All Things Anxiety with Coach Megan Devito
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Summary
In today’s episode, we’re talking ALL things anxiety with Megan Devito, a life coach, who is sharing her expertise on anxiety and how it can hinder individuals from reaching their goals. We’ll dive into her personal experience with anxiety, which started in childhood and continued into adulthood, how coaching helped her understand and manage her anxiety by recognizing the patterns and habits associated with it, and how to differentiate between stress and anxiety, highlighting the role of interpretation and the impact on the body. We’ll talk holistic ways to improve anxiety and mindset and tons more!
For full show notes, head to coachellyn.com/podcast, and, of course, follow me on Instagram OR check out my YouTube Channel for more!
Keywords
anxiety, goals, high functioning anxiety, coaching, stress, burnout, depression, interpretation, habits, anxiety, mindset, fear, breathwork, awareness, pause buttons
Some Takeaways
Anxiety can prevent individuals from reaching their goals by causing overthinking and perfectionism.
Coaching can help individuals recognize patterns and habits associated with anxiety and develop strategies to manage it.
Stress and anxiety have overlapping symptoms, but anxiety is often characterized by a habitual interpretation of stressors.
Understanding the difference between stress and anxiety can lead to more effective coping mechanisms.
There is an overlap between burnout, anxiety, and depression, and it is important to have a comprehensive understanding of these phenomena. Fear and excitement are similar in how they feel in our bodies; it's all about interpretation.
Breathwork, such as exhaling deeply and pausing, can help calm the nervous system and promote clear thinking.
Developing awareness of physical sensations and emotions without judgment is key to managing anxiety.
Creating pause buttons in daily life allows for moments of reflection and increased awareness.
Sound Bites
"I had been sick like a million times, but never actually sick."
"Anxiety is wishing for what you don't want."
"Anxiety is very much a feeling inside of your body."
"Fear and excitement are actually very, very similar in terms of how they feel in our bodies, but it's all about how we interpret it."
"Exhale until you're almost as flat as you can get yourself, like pancake style exhale, where you push more air out than it probably feels safe to do, and then breathe in and then pause."
"I want you to close your eyes and I want you to picture a time when you were anxious. Tell me about that time. So I'll have them close their eyes and they'll tell me, I'm like, you don't have to tell me all the gory details. I don't need to know. You don't have to go back into anything that's going to trip your trigger. I'm like, just tell me about what it feels like to be anxious, and like, talk to me about how your body feels."
About Megan Devito
Megan Devito is a life coach, the founder of Megan Devito Coaching, and the host of the More Than Anxiety podcast. Her purpose is to serve motivated people who struggle with anxiety and low confidence.
Website | https://www.megandevito.com/ IG | @coachemegandevito
Podcast | More Than Anxiety Facebook | Click Here LinkedIn | Megan Devito
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TRANSCRIPT:
Ellyn Schinke (00:01.081)
Hello, Megan, welcome to the Burnout Proof Podcast. Very excited to have you.
Megan Devito (00:05.294)
Thank you, I'm so excited to meet you and to be here. This is great.
Ellyn Schinke (00:08.385)
Yeah. Yes. I'm so excited, especially because you have a expertise that I do not have. I am really excited to learn about it and also just kind of riff off of it with you to see kind of where our kind of perspectives maybe coincide and where they don't. So tell us a little bit about you, your background, and how you got to doing the work you're doing now.
Megan Devito (00:18.613)
Mmm, yeah.
Megan Devito (00:29.026)
So I'm a life coach and I work with women who have great big goals and great big anxiety and that anxiety just keeps them from reaching their goals, whether it's from overthinking or trying to be perfect. All of those things that we know hold people back that just stops them from getting where they wanna go. I usually work with like really high functioning, people who are high functioning anxiety just because they're already out there doing, they're just really struggling. My background is actually in teaching. I was a high school teacher for
about 20 years and I just decided I didn't want to do that anymore and I needed something else and this just felt like such a good fit for me with my background with really disordered health anxiety for about 30 years. So from the time I was in third grade until I was about 40, I was like neck deep in it. So I had a lot of history with it and when I figured out what the heck was going on and how to make it better, I was like, this is it. This is what I'm supposed to be doing.
Ellyn Schinke (01:10.634)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (01:18.885)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (01:26.373)
Mm-hmm. I love that. I love that you're from an educator background too, because I'm sure you saw a fair amount of anxiety at play with your students as well. So it feels like you're all of the different aspects of your life, your own personal experience, your professional experience is now almost kind of built up to this. So dive a little bit deeper for me into your own personal experiences and what that kind of looked like for you.
Megan Devito (01:36.554)
Yeah.
Megan Devito (01:49.078)
Yeah, I remember being in third grade. It was really the first time that I remember it. I'm sure it was before that. I like to always start my story with, I know there's a lot, there's so much different information in there about anxiety, about where it comes from, why it happens, and everybody's like, trauma, trauma. And I don't remember any trauma. I mean, I don't have, my parents are together. They live like two miles from me. I, you know, I don't remember anything in specific.
like specific, but I do know I was always really sensitive and that like little things would just give me really big emotions. So maybe that was it. But in third grade, I noticed that I didn't want to be at school. I just wanted to be at home and I felt sick a lot. And a note fell out of this stack of papers that I got back from my teacher and it said always stick on it. And I was like, that's mean. That was so mean. And but I was like, yeah, it's kind of true. Like I don't feel good a lot. And so
Ellyn Schinke (02:41.187)
Yeah.
