#6: How to curb your freak out with self-compassion with Megan Saxelby

Self-Trust & Empowerment

Being stuck in a freak out spiral sucks. Especially in your dating life.

What’s the key to moving through and out of those overwhelming feelings?

Expert Megan Saxelby is here to share actionable strategies for moving through freakout with the simple (and radical) tool of self-compassion.

Why you should listen to today’s episode:

  • Megan Saxelby is a former middle school teacher and is now a sought after expert in social and emotional wellness. She creates tools that create cultures of dignity and emotional intelligence in and out of the classroom.

  • Dignity is our inherent value and worth and it’s vulnerable, according to Donna Hicks. 

  • After working as a middle school teacher for 13 years, Megan started to discover how the concept of dignity could transform the lives of her students

  • Why do middle school crushes feel so intense? It’s because of the reminiscence bump.

  • So it’s not that our ability to remember is better as teens, it’s because we have more emotional processing going on in our brain at that time, so we code those emotions more deeply.

  • The thing with emotions is that they are different for everyone– not everyone smiles when they’re happy or frowns when they’re sad.

  • How girls and boys are socialized impacts how they date.

  • You get to acknowledge someone else’s needs AND be a fierce defender of your dignity

  • Self-criticism is a clumsy safety behavior, because if you tell yourself that you suck first or that something is wrong, then when something DOES go wrong, it’s not as big a hit to your ego.

  • Self-critical behavior is your brain trying to help you

  • Feelings are not facts. And the more you can know what your emotions are, the more you can be the architect of your experience

  • In those shame moments, talk to yourself like you’d talk to a friend– this takes retraining your brain. 

  • When we’re in shame moments, our brain is being hijacked by fight or flight. 

  • Shame roots all your worst instincts on

  • The key is to have a shame code word. When you get in that slide of self-doubt, say your word over and over again. It’s a cognitive disruptor where you brain which was on the slide of self doubt, and it forces your rational brain to get back into the game. 

  • Emotions are tunnels, and you have to go through them to get to the other side

  • Avoidance isn’t going to get you where you want to go 

  • Feeling negative feelings is hard. But sometimes feeling negative feelings is harder.

  • The question to ask yourself is: “Is it stress or is it trauma?”

FREEBIE ALERT:

This tiny guide to self compassion is the ideal self-care strategy in uncertain times!



Get Megan’s Guide to Self-Compassion

Here are the links & resources mentioned in today’s episode:

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