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b'In This Episode:\\n\\n\\n\\n* How licensed professional counselor & therapeutic coach Nancy Jane Smith learned to navigate high-functioning anxiety while building her business* How high-functioning anxiety differs from our usual concept of what anxiety \\u201clooks like\\u201d* The strategies Nancy uses to help herself (and her clients) deal with HFA* Which of the 3 voices in her head Nancy uses to guide her action and keep moving forward\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nCan we talk about anxiety?\\n\\n\\n\\nEven if you don\\u2019t think of yourself as having anxiety or dealing with anxiety, there\\u2019s a good chance you\\u2019ve felt pretty anxious over the last 2 months.\\n\\n\\n\\nI\\u2019ve been calling it ambient anxiety.\\n\\n\\n\\nIt\\u2019s just in the air.\\n\\n\\n\\nEverything is in flux. Nothing is in our control. Everyone is on edge.\\n\\n\\n\\nIt\\u2019s just really hard to get a solid handle on what\\u2019s going on a day to day or even hour by hour basis.\\n\\n\\n\\nYour response to all of this ambient anxiety might be to slow down\\u2014even shut down. You might feel numb or a bit panicked. You might have trouble concentrating or find yourself caught up in worry.\\n\\n\\n\\nThat\\u2019s a very normal, very understandable response.\\n\\n\\n\\nBut it\\u2019s not the only way that anxiety can manifest.\\n\\n\\n\\nThe other way anxiety makes itself known doesn\\u2019t even look much like what we think of when we think anxiety.\\n\\n\\n\\nAnd that\\u2019s how I initially responded to the anxiety of our present moment.\\n\\n\\n\\nThis month on the show, we\\u2019ve been talking about finding support as an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship can be a lonely endeavor and the mental health challenges that many of us face don\\u2019t make it any easier to feel like you\\u2019re not alone.\\n\\n\\n\\nWhich leads me back to how I found myself quote-unquote coping with my anxiety a few weeks ago\\u2026\\n\\n\\n\\nInstead of shutting down, I turned on. I worked long, hyper-productive days. I created new things. I hosted live events. I checked in with friends and supported our members and clients.\\n\\n\\n\\nMy anxiety led me to over-functioning. My subconscious was trying to work my way through the stress and uncertainty. I was trying to control the uncontrollable.\\n\\n\\n\\nThat burst of anxious over-functioning led to a complete collapse. I\\u2019m now trying to get back into a more manageable and gentle groove but I\\u2019m feeling pretty rotten.\\n\\n\\n\\nI\\u2019ve talked to a lot of people who have been living a similar story.\\n\\n\\n\\nWhich really isn\\u2019t that surprising to me because in the before times, I was having a lot of conversations that started with: \\u201cCan I tell you about high-functioning anxiety?!\\u201d\\n\\n\\n\\nYou see, I started learning about high-functioning anxiety from our guest today, Nancy Jane Smith. The way Nancy described anxiety was nothing like what I thought of anxiety to be\\u2026 but was everything about my experience of the world.\\n\\n\\n\\nI\\u2019ve shared on the podcast before that only recently did I realize I was living with chronic anxiety. I had always identified as dealing with chronic depression and didn\\u2019t recognize my normal-for-me mental state was one of high anxiety. But the more I\\u2019ve learned from Nancy, the more I\\u2019ve learned about my own brand of anxiety.\\n\\n\\n\\nNancy is an expert in High Functioning Anxiety. Nancy is trained as a licensed professional counselor and therapeutic coach.'