Transcription
The significant change that you are seeking will come through discomfort. The only way out is through.
Hey everybody! Welcome to Blushing Phoenix. My name is April. I'm the founder of Blushing Phoenix, and on this channel we talk to passionate, creative, and ambitious people who are held back in life by social hindrances such as blushing, erythrophobia, which is the fear of turning red, hyperhidrosis, social anxiety—things of that nature. You know, showing up and being a human in the world. So today, what I want to talk to you about is the discomfort of it all.
If you are avoiding the discomfort to get to a place of change, you're not going to change. If your solution for fearing blushing—your solution to that fear of blushing—is just to stay away from everybody and to hide away and to tuck your gifts away, and you stopped writing, and you stopped talking, you stopped singing, and you stopped acting, and you stopped playing your instruments, and you just don't want to be seen because you turn bright red—tell me how's that going for you? And if I can make an assumption, it would be that you have found this channel because you were looking for some sort of cure or relief, somebody who could relate to what you've got going on. And you have come to the right place, my friend, or I hope it's the right place for you. This channel is not for everybody, so thank you for stopping by and giving this a listen for today.
So, in my own experience, I have overcome erythrophobia. I struggled with chest and neck flushing, and and it eventually also got to my face—lots of redness, lots of flushing, lots of social anxiety—for many years. And I went on a journey of trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with me. Where did this come from? I wasn't always this way. It seemed that the more pressure I had in my life—especially for me, it's very institutionalized—like going from school to church to Corporate America—these these little boxes where people put you in a box, and you need to perform and behave and act a certain way and be a certain way in order to have acceptance. And in my little primal state, acceptance means love and survival, and to not be be accepted means that I would be ostracized, kicked out of the group, out of the tribe—ultimately death. So a very real fear running through my nervous system, and just being conditioned in different environments that when I behaved a certain way, or talked a certain way, acted a certain way, showed up a certain way, that it was frowned upon. And so I took it upon myself to realize how to act and be and behave and all the things and started to become this cookie-cutter version of who I think everybody else thinks that I should be. And ultimately, that closed down my voice; it closed down my creativity; it closed down the way I think and feel about a lot of things because I didn't want to be cast aside in the group.
After many years and my body starting to get this flushing response, lots of anxiety—you can really tell when you're at war within yourself—and that's what was happening to me is I was at war within myself, and the redness was an invitation into: What do you want to say? How do you want to show up? You've gotten so far off from who you are, and it's not resonating, and there is this friction and resistance inside of my body to where eventually it got my attention, and I started the journey of becoming the Blushing Phoenix. And I want to extend that invitation to people who find this channel: that you too are a Blushing Phoenix. And what it means to be a phoenix is that you burn down to rise from the ashes and to rise again. And sometimes I think that the blushing gives us a pause to really take some introspective time to figure out what are we saying to ourselves and to holistically look at our being—holistically—and sync up the head and the body. A lot of times we cut the head off, or we cut the body off; we just want to live out of this survival mode of the head, and the body needs attention; the body needs some some um way to move energy. We store that in our body, and that's where some addicts come in and other things that you can look into—from just your nervous system being able to run that cycle and then release that anxiety.
So, kind of rambling today, but my whole point of wanting to stop in and make this video was to talk about the discomfort of it all, and that if you're feeling discomfort because you decided, "You know what, I'm tired of hiding away, and I want to show up in my life, and I want to be myself in my life," and it is freaking uncomfortable—you're right where you need to be. You are exactly where you need to be.
I've recently gotten back into weightlifting, and so a lot of my analogies will be about weightlifting because it's where I am right now, currently. Uh, is that when you are building that muscle, you first are tearing the muscles; you are truly making small rips in the fibers of the muscles; then you heal, rest, and recover; and then you come back stronger when you go back to lift those weights. And that's why rest days are so important when you are working out; is you've got to give your time—that your body—that recovery time—so high-protein diet and lots of rest and recovery. And then when you hit the gym and you hit those weights, you go hard and heavy; you keep your form good; tear those muscles down again; break those things down again; and then rest, recover, lots of protein, lots of um um sleep; and then get back to the gym, do it again; and then you start to see the results in your life. They weren't there when you showed up at the gym; you had to actually do that work, create that resistance, that friction, that discomfort in your body to see the changes that you want to see.
And so for people who blush, in my experience it was a very similar thing; it was that—let's say in comparison to muscles—I hadn't been in the gym in a while, so the first time I stepped out into a social environment and showed myself and flushed, it was extremely uncomfortable, and everything in me wanted to run away because that's what I would do in the past. I would just get out of the situation and hide. And so in this case, when I started to show up, just hang there for a few more minutes than what I normally would, to let it get really uncomfortable, to let myself get really red in the motion of letting that flushing anxiety run its cycle. But that's like showing up to the gym and lifting lighter weight and not being—to being able to do as many rips because I'm just not built up for that yet. And so if you think you're just going to show up into this social setting and just be this social butterfly who doesn't blush at all, first of all, I'm not going to say nothing is possible; that'd be awesome if that happens for you, and please let me know if it does because I think that's incredible. And I do believe that some things can happen in an instant, but in most cases, or in my experience, it has been kind of this like forward-backwards, forward-backwards. And that forward-backwards is normal.