Megan Devito (02:47.67)
That was just like I would go lay down in a sick room or whatever, just try and figure out ways to not go to school, which is weird because I didn't hate school. I just hated being at school.
Ellyn Schinke (02:55.737)
Hmm.
random sorry I mean to interrupt but like were you bored because I actually remember I would I would simultaneously lose two fold out fake sick but I would also I feel like get myself sick because I was bored in some of my early elementary grades do you feel like that was you at all?
Megan Devito (03:17.034)
been some boredom for sure because I know I was always the first one. Hindsight now, when I know what I know about boredom, there's a really good chance I had some ADHD in there that was just undiagnosed because it was the 80s and I was a girl and I was good. I didn't get in trouble. I got in trouble for talking a lot, but I didn't get in trouble because I was up wiggling around or anything like that. So maybe it was part of that because
Ellyn Schinke (03:18.068)
Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (03:31.365)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (03:42.37)
Hmm.
Megan Devito (03:42.694)
with anxiety and hyper fixating on things and with ADHD making you hyper fixate on things. And when you're bored and you don't, your mind goes crazy. So if I was bored, I was probably using my imagination. And I just had a way of creating really scary stories about my health. And that just went on and on and on all the way through high school. I was really sick in college with nothing except for anxiety to where I just had days where I couldn't
Ellyn Schinke (03:57.548)
Yeah.
Megan Devito (04:09.462)
do anything and I was always in the doctor's office. It was never like I think I have a cold. I think I have this. I was like going big guns. I thought I had horrific diseases. My anxiety wasn't ever related to, oh, what if I get sick or anything like that? I was out doing things certain that I had tumors or neurological diseases, things that, crazy big things. That went into...
Ellyn Schinke (04:14.437)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (04:18.67)
Wow.
Ellyn Schinke (04:24.781)
like social situations or...
Ellyn Schinke (04:37.733)
I don't want to make light of this, but my brain literally went to, it's like your brain was WebMD-ing before WebMD existed. Like you were like, yeah.
Megan Devito (04:39.604)
No, go ahead.
Megan Devito (04:43.854)
100%. And that was the worst invention ever for me because then I could just go in and Google the symptom and I'm like, I really am dying. And so I've died of everything, right, 100 times. And here I am and never with a diagnosis, which is so weird. I did. I would go to the doctor's office forever about it and I would just keep Googling and I would keep calling my parents sobbing, something is wrong with me. I don't know what's wrong. And that went on until I was almost 40.
Ellyn Schinke (04:49.416)
Oh god!
Yep, I really do have cancer. Ha ha ha.
Megan Devito (05:13.63)
something clicked and I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I had actually gone back and kept logs of my symptoms that I thought I was dying so I could prove to the doctors that I had symptoms on this date. And I finally, one day I went back and I'm like, wait a minute, I've had this like a million times and every time I think it's something different and I'm not dead and I'm not even really sicker. And yeah, and then it was like,
Ellyn Schinke (05:14.98)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (05:38.356)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Megan Devito (05:42.186)
something is weird here. And then, yeah, and then I figured out about coaching and I was like, well, now I know what's up. And it seriously just flipped the way I thought about it, which changed everything. Yeah. Mm-mm.
Ellyn Schinke (05:44.067)
Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (05:52.526)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (05:56.193)
Yeah, tell me a little bit more about that. How did coaching support you through that journey? Because I feel like anxiety is something that, I almost wanna say I've never experienced, but I've never experienced it in a debilitating way, which is why I really appreciate that you use the phrase high functioning. Because I feel like that is a great way to classify, we can't say that somebody's not anxious, they might just be high functioning anxiety. We won't even say somebody's like, doesn't have ADHD, they just might be high functioning in ADHD. I really like that.
Megan Devito (06:05.454)
Good.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (06:24.581)
Classifier because it broadens the scope of yes, you might still have this you've just found ways to work through it So how did coaching support you and finding a way to work through that?
Megan Devito (06:34.13)
Yeah, I think that when you like to the idea of high functioning, we always talk about autism on the spectrum, right? We know that you can be any one of these things on this spectrum. But really, when we look at ADHD, I feel like there's something to that. I mean, I'm not a psychiatrist. I don't know. But when I look at it, I'm like, okay, it's also could be a spectrum. Anxiety is for sure a spectrum. I mean, for me, I would have days where my anxiousness was just like, oh, I feel, I feel.
Ellyn Schinke (06:40.418)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (07:00.266)
Mostly okay. Today's where I'm like, no, I will not get out of this bed because I can't shut my brain off. Like the only thing, I was so lucky, so many people who are anxious can't sleep and it was like the one thing I could do where I could escape it. So I slept a lot, a lot in college. But in terms of coaching, I think really learning about, I started out as a health coach.
