IMPACT: Parenting with Perspective
IMPACT: Parenting with Perspective
Why We’re Addicted to Being Anxious
Why are we so addicted to being anxious? In this episode, Ben and Cortni dive deep into how anxiety has become a crutch for so many of us. They talk about why we let worry take over our lives and how to stop it from controlling us.
You’ll learn about secondary gain—the hidden way anxiety gives us a "benefit"—and why it keeps us stuck. Ben shares personal stories about tough love, coaching, and how embracing discomfort can help us grow stronger. Cortni gives tips on parenting and teaching kids to face their fears without letting anxiety define them.
This episode will help you:
- Understand why we "worship" anxiety.
- Learn how to let go of worry.
- Teach your kids to handle fear and discomfort.
- Build resilience in yourself and your family.
If you feel like anxiety is holding you back, this episode will give you the tools to start taking control.
💡 Takeaway: Stop worshiping worry and start living life with strength and confidence!
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I'm Ben Pugh and you're listening to IMPACT! Parenting with Perspective. This podcast is all about helping parents manage the mental and emotional drama that comes with parenting teens so they can focus on what's most important. Building rock solid relationships and having a powerful impact on their teen's life. Join me each week as I dive into real tools to help you and your teen turn struggles into strengths.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:Hello everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Lemme just tell you I am excited for what we're going to talk about. Cortni, are you a little nervous that we're going to offend somebody?
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:It crossed my mind, but that's not the intention. So.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:Oh, that's not her intention. That's my intention. If I don't hurt somebody's feelings, no. Okay. That's not really my intention. I did a podcast, gosh, this was probably a couple years ago and I think I called it Trigger Warning. I can't remember. Got a ton of do downloads, A ton of people reaching out to me like I know I have a good podcast if I strike a nerve and people are like. Ben, you're full of crap. Like you can't say stuff like that. And one of my biggest fans, not my biggest fan because Cortni, who's my biggest fan,
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:Deb, me, Deb.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:no, one of the two. Deb gets annoyed with me sometimes and she gets demoted. But no, but, um, this lady was one of my biggest fans, referred tons of people. She's like a. Doctor multiple times over. Anyway, she disagreed with me and she's like, Ben, let's have a podcast. And I'm like, totally, let's discuss what we don't agree with. I will be honest with you, my opinion on anxiety, mental health and some of the other stuff isn't in line with like what the general public or what. Most of today's therapists might think, and this might be a podcast where you might come away thinking, geez, Ben, I completely disagree with you, and that's okay. But it also might be a podcast where you realize, I have been doing this to myself and I'm ready to stop, and I feel like I can do that.
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:say, I also think sometimes the things that are the hardest for us to hear are the ones that we need to hear the most.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:Yeah. Yeah. Um, there was a time, I don't know if you know this about me, Cortni, but I love football. Did you know this about me?
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:No.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:Yeah.
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:have you liked football?
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:Oh, geez. Yeah. It's a recent development only since I was like 12, but. I remember a time where I was, a sophomore in high school. I was actually getting playing time at the varsity level, which. For a little peacock like me, like just getting a little bit of varsity time. I just thought I was the, the poop. We don't want to have to mark this as explicit, but Cortni will probably swear it later anyways. But anyways, I just thought I was awesome and I remember one of my coaches just brutalizing me. Ben, why are you being lazy? Why are you doing this? And like I was one of the better players on the team and he just knocked me down several rungs and told me that I completely sucked. And he is like, I. He's like, you know what used to make you good? He is like, you were the hardest worker on this team. And I grew up on a farm and people would call me like farm boy and they'd be like, you gotta watch out for Pugh. He is got that farm strength. And he just demolished me and looking back at it like maybe he could have been in trouble in today's standards, but that was exactly what I needed and he gave it to me straight. He gave it to me with like all the tough love that this man could muster, and I went back to work. I was like, I gotta work harder, I gotta be better. I gotta do this. About two weeks later, I earned a starting spot on the varsity team and it wasn't. It wasn't a coincidence that I had some really tough feedback from a coach that was exactly what I needed, and that, by the way, has really impacted my coaching career. Not like life coaching, but like my football coaching. I feel like I've kind of finessed what my coach did with me where he just brutalized me in front of the whole team, like it was bad. I feel like I've kind of gotten to where I can do that on a more individual level. But one of my favorite conversations to have with a young man that plays football for me is, dude, you're good, but you could be so much better and you're freaking wasting your time and you're wasting my time. And if you're not gonna go all in, like, what are you doing here? And I feel like we're gonna have that kind of conversation where we can be real, we can be honest, and. We are just the deliverers of the message. How you receive it will, it'll do a few things. It'll tell you a lot about yourself, but it will also determine how you take the next step forward. Cortni, anything you wanna do to, I don't know, enlighten us.
