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Episode 67: Coping with Social Anxiety... Yes it's Ironic
111 Plays6 years ago
Hello Podwalkers,
Welcome back to the Goblin Lore Podcast! For today's episode Alex and Hobbes were joined by regular contributor to the cast Chase (aka ManaCurves) to discuss what Social Anxiety is and what is not. This episode is a deeper dive into a topic that has come up across multiple episodes. Today we focus on the fight or flight (or freeze) mechanism that underlies anxiety and we talk about how going to Magic Events can help us learn ways to cope with our Anxiety (yah... this is awkward... we know)! Hope you all enjoy and we plan to follow up in the era of Social Distancing soon!
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We finally did our 500 follower giveaway at 650 followers! Prizes will be going out soon as we need to limit trips to the Post Office. We will do future giveaways but we hadn't planned beyond 500 followers so will need to regroup!
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You can find the hosts on Twitter: Hobbes Q. at @HobbesQ, and Alex Newman at @Mel_Chronicler. Send questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to @GoblinLorePod on Twitter or GoblinLorePodcast@gmail.com.
Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle).
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com.
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Transcript
Introduction and Context
00:00:00
Speaker
The End
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello, everybody. This is Hobbs Q. Before we get started with today's episode, I just wanted to give a little bit of an update. This episode was recorded a little over a month ago before kind of stuff had really been coming out about COVID-19 and the recommendations for social distancing.
00:00:49
Speaker
As such, this episode is actually about social anxiety, ways to overcome that, and in some ways we actually ended up talking at the end about going to events or what you can do when you're experiencing kind of social anxiety, kind of work on improving that if that's something that you're interested in doing.
00:01:06
Speaker
We recognize that this is kind of an ironic time to be putting out this episode and have already been in discussions of kind of doing a little bit of a follow-up episode where we can better talk about maybe how do you remain social in times right now that we haven't experienced where we are being encouraged to kind of keep distance and to also be doing things remotely.
00:01:28
Speaker
We've been seeing a lot more stuff kind of pop up online, whether it's people playing together on stream, over discords. So we want to kind of talk a little bit about
00:01:39
Speaker
how to kind of deal with social anxiety, especially if that's been an issue once we are in a situation like that. So for today's episode, we are just going to be talking about social anxiety in general and realizing that once again, this was kind of a ironic time for it to come out.
Social Anxiety at Events
00:01:55
Speaker
But we appreciate you for listening and sit back and enjoy our show today.
00:02:01
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore podcast. Today we want to talk to you about a topic that has come up before on the cast, but never really gotten a focus. That's also one I think that's personal. I know personal to me and personal to all of us. We're going to talk about anxiety disorders, specifically social anxiety. And we also want to revisit one of the first topics we talked about, attending magic fests and conventions and take some time to talk about attending those as someone with an anxiety disorder.
00:02:29
Speaker
But first, we've got to introduce ourselves and answer our opening question. That question is, what's one great experience you've had at a Magic Fest slash Grand Prix slash convention? Would you like to introduce yourself?
00:02:41
Speaker
I'm Hobbs Q. I can be found on Twitter at Hobbs Q my pronouns are he him and I actually will say that I think one of the greatest experiences I've had at any magic fest was Simply so I was it the second GP Vegas that I ever went to It was the second one of the GP Vegas is actually and I got invited to kind of a lady planeswalker draft at an off-site Irish bar with
00:03:11
Speaker
Adrian and Heather. Heather was the one because she's local too. So that's revised Angel and Dreamtime Dryn. Heather had arranged this and I was fortunate enough to get an invitation and she literally just brought boxes of Innistrad and Dark Ascension and we just drafted at an Irish pub.
00:03:32
Speaker
Just for free how to provide everything we had a room kind of to ourselves and it was just such an amazing fun experience I got to play with a lot more women players than I normally. Did it conventions in a big event and it was just a great opportunity to do that.
00:03:51
Speaker
Oh, Chase, you could be up next. Yeah. I was like, oh, yeah, good conversation. And then I got really quiet. Oh, no. OK. Well, first of all, hello, my name is. Welcome back, Chase. Yeah, this is what my fourth phase. It's getting there. Yeah, it's it's up there.
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah, so one, two, fourth, fifth really because we did two part a couple. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. And then we have my last episode. We're glad to have you. Yes, and the last episode is pretty rough.
00:04:33
Speaker
I think we like having your expertise as kind of bringing that social work aspect to it. So yeah, I just wanted to say that before we get going. Thank you. My name is Chase, also known as Manticurves Everywhere. My pronouns are she, they.
00:04:51
Speaker
And my great experience I've had at a convention was actually at SCGCon this past SCGCon. I'm a very shy person by nature. Honestly, I'm actually extremely anxious. And I do not do super well in social situations. So I was able to attend what's called LobbyCon.
00:05:11
Speaker
which is essentially just a bunch of really cool, awesome magic people just relaxing, you know, having a couple drinks and just really like enjoying themselves like in the lobby at the hotel. And I was able to do that. And I was able to relax, you know, talk to some people I was too scared to talk to. I made some friends, had some fun, opened a whole case of German L drain while super drunk. Oh, wow. That sounds amazing.
00:05:38
Speaker
Yeah, and just like made some really good friends from it. And yeah, it was really good fun. Tappy lifted me in the air. Well, she attempted to lift me in the air like Simba, and then I collapsed on her. I shotgunned my first beer and had my first wet cloth.
00:05:55
Speaker
And I also made lovely friends with Missouri MTG, who is super lovely. And he's super nice. And he's doing some awesome stuff for the legacy crowd. So I just also recommend checking him out. But I think that is my best experience, mostly because I was able to kind of come out of my shell a little bit and hang out with people who were like minds.
00:06:18
Speaker
That's great. It sounds like, and we'll get into later, some of the literature conventions and science fiction, fantasy stuff that I go to, they like to joke about bar con, where a lot of people just show up to the bar and you hang out after the convention. In some ways, it's kind of, I don't know if we were planning to get to this, Alex. I just wanted to kind of, thinking back on my answer, I completely blinked on the fact that my best experiences have actually recently been the two barbecues at my house.
00:06:47
Speaker
of the Goblin Lore podcast hosted just barbecues at my house that have been not on site and a lot of what I really enjoyed about Minneapolis in the scene and even just when we've had the magic fesses, how much there is to do off-site with magic players.
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah. And that was me trying to come up with my answer. So let me introduce myself. I'm Alex Newman, found on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler. My pronouns are he him. And I'm going to go with for my answer, something from GP Vegas 2015.
00:07:22
Speaker
Um, I went there that year. I mean, I had just gone to Charlotte two weeks before and met a bunch of people. Cause I was at the time I was writing articles for MTG bro deals. Um, so I met all the people who know each other yet. No, you and I did head not met yet. We, I met.
00:07:37
Speaker
Jeff good in charlotte who would then introduce you and i hear the next year at minneapolis twenty sixteen but in vegas i went and i went by myself i didn't have any friends that went with me i didn't meet anybody this was early in the being back to magic so i just didn't know people outside of my very tight like local game store network.
00:08:02
Speaker
And so I just went to Vegas on my own. And I went did some things like the command zone had a big get together Thursday night, which I went to and met some people there. But then Sunday, I decided it was it's the end of the long weekend, the GP had been four days long, I'd spent all this time in Vegas, I was kind of burned out with between anxiety and my, my just general introversion.
