Speaker 1: I'll get a your bloody champs. It's the project that's you.
Speaker 1: Oh god, it's four minutes past midday, it's Tuesday. I'm
Speaker 1: sounding very much like a radio presenter right now, sitting
Speaker 1: on sixteen degrees in Hampton, heading for a top of
Speaker 1: twenty two joining me today in the studio, and by
Speaker 1: that I mean the virtual studio.
Speaker 2: Tiffany and Cook, Hi Cook, Craig, Anthony Harper reporting it for.
Speaker 1: Judy sir ah, who's Judy? Oh see what I did there?
Speaker 1: Doctor Jody Richardson is also in the studio, the virtual studio.
Speaker 2: Hi Joe, Hi Harps, Hi tiv hi Ah.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. The old radio days, I don't
Speaker 1: really miss them, but sometimes it's a bit of fun
Speaker 1: just to morph back into that bloody you know a
Speaker 1: little bit of FM magic, isn't it. You're still doing
Speaker 1: your weaving. Your not allowed to say magic because that's
Speaker 1: inconsistent with Christianity, But are you still weaving your skills
Speaker 1: over there at Light FM?
Speaker 2: I am. We just had the Relate mental health events,
Speaker 2: so two events, one in Mount Evelyn on Monday night
Speaker 2: and one in West Meadows on Tuesday night. So yeah,
Speaker 2: and the weekly podcast is keep on, keeping on. I
Speaker 2: love working with the crew at Positive Media.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are very good, very good, and they do.
Speaker 1: They do push a lot of great stuff out into
Speaker 1: the world. And if ever we needed good stuff, positive stuff,
Speaker 1: positive mental health and emotional health being shoved down our
Speaker 1: faces better than something negative. Now is the time. How
Speaker 1: is well, Hello anxiety. How's your little potty? Well, not little?
Speaker 1: How's your big potty going?
Speaker 2: Oh so good. We've had a change of potty artwork,
Speaker 2: which is really lovely. So I actually designed the artwork
Speaker 2: for the podcast myself, and that is evident when you
Speaker 2: have a look at it, like, I'm reasonably happy with it.
Speaker 2: But do you know, I was so anxious about starting.
Speaker 2: There were so many the irony bread I know exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: There were so many things that could have stopped me
Speaker 2: from moving forward. And I thought, if I go down
Speaker 2: the rabbit hole of getting artwork done, I think I
Speaker 2: could probably push this thing out for another couple of months,
Speaker 2: which was where my head was at. So I just thought,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm just going to do it myself and
Speaker 2: get on with it. But yeah, I've actually just had
Speaker 2: a professional podcast cast artwork design, so that'll come through
Speaker 2: in the feed soon, which is nice.
Speaker 1: So you're not changing in the name of the show,
Speaker 1: you're just changing the artwork.
Speaker 2: No, they actually properly designed the logo using the same
Speaker 2: fonts and the same kind of look and feel. But
Speaker 2: the artwork, you know, the little tile, that little thumbnail
Speaker 2: that goes with makes the podcast recognizable. It's completely changing
Speaker 2: so that it's time and it looks beautiful. So podcast
Speaker 2: is going well. Had some really really good interviews, and
Speaker 2: just the feedback that I'm getting from people about the
Speaker 2: way it's really supporting them is really beautiful. So thanks
Speaker 2: for asking.
Speaker 1: Well it is a good little show or a good
Speaker 1: big show. It's called well, hello anxiety, everybody, So just
Speaker 1: wright down a few things here as you chat that
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about today. It's so
Speaker 1: funny when you talk about getting anxious about like the
Speaker 1: queen of anxiety, getting anxious, which we know you've spoken
Speaker 1: about many times. Understanding anxiety doesn't mean that you've dispensed
Speaker 1: with anxiety, just like me talking about being a high
Speaker 1: performer doesn't necessarily mean I'm a high performer at any
Speaker 1: fucking stage. But it's so true though. I think that's
Speaker 1: what makes hopefully us. Hopefully I'll let the audience be
Speaker 1: a judge, but hopefully us. Three relatable is that we're
Speaker 1: all still works in progress and we're okay with that.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I can be a bit
Speaker 1: broken and a little bit amazing, and I can still
Speaker 1: encourage and support people while not waiting for all of
Speaker 1: my shit to be sorted necessarily. You know, we're not
Speaker 1: aiming for perfection, as they say, just a bit of
Speaker 1: growth and improvement, Jody.
Speaker 2: And perfection doesn't exist really, and if you aim for
Speaker 2: that and wait for that, which a lot of people do,
Speaker 2: and I understand anxieties often at the heart of that,
Speaker 2: then you actually don't ever get anywhere. We just need
Speaker 2: to be consistent. And I honestly think like I relate
Speaker 2: mostly to people when they show a few kinks in
Speaker 2: their armor and they're honest and open. And I actually
Speaker 2: shared something on Instagram last week because I won't do
Speaker 2: the gymnastics required to show you, but I'm in a
Speaker 2: moon boot at the moment, and it's been really getting
Speaker 2: me down. Like I'm actually really good now because I've
Speaker 2: worked out that I can go back to CrossFit and
Speaker 2: just do everything seated, not everything, but I can do
Speaker 2: a whole lot of stuff, and I shared I actually
Speaker 2: just recorded a video. I was waiting to pick up
Speaker 2: the kids, and I just kind of shared that, you know,
Speaker 2: like you might see me traveling around the country, you know,
Speaker 2: speaking and doing work that I love. But you know,
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean necessarily mean like we're just that reminder
Speaker 2: that when we're just because you see stuff on socials
Speaker 2: doesn't mean people aren't going through stuff. And I always
Speaker 2: like to kind of share a little bit, not from
Speaker 2: a real place of I don't like to share when
Speaker 2: things are super raw and it could be really like
Speaker 2: you know, unprocessed, and but yeah, just to say, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm having a bit of a hard time. It's frustrating,
Speaker 2: it's limiting, it's affecting my mood. I can't do the
Speaker 2: things I want to do, but putting into practice the
Speaker 2: things that I teach so often. And then that afternoon,
Speaker 2: I just saw it stuff I'm going to go to
Speaker 2: CrossFit and I'm just going to see my mates and
Speaker 2: I'm going to do what I can. And it turned
Speaker 2: everything around. So I think, like I just think about
Speaker 2: if we can just be consistent and just keep working
Speaker 2: and persist towards our goals, you know, aside from injury
Speaker 2: and exercise and not talking about that so much. But
Speaker 2: there's no such thing as perfection. We all struggle. We
Speaker 2: just don't always see that people are struggling underneath, you know,
Speaker 2: everything else.
