Speaker 1: This is the Anxiety Bites podcast and I am your host,
Speaker 1: Jen Kirkman. Welcome to another episode of Anxiety Bites. I
Speaker 1: am your host, Jen Kirkman. My guest today is Ken Howard.
Speaker 1: He is the founder and director of Gay Therapy l A.
Speaker 1: He also has a podcast of the same name. And
Speaker 1: I have a lot of listeners reaching out to me,
Speaker 1: especially during the episodes that I did back in February,
Speaker 1: there are more relationship based. There were people saying, you know,
Speaker 1: is there a kind of therapy for gay men? And
Speaker 1: I I had somehow come across Ken Howard on on
Speaker 1: my Instagram because I follow a lot of therapy things
Speaker 1: and then I get recommended this, and I get recommended that,
Speaker 1: and you know, we're on opposite coasts. So we've been
Speaker 1: trying to make this interview work for a while. But
Speaker 1: I've also noticed a try end that therapists have on
Speaker 1: their websites. Now you know, oh, they're trained in this
Speaker 1: and that, and they see children and adults, and they're
Speaker 1: also lgbt Q affirming, which means they may not be
Speaker 1: gay themselves, but they will not um be completely oblivious
Speaker 1: to what the gay experience. Maybe you know, they may
Speaker 1: be anywhere from just hey, I'm not a bigot too. Oh,
Speaker 1: I have some training in you know, the cultural things
Speaker 1: that may cause depression or anxiety in addition to you
Speaker 1: know what we just have inherently on our own because
Speaker 1: they are lgbt Q in America or in a certain
Speaker 1: state or in just the world during this time, or
Speaker 1: their you know, their family doesn't accept them or whatnot.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to wait until I could talk to
Speaker 1: someone who is actually a specialist like kenn Is, so
Speaker 1: that I could give the most of this topic on
Speaker 1: an episode that I could since it's out of my depth.
Speaker 1: But um, I figured you don't want like, you know,
Speaker 1: me and in a straight therapist talking about you know,
Speaker 1: the gay experience. And so Ken exclusively has worked with
Speaker 1: gay men gay clients, whether as individuals or couples, for
Speaker 1: over twenty nine years. He's based in Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: West Hollywood, and he does provide coaching for gay men
Speaker 1: and gay mail couples via phone or you know, a
Speaker 1: zoom session to clients all over the US and in
Speaker 1: many countries, especially places where people do not have access
Speaker 1: to a gay therapist. Now, what is interesting about this
Speaker 1: episode is although we don't really get into relationship anxieties.
Speaker 1: We do just talk in general about anxieties that gay
Speaker 1: men might face, but we really kind of just end
Speaker 1: up talking about anxiety because there is obviously this universal
Speaker 1: thing that that if you have anxiety, have anxiety, We're
Speaker 1: all going to experience the same things. Of course, depending
Speaker 1: on your circumstances in life. You know, if you're a
Speaker 1: black woman, if you're a gay man, you might have
Speaker 1: obviously different and more anxieties than someone in society who
Speaker 1: doesn't have to put up with extra pressures from society,
Speaker 1: bigotry from society. You know, there is more to quote
Speaker 1: worry about. But um, what's interesting about this episode is
Speaker 1: a lot of my episodes come from the place of
Speaker 1: the person with anxiety, in the sense that we talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, your normal, this is what it feels like,
Speaker 1: this is what anxiety is. What I liked about my
Speaker 1: conversation with Ken Howard has really got into what he
Speaker 1: does in his practice, and he has so many different
Speaker 1: modalities of helping people, whether it is he takes more
Speaker 1: of a coaching attitude with some one in one moment
Speaker 1: or more of a you know, direct psychotherapy moment, whether
Speaker 1: it's positive psychology or cognitive behavioral therapy. There is all
Speaker 1: of these different modalities that he is studied in and
Speaker 1: can kind of weave all of them through in one session,
Speaker 1: and you get to hear, you know, like a fly
Speaker 1: on the wall, Oh, he had a client yesterday with
Speaker 1: this issue, a client yesterday who at that issue. And
Speaker 1: so I really think you'll get a lot out of
Speaker 1: this episode from that perspective, and it's a great episode
Speaker 1: if you've never been to therapy to kind of hear
Speaker 1: what can go on in a therapy session, as well
Speaker 1: as something Ken teld us at the end of the
Speaker 1: episode spoiler that anyone can go to therapy. You don't
Speaker 1: need to have a disorder of any kind. You don't
Speaker 1: have to have a mental health diagnosis or be on
Speaker 1: the lookout for one. You just can have a goal.
Speaker 1: You don't even have to have a problem. You can
Speaker 1: just have a goal and you want some help achieving
Speaker 1: that goal. Okay, So before I get into my conversation
Speaker 1: with Ken Howard, I'll just let you know a little
Speaker 1: bit about him from his From his bio, he's devoted
Speaker 1: his professional career as a therapist exclusively to working with
Speaker 1: gay men or individuals um or gay mail couples. In
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, um Can enlisted in the War against
Speaker 1: AIDS as a training Can you hear the I live
Speaker 1: next to a fire station. We've been so far, so
Speaker 1: good on this podcast, where you don't always hear it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you could just hear that, but
Speaker 1: I'm not starting over. Listen. Sometimes there's fire trucks, okay.
Speaker 1: Um Ken began as a trainee in mental health, first
Speaker 1: in psychology and then in clinical social work. He volunteered
Speaker 1: at AIDS Project Los Angeles as a phone buddy, providing
Speaker 1: phone counseling to people with eights. He noticed that the
Speaker 1: guys who had more mental health support survived longer and
Speaker 1: better than their peers with poor mental health. Later formal
Speaker 1: research proved that observation. Ken's own diagnosis as HIV positive
Speaker 1: in November lad him to abandon the pursuit of his
Speaker 1: five year plus PhD psychology program because, as he says,
Speaker 1: at that time he was literally afraid that he would
Speaker 1: not live to see the completion of a doctoral program, and,
Speaker 1: as he says, he was far too obsessive compulsive to
Speaker 1: die with a half finished degree. He chose to pursue
Speaker 1: the two year full time MSW Master of Social Work
Speaker 1: program in the Mental Health Concentration at the University of
Speaker 1: Southern California School of Social Work, where his internship training
Speaker 1: right from the very beginning, emphasized the population that he
Speaker 1: wanted to work with most, the LGBTQ community and to
Speaker 1: do his part in the fight against AIDS. At the
Speaker 1: LGBT Center, he co facilitated a group for gay and
Speaker 1: bisexual male incest sexual abuse survivors. Later, he got very
Speaker 1: interested in helping people with more severe psychiatric disorders or
Speaker 1: chronic mental illness, and he completed a clinical internship at
Speaker 1: Pacific Clinics, Pasadena, specializing in assisting persons with schizophrenia and
Speaker 1: other severe persistent mental illness and developing a model of
Speaker 1: care called psycho social Rehabilitation and assertive community Treatment. After
Speaker 1: years of formal supervised training, he earned his California State
Speaker 1: License to Practice Psychotherapy, which is the LCSW licensed clinical
Speaker 1: social worker, with a special additional training as a psychiatric
Speaker 1: social worker, which qualifies him to discuss medications and their
Speaker 1: use more in depth, but not as precisely as an
Speaker 1: empty psychiatrist. So Ken Howard knows his ship. Okay, people,
Speaker 1: so enjoy my conversation with Ken Howard and maybe you'll
Speaker 1: learn about something new, like I did something called birthday anxiety,
Speaker 1: which I've got coming up the summer. But this isn't
Speaker 1: about me right now, Okay, enjoying my conversation with Ken Howard,
Speaker 1: and of course you can go to the links in
Speaker 1: the show notes and read more about Ken and find
Speaker 1: out about his podcast, in his book and all kinds
Speaker 1: of things. So I'll see on the other side. You know,
Speaker 1: I always kind of kind of joke, you know, we
Speaker 1: gay men tend to pay the bills. You know. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's an affluent market niche in general. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a stereotype that all gay men, you know,
Speaker 1: have design and clothes all the time. That's not true,
Speaker 1: but um, you know, it's a desirable niche. It's just
Speaker 1: that I think niche as you have to be careful
Speaker 1: because you've got to have some kind of an entry
Speaker 1: ticket in terms of credentials. You know. It's, uh, it's
Speaker 1: like any other field where specialized knowledge or specialized expertise
Speaker 1: really comes in handy. And you know, early in my
Speaker 1: career I made the very important decision that I was
Speaker 1: going to be a specialist. I was gonna put all
Speaker 1: my eggs in one basket, you know. And at the
Speaker 1: time building my practice and building my career in the
Speaker 1: nonprofit world, people said to me, you know, if if
Speaker 1: gay men are or you know, if if gay people
Speaker 1: are approximately ten percent maybe a little less of the population,
Speaker 1: you're excluding of the world from ever being able to
Speaker 1: be your client if you really specialize in a exclusive practice.
