How to Manage Anxiety and Fear on the Golf Course with Jill Howell

All golfers deal with anxiety and fear at some point on the golf course. Some golfers struggle with these emotional states more than others. 

Golf, however, does not produce anxiety or fear, it exposes it. 
It exposes a state of our nervous system that we deal with in our day to day lives. 

In this episode, Jill Howell, an emotional health coach, explains what is actually happening when you experience anxiety. 

She also share some useful tools that you can take to the course to help you manage the anxiety and fear that shows up and interferes with your performance on the course.

If you want to download Jill's 10 easy ways to Relieve Anxiety and Overwhelm, had to KathyHartWood.com/CALM

Master Your Golf Brain at MyMentalCaddy.com
Receive free weekly mental golf tips HERE

How many shots is your mental golf costing you?
Take the quiz here: quiz.mymentalcaddy.com

Continue your mental journey at Your Mental Caddy HERE

Mastering Your Golf Brain - A Guide to Self-Coaching

Mastering Your Golf Brain - The Workbook

Mental Golf Journal - A Range for Your Brain

Are all available at KathyHartWood.com/book

Email Kathy at Kathy@KathyHartWood.com

Website: KathyHartWood.com

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Jill podcast

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Above Par. I'm your host, Kathy Hartwood. I show you how to take more of your talent to the golf course without practicing harder, taking more lessons, or buying new equipment. I show you how to end the frustration of underperforming so you can start playing to your potential. This is where you are going to learn how to think above par so you can play below par. Let's get to it. So hello my girlfriends. How are you? I have a special podcast today. I have a special guest on. Her name is Jill Howell, and I have her on to bring a different perspective and angle and some tools to help you manage your anxiety, understand anxiety and fear and our emotional health on a deeper level and how it affects your golf game, how maybe you notice it more on the golf course. And she's going to explain it from her angle on something that she's an expert in. And then she's going to give us some tools that you can use on the golf course to help you with some fear and anxiety to get you back to that state of being calm or certain or confident so that you can play your best golf. So I hope you enjoy this podcast as I talk to my friend Jill, who shares with us her expertise and how we can apply it to our golf. All right, let's get to it. So, hey, Jill. I'm so glad that you're here. This is Jill Howell, and she is an emotional health coach. And I wanted to have you on to talk about maybe a different element that'll help people perform better, understand themselves, or tap into different ways that they can perform better, but also feel better on the golf course. And I know you have so much great intel and you come at it from a different angle. And I love sharing that with the people in my group. And I wanted to have you on because I love what you do and I think it's so cool. And it just really adds to what I talk about relative to the game. So before we get started, I start asking you a bunch of questions. Why don't you just tell people in general what you do?

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Sure. So yeah, in basic terms, I'm an emotional health coach. In more defined layers, I'm really an embodiment coach. I'm a trauma recovery coach. I'm a somatic healing coach. Um, I can, you can throw a lot of different titles on me because what I use in my healing practices as a coach is integrative. I'd use a lot of integrative emotional healing modalities. So I'm an EFT tapping practitioner. I'm an NLP practitioner. Like I have a lot of different skill sets because I like to intertwine them. Because for me and my own personal healing journey, I needed a variety. It wasn't a one size fits all approach of healing. I needed to learn how to heal my body and my nervous system in different ways. Okay. So yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

I know there are a lot, I'm familiar with a lot of those. But the thing is, is that relative to golfers and the way that I coach, I run into a lot of people who just have, let's say, anxiety or fear on the golf course. That becomes a big one for a lot of people. And I talk about the connection between your thoughts and your emotions. And you come at it a little bit differently. And I talk about the other thing is I talk about how we do one, when we do one thing, we do everything, meaning you're going to take your ability to manage your mind and you're going to take the anxiety that you have off of the golf course on the golf course. What happens for a lot of people is that once they go out there and play, it kind of heightens it, it brings it to the surface, it makes it more um palpable, so to speak, where they might be able to hide it a little bit more off the golf course or not deal with it. This is what people, you know, are um one of the things that happens with golfers specifically is that I say that golf has a tendency to reveal yourself to you. It reveals more of your anxiety and your fears and your ability to manage all of it. It exposes that. And so you and I talking a little bit before this, you talked about how anxiety isn't necessarily something. Let me preface this by saying, I do say that anxiety isn't created by anything on the golf course. It's not necessarily that someone has a bad golf shot or they have their, there's water out there. It's something we deal with is an emotion that we deal with. It's not from a thing, it's it comes from inside of us, not outside of us. So, what do you have to say about where anxiety is coming from for most people?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

