Anxiety traps, intuition & is ADHD a superpower?

I’m John Glanvill, author of The Calmness in Mind Process – Online Treatment Course for Overcoming Anxiety, OCD and Depression.

Today we’ll examine some of the traps that anxious people tend to fall into. Then techniques to further understand yourself in ways that facilitate you escaping the duality and conflict between the parts of you that are anxious and the parts of you that desire for life to be different, thus enabling you to embrace your full potential – whatever that may be!

But first, I’d like to bring your attention to a condition called hyperglycemia, where an excessive amount of glucose circulates in the blood plasma – and this can often bring on symptoms that feel like anxiety or depression.

These include; fatigue, restlessness, tingles in your feet, itchy skin, cardiac arrhythmia, tremors, spasms, confusion, inflammation, forgetfulness, abdominal pain and a raft of other symptoms.

This condition is widespread, especially in those who eat a diet high in sugar and carbohydrates and can be exacerbated by alcohol consumption.

Therefore, if your diet is rich in sugars and carbs, it is definitely worth taking a break from them (just for a month or so) to see what happens.

Now, I am not a dietician, so I won’t advise you on what you should or shouldn’t eat.

Still, I can speak from my own experience and say that whenever I observe a ketogenic diet (which is a low carb, high-fat diet), my body feels great with lots of energy.

Plus, after a week, my food cravings stop, then three weeks later, my brain becomes noticeably faster and more effective.

I’m told this is because the brain prefers to receive its energy from fats rather than glucose, and though it can operate from either, it was primarily designed to feed off fats, as there were very few sources of sugars and carbs way back in the early days of our evolution.

So, for those of you who are serious about shaking off anxiety, I would suggest a one-month restriction of sugar, carbs and alcohol is well worth exploring and, for some, may even be the primary source of your fatigue and anxiety!

As I keep saying, try everything, then you’ll know for sure – don’t assume that what your mind knows is the truth!

And watch out for how it may try to sabotage your efforts to test this out – I found that consciously acting in the face of my own unconscious sabotage was a powerful way for me to learn, and it helped me develop more willpower and intention too.

OK, let’s explore a few more traps to be aware of – starting with the word ‘certainty’, which is the opposite of the word ‘doubt.’

As we have discussed many times – anxiety and OCD make you doubt yourself, doubt life, doubt other people and even doubt your own thoughts. These doubts often overwhelms the body with fear, anxiety or frustration.

And because you experience so much doubt, your little eight-year-old (your mind) starts looking for certainty, thinking it is the answer; when it’s not, it’s actually a trap that prevents you from taking action; it makes you procrastinate!

Can you see – anxiety traps people through using doubt AND also traps them with the need for certainty! Both sides of the coin – very clever and very sneaky.

I hear people say things like;
“If only I could be certain about what I did.”
“If only I could be certain about what will happen next.” “If only I could be certain that I won’t mess up.”
“If only I could be certain that I won’t infect that person.” “If only I could be certain that it is was turned off.”

“If only I could be certain that it is clean enough.”
“If only I could be certain that I’ll do it perfectly.”
“If only I could be certain that a bad thing won’t happen.”

But I really need you to learn that certainty is a trap.

The dictionary says certainty means – a firm conviction that something is the case.

But what I would like to bring to your attention (again) is… Rarely can we be certain about what will happen resulting from any action we do (or don’t) take.

Nature seems to have the most success in being certain about the future – like the sun coming up, the changing seasons, and ocean tidal patterns – they are reasonably predictable.

And when they surprise us, what do we do? We all pull together and respond to that unexpected happening! You might say the best face of humanity arises in the face of uncertainty and disruption?

But when it comes to humans, your thoughts, emotions, job, relationships, family, corporations, governments, education, and medicine, the only certain things are death and you being asked to pay taxes!

Seriously, very few things are certain; it is almost impossible to be certain about what will happen next, but the ego-mind thinks it knows – or thinks it needs to know – but it doesn’t; this is a trap!

So, as you choose to move forward, which part of yourself will you align with? The self (with the little s) or the Self (with the big S), The scared horse or the Observer, the limitless Rider?