Speaker 1: And I said, yeah, I know that, but you know, um,
Speaker 1: partially from a business standpoint, specialization and niche, you know,
Speaker 1: tends to create business. You know, if you're dry cleaners
Speaker 1: and you specialize in cleaning suede and you get a
Speaker 1: spot on a swaye jacket where you're gonna go, you know,
Speaker 1: or there's a specificity is just so important sometimes because
Speaker 1: there isn't time to study everything equally, you know. I
Speaker 1: always make the joke if I get a call from
Speaker 1: a teenage girl with an eating disorder, I'm going to
Speaker 1: refer to a colleague who sees teenage girls with eating
Speaker 1: disorders all day long. But for gay men, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, well it's and you know, and I was
Speaker 1: advised in grad school by this woman chev Romain names,
Speaker 1: but she said, well, I told her I wanted to
Speaker 1: specialize in gay men. You know, this is from day
Speaker 1: one of grad school. And she said, well, and you're
Speaker 1: going to be a very narrow perison. And I thought,
Speaker 1: you know that that's one of those things I called
Speaker 1: subtle homophobia. Because if you had somebody saying just about
Speaker 1: any other specialization like ge that'd school counselor I want
Speaker 1: to specialize in teenage girls who suffered with eating disorders
Speaker 1: and support their recovery, they'd be like, oh, that's interest
Speaker 1: good for what? Yeah, exactly, And and it's just and
Speaker 1: it's one of my things, you know, politically about subtle homophobia,
Speaker 1: because I think it's everywhere, and because I'm just old
Speaker 1: and curmudgeonly at this point. But you know, but but
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of that, and it was the reason
Speaker 1: why I made that kind of it sounds a little sappy,
Speaker 1: but I am a little sappy. It's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I I kind of came of age in my twenties
Speaker 1: during the AIDS crisis, and I saw a lot of
Speaker 1: beautiful souls, you know, gay men who died very prematurely.
Speaker 1: And I said, I can't stand back and watch this
Speaker 1: without giving to this community. Not on my watch. If
Speaker 1: I can do something about the decimation of gay men
Speaker 1: in America, I'm going to do something. It's like Superman.
Speaker 1: If I have these powers, I'm going to try and
Speaker 1: save people with them. And so that's the commitment I made.
Speaker 1: First two people with HIV, especially gay living with HIV.
Speaker 1: Later I did work with women and kids in youth
Speaker 1: with HIV, so the whole HIV spectrum. But it's my
Speaker 1: I think it's my gift back and I think it's
Speaker 1: my existential I can't speak French. They for my for
Speaker 1: my career, you know, kind of the the original kernel
Speaker 1: of inspiration, and so it really, I mean it sounds happy,
Speaker 1: but really what I'm doing every day and supporting gay
Speaker 1: men's mental health and well being is ultimately I'm fighting
Speaker 1: back against the AIDS crisis. You know, I did have
Speaker 1: that trauma, and every day, politically and clinically and socially,
Speaker 1: I fight back against what we lost in any way
Speaker 1: I can. And that to me, that's a career. Fine,
Speaker 1: that's that's fine. If that's my life, I'm happy with that.
Speaker 1: My grandmother taught I'm sorry my grandmother taught first graders
Speaker 1: how to read for thirty years and that was her career.
Speaker 1: And it's like, okay that, you know, she didn't teach
Speaker 1: oul gebras, she didn't teach college chemistry. You know, she
Speaker 1: taught first graders how to read for thirty years. And
Speaker 1: to me, that's a noble life, you know. And I
Speaker 1: don't really believe necessarily in St. Peter. But when I
Speaker 1: get to St. Peter and he says, who are you, dude,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say I helped gay men's mental health and
Speaker 1: well being for over thirty years. Yeah, okay, come on in, welcome, Yeah,
Speaker 1: wipe your feet before you come in the door. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And uh. And that's kind of just the whole drive
Speaker 1: that drives my career. So when I do career coaching,
Speaker 1: we sometimes talked about that. I say, what is the
Speaker 1: drive that will get you up in the morning, even
Speaker 1: on a rainy, cold Monday morning when you don't nobody
Speaker 1: wants to go to work, They want to stay in bed.
Speaker 1: But what is important enough to you that you might
Speaker 1: get up on a rainy Monday morning and go to
Speaker 1: work anyway? Because your work is that important? And you know,
Speaker 1: if people can answer that then I think they're on
Speaker 1: their way to a good career. And I think what
Speaker 1: you said is so important to the people saying well,
Speaker 1: that's niche, that's narrow. You know, it's coming from this
Speaker 1: how much progress we've made, and I know there's so
Speaker 1: much more to go, but it comes from this really
Speaker 1: ignorant place. It's like you experienced this decimating plague that
Speaker 1: was being ignored by the government because most of the
Speaker 1: victims were gay and left a generation of who knows
Speaker 1: what kind of beauty we could have in the world.
Speaker 1: This generation was left to die. The mental health impact
Speaker 1: on that is insane. And it's not like, um, gay
Speaker 1: people were able to get married or have protection at work.
Speaker 1: I mean it was like and these people still have
Speaker 1: to be closeted while they're dying at this place. I
Speaker 1: mean I to me, that is broad in the sense
Speaker 1: that if you can help this community with mental health
Speaker 1: as they go out into the world and flourish, because
Speaker 1: this might be one of the first generations that really
Speaker 1: is allowed to um, you're taking your expertise and your
Speaker 1: survival and your gift, you know. And to me, like
Speaker 1: you said, your grandmother taught people to read well once
Speaker 1: you learn to read, you can do anything, you know,
Speaker 1: and once you get your mental health in order, you
Speaker 1: can become anything. And then they will be inspired by you,
Speaker 1: and they'll inspire others that just I'm so happy to
Speaker 1: hear you say this and I and I'm just grossed
Speaker 1: out by those people that said those things, because it's
Speaker 1: it's you know, luckily you were not influenced by them.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things about you know, the history
Speaker 1: of HIV and AIDS is that, um, so much of
Speaker 1: it is lost. And it taught me a lesson really
Speaker 1: about history, about what people in general know about the
Speaker 1: height of the AIDS crisis today. And I just think,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, wait a minute, that that's the tip
Speaker 1: of the iceberg. That's that's not even half of it.
Speaker 1: You there's so much more than people know about. And
Speaker 1: I want to, you know, if you apply that to
Speaker 1: anything else, to World War two, or to the Civil
Speaker 1: War or the Civil rights movement, or just anything in history,
Speaker 1: and think, oh my god, anything in history we really
Speaker 1: only know the tip of the iceberg about, you know,
Speaker 1: if we could talk to people who live through some
Speaker 1: of that. Some there's still a lot very very old people.
Speaker 1: But the Holocaust for example, something like that. You know,
Speaker 1: we realize it's humbling because it means that even what
Speaker 1: thirty years later, you know, so much as lost to history.
Speaker 1: And I think it's it's important because there were so
Speaker 1: many things about the AIDS crisis that nobody talks about,
Speaker 1: and yet you know they were there, just little everyday things,
Speaker 1: you know, things in the news. The level of hysteria
Speaker 1: was much worse, I think than people realize. You know,
Speaker 1: there was a college director who wanted to put on
Speaker 1: a production of The Normal Heart, a gay and aids
Speaker 1: them to play, and somebody burned his house down for
Speaker 1: directing a gay themed play. I mean that stuff was
Speaker 1: lost to the news, but yet things like that happened.
Speaker 1: Or Ryan White, a little boy with HIV trying to
Speaker 1: go to school and you know, I had to change schools,
Speaker 1: you know, just things like that, and people are like really, yeah, really,
Speaker 1: And there was a lot of you know, speaking of anxiety,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a there was a lot of the
Speaker 1: theme of anxiety that came out of the AIDS crisis,
Speaker 1: I think because there was anxiety about getting it, getting
Speaker 1: HIV positive, and then there was anxiety about what course
Speaker 1: it would take which was my situation. You know, I
Speaker 1: always say I was diagnosed with HIV in n and
Speaker 1: I worried about whether I would outlive my ninety two
Speaker 1: year old grandfather. Yeah, and there was just all this.