Understanding Anxiety Disorders
00:08:27
Speaker
But I decided that I wanted to spend a little bit more time in the hall at least so I was just I was on my phone watching The the GP like watching the actual tournament Was just sitting at tables at the GP figuring this is a way for me to be sort of around people and not but not actually engaging in socialization And somebody came up and asked if I wanted to keep draft and this was actually somebody I met Thursday night And that's why he saw me in there
00:08:54
Speaker
He and his friends had come down from Toronto, and I think there were four of them, that brought their cube, and so they were looking to get to eight people. And I got to Cube Draft for the first time ever. I got to pick one Pac-1 Grizzle brand, and then cut black so hard that I was the only person playing black in the entire eight people, and I think I had splashed for two red cards, and that was it. Otherwise, my deck was mono-black, this ridiculous reanimator deck that they didn't realize they could build in the cube, because they all knew black sucked, so they all avoided it.
00:09:25
Speaker
But it was just this incredible experience getting to do this type of draft, which was I'd never done before, but I'd heard about playing with random people, some of whom I had met a couple of days before, some of whom I had never met before. And it was at the end of this long weekend of incredible experiences, but it really stands out to me because I.
00:09:44
Speaker
I was ready to sit in my hotel room and do nothing, but I decided to go down to the floor and spend some time in the hall. Because I was there, they found me and I got to go have this experience. What's really awesome, Alex, thinking about that specific GP that you're referencing, we actually were in the same room.
00:10:08
Speaker
playing at the same kind of an offsite EDH event that was going on, when all I knew at that point was that somebody randomly had busted out a box of the dart to throw him with a conspiracy draft, I believe? Yeah, so Josh and Jimmy, the guys who were at the command zone at the time,
00:10:34
Speaker
They were talking about doing this and I had actually sent some email to them and they back and forth just a little bit like, well, you know, I'm coming to this. Should I, you know, if I bring some random stuff and they're like, well, we'll have conspiracy things. And if you want to bring some random packs to throw in for your pod, go for it that, you know, and I don't think they thought much of it. And so I happen to have had a box of the dark. So I brought 12 packs thinking, well, then I'll have one for everybody in the pool for sure.
00:11:02
Speaker
And we ended up breaking into groups of eight, which worked out well. But so then that was we all sat down, we were ready to go. And I'm like, hey, everybody. So I just hand these out. And it was like the reaction was great. But then I went and talked. And so then those guys came up to and we're talking about it. And they're like, Yeah, I remember you emailed and we didn't think I didn't think anything of it. And then you just brought the packs. And this is really cool. And
00:11:22
Speaker
Because I had some extra packs. I actually gave them the four remaining packs, and they did some giveaways on their show with them, which was cool. Incredible to see. I did not know who you were at all. I mean, you and I were in this room together. One of the first kind of events that are after you had kind of started
00:11:42
Speaker
going again and started really re-engaging, which is kind of the focus of where we're going tonight. And it just blows my mind that I literally was sitting a table over from you. I think I was playing with the stibs and trick. And we were watching you guys draft this randomly about the packs of the dark.
00:12:02
Speaker
Was Jason Alton your table? Yes. Okay. Because DJ, who is now on the show with him, but who wasn't at the time, was in our pod. And he said something to Jason. And I remember him kind of looking over. And I can't remember who it was when someone at the table got to pick one Pac-Wan Leviathan in a conspiracy draft, and he was really happy about that. That's awesome.
00:12:28
Speaker
Cool. I mean, it sounds like we're, it's just great to hear kind of the good experiences that we all have had off of going to these events. And even, you know, with Chase mentioning that you outwardly Chase, I think sound like somebody that comes across as probably bubbly, outgoing. Most people would probably peg initially for being an extrovert based on your online presence. And you're talking about how difficult it is for you to go to events.
00:12:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's extremely difficult for me actually. Sometimes I end up dreading go-to events, mostly because I get so scared.
00:13:05
Speaker
which is not how people, honestly, like I really honestly think I come across as super shy and anxious, but then everyone tells me that they think I'm really like outgoing and bubbly and talkative and I'm not really like that. I mean, I am when I'm comfortable and I'm around friends, but in a situation where I feel, I don't know you that well, or I'm trying to make friends, I end up floundering like an actual fish on the pavement.
Coping Mechanisms and Mindfulness
00:13:34
Speaker
The little slip-slap sounds, that's me. I mean, the first time I went to GP Vegas, I mean, those were the first two big events I ever went to. I mean, I think I'd gone to like one GP in San Diego, but that was really on my home turf. I knew a ton of people there. The hall was so big. It was very spread out. It wasn't anywhere near the chaos that Vegas is. I mean, I remember approaching Vegas with this kind of like
00:14:02
Speaker
I need to have a way out. I need to make sure that I have anti-anxiety medications with me. I mean this whole kind of preparing things. And I'm also somebody that I think people tend to think of as an outgoing, extroverted person. And just going when I was with friends still made me completely anxious.
00:14:24
Speaker
I've had that to some degree, like for years, I spent years just knowing I couldn't go to conventions. And then my social anxiety was diagnosed and I had a better understanding of what that was and it helped me to start to go out and do these things that I wanted to do, which I think gives us a good place to transition to the real world topic and kind of talk about what- Yeah, let's talk about anxiety disorders. Okay.
00:14:55
Speaker
I have as the the I don't know. I had words but like pedestrian is not the right word in this context. But so here's I have I have a quick definition of kind of how I think of it and launch you to
00:15:10
Speaker
bounce off that or let me know what i'm missing or what you think of it so i just have anxiety is a feeling of of unease or distress it's it's a normal something that's normal for people to feel with those with anxiety disorders get it in volumes and times where it's really not reasonable or doesn't make normal sense.
00:15:31
Speaker
For me, at least, it's often my fight or flight instinct getting triggered as if I was in physical danger, but I'm just really talking to someone at a bus stop.
00:15:43
Speaker
So at its base, kind of, yeah, are you punching your microphone in agreement? I mean, is that? This is how I say yes now through violence. Through punching your microphone. Yeah. So I do want to come back, Alex, to the fight or flight piece, because I think it's going to really play a big part into this. But I want to start with just kind of this idea of
00:16:07
Speaker
we're going to talk about this is kind of anxiety disorders, right? So what we would actually define as being not just the fact that you feel uncomfortable in public. Yes, right. Most people actually feel uncomfortable in public to some degree. An anxiety disorder, once again, depression, anxiety, both of them, there's a difference between having symptoms and kind of getting diagnosed. And a lot of it is to do with
00:16:32
Speaker
functional impairment, which is actually is actually a huge part. They think I always want to remind people when we're talking about any of the things on here, that if we're obviously not diagnosing, and if things on here sound like it's kind of you're seeing how these are impacting your life, that actually is a really big part of it. Just having symptoms is never an issue.
00:16:54
Speaker
I mean, theoretically, feeling uncomfortable. If it's not impacting what you're doing with your life, it's not considered a disorder. It's not necessarily considered problematic in that way. The DSM states that it has to affect you to an impairment sort of level to kind of back that up.
00:17:15
Speaker
So in this, so with a social anxiety too, there is kind of it's just like the DSM has for everything. There is a number of symptoms and you kind of meet criteria for different ones. The biggest thing to kind of keep in mind with social anxiety is really that it's a persistent fear in one or more social or performance situations. So it can be like, it's got to be one or more. So it can be just, and some people have it situationally to just work or just
00:17:45
Speaker
going out in public, but it's this idea that you're going to be around unfamiliar people and you feel evaluated or that they're going to be scrutinizing you or seeing you in some way.
00:17:57
Speaker
There's also, I also like to kind of characterize that there's like a lot of intrusive thoughts, like a heavy emphasis on worry, too. I personally think that the intrusive thoughts is kind of what has a very heavy weight in here.