To exit anxiety, changing our mindset to be more comfortable with uncertainty is critical – by taking whatever actions we need – to move our lives forward, yet allowing the outcomes of those actions to be – whatever they turn out to be.

We can’t control outcomes, but we can influence them – therefore, we stop trying to fight what is!

Remember, stress is the difference between how things are and how your mind wishes them to be.

And it is easier to change your mind to have fewer expectations, as opposed to changing the world or everybody around you to suit the old programmed expectations of the mind!

We don’t need to be certain; we just need to escape procrastination by taking

any action (in line with our intentions) to see what happens – then we adjust our behaviours to suit that new situation.

We accept, we change, or we move away.

Stop putting things off or waiting till the time is right – this is another sabotaging trap of the scared mind – remember, there is only NOW, and it is what you do in this NOW that will affect your future – not waiting, that’s a trap!

Another trap worth being aware of – surrounds our values and beliefs. Are any of the beliefs you have about yourself (formed from your domestication) helping your mind’s ability to sabotage you? Let me give you some examples; –

I mustn’t let people down. I need to be perfect.
I don’t like conflict.
I hate being judged.

I’m not clever enough. I’m not confident enough. I’m too tired.

Can you see – that unless these are changed, your anxiety will continue to use those old programs to fuel your doubt and subsequently sabotage you from taking action?

Let me bring in another perspective. If a person is looking for certainty, how (or where) do they get that feeling of certainty from?

Because it’s not the truth, it’s either a feeling, a thought, an old program or external reassurance.

I hope I am explaining this well enough?

For example, if you ask a person with complex anxiety (OCD), “How can you be

certain when it is time to stop washing your hands?”

And they’ll say something like, when it feels right, or when they feel clean – or when I have completed a certain set of repetitions or met a predetermined time limit – or when I get enough reassurance from a person I trust.

Can you see that none of these things are certain? They are just variable parameters – especially the first one – “When it feels right – when it feels like my hands are clean!”

Now, I need to keep reminding you that as an anxious person, you can’t trust your feelings! You shouldn’t trust your feelings; they are all messed up, uncalibrated and anxious – or exhausted and depressed!

This is another trap – please stop using your feelings as proof of anything – because they are currently part of your own sabotage!

And why is washing your hands five times not enough, but six times is OK? It is a trap! It’s complex anxiety trying to give you some sort of fake certainty – but it’s still a trap!

And why do you have to listen to your mind exploring all the things that could go wrong before you take action? You don’t have to; you can just take action! – This is just another trap of the mind!

What I am asking you to do is…

Just take action and see what happens! Speak your mind and see what happens! Say no, to see what happens!
Say yes, to see what happens!

Break a rule to see what happens!

Ask for what you want, just to see what happens!

Stand your ground, voice your opinion, believe in yourself, put yourself first – just to see what will happen!

Now I know I am repeating myself – however, through repetition, new perspectives and new behaviours are how we reprogram our unconscious mind; you know this!

So, if certainty is unrealistic, just a trick of anxiety – then what word or action can we incorporate into our life that will become the new antidote to doubt?

And the answer – quite simply, is to trust more – but to see trust in a new light…

So many anxious people tell me that – to just let go and trust themselves (or others) is too scary to do – yet they still live in fear of what might happen.

This means they are scared of trusting but also scared of not trusting! Surely this is a lose-lose philosophy and certainly doesn’t pass any common sense test…

During my transformation from anxiety to calmness, I learned that the more I trusted myself, the easier it became to trust others. And I followed Ernest Hemmingway’s advice – that the best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

Plus, if you are going to trust another person, let them do what they do, the way

they do it – try to ignore the story of your mind about there being a certain outcome that has to happen or a right way to do something.

Can we trust that they will do the best they can given who they are and their available resources?

So, I am urging you to explore how to be more trusting even though it may scare you and even though you won’t know what might transpire?

Can you trust that taking any action is more constructive than doing nothing?

Can you trust that whatever outcome does occur from your action – you’ll still be nice to yourself?