So anxiety mostly comes from the body. In my perspective, and in my training and education and experience, you know, the vagus nerve runs from our brain down to our gut and it's a wandering nerve. It's the largest, longest cranial nerve that we have. And 80% of all information is coming from that nerve throughout the body up to the brain for the brain to interpret. So only 20% is vice versa. So really, anxiety is body alarm. The body is detecting threat, it's scared, there's some fear, and most of the time that is deeply rooted in our belief systems and the stories that we have in our in our mind that have evolved from our childhood experiences. All of those experiences when we were out of control and we had no say in our life and in our world, and we were just, you know, surviving. I mean, really, we we created a lot of survival coping mechanisms. And one of them is that the body remembers all of that. And so as we grow and evolve and get older, we we stack on decades of different experiences that have caused any emotional pain that the body still remembers. And so, say, for example, like if you were to have a really bad day or you're having emotional stress with a relationship in your life, if you have any of that and you're carrying it onto the golf course, it's going to affect your golf, you know, your golfing. It's the same for business. It in anything that you do, if those things are not tended to well, and they're not resolved and they're not reconciled, and the body doesn't feel at peace. And if there's a conflict between the mind and the body, in what so, like this is why affirmations can sometimes be hard because if your mind is wanting to think one thing, but the body still feels and is experiencing another thing, and it it's really living by this one storyline that is like strapped, really, like inside the body in the nervous system and keeping that feeling of anxious energy in there, then it's gonna, it's gonna affect your golf swing. It's gonna affect your play. Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

I talk about that too. It's like the it's or the affirmation just doesn't work. And so it's becomes wasted air. You know, I did that a lot with my golf in different areas of my life, is that, you know, I used to tell myself, no, I'm a really great golf or putter, you know, I'm a great putter. I'd repeat it over and over again. And I just never made the connection. It didn't resonate with me, right? I I tell people, I'm like, you got to get a pulse at least. You got to feel it when you have a mantra or an affirmation or you want to have some thoughts because you need that connection between your mind and your body for it to really take root or have any effect or belief to it, right? If you're fighting it internally, you want to get to uh finding some things mentally to think about that at least you have some pulse that you can feel. I think that when you go on a golf course, people, it shows up much faster. Like a lot of times people can have anxiety off the golf course and either think it's normal or they can, I call it buffer, they can buffer around it and ignore it, right? And they ignore it for a while, but golf exposes it, or they just become so uncomfortable or miserable. Like, how do you find that it rears its head? Because everybody does experience some of this. Um, like you said, but how do you find it rears its head for most people off of the golf course?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

I mean, off of the golf course, you're right. You said something really important is the fact that most people want to repress, ignore, dismiss, and and really think that they don't have trauma, they don't have anxiety, they don't have depression. But the crazy thing is, like education is a first start, right? Of recognizing that the nervous system really a human, every human being goes through activation and deactivation in their nervous system all day long. It's like riding waves in the ocean. And we all will go through the state of fight or flight, which is anxiety, or freeze, which is depression. All day long, we have little moments, little micro moments all day long of our nervous system doing this. We don't want to admit that that's what's happening, or maybe we just don't know. And some of it's just knowledge, lack of knowledge, but understanding that all day long we are experiencing some measure of anxiety, like we do. And that's just energetic activation. And we put such a stigma on that word and on the words of anxiety and especially depression. But the crazy and funny thing to me is that, like, if somebody is even willing to admit that they have anxiety, they also sometimes have depression because that's what the nervous system does. The nervous system in anxiety is like going fight or flight, fight or flight, fight or flight. Do I move? Do I stay? What do I do? How do I go? Like it's it's feeling scared in some sort of way and it's panicking, trying to figure out how do I move through this?