00:18:16
Speaker
to kind of add on to that, because, you know, Hobbs kind of like nailed it on the head here. A lot of times when talking about anxiety, working at my current internship, I'm at a trauma focused center. And a lot of the time, individuals who come in for, you know, GAD, generalized anxiety disorder, or anxiety disorders, I like to describe as really being neck up kind of people. Hobbs, are you kind of familiar with what I'm talking about?
00:18:46
Speaker
It's clearly they did that like everything is kind of going on in your brain. It's kind of that you're really so the way that I kind of describe generalized anxiety because this is going to become important to talk about that there are different types of anxiety. Social anxiety is a specific kind of anxiety disorder. Generalized anxiety is kind of people who really
00:19:07
Speaker
are generally anxious and it's got to be above about a number of situations. And I kind of describe it as your brain is trying to be the best problem solver in the world without ever actually solving a problem. So you were asking all of the what if, what if, what if, what if questions. And so you are just intensely, intrusively trying to solve problems so that you can be prepared for every situation, but you're not actually doing anything about them.
00:19:33
Speaker
And kind of going back, you know, sort of like neck up. So you're all you're in your mind. And that's kind of how I like to describe anxiety disorders is that you're you're just constantly in your head, you know, repeating worry, stress, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, you know, racing thoughts is another big one, lots of racing thoughts. And a lot of times that we forget that
00:19:58
Speaker
Our emotions and our feelings also live from the neck down as well. They live in our body. Oftentimes, when I work with individuals, it's really getting you back into your body and getting an understanding of what anxiety feels like in your body. Do you feel queasy in your stomach? Does your face get hot?
00:20:21
Speaker
Does your ear do your ears burn? Do you or does your throat, you know tighten up like your arms feel heavy? Um, you know trying to get you out of your head and into your body while still being mindful of what is in your head Um, but a lot of the work that I do involves neck down Yeah, it's really trying to get you in touch with what you're feeling And this goes back to your fight or flight alex, right? um, but the idea that to talk about with
00:20:50
Speaker
with social anxiety is that you are afraid that you are being judged and that people are going to, you're really afraid of embarrassing yourself, humiliating yourself in front of other people. It's not kind of just shyness, right? It's that others are going to notice you.
00:21:08
Speaker
Yes. And, and like I said, the, the, the fighter, the fighter flight instinct that it's, it's things like, like literally the physiologically blood moving away from your brain. And like when I was seeing my therapist, like he was explaining this process to me, which helps me a lot. Like, I don't know about other people, but having the, the sort of knowledge and intellectual, just thinking about it mechanically can help me. And so just realizing that in those situations,
00:21:38
Speaker
When that instinct is kicked on, it is harder to process thoughts because literally the blood is moving away from my brain because the body is getting ready to run or fight. And so it's moving towards the feet, moving towards the arms. And so just knowing that process was helpful to me because I can start to feel, and like you're saying, paying attention to your body, paying attention to those signs. And once I started to pay more attention to those,
00:22:08
Speaker
It helped me to figure out what specific triggers were, just kind of work through things. For me, mindfulness became a very important thing, especially now. It's a thing that's always around, but I'm finding habits that I had built based on my anxiety, that I'm not feeling anxiety about things anymore, but I'm still following through these habits that I had built around things that used to give me anxiety.
00:22:38
Speaker
And so because of that mindfulness that I stop and I try to think through, okay, here's a reaction I don't understand. Why did I react this way? That's actually a really great thing that you brought up. So at my current internship, I am working with a very specific intervention, which is known as DBT, which stands for dialectical behavioral therapy.
00:23:04
Speaker
And mindfulness is actually the first subset of skills that need to be taught in order for clients to progress through the other skill stages, through the other levels of what we call like the house. But mindfulness is super effective in doing that. It's a lot of grounding exercise. It's a lot of uses of wise mind, with the three minds, making wise mind decisions.
00:23:32
Speaker
And really honestly that's like fantastic because it it's it's trying to recognize patterns of behavior and and kind of utilize those sort of mindfulness skills to Kind of help help kind of put you back in your body and kind of help you make these decisions and have that awareness So that's actually really fantastic. It kind of like coincides perfectly with what I do Which is kind of sweet actually
00:23:56
Speaker
I mean, whenever I teach this sort of stuff, the idea is that the first step is simply that you have to recognize that it's going on. So if you're not aware of what your body is doing. So the fight or flight comes up a lot in, in most things, I do disorders and also very much in anger. That's the fight aspect of it, but it's a similar kind of mechanism. And people are not aware of the physical cues in their body that they are getting uncomfortable.
00:24:24
Speaker
which are directly related to kind of this leftover fight or flight mechanism. So Alex, I just want you to kind of tell us what you know about it. What I know about just this fight or flight just like given because you've had the experience kind of learning about it in yourself. Yeah. And so my general understanding is is it's basically like the fight or flight instinct is being
00:24:50
Speaker
It's my brain misunderstanding certain things and thinking it's trying to social, being embarrassed in public, things like this are actually physically threatening me. And so early on, I liked to, at least in my own head, make it absurd. And I compared it to my brain decided that being embarrassed is the equivalent of being eviscerated by a saber-toothed tiger.
00:25:13
Speaker
And because of that, that it's triggering these defense mechanisms. And so I'm, you know, it's pumping adrenaline and it's moving blood away and it's getting ready for me to run. And I know for myself, my reaction tends to be flight or freeze.
00:25:28
Speaker
I don't have a lot of fight instinct, though this may be sliding a little bit, which I'll share an experience that I thought was really fascinating after the fact, but it was one of the few times that I can remember my fight instinct actually being triggered in a situation was at work. And I just had gone down to, we got a little like convenience store in the lobby. So I went bottle, bottle up, up, was walking up the stairs.
00:25:56
Speaker
Just happened to walk past all the management from my department going to a meeting. And I missed a stair, stumbled up two stairs, dropped the bottle of pop, and one of the managers saw that, turned and said, are you okay? I said, yeah. Anxiety's starting to kick up a little bit because I feel embarrassed that I tripped and can't walk upstairs properly in front of management.
00:26:19
Speaker
you know i learned how to extricate myself from these social situations you just say yes i'm fine and then you keep walking so i did that. Well then he catches up to me and says hey will you do this for me will you call HR and report that just in case you know something happened just on the job injury just something like that.
00:26:42
Speaker
So again, just kind of taken up a little bit, but I say, yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Not intending to do that, but, or no, he asked if I've minded if he reported it. And so in that situation, I'm like, yeah, sure, go for it. And that also giving him that answer that he wanted gets me out of the situation. Get back to my desk and suddenly my manager, who, uh, my supervisor who works under the guy who was talking to me comes up and hands me a phone number.
00:27:10
Speaker
says, hey, can you call this number and just tell HR about the incident or I can't remember exactly how she referred to it. Well, now at this point, I tried to run twice and I wasn't able to run. And now the situation has moved to someone else who wasn't there. And this is when my fight instinct kicks in.
00:27:35
Speaker
So I call the HR guy. He can hear my voice that I am not happy, but I give him very specifics of what happened. He said, thank you. I understand that this seems kind of silly, but it's important for claims. If something comes up and you realize that something later, it'll be important to have the record. And so I say, hang up. And I spend the next 45 minutes just fuming.
00:28:02
Speaker
And that isn't helped by the fact that I understood there wasn't really any person to be angry at. I can't say that they did anything wrong, but because I was trapped in this situation, that flight instinct shifted to fight because now all of a sudden my body has decided that I am in danger and running away didn't work.
00:28:25
Speaker
So I do like to earlier, you kind of mentioned that freeze is another element. It's called fight or flight. It is actually fight, fight, flight or freeze. Freeze being kind of you just shut down. It was kind of probably like evolutionarily, it was kind of that if I kind of play dead or just stay here, I won't get eaten.
00:28:49
Speaker
But for a lot of people, it's kind of then if you're in the situation, something happens, you just freeze.