Speaker 1: You know, people who were diagnosed, you know, practically within
Speaker 1: weeks of that. You know, we're dead in a year
Speaker 1: and certainly in ten years. You know. Oh, you know
Speaker 1: this is you know, if your HIV negati if you
Speaker 1: take one pill once a day, you know, for prep
Speaker 1: pre exposure provolaxes, and if you're HIV positive you take
Speaker 1: one pill once a day for antivirus medications. So you know,
Speaker 1: gay men across America, you know, are getting up out
Speaker 1: of bed every morning and popping a pill. And and
Speaker 1: that's the end of the HIV store. I mean not really.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a lot of people would say, hey,
Speaker 1: buddy boy, you know, it's not over, and there's still
Speaker 1: a lot of suffering and challenges and and there are
Speaker 1: I have my own challenges medically. I'm at the doctors
Speaker 1: once or twice a week for some kind of HIV
Speaker 1: related something or something. And you know, so I understand
Speaker 1: that it's not over, but I think we also have
Speaker 1: to be very grateful for things like progress and change
Speaker 1: and the heroes of our society, like scientists. I will
Speaker 1: never meet little little dweebs who were probably made fun
Speaker 1: of for being a chemistry geek, you know, instead of
Speaker 1: being a football player. But you know they're the ones
Speaker 1: with their little test tubes that found a way to
Speaker 1: keep me alive every day, you know, so just every day,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of grateful that some little dweeb or you know,
Speaker 1: white coat who studied chemistry while I studied theater, you know,
Speaker 1: is found a way to say my life because they
Speaker 1: invented you know, I centrists or or whatever. And you
Speaker 1: know it's it's got bust the geeks, you know, because
Speaker 1: they're the ones that create the medicines that keep us
Speaker 1: in our loved ones alive, right, you know, they keep
Speaker 1: the theater department alive. Well, you know this brings me
Speaker 1: to this is what's so fun to talk to you
Speaker 1: about because you have, um, you have this episode of
Speaker 1: your podcast about birthday anxiety, which I never heard anyone
Speaker 1: talk about, and you know we all have it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna be fifth you soon and I'm
Speaker 1: not not anxious, but you know, but I do like
Speaker 1: the specificity of it in the gay community too, because
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've seen this. I have a
Speaker 1: friend named Sam Pancake is very funny comedic actor and
Speaker 1: he lives in l a And there was a viral
Speaker 1: video going around of him on stage because he was
Speaker 1: talking to a younger gay man in his twenties and
Speaker 1: Sam's in his fifties, and the younger gay man said
Speaker 1: to him, Oh, I can't believe. I can't imagine being
Speaker 1: in my fifties. I'm just gonna kill myself when I
Speaker 1: get to be that old. And Sam went on a
Speaker 1: rant on stage that was epic, and he was like
Speaker 1: just everything we've been saying, like, um, well, I'm glad
Speaker 1: you feel you have that luxury, but you know, I
Speaker 1: would you know in my generation, like we're all scared
Speaker 1: of AIDS and so many people I know would have
Speaker 1: loved to have lived till fifty and you know, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. And it reminded me of that when I
Speaker 1: listened to your episode about birthday anxiety, that you say
Speaker 1: there are men gay and who come to you with
Speaker 1: birthday anxiety and it's in and how would you I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it could relate to anyone really, But what
Speaker 1: what is your advice for someone who is anxious about
Speaker 1: getting older? Well, I think, you know, I worked a
Speaker 1: lot in my in my therapy practice. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I mainly work in the school of therapy called cognitive
Speaker 1: behavioral therapy, which is awfully useful for a lot of
Speaker 1: things as opposed to the old school psychodynamic and psychoanalytic.
Speaker 1: Although there's a saying the older therapist gets the more
Speaker 1: here she uses psychodynamic and psychoanalytic elements because it gets
Speaker 1: it more depth. I get that that's a developmental thing
Speaker 1: for therapists, and when I've done clinical supervision of coaching
Speaker 1: young therapists, we talk about different therapies and models of
Speaker 1: therapy that can be used. I actually taught models of
Speaker 1: therapy at USC. But I also draw a lot from
Speaker 1: developmental psychology and existential psychology, you know, existential stuff about
Speaker 1: what gives life meaning and purpose. So I was talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, what do you get up out of bed
Speaker 1: rainy Monday morning to do? You know, that's kind of
Speaker 1: an existential motivation for what kind of mark do you
Speaker 1: want to make in this life? But then develop memorly, Um,
Speaker 1: I think there's a little bit of an underappreciation even
Speaker 1: among therapists for developmental issues across the lifespan, especially with
Speaker 1: what I call the zero birthdays. Birthdays that end into zero.
Speaker 1: Thirty and forty are the big ones. You know, in
Speaker 1: my practice, a guy turning thirty, there's a whole syndrome
Speaker 1: of what happens. It's very predictable, and there's a whole
Speaker 1: syndrome at forty. It's less so at fifty and sixty.
Speaker 1: By fifty and sixty you kind of give your fuck.
Speaker 1: But it isn't that funny because I think it's different
Speaker 1: for women, because well, I mean everyone's different. But for me,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like having physical symptoms I'm going through
Speaker 1: like menopause and is really the worst and uncomfortable, and
Speaker 1: so fifty for me, forty was like nothing. I was like,
Speaker 1: who cares? And thirty I think it's a gen X thing. Um.
Speaker 1: I was a little anxious, but I feel old. But
Speaker 1: in my growing up, my generation, we knew that from
Speaker 1: twenty to thirty you were kind of supposed to be
Speaker 1: a funk up. It was fine. I think these days
Speaker 1: kids have more pressure than like want to have their
Speaker 1: life together by twenty five and I was just like,
Speaker 1: I don't need to do that. So at thirty I
Speaker 1: felt a little bummed out, like it was time to
Speaker 1: start growing up. But I didn't feel old. I didn't
Speaker 1: feel old until I still don't feel old. But I
Speaker 1: feel like fifty is the first birthday I'm gonna go,
Speaker 1: oh ship. But it's what are people experiencing in your
Speaker 1: practice at thirty and forty? Like? What is it? Just? Um?
Speaker 1: Well again, if you're looking at the gate mail niche
Speaker 1: you know, in in really a close up focus, you know,
Speaker 1: I think, um, you know, it's how people what there
Speaker 1: is called present you know, fancy word for the first
Speaker 1: thing a guy says on this first therapy session, really
Speaker 1: is you know, well, you know, I'm having some concerns
Speaker 1: about this and that and you know the turning thirty transition. Um.
Speaker 1: If we look at professional stuff, it's sometimes about coping
Speaker 1: with their first managerial jobs, give or take. You know,
Speaker 1: you can be a CEO like twenty two, or you
Speaker 1: can be you know, the guy sweeps the floor at sixty.
Speaker 1: It just depends on the field and your individual career park.
Speaker 1: But you know, in general, speaking broadly, you know it's
Speaker 1: coping with more responsibilities at work, you know, maybe less
Speaker 1: opportunities to go out in a weeknight because you've got
Speaker 1: a major presentation at work the next day, or because
Speaker 1: you're in a position where you give me major presentations
Speaker 1: at work then, or um, settling down. I think there's
Speaker 1: a homing instinct around thirty where you're like, yeah, then
Speaker 1: you know, just kind of horn around and um, you know,
Speaker 1: at thirty you start to have a little bit of this. M.
Speaker 1: I wonder what it would be like if I met
Speaker 1: a guy and settled down and the issue maybe to
Speaker 1: have kids or not, And um, I think there's a
Speaker 1: whole financial responsibility. You know. One of the things I
Speaker 1: ask guys who are new who are thirty, I kind
Speaker 1: of saying, what's going on with you? Far one k?
Speaker 1: You know, and some of them are like million dollars
Speaker 1: in my four and because since I was twenty my
Speaker 1: grandfather's loaded and fine, you know, others will be like
Speaker 1: what's that, and like where do you work? Oh? You
Speaker 1: know IBM, you know, someplace with full benefits where you
Speaker 1: know they have afore own OK. And I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: tomorrow you're going to your HR office and saying, Hi,
Speaker 1: how do I enroll in the fore OUM okay, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's you know, there's professional things, there's financial things,
Speaker 1: there's certainly health things, um things about it's a it's
Speaker 1: a little bit of a wake up call about when
Speaker 1: you're not in your twenties anymore, you kind of transition.
Speaker 1: It's like you've gotten a promotion in life. You know,
Speaker 1: you're going from twentysomething to thirty something, and you know
Speaker 1: that's a very characteristic change, you know, kind of a
Speaker 1: little bit of a buckle down, a little bit of
Speaker 1: a um, you know, completion thing. You know, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: I've had one more course to go before I finished
Speaker 1: my m b A and that's been going on for
Speaker 1: four years. And it's like, okay, you're taking that course
Speaker 1: this year so that you have an NBA by your
Speaker 1: thirty one and then you're gonna be making twice as
Speaker 1: much by forty one and whatever. And you know, that's
Speaker 1: when I become kind of uncle ken about, you know,
Speaker 1: the mentor and then turning forty. Unfortunately, I try not
Speaker 1: to tell guys who are thirty of it. It gets
Speaker 1: worse when you're turning forty because they're like, oh no,
Speaker 1: and uh but you know, turning forty, there's just a
Speaker 1: lot of neuroses that comes up about aging, body image.
Speaker 1: Did I make the right choices in life? Do I
Speaker 1: want to change my career? Did I choose the right
Speaker 1: person because I've been in a relationship for eighteen years
Speaker 1: since i was twenty two, and I'm not sure he's
Speaker 1: the right one. You know, these are all things that
Speaker 1: whether or not you want kids, you know, by forty
Speaker 1: you've got to start really making that decision because I
Speaker 1: do the math. You know, if you have a baby,
Speaker 1: you're going to be fifty eight by the time it graduate.
Speaker 1: It's high school, so you know, it's uh, you can do.