Can you trust that new behaviours are a great way to learn, even if you fail a few times – because this is how we evolve?

Your mind thinks it needs to know what will happen to keep you safe – but this is just another trap – How can your mind know? It’s just guessing and usually tries to talk you out of taking action!

Learning how to surrender to what is, letting go of control and trusting yourself is a skill that seems hard in the beginning, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

Till one day – it just dawns upon you – that all you are doing is being optimistic, expecting the best, and accepting what happens – it couldn’t really be any easier!

So, trust is not about being right or wrong, competent or incompetent, winning or losing – it’s just about optimistically taking any action to move your life in a direction that may be more beneficial for your wellbeing.

Now, as you practice optimism and trust – you’ll find that placebo becomes your new best friend.

You begin to form a new inner dialogue that sounds a bit like this…

“I can do that – I am looking forward to making that happen – I am happy with any outcome from my action – even if they don’t like me, I like me – whatever happens, I will always respect the fact I tried – I am so happy to be moving towards my intentions.”

Can you see how simple it could be – compared with worrying about all the things that could go wrong and still not taking action – then beating yourself up for procrastinating?

Most anxious or depressed people have never been taught how straightforward it is to trust and be optimistic, which is how most happy people naturally live.

When I was younger, I didn’t know you could just choose to become optimistic, choose to become a trusting person; I thought it was just one of those things you were born with or not!

But now I know you can consciously retrain your unconscious mind – towards whatever perspectives you desire – how cool is that?

A few years back, there was a British comedy series set in space called Red Dwarf, where one of the lead characters is optimistic, hates rules and doesn’t worry, and the other is a pessimistic, rule-follower who worries about everything.

One of my favourite episodes was series two, episode two – called ‘Better Than Life.’

They play a virtual reality game in which whatever you think turns into reality. As you might expect, the optimist has a great time as his mind stories become a reality – whilst the pessimist ends up on the beach, buried up to his neck in the sand with jam on his face attracting all the biting ants!

Knowing that your body responds to the thoughts of your mind regardless of their truth – I think moving to optimism is one of the most loving things you can do for yourself.

Is it easy? No.
Is it worth it? Yes.

But remember, you are not trying to stop the old thoughts – just consciously laying new, more positive ones over the top. And you are not trying to stop the emotions, just letting them pass through you without giving them any meaning.

I’m told that – In ancient China, the Taoists taught that a constant inner smile, a smile to oneself, ensured health, happiness and longevity. Why? Smiling to yourself is like basking in love; you become your own best friend. Living with an inner smile is to live in harmony with yourself.

I like that a lot – what a great intention!

OK, let me point out another duplicity trap. Because most anxious people are exhausted and tend to have foggy minds, they often believe their ability to focus or keep their attention on one topic for any proper length of time has been compromised…

But I can’t help but feel that is wrong (especially if you have OCD) Because what is OCD? It’s the relentless focus on a thought or compulsion for ridiculously long periods of time!

It’s the same with most anxious people; they can focus on things that worry them for hours…

And a depressed person can spend hours focusing on all the past ‘what if’ stories and the negativity currently in their lives.

Can you see that to be trapped by any of these conditions takes an insane amount of effort and constant focus?

So, I think the real story (that sits behind that trap) is that you can focus and keep your attention on one thing – but you are wasting all your energy focusing on the wrong things, so there is no energy left to focus on the right things!

Just imagine what you might achieve if you could focus all that time and energy into optimistic actions that will take your life in new directions?

A woman told me recently that she had worried and carried out a particular OCD ritual around locking a door for three hours until she got the feeling that it was safe for her to stop worrying.

I asked her if that feeling was the truth that it was now safe – or was it just that the anxiety had stopped because she was exhausted?

She said, “I never looked at it that way before! – Do you mean that I just need to be OK with the discomfort and trust the door is locked?”

I said, “Yes!” And she said, “That makes complete sense but what if the door is unlocked and a person comes in?”

She was almost unknowingly defaulting back to pessimism and doubt! Why? Because that is her unconscious minds programming and default setting – it was just happening automatically.