DBT and Distress Tolerance
00:28:54
Speaker
The basic idea here is that your body is getting ready to either bolt or to fight. And so the physical aspects of that are basically the same. Social anxiety is accompanied a lot of times with physical symptoms. And those are blushing, faster heartbeat, trembling, sweating, stomach upset,
00:29:17
Speaker
trouble with breathing, dizziness, muscle tension and feeling that your mind has just gone blank or getting that really intense kind of tunnel vision where you can only see kind of what's directly in front of you. These are all just very simply due to kind of adrenaline coursing through your body. These are all the effects of things that you need or don't need. You need blood to the extremities.
00:29:41
Speaker
The best example I ever heard of like why your stomach might get a little kind of upset is digestion slows down or stops because you don't need to pee or poop.
00:29:54
Speaker
chase when you are in the situation. Just call me out for some references to pee-pee-poo that you've made often. It's actually very true. I do write pee-pee-poo a lot. Yeah, it's actually relevant though because that is kind of the upset stomach or nausea is because your digestion shuts down because that is not needed for survival.
00:30:18
Speaker
All of this is getting things to where they need to be, like you were saying, Alex, for survival. You're trying to breathe quicker. You're trying to get blood pumping faster and to all the extremities. And the problem is this system is getting activated in situations that are not actually life threatening.
00:30:42
Speaker
The grand scheme of things, these are not things that are, but your brain is treating it like that. And if you're not aware that that is going on, you are either going to fight or you're going to run away or stay away from things because you know that if you go into that situation, you're going to feel this way.
00:30:59
Speaker
I honestly think that dialectical behavioral therapy is absolutely fantastic for anxiety disorders. I really think it's very beneficial because it has a lot of skills that I think can be utilized to help with a lot of the symptoms that you brought up that are involved
00:31:16
Speaker
specifically like social anxiety, general anxiety. So mindfulness is fantastic for the intrusive thoughts, the racing thoughts. Distress tolerance skills are perfect for the physical feelings you feel in your body when you are experiencing that high amount of anxiety or panic.
00:31:35
Speaker
interpersonal effectiveness skills, I think are fantastic because they basically kind of give you a map on how to navigate certain social situations that might be difficult for you or might cause you high amounts of stress or anxiety. And emotion regulation is also again good for
00:31:54
Speaker
that high level of what's called I believe it's hyper arousal. Hypo arousal is sort of the feeling of like dissociation. But I really think it's really good for like hyper arousal situations. Because when you are anxious, you could be hypo aroused. But more often than not, you're kind of in the upregulated states.
00:32:13
Speaker
Kind of taking what Chase was saying a little bit, like hypo arousal is kind of what we see when she was mentioning dissociation, which is kind of that is the shutting down. That is almost the freeze. You're actually in some ways disconnecting from your experiences in your body. Yes. So that can happen with anxiety. So it's less common with some of the social anxiety, but it could easily happen, especially in situations you might say, I don't really remember what was going on.
00:32:40
Speaker
I think you've talked about this, Alex, like you were there presently, but you're also kind of like you weren't attuned to the situation around you. And I know that for me, with my own anxiety,
00:32:53
Speaker
I used to get panic attacks. At one point in my life, I got pretty severe panic attacks. And that is an element that can come along with social anxiety, especially or just anxiety in general, which is a feeling out of nowhere that basically you're going to die or just that you you just you're you're basically you don't know what is going on. And I would have that experience where I kind of felt out of my body.
00:33:21
Speaker
But I wanted to just highlight a couple things, because Chase used some terms here. So do you want to explain what distress tolerance is? Because I think it's really relevant for what we're going to be talking about.
00:33:31
Speaker
So oftentimes we're just going to not even look at this from a DBT lens. Just distress tolerance is just in a moment of crisis, a skill, something that you can utilize in the moment to not make the situation go away, but to again tolerate it until you kind of get back to your window of tolerance where you can kind of handle the situation or you can process it afterwards. So a really good example that I like to use when teaching distress tolerance skills is
00:34:02
Speaker
You're on a, let's say you're on a cruise ship or something and you fall overboard and you're in the middle of the water and you see that there, to the left of you, there is completely no land, none at all, just open sea. Then to the right, you see a cruise liner, but they're 100 miles away. They're a blip, but you see that they're heading towards you.
00:34:22
Speaker
So I like to ask people, what would you do in this situation? Oftentimes I'll say, I'll scream for help or start swimming towards them. I'll freak out and panic. And in that moment, that is kind of a crisis situation. That's a situation that causes you high amounts of distress. And so distress tolerance would be to do what's called a survivor's float.
00:34:46
Speaker
and just kind of float and wait for the cruise ship to come to you. And I like to use that metaphor because in a situation where you're in an amount of stress, you want to like scream, call for help, you want to like kick, you want to try and swim, but that is finding the crisis situation and then you'll drown.
00:35:08
Speaker
So sort of tolerating that situation until, you know, that ship comes or the help comes. So pretty much using skills to kind of tolerate stressful moments. And there are a lot of fantastic distress tolerance skills that can be utilized. Alex, one thing you've kind of talked about before was
00:35:32
Speaker
And I think this is, we did hit on this a little bit in our earlier episode about this, was this idea that you developed a new pattern due to your social anxiety, which was to avoid. Just not go into situations that would cause you anxiety, right? It's not a great feeling. So you had kind of started structuring your life where you just didn't engage in ways that would cause this to come up.
00:36:04
Speaker
What kind of happened? Yeah, and that, well, it led to a narrowing of my life of the things that I would do in my experiences. Ultimately, that led to a panic attack where I went to the hospital because I thought I was having trouble breathing.
00:36:24
Speaker
Um, nothing was wrong physically in, in, in that sense. Um, and that day, like literally, uh, I was, I was getting right home. My, my manager at the time gave me a ride to and back from the hospital.
00:36:40
Speaker
And I went home, I scheduled my first appointment and that's when I went and saw a therapist and was able to get my anxiety diagnosed and start to work on that. Um, and actually I went, then I went back to work. Like he told me he'll take the day off, but at that point I'm sitting in my own head and I didn't need to be there. So I went to work for a half day to get out of that space, but
00:37:08
Speaker
leading up to that and kind of looking back. It's a thing I didn't really notice.
00:37:15
Speaker
as it was happening because I wasn't cognizant of the, I knew that there were these feelings and these situations made me uncomfortable, but I didn't really know more of the root cause of it because at the time I didn't know that this was anxiety. So I didn't realize as the years went by, how I was starting to live in a smaller and smaller space. Yeah. Until, until working through some therapy and able to kind of see that and start to kind of push that back.
00:37:44
Speaker
And part of what happens is people with social anxiety start structuring their lives to limit the amount of time that they feel uncomfortable. So the stress tolerance skills that Chase is talking about is really based on this idea that we know that emotions will naturally come down. Like they are not going to rise to the level where a single bout of anxiety or panic attack is going to literally kill you.
00:38:13
Speaker
That is what it feels like, right? I mean, people go into the ER panic attacks because it feels like they're dying. And that's what they think is going to happen. And we know that emotions are actually a wave. And it's this idea that if you can get through that wave, you will start seeing that anxiety will kind of come down.
Magic Events and Social Interaction
00:38:30
Speaker
Distress tolerance is based on this idea of staying in the situation, not dissociating or fleeing. So it's really that you are engaged in it and you are feeling that discomfort.
00:38:42
Speaker
but you're tolerating it to the point where you can start seeing that the quote unquote bad thing that you were worried about didn't happen.
