Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, it's maya some exciting news. My book The
Speaker 1: Other Side of Change was just chosen by Amazon as
Speaker 1: one of the best books of the year. To celebrate today,
Speaker 1: I'll be sharing an excerpt with you. This chapter is
Speaker 1: about mental spirals, those moments when a negative thought gets
Speaker 1: stuck on repeat and crowds out everything else. It features
Speaker 1: a journalist named Matt Gutman. Matt spent years reporting live
Speaker 1: from high pressure situations all over the world throughout his career.
Speaker 1: He was composed and professional on camera, but behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: that was a different story. Matt was privately dealing with
Speaker 1: panic attacks. Then, during a breaking news assignment, Matt's panic
Speaker 1: led to an on air mistake that jeopardized his livelihood.
Speaker 1: The more he thought about it, the more he started
Speaker 1: to believe that there was something fundamentally wrong with him.
Speaker 1: In this excerpt, I explore how Matt came to see
Speaker 1: his panic attacks in a new light and how we
Speaker 1: can all learn to tame our mental spirals and turn
Speaker 1: down the volume on our inner critic. I really hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this excerpt from the Other Side of Change,
Speaker 1: and if you've already read the book or planned to,
Speaker 1: I would so appreciate if you could take a quick
Speaker 1: minute and leave a review on Goodreads. Leaving a review
Speaker 1: is one of the best ways for the book to
Speaker 1: find new readers who might benefit from it. We've included
Speaker 1: a link in the show notes. Thanks so much. One
Speaker 1: foggy Sunday morning, Matt Gutman was making pancakes for his
Speaker 1: kids when he received a call from his boss at
Speaker 1: ABC News. It was January twenty twenty, and Matt had
Speaker 1: just returned home to la after a month of reporting
Speaker 1: on the road as the network's chief national correspondent. When
Speaker 1: he picked up the phone, his boss told him that
Speaker 1: the basketball player Kobe Bryant had been in a fatal
Speaker 1: helicopter crash about fifteen miles from Matt's home. ABC needed
Speaker 1: Matt to cover the developing story. He grabbed supplies while
Speaker 1: checking news alerts and texting the local sheriff, then jumped
Speaker 1: in his car and drove off. As he got closer
Speaker 1: to the scene, he was overcome by the responsibility of
Speaker 1: delivering this tragic news to millions of viewers. His heart
Speaker 1: began to pound against his rib cage faster and faster.
Speaker 1: His hands trembled, his chest tightened, his vision narrowed, sweat
Speaker 1: seeped through his clothes. He tried to breathe, but he
Speaker 1: felt as though he could not remember how he was
Speaker 1: having a panic attack. The sensation wasn't new. In his
Speaker 1: twenty years as a journalist, Matt had experienced panic attacks
Speaker 1: more than one hundred times. To rain in his panic
Speaker 1: before he went live on air, hell up coping mechanisms
Speaker 1: like meditating, doing push ups, smoking a cigarette, and sometimes
Speaker 1: even wearing his lucky underwear. Somehow, he'd always found a
Speaker 1: way to work through it. Once the camera started rolling.
Speaker 1: He'd recover his composure enough to deliver the full story
Speaker 1: live on TV, even if it came out in stammers
Speaker 1: or between labored breaths, and was usually reassured to find
Speaker 1: that viewers hadn't noticed anything was off. Matt's panic attacks
Speaker 1: never happened when he was in physical danger. They were
Speaker 1: rooted in a different kind of threat, the risk of
Speaker 1: social judgment. He had reported without issue from war zones,
Speaker 1: from cartel controlled territories, and within the wreckage of hurricanes
Speaker 1: and tornadoes. He knew that in these extenuating circumstances, his
Speaker 1: colleagues and viewers did not expect a perfect performance and
Speaker 1: would forgive any fumbles. Instead, his panic emerged in situations
Speaker 1: in which he knew that people had higher expectations of him.
Speaker 1: On the morning of the helicopter crash, Matt could feel
Speaker 1: the pressure of the public's expectations mounting within him. He
Speaker 1: had to get the story just right. As he prepared
Speaker 1: to go live, he counseled himself deep breath in, deep
Speaker 1: breath out, But as the broadcast started, his panic only intensified.