Speaker 1: It's hard when you're emotional, which we all are, especially
Speaker 1: when it's about ourselves. It's all well and good to go, well,
Speaker 1: just do this or we'll just you know. It's like
Speaker 1: I put a post up the other day about how
Speaker 1: unhelpful it is to tell a worried person not to worry,
Speaker 1: you know, like telling an insomniac just to go to sleep,
Speaker 1: you know, and it all like while the intentions are good,
Speaker 1: you know, like to put your arm around someone and say,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. It's a nice intention and the
Speaker 1: empathy is there, but it actually doesn't help anyone. It
Speaker 1: might make them feel temporarily or momentarily kind of cared for,
Speaker 1: but it still doesn't solve anything. And I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're in that funk where you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm in a moonboot. This is not this is not
Speaker 1: what I want to be happening. It's not where I
Speaker 1: want to be. This stops me from doing these things
Speaker 1: that make me feel good or it limits me, or like,
Speaker 1: in the middle of that kind of potential emotional and
Speaker 1: psychological spiral of whatever right for me, a couple of
Speaker 1: things happen really matter for me. Two is context. So
Speaker 1: I've over said this, but it's never not going to
Speaker 1: be true. When I do something to my back or
Speaker 1: I'm in a bit of pain or I'm having a
Speaker 1: shit time, I just think of Johnny, who I train,
Speaker 1: Who's by the way, Johnny's in hospital. Everyone we love
Speaker 1: john john just had a skin graft yesterday and just
Speaker 1: he has ongoing, ongoing challenges and pains but never complains.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go see him later today. So I
Speaker 1: think of him, and I think, well, yeah, my problems
Speaker 1: are one. And then also I think about in the
Speaker 1: middle of my emotion and how I'm feeling, I think,
Speaker 1: what's the best question that I can ask me? What's
Speaker 1: the best question that I can ask me in the
Speaker 1: light of what's going on in me emotionally, this is
Speaker 1: how I feel. So I think, tell me what you
Speaker 1: think about this. But I think, yeah, fully feel what
Speaker 1: you feel. We're not saying don't feel what you feel.
Speaker 1: We're not saying deny the feelings. We're not saying snap
Speaker 1: out of it. We're not saying harden up, We're not
Speaker 1: saying any of that. We're going I feel shit also,
Speaker 1: And in other news, what can I do though, Oh,
Speaker 1: I can go see my mates at CrossFit, and I
Speaker 1: can probably figure out a few things to do for
Speaker 1: my upper body or my core or my one good leg,
Speaker 1: or at the very least I can have a meaningful
Speaker 1: coral conversation, or I can laugh or you know. So
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, we're not denying the feeling, but
Speaker 1: we're now focusing on something positive from a cognitive or
Speaker 1: a psychological perspective that we can do to move forward.
Speaker 2: You must have watched that post that I recorded, because
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 1: I Yes, I did. I totally ripped it off, and
Speaker 1: I'm just going to say that was all out of
Speaker 1: my head.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, just because one of the things that
Speaker 2: I did say. And Carlie Taylor, who's been a guest
Speaker 2: for you and a guess for me, she has studied
Speaker 2: Japanese psychology and one of the things, one of the
Speaker 2: philosophies or one of the learning's teachings is arugamama, which
Speaker 2: is and I'm going to I'm going to like misquote this,
Speaker 2: but paraphrasing, it's kind of with things as they are,
Speaker 2: what can I do? So accepting the circumstances for what
Speaker 2: they are? How can I move forward? What can I control?
Speaker 2: And that was something that that I shared. But you know,
Speaker 2: context is it's so it's so good because I sit
Speaker 2: here thinking, oh, I did have a bit of a
Speaker 2: like a bit of a down week and it was
Speaker 2: you know, pain and not being able to do the
Speaker 2: things you want to do and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But context what you just said, it's so true, Like
Speaker 2: we don't want to discount our experience of things because
Speaker 2: it is still you know, maybe a challenge for us.
Speaker 2: But when you stop and think, think, if it's temporary,
Speaker 2: I've got the resources to be how to get the
Speaker 2: help I need. So I'm really privileged like that I
Speaker 2: know where to go, I know who to see, and yeah,
Speaker 2: and I because I needed to be basically off my
Speaker 2: feet and hadn't been, i'd been into state working and
Speaker 2: traveling and presenting, I'd kind of made things worse. And
Speaker 2: so yeah, yeah, so I think throws. I just remember
Speaker 2: my psychologists used to just say to me that life
Speaker 2: throws all sorts of challenges at us and that is
Speaker 2: just part of being human. Like you can't avoid it,
Speaker 2: but if you can have some helpful ways of thinking
Speaker 2: about it, reframing it, and taking control of what you
Speaker 2: can do despite what you can't, I think that's really powerful.
Speaker 1: I think, firstly, agree with all of that. I think
Speaker 1: the thing with anxiety and mental health in issue and
Speaker 1: sadness and depression and overthinking and all of these kind
Speaker 1: of intersecting psychological and emotional first cousins, right, that all
Speaker 1: kind of live in the same cognitive zip code trying
Speaker 1: to figure out you know, it's different for different people,
Speaker 1: Like for me, movement is a really big part of
Speaker 1: mental health and whether I don't know if it's correlation
Speaker 1: or causation, but definitely since I started walking rock bottom
Speaker 1: ten thousand steps a day, you know, a year ago.
Speaker 1: Now it's over a year ago, like that's there's definitely
Speaker 1: since that time, my mental health is consistently better. And
Speaker 1: by mental health I just mean I'm just consistently happier now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's caused that or it's just
Speaker 1: correlated in some way, because there have been some other
Speaker 1: benefits too, But I also know that not just emotionally
Speaker 1: but cognitively, my brain seems to work better. But I
Speaker 1: know that what will be optimal for me won't be
Speaker 1: optimal for TIF or you necessarily. And so this still
Speaker 1: comes down to this self awareness piece around trying to
Speaker 1: figure out not what works for everyone, but what works
Speaker 1: for me. And there are certain broad principles I guess
Speaker 1: where in general terms, a good diet doesn't hurt, and
Speaker 1: sleep doesn't hurt, and movement doesn't hurt. But then when
Speaker 1: we get into the micro in the middle of the macro,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how your brain and your emotional
Speaker 1: system and your body best responds. So yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there's that little bit of kind of self awareness and
Speaker 1: even self experimenting in there. I think I'll shut up
Speaker 1: after this. I think, like, when I'm feeling a bit shitty,
Speaker 1: I think, what's the best investment of my emotions now, Like,
Speaker 1: in other words, what should right now? What should have
Speaker 1: my emotional energy and my attention or what could have it?
