Why Small Comments Can Feel Like Big Threats At Work: Learning The Source Of Such Anxiety

Why Reactions Feel Bigger

0:21 SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Work Stress Anxiety. I'm Cheryl Palaris. I'm curious, have you ever wondered why the same kind of email, comment, or criticism can set off the same reaction in you even when you thought that you were part of all of that? It's really interesting because today I enjoyed my deeper joy and we're exploring why some stress reactions feel bigger than the moment itself. We talk about old patterns, self-blame, awareness, and breathing and what it means to pause without pretending that work stress is, you know, all in your head.

1:02 SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes the better question is what is this touching in me? Really interesting. So let's get started.

Meet Deepak And The Core Question

1:12 SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to work stress anxiety. It's me, Cheryl Harris, your crazy host. Yes, if this is your first time here, I want to say welcome. If it's not, and you've been listening to me go on about work stress and anxiety, welcome back. I have an amazing guest with me today. I have Deepak. Welcome, Deepak. How are you doing?

1:37 SPEAKER_00: Doing well, Cheryl. Thanks for thanks for having me on your show.

Why Change Is Not Linear

1:40 SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being here. You know, one of the things, and I'm sure you've experienced this, is people always think strangely. I'm laughing because you even when I think about it, people always think they travel along straight roads. I don't know, you know, I don't know what it is, you know, especially during times of change or they want change in their life. They assume that it's going to be a linear path to change. And one of the things that I've noticed is that it's certainly not linear, that often people go round in circles, figures of eight sometimes, but they I always like to encourage people that they're moving forward.

2:24 SPEAKER_01: So one of the things I find is interesting is that sometimes people have um the same sort of reactions, similar reactions to the same sorts of situations, and I know that that means that they can sometimes feel that they're not progressing, they're not progressing with the changes that they want to make in their life. So I'm just curious to know what do you think when someone keeps getting the same sort of strong reaction to the same kind of email or comments or criticism, what is it that's going on for them without assuming that the problem is in their head?

Track The Trigger Backward

3:09 SPEAKER_00: Well, absolutely, that's a great question, Cheryl. First of all, I want to state for anyone feeling those feelings, there's nothing wrong with you. You're you're perfect as you are. Don't blame yourself, don't be hard on yourself. We often are, who are we the hardest on? Ourselves, right? Versus even anyone else. So first step is, you know, take it slow your breath down, take a deep breath, say, look, there's nothing wrong with me. But I'm noticing, not that I'm a bad person, that I'm reacting to this person or this situation.

3:41 SPEAKER_00: And it's a different situation than the other one, but why am I reacting this way? You know, what what do I notice? My breathing is faster, my heart rate is faster, my palms are sweaty, and I'm kind of tightening my shoulders and neck. So, first of all, I would say, even before that, is what am I feeling right now? What emotion am I feeling in this very moment right now? That immediately brings you to inner self-awareness from outside. Oh my god, what's gonna happen if they you you take it inward.

4:10 SPEAKER_00: Then you can say, okay, now that I notice I'm feeling this, this is what I found in this doing this work for over 20 years. You think it's this person or situation that triggered you, but you keep getting triggered all the time. But it's not. It's this situation that reminds you of a situation from before that event in every case. So your subconscious has every thought, feeling, emotion, taste, touch in every quadrillionth of a second, fraction of a second since the day we were born. So if it finds a similar pattern match, it will go to that same emotion that that you're feeling currently, and it always comes from a previous incident.

4:50 SPEAKER_00: So you can always say, okay, wow, when did I feel this anxious before? Oh, I felt this anxious. And you might even be able to go to earlier time when my teacher yelled at me because she said I was stupid, and all the people in the class laughed at me. And that might be one of the earlier triggers, which is often from times from time you're born till the time you're 12, especially from the time you're born till the time you're seven, because you're in what's called an alpha theta state, which is a highly receptive state, like a basically like a monk.

