wellbeing. Like I said in the very beginning, go, follow Dr Maria, go to her website, get a book, thank her for coming to our show today, reach out to her if you are interested in working with her. I'll put all the links, including her links and the emails and the website and the books, in the show notes below. So make sure you go and check it out and also remember to like and subscribe so you never miss another episode coming to you every Wednesday, and follow us on Instagram, if you haven't already, so we can connect with you as well, and I will always leave you the same way as I leave with every other episode. Show up, the world needs you and you need you. Thanks for listening and I wish you all a joyful and amazing day ahead.