The other day I was lifting weights, well, so let's see, Sunday I did a leg day, and it was awesome—45 minutes, I was on fire; my muscles were connecting; I felt incredible—so much strength and energy and adrenaline—just great! This—I love workouts like that. And then the other day I did a workout, and as soon as I walked in from my garage, I was like, "That was a workout"—like, don't feel like my muscles connected at all; I felt like I was really having to like force my form to be right; uh, maybe I was going too heavy, so I went a little lower weight and and more reps, and still wasn't feeling a burn or a connect. And I have to remind myself that even on days like that, just going through the motions is still teaching my brain: This is what we do, and this is how we show up. So then when I have my next workout, it may be amazing again. And so you can't phone it in because you're having a day that feels like you're taking a step back; you still just have to show up and lift those weights and do that thing. And the crazy thing is I woke up the next morning, and my muscles were sore, so I was like, "Okay, it didn't feel like I was really doing anything during the workout," but then my muscles were sore the next day, so clearly I was doing something. All of that is consistency over time, and it builds on top of itself, and we get the results that we want.
So when we think about blushing and overcoming erythrophobia, I want you to put it in your mind similar to working out, running. I told you all about the 5K that I did with my daughter in May. I started training for that in January. My body, after having a baby, just wasn't ready to run—just to take off running; it was a struggle to get up to just even like a quarter of a mile—to run consistently, consistently. But then by the time May 18th came, and my daughter and I ran the 5K, ran it all the way through, ran it at my fastest time and had an amazing and incredible experience—it didn't happen in January when I started; it happened in May after I had put the work in, after I had showed up multiple times through the good runs and the bad runs and the injuries and the days where I was like, "That was a run"—got to the result that I wanted.
So if you are wanting to overcome your erythrophobia, you got to get out of your head; get out of your head and get into your body and listen to what your body is saying to you and start showing up. What is it that you want? That's where you need to be. If you want to be doing standup on that stage, you're into like comic work, you need to go get on a stage. If you want to host the small group meetings that you used to do, you need to plan a small group meeting—like it doesn't have to be extreme right off—but you've got to at least get yourself in a small group setting. I know a lot of people say as soon as they talk they just turn red. Put yourself in environments with people who are safe where you can turn red because it would be amazing if you show up in the environment and you just never turn red again, but like in my experience recently with one of my new friends, I've been around her, I have turned flushed red a couple times in front of her, and then the more we hang out, the more calm my nervous system is because it knows that she's safe, and I've talked with her about it as well. That's always going to be a big thing of uh in regards to discomfort is giving a voice to the redness so that when you show up in environments it's not this big elephant in the room um that you're going to turn red and you're afraid that they're going to say something. You just go ahead and call it out and say something to them about it—like in general conversation—or if it's something that you struggle with and you're having more vulnerable conversations with this person that you're friends with, then tell them about it, and um and they'll know that it happens. And then you can tell them, "If you don't mind, I would really like to use this as an exposure opportunity with you." You know, it's there—if we could just continue on our conversations or if I could actually talk about this when it happens with you—the person's probably going to be like, "It's not even that big of a deal." That's crazy that this is such a big deal, but it's a big deal to you. And so if they are a safe person and it's a healthy relationship, then you'll be able to, when it's happening, have that conversation with them until eventually you won't even need to talk about it anymore, and you'll realize that you've been out with this person for hours and you didn't even flush. And if you did, you didn't know that you did. That is the state of mind I used to be in. I've seen pictures of myself from back in like my early 20s where I have a low-cut dress on, I'm at a wedding, and I have a little splotch like up my neck. I never even knew that that happened to me back then, and I don't think it happened all the time, and nobody ever called it out. It wasn't until 2017 when I worked in an office with a highly narcissistic manager who called it out, and then reinforced the uh—I reinforced my own fear—I don't put that on him; I put that I reinforced my own fear around it because of judgment and that if I wasn't seen in a perfect way that I wouldn't be able to excel in my career and that I would be found out. And that led me on a whole self-worth journey which took me through a lot of discomfort.
So if you are looking to overcome your erythrophobia, I'm here to tell you there's hope. You're not alone. There are millions of people across the globe—millions like millions—millions, hundreds of millions of people across the globe who struggle with a chronic blushing condition that has impacted their social life in a very negative way, that has contributed to social anxiety. And you're not alone. So there's hope for you. You can overcome this. There's many many people that I'm sure I barely have even scratched the surface—people who have reached out to me who told me they're showing up in their life; they're showing up for interviews; they're going on dates; they are doing the performance, public speaking—all the things that they used to love to do until they were shut down by blushing—because they changed their beliefs around it and know their self-worth. They realize that the outside world does not determine your self-worth—only you do—and they are able to show up in their lives. Sometimes they still blush; sometimes they don't; they don't really care; they don't think much about it that much anymore.
So all of that to say: The way out is through. The blushing absolutely can be an invitation to all that your life is holding for you, and the blushing is a symptom; it's a side effect to something else. So whether that is a self-worth issue that you're having, whether that is some sort of fear of judgment—really getting into the root cause of: Why do I hate this blushing so much? What is it that I think other people think because I blush? And when you follow that path, you'll find out what you think about you because you blush and realize that you're the one that's passing the judgment on yourself and projecting that onto the world around you. I needed to take a pause because that was fire. Okay. All right, my friends. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you like this video, if you find this type of videos and content helpful, be sure to give this video a like and subscribe. We're on a journey to 5,000 subscribers here at Blushing Phoenix. We've been around for quite a few years now and have had some slow growth over those years, and so now I'm at a place where I'm asking you to subscribe and be sure to give the video a like. Comment below what was a light bulb moment for you, and until next time, my friend, you better rise and thrive.