5:23 SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can create a Mozart, a genius, an Einstein, but you can also create a very traumatized child, meaning the older, the people older than us, by telling negative things to the kid that they accept without even any question. So if the teacher said, Oh God, you're so stupid, put on your Dunce cap and sit in the corner, you know, and everyone's laughing, ah ha ha ha ha. Then the kid thinks, Oh my God, I'm a fool. I'm no good. I'm not smart, I'm stupid, I'm dumb. And that becomes their whole philosophy within.

5:55 SPEAKER_00: Because I talked to someone in one of my sessions who had like 12 degrees, Cheryl, like PhDs. I said, My God, you're such a brilliant guy. You know what he said? No, I'm stupid. I mean, I'm not that smart at all when you think, What? I mean, are you kidding me? But that's the inner perception that he never resolved from childhood, the original source code. So again, going back to it, when you react to something, don't be so hard on yourself. It's because of an incident that happened before that, and before that, and before that.

6:25 SPEAKER_00: And if you track it all the way, no exception, it will always go back to your childhood. So then you can then go to the root cause of what caused it and realize that wait a minute, I'm reacting to something that happened from my childhood. And this person is similar. Maybe they look like the teacher, maybe had the voice of the teacher. They may not even look like them, they may have the voice or personality of that teacher from my childhood, and that shit faster than you blink your eye, triggers to the current moment.

6:51 SPEAKER_00: That's why we reacted that way.

Why Knowing Better Does Not Help

6:53 SPEAKER_01: It's really interesting you're saying that because I'm still a work in progress. I consider myself a work in progress. I've spent a lot of time becoming very aware of what my triggers are, and uh I do a lot of journaling to help myself be reflective in the way that I do things. One of the things um I've noticed is that sometimes people think I know better than this. Do you know what I mean? So cognitively, you know, their conscious mind says, Well, I know better than this, why am I reacting? Why am I reacting that way?

7:30 SPEAKER_01: And they fall into, you know, people pleasing or perfectionism or something like that. From your perspective, why is knowing better so, you know, cognitively understanding better not always meaning that people respond differently?

Relationship Patterns And Self-Sabotage

7:49 SPEAKER_00: Well, shall I give an example of a case study that of a client I worked on to maybe answer that question?

7:56 SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, go, go ahead.

7:57 SPEAKER_00: This might and maybe others can relate to it. Majority of my clients happen to be women. And uh a good majority of the women who come to me say, Deepak, I'm an honest, caring, compassionate, loving woman. Why am I drawing these negative, narcissistic, mean, manipulative, angry, cruel, controlling men in my life? I mean, that's not who I am at all. And then if I break up with them, I draw another man just like that. And over and over again, I don't think it's worth having a relationship. If this is the kind of thing I'm drawing, what's wrong with me?

8:32 SPEAKER_00: What is wrong with me to draw these kind of people? I mean, I'm not like that at all. So I'll listen to their words and I'll say, yes, you are not. You deserve the very best. You deserve the very best the world has to offer. So why am I drawing these men in my life? They say. I say, it's not you, and don't blame yourself, because isn't that what happens? We blame ourselves, right, for reacting this way. It's because of patterns from an earlier time of your life that are projecting forward and are repeating.

9:02 SPEAKER_00: So I know in your life, and this is common, that you had a dysfunctional childhood. Your parents were fighting. Maybe they got into a divorce, maybe there's violence and physical and emotional abuse that between the parents. The kid is watching this again, zero to seven, shh, goes right in. Oh, this is what a relationship is supposed to be. Oh, dysfunctional, broken, fighting, yelling, screaming, you know, divorce. And so that becomes their pattern of how a relationship should be. Now, after the age of 12 or so, you know, the when the imprinting happens, when there's downloads from all that they accept without questioning, they might you they might say, Oh, that's not how a relationship is, that's horrible.