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:I'm ready to jump in.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:Okay, let's do it. The thing that. Inspired this podcast episode. Cortni said she hasn't heard this song yet, but there's a song on the radio called Anxiety You look it up. But anyways, the song is like anxiety and it just sings about anxiety the whole time. And then one of my nieces was like, oh, I would do that, but my anxiety, and she's like. Using anxiety as this crutch, and I just see this happening over and over. People talk about their anxiety and they use their anxiety as a crutch to get out of doing things. And did you ever read the book Anti-Fragile?
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:I didn't.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:We did it in our book club once upon a time, but with how you didn't read the books and you just come and copy off of my homework. Just joking. What the book club turned into was, okay, Ben's gonna read this book. Then we'll all get together and talk about what Ben liked about it. But anti-fragile talks about how as a society we are becoming more and more fragile because we don't want to experience anxiety. We're going out of our way to avoid anxiety, where that makes us more fragile. And in the book, Anti-Fragile, it kind of talks about, no, we need to embrace. More anxiety. We need to be willing to subject ourselves to things that make us uncomfortable so that we can become less rigid and become more flexible and more anti-fragile so that we don't get broken. So Cortni, I'm curious, do you see any evidence of us as a society worshiping anxiety or worry?
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:Absolutely. I feel like there's a lot of people in my life where I see it anxiety being fostered or it's being created in their children. You know, the parents are so worried that they're creating this fear in their children. Um, I. also not letting your kids feel uncomfortable. You know, I tell my kids something, they're like, I don't wanna do it. Or this, you know, I'm scared and I'm like, you know what? to be scared. and it's okay to feel uncomfortable, but for the rest of your life, you're gonna have to do things that make you uncomfortable. That doesn't mean you don't do them. Like, let's figure out how to get on with it and move forward. Um, because if we, if our kids feel uncomfortable or they're scared and we. Protect them in that when they're adults, they're gonna be too scared to do something that challenges them or that makes them uncomfortable or you know, something where they have potential to be really great because they're scared like they, we have to teach our kids how to move past being uncomfortable and to live in the moment.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:Yeah. Um, let's talk about a concept called secondary gain. This is something that I talk about a lot. When I learned about it, I learned about it from Jim Fortin and it just blew my mind. But secondary gain is where I. Something that we do, let's just use anxiety as the example, but so we indulge in anxiety so we don't call someone or we avoid an interaction because it makes us anxious. There's a secondary gain that you probably don't notice. And that's the benefit that, oh, now I don't have to deal with this. Um, in my church sometimes we get asked to speak in front of the whole congregation. Well, guess what? Nobody likes speaking except for me, I'm kind of weird. So for my thing is I don't want'em to gimme like a week to prepare.'cause we all know I'm not gonna prepare. Like, just call me from the pulpit. I'll just, I got something I can say anyways. Every normal person hates speaking. And if you are like, oh, I can't do that because of my anxiety, not having to speak is a secondary gain that reinforces your anxiety. So one of the things that we need to be careful of doing, and I'll be brutally honest with you guys, you'll be able to see this in your teens. Don't try and fix it in your teen. Make the extra effort to try and fix it in yourself because I guarantee you, you are getting a secondary gain in one form or another from anxiety. And when we can stop benefiting from the secondary gain, it gives something like anxiety, less power over our lives.