Burglars broke into my friend’s house a while back while he was at work, and they really damaged his front door getting in as it was triple-locked. He joked that he wished he’d left it unlocked as it would have saved the inconvenience of replacing the door and the smashed door frame – because he would have been robbed either way!

He also added that he was happy as he got a new laptop and TV from the insurance money.

He even said that he was glad it was his house rather than his neighbours, as she was an anxious worrier and would never have gotten over the shock of it – whereas he could let it go and not make it personal!

Can you see how an optimist looks at the world very differently from a pessimist?

And to make that transition, all that happens is a change of perspective and the retraining of the unconscious mind through conscious repetition of more positive stories!

Going back to that woman – I said, “could you practice running optimistic and trusting stories consciously over the top of the unconscious pessimistic ones?”

And she bravely (and honestly) replied, “I don’t think I know how to talk to myself optimistically – How would I do it?”

Nobody ever taught her how to be optimistic! Or that it was OK to expect the best, or that you can make the space inside your head loving and kind regardless of what might be happening in the outside world.

I had to teach her how to be nice to herself, trust herself, and be OK, not knowing what would happen – to trust a little more.

How can we copy happy and optimistic people rather than exhausted, anxious and pessimistic people? Are we surrounding ourselves with optimists? And can we look to optimists for our reassurance rather than pessimists?

These are sensible strategies for a calmer life.

For some of you, another perspective to consider – is around the labels of ADD or ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), which is said to affect about 11% of the population.

I am not a specialist in this field; however, I have worked with many anxious people with this type of brain, and I would like to share my personal theories.

Firstly, rather than seeing it as a brain disorder, I see it as just part of their brain’s wiring and their core personality type.

In my language, I place them clearly in the nomad group; they have rich imaginations, follow their emotions, hate being bored, lose interest easily, daydream, love to play, and are mentally creative.

They are also forgetful, and because they are so engrossed in their inner world are often late and disrupt other’s plans through their spontaneity, inability to listen, losing items and messing things up.

But at the same time, they are funny, free, adventurous, animated, creative, often performers and totally live in the now – which I think is lovely!

Very loosely stated, more boys have the hyperactive part of this personality, and the girls are more distracted and lost in their imaginations, and we might call that ADD.

They are starters but not finishers; they have deep FOMO (fear of missing out), which is why their attention can easily be switched to anything else happening around them. They are usually optimistic, can think on their feet, love change and hate being controlled by other people or rules.

So, as long as they can find jobs that benefit from those skills and partners that accept them for who they are – they make the world a fun place and show others how to live in the now, let things go and worry less!

They usually don’t have anxiety or OCD – but if they do, it is nearly always from having their nomadic nature repressed during their childhood from school or parents who forced them into complying with rules or becoming more settler.

Basically, they think they should be friendly and dutiful, but underneath is the desire for freedom and expression. This conflict is exhausting and usually results in anxiety and the Pure O side of OCD – meaning more intrusive thoughts than actual compulsions.

A while back, I watched a documentary about ADHD, and the author was suggesting (something like) that in the early evolution of mankind, this personality type had an influential role to play.

They were self-confident and adventurous enough to leave the main group and go off exploring, they were brave enough (or you could say didn’t worry about) what might happen to them, they could think on their feet when they met dangers and were social enough to meet new tribes to make connections and trades.

This meant they started new tribes in new areas – or reported back to their original tribe with information on food, land, dangers and opportunities.

Many entrepreneurs, performers, artists, explorers, writers and activists have ADHD – they are happy and have learned how to channel that energy and creativity into subjects they feel passionate about and in ways that suit them rather than normal convention.

So, please don’t let the labels of ADD or ADHD hold you back; realise they are superpowers that very few people possess. To step into the truth of who you are, you’ll need to drop your settler niceness, become a little more selfish about what you want, decrease the need for others to like you, challenge some rules, and start following your emotions; rather than the logic of your mind!