9:44 SPEAKER_00: I had a dysfunctional, horrible childhood. It was neurotic. My dad was fighting with mom, violence, and yelling. So I don't want a relationship like that. Okay, so if we have a subconscious mind, which is 95 to 95% of the equation, and the 1 to 5% is saying, Oh, I don't want a relationship like that, who do you think is going to win? The 95%, no, this is what you deserve. This is all you know. This is what you know of a relationship. So guess what? This is all I know, so this is what you're gonna have.

10:12 SPEAKER_00: So it pre so, in spite of us, our better judgment of who we are, we the 95% is projecting an energy out. This is quantum science, and it matches that unresolved pattern of what we think a relationship should be, like in this example. And they draw those men, oh, and over again. That is, until with this work I'm doing, you can go to the root cause, clear that limiting pattern that originally started from that childhood that was dysfunctional, and then you clean the slate. Now the energy you project is completely different of what an ideal relationship is.

10:47 SPEAKER_00: Because when I would work with clients, suddenly I'd start clearing these imprints and patterns, and I'd say, follow up with me, what happens? The following week, they'd say, Deepa, I you won't believe this. I walked into a club and this these men came up to me, and they were the nicest, most friendliest men I've ever seen in my life. I've never seen men like that in my life. I'm thinking maybe I should get serious with them. And I said, Oh, hang on, hang on. We just started this work. Have fun, date, go out for dinner, dance, do whatever, but just hang with me.

11:16 SPEAKER_00: That's just our first station, train station that we went to. So I'd keep working with them, and the following week, oh my god, Deepak, this these people are these men are even many times better than the first time you you did the session. So, I know. Do you see what's possible now? They never had this their whole life. And then finally they'll get up to a place, Deepak, I think this man is my soulmate. And I'll say, I'll listen to his energy, uh, her talk about it. I'll say, Yeah, I think you're on the right track here.

11:41 SPEAKER_00: And I've worked with couples like that where that ended up being the case. So, but if had I not intervened, for example, and they repeated the same pattern that you're talking about, Cheryl, they would have kept repeating it over and over and over again. And maybe they would have given up on relationships altogether. This can go with not only relationships, this can go with you're trying to achieve a certain position in a company, going to higher levels, but you keep getting shot down by our own self-sabotage behavior.

12:06 SPEAKER_00: Self-sabotage means self-destructive patterns against ourselves. Subconscious doesn't want you to have success. No, you can't have that salary and that management level. I'm gonna squash you. So you end up doing destructive things that get you fired or demoted. Another person get goes up above you, and this happens over and over again. These are the kind of patterns that repeat, but they all came from your childhood originally.

12:27 SPEAKER_01: Okay. I'm very lucky because I've done a lot of work and I often, as you know, I'm a clinical hypnotherapist, and I've often gone back, visited my 12-year-old self. We review a lot of the situations that I experience as a child with my 12-year-old self. It's really interesting that, like you say, a lot of these things that we experience originate in childhood. We had a reaction to something, and it's almost like our mind remembered that situation, and then anytime it scanned the horizon, it seems that sort of situation again, it reverts back to those feelings that we have.

Shame Spirals And Stage Fright

13:13 SPEAKER_01: But I also know that lots of people have feelings of shame, and I know myself when I myself out that I was very ashamed. In fact, I was quite suicidal for a a while. And I mean, that was for me, that was a long time ago, that was like maybe 20 years ago. But I know that how do pe people deal with shame?

13:39 SPEAKER_00: Shame, guilt, regret, all of that. Yes. Basically, again, if you're if you go into a situation like usually the shame will come when they're triggered. By triggered, I mean they see some person or some event, and that immediately what happens is triggered means it takes you to an emotional response that you had from a time before that. Again, back to childhood. Uh, maybe when someone shamed you or told you you're nothing or worthless. It could have been your parents, not only teachers and parents, maybe both.

14:12 SPEAKER_00: So you're seeing someone on stage and you think, oh, I could never be like that. Who am I? Or if someone says, Can you go and speak on stage about what it's amazing what you experience you had? And then you go there and you're like, uh-uh-uh, and you go in your subconscious, it's going, oh, you should be ashamed of yourself. You don't deserve to speak in front of this audience. Who are you? No one's gonna care about you, which is probably the similar words or thoughts or sentiments that someone shared with you back in your childhood days.