00:38:50
Speaker
And to kind of piggyback along that, that's kind of where the mindfulness skills plan is that you can't tolerate a crisis situation when you're not being mindful. I mean, it's very difficult to do so. Also kind of looking at other like distress tolerance goals, when you said that you would avoid, avoidance is actually a coping mechanism that a lot of individuals with anxiety disorders use because
00:39:16
Speaker
um it works it works it works it works it does yeah it is but like you said it started to kind of like funnel your life and make it very difficult um and it gets to the point where um because i mean avoidance is a coping mechanism almost everything that we do is a coping mechanism it may not be a helpful coping mechanism but it still gets the job done and you kind of have to look at things in terms of short term and long term so like um
00:39:43
Speaker
for some individuals like talking to a friend as a coping mechanism or drinking or, you know, other stuff and so on and so forth, you know, coping mechanisms, you know, help us. The way they become helpful and harmful is kind of where we see the divide a little bit and avoidance, you know,
00:40:02
Speaker
kind of tends to lean on the more harmful side. So a lot of distress tolerance skills are used to kind of supplement that avoidance, like Hobb said, like literally putting you in that moment, kind of what's what we call, in my field, informal exposure, or a slight, you know, like slight exposure, how we'll kind of, you know, expose you to the uncomfortable situation in, in a controlled setting, obviously.
00:40:26
Speaker
and kind of have you be comfortable with the feeling of being uncomfortable, which sounds very weird and kind of counterproductive, but it is extremely helpful because you can sort of look at the patterns of behaviors before you, find a common thread, and then kind of find places where you're like, okay, yeah, when that thing happened,
00:40:46
Speaker
Uh, I could have, uh, utilized the skill, um, you know, instead of doing ABC and then next time you're like, okay. Um, uh, this thing happened again and I utilized a skill and, you know, I was still feeling pretty, I was at like a six for, uh, anxiety, but that's way better than where I usually am at, which is at a nine. And, you know, it takes practice too, because unfortunately distress tolerance skills aren't skills that you utilize once and you're like, wow.
00:41:10
Speaker
I'm fine. These things take practice, especially when avoidance is utilized for so long because that's way easier. But distress tolerance skills are pretty much ways to supplement for avoidance and can eventually become very helpful coping mechanisms.
00:41:32
Speaker
I mean, I think that one of the things that I tell people is that I'm making you feel uncomfortable for a reason. There's a purpose to it. I'm asking you to do it. You have to be willing to, obviously. But there's a purpose behind it. It's not just that we want you to feel like horrible.
00:41:49
Speaker
So it's more to do with the idea that What can happen with social anxiety in particular as Alex talked about that limiting of the world is it's because you start You avoid a situation and you start feeling comfortable However, that social anxiety hasn't been dealt with so yeah, then it starts applying to another situation and you keep moving further and further back because you have to now avoid something else that was a precursor to something that you would have to avoid and
00:42:17
Speaker
Yep, exactly. And then that's what was happening to me. Unbeknownst to me for a while, but yeah, it was, you know, you don't do this because that made me feel uncomfortable. Okay, cool. I can just avoid this. Well, then it's like, well, now don't do that either because this is really close to that. So maybe that'll cause those same feelings about discomfort and it starts to spiral.
00:42:40
Speaker
But we have been talking a lot about kind of anxiety disorders. I think we've nailed down what a social anxiety disorder is and kind of the approaches to it and why they've developed.
00:42:52
Speaker
Now, let's talk about magic, because what we talked about at the very beginning of this, but I think it's because the game is magic, the gathering, right? It's literally in the name of the game we love, the gathering. The idea behind this is, you know, outside of playing decks like I like to play, like Storm, it's hard to sit at home and just play against yourself. Sure, I can goldfish. To really enjoy it, it's a game.
00:43:18
Speaker
Yeah, and I'm actually really excited to kind of dive into our lore aspect because I actually have an article written about this. What? Really? Yeah. When I first started diving into content, I did. Honestly, when I read these notes, I was like, these guys don't even know about the cool stuff I'm about to bring to the table.
00:43:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yes, this is very true. We never know what you're going to bring to the table. It's true. And that's taking away my anxiety right now. Smelled in so much because I know this is an important topic and it's a topic I'm passionate about, but I'm also me. So I'm like holding in my bullshit.
00:43:59
Speaker
Like you said, our lore portion of it, it is less specific about lore. It's about the gathering in this situation because we're talking about ways that we celebrate the game. I mean, there are examples of lore stories with kind of anxiety and I think even just with how people have interacted with characters that we could find. For this episode, we really want to focus on kind of this idea of like going to events. We touched, like Alex said, on this very quickly in an early episode.
00:44:27
Speaker
We want to kind of give it a lot more gravity to it because I'm going to be honest, this is a magic fest is a way to kind of, if you've been working on your social anxiety and you want to start re-engaging, there's ways to do this. And there's ways to do this. I believe it, a lot of these that allow you to engage with as much as you can and recognize that that, you know, maybe you're not going to be able to do everything that we're going to talk about here. And the first time you go, however,
00:44:57
Speaker
this might be something that you're building towards or even it's just going back to your local store and playing. Magic Fest is a scary concept. It is the largest kind of gathering that we have. I mean, I think that's fair to say, right? Like these are the largest versions of gatherings.
00:45:16
Speaker
Just big events in general, Star City events, Magic Fest, Grand Prix, so on and so forth, whatever you want to call them, just big social gatherings. Given that, I mean, I do think we are kind of, we're still on that lore podcast.
00:45:32
Speaker
element. There may be people who are listening to this that don't actually know what a magic fest is. This is a lore podcast? Well, they were. It's in their name. We're not having you back. Yeah, we are. You can't get rid of me. So Alex, you were up a really nice kind of synopsis. Can you run us through a little bit on this?
00:45:56
Speaker
Sure, so I'll just do kind of a quick list of some of the things and maybe we'll focus on some of these over others, particularly the things that we are more passionate about. But right now, Magic Fest is kind of an umbrella term that's supposed to encapsulate just a big celebration of magic. It's a weekend long. Most of them are three days. Some of them are four day long.
00:46:18
Speaker
Over weekend, they do 30, 40 a year. Google magic fest, 20, 20, and you'll find the list. So there's always a Grand Prix, which is what they used to call the main, which is what they used to call these, but now that's the main event. It's a big tournament.
00:46:36
Speaker
Most of these will start on a Saturday, and then if you do well enough, you come back the next day to play. Vegas does some weird things where it runs longer and has multiple Grand Prix. Then you have artist tables. A lot of artists come. Some of the bigger GP's Magic Fest will draw.
00:46:55
Speaker
Six ten some of the smaller ones you may only have three or four but there's always some artists there you'll have big vendors some of these are actual stores your channel fireballs your Cool stuff ink that have big websites that are also physical stores and some of these are smaller Stores that will do websites and then just you know show up to these events and some of these are guys that just go event to event and
00:47:19
Speaker
You also have side events and a lot of different side events, things that fire on demand, things that are scheduled. There's some goofy off-the-wall stuff. Chaos drafts, I believe, is a thing that have been in every Magic Fest since General Fireball took over. They've put that in the on-demand or at least on the scheduled thing. Those are fun.
00:47:40
Speaker
Because that's my speed. I like to just do goofy things. So Chaos Draft, where you're drafting with random packs, as opposed to a specific format, I'm always a fan of. And then there's casual tables. There's just a lot of magic people who show up. You get panels sometimes, and different special events at some of these. I think there's just two also what they're aiming for. Yes. More of that stuff that's lower on the list, I think.
00:48:07
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, because we're gonna talk a little bit about conventions here in a second. And in some ways, the ideal situation, I think for a lot of people would be magic fests become magic cons, that we have our own, yes, they just happen more often, smaller scale, but and speaking of that, Hobbs, if you don't mind me coming in here to try to pass it to chase, I'd like to hear about se G con, because I think that's what they're trying to do there. But you went and I haven't had a chance to go.
