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This podcast is supported by FX's English Teacher, a new comedy from executive producers of What We Do in the Shadows and Baskets. English Teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas, who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX. Stream on Hulu.
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What's up, my beautiful people? Welcome back to the Moment Podcast. This is kind of an impromptu recording. Like, literally was not planning on recording at all today. And this is actually my second podcast I'm recording today because by the time I post this, I don't know if what I'm about to tell you has already come out or if it's still not out, but I just recorded with Mad Happy. And it was such a huge step for me to...
step out of my comfort zone. I love this podcast. It's my baby, but it's also my baby. You know, it's really personal and I get really deep and I'm pretty vulnerable when it comes to talking to you guys by myself in the comfort of my own home. But I get really, really anxious when it comes to taking that to the next level. And I've told you guys this countless times before. I get nervous having guests on that aren't like my best friends. I get nervous when I get offers to go on other podcasts. And with Mad Happy, I'm
I've loved them. I love their brand. I think they have the most awesome freaking just morals and goals and community. And I knew that this is something that I wanted to do and something that I have just been dreaming of. And I got the opportunity and I wanted to say no because I'm scared because I get nervous because I'm socially anxious as frick, but I did it. And I just feel like I could take a deep breath right now. And I don't know. I wanted to talk to you guys about it, but
If that's come out, go listen. If it hasn't come out, get pumped, get excited. It was a great conversation. It was talking a lot about my story, and I haven't really talked about my story too much since, you know, the first episode of this podcast. So, yeah, if you want to check it out, please do. I'm really, really excited about it. But it kind of led me to want to do this episode on social anxiety because...
I never really recognize how bad my social anxiety is until I'm in the moment. And I try to just avoid it and pretend that I don't struggle with it. But in reality, I do. And I know that I can't be the only one to struggle with it. And for me, talking about social anxiety is one of the more vulnerable things because you would think that I would have... I would be the person least likely to have social anxiety. You know, I post my life online. I'm so...
Open about everything that i'm going through and I posted online for millions of people to see right so you would think There's no way she's socially anxious. There's no way she has a hard time talking to people There's no way she gets nervous out of her freaking mind truth as I do and it sucks and it's something that I am working on Pushing through every single day. So I figured I should just talk about it. You know, I should tell you guys the deep deep deep rooted childhood past that has instilled this in me, I guess and
From the youngest I can remember, the first time I ever dealt with, I don't even know if I could call this social anxiety. I'm going to call this, this is just normal anxiety. I did all-star cheer, competitive cheer, right?
I was a flyer, the one they throw in the air, the one who does like the tricks in the sky and stuff. If you don't know anything about cheerleading, it can be a really intense sport. It is a really intense sport. And I, you know, I grew up hearing cheerleading's not a sport, yada, yada, yada. But anyone who does competitive cheer, you guys know it's a sport, especially when you get into the higher levels. Anyways, every time before we would compete, before we would have a competition, I felt this pressure.
physical, physical, physical sickness, illness. I thought I was going to throw up. Almost did throw up so many times. Couldn't eat a single thing before I performed. All because I was anxious. I was nervous. Like the way that my nerves take over my body. Gosh, just all this like, I don't even know if this is just social anxiety. This is also just like freaking deep, real anxiety. But it started back then. It started when I cheered. I...
who's always an anxious person. There was a phase in high school where it kind of went away. I was super, super confident. Obviously, you guys know my past with middle school and anxiety, and we don't need to get into it because you've probably heard the story 10 million times. Long story short, dealt with mean girls, wanted to throw up every time I went to school, had to call my mom to pick me up because I was sick and didn't know it was anxiety, thought it was a physical illness. Anyways, I
High school, went away for a while. I loved public speaking. I loved, for lack of better words, being the center of attention, but not in the center of attention kind of way, but in the I didn't have a problem putting myself out there or being in front of a camera or being in the front or giving a speech in class or embarrassing myself at school. Like I ran for Miss Boca High, which is basically the person who runs the pep rallies, who always wears the stupidest costumes, goes crazy for Spirit Week. There was a phase then where
that I was just really, I guess looking back, I'm so proud of myself. I'm so proud of her for being able to do that. College came around, took a public speaking class. I kind of noticed myself shift back into my struggles with it. Like I had to do a speech there and I would just get so nervous. But once I started talking, I would be fine. I would be great. But everything that I would feel like coming up to it was just horrible.
And then it all got like so much worse. I blame social media for it. Obviously, I'm so grateful for social media. It's given me this outlet to like talk to you guys in this way. But it's also given me this crazy struggle to just freaking communicate with people in real life.