Speaker 1: You know? And it might be that I go and write,
Speaker 1: I go, I'm going to create a new whiteboard for Instagram,
Speaker 1: and then I just step out of my emotional state
Speaker 1: in or I try to step into my creative space
Speaker 1: because when I'm creating, I'm having fun. And even though
Speaker 1: I'm a scientist and a researcher, I am probably naturally
Speaker 1: more of a creative than a scientist. I can do science,
Speaker 1: and science is cool, but I love the freedom of creativity,
Speaker 1: not the confinement of science. Yes, right, and I can
Speaker 1: straddle both, as can anyone who wants to. But yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think it's like some of the things that
Speaker 1: for me are like very emotionally psychologically liberating, like riding
Speaker 1: a motorbike, which for other people would instill fucking terror
Speaker 1: and anxiety. That's isn't it funny? The exact same stimulus
Speaker 1: being on a motorbike can literally change the biochemistry of
Speaker 1: your body really positively or negatively depend on your experience
Speaker 1: or your interpretation of that thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so true. And just one of the things
Speaker 2: that you said, I think is really I mean, so
Speaker 2: much is really interesting, But just that awareness that when
Speaker 2: you are not feeling good, that you can take a
Speaker 2: moment and kind of step outside of what your experience
Speaker 2: is in that moment and then have that space to think,
Speaker 2: how could I best move forward? What could I do
Speaker 2: considering how I'm feeling and where I'm at. And I
Speaker 2: think that that is not easy for everyone that because
Speaker 2: you know how you can just get so swept away
Speaker 2: with how you feel and so overcome and overwhelmed that
Speaker 2: that is like, yeah, I just wanted to note that
Speaker 2: just the ability to kind of do that, and sometimes
Speaker 2: that means just slowing down, because sometimes when we're not
Speaker 2: feeling good, we just keep on keeping on, but when
Speaker 2: there's just a moment to go, this is what I'm experiencing,
Speaker 2: what would help? And it's not like you say, it's
Speaker 2: not about necessarily feeling better. But this idea that I
Speaker 2: posted something on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago about
Speaker 2: I might not feel like doing something, but it doesn't
Speaker 2: mean I shouldn't do it. And it's something I'm teaching
Speaker 2: the kids as well at seventeen and fifteen, that you know,
Speaker 2: like you get asked to do an extra shift, you
Speaker 2: might not feel like doing it, but should that be
Speaker 2: the thing that dictates your answer to the question from
Speaker 2: your boss? And sometimes yes and sometimes no, depending of course,
Speaker 2: there's no flat rule. But I think this idea that
Speaker 2: we can take our difficult emotions and still do important things.
Speaker 2: Is so crucial because you know how we were saying earlier,
Speaker 2: and you were saying that you can wait till you
Speaker 2: get all your ducks in a row. But if any
Speaker 2: of us wait till that happens, we'll be waiting the
Speaker 2: rest of our lives, and then there'll be a lot
Speaker 2: of regret that all the things we didn't do because
Speaker 2: we kind of waited too long for things to be okay.
Speaker 1: Hate, Yeah, I think we repeatedly see like a similar
Speaker 1: thing play out, and that is when you know, it's
Speaker 1: like you said, the thing that we need to do
Speaker 1: is or the thing that we should do is not
Speaker 1: always the thing we want to do.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So the dichotomy is that virtually everyone who listens to
Speaker 1: this show wants to learn and grow and evolve and
Speaker 1: improve and be a better version of themselves whatever that means. Right,
Speaker 1: we want to be better. We want to know better health,
Speaker 1: the better mindset, more calm. That is, we want to
Speaker 1: change positively in some way. That's probably a pretty universal
Speaker 1: state of mind for our listeners, or hope for our listeners.
Speaker 1: At the same time, most of us don't like discomfort. Also,
Speaker 1: change is uncomfortable, So the dichotomy is we want to
Speaker 1: be comfortable, but also we want to change. And so
Speaker 1: the challenge is what is the uncomfortable thing that I
Speaker 1: don't really want to do but my goal requires me
Speaker 1: to do? Like what is the what is my standard?
Speaker 1: What are my values? What is my potential? What do
Speaker 1: I want my life to look like in one year?
Speaker 1: My relationships, business, career, mental state, physiology? Right, my one
Speaker 1: year version of me and my life, and what's required
Speaker 1: of me today day one of that year. If we're
Speaker 1: working from as we're recording October twenty one, twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five to October twenty one, twenty twenty six, So this
Speaker 1: is my day one. What are the things that I
Speaker 1: can do on day one to make day three hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty five where I want to be Like that
Speaker 1: projection or that theory in my head, how do I
Speaker 1: turn that into reality? And a lot of that is
Speaker 1: really going to be well, Craig, you need to do
Speaker 1: probably quite a few things that you don't really want
Speaker 1: to do or enjoy, and that might not be comfortable,
Speaker 1: and there might be a fair bit of unknown and
Speaker 1: uncertain and unfamiliar. So all the best, right, and this
Speaker 1: is the well I mean, this is the never ending
Speaker 1: kind of conundrum really with self help, personal development, behavioral
Speaker 1: psychology is that growth is just fucking hard and uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: and many people are perpetually looking for growth without the discomfort. Well,
Speaker 1: good luck. It's like getting strong without doing strength training.
Speaker 1: Fucking good luck, Brian.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's so true. And muscle is one of
Speaker 2: those things you can't pay for it, you can't outsource it,
Speaker 2: You got to work hard for it. Yeah, it's and
Speaker 2: I think it's so it's very easy to put it off.
Speaker 2: I'm a personal Like my example this week was I
Speaker 2: really I've kind of overhauled my nutrition and feeling so
Speaker 2: much better for it, and I more or less kind
Speaker 2: of wound back a lot of the sugar I used
Speaker 2: to have, Like I just used to be just craving
Speaker 2: sugar a lot. Anyway, we had friends over on Saturday night.
Speaker 2: Friday night. Friday night, we just Peter brought home some
Speaker 2: of my favorite ice cream, so we shared a little
Speaker 2: thing of ice cream, and then I'm like, oh, that's
Speaker 2: kind of it. I've sort of splurged. Saturday night, friends
Speaker 2: came over, and Saturday night ended up being a bit
Speaker 2: of a splurge, and then we didn't eat the apple
Speaker 2: pies that I'd purchased for Saturday nights desert. So Sunday night,
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, I'll just have an apple pie. And
Speaker 2: then I realized it's that easy. It's that easy just
Speaker 2: to say tomorrow. And now it's not like I'm starting
Speaker 2: a diet or anything, but I just to be true
Speaker 2: to myself and what I know works for me and
Speaker 2: my body and my mental health. I don't want to
Speaker 2: eat as much sugar, but it was just so easy
Speaker 2: to just go yes to the next temptation. And I
Speaker 2: think with that three hundred and sixty five days, like
Speaker 2: if literally you're just saying twenty first to the twenty
Speaker 2: first in one year's time, we do need to We
Speaker 2: can't keep putting things off. Yet it's very easy to
Speaker 2: just say I'll do it next week or tomorrow. But
Speaker 2: the beauty of starting is that sooner you start, the
Speaker 2: easier it gets. But you only learn that through experience.