unknown 9:20

Uh right.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

So on a normal level, uh, we're experiencing it most of the time before we even do anything that's unfamiliar, anything that's new, especially. Our nervous system does not feel safe to do new things because it's not familiar. The brain loves familiarity. Yeah. And so what happens is we have this neuropathway of fear, or we have this neural pathway of what's familiar, and we have to start to create new neuropathways, right? And that is where embodiment and meditation and visualization can really help to create a new neuropathway in the brain so that the brain can help the body also, they can work in conjunction together to help physiologically and energetically move towards a new direction of thinking, a new direction of being and existing.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

So that's so interesting because when we're on the golf course, and I talk about this all the time, is our brain perceives so many. I don't even know if you play golf. Do you play golf? No.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

I I do, I tinker with it. Okay. I don't have golf shoes, but I have my own clubs. Okay, hey, that's a start.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

As long as if I say the word putting, you know what I'm talking about, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:32

I do, I do. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

You bought them at a garage sale, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

For like 20 bucks. And they were the right size. And I'm like, I can't pass it up. Yeah, they're probably like my husband, and we go like maybe once a year, and I'm willing to go out there.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Yeah, they're probably like circa 1980 old, like antiquated clubs, but hey, they work right now. Yeah, that's I go in a golf. That's great. Ignorance is bliss on that part. Like, I have clubs, right? I have clubs. Yeah. Okay. So this is what happens when we go out on the golf course is that our brain goes into fight or flight all the time because what it sees as a golfer who cares about their results, not a golfer who's out playing recreational golfer once a once a year. You might be going, like, why is this a problem? I can't even believe you're talking about this. But most of the people are listening to this, they care about their golf, they care about the results. It's a big part of their life. And so when they go on the golf course, all they see is danger. There's water and there's out of bounds, and there's people watching them, and there's mishit shots, and there's a score that at the end of the round, if the score isn't what they want, they're going to beat the heck out of themselves, which also can create some danger, right? So we are constantly exposed to a lot of elements that do put us into fight or flight. And we become at the effect of them if we don't know how to manage that. That's where I like I really talk about and I help people coach coach themselves on. I do run into people who are just constantly, it's very challenging for them to calm their nervous system down on purpose. And I think a lot of that work happens off of the golf course first. It's like it's very hard in the moment because when we're playing golf, things are moving quickly and we don't necessarily have the time to get calm our nervous system down. You know, I do talk about that, getting our parasympathetic sympathetic nervous system into what I call the center of the house because when we're there, we can move freely, our body moves like this this anxiety and the any other negative emotion really shows up in our body that keeps us from moving it freely, which then we don't play to our potential. We're in our own way. So we we want to move our body freely to be able to play our best golf and we want to think clearly because also when we're in fight or flight, right? We don't think very clearly. We're just not very present and it's hard to focus a lot of times. So, what are some things? What are some tools? And I know you mentioned a few of them that people can use off of the golf course so that they can start calming their nervous system down a little bit, or just even, you know, I talk a lot of times about how your first step is awareness. People sometimes don't know this is their normal, is just what you said, this like constant thing of up and down, or even heightened, right? And they might not even be aware or think that there are options that they can actually live a little bit more calmer life. So, what are some things that people could do off of the golf course that then when they go on the golf course, it's easier for them. That would be my think, my thought on it, that'd be easier for them to calm themselves down.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yeah. Yeah. Um, and that's a really good question. And I would say that um, like I said, I come from at come at it from a holistic approach. And so I have a whole lot of different strategies I would encourage. Um, visualization of helping the brain in advance to see yourself actually being able to do the things you're wanting to do on the golf course. Literally closing down the eyes because when our eyes are open, our cognitive brain is whoo, it's it's alive. But when we close the eyes down, we actually can come back into the body a little bit more. And so oftentimes when I'm doing any meditation or visualization experience, my hand is on my chest, connected with the body, letting the body know I'm present and we are connected. Like because we live so much from up here in our brain. Our brains are so dominant, and we're not really taught how to live from the body perspective. We're not really taught how to help that nervous system at a body level to calm down. It's not taught in schools, it's not taught in homes, you know, for most people. This is a newer thing that is opening up, I think, in the