Ellyn Schinke (07:10.201)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (07:14.458)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (07:22.789)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (07:22.942)
and they talked so much about why we create the habits that we create. Coaching certification 101 is like, let's talk about how your brain works. And so backing up just like one minute before my coaching certification, I asked to really listen to the book, You Are a Badass. And there was a quote in that book, everybody loves that book. And the quote was something like, anxiety is wishing for what you don't want or worry is wishing for what you don't want.
Ellyn Schinke (07:31.246)
Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (07:40.313)
Love that book.
Megan Devito (07:51.17)
And I was like, why would someone do that? And she said, you do not have to believe your thoughts. And I don't think that until that point in my life that I ever understood that just because I thought it, it wasn't real. So the more that I learned, the more I went through this coaching certification and they talked about, hey, when you think this thought, it makes you feel this way. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's so true because I had already discovered really that
I had been sick like a million times, but never actually sick. And I was, every single one of those is a symptom of anxiety. And I could go back and just say, oh, so what's really going on here is that I feel anxious and then my brain just goes bananas and starts making up all of these catastrophic stories about what is actually wrong with me. And I think just knowing that, first of all, that it was a chemical reaction in me and not a tumor in my liver.
Ellyn Schinke (08:42.573)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (08:49.41)
that made me feel that way, or that the reason I couldn't swallow wasn't because I had some neurological horrible thing, it was anxiety because I would feel that feeling where I couldn't swallow and I'm like, no, this is probably because I have ALS.
Ellyn Schinke (09:08.453)
Gosh, oh gosh, I can only imagine how much you're like.
Megan Devito (09:09.59)
Yeah, but don't Google, don't Google anything. But that's what happened. And the funny thing is that I seriously thought I was the only person in the world that had this problem too. And now I'm like, no, wait a minute, you get this? I've talked to so many people that are like, oh yeah, this is me and I'm like, oh, you're fine too.
Ellyn Schinke (09:19.022)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (09:22.945)
Yeah. I feel like I benefited so much from, I had two very good friends when I did this like travel abroad thing back in 2018. I had two very good friends on that who both experienced like clinical anxiety. And they taught me so much about what their experience was. And not only was it just like informative for me to know because I have anxiety and depression in my family as well. I have some family members that have it. It gave me such perspective on them, but it also made me
and almost have like more compassion for some of my own behaviors and some of my own anxieties. And I feel like, you know, even to kind of dovetail off of you talking about your coaching experience, I was talking to somebody yesterday doing a podcast interview and we were saying how, you know, everybody, it's like every, all of us, we do the work that we need. So it's, I'm sure there was like a part of you that was like, I'm doing this so I can help people, but also like, I'm super curious about like how this applies to me. And I see like in what you're talking about, it's like a stress site.
Megan Devito (10:10.636)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (10:20.749)
Like anxiety is I feel like a almost like next level activation of your stress cycle. And you're activating your stress cycle in like massive ways and constantly probably to the point where we have these physical reactions. Like we can, I always tell people your brain doesn't differentiate between a physical stressor and an emotional stressor. Like our brain is not evolved enough to know how to do that. It's just like, cool, you feel like you're in danger, I'm gonna flood your system with stress hormones so that we can take care of this situation.
Like, do you feel like that was a lot of what you were realizing as you were playing into this? Is, oh, my body's just responding because that's what it's programmed and designed to do.
Megan Devito (10:57.51)
Yeah, for sure. And I always explained it like the movie The Croods, where I'm like, there's a little caveman in your head and all he wants to do is shove you back into the cave over and over and over again because you'll fall off a cliff or you'll get eaten by a saber-toothed tiger or you'll burst into flames. And it's like a caveman mixed with a middle school girl. It's very dramatic. It's very, it's like a little cave middle schooler in your head where everything is a five alarm fire.
I'm like, if you can just imagine this person being in charge of all the things and being like lightning fast, that's what's going on. But I think you're onto something with the stress because we know that stress, when we talk about even from a health coaching perspective, if you talk about the reason you can't lose the weight is because of the stress, because of this cortisol buildup. That cortisol does not go down quickly. I mean, we can burn off adrenaline like that, but that cortisol, unless you are flushing that out at night.
Ellyn Schinke (11:33.267)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (11:40.29)
Ugh.
Ellyn Schinke (11:50.551)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (11:51.594)
You start, you're already starting the day at a higher level. And then the more stressed you are, the more cortisol, the more cortisol. And all of that's what makes us feel so terrible that for people who are under chronic stress, it does turn into anxiety. It's not just because I got so stressed out that my brain couldn't handle it. It was just that you got so stressed out that your body couldn't handle it.
Ellyn Schinke (12:01.036)
Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (12:05.701)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (12:09.228)
Yeah.
Yeah, I love that definition because I feel like I get asked all the time in the work that I do, like, what's the difference between burnout and depression? What's the difference between burnout and anxiety? And I actually, my perspective is I think that's the reason why burnout is still not a medical diagnosis. It's just a phenomenon that happens according to the World Health Organization. But I think that's part of the reason why is it is difficult to tease it away from anxiety and to tease it away from depression.