Speaker 1: Plenty of people do that. It's not the end of
Speaker 1: I've seen that it works out fine. But you know
Speaker 1: in that in the the the blog article about gay
Speaker 1: men and birthdays, there's also another part of it, you know,
Speaker 1: like the guy at at sam Pancakes show that you
Speaker 1: know a lot of aging anxiety. And Eric Erickson, who
Speaker 1: was a great theorist psychologist author, kind of said every
Speaker 1: phase of life and he outlined certain phases has a
Speaker 1: challenge and a reward. It's not done any one age
Speaker 1: is better than or worse than others. It's just that
Speaker 1: you get some kind of an advantage of being whatever,
Speaker 1: forty something, but you also have a challenge with it.
Speaker 1: And he said, if you the trick, the trick to life.
Speaker 1: Eric Erickson was basically saying, if you can emphasize the
Speaker 1: joys of each phase and minimize the pitfalls with a
Speaker 1: risk of each phase, it gives you a more confident,
Speaker 1: less anxious that word, way of approaching your life. And
Speaker 1: it's also an opportunity to the existential, you know, to
Speaker 1: celebrate your existence, you know, to celebrate that you have
Speaker 1: a life. You didn't you know that car did not
Speaker 1: hit you when you crossed the street running for the
Speaker 1: ice cream truck at age ten. It missed you. So
Speaker 1: now you're fortyes, so be glad. You know, you could
Speaker 1: have been on the pavement, you know, or um. You
Speaker 1: know that infection that you had, you know, when you
Speaker 1: were twenty two, Okay, they were antibiotics for that and
Speaker 1: you survived. So welcome to forty. You know, all of
Speaker 1: these existential things about your here and all the other
Speaker 1: people who love you in this life are here, and
Speaker 1: so your birthday is always a time to celebrate it
Speaker 1: because think about the guy who wanted to have a
Speaker 1: forty six birthday and he didn't because the junk driver
Speaker 1: hit him, you know, when he was thirty one, and
Speaker 1: that's it. No more forty six. So if we cognitively
Speaker 1: reframe what a birthday means to emphasize the reward and
Speaker 1: kind of the challenges, Yeah, they take care of themselves,
Speaker 1: then then you got it and you get you get
Speaker 1: to do that every year. You know, you kind of
Speaker 1: get a new lace on life every year on your birthday,
Speaker 1: and I'll take it. You know. It's better than tached
Speaker 1: time every year. So it is a reframing because I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people spend their birthday jumping into
Speaker 1: the future, Oh my god, I'm closer to older, and
Speaker 1: then looking back, Oh did I do everything I should
Speaker 1: have done? But you're saying no, look back and celebrate
Speaker 1: the fact that you're you're here, Like anything could have
Speaker 1: happened that would have taken off this planet and it didn't,
Speaker 1: so here you are. Yeah. I have a friend who's
Speaker 1: ninety two who runs two miles a day, and it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll have what he's having. Yeah, exactly. God, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure he enjoys the running, but I'm like, like
Speaker 1: running now. He also has a very strict raw foods diet,
Speaker 1: and I'm not I'm not sure I could handle that
Speaker 1: because I like I like my junk food. Well, plenty
Speaker 1: of people have lived to a hundred on junk food.
Speaker 1: That's true. We'll be right back. I know you've talked
Speaker 1: about that. You I love this. In terms of dealing
Speaker 1: with anxiety, you say that people are not really experiencing
Speaker 1: like an anticipatory anxiety about anything in their life, because
Speaker 1: there um there. It's because they're experiencing a fear of
Speaker 1: a possible loss. I've never heard it framed that way.
Speaker 1: I love that. If you can tell us about that, well,
Speaker 1: I was. There were two guys yesterday in my practice.
Speaker 1: They were almost backed back. And that happens sometimes where
Speaker 1: you know, I'll see two clients in a day, or
Speaker 1: maybe sometimes in a row, that are remarkably similar. It's
Speaker 1: like some kind of alignment of the planets that's making
Speaker 1: them think about anxiety. And sometimes something in the news.
Speaker 1: I noticed that I've had days where guys will come
Speaker 1: in and every one of them will be somewhat agitated,
Speaker 1: and then I'll say I'll get a break and I'll say, Okay,
Speaker 1: what's going on. I'll turn on my my phone with
Speaker 1: the Apple something in the news, and there'll be something
Speaker 1: like a mass shooting or something, and I'm like, something
Speaker 1: is making everybody anxious today? What is it? And then
Speaker 1: lo and behold there's there's always some kind of news
Speaker 1: story that you know, just it's kind of like the
Speaker 1: full moon. You know, a lot of people psych hospitals
Speaker 1: sometimes say, you know, oh boy, full moon. You know,
Speaker 1: people act up. But in cognitive therapy work, I frame
Speaker 1: anxiety management in certain ways. You know, it's others probably
Speaker 1: do it better. But what I've come to use over
Speaker 1: a long time about we have a relationship to anxiety.
Speaker 1: And I think anxiety draws on the human psychological defense mechanisms,
Speaker 1: you know, because we're programmed as people to assess and
Speaker 1: respond to threats, kind of like the animal Kingdom, you know,
Speaker 1: the animal Kingdom, these these national geographic specials or something.
Speaker 1: You know, how does a muskrat deal with threats? You know?
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes anxiety means that are warning systems
Speaker 1: are out of whack, you know. So sometimes I make
Speaker 1: the analogy of anxiety like a smoke detector in your home.
Speaker 1: You know. Sometimes it's three in the morning and your
Speaker 1: building has bad wiring and a fire is starting in
Speaker 1: your living room and you're gonna die if you don't
Speaker 1: wake up and get out, you know, So the thing
Speaker 1: goes off, Beppe, you know, get out now so that
Speaker 1: you live. Other times, you know, the smoke along goes off.
Speaker 1: It just because you burned the toast, you know, and
Speaker 1: you can't wave the thing and open the windows and stuff,
Speaker 1: and you have to say, smoke destector, stop, I'm fine, really,
Speaker 1: you know, and the smoke detector says, yeah, but I
Speaker 1: smell smoke. Are you sure you're okay? Yes, I just
Speaker 1: it's burnt toast, don't worry about it. And you know,
Speaker 1: our anxiety system is like that, you know, anxiety system
Speaker 1: goes off and say, are you sure this isn't a
Speaker 1: day injuriest thing? Because should should we not be running?
Speaker 1: Should we not be hiding right now? And we have
Speaker 1: to say no, it's okay. It's just I'm asking my
Speaker 1: boss for a raise. I am a little unpins and needles.
Speaker 1: It's not a problem, you know. We have to talk
Speaker 1: back to our anxiety mechanism. I love this. I will
Speaker 1: now put this in my tool kit of talking to
Speaker 1: it that way, that like something's checking in on me
Speaker 1: and I have the control to say thank you for
Speaker 1: checking in. This isn't a fire. I love it anyway,
Speaker 1: Sorry interrupt going. And I think also it's about a
Speaker 1: fear of loss, you know, anxiety. I think it just
Speaker 1: means that we value something. You know, I'm anxious to
Speaker 1: drive my brand new car home from the dealership and
Speaker 1: get it home because it's my new baby. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you're anxious, you know, the first time driving at home, well,
Speaker 1: it's because you like your new car, you know. Or
Speaker 1: if you're anxious before you give a talk at work
Speaker 1: of sales, presentation and on you know, the fourth quarter
Speaker 1: of sales, of course you're anxious because you want to
Speaker 1: do a good job and you want the company to
Speaker 1: succeed and you want the audience to appreciate your efforts.
Speaker 1: Or or an actor going on stage, gosh, and anxious
Speaker 1: before going on stage, Well, of course you are because
Speaker 1: you you want to do right by the play and
Speaker 1: do right by the audience and the director. And um,
Speaker 1: it's not a guarantee that you will, because maybe Seen
Speaker 1: three is a little under rehearsed, you know, but you
Speaker 1: do it anyway because you know, one of my favorite
Speaker 1: self help books by Susan Jeffers, I think she's gone now,
Speaker 1: but it's all in the title, feel the fear and
Speaker 1: do it anyway. You know, just just because you're anxious
Speaker 1: about something doesn't mean that you don't do it. It
Speaker 1: means that you know, okay, too bad. You're gonna have
Speaker 1: to just be uncomfortable. But that's not a reason not
Speaker 1: to go on stage or give the sales presentation or
Speaker 1: ask for a raise. You know, you have to work
Speaker 1: through that, and you don't wait until you're comfortable to
Speaker 1: do something, because you might wait forever and it's too important.
Speaker 1: You know, you kind of have to say not today, satan,
Speaker 1: you know, to your anxiety, which is a cognitive intervention.
Speaker 1: You know, um, that's thoughts stopping in cognitive behavioral therapy,
Speaker 1: or it's really it's reframing. Especially oh gosh, I have
Speaker 1: to give a sales presentation, and I'm so nervous. It's
Speaker 1: I get to make a sales presentation because I've got
Speaker 1: this great job. You know. They ethel Merman, the Great
Speaker 1: Broadway star. They asked her do you ever get anxious
Speaker 1: before performance? And then I don't get anxious. I know
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do. The audience ought to be anxious.
