What if anxiety isn't trying to defeat us?
What if it's asking us a question?
In this Sound Bite, inspired by my recent conversation with Lisa Woodruff, I explore the role anxiety plays in our everyday lives—especially when we're trying to lead our homes, our work, and ourselves.
We often think of anxiety as something to eliminate. But perhaps anxiety is simply our mind trying to predict a future that hasn't happened yet.
Through a personal story, reflections on trust, hope, and faith, and insights from Brené Brown, Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation, and Lisa's concept of being the CEO of our households, I consider a different way to respond when uncertainty shows up.
Instead of asking,
"What if everything goes wrong?"
What if we asked,
"What is the next indicated step?"
In this episode we explore:
✨ Why anxiety is different from everyday stress
✨ How uncertainty fuels our "what if" thinking
✨ Why trying to control everything only creates more overwhelm
✨ What it really means to lead ourselves through uncertain times
✨ How trust grows from remembering what we've already survived
✨ Why hope, faith, and trust work together when life doesn't go according to plan
Because being the CEO of your life doesn't mean predicting every storm.
It means trusting yourself to lead through one.
Resources Mentioned
📘 The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt
📘 Brené Brown's work on emotions, vulnerability, and emotional literacy
🎙 Episode 307: Be the CEO of Your Home, Not Its Employee with Lisa Woodruff
Connect with Girl, Take the Lead!
🌐 https://girltaketheleadpod.com
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📺 Watch full episodes, Sound Bites, and the Threshold Series on YouTube.
Next Episode:
Join me for a conversation with Miriam Castilla, visionary business and money mentor, former engineer and finance professional, hypnotherapist, bestselling author, and international speaker.
Together we'll explore how to move from scarcity to abundance, overcome money shame, and develop a healthier wealth mindset by marrying the magical with the practical.
[00:00:07] Welcome to the Sound BITE, a reflection inspired by a recent conversation on Girl, Take the Lead!. I'm your host, Yolanda Canny. During my conversation with Lisa Woodruff, we mentioned something that stopped me in my tracks. She talked about the invisible work of running a household and how researchers often measure that invisible load through emotion, like anxiety. I realized we've talked about trust.
[00:00:37] We've talked about hope. We've talked about faith, but we've never really talked about anxiety. Maybe because most of us don't like admitting we feel it. Renee Brown reminds us that emotions carry information. They're not good or bad. They're data. Stress and anxiety aren't quite the same.
[00:01:04] Renee Brown, Stress usually has a source we can identify. A deadline, a flat tire, a difficult conversation. Anxiety often lives somewhere else. It lives in the stories we tell ourselves about tomorrow. Renee Brown, It's our mind trying to predict a future that hasn't happened yet.
[00:01:29] Renee Brown, Stress usually has a problem. I know that feeling really well. Years ago, while I was living in New York, my best friend Cindy and I planned a trip to Puerto Rico. Renee Brown, Neither of us had ever been there. Guess who started asking all the what if questions? What if we rented a car and we had an accident? What if we got lost? What if something terrible happened?
[00:01:53] Poor Cindy. By the time we landed, I had made her so anxious. She was looking around as if danger was waiting for us at the airport. And me, I was perfectly calm. Why? Because all of my worrying and having all that anxiety had been about the uncertainty.
[00:02:17] Once we arrived, there was nothing left to imagine. There was only the next step. That story still makes me smile because it reminds me how often anxiety wants us to solve problems that don't even exist yet. Jonathan Hate in the anxious generation suggests we've become overprotected in the real world and underprotected in the virtual one.
[00:02:46] Whether we're parents, grandparents, leaders are simply trying to navigate today's world. It is not surprising that anxiety feels like it's everywhere. Lisa's conversation added another layer. She reminded us that many of us are the CEOs of our households.
[00:03:09] We're expected to remember everything, plan everything, fix everything, know what to do when the washing machine breaks or the internet goes down because a squirrel decided your cable looked like lunch. Life happens. And here's the truth I'm learning. Being the CEO doesn't mean preventing every crisis.
[00:03:37] It means responding to the ones that come. Maybe anxiety isn't the opposite of trust. Maybe it's the invitation to practice trust. Trust isn't believing nothing difficult will happen. Trust is believing that when something does happen, you'll figure out the next step.
[00:04:06] Maybe that's where hope and faith come into. Hope reminds us that tomorrow can be different. And we can trust that we'll get through things. Faith carries with us when we can't see the outcome. And trust grows from remembering all the things we've already survived.
[00:04:32] So the next time anxiety shows up for you, instead of asking, what if everything goes wrong? Try asking, okay, so what is the next indicated step? Take that step. And the next one, breathe while you're doing it. Take that step. Because here's what I've come to believe. Being the CEO doesn't mean you can predict every storm.
[00:05:01] It means you've learned to trust yourself to lead through one. That's true in our homes. It's true in our work. And it's true in our lives. Anxiety may travel with us from time to time. But it doesn't have to take the wheel.
[00:05:27] Next time on Girl, Take the Lead!, I'm joined by Miriam Castilla. A visionary business and money mentor. Former engineer and finance professional. Hypnotherapist. Best-selling author and international speaker. Together we'll explore our relationship with money. Moving from scarcity to abundance. Overcoming money shame. And developing a healthier wealth mindset.
[00:05:56] By marrying the magical with the practical. I hope you'll join us. Until next time. Keep taking the lead in your own life. One intentional step at a time. Thanks. And bye.