As I said earlier – I am not a specialist in this subject, but when I am working with an anxious ADHD person, I try to get them to see that their brains are not broken; they are just wired up differently, I try to get them to align with a new self-identity that is more nomadic rather than settler or warrior.

I teach them ways to switch off their external radar so they can keep their focus on a single task and help them to rebuild any self-esteem issues they may have

developed from childhood where continuously being told off or forced to ‘fit in’ and to be nice, think of others – and stuff like that.

Learning how to meditate is very hard for these guys, but it is well worth the effort to learn, as is martial arts or other discipline-based sports that help them train their minds to keep single-focused and follow useful rules!

And finally, letting their playful side out is key to change; joining a choir, amateur dramatics, playing in a band or getting involved in creative projects – can all help.

** Now, one of the topics I keep discussing is that of intuition – and lots of people have been asking me to go into more detail as they are still not sure of what it is or how to go about developing it.

So if I had to put it into one sentence – I think I would say intuition is…

“The ability to know something without analytical reasoning – usually felt as a subtle instinctive feeling or response from the body.”

At the simplest level – your hand comes up to protect your face if somebody throws something at you.

You didn’t think about it; there wasn’t enough time for that, your body just knew what to do, even if it got there a bit late – your body would still have closed your eyes to protect them.

Your body intuitively became aware of something and then responded to that happening in the right way – all by itself.

Then, at a more complex level, you may meet a new person and just have a ‘feeling’ that they are not to be trusted.

Our bodies are far more intelligent than we give them credit for – remember, we monkeys managed for thousands of years without complex thinking, logic, reason and worry!

We are emotional creatures who learned to think – but anxious people live like thinking creatures trying to control their emotions!

This is the wrong way around, it’s exhausting, and it uncalibrates the original (emotional intuition) that resides beneath thought.

So, a person who has experienced long term complex anxiety will have a hypersensitive amygdala, an exaggerated worrying mind and a body full of adrenaline overwhelming their emotions.

So when you are ready to begin exploring intuition, the starting point is to recognise what intuition is NOT.

And, it’s NOT coming from your mind or your thoughts – these are your unconscious programs that just keep firing off; let’s face it, your intuition may be saying the door isn’t locked when you have checked it twenty times!

So, then we ask, if it’s not in our mind, then where is intuition coming from?

And it seems to reside deep within us. Beneath our five senses – it is almost as if we have some invisible energetic connection to our environment (the quantum field) where we broadcast out our energetic signal, whilst (at the same time) we read the energetic signals of the people and conditions around us.

Remember, everything is energy, it holds knowledge, nature instinctively knows what to do, animals intuitively and instinctively know what to do, and so do we!

We are part of nature, too – we are all part of the same energy system, which is in continuous communication with us if only we learn how to listen.

There are many examples of this from nature, like animals knowing an earthquake is coming and becoming restless or a pet ‘sensing’ you are returning from work as their quantum field senses your approaching field.

If you have researched quantum phenomena, you’ll know that it operates over any distance, particles can be in two places at the same time, they can also become entangled, so if one particle changes, another may respond elsewhere, and everything is a sea of wave-like potentiality waiting to be collapsed into actuality as matter.

I am not making this up – science has proved this is what happens at an atomic level – and we are made of energy, as is everything around us.

However, our mind thinks we are separate and knows best, but mostly it doesn’t! – It’s just another one of those traps, and we can learn to not depend on our thoughts.

And because natures intuition communication system is a very subtle energy, its detection is helped enormously when the mind is quiet and the body calm.

I think this is why we have our best ideas – and the best answers to our problems just ‘appear’ to us during sleep, meditation, walking in nature or taking a shower – times where we are still and calm.

So when I talk about trust, I am asking you to trust your mind (and your programming) a little less and begin to explore what resides below.

I was recently walking through a grocery store when at the other end of the aisle – a little child ran around the corner and into a shopping cart where she hit her head and fell on the floor crying.

The man pushing the cart – moved towards her to help and comfort the child, then at the last minute stopped, pulled back and waited for the mother to appear.

