Steep Your Soul

Relaxed Woman: On Navigating Worry Ep 71

• Annabelle Matson

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Do you ever find yourself caught in cycles of worry — replaying the same thoughts, feeling tense, and struggling to find peace?

In this episode of Relaxed Woman, we’re talking about how to navigate worry — because worry is one of the biggest things that gets in the way of living lightly and feeling calm.

We’ll talk about:

  • Why worry and peace can’t co-exist, and what to do when your mind won’t switch off
  • The two-step approach to managing worries: validating your feelings and reframing your thoughts
  • Simple belief statements you can use when fear keeps looping in your mind
  • How to release what feels too heavy to carry on your own

If worry has been taking up too much space in your life, this conversation will remind you that peace is possible — even in the middle of uncertainty.

✨ Resources mentioned:

Private Coaching - book in for an Initial Breakthrough Session or work with me in a 3 or 6 month program

Reclaim Your Calm $20 workshop

Visit my website

Instagram | Facebook

Submit a question for an upcoming episode.

Welcome to Relaxed Women, a nourishing series here on the podcast. Steep your Soul to help you slow down, soften your grip, and live from a place of deeper peace and trust. If you're tired from carrying it all, you are in the right place. Let's take a deep breath together and let's begin. This has been such a fun series to do. I've loved receiving your messages about the episodes and how they're speaking to you. I always love hearing from you, so please reach out to me. You'll find links below in the show notes you, you can contact me via my website or find me on social media, and there are other episodes you might not have listened to yet in this series, so I wanna encourage you to make your way through some of those as well. Any episodes you might've missed. In this episode, we are exploring how to navigate worry because worry and peace don't really go together. And if we want to live more lightly, it's something we need to know how to manage well. The mind does what it does, and for many of us, it's wired for overthinking and anxiousness, and we don't just wanna let the mind run on autopilot and feed us all the thoughts that it wants to. Everyone experiences worry though, and it doesn't mean something is wrong with you. It's simply what the mind does and what really matters is what we choose to do with those thoughts and that we do do something with those thoughts when they show up most of what the mind thinks is not helpful and will lead us to places that don't feel good. And don't create the best experiences for ourselves. We wanna make sure that we are not letting worries and fears go unchecked. The more they're allowed to swim around in your mind, the stronger they become and the more real they feel, the more real they feel, the more likely they are to hold us back from taking action and from experiencing the peace and the joy that we are made for. It's such a basic truth that we need to be reminded of, but if you are not feeling the way you want to in your life, if you feel off those feelings are based on thoughts that you are thinking. Now, that doesn't dismiss the challenge that might be in front of you right now, but it does point to the truth. All feelings stem from thoughts that you're thinking renewing your mind is a daily practice. Sometimes if I'm really working through something and fear or worry is very loud, I'm having to do this all day, and I just wanna normalize that sometimes renewing your mind looks like noticing a thought first thing in the morning and replacing it. And then having to do that again in the car and then again at lunchtime and then again at night. So it's not about perfection, but it is about choosing again and again what you want to believe when it comes to managing worry. I see it as a two part approach, and that's what I'm gonna talk to you about in this episode. Step one is validation. The first is validating the fears and worries that we are experiencing. A lot of the time what happens is we hear a thought or a fear, and then we judge ourselves for thinking that way. We think thoughts like, why do I keep thinking this way? Why can't I just think something different? I bet other people don't have thoughts like this, and we get really down on ourselves. A thought will not shift from you judging it, but it will shift from you bringing it closer, and this is what validation does. This is a key step that I teach every single client that I work with. We need to accept a thought before we can release it. Accepting it doesn't mean that you agree with it or that you even like having it. It simply means saying, okay. This is how I'm feeling in this moment. When you validate how you feel, the emotional charge, the strength behind that thought or fear or worry really begins to loosen up. I want you to think about what it's like when you go to meet a friend and there's something on your heart that's feeling really heavy. A situation that you are walking through in life and you go to share that with this friend, and it feels like a big thing to be sharing with them. And then all of a sudden, this friend comes back with a whole heap of steps and solutions. They tell you, this is what you need to do about this. You should take all of these actions. Think about how it feels in that moment. You might feel dismissed or invalidated in your feelings and you walk away not feeling any better, probably even worse. Now, that friend is likely coming from a place of wanting to help, and I've been that friend many times before. But the example really illustrates the importance of validation. If we sat across a table from a friend who was able to say, you know what? How you are feeling actually makes sense. You are moving through a lot right now. I imagine you would probably take a really big exhale. You don't often need steps and solutions. What we actually need is to have our feelings validated and the same goes for the relationship you have with yourself. If you are finding that you are looping around in the same fears, worries, and doubts all of the time, I can almost guarantee it's because on some level you are judging yourself for having those and you haven't yet validated the emotion. Here's an example of a parent cooking dinner. Mom or dad is standing at the stove and they've had a big day. There are a number of things going on in their head and their small child has built something on the floor and is saying, mom, dad, come over here and look at what I've done. They reply, Hey, I'll be there in a minute, and the more they put that request off, the louder the child becomes, this child comes over and it's pulling on their pants, and a tantrum is about to happen. But the moment they turn to that child and say, okay, show me what you've done, and they sit and they acknowledge it, the child then happily returns to play and mom or dad can go back to doing what they need to do. Side note, in theory, it should work this way. I know as a parent it doesn't always, but for purposes of this illustration, let's go with it. Your feelings are like the child in this illustration. The more you ignore them, the stronger and more intense they become. It's about bringing those feelings, those thoughts closer and validating them. So that sounds like it makes sense that I feel this way. I'm allowed to feel this way. This one is huge for people who