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:I have a girlfriend that works with people with OCD or um, anxiety, um, things like that. And one of the big things that they do is exposure therapy.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:Yeah,
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:you have to be uncomfortable. That's the only way to get past it. And if you continue to avoid it, it's nothing's going to change. It's probably just gonna get worse.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:there's a new lady that I follow on Instagram. She's probably not that new. She's got like hundreds of thousands of followers. Gosh. What is her name? I'll have to look. But she's a therapist and she's always like, like I love her because she's a therapist and she brutalizes therapy sometimes, and she's like, guys, we have made our population too fragile because we're telling them to avoid the thing that triggers them. And then like it just isn't empowering. So one of the other things that I wanted to talk about, I was worried about like using the term worry and my assistant, I. Chat, GPT. Wait, no. I was worried about using the word worship, not worry.'cause I feel like people are like, oh, well that's religious and we don't wanna talk about religion. But anyways, it talks about how worshiping is like, basically just giving your energy, your time, your attention, even your identity to something. So like if you're a Christian. Maybe you've like taken on the identity of Christ, like, Hey, I'm a Christian. I try and be kind, or whatever that is. You give it your time, your energy, your attention, anxiety, in my opinion, has become something that we worship. It has totally become part of people's identity. Like I hear people all the time say, oh, I'm just an anxious person. Do not ever say that like you're putting, like it's one thing to think it, which has a ton of inner power. Like I would avoid thinking, oh, I'm just an anxious person. It's another thing to say it like what you say, just reverberates throughout the universe and anything you think and say and believe the universe is gonna do, its best to prove you right. So I can just see a bunch of parents getting after their teens right now for just saying, no, I'm just such an anxious person. You can totally teach'em about that, but you can't control whether or not they stop. But as a parent, I for sure never want to describe, like one of my children is, oh, they're just super anxious. They just worry a lot. Now let's stop. Passing that on. Cortni, anything you want to add about that?
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:Yeah, I've seen a lot of that. Um, but I feel like the most empowering thing we can do is to show our kids and remind them that we have faith in them, that we believe in them, that they can overcome whatever obstacle it is that they're anxious about. Like at a dental office, for example, some kids might be fearful and that not even kids like. Young adults, um, and their parents just need to like, push them and be like, it's okay. Like, I think you can do it. You'll, I mean, I have faith, you'll be okay.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:Yeah,
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:instead of backing up the fact that they should be scared
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:yeah,
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:allow your kids to be scared and then feel justified in feeling that way.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:yeah. I'm gonna say something that. We'll probably be controversial. And guys, if you don't like what I say, reach out to me. You might be my next guest on my podcast. Like Leanne Hawkins is the one that we kind of had a disagreement and she, I'll have to look and see what episode that was, but it was a fantastic episode. But I believe anxiety has become this. Badge that kind of lets people off the hook. And I feel like parents, they're not struggling so much with anxiety because anxiety's a different term for a different era. Parents are still stuck in the worrying and they just worry about, well, what if this, what if this, what if this? And they're constantly catastrophizing. Anyways, this badge of anxiety has become this. Little get off free or this pass card where you're like, oh, sorry, I have anxiety. I'll pass on that. I taught anxiety or I taught about anxiety to this girl. She's a high-end, high school athlete. Uh, I actually got to coach her and her brother both just. Awesome young man. Awesome athletes. Very competitive. And she's talking about track and she's like, every track meet I puke at least multiple times. Well, guess what? That's not good for your esophagus. That's not good for you. Running track because your body needs fuel and energy and everything you're puking up means that's not energy that you're gonna have available and. I don't remember exactly how I taught it. What I remember is how she told me. So at the end of my coaching calls with teens, I always ask what was the most beneficial thing that we talked about? And she's like, the most beneficial thing that we talked about was how I create my own anxiety. And I'm like, awesome. How's that so beneficial? And I must have done an example of like a having a rock in your shoe. You have the choice to leave it there or take it out. And I'm like, sometimes you're hiking and you don't have time, and you're like, oh, it's not that bad. But after a while it could create a blister and it could get worse. And she was like, it's just so empowering to realize that I'm the creator of my anxiety by how I choose to think, by where I choose to give my attention. And she's like. I like the idea of being able to take the rock outta my shoe basically. And that was towards the beginning of our coaching calls, guys. One of the roughest things, when I coach people, sometimes we'll have a breakthrough early on and then it's like, oh yeah, what's the next breakthrough? And it's like when we already had the breakthrough, we just gotta keep working on that. But towards the end of our coaching time together, um, she had told me. We've had this many track meets and I haven't puked once, and she's like, every time I get anxious, I stop. Sorry, all of a sudden I'm coughing. But she's like, every time I get anxious, I stop and I think, and I explore, what am I worried about? What am I thinking about? And she's like, for me, that's just the process of taking the rock outta my shoe. And she's like, I'm okay to be. Nervous because that means that I care about the race, but I don't want to leave the rock in my shoe to the point that it holds me back in my race. Guys, as a society, we seriously need to stop worshiping anxiety. I. We need to stop letting that creep into our identity. We need to stop letting it dictate how we live our lives. And maybe we'll do a podcast. Maybe we should do this, Cortni, in a few weeks where we talk about like, tools to support your teen in this. But today I wanna be really clear, teens don't listen to my podcast. We are not talking to the teens moms typically, I, I like working with moms better. Dads are just lame. But anyways. Ask yourself, how can I be the change? How can I embrace this concept of taking the rock outta my shoe? Cortni, anything you want to add? And then I gotta go. I forgot to have a coaching call right now.