I am sure intuitively he felt the urge to help, and if he had, he would have responded intuitively to calm and comfort her until her mother arrived – no thinking needed.

Now, I don’t know what story was running in his mind that pulled him back from his initial intuition to do the right and natural thing? However, his intuition was overridden by a thought from his mind, and he stepped back and left the child on the floor crying – surely this can’t be natural?

I think people are slowly waking up to the shocking degree that our minds have been programmed by school, TV, the media and our governments to think in the ways they want us to think, which cause fear and separation.

And these mind stories often drown out our common-sense, non-verbal, under the five senses instinctual feelings that we intuitively know to be right!

I try to use intuition as my primary sense, followed by my five sense programmed mind. Or sometimes, I need to use my five sense mind to fulfil the wishes of my silent intuition.

For example, I have had to use the logic and reason of my mind to try and explain intuition to you, whereas I don’t need to use my mind to know it within myself!

So, intuition is about getting beneath the stories of your mind and the fear within your body. And good ways to do this include; meditation, losing yourself in creativity, spending time in nature, exercising, and practising acting from your feelings more than your conditioned thoughts.

I guess what I am pointing you towards is trusting that behind your thoughts is an innate intelligence that may surprise you – it certainly surprised me!

** So, in this final section, I want to return to the anxious mind’s flip-flopping sabotage strategies of overwhelming you with doubt and/or paralysing you from taking action by needing certainty.

And I’d like to share with you how I overcame this particular problem within my own brain – therefore, I know this process works.

I said that the antidote to both doubt and certainty is trust – however, when your mind has been programmed to unconsciously default to doubt, pessimism, fear and the need for reassurance – how can you make different decisions?

Well, the answer is quite simple – you design a decision-making framework – and an importance hierarchy.

And for now, I’m going to explain how this works – then, in the following video, I’ll be providing you with a range of tools to help you do this for yourself.

So, the starting point for this decision-making framework is… What do you think happens when you die?

Is it game over and the lights are switched off, or does the body die, and your Soul moves on?

Which do you believe to be true?

Now, I have asked thousands of people that particular question and about 60% of them say, “I don’t know – I haven’t really thought about it!” – The other 40% do have a belief one way or the other.

But, this is the point I am making… If life ends with death and this life is just a brief flash in the pan, then do you need to take any responsibility?

Perhaps life doesn’t need to have any meaning, and you can do whatever you wish? Nobody is watching over you, nothing is expected of you, there’s no karma to worry about or anything like that.

You alone are responsible for what you squeeze into this brief time – don’t waste it – or perhaps you might choose to waste it (why not?) you don’t have to do

anything – but know which choice you have made, choose which strategy you are aiming for.

On the other hand, maybe there is a God or the Universe has intelligence (personally, I call it the Godliverse), and this is Earth school (as I talked about in video 24), and your immortal Soul inhabits the mortal body.

The rider is on the horse – and your task is to learn how to grow, how to accept, how to love, how to live freely, perhaps to do the work the Godliverse needs you to do and to offset your karma.

And maybe the Godliverse has a plan for you and is providing all these challenges and throwing loads of crap at you so you can learn to overcome them? It’s actually giving you what you need – but you haven’t recognised that yet?

Can you see that by choosing one path or the other – regardless of what might be true, you have the core basis for your decision-making framework? You can then ignore any thought your mind throws at you which is not in line with your chosen belief.

But if you sit on the fence – as far as your anxiety is concerned, you are sabotaged if you do and sabotaged if you don’t!

Should you say I believe in option one – a single one-off life – you can then ask yourself, do I want my life to have meaning – or do I wish my life to be fun?

And if you chose option two – you ask yourself, is my Soul loved and supported by the Godliverse – or is it judged and punished by the Godliverse?

Because these are two very different stories, one based on trust and the other based on fear.

You then ask questions like; do I want to be told what to do by the government/religion/state, or do I want to live my own life and make my own decisions?

One forces you to take responsibility for your life – the other lets others take responsibility for you. Which one do you choose? Both are absolutely fine – but can you see we are removing the minds ability to blame others.