00:48:37
Speaker
I went to an SDG con and I thought it was very fun. The command zone was a huge draw for me, probably one of the main reasons why I went. For me, that was a huge difference because I'm not a competitive player by any means in terms of formats.
00:48:53
Speaker
wasn't really drawn to Star City events because the last time I went to a Star City event that didn't have a Command Zone, I just sat there twiddling my thumbs and wondering why I went because they don't have much draw for players like me. And so I thought the inclusion of Command Zone and inclusion of Command Zone in future Star City events is going to be a huge deal because it draws in individuals that they normally wouldn't draw in and it kind of intermingles the different sex of magic that I think don't really interact with each other as much as they should.
00:49:23
Speaker
Yeah, so how did the command zone work there? Was that just some tables for commander players? Did they do some other stuff with it? Yeah, so what they did was they got a little special badge that you were part of the command zone. And they had, it was essentially roped off. Tons of tables with tons of playmets. And you could sit at a table and play casually with whoever you wanted to.
00:49:45
Speaker
But they also had tickets and certain amount of tickets or you could play in a competitive pod to win prize tickets for the prize wall. So you could register through that or you can just play casually at a table and just chill out with friends and just play. You're able to intermingle with guests that Star City invited and really just kind of like,
00:50:08
Speaker
Play around with people they even had a little corner in the back where they were doing a CDH stream and I even actually had a sign that said CDH player. So it was pretty much. An open area week where you could play for prizes or just play. I really liked that a lot.
00:50:28
Speaker
No, that's cool. I like that idea a lot. And that's one thing that at least the Minneapolis events we've gone to, I've been fortunate to have a large network of Minneapolis people I know now. So I've been able to do some offsite things or some onsite things where we all just meet up. But yeah, having that, I think that was a thing that was kind of missing from some of the events I went to before, especially ones I traveled to.
00:50:52
Speaker
to have a spot where you have designated, okay, people who want to just do come in or come over here and we'll meet up and play. I think one of the things that was difficult for me going to initial Grand Prix was they were chaotic. Especially the first big ones that they ever did with the Vegases, they were chaotic because it really wasn't known at that point what a 5,000 person event looks like.
00:51:22
Speaker
There wasn't organized areas. It was tables getting moved when you had started a game. It was events taking, you know, firing 30, 40 minutes for, for side events after they were supposed to. It was just, it was an environment made to spike anxiety. If you were somebody like me who was already prone to anxiety, like the event was definitely not set up in a way that would help me given how I tend to approach my anxiety.
00:51:50
Speaker
And so I'm very interested to see how this could be going. So that's the thing. But yeah, is there something particular? Like I know for me, it's the more, like I love going to the artist tables. That's always the first thing I do at these events because the artists will bring play mats, they'll bring tokens, they'll bring prints. Day one, I always go and drop like 20 bucks on tokens immediately. I just, I'd love to have
00:52:19
Speaker
You know, I'm glad Wizards is printing tokens and booster packs. It's great to have tokens available for the cards that need them, but I love to have like the unique things, the things that are special to me. And so being able to go to the artist tables and just peruse through the tokens they have and pick those up for whatever deck I'm working on, or I'll just buy ones that look cool. Even if I don't have a deck, I have no idea what card makes them. I just want this token so that I can eventually find a use for it.
00:52:46
Speaker
We've kind of set up this idea because I think we're moving into, in some ways, Alex, the reality sculpting piece
Community and Personal Growth
00:52:54
Speaker
here. What's our actual advice? How do we attend these big events, especially for somebody that might be more prone to anxiety? I think that's what we're getting into because I want to give you that opportunity to really talk about. It sounds like one of the things is if you're going in to have a plan is what you have done.
00:53:15
Speaker
Yes, yeah, that's been a big thing for me, going in, kind of having a plan, kind of knowing what I'm looking to do. For a lot of these both conventions, which the magic fests are pushing more towards what conventions are. Conventions are a little different because they don't have a central tournament. They don't have a central room most of the time. But there's a lot of the same types of things. It's a lot of fans getting together in a relatively small space to celebrate something.
00:53:44
Speaker
And so my sort of tactics, things that I've done, to be honest, some of the first ones I went to, I traveled to, so I'd have a hotel room. And so the first things I did is basically give myself outs. Like I know if I have a hotel room and I'm going to this convention or I'm going to this magic fest, I give myself permission to go spend the day in the hotel if I need to.
00:54:09
Speaker
So then I know that if I go to the event and it becomes overwhelming, the sort of worst case scenario loss case is I get to go hang out in the hotel and watch the Food Network, which still sounds awesome. So that has helped me a lot because it gave me
00:54:28
Speaker
I don't know in a game sense I knew that the floor of the situation was pretty high and so it would only be better than that and so as long as the event was better than that I just hung out at the event.
00:54:42
Speaker
So you actually bring up something that's very interesting, which is this concept. There's a difference between avoidance and purposefully stepping away. You have to be able to recognize that in order to actually use this as a skill, though. So because the easy part is to, once again, fall back into that trap of, well, I can go to a hotel room, and then you start spending the entire con in a hotel room. Doing it purposefully with intent, and it's a decision that you are making, is very different than avoidance.
00:55:12
Speaker
Yeah. And to kind of talk about things that, you know, I don't really like to do at events. So like, I love interacting with people. I'm sorry.
00:55:25
Speaker
I love interacting with people, but I also hate it. Mostly because I personally value other individuals' opinions of myself far more than I should. And I tend to overthink of that a lot. So at events, especially when people who I talk to on Twitter, my anxiety goes through the roof. I am questioning every single thing I say,
00:55:47
Speaker
do, play, talk, you know, how I look. Honestly, it's like every single thing that I do is like under a microscope.
00:55:57
Speaker
So for me, like, I love the community and I love the people. And when I get in the game, I feel relaxed and everything like that. And when I'm around friends, I'm bubbly and off the walls and happy and jokey and weird. But when it comes to interacting with people who I may have had a passing conversation with on Twitter, or who I want to become friends with, or who I kind of only know on Twitter and just I end up a mess.
00:56:21
Speaker
So for me, that's kind of one of the things that I struggle with is something I love, which is people, because I love people, but they also scare me a lot. Yeah, that's actually the very definition of what led to dialectical behavior therapy. That's literally what we would call a dialectic. It's yep, mean ideas that are both true at the same time, time, because the kernel truth and everything as the as Marsha likes to say,
00:56:49
Speaker
Well, as we were starting out this episode tonight, we were waiting for kind of figuring out some technology problems. Alex, you literally said to me. I said, is it possible to feel both under and over prepared for an episode at the same time? Yes. Yes, it is. I mean, I mean, we're kind of getting into this bigger question of why would we want to go to these events? I mean, we're
00:57:14
Speaker
three people in this chat right now having this conversation that I would say on the anxiety spectrum swing towards the anxious side. I would say that right now I do a little bit better than I used to. And part of that is literally because I have to teach a lot of socials. Actually, a big portion of what I'm doing right now is social skills, social cognition for jobs. So I have these things literally in front of my brain and have to teach them all the time.
00:57:43
Speaker
And I will say, that is probably my number one thing that I have on how to do it, is I have to talk about it. So it is right there at the front of my brain when I need it. Why would we want to go? Why do we even want to go? Because we love these things. And when a lot of people love something, they can get together and do some amazing stuff with it. And that's really what these conventions, what these magic vests are about at their best.
00:58:11
Speaker
is fans getting together and doing fun and cool things together. I mean, you don't get to do a three-headed giant word of the Spark Vanguard draft at a store. Well, if you've got a bunch of people who get together, maybe something, but that's hard to just come up with.