And I know that that's something that's been super common since COVID because everyone's work went online, school went online. We forgot how to socialize because we weren't being thrown into social settings. You know what I'm saying? We were just stuck there to be with ourselves. So we forget how to be with other people. And I think that that
weight on me so much and I just did a TikTok talking about this but once my life was so public and on the internet I obviously you know you get hate DMs you get people saying negative things because people can say anything when they're behind a screen it's you know not something that someone would say to your face but I just built up this irrational fear that any time I
were to, you know, publicly talk about something or have a conversation with someone. I just had this fear that someone would say something negative to my face or be like, you sound stupid, yada, yada, yada. You are horrible, you know? And it's kind of messed me up a little bit. It's really, in a way, I think been something that's holding me back in a huge way. I have been scared to step out of my comfort zone
Obviously, I tell you guys all my dreams and all my goals and everything that I want to make happen. And I think I tell you every week I'm going to start having guests on the podcast and going on other podcasts. But I don't do it because I get so scared, so scared of what people will think of me, so scared that I'll let myself down, so scared that I am not capable. And I've been watching tons of TED Talks lately.
Just talking about all sorts of things, you know, from mental health to understanding your self-worth to just like a ton of them. And one thing that I've learned from all of them is that I can't expect people to know how valuable I am or to treat me the way that I deserve to be treated if I don't make it known and if I don't feel that way about myself. So in the past couple days, I've been talking about all sorts of things.
knowing that this podcast episode was coming up and that I was going to be recording with Mad Happy, I really had to like lock in with myself and mentally prepare myself and stare in the mirror and say my affirmations. And I do that often. But like when you actually really need them, it's so much harder to do. Like if I feel like I'm on top of the world and I feel like hot shit, if I go into the mirror and say, I look hot, you know, it's easier. It's easier to believe it.
If I have to go into the mirror when I feel really, really, really bad about myself and really, really ugly, then it's a lot harder to say. It's a lot harder to believe what it is that you're saying. And this was a situation like that. I really had to tell myself that I was confident, that I was capable, that everything was going to be fine, that this was going to go awesome, that I know myself. I know who I am. I know that I love what I do and I am good at talking about it.
I just sit there and say it over and over and over again. I've been doing meditations for the past few days. I've been trying to, another thing that I do when I'm facing like this social anxiety and this nervousness is I will not even necessarily isolate myself, but I will stop doing what I would usually do. Like I stopped going to the gym because I'm like, oh, I need more time to prep or, oh, I can't do, I can't hang out because I have to prep for this for days ahead of time.
What I did this time around was I still allowed myself to, you know, do my preparations and be with myself and hype myself up and study everything I wanted to study. But I also...
wasn't going to let that completely consume me because when you're too focused on when you're focusing on something so much you get a little bit too focused on it and it becomes overwhelming so I went to a meeting this morning I went rollerblading and I listened to a podcast and I got myself inspired and I tried to keep my mind off of what was stressing me out so much in a healthy way and I
Even doing all of those things, I still felt like these nerves that just eat you alive, like sit there and each breath I take, each time I swallow, I feel like I'm going to throw up. My body shakes. I can't eat. Nervousness for me is something that I just, I don't know, really struggle with. Like I, not even to get so into it, but I...
Another thing I get so nervous about is like going on dates and this is I'm only saying this because I just recently had an experience with it like the thought of having to I don't know start a conversation with someone talk to someone it just makes me so scared and be vulnerable with someone and be intimate with someone not even just in like you know a physical way but an emotional way it horrifies me and I get sick to my stomach thinking about it so then I don't do it but I
My biggest goal right now is to step away from that. And now I'm like questioning, should I title this episode Moments in Your Comfort Zone or Moments with Social Anxiety? I'm thinking I'm going to go with Moments in Your Comfort Zone because there's a lot more I could talk about with this comfort zone. I watched another TED Talk. It was called, what was it called? How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over. And it talks about the comfort zone a lot. It talks about how we all have wild and crazy ideas, but...
If we don't act on them within five minutes or five seconds, it's gone. And we push it to the side burner. We push it away. We never get back to it. But if we were to just go for it, we would be taking a huge step. We would be actually making our dreams come true and our dreams reality. And it just kind of talks about all these different things in the way that the only way you're going to evolve is if you step out of your comfort zone.
Because staying in your comfort zone is what? It's comfortable, right? And we've all been conditioned to just stay comfortable. But why? We can take ourselves to the next level. We can accomplish anything when we aren't afraid to step out of our comfort zone. And actually, let me reword that. You can be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. You're supposed to be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. It's freaking scary. It's horrifying. Like you're going to be
shitting your pants, sorry for my language, before you have to do it. But then after, you're going to be like, holy crap, I am capable. I did it. And, you know, sometimes stepping out of your comfort zone, it isn't going to work out. Sometimes it's going to be a big fat fail. And failure is also a beautiful thing.