14:39 SPEAKER_00: For sure it was. And then you're reverting back, or that's what I call getting triggered, to that same emotional trigger. And that's why suddenly our breathing speeds up, our heart rate speeds up, hands get sweaty, which is the same response we had back when we were a kid. So again, I talked about awareness. Now, when you're on stage, all that's happening. Maybe you can even in that fraction of a second just say, time out. I'm reacting to something from my past faster than you blink, you know, and it happens faster than you blink your eye.

15:07 SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna slow my breathing down. And when you slow your breathing down, your brain and subconscious follows your breath always. So it has to slow down, even if it doesn't want to, in that moment. And then you can say, time out, time out. I'm reacting to something from before. So that has nothing to do with who I am now, and I deserve to speak here. And you can kind of slow things down. Now, of course, you need to ultimately do a little deeper work to get to the root causes of the core of these emotions, but at least in that moment, or even if it's a one-on-one with someone you're uncomfortable with, you can ask that to yourself.

15:46 SPEAKER_00: And no one will even know you're doing this when you slow things down.

15:50 SPEAKER_01: No, no. I've been very fortunate, even though I haven't been a hypnotherapist for very long, just just over four years now, but I've I've been working, you know, mentoring and coaching for many years, and you've worked for many years as well.

Denial And What The Voice Reveals

16:09 SPEAKER_01: I'm just curious to know what still surprises you about the people that you work with?

16:16 SPEAKER_00: Well, I would call it the word denial. So, in other words, someone I used to see people in office, but now I'm able to I've been able to make this work completely remote through is from the comfort of their home. So I might be talking to someone. You know how everyone asks that question. So how are you doing? Oh, I'm doing great, right? It's a normal response. So I'll say to them, so how is everything going? Oh, Deepak, everything's going great. It's a bowl of cherries, everything's lovely. You see, but I listen to voices for a living, you see, and I can decode the subconscious, cannot hide the emotions that are shared from the voice.

16:51 SPEAKER_00: Because I have found, Cheryl, your voice is the most accurate, super accurate reflection of your subconscious thoughts. Even if you pass a lie detector, and some people have done that, they can't escape me on the emotions from the subconscious from with the voice. Nothing can hide from that. So, but in their voice I'll hear, oh, it's a bowl of cherries. I'll hear anger, rage, injustice, frustration. So I'll say, Well, I'm glad everything's a bowl of cherries. But do you mind sharing with me, since I do this for a living, what you're really angry or upset about?

17:24 SPEAKER_00: Oh, I didn't say I was upset anything about anything, Deepak. But it's okay. Go ahead and share with me. Okay, you want to know the truth, Deepak? I said, yeah. Well, my boyfriend just broke up with me just right before I came for this appointment. I had a flat tire about two weeks ago that I didn't expect, and my boss just fired me a week before that. And, you know, they go into all this other stuff, you know? Now they could have just told me up front, right? And that what's going on. But some people are in denial.

17:48 SPEAKER_00: And they may be also in denial because of society. You know, they're in a social status group or in a, oh, I've got to act like everything's fine because I gotta match up with the Joneses and the Smiths, you know. I've got to look like everything's going cool for me, even though it's not inside. They're not being true to themselves, which creates a disc incongruence, you know, how they act and how they were feeling is different in their energy. But one thing I can tell you, your voice will always tell the truth of what you're what's really going on, because that's what I do for a living.

18:19 SPEAKER_00: And but when you clear these limiting patterns, which is what I do with clients, your voice will also reflect that confidence, that courage, that optimism, which is genuine, without the baggage of those limiting emotional imprints that you had before.

A Kinder Question To Ask Yourself

18:32 SPEAKER_01: Okay. Now, before we go, I would like to ask you if there was one simple, compassionate question that someone who may be listening to this who knows that they get triggered by similar things, what would that question be that would help them? They could ask themselves.