Speaker 1: They don't know what they're gonna get. Oh that's great,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think that's what it's. I don't
Speaker 1: know if she was always that confident, but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: probably a thing she had to tell herself, you know,
Speaker 1: before she and out there. You know, I like the
Speaker 1: idea of the laws. So let's say someone is anxious
Speaker 1: because they're about to make a presentation or they're going
Speaker 1: to propose to someone, or they're gonna asked him on
Speaker 1: on a date or whatever. Is like, okay, like you said,
Speaker 1: of course you're angios. You want to do right by
Speaker 1: the company and you want to do a good job.
Speaker 1: But is underneath that the loss, like the deep anxiety
Speaker 1: is and if I don't do a good job, like
Speaker 1: it gets that's where it gets disproportionate. Where it's like,
Speaker 1: if I don't do a good job, like the proportionate
Speaker 1: thing might be like, oh my boss would be a
Speaker 1: little disappointed, but they still value me. But the deep
Speaker 1: like anxiety, that's not proportionate. That's the loss is like
Speaker 1: and then they'll fire me and then I'll be homeless.
Speaker 1: Or I asked this person on a date and they
Speaker 1: say no, and I'm rejected and no one loves me.
Speaker 1: Ever I'm alone, you know, is it? Is it that?
Speaker 1: What you mean by that? There's another thing about kind
Speaker 1: of the train or the ladder of you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's filling in all these and therefores you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: I'm anxious about my presentation and therefore I'm going to
Speaker 1: do badly, and therefore my boss is gonna fire me,
Speaker 1: and therefore I'm going to be homeless, and therefore I'm
Speaker 1: going to be whatever from there. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of the fear fantasy or the the spiral,
Speaker 1: you know, that whole downward spiral thing. And you know
Speaker 1: I said, you know, be careful of the crystal ball.
Speaker 1: You know, you just can't predict the few. The odds
Speaker 1: are that you're going to do a good job, because
Speaker 1: first of all, you want to, and then if you don't,
Speaker 1: you know, um, then you have to kind of adapt
Speaker 1: in the moment. You know, if you go to make
Speaker 1: your sales presentation, your zip drive you know, got wet
Speaker 1: and it doesn't work and you're without your power point
Speaker 1: or something and you have to wing It's like, well
Speaker 1: then you you wing it, you know, and you're just
Speaker 1: gonna do the best you can. You know, I was
Speaker 1: coached one time by a business coach that kind of
Speaker 1: Most people professionals could probably stand up and give a
Speaker 1: talk on what they do for an hour without any notes,
Speaker 1: in any preparation, but if they've been doing it for
Speaker 1: a while, you know, people freak out about speaking, but
Speaker 1: most people have it, especially in the Q and A.
Speaker 1: We'll continue the interview on the flip side of a
Speaker 1: quick message from our sponsors. Worked yesterday with a guy
Speaker 1: who has a particularly strong case that session after session
Speaker 1: about anticipatory anxiety. You know, if you're an adult child
Speaker 1: who has caretaking responsibility for elderly parents, you know there
Speaker 1: might be an anticipatory anxiety about your parents getting worse
Speaker 1: and passing away. Or if you've had a dog for
Speaker 1: fifteen years, you might start to get real concerned that
Speaker 1: she might not live much longer as your pet. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's you can really kind of make
Speaker 1: yourself crazy by living in the future where you're living
Speaker 1: with that loss, but you're you're feeling it today, and
Speaker 1: you know that's when kind of way I think we
Speaker 1: have to kind of orient ourselves to the present. You know,
Speaker 1: I think we're ring about the future is kind of
Speaker 1: an anxiety that we're borrowing from the future. And then,
Speaker 1: you know, feeling bad about a lot of stuff in
Speaker 1: the past is a little bit living in the past
Speaker 1: when you're right here today. And so you know, there's
Speaker 1: a big argument for kind of living in the present.
Speaker 1: You know, it's lots of horrible things could happen in
Speaker 1: our future, because horrible things have happened in our past,
Speaker 1: but there's also great things that have happened in our
Speaker 1: past that we felt just great about, and probably things
Speaker 1: in our future that will feel great about. And there's
Speaker 1: a there's a Shakespeare line but kind of butchering it,
Speaker 1: but it roughly says, our lives are as a fabric,
Speaker 1: a weave of good and ill. And now that's kind
Speaker 1: of what what that is. I mean, Okay, you have
Speaker 1: to leve with the fact that, yeah, you if you're
Speaker 1: anxious that there is going to be some real ship
Speaker 1: that's gonna happen, it's gonna hurt, It's absolutely gonna hurt.
Speaker 1: But there's also going to be some stuff. Hopefully the
Speaker 1: majority that that's good stuff too. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think cognitively a tool that you always have is what
Speaker 1: social workers are taught with. What is the adaptive coping
Speaker 1: for this? No matter what happens, even if it's something
Speaker 1: really bad, like you lose your job and you totally
Speaker 1: your car on the way home. Okay, that is one
Speaker 1: fucking bad day. But if you say, okay, what's the
Speaker 1: adaptive coping for this, It's like, well, I call the
Speaker 1: insurance company and I'm gonna get a new car soon
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna my insurance with the house and get
Speaker 1: some new stuff. And you know, look at yourself, you know,
Speaker 1: are you in little pieces? We'll know I'm I'm fine.
Speaker 1: All right, Well let's start with that. Let's start with
Speaker 1: the fact that you got shoes on your feet. You
Speaker 1: can walk and see and here and I'll be in
Speaker 1: poop and eat and drink and all that. So so
Speaker 1: you've got something to work with. You know, you have
Speaker 1: no house and no car, but you got shoes. Let's
Speaker 1: start with that. You know. Or Louise Hayes little adage,
Speaker 1: Um Louise Hey, was this inspiration? You know her? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, and she uses the phrase, you know, how
Speaker 1: can I take a positive approach to this? Yeah? You know,
Speaker 1: you bank the presentation and it sucks because you had
Speaker 1: bad numbers and the power point broke, and you know
Speaker 1: your college is like dude, um, that's a great job
Speaker 1: and that board, you know, and then you say, how
Speaker 1: do I take a positive approach to this? You know,
Speaker 1: you might email your boss and say, I don't think
Speaker 1: today went well. I want to revise this. How about
Speaker 1: the next staff meeting? I do an update with the
Speaker 1: missing slides and should probably go yeah, that's probably a
Speaker 1: good idea because that one sucked, you know, And then
Speaker 1: the next week, you know, you do it over again,
Speaker 1: say sorry, guys, that didn't work out so well last week. Anyway,
Speaker 1: follow up fourth quarter is going to be there. You know.
Speaker 1: That's adaptive coping. And I love that you say positive
Speaker 1: approach and that Louise said that because you're not saying
Speaker 1: positive thinking. You're not saying, oh, it's great that I
Speaker 1: am only of my shoes, it's great. I sucked up.
Speaker 1: You're saying, Okay, let me take a like like you said,
Speaker 1: a coping, let me take, let me cope, let me
Speaker 1: you know, be honest, get in touch, try to think
Speaker 1: of something better for next time. I it's very realistic.
Speaker 1: Is something people can do right, It's not just think
Speaker 1: positively about it. I love it, And I think the
Speaker 1: other thing it's really important to talk about, which we're
Speaker 1: not getting to it we should, is which a lot
Speaker 1: of people I think would say, is say, you know,
Speaker 1: that's easy for you to say, buddy boy. You know
Speaker 1: you didn't get fired from a six figure job because
Speaker 1: you gave a shitty sales presentation. Now you have to
Speaker 1: do another one and your asses on the line. You know.
Speaker 1: It's that idea that sometimes anxiety comes from trauma. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I'm going to walk down the street
Speaker 1: at through in the morning because you know, I forgot
Speaker 1: something and I'm going to go look for it and
Speaker 1: in the dark alley. You know, that's a lot easier
Speaker 1: to do if you weren't beaten and mugged in a
Speaker 1: dark alley three years ago or thirty three years ago,
Speaker 1: you know. And so some of that is validating the
Speaker 1: trauma and the loss that we've been through, because when
Speaker 1: we've been through a very painful loss, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a part of our psyche that's kind of say, okay,
Speaker 1: note to self. There are dangers out there. There are
Speaker 1: muggers out there, there are drunk drivers out there, there
Speaker 1: are bad critical bosses out there. But again, that's where
Speaker 1: you have to bring it to the present and say,
Speaker 1: I realized, you know, I was really upset by being
Speaker 1: mugged in the dark alley. However, that was another city.