Marker

SPEAKER_00 14:35

world. So, what do all humans want? They want to feel seen, uh, heard, understood, uh, accepted, uh, you know, those are like our basic needs that we all have. And most, many of us didn't get those needs met in childhood because the generations before us did not have the emotional intelligence, did not have the skills, the resources, they were not equipped to help guide us in our nervous systems to that state, back to that state of peace, to calm. So any of their fight or flight energy and freeze energy was constantly being like emulated, and our bodies were coinciding with it, right? Like we were becoming

Marker

SPEAKER_00 15:19

no, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

I coach on all of that, you know, trying to find different ways of keeping your or creating safety for yourself is such a big thing. I love putting your hand on your heart. I tell people sometimes just to even put their hands underneath their armpits and just give yourself a squeeze, your uh your body a squeeze just to slow yourself down or to reduce that anxiety when you're on the golf course. Because when we're out there, things move quickly, right? We don't have a whole lot of time. We can't go sit underneath a tree and get in a yoga pose, right? And do yeah, so if we don't have time to do that, we'll get a slow play penalty, right? So we got to move pretty quickly. That's why I think it's it's so useful. And what you do is helping people like you know, take the temperature down, have the tools off of the golf course. So when they go on the golf course, it's not as jacked up, so to speak, right? So that they're out there struggling. The other thing that you, when you talked about that, is um it's I think a lot of people have a stigma about thinking that they're broken in some way, especially in the golf community. Like there's something wrong with them, that you know, I'm just anxious and it's a problem. And then they try and not be anxious, right? They push it away, or that they have a they have a challenging time managing a lot of what they're feeling on the golf course. And just like you said, we're not taught it, but I always am telling people you're not broken, you just have a human brain and a human body doing its things. And what would you say to that?