00:58:27
Speaker
These are these for like spontaneous events. It really is that whole concept that we now have of FOMO is the kids say, I guess, like fear. It's this idea that there is this opportunities for things to happen that you might not get to do otherwise.
00:58:47
Speaker
And as I said, it's fun to get together and talk about these things we enjoy, or in the case of Magic in particular, get together and play this game. I actually have played a lot more Magic this year since the last Magic Fest, but when we went to Magic Fest 2019 in Minneapolis, that was the first time I had played Magic since Magic Fest 2018.
00:59:09
Speaker
I went an entire year without playing any magic just because I had other things going on and I just kind of forgot about it, or not really forgot about it, but just forgot to it. But that was a great time. It creates this external impetus for us to get together as a community. We have, you know, Chase at the top of the episode, you mentioned Missouri MTG, like he comes up to the Minneapolis Magic Fest.
00:59:36
Speaker
a lot along with a number of other people will travel to this. Plus you have a lot of them, magic, Minneapolis magic crew. And so we all get together and we go to, uh, you know, Hobbs place for a barbecue slash cubes slash draft. And people just hang out at his house and start playing random games. And it's, it gives us a place to come together to play and to do the things that we love.
01:00:02
Speaker
Yeah. And they kind of like tied into what I said earlier, that I actually wrote something about this a while ago, actually. I want to say maybe, actually, exactly maybe sometime around a year ago. I used to write a couple articles on Master of Magics called Cabal Therapy. And that was kind of my breakthrough into content creation.
01:00:29
Speaker
Um, and one of the articles I wrote was a crisis kit for, uh, events, magic events, um, and how to cultivate your own crisis kit, um, to essentially make sure that, you know, that if you get a panic attack or you feel triggered or you feel unsafe, that you have a pre-made kit that is unique to you to rely on in, you know, in case of such an emergency.
01:00:56
Speaker
And I went into the steps, so a kit has to have something involving the five senses, as well as some basic things. So five senses, sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. So I would recommend, you know, like packing maybe like a
01:01:17
Speaker
favorite treat or a candy you like. It could be like something you like to smell. So you can again kind of utilize that with a candy or maybe like a little thing of tea or coffee or perfume, you know, something soft to touch or a fidget if you want to fidget. Fidget are wonderful and are great for that.
01:01:36
Speaker
you know, headphones for music to listen to or something calming or calming meditation. And maybe like a picture of something that kind of like brings you peace, it brings you joy. I also recommended like a phone charger, a bottle of water, a healthy snack,
01:01:56
Speaker
and stuff like that, medication if you take medication. And then having sort of like a plan in your head and looking back on it, it kind of comes back to actually a distress tolerance skill in DBT called coping ahead, which kind of has you build up mastery.
01:02:14
Speaker
and essentially cope ahead and plan and prepare for this event that you know is going to happen, but because you have prepared and planned and coped for it, you're kind of able to go into it expecting the unexpected, so to say, and being prepared for the best case scenario, something not so good, worst case scenario, but you have to be careful when you're
01:02:36
Speaker
experiencing an anxiety disorder with Copa head.
Crisis Kits and Grounding Techniques
01:02:39
Speaker
If you expect the worst, you're going to give expecting the worst, expecting the worst, expecting the worst. So that again has to build off of the fact that you need mindfulness skills. Otherwise, you're just going to keep on expecting the worst.
01:02:50
Speaker
What's funny is kind of this concept of having a plan and being flexible is the biggest thing. You cannot plan for everything. You can have ideas and having a sketch of it. The risk that you run is exactly what we talked about with the generalized anxiety. Your brain tries to prepare for every eventuality, which it can't because there really is kind of a pretty infinite number.
01:03:17
Speaker
Or you get the situation of I'm going to plan for the worst. And then basically I'm going to expect the worst and plan for it. So then when it doesn't happen that I will be able to, you know, be pleasantly surprised. That's not what most people do when they say that. Like they set themselves up to actually then have bad stuff happen because they're not actually planning for the best. They're not planning for it to be a good time. They're expecting the worst.
01:03:45
Speaker
And when you expect the worst, you kind of put yourself or maneuver yourself to act in a way that you may happen or you may not have a good time. Yeah. I realized after years of sort of having that idea that I'm going to set up, prepare myself for bad situations and not, you know, it's not, I don't get disappointed that whole thing. I realized that by doing that, I also never really went out to pursue good situations that kind of contributed to me just
01:04:13
Speaker
Feeling like I wasn't doing anything because that was the safe option and that really over time Wasn't great. That wasn't good
01:04:23
Speaker
We have lots of reasons why we make go-to events, networking. We may want to make sure that we're being involved. When we did the cast, we wanted to record with people that we may not get to see everywhere. We might want to go, and what we might get from them is literally learning how to go to a social event again, or how to actually face my anxiety, to live with it instead of trying to just fight it all of the time, which is exhausting for me.
01:04:52
Speaker
I mean, and you may get to see somebody that you get to see online. Some of these events, both in the magic events and other conventions, will have some big names. You might get to go see this writer, give a panel. That's where I went to my first convention ever was because a writer whose books I enjoyed, he was at a convention that was
01:05:15
Speaker
two blocks from my apartment and had been for years and i didn't realize it until the last year i lived in that apartment but so i went to that event and it was incredible to see him do some panels that one is being the first convention i went to that was
01:05:31
Speaker
A very memorable experience, very good experience, but it had a lot of interesting things to it. Because that was right next to where I lived, it was right next to where I worked, I knew the area very well. So that was one where my, maybe not coping mechanism, but something that I did that really helped me was I left and went and grabbed food on my own every time there was a break.
01:05:56
Speaker
That was a small convention. So there was actual specific breaks. So I just went and grabbed lunch on my own. Though I did the last day, I decided that if I go Friday, Saturday and didn't grab lunch with other people, Sunday I would go with a group and have lunch with a group of people, which I did. And that was also incredible.
01:06:21
Speaker
by having those times where I knew, okay, at lunch, I can go to McDonald's or I can go to Burger King or I can go to wherever, somewhere that's a little removed from where the convention is. So I'm going to be by myself. Then I can recharge and head back.
01:06:38
Speaker
You know, I think we're kind of moving into final thoughts here because Alex talking about guests and bigger names is bringing up my imposter syndrome again. So I'm going to awkwardly change this and kind of move us into kind of final thoughts that people might have.
01:06:55
Speaker
I'm now just thinking about going to events and trying to talk to people.
Final Reflections and Closing
01:06:58
Speaker
Yeah, I know. Actually, that's what I've been thinking about too. My anxiety is like, ah, it's completely separate from my social anxiety. This is my impostor syndrome, which we also have talked about. Huh? Yes. It was our lost episode. Yeah, there's that too. Yeah. But there's also.
01:07:16
Speaker
Some of these things, like I said, and this is where there can be a difference, but one of the things that I liked about doing panels at conventions is that in a way, I think if it is like passive socialization, I'm sitting in a room full of people, but no one's looking at me. We're all watching the conversation going up in front of us, but it puts me in a situation with people in this room and there's a conversation going on and I get to
01:07:46
Speaker
take a part in that by being there to witness it. Sorry, I just literally have been just thinking about my imposter syndrome this whole time. So really honestly, just like thinking about, you know, attending big events as somebody with anxiety is
01:08:10
Speaker
I honestly recommend preparing a crisis kit. Having that utilized ground yourself. Grounding is what that crisis kit is for. That's why you do the five senses, is literally to put you back in your feet, if anything. You can technically call it the six senses because movement is kind of the last one, is kind of getting you back in your body.