Failure teaches us a lot. It inspires us a lot. It helps us understand everything. And not to like get too far into failure, but failure is good in most things. Failure is good in your career because, you know, it helps you figure out what to avoid the next time you try something. Failure is good in relationships because it teaches you what you want and what you don't want in your next one. Failure is good in friendships because it reminds you what you actually want to surround yourself with and who you need to be as a friend.
Every time we fail, we learn a lesson. And I've obviously gone into, you know, being in a funk, being overwhelmed, being stressed, facing a depressive episode. Sometimes can feel like a failure. But if you choose to instead of look at it as a failure, look at it as a growth spurt. You guys all know how powerful it can be, right? Like we've talked about it 10 million thousand times.
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Quick little intermission, you guys. We all know how important it is to prioritize the right things in our life. And maybe for you, that's prioritizing doing leg day at the gym or making sure you go for your hot girl walk. But how often are you prioritizing your mental health and making sure that therapy is a part of your weekly routine? If it's something that you've been open to, if it's something that you've been considering, I highly recommend BetterHelp. And thank you so much to BetterHelp for sponsoring this episode.
I absolutely love BetterHelp. I love therapy. I have talked about it over and over and over again. And that is for a reason. It is the greatest thing ever. Having an outlet and a person to talk to about what you're going through and getting unbiased opinions and advice is so, so beneficial.
So if you're thinking about starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. You just have to fill out a brief questionnaire and you'll get matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash moments today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash moments. So I just wanted to touch on that, but back to the comfort zone. Don't be afraid of failure.
dance with your fear be so so so so excited to do things that scare you because I'm sure you guys can just hear it in my energy and in my voice right now I'm clearly very passionate about this because I can tell you from personal experience that I have avoided so many opportunities because I was comfortable and because I was scared to take it to the next step I was scared to do the thing that would push me forward and I was scared to talk to people and I
I finally did it. And it's empowering. It's fulfilling. It's inspiring to myself. It has just given me this spark of inspiration. And it has reminded me of my passion and of my purpose, which is talking about mental health, which is why I think I wanted to title this episode about anxiety because my anxiety has held me back a lot. And
Obviously, it's not something we can just turn off, but we can shift it. We can change the way that we see it. We can use anxiety as something exciting and a sign that we're doing something good and we're doing something valuable and we're moving ourselves in the right direction. You know what I'm saying? And I just wanted to talk about that, I think, because...
We all feel it. We all get scared. We all don't know how to take the next step sometimes. And the world can be cruel and it can be scary and the world can make you feel like you are not capable of anything. It's been something that we've been subconsciously taught our whole lives. You know, we never really feel good enough.
to the outside world. And I touched a lot on this in the self-worth episode, but we always could be better for a certain person or a certain someone or a certain thing or a certain situation. And you'll never be good enough for everyone, but you can be good enough for yourself. And I can promise you that one of the most fulfilling and just energizing things is doing things that scare you. And I don't even mean on such a big scale. I mean...
When I go to the bar and there's people dancing, I won't go dance because I get scared because my comfort zone is not dancing. My comfort zone is not going up to random people and introducing myself. My comfort zone is running from people when they do come up to me to introduce themselves and running from love and running from relationships and running from all sorts of things. And I'm just teaching myself that it's time to let go of that.
And if you're listening and if you relate and if any of this is resonating with you, it's time for you to let go of that too. We are making the step towards becoming the best version of ourselves. We are evolving every single day and we are not going to give up on anything. We are not going to let people stop us. We are not going to let opinions stop us. We are going to just do it and we are going to believe in ourselves along the way. That's the most valuable thing. Told you this one again.
time and time and time again you have to believe in yourself you have to be your biggest fan and you have to just keep going and I know I've touched on tons of things in this episode it's already been 16 minutes but I just want to be that reminder for you that you gotta dance with fear that people are always gonna give you shit why not prove them wrong and I hate to think about things in that way
Like when I first started all this, you know, social media stuff, people tell me it's so stupid, you know, it's not going to last, whatever. I had this idea that I needed to prove everyone wrong and prove that I could be successful in taking an alternate route, you know. Recently, it's kind of hit me that I don't even need to prove it to other people. I just want to prove it to myself. I just want to make younger me proud and I want to do everything that I think that I can do. You know, everything that I dream. And the only way for me to do that is to...
start stepping, here I go again, how many times can I say it, out of my comfort zone. It's the way that we're going to level up. And it's one of those things that you can have control over. Like I said before, I can't change the way that I feel physically when I am super socially anxious or regularly anxious or nervous. Physically, those feelings don't really change for me. Mentally, I can redirect what those feelings mean.