Megan Devito (12:27.598)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (12:39.437)
because intense amounts of emotional burnout can look like depression, can veer into depression. Burnout, chronic stress can veer into anxiety. There's this overlap there that I honestly wonder if it's ever gonna be completely separated. So I know you don't necessarily, I know you do stress, you do stress, so what would you say differentiates those, if at all? Do you agree with my take on it, or do you kind of have your own perspective on where chronic stress and anxiety and whatnot start to overlap?
Megan Devito (13:08.046)
I do think that there's that fine line, right? There's this fine line between chronic stress and I really think it's how your brain interprets it. Like I'm stressed out. Stress is very situational and when the situation goes away, the stress tends to go away. Anxiety can just become a habit where your body, we know that our brain creates patterns, right? And so your neurons are growing out and they...
Ellyn Schinke (13:11.268)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (13:16.697)
That's fair.
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (13:29.74)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (13:31.918)
They're so used to, if you can imagine the difference between I'm stressed out and I'm scared. So it's storing that memory in there where when you're stressed out, you're like, oh, this always stresses me out, but fine, I'll just get it done. Whereas when you're anxious, it's like it's interpreted differently. Almost like the last time I felt this way, my heart sped up and then I had this thought about, maybe I'm having a heart attack.
Ellyn Schinke (13:37.828)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (13:45.125)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (13:59.586)
where some people would be like, every time I get stressed out, it makes my heart beat funny. People could interpret that as, yes. Stress is annoying and heavy and can make you angry and all of those things, but it's very situation specific where when you leave that situation, you're like, well, thank God I'm off work at five. Whereas anxiety, you might be stressed all day and then you go home and you're like, I don't know, like something's wrong. It's...
Ellyn Schinke (14:03.025)
Yeah, so it was like anxiety feels more dangerous. Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (14:20.974)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (14:29.138)
I would venture to say that it's the way that your brain interprets how your body feels.
Ellyn Schinke (14:36.261)
I really like that rationalization. And I love how you said anxiety is a habit, because I can see how we could get ourselves into situations that we start to interpret the same way over and over again, kind of like you were. Oh, I feel this way. That must mean this. This must mean I'm sick. That must mean I have this ailment. And it's almost like the stress spirals into something more.
Megan Devito (14:41.244)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (15:02.433)
and it is a habitual way of thinking about the stress. I've never thought of it that way.
Megan Devito (15:07.978)
Yeah. And it's a funny thing. Like if you look at an emotion wheel, it drives me crazy that they put anxiety on the emotion wheel, right? So if I'm looking, it's like if I'm talking to a teenager and I'm like, what emotion is that? And they're like, bad. And I'm like, no, but which one is bad? Like bad is just a thought, right? Like, but bad, like what? But they put anxiety on there and I'm like, no, yes, it's, it's an emotion.
Ellyn Schinke (15:33.946)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (15:36.162)
But it's not an emotion. Anxiety is very much a feeling inside of your body. And so we create emotions from it. And so many times when I'm talking with people who are anxious and I'll ask them, what do they feel? I'm like, I feel sad. I feel frustrated. I feel annoyed. I feel scared. I feel inferior. And they have so many emotions swimming around at once that no wonder their body feels terrible. I mean, that's all separate.
Ellyn Schinke (15:40.793)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (16:03.522)
chemical reactions in there. So they just misinterpret it into something is really, really wrong with me. And I don't want to feel this horrible feeling. So I'm just going to say.
Ellyn Schinke (16:09.174)
Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (16:14.101)
Yeah, I feel like it's kind of making me think of how when like people say to me, oh, I'm overwhelmed. I asked them to break it down more because yeah, overwhelm was an emotion, but I feel like it is a, it's like a freaking soup of all of these other emotions. And I want to pinpoint what over what, what do you, what do you really feel? Like what does the overwhelm actually feel like? What does it look like? And they'll say, oh, it feels like confusion. I'm like, okay, that's a very different type of
Megan Devito (16:29.058)
Yeah! Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (16:42.589)
overwhelmed than perhaps frustration is, or perhaps I can't think of an emotion for it, but like feeling overloaded. Like those are very, very different ways and we'll tackle that very differently. So I see what you're saying about how like, we've gotta almost, it's like anxious is being used as like, I feel like an umbrella for so many other things and we've gotta have a better understanding of like what's actually underneath the umbrella because it could be a very different thing depending on the situation of the person.
Megan Devito (17:11.498)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it all goes back to really what you think about it, right? Because some people say, oh, I'm really anxious for this concert to start. I'm like, no, you're excited. It's the same thing. And really, if you think about how your body feels when you're excited, it's the exact same way that you feel about when you're anxious. It's just the thought you have about the situation. And so even though those chemical reactions are happening and...
Ellyn Schinke (17:13.077)
I love that.
Ellyn Schinke (17:20.213)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Megan Devito (17:36.574)
we don't necessarily like what they feel. It's only what we're thinking about that makes us not like it. Because if you were excited, you'd be really excited for the concert to start. And so that was so, I think that was really important in my recovery also, was realizing that like, that's just a feeling. I don't have to do anything with it.