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Oh, yeah, heck yeah. That's what I say too. It's like, I'm trying to normalize humaning. What is it like to be a human? It means that we have a part of us that's anxious that comes on board, this part of us that's scared or about something. And then what happens is then we have another part of us that comes on board, and this part is shaming us for feeling scared. Okay, or like for sure, or or we feel anxious, then another part comes on that's angry, and then another part comes on and shames us. And so then we have this turmoil inside of us that's happening, and there's these different parts of us that are in conflict with each other. And so a lot of what I do is actually called parts work. It's based in IFS therapy, it's internal family systems, and it's helping these parts of us to become at peace with each other, to really be like uh blended in a peaceful state and in harmony so that they're not fighting each other because really all of these parts are protectors or managers. They're trying to help serve us in some way. And that shame voice, though, once that shame voice comes on, that's when we feel stuck. When that shame comes on board, we shut down, we feel defeated, we feel like we suck, we feel broken because we can't stop the cycle of the fear because we don't know how to. We don't have the tools to. And so that's just it. It's like you're not broken, you just don't have the tools, you haven't learned them yet. And these are skills.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Yes, yes. I yes, 100%. I love all of that. Shame is such a big part of golf. I mean, it's they're just it's just connected people like the golf language is I suck, you know, or I'm not good enough. And we compare ourselves to other people, we worry about what other people think. So we're constantly in this mode of shaming ourselves relative to the game of golf. So there are so many layers. I say when you go out and play golf, you expose yourself or you or you're you're putting yourself in in the realm of experiencing all these emotions that you might be able to avoid otherwise off of the golf course. And when we don't have the skills, then we're at the effect of it, right? Then it's like instead of us feeling like we have some agency over it, right? We feel like we're a little bit out of control. So, what are some things that you would suggest to folks, folks? That word comes out like maybe once every three months, but there it is, folks. What would you um what would you say would be some effective things for golfers specifically to help them? What is would be the first step? Getting in touch with their where they are in their nervous system. I talk about how I think a lot of people, some I was this way for sure, very detached from how I felt. I just shoved all my emotions aside. I wasn't aware of it. If you told me how you're feeling, I'd be everything's fine, like all the time fine, until it got so big that it's like it was like knocked me upside the head. So on a daily basis, one of the things that I've gotten really, really good at is getting in touch with my emotions and how they feel. I can feel them on a, you know, change throughout the day. And I just get very curious about it. But it took me some time to do that. It's helped me relative to golf because now I can create emotions on purpose and I can manage ones that I don't care for or don't serve me. So, what do you think that's the first step for people? Is just really getting in touch with what they're feeling.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Awareness is the first step. Education is right there with it. So when I'm working with a client one-on-one, that's where we're starting. We're starting with an emotion wheel and looking at the emotion wheel and actually being able to put words to what we're feeling and experiencing because that's pretty normal. Most people live fairly disconnected from themselves because they don't know what to do with the emotions when they come. And so we it's easier to numb out, disconnect, throw them under the rug, ignore them, try to move on. Unfortunately, though, especially if we've had any trauma, any level of traumatic stress, any type of, you know, emotional distress that really was um impactful in our bodies and in our minds, like those things are still remembered. So I, you know, we start there with just the awareness piece, but then we quickly, you know, begin to move into creating that safety for the body and the emotions, communicating with the emotions, accepting the emotions, allowing them to exist, being learning how to be present with them. I call it holding space, holding space for what is really present without judgment. Yeah, without us judging it, without us criticizing ourselves. Because what happens is my really my journey is all about helping women, because I work a lot with women, helping women turn towards themselves because we've lived when we're feeling disconnected and disassociated from ourselves and we're not able to even see it, we are turning against ourselves. We are being like, ah, I can't handle it's too much. And we just kind of disconnect as a survival coping strategy. But really, it's all about turning back to ourselves with compassion. And I love that you said the word with curiosity. Compassion, curiosity and recognizing by getting equipped with some tools that we have choice. We have choices. A lot of times when we feel stuck, we Like we don't have a choice, we don't know what to do. There's nothing to do but to grin and bear it. And so on the golf course, yeah, you're out there and you're like, I gotta make it through. I can't stop right now. And then it feels even more heightened. That activation, that energy that's feeling anxious and scared, or overwhelmed, or wants to shut down, is like it intensifies when we feel stuck. Like it's out of our control. We can't just walk away.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Yeah. And you know, we talk a lot of the same language. I coach on exactly that, like first awareness and then dealing with emotions and not being afraid of emotions

Marker

SPEAKER_01 22:34

um and how to, you know, allow them to be there. You use different modalities than I do. That's why I love to I love having you on to offer different