Speaker 1: It was years ago. I'm with somebody, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: with my boyfriend, and my boyfriend's a cop. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm now accompanied by a cop on a dark alley,
Speaker 1: and you know, I'm going to look and see where
Speaker 1: I've dropped my wallet or something. And it's well lit,
Speaker 1: and you know, the chances of being mugged they're there,
Speaker 1: but they're not so great that I can't go look
Speaker 1: for my wallet in the dark alley and kind of
Speaker 1: revisit the same circumstances that you know, I worked with
Speaker 1: somebody who had a phobia about driving because he had
Speaker 1: two bad car accidents. And you know, to rehabilitate from
Speaker 1: the anxiety of driving when you've had two accidents, that
Speaker 1: that's a real process. You know, you have to kind
Speaker 1: of validate that it was painful to go through that.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, that does not mean we
Speaker 1: don't say and therefore never drive again. We say, and
Speaker 1: therefore you've been through a lot that was hard to
Speaker 1: get through. Let's rehabilitate so that you can live your
Speaker 1: life as a driver again. Yeah. So, I you know,
Speaker 1: when I have a client in therapy for anxiety, I
Speaker 1: look for trauma, and you know, sometimes we have to
Speaker 1: validate and have them process the trauma before we can
Speaker 1: get to day to day anxiety management. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like a prerequisite course for the anxiety management is trauma recovery.
Speaker 1: And what would you say could be categorized as trauma?
Speaker 1: I mean, are you looking for like big T trauma
Speaker 1: or can you say maybe trauma for them was losing
Speaker 1: a pet or you know whatever. Does it matter? Well,
Speaker 1: I think you know, it's it's very subjective because it's
Speaker 1: also cultural. You know, UM, the definition and the the
Speaker 1: d s M, you know, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
Speaker 1: NONM disort is by the American Psychiatric Association, you know,
Speaker 1: has altered the definition of post traumatic stress disorder over
Speaker 1: the years because they took out something that was in
Speaker 1: a previous edition of you know, Outside Normal Functioning or
Speaker 1: outside normal circumstances, and it's like, well, but if you
Speaker 1: live in a war zone, you know, in Syria or something,
Speaker 1: you know, bombs are in everyday occurrence. So it's not like,
Speaker 1: you know, if if you were living in l A
Speaker 1: and there were bombs going off everywhere, that would be unusual,
Speaker 1: but not in the war zone. So it's so it's
Speaker 1: it's somewhat culture bound because I think a trauma can
Speaker 1: be anything that's a trauma to that person that kind
Speaker 1: of rips the fabric of their adaptive coping skills, that
Speaker 1: overwhelms their ability to cope. And you know, sometimes we say, well,
Speaker 1: that's not a bad stress, get over it. But who's
Speaker 1: to say what's a bad stressor or not. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like that line in Antimame with the Society Girls.
Speaker 1: As I stepped on the ping pong ball, it was
Speaker 1: gashly and in the ping pong tournament, you know, and
Speaker 1: it's like okay to her, it was Josh gosh like,
Speaker 1: but you know, to us, it's like, honey, get over yourself.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's we don't we don't want to
Speaker 1: minimize other people's trauma because it has the most meaning
Speaker 1: to them. Yeah, you know it's I've dealt with guys
Speaker 1: who have had breakups after you know, five weeks of dating,
Speaker 1: and I kind of feel like something, dude, it was
Speaker 1: five weeks. Come on, But you know, if it was
Speaker 1: a five weeks that meant a lot of things to them.
Speaker 1: You have to work with it as if it were
Speaker 1: five years or whatever, because we're kind of the definers
Speaker 1: of what our trauma is, of what it what it
Speaker 1: means to us and why and if you if you
Speaker 1: deal with it that way, you're giving them to tools,
Speaker 1: whereas if it's like, hey, just learn how to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: it was just five weeks. I don't know what how
Speaker 1: much of a tool that is. If you do treat
Speaker 1: it like it was five years, now they're going to learn,
Speaker 1: you know, grief skills, survival skills, whatever right that they
Speaker 1: need for the next time, because they might the next
Speaker 1: time they fall in love and through that type of person,
Speaker 1: it might have another five week relationship that devastates them.
Speaker 1: Now they have that life experience under their belt that
Speaker 1: you've helped them through, especially when we understand trauma is
Speaker 1: a social experience, it's a cultural experience, it's a neurobiological experience.
Speaker 1: That's the other thing I think if if those neurobiological
Speaker 1: defenses get activated, that gets activated regardless of whether we
Speaker 1: think the stimulus warrants that or not. You know, it's
Speaker 1: if we get goose bumps watching a horror movie, you know,
Speaker 1: because we're scared. The person next to us might be like,
Speaker 1: this is boring, Why do you have goose bumps? You know,
Speaker 1: but the other persons like, yeah, this is really scared. Whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, It's it's a little bit subjective. But but
Speaker 1: once that system gets activated, all the stuff around trauma
Speaker 1: is right there, reporting for duty and and that's part
Speaker 1: of that's kind of as a psychological process, but it's
Speaker 1: also a neurobiological process. Yeah, that's why trauma recovery involves
Speaker 1: so much neurobiology. I used to teach about that. It's
Speaker 1: about how the left brain is talking to the right
Speaker 1: brain and you know, things like that. You know, but
Speaker 1: trauma has to be processed like we're digesting a meal
Speaker 1: in our g I system, anxiety bites will be right back.
Speaker 1: After a quick little message from one of our sponsors, Well,
Speaker 1: I like what you said to about like back in
Speaker 1: the anticipatory anxiety of you know, my parents are getting older,
Speaker 1: they could die my pet. It's like you can't say,
Speaker 1: unlike someone who's saying the sky is falling, you can't say,
Speaker 1: that'sn't gonna happen, right, it's like going to validate that
Speaker 1: is going to happen. But I love what you said
Speaker 1: about don't borrow, you know, borrowing from the future. And
Speaker 1: I love that example because literally, if you think about it, um,
Speaker 1: if you keep borrowing, if we're talking about money, if
Speaker 1: you kept borrowing from your savings to buy a car,
Speaker 1: buy something fun by the time you really need it,
Speaker 1: and maybe you're too tired to really work a full
Speaker 1: time job and you need your retirement savings and you
Speaker 1: get there and it's empty. You know you're on empty
Speaker 1: when you get there. So if you're borrowing like from
Speaker 1: your future and trying to grieve now, I don't know
Speaker 1: how because you're not really doing it right now. By
Speaker 1: you're not like actually grieving now, you're doing some weird
Speaker 1: anxiety things. So like by the time it's time to
Speaker 1: grieve right, I imagine they have no practice in doing
Speaker 1: so correctly. And so same with trauma, Like if you
Speaker 1: don't validate it, they're not going to get better, like
Speaker 1: you have to validate yes, this happened, and you have
Speaker 1: to validate yes, these things will happen. Now what you know,
Speaker 1: here's our room. Yeah, and it's existentially you know, accepting that.
Speaker 1: You know, I call it the ocean moment. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's um when you realize what's going on
Speaker 1: with you where you have these symptoms and it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm doing this, what's going on
Speaker 1: with me? And then you talk to a therapist and
Speaker 1: it's like, I think you have PTSD and there's that,
Speaker 1: or I think you have generalized anxiety. Just sort of
Speaker 1: there's this moment of oh shit, really I'm one of
Speaker 1: those I've got a diagnosis now. But you know, you
Speaker 1: can transcend it and say, because the next question should
Speaker 1: be okay, how do I adaptively cope with that? And
Speaker 1: you say, well, you know, let's do this, this and this.
Speaker 1: And it's not only I think we're preventing against you know,
Speaker 1: calamity in the future, but I think it's also about building.
Speaker 1: You know, you might be oh, I'm already even gonna
Speaker 1: get old and I'm gonna be penaltist and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be like that old homeless guy saw in the street
Speaker 1: last week, and it's like, well, you know, there are
Speaker 1: ways to do your very best to avoid that. And
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to blame the poor homeless guy,
Speaker 1: but something went wrong along the way that he ended
Speaker 1: up like that. You know, um, bad fortune, which is
Speaker 1: part of it, and possibly bad choices which are a
Speaker 1: part of it. You know, it's some kind of a
Speaker 1: combination of what happens to us and what we do.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of what I do, from a
Speaker 1: very positive psychology standpoint and even a coaching standpoint, is
Speaker 1: to say, at every phase in life, I think every
Speaker 1: day in life, you say, how do I put my
Speaker 1: best foot forward? You know, it's like if I don't
Speaker 1: want to end up home? Was like the guy I
Speaker 1: saw last week, really, what's in your retirement fund? Well?
Speaker 1: Two cents? Okay? Uh? Could you you know, do you
Speaker 1: have twenty bucks? And well, sure, I got three dollars
Speaker 1: in savings. Okay, take thirty of that or that and
Speaker 1: go on Amazon and buy a used copy of a
Speaker 1: Susie Ormon book on money management. You got six san
Speaker 1: bucks with chipping to get Yeah, all right, you get
Speaker 1: that copy and maybe it's a Little Dog here because
Speaker 1: it's used. But you you read every word of that book,
Speaker 1: can do everything Susie Orman says, and you just reduce
Speaker 1: your chances. It didn't eliminate them, but it reduces your
Speaker 1: chances of being old and homeless. You know, if you
Speaker 1: do everything that Susie Orman says in her books, or
Speaker 1: Jane Bryant Quinn says in her books, you just reduce
Speaker 1: the probability of calamity financially quite a bit. And you
Speaker 1: could say that about anything if you, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I had a kidney stone last year, so of course
Speaker 1: I was like, what is the adaptive coping for kidney stone?