felt like they were told off or shamed for having big feelings as a child. Validation. Sounds like I understand why I'm having these feelings right now, or I'm moving through something really big right now. I see why I feel this way. That's the first step of navigating worries and fears is bringing them closer by validating them. Step two is about reframing. The next step is to play a bit of whack-a-mole, and what I mean by that is you might remember like arcade games where a mole or something similar pops up from a hole and you take a mallet and you hit it as it appears. It sounds like a bit brutal, but sometimes this is what we need to do in our thought life. It's not about fighting your mind or being harsh with yourself. Think of it as a bit of a playful reminder when an old thought pops up, you get to notice it and gently replace it. We might be in quite a mental battle around something. And we've validated it, which we know is important. That's the soft approach. But those thoughts keep jumping up. This is where you need to see those thoughts come up and effectively whack them down. This is the mental discipline part of this process. So you hear that same worry come up and I'll say to myself, Nope, I'm not thinking that way today. This is what I'm choosing to believe instead, and I'll replace that thought with something that generates more peace or that is actually based in truth. For example, a big thing that's been happening for us this year was selling our house at auction and beginning a new build of a new house. And before the auction, my mind kept looping, it's so outta your control. Like, what if we don't sell? What if we don't get the price that we need? Until I finally caught myself and said, okay, hang on, I've already validated this. This is a big thing to be moving through. It's out of my control. I get why I'm having these thoughts and these feelings. I've validated it. I don't need to keep replaying it. What I'm choosing instead is trust. I'm trusting that there's going to be a good outcome here, and that shift gave me so much more peace because the stakes did feel quite high, and those thoughts would pop up for me throughout the day. So it was a process that I was having to move through quite often throughout the day, leading up to auction day. So it didn't really matter how many times the thoughts appeared. What it did matter though was what I chose to do with them when they showed up. So you wanna get to a place of reframing the way that you think, and I always encourage people to come up with one to two key, what I call belief statements. That capture how you actually want to be feeling. So you're aware of those old thoughts. They're probably quite loud. That worry is very loud and quite pronounced for you. But it's so important that we actually create a new thought to replace it with. Sounds simple, right? But this is often the part of the process that we are missing. So I suggest you coming up with one to two key belief statements. That capture how you want to feel that you're going to use to re reframe and replace those other thoughts. So here are some examples. I'm trusting that where I am right now is where I'm supposed to be, or I trust that everything is gonna work out here, even if I can't see all of the pieces yet, or I'm becoming more and more healthy and I'm moving at my own pace. One based in faith, I believe that God has got this for me and I'm choosing to trust him, or I'm choosing to believe that I'm good enough for this and that I can do it. There could be many different statements you could create based on your unique situation. So you wanna have a couple of key statements that are easily retrievable in your mind that you can use to reframe when the old thoughts come up. So the fear comes up, the worry comes up. Think of the whack-a-mole game. You go, oh, I see you, and no, I'm not thanking you. I replace you. So remember how we discussed right at the beginning. We don't want to allow fears and worries to go unchecked. We want to reframe them when they show up. And if you do this, you're gonna feel a million times better. Step three is about prayer. Now, this next step may not be for everyone, but if you're open to faith or exploring prayer, it can be one of the most powerful ways to navigate worry. There is such a limit to what we can do in our own strength as a human, but when we pray, we come out of the limitations of what we can do, and we access God's incredible power, his provision, and supernatural solutions that can only be found in him. Prayer isn't just about talking to God. It's also about handing over the weight. It becomes an exchange. We give God our worries in return. He gives us his peace so we don't have to carry the burden on our own shoulders anymore. Prayer doesn't always change our circumstances right away, but it always changes us. It shifts our perspective. It helps us see possibilities that we couldn't see before. It roots us in a deeper trust that we are not walking through life alone. And I think deep down, this is actually one of the biggest fears that we have as humans, is that we are here on our own doing life, but prayer really sinks us back up to this truth that we are not doing life alone, and that we are so supported with the things that we need. So it doesn't have to be complicated. You don't need fancy words or a set formula. It can be as simple as, God, here's what I'm worried about today, and I'm giving these things to you. Help me to trust you with it. And for those of you who are curious about prayer or exploring faith, I've created a free resource below. It's a downloadable ebook that shows you how to pray, what a prayer practice looks like, and it's also got lots of other great bits in there too. The link to download that is below. When we pray, we receive a piece that doesn't make sense, we can be moving through some of the most challenging of circumstances yet still experience peace. It's a a supernatural kind of peace. So if you're carrying something that's feeling heavy, don't carry it alone. Talk to God about it. Let him hold what feels too much for you, and that's where his peace really begins to fill you. So in summary, remember when worry rises, we wanna validate it and bring it closer. We want to reframe it by replacing it with a new thought. Then we wanna release it to God. That's how we keep stepping into peace. One thought at a time. So thank you for being here for this episode of Relaxed Women. My hope is that these conversations remind you that. You don't have to hold it all together on your own, that you can soften, you can breathe, and find a different way of living no matter what season you're in. If you'd like to go deeper, you may love my$20. Reclaim your Calm Workshop. It gives you simple, practical ways to quieten the mental noise, to release fears and doubts and worries. And live from a place of greater peace each day. Really simple practices. And you can find the link to that workshop in the show notes. And if you're in a place where you'd love more personal support, someone to walk alongside you with clear guidance and encouragement and practical tools. I also offer private coaching. It's the deepest way to work with me, and you'll find more details at the link in the show notes below. There are more episodes already waiting for you in this series and more to come. If a friend comes to mind who might need to hear this, I'd love for you to share the episode with them, and I can't wait to be with you again soon.