Marker

SPEAKER_01 22:41

things to people. But one of the things that I do find a lot of people are afraid of is that once they experience, if they allow themselves to experience emotion, then it takes over and they're out of control. So they have to keep, they have to keep it like with reins on or like contained inside a little like mason jar. So what is the what would you tell someone who feels like if I experience that emotion, it's just gonna be too much for me and overwhelming and I can't do it. So I'd rather stick it in the closet.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Yeah, I love that. I love that you just used the analogy of a mason jar. Oh like just yeah, that's it. And it's like if we open it up a little bit, ooh, it's gonna be too much. That's every human has that fear. And that's so what I'm helping people do is do it in small steps. And one of the key things for the nervous system is that we we know how to guide the nervous system back to a state of peace and ease. So at the very beginning of my coaching journey, I'm helping my clients to create a list of tools and resources, uh, things that help them come back into a state of that parasympathetic state of existence, that green ventral bagel energy, which means anything that helps you to feel calm, connected, you know, resourced, grounded, um, able to think clearly, you feel just an ease and a flow. And so some of it are things people already are doing. For some people, that's like an artistic expression. Some people it's walking in nature, some people it's doing some sort of exercise class, you know, doing some of these or a hot bath, you know, or some people it's a cup of tea or a cup of coffee or something warm, um, or scents like lavender and all these things. So we create a list of what's already in their life that makes them feel good and feel really at peace inside. But then I expand upon that list with a lot of tools and resources that help the body to come down and extra levels. You said one of them, you know, one of them is like a self-containment hug. And I do it a little bit differently. I actually put my right hand under my left armpit and my other arm goes on the outside, and it feels tighter and snugger and safer. Okay. That's one. Awesome. I know you were looking for resources like for even just on the golf course.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Yeah, you know, it's like someone doesn't have time to like, you know, after they hit a bad shot, say, you can just a moment, I'm gonna take a bath, right? Or I'm gonna have a cup of hot tea, which I love those off of the golf course. So we've got it. That's the thing that I think people feel like uh a little freaked out about. I'm gonna say, is that we just we need something at the moment, some tools to help us just calm ourselves, get back to calm.

Marker

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Yes. Yeah. I I always say there's no, there's no bad emotion. Um, I know I said I call them negative and positive just for the sake of the way that I do the coaching. Yeah, yeah. But there's no bad emotion. And I think our fear a lot of times is in experiencing emotions. Like we're not really afraid of getting physically hurt, especially relative to golf um anymore, but we fear feeling shame or feeling disappointment or feeling rejection or embarrassment, right? And so when we can make those emotions or experiences because we feel like if we're gonna experience them, that we're gonna be out of control. It's something that it's gonna be just so horrible and painful that we're not gonna be able to come back from it. I think that's a beautiful example. You're like you can go in and start realizing that there's not really anything to fear. And when we can take that fear away, our nervous system will also get a little bit settled when we're out on the golf course because it's not afraid, right? If we're afraid, we're not safe. It can be afraid of even just having those emotions. But I think the thing I love the the way that you um adjusted the hug part. I mean, I think that that's probably way more useful than my little armpit one. That's more like that. What is that actress that like goes and smells her fingertips? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Yeah, it's from Saturday Night Live. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Yes. I've done I've done that, I've done that move a couple of times at parties.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Um I know you really wanted your your people to have a few resources even on the golf course. I know that was important to you. So there's a couple things that I've been thinking of too. Um, that I try to teach my clients um how to do things incognito in the moment when the anxiety is rising and they can't. Like I teach them skills, obviously, to do to help the nervous system calm outside of any distressing experience. But we have to have some tools too for during. Um, some of them, like the hug, like anybody can stand just like this, and nobody would think of anything of it because it's so close to like kind of just going like this. Crossing your arms. I'm just gonna say, because people can't so close, it's so close to that. And you can even do that, but just hold a little tighter, you know, for a second.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Um, so basically she's doing crossing her arms, like versus like crossing your arms like you're kind of ticked off at somebody, but put one arm underneath your armpit, one on the outside, and then just you can give yourself a squeeze and no one would know. Yeah, I love that. Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

The other one is um literally energetically, energy can get stuck in our body. Um, that's when we're in fight flyer freeze and we're stuck in those nervous system states. Um, you know, in in the moment, if we can't truly address the emotional roots of it, we can do things like shaking it up.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Like so when you're walking, you know, or going to the golf cart or walking to the next, you know, part of the course, just shaking your hands, like shaking, shaking it out. Um, I do a lot of somatic shaking, even when I'm energetically just feeling meh, like when I feel blah or I feel like sluggish, or I'm feeling like my energy starting to drain. I do some things to help activate the energy inside of my body and let let it flow a little bit. Um, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