Speaker 1: And I found a YouTube channel, um Jill Harris, and
Speaker 1: you know she said, how do you eat better to
Speaker 1: reduce your chances of recurring kidney stone? It's just whatever
Speaker 1: it is, I think you research it and say how
Speaker 1: can I put my best foot for my mom survived
Speaker 1: cancer three times. You're in colon and breast and she's
Speaker 1: eighty seven now, and you know, well, how do you
Speaker 1: do that? It's like all you you know what early
Speaker 1: symptoms are. If you have them, you get checked. If
Speaker 1: you have that, you get good treatment. You follow a
Speaker 1: treatment plan. Thousands of more and more hundreds of thousands,
Speaker 1: millions die of cancer. But you reduce the odds that
Speaker 1: that something bad is going to happen by saying, what
Speaker 1: is the absolute best set of choices that I can
Speaker 1: make that gets me ahead in some way? Health, dating, sex,
Speaker 1: I certified sex there because you know, there are all
Speaker 1: these things that we can do about. I think sometimes
Speaker 1: when we were dealing with anxiety and focusing on laws
Speaker 1: with the threat of loss, what's the other side to that?
Speaker 1: How are we focusing on gain and growth? Yeah? Is
Speaker 1: this what? Because I was going to ask you about
Speaker 1: positive psychology, the positive psychology method, because I saw that
Speaker 1: on your website and I actually had never heard of
Speaker 1: it before, and so it sounds like that's what part
Speaker 1: of it is. It almost has that like coaching element
Speaker 1: to it in a way. It's not positive like like um,
Speaker 1: hippie dippy, like just manifest the money, but you're just
Speaker 1: saying like you're taking a positive step, like we'll start saving.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there's the things we can control,
Speaker 1: things we can't. One thing you can control, start saving,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, you can't control the stock market crashes
Speaker 1: after that, but just start saving and it does step
Speaker 1: to the brain about a positive mindset, you know, the
Speaker 1: acting about to go on stage, that I can't go
Speaker 1: out there and look like an amateur. Okay, that's that's great.
Speaker 1: But see that's very different from I'm gonna go out
Speaker 1: there and I'm going to give a good performance because
Speaker 1: I'm going to do justice to the script and the directing,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to tell this story the best I can.
Speaker 1: To see the difference there, it's it's there's a real
Speaker 1: difference between I don't want to lose and I will win.
Speaker 1: I also hear in that example of the actor a
Speaker 1: little bit like with all the things they want from
Speaker 1: it and that they plan to do, none of them
Speaker 1: really are about the actor. Like I hear a little
Speaker 1: bit like getting out of self, you know. With that,
Speaker 1: it's like I want to honor the work. I want
Speaker 1: to do a good job. You know, I'm just the vessel.
Speaker 1: Like there's something about that that I feel like must
Speaker 1: be part of it too. Like if you're sitting there
Speaker 1: anxious about your future, someone's offering you some practical steps.
Speaker 1: If you're like, no, I think I'll just sit here
Speaker 1: and worry. It's like they want to cling to their
Speaker 1: self and their ideas and if you just say we'll
Speaker 1: start saving. It's kind of like, I don't know if
Speaker 1: there's like a lack of not narcissism, but there's like
Speaker 1: a lack of thinking about all the time a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: A good way to you know, help a lot of
Speaker 1: things is to kind of get out of yourself, you know.
Speaker 1: And yeah, there's that cliche, best way to help yourself
Speaker 1: is to help others. I think there's a lot to
Speaker 1: that because it takes the you know, the belly button
Speaker 1: gazing and the ruminating. You know, ruminating is really an
Speaker 1: anxiety symptom or perseverating on something, so you know, it's
Speaker 1: you also have to look at the secondary game we
Speaker 1: call it. You know, some people have a secondary gain
Speaker 1: to being sick because they never have to take responsibility
Speaker 1: for anything. Or what secondary gain and anxiety might be,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of unconsciously wanting people to take care
Speaker 1: of you because they never really have. Ye that that
Speaker 1: can be something about that you know about um, is
Speaker 1: there a downside to being relaxed and confident? Well, maybe
Speaker 1: there's a responsibility there. If you're relaxed and confident, you're
Speaker 1: expected to do great things. Whereas you an, I don't
Speaker 1: know about this. I don't know about this. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna I'm just gonna stay inside and hide. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: how convenient you know that doesn't take much effort, that
Speaker 1: that can be confused with introversion and social anxiety, which
Speaker 1: is its own Well, you know, I was going to
Speaker 1: bring that up, but I love you are the only
Speaker 1: person to say secondary gain. And I think I've heard
Speaker 1: that somewhere in my life. But I love it because
Speaker 1: you know, again, I'm just a pot I'm not a
Speaker 1: THERAPISTMS podcast or about anxiety. And the people will write
Speaker 1: to me and you know, like I'll do an episode
Speaker 1: where the guest clearly lays out this is how you
Speaker 1: da da um, you know, get over your fear of
Speaker 1: drawing driving okay, And someone will write me, I just
Speaker 1: heard your episode about fear of driving. Nothing was left
Speaker 1: on the table in that episode, like you will if
Speaker 1: you do these things and work with people, get over
Speaker 1: your fearture. And they go, um, it didn't help me, um,
Speaker 1: because I have the worst fear of driving more than anybody.
Speaker 1: And they'll say that and I can just like intuitively
Speaker 1: feel that they didn't listen to they didn't put anything
Speaker 1: to practice, but they need to be the most anxious
Speaker 1: driver who ever lived. Because if that's true and no
Speaker 1: solutions work, then they're just they can't drive. There's no solutions,
Speaker 1: and so that's simple, you know. And then once people here,
Speaker 1: you're not a lot of people don't want to hear
Speaker 1: you're not alone. This is normal, there's a solution. They're like,
Speaker 1: oh no, it's like you've just given them homework, not hope.
Speaker 1: You know, it just depends on the personality, I assume, right,
Speaker 1: and you have to be willing to change. Louise Hey
Speaker 1: was real big on that, you know, she said it
Speaker 1: was someone's down there and they're reaching up. I will
Speaker 1: reach down my hand and pull them up. But I
Speaker 1: will not take their hand and have them pull me down,
Speaker 1: you know, because you know that that's you got to
Speaker 1: be careful with that stuff, because you know it's about
Speaker 1: identity shift. You know, if you're you know, big, were
Speaker 1: big ap on your shirt, anxious person. You know, if
Speaker 1: you weren't the anxious person, and what would you be, Well,
Speaker 1: maybe you would be the neighborhood's greatest dog trainer, or
Speaker 1: the city's greatest architect, or the city's greatest attorney. You know,
Speaker 1: there has to be that identity shift from what's familiar
Speaker 1: and even comfortable, comfortable in the uncomfortable, you know, like
Speaker 1: the hypochondriac um and have an identity? Shall I do
Speaker 1: a lot in substance vieuse recovery When I worked with
Speaker 1: so many gay men who have gotten in over their
Speaker 1: head with Crystal Matthews, A big part of it is identity.
Speaker 1: I say, what are you? Who would you be if
Speaker 1: you were not a Crystal methodict, because that's their primary identity.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like, well, you know, to start, you know,
Speaker 1: I used to be this great architect. It's like, what
Speaker 1: have you done lately? Well? Nothing, I've been too messed up.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, how about being the great architect again?
Speaker 1: What would that take? No, I'll going to a a
Speaker 1: every morning before work. Okay, go to every every morning
Speaker 1: before work, and then focus on you know, the new
Speaker 1: building on Third Street, the big blue and you like it.
Speaker 1: Will know because it did did it's not environmental and
Speaker 1: they should have fixed it. All right, Well, then you
Speaker 1: do you do it, you know, go build a building
Speaker 1: that is environmentally friendly and you know, long story short,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's what he did. You know, he
Speaker 1: got back into work. He he not everybody needs twelve star.
Speaker 1: I've worked with guys who've had success with and without
Speaker 1: twelve stuff. I would, but you know, he recovered and
Speaker 1: got married, and you know, he posted it on Facebook.