Speaker 2: You have to begin, and you're the only one who
Speaker 2: can do it one.
Speaker 1: Hundred percent like once you My analogy is if you've
Speaker 1: ever tried to push a car in a driveway or
Speaker 1: a car park, when it's you know, it's not in gear,
Speaker 1: obviously it's in neutral, but it's stopped. It's really fucking
Speaker 1: hard to get it moving. But once the car is moving,
Speaker 1: like once it's moving at three or four or five
Speaker 1: kilometers an hour, then it takes so much less effort
Speaker 1: to keep the same weight moving because now you've got momentum.
Speaker 1: And it's that initial kind of resistance, mental, emotional, physical,
Speaker 1: whatever resistance, that kind of I think it keeps people trapped.
Speaker 1: I think that that lack of willingness to just look
Speaker 1: this is going to suck. But I'm okay with it,
Speaker 1: you know. And for me as someone who has many
Speaker 1: of these conversations with a lot of people, and you know,
Speaker 1: I find it what's the word I was gonna say, sad? Sad,
Speaker 1: it's not the right I don't know what the right
Speaker 1: word is. Not even frustrating, But like I see it
Speaker 1: with people who I know have got at least as
Speaker 1: much talent or more than me, at least as much intelligence,
Speaker 1: intellect resources as me, if not more, but constantly just
Speaker 1: not fucking doing what they could do for a range
Speaker 1: of reasons that are not really real but rather psychological constructs,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, and it's not about self loathing.
Speaker 1: It's about self awareness, because everyone's going to wake up
Speaker 1: at some stage. If not everyone, most people are going
Speaker 1: to wake up at some stage and go, fuck, this
Speaker 1: wasn't my plan. You know how many people have a
Speaker 1: health scare and then go, oh shit, I better do something. Well, okay, good,
Speaker 1: but maybe you could have done that five years ago
Speaker 1: before we got to this point. Or and again, this
Speaker 1: is about for me. This is about being proactive, not reactive,
Speaker 1: going well, you've got one body, let's not fuck it. Ahah.
Speaker 1: Let's not wait for the diabetes, Let's not wait for
Speaker 1: the heart disease. Let's not wait for all of the
Speaker 1: associated conditions that come with maybe not looking after yourself.
Speaker 1: It's not about appearance. It's not about vanity. We don't
Speaker 1: care about the numbers. It's not about what you look like.
Speaker 1: You know. This is not a shallow thing. This is
Speaker 1: about you living long and strong and well. You know, so,
Speaker 1: what the fuck do you want to live long and
Speaker 1: strong and well? I do cool? What are you doing
Speaker 1: to make that a reality? Nothing? Okay? Right? And this
Speaker 1: is the uncomfortable conversation. It's like, oh, you're harsh, No,
Speaker 1: I'm fucking honest, but we'd rather call me harsh because then, oh,
Speaker 1: he's just harsh. You don't want to call him honest
Speaker 1: because if he's just being honest, then I need to
Speaker 1: deal with it. So what I'm going to do. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to call Craig harsh and blunt and brutal
Speaker 1: because that makes me feel better because then I don't
Speaker 1: need to do anything because Craig's the problem, not my
Speaker 1: inability to fucking take action, you know. And it's like
Speaker 1: what needs to happen for you to just fucking look
Speaker 1: after yourself? You know. For me, that's that's what I
Speaker 1: care about people, And I care about them actually not
Speaker 1: wasting the next ten years of their life bullshitting themselves
Speaker 1: and not not using what they've got to work with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I know it comes from a place
Speaker 2: of love. And you know, well, there are people who
Speaker 2: you know, have have you know, barriers in their life
Speaker 2: that you know, the fundamentals like supporting their you know,
Speaker 2: psychological safety and putting food on the table and all
Speaker 2: those sorts of things that you know, those kinds of stresses.
Speaker 2: But for the for the vast majority of people, there's
Speaker 2: I think if we're all honest with ourselves. There are
Speaker 2: things that we could do that would make a really
Speaker 2: significant difference to our mental health, our well being, our longevity.
Speaker 2: And I'll often say, if I'm speaking to a group,
Speaker 2: that put your hand up, if you can think of
Speaker 2: one thing that would make a really meaningful difference to
Speaker 2: your well being right now, But you're not doing it,
Speaker 2: and everyone's hands goes up, and those that don't put
Speaker 2: their head up are probably not being honest with themselves.
Speaker 2: But it you know, I think about people I know
Speaker 2: who've had heart attacks, for example, like you know, I'm
Speaker 2: in my fifties now you're in your sixties. Sixties, yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 2: and so you know now kind of demographic. You can
Speaker 2: start to see some health some choices catching up with people.
Speaker 2: And often when the heart attack comes or the significant
Speaker 2: health event comes, then that's the impetus for significant change,
Speaker 2: because all of a sudden, the life's on the line.
Speaker 2: Some do, some don't, Some fall back into old habits.
Speaker 2: But I sort of think, well, if you can do it,
Speaker 2: then you can do it now. But to have the
Speaker 2: control and not be forced out of action for weeks
Speaker 2: with heart surgery or being laid up in hospital. You know,
Speaker 2: like I think the idea of thinking about if something
Speaker 2: terrible happened, if I got a diagnosis, what would I
Speaker 2: do Differently, we don't have to wait for that.
Speaker 1: Course like heart disease and diabetes don't give a fuck
Speaker 1: about your emotional state. It's like, ah, I'm not ready
Speaker 1: for diabetes. Will you fucking got it? Well, had a
Speaker 1: heart attack. I'm not ready to deal with a heart attack.
