EP.45: How Music & Human Design Guide Us Through Anxiety and Fear
Show Notes
What if I told you that fear isn't always the enemy? That it could, in fact, be one of your most powerful teachers, guiding you towards a holistic life.
I'll be sharing with you why and how the combination of music with human design is incredibly powerful for navigating anxiety and fear, especially for those of you who identify as introverts and creatives.
Let’s dive deep into the distinction between fear and anxiety, gain a clearer understanding of your own emotions, and explore the incredible role music plays in our lives.
Here are the highlights from this episode:
02:17 - Why music is a powerful tool for navigating anxiety and fear
03:52 - The difference between fear and anxiety
07:42 - The role of music in creating awareness and new experiences
13:57 - How to learn to navigate fear
15:26 - How to leverage your own music to befriend your fear
Check out these episodes about Human Design:
EP.34 - How to Rediscover Your True Self with Human Design
EP.36 - Unearthing Your Potential: A Dive Into Human Design's Energy Centres and Authorities
EP.38 - Your Unique Path: Understanding and Embracing Human Design Profiles
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About Me:
I help you lead with fearless authenticity by smashing the self-imposed heteronormative stereotypes that keep you playing small through emotional healing inner child and inherited intergenerational trauma. Create a purposeful life of your unique design by disrupting societal norms and expectations of who you should be. Explore mindfulness, fearless curiosity and loving kindness through the lens of Human Design to thrive as the person you are born to be.
Learn more about my coaching method and join my emotional healing, mindfulness, and music community at melissaindot.com.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] The biggest block for our life is fear, fear of the unknown. And the more we try to get rid of this fear, the bigger it gets. So how do we learn to navigate that? We learn to befriend our fears. And befriending our fears is about creating a safe space within our body, feel the fear, so that you can feel the fear and do it anyway, so that you can harvest the wisdom that the fear has within it. We can unlock it. We can't unlock it if we keep running away from it. If we are afraid of fear itself, How are we ever gonna access that within it?
[00:00:37] Hey there. Welcome to the Fearlessly Curious Podcast, your safe space to listen, lean in and learn the diversity of human experiences through the lens of fearless curiosity. When we learn more about each other we also learn more about ourselves. How? Because when we listen to each other's curiosities and experiences, we relate to that which is in common and that which sets us apart, gives us something to reflect on. We learn through and with each other. I'm grateful to you, the global community, for your curious questions. The Fearlessly Curious Podcast cannot exist without you.
[00:01:24] Welcome to another edition of the Fearlessly Curious Podcast with me, your host Melissa Indot. This this week I'm going to be sharing with you why and how the combination of music with human design is incredibly powerful for navigating anxiety and fear, particularly for those of you listening to identify as introverts, and also for those of you listening to identify as a creative, whether that means you're a painter, you're a content creator, you're an artist of any shape or form, you make music, basically anybody who has something on offer that they are creating.
[00:01:59] So, in the last couple of episodes throughout this series, I have been introducing you to the concept of human design. So rather than me repeating what human design is about, I am going to direct you to listen to previous episodes, and you will find that in the written information for this topic, which episode numbers to listen to.
[00:02:17] Now, why is music so powerful for navigating anxiety and fear with human design starts with this. In human design, fear essentially lives in a centre called a spleen centre. So you either have a defined spleen centre, which means that you have reliable access to energy that taps into sort of, taps into intuitive connection with survival instinct.
[00:02:44] The spleen centre is the most primal, the oldest part of our awareness. So it taps into what is needed to survive. So you could say it's tapped into fear itself. It's a powerful awareness to have. So when you have a defined spleen centre, it means that you have a reliable connection to what is required to survive.
[00:03:07] You have a reliable connection to fear that's going to keep you safe. But what if you have an undefined spleen centre? That simply means that you do not have a reliable source of energy to fire up that awareness. So it makes you vulnerable to other people's fears. So you're going to feel fear and it's not even going to be yours.
[00:03:29] So from the perspective of human design, first of all, knowing whether you have a defined spleen and an undefined spleen sets the tone of where your base level is at. Either you have a deep connection with fear response that gives you a sensory response to connecting with what is safe, what is safety, or you know that you have a vulnerability to being influenced by other people's fears.
[00:03:52] Once you've established that, We can then lean into the difference between anxiety and fear. So fear lives in the body, right? We have a physical response. We feel it. For some people, it's a racing heartbeat. For others, it's a cold sweat. We might notice that you don't breathe as broad or as deep. You might breathe faster, shortness of breath.