Speaker 1: Matt's colleague opened the segment by telling viewers that he'd
Speaker 1: received confirmation that the NBA legend Kobe Bryant had died
Speaker 1: in a helicopter crash in southern California. He then passed
Speaker 1: it over to Matt to share any other known details
Speaker 1: about the crash, which had taken the lives of all
Speaker 1: those on board. We know that it happened an hour ago,
Speaker 1: Matt began. His mind was scrambled and on hyperdrive, his
Speaker 1: heart still racing, His words came tumbling out. The fact
Speaker 1: that four of his children are believed to be on
Speaker 1: that helicopter with him, all daughters, one of them a newborn,
Speaker 1: he continued, is simply devastating. But the claim that Bryan's
Speaker 1: four daughters were were with him was incorrect. Nine people
Speaker 1: had been on board, and only one of them was
Speaker 1: Brian's child, his thirteen year old Gianna. Matt did not
Speaker 1: even realize he'd made the error. The whole broadcast was
Speaker 1: one big blur in his mind until a colleague frantically
Speaker 1: texted him after the segment cut away. As soon as
Speaker 1: he could, Matt jumped back on the air to issue
Speaker 1: a correction and apologize for any pain his mistake might
Speaker 1: have caused. But the damage was done. In what was
Speaker 1: already a devastating tragedy, Matt's error had only compounded the
Speaker 1: public's confusion and distress. Two days later, network executives called
Speaker 1: him and imposed a one month suspension for his misreporting.
Speaker 1: Matt readily accepted the punishment. In the weeks that followed,
Speaker 1: he was filled with self recrimination. He spent his empty
Speaker 1: days at home alone with his thoughts. As he saw it,
Speaker 1: his suspension had been inevitable, even long overdue. For years,
Speaker 1: he'd been walking a tight rope, and now at last
Speaker 1: he'd fallen off. With his wife at work and his
Speaker 1: kids at school, he paced around the house, walked the dogs,
Speaker 1: and occasionally worked out, but he also set up a
Speaker 1: Google alert that notified him every time a new article
Speaker 1: about his mistake came out. He scoured the web and
Speaker 1: read the comments from angry viewers. The public was skewering him,
Speaker 1: questioning not just his competence but also his morality. Some
Speaker 1: commenters said that ABC should fire him, Others said that
Speaker 1: he should be permanently banished from journalism. At night, unable
Speaker 1: to sleep, Matt spiraled what was wrong with him. He
Speaker 1: had delivered plenty of imperfect broadcasts over the years as
Speaker 1: a result of his panic, and although he'd felt a
Speaker 1: shame hangover each time, he'd always found a way through it.
Speaker 1: This time was different. Though he had made a serious
Speaker 1: journalistic error. He'd thought his panic was something he could manage,
Speaker 1: but now it was clear that he'd been wrong. A
Speaker 1: new thought took hold of Matt. Maybe his brain was
Speaker 1: fundamentally broken. Maybe his panic meant that he was broken.
Speaker 1: The idea seized him completely, holding his mind hostage hour
Speaker 1: after hour, day after day. The public criticism only legitimized
Speaker 1: and strengthened his conviction. It was this perverse vindication, he recalls,
Speaker 1: thinking that I was irredeemable most of us know what
Speaker 1: it's like to get caught in a negative mental spiral.
Speaker 1: Any number of things can trigger these unrelenting, suffocating loops,
Speaker 1: but the catalyst is typically a change in our lives.
Speaker 1: Our new anxieties, regrets, and uncertainties can take on a
Speaker 1: life of their own and become a bigger challenge to
Speaker 1: deal with than the change itself. These thoughts become like
Speaker 1: mine worms, nestling into our psyches, hijacking our attention and
Speaker 1: stoking our biggest spheres. What's wrong with me? How could
Speaker 1: I not have seen that coming? How could they do
Speaker 1: that to me? What's going to happen? This is known
Speaker 1: as rumination, and it can involve obsessively rehashing something in
Speaker 1: the past, grappling with perceived problems in the present, or
Speaker 1: catastrophizing and imagine future. When we're in its grip, it
Speaker 1: can be hard to focus on anything else or to
Speaker 1: conceive of ever moving past our problem. Rumination is a
Speaker 1: common symptom of conditions like depression and anxiety, but anyone
Speaker 1: can fall into its trap from time to time. Part
Speaker 1: of the allure of fixating on a particular problem is
Speaker 1: that analysis and self reflection often do bear fruit But
Speaker 1: when we ruminate, we're not actually making progress toward a solution.