Ellyn Schinke (17:41.314)
Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (17:49.945)
Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (17:55.381)
Yeah, you're hitting the nail on the head with something I feel like was a big thing for me too, of realizing that, like, I always loved that notion that, like, fear and excitement are actually very, very similar in terms of how they feel in our bodies, but it's all about, like, how we interpret it. That always really resonated with me because then I could question, you know, what was showing up for me and what I was experiencing. I love this. I love this so much. So I'm super interested to start to dive into, you said you have some holistic ways to help improve anxiety and mindset.
Megan Devito (18:08.424)
Thank you.
Megan Devito (18:14.314)
Yeah, this is so fun.
Ellyn Schinke (18:23.105)
What are some of those ways that you've worked with clients to help improve this?
Megan Devito (18:28.35)
We always talk about breath, right? And I did, like back when I was in college and when I was in this horrible place, I remember I went to, I probably went to some really sweet college student who was like a psychology major, she was probably 19, and I was like, you don't have any idea what you're doing. And like, it was awful, because I remember her telling me, you need to breathe. And I'm like, here I am, sitting in your office, breathing all day long. Like.
I'm breathing, that's not a problem. But she had me do this thing where she said, no, if you put your hand on your chest and on your stomach, you need to breathe. So yeah, the hand on your belly goes up and down. I couldn't do it. It took me, I think I stayed, I think I went to therapy in college, maybe.
Ellyn Schinke (19:01.101)
Yeah!
Ellyn Schinke (19:05.582)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (19:14.334)
times, maybe five times, because it was actually making me feel more anxious at that point. And it was the 90s and who knew what was going on? None of us had any clue how to handle anxiety or any of that stuff. But I couldn't, I remember her telling me that I needed to breathe until the hand on my stomach went up. And the only way I could do that was to like push my abs. I'm like, it's impossible. I'm like, nobody breathes like that. But I realized after again, this was another thing with the...
Ellyn Schinke (19:24.642)
Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (19:35.168)
Haha
Megan Devito (19:42.766)
coaching certification that I was like, oh, well, that makes sense. Where whenever, a lot of times, one of the things when I talk with people and I say, okay, what I want you to do, everybody's going to tell you, it's okay, just breathe. No, you've been breathing. I want you to exhale. And so we always start with the exhale first and really exhaling until you're almost as flat as you can get yourself, like pancake style exhale, where you push more air out than it probably feels safe to do and then breathe in.
and then pause. So really starting with, as soon as I'm talking with somebody and they start to go down that rabbit hole of and then this and then this and then this and then this, I'm like pause, exhale. Let's just exhale for one minute. And I've said, and that right away is going to flip the switch on their nervous system and get them to a place where we can think clearly because we know that anxiety isn't rational. We know there's nothing wrong. And even the person who's super anxious and thinks they're dying in the moment.
There's a teeny tiny part of them that knows that they're okay. It's just that anxiety feels so urgent and so truthful that we have to get to a point that we're like, okay, we have to separate your brain from your body. And that's really what I do. But in that process of saying, okay, what would happen if we just thought about how it feels? And I love that when you say, when you talk about burnout and you say,
Ellyn Schinke (20:57.25)
Love that.
Megan Devito (21:07.518)
No, tell me what it really feels like, and you're going into the emotions. You could almost take it a step further, and one of the things that you can do is say, I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to picture a time when you were anxious. Tell me about that time. So I'll have them close their eyes, and they'll tell me, I'm like, you don't have to tell me all the gory details. I don't need to know. You don't have to go back into anything that's going to trip your trigger. I'm like, just tell me about what it feels like to be anxious, and like, talk to me about how you're.
Ellyn Schinke (21:12.075)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (21:36.694)
body feels. And did you lose there? Did we lose for a second?
Ellyn Schinke (21:43.425)
It keeps telling me I'm trying to reconnect, but I'm on the internet. Yeah, I'm like on the internet. I honestly might be, it might be Riverside because I'm like, I have internet right now.
Megan Devito (21:46.19)
I just saw that pop up once. Maybe it's me.
Megan Devito (21:54.443)
Maybe.
Megan Devito (21:59.229)
I'm sorry, it's gonna have to chop this. I have internet too. But sometimes my internet does weird things.
Ellyn Schinke (22:04.757)
Yeah, it's okay. My internet dropped in the middle of yesterday, so you're good.
Megan Devito (22:08.086)
Okay, so, oh, there it is again, of course it is. Let me move it this way. Sometimes if I move it just like a slight bit away from the wall, it helps. So one of the things that I do is I'll say, okay, go to that place where you, let's see if you can make yourself feel a little bit anxious. I don't want you to be overwhelmed, but I want you to feel anxious. And I'll say, tell me how it feels. And then I get bad. And I'm like, tell me, I wanna know what shape it is.
Like, what is it, like, use your imagination. I want you to tell me what it looks like. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, well, there's no right or wrong answer, right? It's funny though, once you start, I'm like, it's okay, just sit with it for a minute. Like, put your hand on the spot and I want you to imagine what the shape is or what does it look like. And it takes, I don't know, 30 seconds, a minute? And they're like, it's kind of like a blob. I've gotten wispy fingers before. I've gotten like...
Ellyn Schinke (22:45.322)
I was gonna say I'd have a hard time with that.