Speaker 1: I'll deal with it on Monday. No, it's today. Do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? I mean, the bottom line is, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm all for protecting people and being aware and being
Speaker 1: you know, empathetic and understanding. But also life doesn't give
Speaker 1: a fuck about any of that. Like life is unfair,
Speaker 1: Life is messy. Bad things happen to good people. This
Speaker 1: is why five year old kids get cancer. That five
Speaker 1: year old kid that gets diagnosed today, and there's probably
Speaker 1: a lot of them sadly that happens. That's horrible, that's unfair,
Speaker 1: that's fucking I don't even get that. If there's he
Speaker 1: and I'll have a conversation one day about that. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. But the truth is, the uncomfortable truth is
Speaker 1: that happens. So you know, we need to go, Oh,
Speaker 1: life is a bitch. You know, horrible shit happens. And
Speaker 1: I have one life and I have one body, and
Speaker 1: every day from now is one less day that I
Speaker 1: have to use what I've got and figure out what
Speaker 1: the fuck I'm about my life is about. And yes,
Speaker 1: we need to be empathetic and aware. It's like I
Speaker 1: care about people who have got body image issues and
Speaker 1: body dysmorphia and all of those things because I've had
Speaker 1: all of that. But at the same time, I want
Speaker 1: you to be physically healthy. I don't want you to
Speaker 1: be physically healthy because I don't like the way you
Speaker 1: look or I don't like I want you to be
Speaker 1: physically healthy because that's going to help you have a
Speaker 1: good and a long life. You know, let's not wait
Speaker 1: another five years until you get over this issue or
Speaker 1: that issue before we stop eating KFC every fucking day,
Speaker 1: so you could stop that today. You don't need psychological
Speaker 1: safety to not eat fucking KFC. We can do both.
Speaker 1: We can try to page your mental health and we
Speaker 1: can be loving and compassionate. Also, we can make radical changes.
Speaker 1: It doesn't need to be one or the other. But
Speaker 1: we live in this paradigm where everyone's like, Oh, we
Speaker 1: need to do this and then we'll do that. You know,
Speaker 1: think about all the people in the world right now
Speaker 1: who live in abject poverty and I mean real poverty,
Speaker 1: and people who live in war zones, and people who
Speaker 1: live under constant threat of death and bombing and all
Speaker 1: of that. They're just doing what they have to do. Like,
Speaker 1: they don't get up each day and go wars not fair.
Speaker 1: They go fuck oar's here, what do I have to
Speaker 1: do today to survive? Now, I know that's melodramatic, but
Speaker 1: it's also the real fucking existence for millions of people
Speaker 1: in the world who don't have the luxury that we
Speaker 1: have to just wait forever to take action. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're in the middle of the war, you dealing with
Speaker 1: the war every fucking morning. Yes, you don't have that.
Speaker 1: You can't go fuck the war. I'm not doing it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to start the war on Monday. And I
Speaker 1: just think that there's so much of this where mental
Speaker 1: toughness and resilience can coexist with compassion and self care.
Speaker 1: It can. They don't need to be separate things.
Speaker 2: And with AI, with chat GPT, it's I mean, it's
Speaker 2: easy enough just to do it in our heads. But
Speaker 2: you can use a tool if you want to to
Speaker 2: start making small incremental changes. I think if people make
Speaker 2: significant changes. It's really hard for anybody to turn a ship.
Speaker 2: I mean we can't. You can't turn a ship around
Speaker 2: on a dime. It takes time. And so even if
Speaker 2: it's just a swapout, it's just like, you know, instead
Speaker 2: of whatever you might normally have with you know, a
Speaker 2: biscuit with your tea and coffee, just have an extra
Speaker 2: piece of fruit in the day, or just start the
Speaker 2: day with a glass of water. And I always say,
Speaker 2: if the first step feels unattainable, just break it down
Speaker 2: a little bit further. It's like you say, just getting
Speaker 2: that momentum, getting that momentum going. And we're certainly not
Speaker 2: at a loss for information and of what to do,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it's just putting it off until a significant
Speaker 2: life event or until it's too late, you know, until
Speaker 2: it's too late, when all of a sudden you haven't
Speaker 2: done any strength training, Like as a midlife woman, I
Speaker 2: like to think midlife, I like to think I'd be
Speaker 2: like tw one hundred and two spounds better than middle age,
Speaker 2: don't you reckon?
Speaker 1: Definitely definitely let's go mid life mid life you bloody
Speaker 1: mid life woman. You.
Speaker 2: But just like strength training, if you're not strength training
Speaker 2: you're a midlife woman, you might end up paying for
Speaker 2: it with your bone density, with your metabolism, with your mood,
Speaker 2: with your sleep. Like just that loss of muscle is
Speaker 2: so significant and so impactful. And my kids the other day,
Speaker 2: we saw a woman with osteoporosis, like a lady who
Speaker 2: was really bent over, and my daughter just sort of
Speaker 2: notice and sort of said, I wonder what that lady's
Speaker 2: you know, like, you know, I wonder what's going on
Speaker 2: there kind of thing. And I explained to her why
Speaker 2: that happens. And you know, we talk about kelcium and
Speaker 2: she's at the gym strength training. She's fifteen. But I
Speaker 2: just think, you know, getting out of this pattern of
Speaker 2: especially in tiff Gosh, you know, you're all over it.
Speaker 2: Like so many women my age will just go for
Speaker 2: their walk and they run because it's about how do
Speaker 2: I fit in my clothes? And I had the pleasure
Speaker 2: of interviewing do to Stacy Simms, and she said they
Speaker 2: end up skinny, fat, skinny in a size whatever. They
Speaker 2: feel comfortable in their clothes. But the fat distribution around organs,
Speaker 2: the subcutaneous fat, the just all the health implications that
Speaker 2: comes with that. But on the outside, you look at
Speaker 2: the person and they've got you know, I'm using air
Speaker 2: quotes a good figure. So yeah, it's just I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm like you heart so I just get so passionate
Speaker 2: about it because I just know that starting is so hard.
Speaker 2: But once you get going, you fall into a groove,
Speaker 2: it just gets easier.
Speaker 1: I'm going to throw out a question, my question, is
Speaker 1: it so hard or is that just our story? It's
Speaker 1: like somebody has to do something today, they have no option.
Speaker 1: They start because there's no option. The problem is we go,
Speaker 1: I have an option. I don't have to start today.
Speaker 1: I think practically, you're right, it is hard, and experientially
Speaker 1: it's hard. But when you think about, okay, what makes
Speaker 1: it hard? Well, you know for me to go and
Speaker 1: let's say i'm you know that whatever, somebody who typically
Speaker 1: walks two thousand steps a day, and they decide, well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to from today, I'm going to do four,
Speaker 1: I'm going to double it, and you might conceptually go, wow,
Speaker 1: walking twice as far as I normally do from now
Speaker 1: on that's hard. And then you go, no, cancer is hard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh oh, cancers hard, walk in two thousand steps if
Speaker 1: you can walk, of course, not hard. Diabetes, you know
Speaker 1: hard like family tragedy hard. Ah, because we tell ourselves
Speaker 1: a story and you go, oh, two thousand steps, that's
Speaker 1: so hard. And then I go, oh, let me take
Speaker 1: you to Cabrini Hospital in malven Let me introduce you
Speaker 1: to John who's got a spinal cord injury, brain injury,
Speaker 1: all these other things, and he just had a skin
Speaker 1: a skin graphic. Da da da da, And then tell
Speaker 1: me about how hard your two thousand steps are. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to demean anyone, right, What I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do is go, oh, yeah, that's right. It depends
Speaker 1: which fucking lens I look through. If I look through that,
Speaker 1: this is hard lens, it's hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: If I go what about this? What about this? For
Speaker 1: a reframe? How exciting is it that I get to
Speaker 1: walk two thousand How amazing is it that I can
Speaker 1: walk two thousand steps? More, isn't it amazing that I
Speaker 1: have a body that can do that? How grateful am I?