Speaker 1: We're simply cycling through the same negative thoughts over and
Speaker 1: over again each time we engage with our problem. Though,
Speaker 1: we can fall prey to the illusion that we're on
Speaker 1: the verge of a breakthrough, that we're just about to
Speaker 1: gain some great insight, find closure, or attain some guarantee
Speaker 1: of security. If I analyze my mistake enough, I'll avoid
Speaker 1: repeating the mistake in the future. If I dwell on
Speaker 1: this failure, I'll feel like I have paid my penance
Speaker 1: and can move on. If I catalog all the harms
Speaker 1: that may affect my family, I'll be able to keep
Speaker 1: them safe. Similar to when we're in denial or think
Speaker 1: that our possible selves have been predetermined, rumination puts blinders
Speaker 1: on us. We are trapped within a narrow understanding of
Speaker 1: our situation and are unable to see that there are
Speaker 1: other ways to approach it. As Matt did when he
Speaker 1: scoured the web for negative comments about himself, we might
Speaker 1: search only for further evidence that confirms our worries. This
Speaker 1: can lead us to double down on our convictions, however
Speaker 1: unfounded they might be. So what does it take to
Speaker 1: break free from these maddening mental spirals. If you've ever
Speaker 1: experience rumination, you likely know that the brute force approach
Speaker 1: of telling yourself to just stop already usually makes things worse.
Speaker 1: What does work, it turns out, is a technique called
Speaker 1: psychological distancing. As researched by psychologists like Ethan Cross and
Speaker 1: oslem Iduk, psychological distancing involves creating space between yourself and
Speaker 1: the thoughts that have taken hold. In other words, since
Speaker 1: rumination arises from zooming in too closely on a situation,
Speaker 1: one of the best ways to break free from it
Speaker 1: is to actively zoom out. This distance allows you to
Speaker 1: see your situation from new angles, which can release you
Speaker 1: from ruminations hamster wheel Zooming out involves proactively seeking other
Speaker 1: points of view or greater contexts so that you can
Speaker 1: approach your problems more constructively. Just as there are different
Speaker 1: ways you can fall into ruminative loots, there are also
Speaker 1: many ways you can spring out from them. When's his
Speaker 1: suspension was over, he returned to work that as he
Speaker 1: tried to steal himself through each broadcast, he couldn't shed
Speaker 1: his belief that he was broken. A new question also
Speaker 1: bubbled up in his mind. Why did broken people like
Speaker 1: him even exist? This panic thing had derailed me, Matt said,
Speaker 1: and so I suddenly became consumed with trying to understand
Speaker 1: why it has persisted in our genetic code and why
Speaker 1: we haven't evolved out of it. In the year following
Speaker 1: his mistake, Matt decided to interview as many experts as
Speaker 1: he could who might have an answer to his question.
Speaker 1: One afternoon, while on a reporting trip, he returned to
Speaker 1: his hotel room and hopped on a zoom call with
Speaker 1: Randolph NeSSI, a professor at Arizona State University who is
Speaker 1: a leader in the field of evolutionary psychiatry. Matt confessed
Speaker 1: to NeSSI his belief that he was a faulty human
Speaker 1: and that his panic attacks were the product of a
Speaker 1: glitch in the genetic code and attentively, and then he
Speaker 1: offered a counter argument. The ability to panic, he told Matt,
Speaker 1: was not a glitch but an asset. In fact, it
Speaker 1: was one of the reasons humans have been able to
Speaker 1: survive for so long. NeSSI explained that the stress hormones
Speaker 1: we release in response to panic, which lead to things
Speaker 1: like a racing heart and increased respiration, are essential for
Speaker 1: reacting appropriately to danger. These physiological changes send more oxygen
Speaker 1: into the bloodstream, enabling us to move more quickly out
Speaker 1: of harm's way. Rapid spikes and cortisol and adrenaline meanwhile
Speaker 1: increase our alertness. As NeSSI spoke, Matt nodded along. He
Speaker 1: could understand that logic, but he was panicking even when
Speaker 1: it didn't make sense to surely this still made him broken.
Speaker 1: Right again, NeSSI had a reassuring reply. Because there can
Speaker 1: be uncertainty about whether a situation is actually dangerous? What
Speaker 1: was that rustle from behind that bush? It can be
Speaker 1: better in the long run to overreact than to underreact.