Megan Devito (23:06.638)
spikes, all kinds of different things. And I'll be, okay, great, what color is it? And it's red, it's purple, it's green, it's like smoke. It's funny. And I'll say, okay, perfect, we know what it looks like now. So now we know that it's like a tangible thing. It does turn it into a thing. Yeah, and then I'm like, okay, well, does it make any noise?
Ellyn Schinke (23:22.373)
I was gonna say, is that what you're trying to get him to do? Is turn it into a thing?
Okay.
Megan Devito (23:31.418)
And sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it doesn't. Some people will say it whispers. Some people will say that it sounds like blood pumping or it sounds like the ocean, whatever.
Ellyn Schinke (23:40.997)
I feel like mine would sound like, are you a Harry Potter person? You know how in the Order of the Phoenix, they're in the Department of Mysteries and they have like, they're under that, the thing that Sirius falls into when he dies, I feel like it would sound like that, that veil.
Megan Devito (23:44.967)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah.
Megan Devito (23:55.074)
Yeah, yeah, it's so weird, but they can even get sometimes, like, does it have a smell? And yeah, does it taste? Does it make you taste something in your mouth? Like, we'll go through all five senses. Is it hot? Is it cold? Is it spiky? Is it tight? Is it loose? Is it moving? Like, what is it doing? And when they get there, I'm like, okay, that is anxiety.
Ellyn Schinke (24:01.995)
Oh!
Megan Devito (24:22.602)
It's all of those things. And if you can picture that every time you feel it, it takes it out of this like, it makes it more tangible. It makes it something that they can deal with. And even, I've gone to even with a lot of people and say, I want you to, before we talk again next week, I want you to draw it. I want you to color it. And then you can talk to it. And once you can talk to it, you can be like, what do you want?
Ellyn Schinke (24:30.786)
Yeah.
Megan Devito (24:47.262)
And what always comes back to it's trying to protect you. And it's so funny how often we come back to it's like, love, or it's afraid. And it's because I don't want this bad thing to happen with my kids. I don't want my coworkers to hate me. I don't want, you know, and then we can start being like, okay, so these are all your thoughts that you have about that feeling. And that's really what it is. That feeling is just trying to help you. I've also compared it to a smoke alarm and.
Ellyn Schinke (24:54.818)
Hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (24:59.105)
Rejection.
Megan Devito (25:16.234)
when you make bacon and it burns and your smoke alarm goes off, it thinks there's a fire, but there's not. We've talked about that, but really going back to let's exhale and when we talk about this, if you start feeling a little anxious, let's get up and move and let's just get up and let's just start swaying or bounce on your toes, whatever it is that... What's that? Yeah. Anything like that. And there's a lot of activities. I mean...
Ellyn Schinke (25:35.905)
You know what I actually have a lot of people do? Seated calf raises. Yeah.
Megan Devito (25:46.046)
that you can do, like you just tell me what you need to do. Are you a bouncer? Are you a roller? Do you just need to lay on the floor and roll your knees back and forth? But whatever you're doing when you start to feel that, what we want to do, really the whole point of this whole thing is to say, I feel it and now I'm not allowed to believe anything that I think until that feeling calms down and goes away. Because if we're trying to think through all of those anxious thoughts when your body feels that anxious.
you're only gonna come up with anxious thoughts. Your brain, that caveman is in there just screaming about everything that could possibly ever be wrong and making up stories to figure out why you feel anxious when it's just a chemical reaction. That's all it is, it's nothing.
Ellyn Schinke (26:31.205)
I think it's making me realize, I mean, it's reminding me of so much of the work that I do, but it's making me realize like we need to, we need to just practice understanding first and foremost, like with anxiety, with burnout, with stress, like however we're thinking about it, it's about can I better understand this instead of perhaps trying to control it?
Because I think a lot of times when stuff goes wrong, and again, I'm not somebody who's experiences a lot of anxiety, but I do feel like when I do, my first impulse is to control it, to make that feeling go away, to shut it down, to shove it to the side, I wanna have control again. And if I, instead of coming from the perspective of I need to control it, coming from the perspective of I need to understand it.
Megan Devito (27:22.19)
Perfect. Yeah. That's really it. Because the more we push it away, the more your brain interprets that as danger. Make it go away is very much like a fight-flight freeze, right? We're going to fight it off. We're going to run away from it when really it's just saying, hey, maybe you should just sit down for a minute, take a couple breaths. Maybe all you need to do is exhale. My craziest story was one time I've had this.
Ellyn Schinke (27:36.483)
Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (27:44.558)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (27:49.974)
The breathing I think is so good because, especially for people who are at work, or if I'm coaching like a teenager in there at school, and I can say, look, I'm gonna give you a way to shut this off so you don't even have to leave your desk. You don't have to leave anything. You just do this right there. No one will know. And we're just gonna practice exhaling, and you can do that, just no one's gonna know. You're just breathing like everybody else in the room.
Ellyn Schinke (28:07.951)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (28:14.954)
and that's gonna keep you from having to leave. You're not trying to make it go away, you're just trying to be like, okay, well here we are, I have stuff to do. Really there's no danger. And it's removing that feeling of danger from, it's removing the thought of danger, I guess, from the feeling as opposed to like, oh yeah, that's what that is. I mean, and especially when you get to, I mean, I would say teenagers in particular because their hormones are crazy. Women like,
Ellyn Schinke (28:15.691)
Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (28:32.254)
Yeah.