[00:04:16] Maybe you feel it in your belly, like butterflies in your stomach. And of course, there are the different responses to fear on a physical level. We have the freeze response, where you're literally frozen, you can't move. You have the flight response, where you want to run. We have the fawn response. which is a fairly new one, and that's when we negotiate our way out of a situation.
[00:04:40] And then, of course, we have the fight response where, when we're in fear, we get ready to battle for our survival. So fear lives in the body, we can say, on a physical level. And you can tune in to that, you can start observing when you feel fear, what does that look and feel like in your body. You might notice your pupils dilating, you might notice your sweat, as I mentioned earlier, faster heart rate, contraction in the stomach, maybe even contraction of your physicality.
[00:05:07] So start to notice how fear shows up in your body. It's a sign, it's telling you to pay attention. Anxiety, on the other hand, lives in the brain, it lives in your mind, it is when your thoughts are no longer in the present moment, you're already considering a worst case scenario and that is either drawn from an experience of the past that lives in your mind, a thought, a process, a memory, or it's also potentially drawn from what you've heard from other people, books you've read, stories you've heard on the radio.
[00:05:40] Narratives you've heard from other people relaying what their life experiences are, maybe from watching movies. And that takes us into a potential future that hasn't even happened yet. So you're no longer in the present. Either you're in the past, something that's happened, In an experience previously or in the future where you're contemplating something that could happen that hasn't happened yet.
[00:06:00] So that's the mind drawing you away from the present moment. So once we can identify whether, first of all, we are feeling anxious, we use the word feelings, because the thought of not being present, those thoughts that are keeping you from being present manifest, express itself in your body as fear. So once we establish that, we can get clear on what anxiety and what fear looks and feels like for you, and you can then track that to what are the activations or triggers, what is it that causes these responses in your body?
[00:06:34] Because we want to discern the difference between responding and reacting. When we respond, we are in our bodies, we are connected, and we can be decisive and consciously aware of what action we take next, in response to our fear and anxiety. We are empowered to have a responsibility, the ability to respond.
[00:07:00] That comes from a place of awareness. Taking note of what anxiety and care looks and feels like and what is it that activates or triggers them. Without awareness, without doing this experiment, without collecting data about ourselves, about you, we cannot create a safe space of awareness. And so what happens is we become reactive.
[00:07:23] We have anxiety, we have fear, and in that moment, in a panic, we just react. We react the very first thing. And that often comes from patterns of behaviour that we have already created within ourselves. Again, because we've observed it, or because through our lack of awareness. We go through a process that's already been tried and tested.
[00:07:42] We are basically functioning on autopilot. So, why is music particularly powerful in supporting us in navigating and creating these new experiences from a place of awareness? Is that music quietens the mind. Have you noticed, those of you out there, and if you haven't, I want you to experiment with this, when you are listening to music how many of you focus on the music itself?
[00:08:07] How many of you notice how you just drop into your body? You just go into a state of relaxation, whether you're listening to music or whether you hum a melody. And humming in and of itself is a beautiful technique and tool for your life toolbox of how to regulate your nervous system. Because as babies, when we were first sitting in our mother's room, the sounds of the world outside come through as frequency, come through as hums.
[00:08:36] And so that is creating an environment for ourselves from which we function. And mothers naturally hum and sing to their babies when they're holding them close. Sounds are frequency, and with intention, we can choose the right frequency and sounds to regulate our nervous system. Okay? So, when you are anxious, when you feel fear, I want you to go to your favourite music.
[00:09:05] And that could be anything, it could be, it doesn't matter what the genre is, it doesn't matter how it feels, doesn't matter if it's rock, pop, doesn't matter if the lyrics are sad, it doesn't matter if it's a big dance tune, whether it's classical, whether it's world music, whether it's just frequency, like maybe soundbolts, it doesn't matter what it is.
[00:09:23] Just go to a piece of music, a collection of frequencies, we call it music, and switch it on and listen to it while you are navigating, feeling that anxiety and fear, and start to notice what the vibrations of that music is doing for you. Music can become the sacred space holder for your powerful emotion of fear.
[00:09:46] With your anxious thoughts, when you listen to music, it can help get you out of your head and back into your body. It can support you in regulating your breath, depending on the rhythm and the pace of the music. If you like, it can function as a distraction, an intentional distraction. It can function as a pattern interrupt.
[00:10:06] So, you have a trigger. You identify what the trigger, what it is that activates your nervous system to fear and anxiety, and we can use music as what I call a key, a key that unlocks your freedom. Unlocks you from the shackles of your dysregulated nervous system that is activated by your fear. So when you feel fearful, it pulls you into a trap, it pulls you into a tight space, a room where you are completely dysregulated.