Speaker 1: From an evolutionary perspective, NeSSI said, it is more adaptive
Speaker 1: for our brains to respond to a thousand false alarms
Speaker 1: than to miss a single real one. In times past,
Speaker 1: someone who is more inclined to overreact than the average
Speaker 1: person might have saved their tribe from danger. But Matt
Speaker 1: did not panic in response to potential physical threats. He
Speaker 1: panicked over his fears of social judgment. How could NeSSI
Speaker 1: justify that here too, NeSSI had an answer. Our ancestors
Speaker 1: didn't survive just by worrying about threats from wild animals
Speaker 1: or natural disasters. They also needed to worry about being
Speaker 1: cast out of their group. For most of human history,
Speaker 1: humans were able to survive only by banding together, and
Speaker 1: so our brains became primed to detect social threats as well.
Speaker 1: This explain why Matt was hyper attuned to other people's
Speaker 1: perceptions of him, and why he panicked when he felt
Speaker 1: as though his social standing might be in jeopardy. Matt
Speaker 1: had sought out NeSSI to understand why he was broken,
Speaker 1: but NeSSI helped Matt zoom out by encouraging him to
Speaker 1: question this assumption altogether and to contextualize his panic within
Speaker 1: the larger story of human evolution. When we're stuck in rumination,
Speaker 1: a powerful first step is to stop and interrogate our assumptions.
Speaker 1: It's easy to forget that our ways of thinking are
Speaker 1: limited by the boundaries of our personal experience, knowledge, and beliefs.
Speaker 1: By sharing our concerns with other people and encouraging them
Speaker 1: to poke holes in our narratives, we can encounter new
Speaker 1: perspectives that help us forge new mental pathways. Might there
Speaker 1: be a different conclusion to draw a different story from
Speaker 1: the one we've been telling ourselves. As Matt left the
Speaker 1: call with NeSSI, his body relaxed. His tendency to panic
Speaker 1: didn't mean he was after all, It meant he wasn't broken.
Speaker 1: It was clear, though, that his system needed a serious recalibration.
Speaker 1: Being this prone to panic had negatively affected his mental
Speaker 1: well being and had threatened his livelihood. But he could
Speaker 1: at least let go of his self loathing. I could
Speaker 1: stop hating my mind, he said. Matt's process of reworking
Speaker 1: his relationship with his panic is an example of cognitive reappraisal,
Speaker 1: in which deliberately changing how we interpret a situation can
Speaker 1: alter its emotional impact. As a result of his reappraisal,
Speaker 1: Matt was able to take a more constructive approach toward
Speaker 1: managing his panic attacks. This included cognitive behavioral therapy and
Speaker 1: selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors SSRIs, which are first line treatments
Speaker 1: when a person's rumination is serious enough to compromise their
Speaker 1: mental health, as well as breath work and guided psychedelic trips.
Speaker 1: Over time, Matt's panic episodes had been become less frequent
Speaker 1: and intense, and his I'm broken script no longer has
Speaker 1: such a hold over him. For decades, I had a
Speaker 1: drill sergeant in my head who was always hollering at
Speaker 1: me and insulting me, he said, I still have an
Speaker 1: inner drill sergeant, but this one never screams at me,
Speaker 1: and he never tells me I'm unworthy. Today, Matt is
Speaker 1: thriving in his role as ABC's chief national correspondent and
Speaker 1: reports live from around the globe. He now sees an
Speaker 1: upside to his anxiety. The fact that he is hyper
Speaker 1: aware of what other people may be thinking has enabled
Speaker 1: him to be a more compassionate, perceptive listener. I'm often
Speaker 1: meeting people on the worst day of their lives, and
Speaker 1: I'm able to speak to them in a common language,
Speaker 1: he said. It's one of the reasons they can trust
Speaker 1: me with their stories. Hey, thanks so much for listening
Speaker 1: to that excerpt of the Other Side of Change. You
Speaker 1: can finish Matt's story and meet other people with extraordinary
Speaker 1: stories of change by getting a copy wherever you buy books.
Speaker 1: It's available in hardcover, ebook, and audiobook. I hope you're
Speaker 1: all taking some time to relax and recharge this summer.
Speaker 1: We on the slight Change of Plans team will be
Speaker 1: doing the same. Our break starts next week, and we'll
Speaker 1: be back with new episodes in July. If you miss
Speaker 1: this in the meantime, I highly recommend checking out our
Speaker 1: back catalog, where you'll find six years of inspiring stories
Speaker 1: of change and scientific insights to help you live a happier,
Speaker 1: healthier life. We'll leave a link to the catalog and
Speaker 1: a playlist of some of my favorite Slight Change episodes
Speaker 1: in the show notes, and of course we'll be back
Speaker 1: in a few weeks with a new episode of a
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans. I'll see you then,