Do you want to work for yourself or be employed? Are you looking for a job, a career or a vocation?

To me, a job is something you do with limited responsibility for money that allows you to leave any worries in the office.

A career is something where you give more of your heart and Soul in return for your employer, making you part of the organisation and actively investing in your development.

Or are you looking for a vocation – where you probably would still be doing that work even if you weren’t being paid, or it is something that you just love doing for yourself or others!

Which one do you want? How would you need to behave?

Of course, there are no right or wrong answers – just your truth of what YOU think (or feel) you want for your life.

Do you want to be in a significant relationship? What sort of relationship do you want? Is your existing relationship working? How might you improve it?

Are integrity and honesty important to you – or is it OK to go with the flow and say what you need to please others?

Do you want to have children – yes or no – be honest?

Do you want to buy or rent? Where do you want to live?

What skills don’t you have and need to get?

Now, I’m going to put all this into a process for you – I am just pre-empting the process to get your brain thinking in new ways.

I will be producing a comprehensive questionnaire for you to use as part of the following video.

Plus, a neat trick to use is to reverse your statement if you don’t know what you want. So, if you don’t want to be poor – reverse it, so it becomes – I do want to be comfortable – well, how much money is that? Do some calculations, get a figure in mind and write it down.

Remember, your brain can’t process a negative statement – to the brain, the phrase “I don’t want to be anxious” doesn’t mean anything because it is not telling it what you want.

It’s better to say, “I want calmness through ignoring my thoughts and allowing my anxious emotions to just flow through me in the background!”

Do you want to be optimistic or pessimistic?

Now, as you do this – stay out of what your mind thinks is possible or not – you are just exploring the framework you wish to operate your life from.

Then you prioritise the different aspects of your life in an importance hierarchy – children, work, health, money, home, relationship, social life, education, creativity and the like – which ones are the most important to you right now?

This shows you where to focus your attention in this period of your life – and it can be adjusted to suit your life as it evolves.

Then, ignore any unconscious thought not in line with those chosen criteria. Those unconscious thoughts may be important to your mind – but are not relevant to you!

I know this sounds simplistic – but life can be far more straightforward than you think. If you decide to consciously talk yourself into doing things, you can ignore any unconscious thought that tries to talk you out of it!

For example, when I decided to make this course and host it on Patreon, I made no money for the first seven months until people started to find my free YouTube videos.

I had to keep talking myself into making content, I had to keep saying to myself, “this is what I want to do regardless of the outcome”, and I had to keep ignoring all the negative thoughts in my mind. I had to get over my insane embarrassment of standing in front of a camera – and now, I’m glad I did.

We never know what will happen if we take action – in addition, our lives can change in an instant – we may get offered a new job, step into a relationship, win the lottery, inherit some money, learn something that inspires us – who knows what will happen? Your mind certainly doesn’t!

But we need to be engaging with life for life to be engaging with us – and if we have a clear decision-making framework – we can simply ignore anything that doesn’t align with it – the mind and body might kick and scream a bit – but as the Observer that’s not my problem – NMP!

OK – I am going to wrap this up here – with a quick summary…

Can you check to see if your anxiety is worsened from hyperglycemia by removing sugars, carbs and alcohol from your diet for a month?

We talked about complex anxiety sabotaging you with doubt and the need for certainty – and the antidote was to trust yourself and stop focussing on outcomes – and just take action.

We then explored anxiety traps – including the trap of using your feelings as proof of anything!

We discussed how complex anxiety is the definition of focus and intention – but most people exhaust themselves worrying rather than using that energy productively.

We talked about ADHD being a superpower if you can align with who you really are!

We explored how intuition is the energy of nature in action and can be accessed beneath the noisy mind and the fearful body.

And finally – your homework…

Can you consider some of the questions I asked – about what sort of a person you desire to be?

Can you jot down a few perspectives? Can you make an outline for your decision-making framework and your needs hierarchy, ready for the upcoming process I will be sharing with you?

As always – thank you all so much – and let’s be as consciously optimistic as we possibly can – as we talk ourselves into who we want to become…