01:08:32
Speaker
Planning out things that you know like again like little moments for yourself safe places find a nice hallway someplace we can kind of go and breathe um just preparation not for the worst, but just I Kind of like to describe it as doomsday preparation like the like the zombie apocalypse like um, you know, you want to prepare for the worst
01:08:55
Speaker
yeah i know but like i just i'm trying to put it in a funny way or like lizard people like lizard people i try to like make it weird lizard people i'm more like lizard people yeah like i like i literally explained it to one of my clients once like lizard people like pretend that you're preparing for the rise of the lizard people do we know they exist
01:09:13
Speaker
I mean, I don't know, but like, you want to be prepared in case, you know, you see a lizard person. Because, you know, or a reptilian, as the young people like to say. But just prepare in a way that is mindful and that does not feed off of what you are dreading.
01:09:32
Speaker
um, lean on friends, um, you know, share with them your crisis plan. Um, because when you're in a state of crisis, it's very hard to follow through on a step-by-step plan that you made, no matter how perfectly you made it. Um, leaning on others, um, and, you know, preparing, but in a way that was mindful and helpful to you. Because remember, you want it to be helpful, not harmful. If the plan is causing you distress, then come up with something else. Make another skill.
01:10:02
Speaker
Utilize something else I feel like I'm talking in circles now. I'm going to say for me is reach out to people if you're going to be going to an event and maybe you know this is some of the best experiences I've had.
01:10:17
Speaker
My one at the very top of the show was about getting to go to this event with Adrian and Heather, who are two people that are, I mean, absolutely important to me in my life. Adrian actually helped design the groom's outfits for my wedding and was like a consultant on this. I would never have met her if I hadn't have interacted with her first online.
01:10:39
Speaker
That is an anxiety-provoking situation. Be open to it. Maybe be open to that's where you're going to start with. I'm going to do a meetup with a group of people if I really want to try to go to a bigger event and I don't know a ton of people. But I've had these interactions and I've been wanting to meet some people. Start small. Come to the barbecue at my house. I guarantee you, we will not be judging people.
01:11:05
Speaker
Well, I mean, I guess theoretically, I can't guarantee that, but it's this finding people that you feel comfortable with and that you feel are going to be welcoming and trying to do something with them, even if it's not on the actual site. To me, that's the biggest thing for me is that magic fests can grow beyond just the convention center and being open to doing stuff with people.
01:11:33
Speaker
Yeah. And they're about the people. That's the best. When they are at their best, they are about the people who are there, and the people who are there don't have to be at the site. The site gives a good medium place, meeting place. There's lots of words there, and I don't know that any of those are necessarily wrong, but it gives a good center where we go back to the site here or there. We go there to sign up for an event or we go back to do whatever, but the stuff that happens at and around these events doesn't have to be at
01:12:03
Speaker
at that central location. I mean, you've done your barbecue. Mike has organized, you know, cubes in Minneapolis at various places around the city that happened to coincide with that weekend because that weekend gives people a reason to travel. And then those people can come over here for this one thing and then head back, you know, wherever else they're going for the weekend.
01:12:29
Speaker
I will say that this is the thing that I'm most excited to see if Wizards is kind of moving in this direction or Channel Fireball, SCG, all of them. We have a command fest going on now, or at least we're having a command zone area for the Minneapolis when it was announced. And I am kind of like, wow, I might actually be on site a little bit more because there's more for somebody like me.
01:12:53
Speaker
Thank you for being on again. So once again, I am HobSkew. I can be found on Twitter at HobSkew. And I want to throw it back over to my lovely hosts, co-hosts. Alex Newman found on Twitter at Mel underscore chronicler.
01:13:12
Speaker
Um, and I am Chase. I am found on Twitter everywhere is manicurbs. Um, some shameless plugs cause I gotta be shameless. I have a lot of things to plug. Oh, okay. Shake it off. So first of all, I have my own podcast with my love with my lovely co-host Mike and Jose. Yeah. It's a podcast called best of three. And we talk about the goings on of magic and you can follow us on Twitter at listen to be oh three. And we are on podcast, uh, Spotify, um, SoundCloud, all those lovely things. Um,
01:13:42
Speaker
iTunes as well. I am also a part of an all-women commander play group called Sarah's Angels. We have a lovely cast of seven lovely ladies and we play commander and we play on a rotating schedule based off of our availability. So I was in episode one, episode two was just dropped a couple of days ago. And so episode three will be out soon and we were functioning off of a monthly schedule. We might go to bi-monthly, we'll figure that out.
01:14:11
Speaker
Um, but I'm a part of a lovely, um, women commander group. Um, and I love that. Um, I want to throw this in real quick. This group that she is talking about, Sarah's angels, uh, has an actual mission statement, which has got me thinking about us looking into doing something like that. And has also been basically playing to get donations and stuff for charities and different events or different groups that they really strongly believe in.
01:14:35
Speaker
Yes. Our most recent stream just went to the mermaids, which is a very fantastic cause. It's a wonderful cause. So please, please, please look into it. Catch us on the next stream. Sub, donate, cheer, all of that goes to, we literally keep no money. It all goes to charity.
01:14:54
Speaker
I also, I keep forgetting all the things I do. I also stream on Twitch. I stream Brawl on Arena and I'm streaming MTGO and sometimes Minecraft. Also Manicurves. I have a Patreon also known as Manicurves. Discord as well. I feel like I'm forgetting all the cool shit I do and I'm just forgetting it and that's actually making me feel really panicked right now. I panic about that and I'm like, wow, look how much she's doing compared to us.
01:15:24
Speaker
Listen, I'm just like, man, I still feel like I don't do enough. You just mentioned it the next time you're on.
01:15:32
Speaker
Right? Yeah, I'm on Twitter a lot. Oh yes, my sponsors. That's what I was forgetting. And also a huge shout out to my newest sponsor, UltraPro, which still feels like a bold face lie when I say it because it is literally stuns me that they are sponsoring me. But yes, I am sponsored by UltraPro. It is the most surreal thing I've ever felt in my entire life.
01:15:56
Speaker
I'm legit cannot believe that they sponsor me. And so that means I'll be doing some fantastic giveaways sponsored by them in the future. So keep a lookout for that. And also some cool content in the future featuring some really cool ultra products as well.
01:16:10
Speaker
And yeah, that's really all I got in my brain right now. I think I think that's it. I also have some fun. I have some fun collaborations coming up. So you'll be seeing those once they drop. I'm just working on scheduling with some people. So I'm looking forward to that. I have like, I think six now. I'll say don't get I wouldn't tell my timelines because we never know what our episodes are coming out.
01:16:32
Speaker
I have six collaborations. We just have to figure out scheduling for all of them. So yeah, that's what I got. I'm super stressed out, but it's really good. So yeah, thank you guys for having me on. This episode was way more serious than the previous one I was on, which I talked about comparing the Gatewatch to Scooby-Doo.
01:16:55
Speaker
And that's our show for today. You can find the host on Twitter. HobbsQ can be found at HobbsQ, and Alex Newman can be found at Mel Underscore. Send any questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to at goblinlordpod on Twitter, or email us at goblinlordpodcast at e-mail.com. If you want to support your friendly neighborhood Gobbs life, the cast can be found at patreon.com slash goblinlordpod.
01:17:20
Speaker
Opening and closing music by Vindergarten, who can be found on Twitter at Vindergarten, or online at vindergarten.bandcamp.com. Logo art by Steve Raffaele, who can be found on Twitter at Steve Raffaele. Boblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast as part of their growing Vorthos content, as well as magic content of all kinds. Check them out on Twitter at hipstersmtg, or online at hipstersofthecoast.com.
01:17:50
Speaker
Thank you all for listening, and remember, goblins, like snowflakes, are only dangerous in numbers.