18:55 SPEAKER_00: I would say this what do you love about yourself? What are the, you know, tell me the lovely aspects of yourself that no one ever has told you before. You know? And and because what it does is, I'm not what I could say, what are you afraid of and all that, which I could I would also do, but I'd say, tell me, you know, what is lovely about you? And oftentimes they'll be like, what what lovely about what? Their brain has to search because the subconscious, when you ask it a question as you know in your work, has to answer a question that's asked to it, correct?

19:29 SPEAKER_00: So when you ask a different, see what it is is you change the kind of questions you ask yourself and that I ask others. So the I hate myself, I am I'm a miserable person, life sucks, everything's going negative. I'll say, okay, really? Well, tell me some wonderful qualities about yourself. What? Yeah. Well, I mean, you're obviously very caring and compassionate with the people you take care of in your family. You're obviously, you know, very nurturing with your kids and even with pets and other things, right?

20:01 SPEAKER_00: You know, so those are beautiful qualities. Tell me more about that, you know. So basically it kind of creates a the subconscious is so used to thinking negatively all the time, right? It repeats the same pattern. I'm throwing a wrench in the machine, like a causing fireworks in it, and causing them to think in a different way that they never have before, to create new neural pathways of how they think about themselves. What is good about me? What wonderful things have I done in this world? How many people have I helped?

20:29 SPEAKER_00: What was the wonderful feeling I felt when I when I had a pet or when I even saw a beautiful flower? Right? You can ask these kinds of questions. How can you say, well, the flower was horrible? I mean, no one's gonna say that, right? You know, what was so beautiful about that that lovely garden you saw? Tell me all the beautiful things you saw there. How can they say something negative about that, right? So you ask questions that are guided to only generate a positive answer, which they have to answer in that way.

20:55 SPEAKER_00: And whenever you ask your subconscious a question, it has to answer, no matter what.

20:59 SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and isn't it interesting when you're saying that? Because we both know that your subconscious is, you know, even if you how many questions do you ask people and they say, I don't know, but you know, and I know that your subconscious is answering that question and continues to search for an answer sometimes days, even weeks after you've asked that question, because it wants to find the answer and it wants to find the positive intention for that question.

How To Find Deepak And Closing

21:30 SPEAKER_01: You know, Deepak, just before we go, how can people find out more about your work?

21:35 SPEAKER_00: That's a great question. So, what they can do is they can go to my website, which is fastanxietyhelp.com. So I'll spell that F-A-S-T-A-N-X-I-E-T-Y, H E L P help.com, and they can sign up for a complimentary 15-minute consult with me, no obligations, where I, in a Zoom call with you or phone call, will listen to all the challenges going on to your life, all the frustrations, all the upsets. And I will map out and customize a plan specifically for you of how we can take you from the challenging, upset place you are in now to a place of emotional freedom, joy, happiness, and peace in your life that you never thought you could ever experience before.

22:19 SPEAKER_00: And I will I will discuss that with you. Again, no obligations. That's what I recommend they do to go to that website. And they can also see all the testimonials of all the people I've worked with before. And I think that will really inspire them. They might connect with some of them as well.

22:32 SPEAKER_01: Cool. Deepat, I'd like to thank you for your time with me this afternoon. Thank you.

22:37 SPEAKER_00: It's a pleasure, Cheryl. Thank you.

22:39 SPEAKER_01: You know, if you take one small step from today's episode, let it be this. At some point today, I'd like you to pause and ask yourself, how am I actually doing right now? Not how productive you are, not trying to convince yourself that you're fine. Just how are you? You know, you don't have to overhaul your entire life, life from a day, which is always where the nonsense begins. Just one small piece of awareness is still a step. I want to thank you Deep for joining me today. You'll find all of DeepAt links in the show notes.

23:21 SPEAKER_01: I mean I'm always interested in feedback. So if you're interested in providing feedback or questions, if you want to ask me, just go to podcastfeedback.com forward slash works dressed on my team. And um I'll catch you soon. Bye for now.