485. Coaching Hotline: Managing Anxiety for Loved Ones & Staying Motivated During a Job Search
UnF*ck Your Brain: Feminist Self-Help for Everyone
Kara Loewentheil
4.6 • 5.6K Ratings
🗓️ 21 April 2026
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Does your brain go straight to worst-case scenarios when you think about someone you love, and make you feel like it’s your job to prevent them all? In this Coaching Hotline episode, I coach someone through intense anxiety about their child’s future and explain why believing you are responsible for everything that could happen is what’s actually creating the panic.
Then I answer a question about staying motivated during a job search, and why trying to force motivation when you don’t know what you want is never going to work. If you struggle with anxiety about others or feel unmotivated when pursuing your goals, this episode will show you how to question the beliefs creating pressure and fear, and how to move forward from a place of clarity instead of self-judgment.
Submit your own question here and it might get answered on a future episode: unfuckyourbrain.com/coachinghotline
Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: schoolofnewfeministthought.com/485
Follow along on Instagram: instagram.com/karaloewentheil/
Mentioned in this episode:
The Future Coach Podcast is Here!
The Future Coach: How to Succeed as a Life Coach Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond is finally here. Every other week, you'll hear practical advice about becoming a coach, improving your coaching skills, and antidotes to the most common concerns, questions, and brain drama that come up with this work, whether you're just starting out or you're years into your career. If you want to find out more, you can find it anywhere you listen to podcasts and hit that follow button.
The Future Coach Podcast is Here!
The Future Coach: How to Succeed as a Life Coach Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond is finally here. Every other week, you'll hear practical advice about becoming a coach, improving your coaching skills, and antidotes to the most common concerns, questions, and brain drama that come up with this work, whether you're just starting out or you're years into your career. If you want to find out more, you can find it anywhere you listen to podcasts and hit that follow button.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to unfuck your brain. I'm your host Kara Lowentile, master-certified coach, and founder of the School of New Feminist Thought. I'm here to help you turn down your anxiety, turn up your confidence, and create a life on your own terms, one that you're truly excited to live. |
| 0:21.3 | Let's go. |
| 0:24.8 | Welcome to this week's coaching hotline episode where I answer real questions from real listeners |
| 0:31.2 | and coach you from afar. |
| 0:33.6 | If you want to submit your question for consideration, go to unfuck your brain.com forward slash |
| 0:39.5 | coaching hotline, all one word, or text your email to plus one 347-997-1784. And when you get |
| 0:48.7 | prompted for the code word, it's coaching hotline, all one word. Let's get into this week's questions. |
| 0:55.5 | Here's our first question. Many of the podcasts and QAs are about relationships with adults. |
| 1:01.9 | But how do you manage anxiety about someone you are responsible for? I have a disabled |
| 1:06.4 | five-year-old son. Despite years of professional therapy, I still struggle majorly with managing my |
| 1:11.9 | fearful thoughts about the long-term effects of my child's disability. Like any parent, I'm sad to see my |
| 1:17.6 | child struggle or get hurt. But more than that, my thoughts go catastrophic and I find myself having |
| 1:22.7 | panic attacks when thinking about bullies, unsupportive and or incompetent teachers, relatives in denial, |
| 1:29.1 | the general stress of being disabled, and the fact that his disability is highly correlated |
| 1:33.5 | with depression, anxiety, shorter life span, and high rates of suicide. My survival lizard |
| 1:39.1 | brain is basically always flashing red that he is in danger. I can't separate facts from my fears. What is |
| 1:44.8 | responsible parenting from helicopter parenting? I also simultaneously guilt because parental |
| 1:49.6 | anxiety is also super harmful to the kids. Okay, so it was a great question, and I want to kind |
| 1:55.9 | of approach it from a couple of different angles. So I'm just going to kind of give you some |
| 1:59.0 | things to think about here. The first one is that I think embedded implicit in this question is your belief that it's your |
| 2:06.2 | child's disability that is why you have all these thoughts. That if you had a five-year-old son who was |
| 2:11.8 | not disabled, your brain would not have these thoughts. And I don't think that's true. |
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