Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Humble the Poet on How to Stop Anxiety and Find Inner Peace | EP 595
08 Apr 2025
Chapter 1: How does direction help reduce anxiety?
coming up next on passion struck all we need in our lives is a direction and orientation no matter how specific no matter how vague if we know where we're going that in itself reduces our anxiety if you put someone in the middle of the desert and they have no idea where to go their anxiety is going to go up just say hey head north that will reduce their anxiety we need a little bit of clarity we need a little bit of direction
something that we can orient ourselves towards. And then we just enjoy the journey, understanding that that journey is going to have its highs and its lows, its easy days, its very difficult days. And who we become through going through that is the only thing that matters.
Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself.
If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now let's go out there and become passion struck. Hey, PassionStruck fam, welcome to episode 595.
Whether you've been with us for a while or you're tuning in for the first time, I am absolutely thrilled you're here. You're now part of a global movement dedicated to unlocking your potential, forging resilience, and making what truly matters matter most. Let me ask you, what if your anxiety isn't a flaw to fix, but a signal to understand?
What if managing stress wasn't about numbing it, but learning how to live through it intentionally and without shame? Today, I'm joined by someone who's redefining how we think about anxiety, Humble the Poet. He's a former elementary school teacher turned international bestselling author, spoken word artist, and creative force.
In his latest book, Unanxious, 50 Simple Truths to Help Overthinkers Feel Less Stress and More Calm, Humble invites us into a deeply personal journey, offering fresh, actionable truths for navigating modern life with more grace, resilience, and self-compassion.
In our conversation, we explore how modern society fuels our anxiety, why connection is a non-negotiable for emotional well-being, and how to trade shame for self-trust. We also dive into the high achievers anxiety trap and why so many of us mistake productivity for self-growth.
But before we dive in, don't miss last week's conversations with organizational psychologist Dr. Tasha York on building unshakable resilience, Stanford's Gregory Walton on the hidden power of social belonging, and Christy Smith on how to live with deep authenticity and truth.
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Chapter 2: What are the themes of Humble the Poet's book 'Unanxious'?
What's something you had to unlearn about anxiety while you were writing this book?
Oh, I think the first thing I had to unlearn. Is that anxiety is not my enemy. Anytime that I have anxious feelings, I'm not under attack. And I think also recognizing that anxiety to say my anxiety, I have anxiety. I think that wording is not helpful. So I think recognizing things through the lens of, is this helping me or is this not helping me? So I stopped judging things as good and bad.
So instead of saying my anxiety or I have anxiety, now my base sentence has to be, I feel anxious because. And this requires me then to go inwards to figure out what's happening. I feel anxious because I'm about to miss a deadline. I feel anxious because Someone didn't reply to my text message. I feel anxious because Team Canada might be losing this hockey game, whatever it may be.
But I think giving understanding anxiety is the most misunderstood emotion that we have. And one of the most intense, giving that I feel anxious and not labeling myself as I am anxious allows me to separate myself from my emotions, understand that they're not permanent, understand they're not tattoos on my forehead, labeling my identity. And that goes for the positive and the negative emotions.
I feel happy. I feel scared. And for me, that was probably the first step in going through all of this and then recognizing some of the signs of anxiety and trying to make sense of them without getting too scientific. We have the polyvagal theory, which is our safety, fight or flight, freeze, and sometimes fawn.
And understanding this idea too was like, hey, I can logically understand that I shouldn't be in danger now, but my body is responding in a totally different way. And for me, a lot of that learning came from doing jujitsu. In the book, I talk about doing jujitsu. And the reason I think jujitsu was a great teacher for me, it's because you roll with people.
You're rolling, and jujitsu was grappling, or as I like to call it, professional cuddling. And you're rolling with somebody that you know holds no malice towards you, but the moment they grab you and get an arm around your neck, your body starts to panic. And it shows you a big separation within you between how your body responds to something and how your logical mind can.
And very often when we are flooded with emotions, it's not our logical mind. It's not the prefrontal cortex that's responding. It's our survival brain. It's our amygdala. And what we're really trying to do to improve how we feel is to close that gap of reacting to something and converting that to a response and the inconvenient truth of that. And I've been learning this a lot.
is that you can't talk yourself out of anxiety but you have to you can't think your way out of it you have to act your way and a lot of that comes through voluntarily putting yourself in situations that make you feel anxious when you're in a great place and so for me that's required understanding this concept of triggers and realizing that triggers aren't my enemy again another cultural concept that we have is don't trigger me that's triggering this is a trigger warning and it's like
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