Speaker 1: I'm normally not Facebook friends with clients, but somehow we
Speaker 1: ended up, and you know, and he posted a picture
Speaker 1: from his wedding and I commented, you know, congratulations, and
Speaker 1: he wrote back, well, a lot of that's due to you.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, that's the greatest compliment because he
Speaker 1: went from you know, shooting up a needle in his
Speaker 1: arm three times a day or whatever it was, to
Speaker 1: not doing that at all, and you know, and that's
Speaker 1: a success. You know, It's a shift and identity. And
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people could say if they're
Speaker 1: dealing with an identity that's that doesn't feel right to them.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm the unemployed person or I'm the person
Speaker 1: who's underemployed, Say to yourself, what is the identity I'm
Speaker 1: trying to cultivate. Do that with actors all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a and server, but what I want
Speaker 1: to be is a sitcom star. It's like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: that's one of the hardest things you can ever ever
Speaker 1: do in Hollywood. But you know it's it's possible. You know,
Speaker 1: they right checks every day to sitcom stars on umpteen
Speaker 1: different shows. You know, work for somebody entertainment payroll. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of checks that go out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, but but it is kind of a
Speaker 1: shift in identity and and processing. The therapists use something
Speaker 1: go motivational interviewing about change about and we say what
Speaker 1: are the pros and cons of that? You know, if
Speaker 1: you said to somebody, what are the pros and cons
Speaker 1: of your anxiety being resolved? They what do you mean cons?
Speaker 1: It's great, It's like, no, look closer. There would be
Speaker 1: some cons to you changing the life that you've known
Speaker 1: for years now. Yeah, and you know you get out
Speaker 1: of the sick role. It's interesting, like some people in
Speaker 1: your life might want you to stay that small some
Speaker 1: some don't you know, who knows. You might have to
Speaker 1: give up the friends you have that are uh, you know,
Speaker 1: as they say in twelve Supercovery lower companions, you know,
Speaker 1: you might have to meet people that um give you
Speaker 1: a run for your money. You might have to meet
Speaker 1: other successful architects, and that's kind of scary and I
Speaker 1: almost wish there was an intervention process for people with anxiety,
Speaker 1: not to bully them, but in the sense that your
Speaker 1: family and friends sit around and they tell you, like
Speaker 1: who you could be if you didn't wear the identity
Speaker 1: of anxious person, like if you got help, Like I
Speaker 1: see you differently, the news of yourself. You know, you
Speaker 1: used to be whatever, you know, whatever, Because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't know how to deal with
Speaker 1: the anxious person in their life, and they kind of
Speaker 1: just ignore it. Everyone pretends everything's okay. And I don't
Speaker 1: know how anyone would move out of that identity if
Speaker 1: they didn't feel um, I don't they weren't encouraged or
Speaker 1: um if they didn't know that others saw them as
Speaker 1: having that potential, you know. I think it's it's both
Speaker 1: the support and the challenge, which of course therapists do
Speaker 1: all the time. If you only challenge people, they'd be like,
Speaker 1: fuck you, buddy, I can get beat up somewhere else.
Speaker 1: If you only part them, then they never change. It's like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, he was very nice as a therapist. He'd
Speaker 1: be a very pleasant guy. Why did you leave him? Well,
Speaker 1: I didn't make any progress, you know, And so I
Speaker 1: joke with clients. Sorry too, I'm gonna beat up on
Speaker 1: you today because I think you're making a wrong choice
Speaker 1: or something like that, you know. And it's both. It's
Speaker 1: it's the dichotomy of I hear you because I think
Speaker 1: anxious people need to be heard. I have this fear.
Speaker 1: Why well, because of this? Why because of this? You know,
Speaker 1: you want to hear them out. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: there's just a little bit of Okay, I hear you,
Speaker 1: But suck it up, you know, feel the fear and
Speaker 1: do it anyway, because at some point you have to
Speaker 1: think what you're trying to do with your life is
Speaker 1: too important for your anxiety to hold you back. That's
Speaker 1: too much power. Oh I love that. Yeah, And you
Speaker 1: focus on what you want to do or what what
Speaker 1: do I want to do that my anxiety is keeping
Speaker 1: me from And you've got to walk through it like
Speaker 1: you're walking for a burning building, in order to get
Speaker 1: the other side and say, Okay, now I can drive,
Speaker 1: Now I can fly. I'm gonna fly. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: to my niece's wedding in Poughkeepsie. I'm gonna fly tomorrow,
Speaker 1: you know. And it's because you want to be there
Speaker 1: at the wedding and say congratulations, honey, this is your
Speaker 1: dream wedding. Congratulations, you know, and you want to be there.
Speaker 1: You focus on what's on the other side of the challenge.
Speaker 1: Is there anything any words of wisdom that like, just
Speaker 1: someone is listening, they want to take the first step
Speaker 1: to going to therapy. They're like, I do and know
Speaker 1: if I have this bad note and whatever, you want
Speaker 1: to say to anyone out there that is thinking about
Speaker 1: taking that step and starting therapy, starting therapy, just well,
Speaker 1: I think people say, you know, they think that there's
Speaker 1: some kind of a high threshold for therapy. It's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I'm a mess every day, but
Speaker 1: I don't need therapy. I'm not I'm not crazy. I
Speaker 1: just you know, drink myself into oblivion every day or whatever.
Speaker 1: And it's they think it's some high bar to you know,
Speaker 1: you that you need therapy. You know, the bar for
Speaker 1: going into therapy is just having any kind of goal. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't really have a goal except well, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to raise because I've been in my job
Speaker 1: for four years and I wanted to tell my cheap
Speaker 1: boss to give me a raise. Okay, that's a goal,
Speaker 1: because you could go into therapy and say, I need
Speaker 1: to build my skills in a sort of communication because
Speaker 1: I want to ask my boss for a raise, you know,
Speaker 1: or or anything. There's really nothing too mild to bring
Speaker 1: to therapy if it's important to you. You know, you
Speaker 1: you don't have to be have you know, associate identity
Speaker 1: disorder in order to therapy, and you know, and you're
Speaker 1: because it usually means that it's part of a broader growth,
Speaker 1: you know. So anytime you go to therapy, it's like
Speaker 1: putting a little seedling and sticking it on the window
Speaker 1: sill in bright sunlight, because you know it's going to
Speaker 1: grow in the light of that support. Hey, hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed my conversation with Ken Howard. So here are someon
Speaker 1: takeaways from this episode. Again, everything you need to know
Speaker 1: about Ken is in the show notes. If you want
Speaker 1: to follow me on social media, I'm at Jen Kirkman
Speaker 1: on Twitter and on Instagram as well. Send an email
Speaker 1: to the show Anxiety Bites Weekly at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: We might read it on the air. And don always
Speaker 1: say we it's me. Do you hear any other people hosting?
Speaker 1: Here we Go? Here are some takeaways from this episode
Speaker 1: and you Get You can also find them on Jen
Speaker 1: Kirkman dot com click Anxiety Bites. Links are in the
Speaker 1: show notes. Okay Can saw during the AIDS crisis that
Speaker 1: there was also an epidemic of anxiety, anxiety about getting
Speaker 1: HIV and anxiety about having it and not knowing what
Speaker 1: course it would take. Developmental psychology and existential psychology look
Speaker 1: at things like what gives life meaning and purpose For
Speaker 1: anyone with birthday anxiety, Instead of worrying about the future
Speaker 1: or regretting the past, try to stay in the present
Speaker 1: moment and celebrate that you're alive, here and now. If
Speaker 1: you can emphasize the joys of each phase of life
Speaker 1: and minimize the risks of each phase of life, that
Speaker 1: can help with confidence, which can alleviate anxiety. You can
Speaker 1: think of anxiety like a smoke detector that's going off
Speaker 1: in your home, which is great when there's a fire,
Speaker 1: but the anxiety smoke detector only goes off when there
Speaker 1: is no fire. You're just cooking some toast and the
Speaker 1: toaster and you don't have to respond to the anxiety
Speaker 1: as if there is a real fire. Sometimes the underlying
Speaker 1: reason that someone feels anxious in a situation is that
Speaker 1: they're worried about experiencing a loss. And anything that we
Speaker 1: care about deeply can cause us anxiety for that very reason,
Speaker 1: we are afraid of losing it. When we feel anticipatory anxiety,
Speaker 1: we are borrowing from the future, and we need to
Speaker 1: orient ourselves to the present instead of trying to feel
Speaker 1: a future loss today. There is always an adaptive coping
Speaker 1: mechanism for any bad thing that can happen to us,
Speaker 1: which involves taking the next best step to solve a problem.
Speaker 1: Sometimes a client in therapy for anxiety is really actually
Speaker 1: experiencing trauma, and they have to be helped to work
Speaker 1: on and process that before getting to work cognitively on
Speaker 1: the anxiety. In that case, the prerequisite course for anxiety
Speaker 1: management is trauma recovery. Trauma is a social experience, a
Speaker 1: cultural experience, and a neurobiological experience. Trauma recovery involves a
Speaker 1: lot of neurobiology. It has to be processed like digesting
Speaker 1: food in the GI system has to be processed. When
Speaker 1: people are working through addiction, recovery or anxiety recovery. They
Speaker 1: are going to have a new life on the other side,
Speaker 1: which means in a way, they're shedding their previous identity
Speaker 1: as that always anxious or addicted person. A therapist job
Speaker 1: is to support but also challenge a patient. Anyone can
Speaker 1: go to therapy. You do not need to have any
Speaker 1: kind of mental health disorder. You could see a therapist
Speaker 1: just to get some tools in order to achieve a
Speaker 1: life goal. There you go, Thanks for joining me on
Speaker 1: another episode, and just remember anxiety bites, but you're in control.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.