Managing and Using Your Anxiety in the New Year

Praxis Podcast with Rhett Smith

The new near can bring forth a lot of varying emotions from people. In my experience, a large number of people come into the new year very excited about change and all the potential possibilities that await them. It's often a time to start anew. But there is also a large number of people who come into the new year with a lot of fears about what awaits them, perhaps because the prior year was so challenging. And when I think about these varying experiences I think about anxiety. Anxiety is both an excitement about something new and that we care about, but it can also be about things that create fear for us. Anxiety can be healthy or unhealthy as I have written about and said many times before.

In this episode I want to explore some principles and strategies that you can implement for yourself, or help others with this year. So if you work with a group of people this could be very helpful for you. And to do this, I primarily "piggyback" off a recent article I wrote for the Fuller Youth Institute called Helping Adolescents Work Through the Rising Tide of Anxiety.

In the article and in this podcast I explore:

• Create space and give permission to talk about anxiety.
• Help identify the roots of anxiety.
• Provide tools to help manage the anxiety.
• Reframe anxiety as an opportunity to grow.
• Practice working through the anxiety.

Resources Mentioned in This Podcast

Helping Adolescents Work Through the Rising Tide of Anxiety

Downloadable PDF of the Pain Cycle (i.e. feelings/emotions)

Feeling Word Vocabulary (Think 2 Perform)