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:Yeah. Um, I was thinking while you were talking one more example, like, my kids sometimes, like Jazzy will be, uh, about like having to get a shot or, you know, if there's something that they're worried is gonna be painful. I'm like, okay, well let's talk about this. Like, is it gonna hurt? Yeah, it might hurt for a second. so I'm acknowledging their fear, but I'm also letting them know like, it'll be okay. Like you'll survive. It's, it, it's acknowledging it, but not giving it power like I'm pointing out, yeah, it might hurt, it might hurt for 10 seconds, but then it's over with and you're all done. Um, so acknowledge it, but move past it.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:Yeah. Every year when I coach football, one of my favorite things to ask my players before our very first game, I'll ask, all right guys, raise your hand if you're nervous. All these first football or all these football players, what they do first is they look around to see if anyone else is raising their hand, and no one raises their hand. And so no one else raises their hand. And I'm like, come on guys. Who's nervous? And then the second time I raise my hand and then some of the other kids raise their hand and by the end, everyone's raising their hand. And I'm like, all right guys. Here's something I want you to understand about being nervous. I want you to be a little bit nervous because it tells me that you care about the game.
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:Yes. what I say. Mm-hmm.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:I'm like, dude, if you're not nervous, I wanna put someone in who is nervous, who's like, oh geez, I want to do this right?'cause I wanna win.
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:Yeah.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:understand that's an attachment to something outside of my control, but I'm okay with that. I want people that care, and that's why they're nervous. And then the next thing I'll add, I'll be like. It's okay to feel nervous. Nervous has a really close cousin called excited, and we want to be excited. We wanna play with excitement. We wanna play with that little buzz, that little vibration in your body. And what we do is we. Justify being nervous. Guys, we're okay with being nervous. It's also related to anxious. If we like over dwell on, oh, we gotta win, or else coach will be mad, like, we don't want to get into anxiety. We just want to be okay with being nervous because we care. And then we want to shift that energy, that vibration in your body. Re-identify it guys. This is excitement. We want to play with excitement. One of my favorite things is when sometimes you'll know you're at a turning point of a game and the pressure gets heavy. Like I remember being like is like fourth and one, and we're close enough that if we get the first down, we'll be in field goal position. We'll have enough. Time to like run a few plays, run out the clock, and I'm like, this is the game. If we do this, we win. If we don't, they win. This is the turning point of the game and you get that little buzz inside and you're just excited. And I want my players to embrace that energy and play with the energy, whereas most of the world would be like, stay away from that energy because it's uncomfortable. Cortni, anything you want to add real quick?
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:No, that's great.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:All right guys, so your call to action this week Quit freaking worshiping anxiety, and one of the things that you can totally do if you catch yourself being anxious or even if you catch your teen, this isn't something I would tell my teen, but I would be looking for what benefit are they getting from being anxious right now? Or specifically me, like what benefit am I getting from being anxious right here? Oh, it's keeping me safe. Oh, it's helping me avoid this. Teens, one of the benefits that they get from being anxious is they all get to talk about, oh, my anxiety. My anxiety. That's a benefit. It helps'em fit in. So just while we're kind of leaving, just understand the. Benefit that you or your team might be getting. And if you can let go of that benefit, you will be on the fast track for letting go of anxiety and diminishing the impact that that has on your life. All right, guys, that's all that we got out for now.
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:think you offended anyone. Maybe the dads when you said you liked working with moms. But other than that, I think that was pretty good.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:Dads have to work all day anyways. Moms are easier to work with. I'd rather work during the day while the, but anyways, dads are cool too, but honestly, moms, when I like coach'em and I'm like, oh yeah, do this, do this. They do it and they see changes. Most of the dads I've worked with, they're like, oh, I'm too busy for that dumb stuff. I gotta go watch football.
connie-guest103_1_04-25-2025_094202:Yeah.
ben_1_04-25-2025_084158:Alright guys, we will see you next week. Thank you for being here.