Megan Devito (28:43.646)
when we see postpartum anxiety, when we see even like premenstrual anxiety. But then again, when you get to my age and you're 48 and you're like, what just happened? And then all of a sudden you're anxious again. And there's no reason for it. It's just like, oh, here's some cortisol. I'm just gonna dump this in your system for no reason at all. Or you get an adrenaline rush because maybe you're tired, maybe you, you know, whatever.
Ellyn Schinke (29:03.181)
Yeah.
Megan Devito (29:08.706)
But I think it's really important just to recognize that all of those things, no matter what it is, what's triggering you, because I'm just one that says triggers don't matter. And this is probably maybe mean of me, but not hopscotch over triggers. I don't want anyone to hopscotch over mine, because we have to learn how to work through that. And the more we avoid it, the worse we're making it. It will only get worse if you avoid it.
Ellyn Schinke (29:24.025)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (29:31.393)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I don't think it's even in the work I do. I don't think it's about avoiding the triggers. I think it's just about knowing what they are. Like recognizing, okay, this is triggering for me. Yeah, cool, we can try to avoid it to a point. But I think with all of this stuff, I think even jumping back to what you were talking about before with breathing and the breathing exercise that Gal gave you when you were in college, I feel like the one thing a lot of high achievers struggle with is an all or nothing mindset. And even with that breathing exercise, as she was talking about it, I'm thinking, okay,
Megan Devito (29:37.292)
Yeah.
Megan Devito (29:42.946)
Yeah!
Ellyn Schinke (29:58.005)
I don't think it's possible, even if you're breathing from your diaphragm, I don't think it's possible to not move your chest at all. And I think that's where some of us were so damn perfectionistic that we're like, okay, you told me not to move my chest, but my chest moves, so I must be doing it wrong. And then that gets us in our head even more. See, that's always been something that's been easy for me because I took vocal lessons when I was in high school. And that was something that my voice teacher had me do. She's like, you've got to breathe from your diagram, otherwise you're going to run out of air for this thing that you're saying.
Megan Devito (30:09.358)
I can't.
Megan Devito (30:19.298)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (30:25.902)
Great.
Ellyn Schinke (30:26.541)
And so I learned how to breathe from my diaphragm pretty early, but even then I still, like when I breathe from my diaphragm, my chest still moves, cause you are still inherently inflating your lungs. So I think it's like, it's like the little things like that of, even when we're coming back to triggers of, you can try to, you know, hopscotch over the trigger. I like that you said that. Hopscotch over the trigger as much as you want, but the trigger is still gonna be there and the trigger is still gonna get triggered on occasion. And we can't get mad.
when that happens because it's not all or nothing. It is about doing our best to do the thing that we're trying to do, to avoid the trigger, to breathe through our diaphragm. It is about doing our best to do that. It's not an all or nothing thing. And I think that's where a lot of high performers and high achievers get really stuck is in that all or nothing mindset. Like if I mess up once, I'm failing. Like, no, you're not. There's no perfect with this. You're going to screw up. Just set that expectation on occasion, period. You're going to, even in all of this stuff.
Megan Devito (30:55.598)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (31:21.066)
Yeah, and for people who are breathing, sorry.
Ellyn Schinke (31:24.705)
No, you're good.
Megan Devito (31:27.246)
I think that for people who struggle with the breathing portion too, because some people do, they're like, ah, the breathing doesn't help me at all, it just makes me more aware of my breathing and I already feel like I can't breathe. Another thing is, okay, what's your favorite color? Ask them what their favorite color is. I want you to walk around and I want you to find everything or look around wherever you are. Find at least one thing or as many things as you can find that that's color. So if it's orange, you might have to really look, but the second you stop thinking about it, it goes away.
And if you can stop thinking about it for even just 10 seconds to find something orange and then notice like, oh, it's not there.
Ellyn Schinke (32:04.697)
That's a really good point though, that there are gonna be some of these things that like trying to do it, trying to do the breathing is almost gonna call more awareness to the fact that you're struggling to breathe. I think it's the same thing with people who try to meditate, like trying to not think is calling attention to the thoughts that are popping into your head. So it's like, if it's not working, okay, try something else. The whole, we're just trying to remove the focus on that thought or that feeling or whatever it might be. And I like the idea of just
try to find the green things in your environment. I feel like I do really good with that because green's my favorite color. I have a lot of it in my apartment. So I do really good with that if I'm here. I'm gonna keep that one in my back pocket. Awesome, awesome. What if you had to kind of say, because I feel like we're getting to the point where I feel like we've talked about a lot of really good things, some good mindset shifts, some good tools. If you had to kind of lead people with a final little kernel of wisdom, kernel of knowledge, mindset shift, if you will.
that you think is going to be a benefit to them when it comes to dealing with anxiety. What would you say?