Speaker 1: Now it becomes an experience of gratitude and an experience
Speaker 1: of something positive rather than ah thing, I have to
Speaker 1: do a hard thing, right, you know, it's like you
Speaker 1: know this better than me. If you call something hard
Speaker 1: and you believe it's hard, that becomes your experience because
Speaker 1: you create your if you think something's you know, down
Speaker 1: to a really obvious example, if I say fuck and
Speaker 1: someone thinks the word fuck is offensive, well, they literally
Speaker 1: just got offended. I'm not saying they should or shouldn't.
Speaker 1: I'm talking it's not even about swearing. It's about psychology.
Speaker 1: It's about stimulus and response. You know. And then even
Speaker 1: though I just said fuck twice, most of our listeners
Speaker 1: are not offended. Then you go, oh, what is that about. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not about the stimulus, it's about the response. Well
Speaker 1: who's that up to? It's up to the individual, because
Speaker 1: the individual gets to decide what things mean in their
Speaker 1: own life. Right. If your story is this is hard,
Speaker 1: this is hard, well guess what, you're having a whole
Speaker 1: lot of hard in your life. If you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: I can walk, I can walk. What a gift? How
Speaker 1: greatful am I? How fucking amazing? Because you know what,
Speaker 1: a lot of people can't walk a lot of people
Speaker 1: can't get out of a chair. A lot of people
Speaker 1: don't live in a beautiful city. Like all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we're reframing, and we're not pretending that it's not hard
Speaker 1: at times. We're not trying to discount anyone's real feelings
Speaker 1: or emotions, but we're also saying, is there a way
Speaker 1: that I can reframe things so that rather than being
Speaker 1: managed by my mind, I can perhaps manage my mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, one of the things that I've talked about before.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if we've talked about it, but my
Speaker 2: training and acceptance and commitment therapy is coming to mind now,
Speaker 2: where we talk about values aligned goals, so setting something
Speaker 2: that's important, you know, like striving for something that might
Speaker 2: be really important to us, and knowing that despite the
Speaker 2: circumstances that we're in, we can take steps towards that
Speaker 2: each and every day. Like you might think being a
Speaker 2: good parent means having a table tennis table in a
Speaker 2: suming pool for your kids and taking them on a
Speaker 2: couple of on holidays a year, Well, that might be
Speaker 2: out of reach, but if your value is being a
Speaker 2: good parent, you can be a good parent each and
Speaker 2: every day by giving your kids time and attention and
Speaker 2: listening and playing games and doing other things. And so
Speaker 2: I think sometimes we think about the big stuff and
Speaker 2: forget that the day to day kind of efforts that
Speaker 2: we make can really align with what actually matters. But
Speaker 2: also this idea that we're in a world of instant
Speaker 2: gratification and everything at our fingertips, and you know, I
Speaker 2: find myself sometimes kind of twiddling my thumbs with my
Speaker 2: maintenet's a little bit slow, and then I have to
Speaker 2: think about dial up and how lucky we are to
Speaker 2: have access to what we've got. But I think when
Speaker 2: you are making change, like for example, cutting back on
Speaker 2: fast food or starting to walk those extra couple of
Speaker 2: thousand steps a day, the immediate benefit isn't evident. You
Speaker 2: might feel a little bit better, sleep better. There's a
Speaker 2: few little things that you can be curious about notice changes,
Speaker 2: but it's again it's looking at the long term cumulative
Speaker 2: effect of those And for anyone who really needs that
Speaker 2: little dopamine kind of tick the box I'm kind of
Speaker 2: getting somewhere. Just a brilliant thing to do is just
Speaker 2: to mark an X in a calendar each day that
Speaker 2: you do the thing you said you do, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, you've got three or four in a row,
Speaker 2: and you're building a streak. But I do think that
Speaker 2: one of the things that we're not used to is
Speaker 2: resisting urges and temptations and having the skills to be
Speaker 2: able to notice what's happening in our head and in
Speaker 2: our body when we have an urge to do something
Speaker 2: or to say no to doing something we said we do,
Speaker 2: and how to move through that moment. Like you said earlier,
Speaker 2: about that moment when you're able to recognize not feeling good.
Speaker 2: Things aren't great, But in this moment, what can I
Speaker 2: do with what I've got? You And you'll go and
Speaker 2: you you know, create a whiteboard or do something creative perhaps,
Speaker 2: But in that moment that you've said to yourself, well,
Speaker 2: I am going to do my walk every day, but
Speaker 2: you've had a big day. You sit on the couch,
Speaker 2: you get the remote. You know, obviously, all of a
Speaker 2: sudden you're into YouTube or Netflix or whatever, and you're like,
Speaker 2: I don't want to, I don't feel like it. It's
Speaker 2: having the psychological skills in that moment to first of all,
Speaker 2: notice that your actions are being influenced by what you're thinking,
Speaker 2: and then have the skills to be able to reframe
Speaker 2: it so that you can get your bum off the
Speaker 2: couch and get out for your walk and then come
Speaker 2: back and sit and watch your Netflix or whatever you
Speaker 2: want to do. And I think that that is you know,
Speaker 2: we're obviously, you know, three quarts of the way into
Speaker 2: our chat today, but I think that little moment, that
Speaker 2: little you know, that little that little space, that little gap,
Speaker 2: like you know, mind the gap in London. I just
Speaker 2: recently in my head, I'm like, we've got to find
Speaker 2: the gap, Like just it's just being a bit more mindful.
Speaker 2: And I think for all of us, if we can
Speaker 2: practice a bit more mindfulness and being a bit more
Speaker 2: putting our head where our hands are, then we can
Speaker 2: capture that moment and do something different with it. But
Speaker 2: you know, if you're in a habit, a pattern of
Speaker 2: doing something, awareness of that pattern, and what are you
Speaker 2: going to do when your mind says I don't want
Speaker 2: to how are you going to approach that? I think
Speaker 2: they're really really powerful skills.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you raise a lot of good points there.