I can take my feeling like I'm going to throw up, having goosebumps all over my body, having a shaky voice, having a brain that's just turned off. I can take all of those things and be able to tell myself, okay, you're doing something good for yourself. You're doing something that scares you. And that's awesome. And when I can tell myself that and genuinely believe it, it makes those horrible, terrible feelings feel a little bit better.
I allow myself to be present with them, to experience them, but not let them control me. And not that I could control them either, but you get what I'm saying. They don't have to control you. You don't have to control them. They can just be there. You can feel the feelings and not associate with them. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.
I guess another thing I just wanted to tell you is that have – this is one that I recognize and realize today –
Have your lucky superstitions. Have a lucky shirt. Have a lucky pair of socks. Say your affirmations in the mirror because whether it's real or not, whether it's just placebo effect or what, it still works. And I put on a shirt today that said Alexis. Many of you guys, especially if you listened or you've listened for a while, know that my real name's Alexis. I go by Lexi. I've always gone by Lexi. Growing up, the name Lexi
Or the name Alexis. I hated it. Like I thought it was too mature too professional. I hated that name with every Everything in me when people called me alexis to be like stop, you know It was what my parents called me when I got in trouble, you know you guys get that if you've grown up with a nickname, but
Recently, in the past couple years of my life, I have redirected what Alexis means to me. Alexis is the most evolved version of myself. Alexis is Lexi when she's taking big steps, when she's making big leaps for her future, when she's prioritizing herself and her goals and her mental health. So I have a shirt, it says Alexis, and I wear that every time I'm going to do something that scares me. And I just started this, like literally a couple weeks ago. And...
Yeah, I don't know. I just wanted to share that with you because it was pretty valuable for me. And I think that we should all do it. You know, your shirt doesn't necessarily have to say your name, but you can have a shirt and you just call it your lucky shirt. And you can tell yourself that when you put it on, good energy will be sent to you. And that's really all it takes. You know, easier said than done, of course. But one day at a time, one step at a time, one mindset shift at a time, you are going to succeed.
I think that's really all I'm going to touch on on today's episode. I know it's kind of short, but I've realized that none of us have attention spans. Like, I can barely watch a three-minute TikTok, so I don't really have a problem with my podcast episodes being short. Sometimes I just try to make them long, and then I get super repetitive, and I sound like a squirrel, and I glitch all the time. That stuff happens normally, but it's all part of the human experience, right? I guess.
But I'm not going to waste all of your time. Actually, if you're listening, let me know if you like shorter episodes or longer episodes better. And I will try to, you know, incorporate that and take that with me in the future. But also still listening since I'm, you know, doing the big girl thing, taking my way out of the comfort zone. I am going to start having guests on the podcast because I also just learned how to do that virtually, which is cool and such a helpful factor because a lot of the reason it's hard to have guests on is because, you
I can't travel that much and people can't necessarily come here that much. It just, it adds in a whole other factor. So being able to do it virtual is pretty freaking dope. But tell me who you want to hear from, you know, on a mental health level, on a friend level, whatever it is that you want to hear and who you want to hear it from, please share that with me and I will do my best to make it happen. I want this podcast to be a place that you can come and feel good and feel safe and feel inspired and all of the above. And yeah,
I want you to just recognize that there's going to be ups and downs on your journey. And I take you through all of my own personal ups and downs. So just know that I'm here for yours as well. And every time we learn and every time we grow, and there's no such thing as hearing that too many times because it sucks to feel low, but it's beautiful to know that you only grow. Damn, hit them with the rhymes.
Okay. I love you guys. I am so pumped. There's so many big things coming guys. The journal it's for real. It's for real. Like there's no, I'm not just manifesting it anymore. It's for real and it's happening and it's, it's, it's happening. You guys, thank you. I can't wait for y'all to freaking journal because it's damn powerful. Let me tell you that. Um,
Someone also said I should do an episode just on journaling. So I do plan on doing that soon. But let me know what you want to hear. Let me know what you want to talk about. Let me know what's been weighing on your heart. And let me just remind you that it's all going to pass. And it's all going to be okay. Just be patient with yourself. Be patient with your emotions. Be patient with your feelings. And be aware. Okay. I love you guys. Take that step out of the comfort zone because you are going to grow. You're the best ever. Bye. I'll talk to you Monday.