Megan Devito (33:08.43)
It's going to sound too simple and it is, but we know that simple and easy aren't the same. The first thing is that it's just that one thing that was said to me that I never knew was an option. You don't have to believe it just because you think it, even though I know it feels true. And really what you want to do is you want to learn to sit with that feeling. You want to learn to feel it and to get really familiar with the feeling inside of your body because it...
feels scary right now because what you think about it. But I want you just to notice, start to notice every single time that you felt that way and nothing happens. I felt that way, nothing happened. Because as soon as you notice that very, very first feeling, and if you can get particular enough to notice that like, for me, like when I first started practicing this, when I was still really, really super anxious, but I started practicing it, one of the things I noticed was.
the first place I would feel anxiety would be in my forearms and in my hands. Yeah, like they would get hot and tingly. I notice it more here now, but yeah, like I would notice it in my hands. It would be like all the blood just would whoop, like, you know, it just disappeared. So I could feel it there. As soon as I could feel that, I would know, okay, now I'm not allowed to believe anything I think until I feel normal.
Ellyn Schinke (34:05.189)
Really? I'm a chest person.
Ellyn Schinke (34:17.59)
Interesting, okay.
Ellyn Schinke (34:27.813)
Mm-hmm.
Megan Devito (34:28.522)
And once you know how to exhale, as soon as you recognize that as, oh, it's anxiety, that doesn't mean anything, it'll go away in 30 seconds. It's not gonna last for 30 days, which was great. For some people, when they're like, every single day is like this, it is like constantly monitoring your body to make sure that you're not anxious. But if you can just say, oh, yeah, I know that feeling, that's not a problem. When you get to that point, that's the difference. But it really starts with knowing your own body and knowing that your body is safe.
Ellyn Schinke (34:36.932)
Mm-hmm.
Ellyn Schinke (34:58.381)
Mm-hmm. Awareness. Awareness is the first step. Yeah.
Megan Devito (34:59.854)
That's, yes, it's all awareness. You hit the nail on the head. It really is like, oh, this is how my body feels. All right, it feels terrible, yeah.
Ellyn Schinke (35:06.149)
Mm-hmm. I feel like my clients always laugh, especially like my OG clients from back in the day. Like I've been saying that for years at this point. Awareness is the first step. Awareness is the first step with everything. Like it's amazing. And awareness is hard for so many of us because we just don't slow down enough to get that awareness. So maybe that's the added little bonus of this is if you...
Megan Devito (35:28.654)
That's huge.
Ellyn Schinke (35:31.885)
You hear this and you're like, cool, yeah, I understand that awareness is the first step, but I have none. You've gotta make pockets of space in your life. You've gotta create pause buttons in your life. And it doesn't have to be anything crazy. It can be something very, very simple. We've gotta create those pause buttons or otherwise there is no awareness. Awareness just passes us by.
Megan Devito (35:51.878)
It's also funny too that like that awareness and the idea that we're so busy that we can't do it, but the busier we are and the more that we ignore it, the longer it lasts, right? Like if we would just stop and say, oh hell no, I don't want to feel that. Like just stop and be like, oh my God, I can't. And then putting your hand on that and being like, okay, let's go exhale for a second and like stand here. That feels terrible.
Ellyn Schinke (36:00.322)
Yeah
Megan Devito (36:15.094)
but not making it mean anything. And that's really, I think that's the most challenging part where people get hung up, whether they're dealing with burnout and they go down that rabbit hole of everything that is like, it's too much, I don't wanna go back. I mean, I went through a period of burnout a couple of years ago where I'm like, just get me out of here, I can't do this for one more day. But whether it's that or whether it's their people pleasing or it's perfectionism, it's all because we get wrapped up in these thoughts. And if you can just always go back to how you feel.
and take the time to be like, that's how I feel right now. That awareness, that's it. But you have to slow down. And we all need to do that too, I think.
Ellyn Schinke (36:50.885)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's like awareness without over identification because that feeling is not you. The anxiety is not you. It's something that's happening in your life. Yeah. Love that. Oh my God. Okay. Then last but not least then, if people are loving what you're talking about, if they know that this is something that they struggle with and they need your support, they need you to work through this, where can people find you? What are the best places to get in touch with you?
Megan Devito (37:04.012)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So good.
Megan Devito (37:18.514)
Yeah, I always say the best places to find me. I have a Facebook group, it's Coach Megan DeVito. You can jump in there, but I'm also on Instagram or Threads. I am very in love with Threads right now. I know, it's like all of my old Twitter dreams are back to life and so much better. So no, Threads and Instagram, I am Coach Megan DeVito in both of those places. And if you're kind of a LinkedIn kind of lady, I am also on there, but it's under Megan DeVito without the coach.
Ellyn Schinke (37:29.805)
We found each other on threads.
Megan Devito (37:46.818)
So any of those places, my DMs are always open. Anybody can message me and just say, hey, I just have a question. I mean, let me know what's up, and let's just talk about it and see what we can work out.
Ellyn Schinke (37:57.081)
Yeah. Absolutely. Love it. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and your tools with us. I really appreciate it. And I'm looking forward to being on your podcast later, later in May. Absolutely.
Megan Devito (38:01.419)
You're welcome.
Megan Devito (38:07.03)
Yes, I can't wait. Thank you for having me.