Alchemy For Life

Anxiety for some can be a fairly dull but constant sensation of having to attend to a problem—a nagging feeling that you need to take care of something. This can be from the demands of your job, your responsibilities as a parent, a spouse, a parent or a combination of all of the above. For some, however, it can be an instant-on attack of intense feelings of fight or flight complete with rapid heart beat, and even sweats. It is the activation of the sympathetic nervous system over something you are aware of, or something you are not.

The reality of anxiety is that everyone experiences it in some form. The problem is that sopme people get activated by things they are not even aware of (this is addressed in the upcoming book BeCAUSE!) and because of that, like many things, they can be going through a very intense experience alone. Some people get overwhelmed easily. Others are reminded of their past and how they failed at similar tasks (this is addressed in the book Three Voices).

For a very long time I was of the mind set that people who experienced it were just…well, stressed. Being self employed, going through a diovoce and raising two kids on my own 100% responsibility had it’s moments of stress. But I never really thought I experienced anxiety. I tried to keep ducks in a row, and sort of knew where all the stress was coming from. It was fairly predictable some days, some days not so much.

If anything I would experience what felt like a biological fight or flight, but no accompanying thoughts. This attack of panic would make me go hmm at best, and sometimes I’d check and say “Nope, all good.” Sort of like just having too much coffee—the effects are felt, but there was no fighting or fleeing. But my stress could be your anxiety.

As I mention in BeCAUSE!, there is an underlying foundation of directives that have helped you and hindered you. These directives can certainly cause you to avoid something like the plague or move towards things that make you happy. And if you don’t lknow what’s causing it, then it just “happens out of nowhere.”

The first step is getting to the root, and interestingly, the root can be a smell from your childhood, the tone of voice someone uses, or an unfortunate avoidance of something most people would not—because you never developed the resiliency to deal with it. Something as simple as reframing a thought can help. Things like yoga, meditation or the over-used buzzword of “mindfulness” can actually help. Breaking things down into smaller componets (which is a lot of what the AFL coaching is about) can allow things to be in digestable bites. You can listen to this episode on the book Three Voices and this one about how our Second Voices talk to us and others.

Anxiety is represented by a lightning bolt because it can appear suddenly and be very intense. As with all the Psych Charms the icon was something I developed to be universal, easy to understand and color-independent. It can also represent something other than Anxiety. Whatever it speaks to you is your relationship with it.

Alternate meanings:

You can always go to alchemyfor.life/charms for the latest news on them and grab one, or two.

Remember, regardless of whether you grab a charm, you are seen. There are a lot of people out there quietly suffering, and I don’t like that. I want you to know you are seen.

Those are some crazy words. They’re fun and I like saying them. But what do they mean?

I have always enjoyed looking at things as a system. It was only relatively recently that I realized that was what I was doing. it was so natural and innate that I didn’t give it much thought. Previous to giving it that name, i thought I was just gamifying things—but that’s a different thing.

Seeing things as a system is passively viewing what is in place to understand the interconnectivity between the moving parts. It is understanding the system in plce and how it works.

Gamifying is taking a system, a process, a procedure, and then making it a game. Many years ago I created two pen and paper role playing games, designed, molded an d produced three 12 sided dice to handle skills and combat.

Gamifying is typically taking something in real life (usually something you want to accomplish, or something that’s mundane) and making it fun. You can gamify anything from getting your kids interested in doing chores, to creativity, to motivating employees, to exercising and losing weight.

Making a “game” out of something does not mean you disrespect the underlying seriousness of what you are trying to accomplish. On the contrary, gamification can be used for some of the most serious things in life. It is a way to enlarge texture, to see things more clearly, and to give things a shape that otherwise would have none.

This may not be a word, but it is now. iconization is my term for taking something and literally making a recognizable icon out of it. Sure, the icon for the messaging app is a speech bubble, the icon for file manager is a manilla folder, and the icon for TikTok is a musical note.

But what’s the ‘icon’ for autism?

Well, the puzzle piece came to be a representation of autism, as the person who originated it said it was a “puzzling affliction.” But that doesn’t go over too well with a lot of those in the autism community.

But what about anxiety? Depression? Hypersensitivity? Not everything has a symbol or an agreed-upon symbol. And some of the symbols are over-complicated and rely on a specific color (or colors).

I was at a cafe and noticed the girl behind the counter had a semicolon tattoo on her wrist. “Oh is that a writer thing? Are you a writer?”

She explained that it is the symbol for those who have been affected by suicide—whether personally or knowing someone who went through thoughts on the subject or who took the ultimate permanent solution. I was taken aback in my blissful ignorance.

It was a way for her to be reminded, comforted, and was a talking point for those she interacted with.

But not everyone gets a tattoo. So I got to thinking… What if there was a way for you to carry a tiny reminder of something like that with you? What if you could be reminded and comforted? What if there was something that you could look at that told you it was ok to be different, that your sensitivity to sound might not be shared or understood by others and it would give you more stamina to be tolerant? What if it reminded you that with the downs eventually come the ups? That your ADHD gives you a million ideas but picking one might be a challenge, and that’s OK.