[00:10:36] Right, you're triggered, you're activated. You pick a song, and the song is the key that opens the door to your heart space. It opens you up to all sorts of possibilities again. Within the present moment in time, music helps you drop into your body, into the here and now, because my friends, all you have is the here and now, the past is gone, the future hasn't happened yet, and the minute that we can anchor ourselves in the present moment, we can connect with what is real and true in the now moment and respond accordingly.
[00:11:10] What is the appropriate action to take now, not based on something that happened three months ago and not based on a potential of a theory that might never happen. All these things live in our minds. When we move from our bodies, we are connected to life in the present moment. We employ, we connect with the infinite power and organisational skills of the universe and life itself to support us in responding to the moment in the most appropriate way.
[00:11:42] I'll summarise that a little bit for you. How and why music is a powerful tool to combine with human design in relation to anxiety and fear. And I use this with my clients when we learn to navigate fear. I literally support them in curating very specific playlists that journeys them through their fear.
[00:12:04] So we're not avoiding it. We're not pushing it away. We're not projecting it, and we're certainly not suppressing it. What we're doing is we are creating a sacred safe space to feel our fear, so that the charge, the powerful charge, can dissipate for only a couple of minutes. But as long as that charge is there, as long as we're attached to that charge, we are reactive.
[00:12:26] The minute we can observe the charge of fear, And we can allow it to dissipate and gain clarity on what the most appropriate response is. My invitation is for you to try it, and if you really, really want to go deeper with this, I am launching a new mini community within my community called Being Fearless, and I'm going to literally walk you through this process.
[00:12:48] It starts first with an e-book, which is free for you. An e-book with prompts. So you can go through yourself and a community that comes with it where you can share what your findings are. And I'm there. I'm there to support you as a community manager. And there's no strings attached. Along the way, if you want to go deeper, there's always an opportunity to go deeper, to get the playbook with an entire playlist.
[00:13:13] With Tender Masterclass, and if you really wanted to really expand your awareness on how to navigate fear, then there's always the coaching. Before anything at all, I want you to have this e-book. I want you to know that it is possible for you at a base level to be with your anxiety, to be with your fear, especially in this day and age.
[00:13:35] The multitude of information that's coming to us, and it can be so overwhelming, we can get so confused. We can feel, we mentioned it as introverts earlier, that, you know, we have something to say, but we don't know how to say it, or we're afraid to be seen, we're afraid to be judged, we have a fear of failure, we have a fear of judgement, and at the day, all those fears that we have for the world are fears that live within ourselves that we're projecting out.
[00:13:57] The biggest block for our life is fear. Fear of the unknown. And the more we try to get rid of this fear, the bigger it gets. So how do we learn to navigate that? We learn to befriend our fears, and befriending our fears... It's about creating a safe space within our body. Feel the fear, so that you can feel the fear and do it anyway.
[00:14:17] So that you can harvest the wisdom that the fear has. Within it, we can unlock it, but we can't unlock it if we keep running away from it. If we are afraid of fear itself, then how are we ever going to access the wisdom that's locked within it? So it means it can heal in the dark. It's a powerful combination.
[00:14:33] I had a client who has had debilitating anxiety for the majority of her life and was medicated for it. And after a series of sessions together, she hasn't got rid of her fear, hasn't got rid of anxiety. We're not here to get rid of stuff. We're here to learn how to be with ourselves. How to navigate these uncomfortable episodes, as we call them.
[00:14:53] And so now, when she has a flare up, she has the tool. She reaches into her toolbox, into her set of strategies that are designed specifically for her during these moments. She's learned to befriend her fear. She's learned to bring awareness to her anxiety so that she can live holistically. So that she's not living in survival mode, but she's noticing that her connection and her sensitivity to fear is something that is powerful and can be leveraged to her advantage.
[00:15:26] Like I said, don't fear fear itself. Let's befriend fear. And if you don't want to use your human design, but you want to learn about how to use music, or how to learn how to use music to be a vehicle, so that you can move through your fears, to learn how to leverage your own music to befriend your fear, use music to be a space holder for your fears, then you just need to reach out to me on any of my social media platforms, and we'll make sure that we get you that new book immediately.
[00:15:54] Until next time, my friends. If fear shows up, know that it is a wise part of you looking to take care of you, and there is a deep, deep wisdom locked within, waiting for you to access it. Stay Fearless and Curious, my friends, until next time.
[00:16:18] If you want more, make sure to subscribe so you never miss a new episode every Friday, and please leave a review if you enjoy this episode. Don't forget to send me your curious questions and experiences as inspiration for future episodes. Your anonymity will be respected if that's what you prefer.
[00:16:38] For more guidance and support, join my emotional healing, mindfulness, and music community over at melissaindot.com. See you next week!
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