That's a good one. That one, like that one can be discreet. People, you know, they're out there doing some crazy dance moves. It might be a little bit more um, you know, yeah. The other thing is, but you can shake, you can shake your arms out.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Pardon me? Yeah. The other thing is tapping and people don't even notice it. But um, so I don't know if you've heard of bilateral stimulation, but basically, um, when we are but doing something that involves bilateral stimulation, we're activating both sides of the brain. Okay. So I tell people that when they're even sitting, and you could do this in the golf cart, you could do this, you know, just standing. If you tap each side of your leg and just keep alternating, or you're tapping your feet and you're tapping one foot, then the other foot. Um, or if you even take your eyes, one of the reasons why walking is so feels so good to the nervous system, is because we are naturally doing bilateral stimulation at the same time. We're looking to the left and the right constantly. And we don't even mean to, but that's what's happening. That's bilateral stimulation. We can do that on the golf course too. You can just stand there and you can look to the right, and then you can look to the left, and you can hold it for like 10 to 30 seconds and go to the next side. And that's something that you can do anywhere you are, and nobody knows what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

And what does that do? I've heard that the eyes before, but I like the tapping with the legs and the and the and the feet. What does that do? It stimulates both sides of your body, stimulating both sides of your brain.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Okay, and it's causing, it's just creating calm in in your nervous system. I love that. Um, that's one. Another one is breath work, really learning some simple tools of breath work can really help because that you can do on the golf course. The longer your exhale is, the more relaxing it is to your body. So I one of the basic things I teach people first is to inhale through their nose and then hold it just a little, like a second or two, and then let it out. And then sometimes if you want to even extend it and make it even a little more relaxing, I tell them to pretend they're blowing on hot coffee or soup or something and just blow like you're blowing into a straw or whatever as you're exhaling. Just okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

So in through your nose, out through your mouth.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Yeah, in through your nose, out through your mouth. But the mouth needs that the exhale part needs to be slower, and that helps the nervous system to start slowing down. It our breath is actually our greatest resource. It is our number one resource. We have access to it everywhere, 24 hours a day. Yeah, like and so learning that box breath is another one where people breathe in through the nose for four seconds, hold it for four seconds, exhale for four seconds through the mouth, hold it for four seconds. And sometimes just moving the brain to think about the patterning of the of the square and of the box can help distract that brain, that monkey mind that's going crazy and is anxious about something in particular. It can help the body physiologically feel calm, but it's helping the brain to redirect its attention.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I have a breath, um, a breathing tool that I use, but these are I know there's so many different ways to use breathing. And you got some I some I like, some I'm like, okay, I feel like I get lightheaded, you know. Yes. So yeah, I think it's good for people to to practice and let and find ones that work for them, but using it on the golf course, super easy. No one's gonna really notice it or pay attention to it. And you can do it before a shot, it doesn't take a lot of time.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

You know, the other thing too is so with I'm an EFT tapping practitioner. And so with EFT tapping, you know, it's a it's not as discreet, right? You can't really fully do the tapping experience in public because people are like, what is she doing? It's weird because you're like tapping on your face and tapping on your chest, and it feels weird for anybody the first time they're learning how to do it. However, learning what the acupressure points are, they're I mean, it's based on acupuncture and it's really like these meridian points that create an energetic flow. So I tell people, you can easily go to the points and just rub them or just put pressure on them, even and just discreetly without people knowing. There are definitely different points of the body that if you were to hold them and put pressure or even tap on them, it will create just a calming effect in the body. And those are most of the the tapping points. Yeah, the EFT tapping points. So if someone were to Google EFT tapping points, that would be those are the main key points that I would focus on.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah. Oh, that's a good point. They can rub them too. You don't have to go through the whole thing. Yes. Okay, so those that's awesome. Those are great ideas for people to use on the golf course to help them with their um anxiety. Yeah, really good one.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Yeah. Um, because this is so simple and people really just mindfulness is simple, okay, but it's it's about us learning the skills and practicing it and recognizing, oh my gosh, like when my brain is going out of control, I can do something. If you try to use all five of your senses, wherever you're at, if you're feeling anxious and you start using your senses, looking around for colors, looking around for textures, smelling, what do you smell? Just anything to distract the brain from the anxiety that is just overwhelming, it helps the brain to just come down a notch. And the whole nervous system can just kind of be like, okay, we're moving in a different direction.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Yes, I use those. I I coach that on touch and rubbing your fingers together and feeling that feeling your fingerprints, it brings you back up to your prefrontal cortex so people can start thinking clearly, it gets you out of the back of your brain. Whereas too. Do you ever do that? No, squeezing your fingers.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