Speaker 1: One I want to circle back to, which is essentially
Speaker 1: delaying gratification. You know, that's that's a biggie, you know,
Speaker 1: because we are. We are the instant gratification generation. It's like,
Speaker 1: we're the instant gratification culture. If you want to know,
Speaker 1: if you want to sell something, if you can make
Speaker 1: it a form of instant gratification where somebody gets a
Speaker 1: great reward without the work, then you'll be able to
Speaker 1: sell it, especially if it's got anything to do with
Speaker 1: appearance or weight or weight loss or muscle gain or yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's it is that whole kind of for me,
Speaker 1: for me personally. This is not my recommendation for the world,
Speaker 1: but for me personally managing me, and I'm a fucking
Speaker 1: handful because my mind is extremely busy trying to and
Speaker 1: also the x only kid who needed attention or the
Speaker 1: only child I should say who needed attention, and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, all those things like trying to separate
Speaker 1: between you know, what I'm doing because it's the thing
Speaker 1: that I think I really should be doing, and I'm
Speaker 1: doing it when no one's looking, when there's no accolade,
Speaker 1: there's no approval, there's no instant gratification, no quick fix.
Speaker 1: It doesn't even fucking feel good. But I'm doing it
Speaker 1: because I know that I know it's the right thing
Speaker 1: for me. Not necessarily it's the global right thing, but
Speaker 1: it's the right thing for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know, we were chatting about my research my
Speaker 1: PhD before we came on here, and yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: there have been one thousand times probably more where I've
Speaker 1: thought why am I doing this? Like this is I
Speaker 1: don't need this? Why am I doing this? I'm lucky?
Speaker 1: You know, there are so many as you go, well,
Speaker 1: you chose that, and you can stop at any time.
Speaker 1: But if you stop, then take ownership and don't pretend
Speaker 1: you're not the problem, because if you stop, you're the
Speaker 1: fucking problem. And if you get through then that's also
Speaker 1: on you. Well done. But it's like this. There's a
Speaker 1: guy called Jocko Willing who kind of polarizes people. He's
Speaker 1: an ex marine and he's written a book called Extreme Ownership,
Speaker 1: and you know, this is one of the ideas. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: if you create good outcomes, well done. If you create
Speaker 1: bad outcomes, own them. You know, you don't have to
Speaker 1: hate you, you don't have to I was thinking before,
Speaker 1: and I'll shut up after this, but I was thinking
Speaker 1: before how much information just gets pumped out and people
Speaker 1: basically on the Internet and you know, reels and all
Speaker 1: the various platforms and all the various mediums that get
Speaker 1: used on those platforms where everyone's shouting a message and
Speaker 1: everyone thinks whatever it is they're saying that they're right.
Speaker 1: And I just think, how often do people think with
Speaker 1: whatever it is that they think or believe or that
Speaker 1: they preach. I wonder if they think, oh, am I wrong?
Speaker 1: Like could I be wrong? I think about that. I
Speaker 1: think about that a lot, and I think I've been
Speaker 1: wrong a lot, you know, So, which is why when
Speaker 1: I say something, I don't go this is what people
Speaker 1: should do. I go, this is what worked for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is what I think. This is my story, this
Speaker 1: is my experience, rather than putting out some global mandate
Speaker 1: everyone who deals with anxiety should do this. No, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. But when I'm anxious and I
Speaker 1: do this, this helps me. It may or may not
Speaker 1: help you. You know, for me, success E calls ABC,
Speaker 1: but for you success might be d E F. But
Speaker 1: I just think that that being grounded, where you're okay
Speaker 1: to get shit wrong, you're okay to be scared, you're
Speaker 1: okay to be embarrassed, and you're just going to keep
Speaker 1: grinding and when you fuck up, you'll go I fucked up.
Speaker 1: And when you did great, you go, hey, I did great.
Speaker 1: And there's no ego in either, there's no self hate
Speaker 1: in either.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think I think that just
Speaker 2: some humility and just and inherent in that word is
Speaker 2: just being human. None of us get it right all
Speaker 2: the time. Nobody does. But like you say, you know,
Speaker 2: and I think, I think what part of the problem
Speaker 2: is that there's so there's so much in There's so
Speaker 2: much that people can and a lot of it's conflicting,
Speaker 2: you know, and it depends on your belief systems and
Speaker 2: depends on your you know, kind of like what kind
Speaker 2: of floats your boat as to who you're going to
Speaker 2: listen to. But sometimes it can it can feel like
Speaker 2: it's overwhelming and I don't know, I don't know where
Speaker 2: to start, I don't know who to believe. It's it's
Speaker 2: all a bit much. One thing that I found really
Speaker 2: helpful for me was that just a little in terms
Speaker 2: of making change is using the word I don't instead
Speaker 2: of I can't. And when I because I used to
Speaker 2: love Bailey's I know you're not a drinker, and I'm
Speaker 2: no longer a drinker. I've been about two years alcohol free.
Speaker 2: But when I was a drinker, my kind of kryptonite
Speaker 2: was Bailey's. And I sort of said to myself, I'm
Speaker 2: contradicting myself because for a period time it did work.
Speaker 2: But I was just like, instead of saying I don't
Speaker 2: want to drink Baileyes, because once I start it's hard
Speaker 2: to kind of, you know, stop, like a jocotma, I
Speaker 2: would say to myself, I don't, I actually don't drink Bailey's.
Speaker 2: That was kind of like the reframe that I used
Speaker 2: for myself, and for months that actually really helped me
Speaker 2: to make really good decisions, until it didn't. But sometimes
Speaker 2: it's worth trying these things on and seeing like if
Speaker 2: you consider, say I don't eat after seven o'clock, or
Speaker 2: I don't have dessert every night, or I instead of
Speaker 2: like I'm choosing not to, it's just reframing kind of
Speaker 2: almost your identity around it. And ultimately it worked for
Speaker 2: a while, so it's worth trying. But also that didn't
Speaker 2: last forever for me, and ultimately I just decided I'm
Speaker 2: just actually going to just I just don't drink now.
Speaker 2: And actually that's stuck.