So I created little colorful charms that you can put on your keychain. They range from Anxiety to ADHD to Dyslexia to just being a very positive person. And yes, I included the semicolon.

Some of these psychological states of being either don’t have an icon that goes with it, or has a symbol that is too complex or color-dependant or don’t have one at all.

So I invented a few. And I’ve created them in different colors, which is one of the advantages of not having a color-dependent symbol.

I’m going to focus on one for each episode. I have touched on some of these states of being in the past, but this will be a series that you can follow along with.

I hope you enjoy the episodes, the charms, and truly feel that you are seen.

Because you are.

Are you creative? No matter what your job, career or calling is, no matter what hobbies you have or do not, you have creativity.

What if we treat it as a separate skill? What happens then?

You’ll be amazed.

Join our free community at patreon to talk about it.

This is something I have said for a very long time. Once I learned that this was one of my core directives it all made sense. But what does that mean, and how can that help you?

Let’s talk about the systems in your life.

What happened when you became aware of a system? Did it change your life? Did you change jobs? Let’s talk!

😎 NOTE: The members of the AFL Patreon Community heard this episode last week. They get them a week early. You can too. Join it for free!

The term ADHD gets thrown around a lot. People use it for everything to describe an actual condition in which someone cannot concentrate, to being easily distracted, to having bouts of hyperfocus.

Do you tell people you have ADHD? Do you use it to explain why you got distracted? Do you yell “Squirrel” and then laugh?

We have data coming at us in every form that we have a sense—sights, sounds, smells. Even taste and touch. Then add emotion to that as well, and we have to sort through all of that to make sense of it. Our Second Voice and memories play a part in this as well. You encounter something that triggers a memory and now you are dealing with the new data as well as the old data of the memory that just popped up.

Its the sorting and making sense that can cause fatigue and a sense of being overwhelmed—and can even cause us to shut down.

If you try to push back on this data—on the things and people providing this data, it’s likely you will be called “sensitive” or “over-sensitive.” You will be told to just suck it up and deal with it. After all, nobody else is complaining that the music is too loud, or that the cleaning solution smell is making them sick. Everyone else has to deal with the requests from people who want services like yours and just sort through it, right?

Well, no. Have you ever noticed that people who are highly specialized (and usually highly paid) don’t put up with that? Shark Tank (and its counterparts like Dragon’s Den) is notorious for the millionaires that want a quick pitch and they will speak up—arguably rather rudely—if you are speaking too slowly, or not relaying the correct information. They have no time for incorrect data or data being presented incorrectly.

If you see a doctor—especially a specialist—they will coral and sometimes coerce you into telling them the issue quickly. They too will cut you off and will not spend too long listening. After all they are important, and highly skilled, and next!

If you are in the service industry (meaning what you sell is a service—anything from painting to coaching to real estate to insurance to forms of consulting—then you probably spend an enormous amount of effort trying to get your prospects and clients to communicate to you in a way that makes it easy for your brain to sort through the data. You may even have a formula or a sheet.

For Alchemy for Life™ coaching I created the Balance Sheet which allows people to fill it out and separate their activities into five facets, which I then take to map things out. Without the sheet it would be a very long question and answer session corralling and herding the person and their thoughts into something cohesive.

Everyone eventually ends up with this kind of funnel, and I’m not even talking about the venerable ‘sales funnel.’

Your perception is your ability to detect and find this data. Your reasoning is your ability to make sense of this. What we are talking about so far is your perception. How you manage this input of data can determine whether you become overwhelmed or no, whether you become distracted or not, and whether you are able to provide the proper information to your brain.

So don’t beat yourself up for having this extra data. Adjust accordingly and those that honor that will get it.

It’s time. After all these episodes, books, coaching, and articles, it’s time to approach this differently and give us a better way to connect with each other.
We both deserve it.

Believe it or not this episode touches on and doubt, more experimental, psychology, and the holy Grail of positivity bias. All because your friend wants you to help him move a piano.

This particular exercise involves elements of the placebo effect, and something called Cognitive Distortion (not cognitive dissonance).

You are now part of the birth of a new genre—engagement fiction. I know it’s new because I just made it up.

If you’re a type a personality*, then you probably enjoy your brain being fully engaged for your work. But when it comes time for play, you may not really be feeding your brain the same kind of engagement without the stress.

People like this are not really satisfied with standard pursuits all the time. Sure they enjoy a mindless movie or show now and then but there’s usually something missing. They can’t seem to feed their brain that fun engagement without the stress.

Well, I have a solution and it’s based off of a conversation I just had with someone who is reading
The Sword and the Sunflower.

Listen to the ten minute podcast. And let me know what you think!

* This also applies if you have ADHD, anxiety or are easily bored.

All books by Mark Bradford

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You’re probably selfish for a good reason. If not, your definition of selfishness is what’s stopping you from taking care of yourself properly. This is not about self-care and self-love. It’s about something entirely different.

You might be giving too much power to something in your life, just because you gave it a LABEL.

See labels for more on labels in: If you use them you’ll get smarter (or dumber)