Okay, we can add that to that one. You can squeeze your fingers incognito and nobody even know. And um, even just standing there honestly, with your feet grounded on the ground and just noticing I am grounded, I am safe, I'm grounded, I am on the ground. My feet are here, I'm planted, I'm okay. So some of it is I like will do the mindfulness part of like noticing where I'm at. I'm grounded, I'm here, and feeling the weight, sometimes just moving the feet, shifting the weight just to feel the difference of like, okay, I'm grounded and I'm here. And then it reminds me to trigger some of these cue control words like I am safe, I am grounded, I am calm, I got this, like, and I can guide and talk and coach myself through.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Yeah, that's good. The grounding part, I haven't done that before. But that also that again, that brings your attention out of a little bit of mental drama back to being where your feet are, and then you can start create, then you can then you get access to those phrases that can help create some more calm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Yeah, because what happens is the prefrontal cortex does shut off when we're when it's having that emotional hormonal exchange of you know, cortisol and all these things that are happening when we're like feeling stressed and anxious, it you know, it affects the way the brain works.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Yeah, that's so good. All right, this was this has been so helpful. I think a lot of people are gonna get a lot of value out of this. I can't thank you enough for coming on. I know I've been meaning to get you on here for a while. I know you have a sheet that is like 10 easy ways.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

What's the name of it? So 10 easy ways to relieve anxiety and overwhelm. I have they're they're guided experiences, they're videos and audios of guided meditation experiences, visualization experiences, breath work experiences to kind of help learn how to guide the body back to calm. Okay, perfect.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

And you can find the link at KathyHartwood.com calm. My calm and my calm always sound the same. So yeah, dot com forward slash C A L M. So, and you'll find the link there. But tell everybody how they can get in touch with you, learn more about what you do. I love your Instagram. I think you're really raw on there and go through a lot of those exercises. You go out there and dance and show people different moves. I love it. Uh so tell people how they can connect with you.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

Thanks. Yeah. So on Instagram, I'm at dancing in the mess is my handle. Um, that's kind of my thing. It's learning how to dance in the mess. And then on the website, you can go to is Jill MarieHowell.com. So it's J-I-L-L Marie is M-A-R-I-E Howell H O W E L L dot com.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

Okay, great. And I'll have all those links in the in the show notes as well. So, Jill, thank you so much for your time. This has been great. I love that we're on the same, we talk the same language, but you take it to a you know a broader level. And I think this is really gonna um be helpful for people, especially when you're talking about the emotional healing part, that just I, you know, if it helps people have some extra tools and also help them realize that they're not broken, there's nothing wrong, but there is maybe something to pay attention to and that when you can learn, have a little bit more knowledge and learn some extra tools that you can find a little bit more peace on and off the golf course. Yeah. Yeah. So good. All right. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, of course. Yeah, thank you. All right, take care. You too. All right, there you have it. Now you have some extra tools that you can take out to the golf course. Hopefully, this helped take away some of the stigma of anxiety and fear, especially as it relates to golf, because we all experience it. And if you're a member of the Think Above Par Academy or private client of mine, you can listen to the full podcast and watch the video as Jill demonstrates some of her tools. If you're interested in becoming a member or you want to know more about how to work with me and get the link to some of Jill's tools, make sure you head to Kathyheartwood.com forward slash calm. All right, my friends, have a beautiful day and I'll see you next Wednesday. Bye.