Speaker 1: It takes because I mean, your subconscious programming isn't really
Speaker 1: tuned into your conscious decision making, or it's like yeah,
Speaker 1: in your conscious mind, you're like, oh, I do this,
Speaker 1: and I don't do that. In your subconscious mind's like no,
Speaker 1: you don't. You fucking drink. You're just diluting yourself and
Speaker 1: dreaming and again, yeah, this is just a story you're
Speaker 1: telling yourself. And that's why you know, over time we're
Speaker 1: trying to I mean, it starts with a conscious decision
Speaker 1: and you know, the prefrontal cortex and you know, being
Speaker 1: strategic and all of those things, but ultimately we need
Speaker 1: to hardwire that shit into our subconscious so that it
Speaker 1: becomes our new normal. So once it becomes hardwired, once
Speaker 1: it's basically an expression of who we are. But this
Speaker 1: is just me. I don't need to get motivated to
Speaker 1: go to the gym. I don't need discipline, self control,
Speaker 1: or willpower. I don't need any of that because it's
Speaker 1: just in my DNA. I don't need to try. I
Speaker 1: don't need nobody needs to compliment me for being fucking
Speaker 1: disciplined or anything, because I'm actually because there are other
Speaker 1: things that I probably should do that I avoid because
Speaker 1: I'm not disciplined or no, not that, but because that's
Speaker 1: not part of my normal operating system.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So it's that, you know, just trying to figure out
Speaker 1: over time, what is the thing that is a needs
Speaker 1: to become just hardwired into who I am and how
Speaker 1: I am, not a thing that I do because I'm
Speaker 1: in the zone or I'm disciplined, or I'm doing a
Speaker 1: program or i'm you know, And I mean, that's not
Speaker 1: a three month process. That's sometimes that's a three year process,
Speaker 1: especially when you've been doing something for thirty years a
Speaker 1: certain way and now you can't undo that or you
Speaker 1: can't write new code by Wednesday, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: a journey. It's a psychological, emotional, behavioral, and physiological journey.
Speaker 1: And when you tell people, I get asked often in
Speaker 1: talks how long does it take to break a habit?
Speaker 1: And I go, well, there's no answer to that, and
Speaker 1: it's it's I wouldn't say this to them, but it's
Speaker 1: a really ignorant question because it's assuming there's a number,
Speaker 1: which is completely unscientific. Are we talking about giving up
Speaker 1: sugar or heroin? We you know, are we talking about
Speaker 1: I've been having sugar in my coffee for six months,
Speaker 1: or have been you know, addicted to drugs for twenty
Speaker 1: five years, and my life is you know, not in
Speaker 1: a great way, and I'm not in a great way.
Speaker 1: And this is a very very very complicated issue. Well
Speaker 1: it's different, and you know, and nothing but love and
Speaker 1: empathy for people with addictive challenges, right, but it's well this,
Speaker 1: you know, you're not gonna you're not going to fix
Speaker 1: that quickly. You know that that doesn't get fixed quickly. Also,
Speaker 1: and in other news, that's fine, that's fine, you don't
Speaker 1: have to you know, you can change your behavior straight away.
Speaker 1: You can change your decision making straight away, you can
Speaker 1: change your lifestyle trade away, straight up way, but you
Speaker 1: can't change your default setting straight away. Can't rewire your
Speaker 1: brain straight away. No, this is a journey. So be
Speaker 1: patient or you're going to be disappointed.
Speaker 2: I share occasionally the idea of kind of rewiring. If
Speaker 2: you think of like a field of like neck high
Speaker 2: grass that's really thick and lush and you're walking through
Speaker 2: it for the first time. It is so hard to do.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of resistance. It's difficult. But the more
Speaker 2: you walk that path. The more you lay down that grass,
Speaker 2: the easier that path can, you know, take you from
Speaker 2: A to B. And that's kind of what can happen
Speaker 2: in our brain, building those new connections and creating those
Speaker 2: new patterns. But something you said before too is that
Speaker 2: we do have a choice, and we can make a
Speaker 2: different choice. And I think when we remind ourselves that
Speaker 2: we have a choice, that can often be quite liberating
Speaker 2: because we can choose to stay. You know, you can
Speaker 2: choose to have I'm just trying to think of an example.
Speaker 2: I can't think of an example at the moment. KFC
Speaker 2: keeps coming to mind, which I hate. But you know,
Speaker 2: like you, when you do have a choice, I think
Speaker 2: it shows you that you've you can do something different
Speaker 2: and that ultimately we are the ones that are responsible.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I don't know, I've lost my train of thought. Actually,
Speaker 2: perhaps I'm not sure where I'm going with that, but
Speaker 2: I just know in personally in my own life, like
Speaker 2: when I was teaching and I needed to move out
Speaker 2: of teaching, but I chose to stay because I wasn't
Speaker 2: sure where I was going. But I was finding it
Speaker 2: really hard because my mental health hadn't been good. I
Speaker 2: just remember my psychologist saying to me, you've got a
Speaker 2: choice here. You could go and get a job at Woolly's.
Speaker 2: You could go and work in a cafe. You know
Speaker 2: that back back in the day, there was no shortage
Speaker 2: of work. So we said, if you're staying in teaching,
Speaker 2: you're choosing to am I right in that, And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I absolutely am. So. I just felt so liberated by
Speaker 2: just this recognition that I have autonomy here. I can
Speaker 2: make a choice. I don't have to do the things
Speaker 2: that I'm doing. It's what I'm choosing to do. And
Speaker 2: I think when it comes to behavior change, I think
Speaker 2: just recognizing that we have a choice about what we do,
Speaker 2: and that every day we don't do something that's a
Speaker 2: choice too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent, and that's yeah, let's not beat
Speaker 1: ourselves up over that. Let's just acknowledge that. I mean,
Speaker 1: there have been times in my life where there were
Speaker 1: things that I really needed to do and for a
Speaker 1: range of reasons that we don't have time to explore,
Speaker 1: I didn't do them, and you know, and then I
Speaker 1: got to a point where I was ready and I
Speaker 1: did it for me. I try very hard to once
Speaker 1: I go. I'm doing it. I need to make sure
Speaker 1: that I'm really really ready because I don't want to
Speaker 1: do it and then stop. Yeah, you know, Hey, Tiffany
Speaker 1: and Cook's got to go. I've got to go, You've
Speaker 1: got to go. Well. Hello Anxiety is the name of
Speaker 1: Jody's podcast. Dr Jody's podcast where Else. Yes, let's pump
Speaker 1: that if we could tell people what you're holding. Because
Speaker 1: I'm the world's worst friend, I haven't promoted that yet.
Speaker 1: I promise you I will do it on my socials
Speaker 1: this week. Tell people about what you're holding.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, My Anxiety Toolkit a seventy card deck
Speaker 2: that is designed to support parents and educators with supporting
Speaker 2: anxious kids and teens. So available on my website, Dr
Speaker 2: Jodiichison dot com.
Speaker 1: Perfect And there's a few books on there that bloody
Speaker 1: sell like hotcakes too. So if you be very good,
Speaker 1: she might sign one for you and write a little message.
Speaker 1: Would you do that? Would you write a little hello?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, if somebody would like for me to dedicate
Speaker 2: it to someone in particular, then yeah, I sign every
Speaker 2: book I sell. Yeah, definitely, very good.
Speaker 1: Well, say goodbye a fair but Dr Joe thanks. Dr Tiff, Thanks, audience,
Speaker 1: thanks thanks guys Mite, thank you.