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. Today I am chatting with
Speaker 1: Alison Sepinara. She's an anxiety healer, a licensed professional counselor,
Speaker 1: Certified Specialist one and two school counselor. And I'll get
Speaker 1: into everything that she and I talked about in just
Speaker 1: a moment. And by the way, she is teaching a
Speaker 1: seven days of Anxiety Healing master class for all of
Speaker 1: you who would love to take a class for a week.
Speaker 1: It's online and heal your anxiety. Everybody talks about getting
Speaker 1: a beach body for the summer. Never mind, now, why
Speaker 1: don't you get a beach nervous system. That's that's not
Speaker 1: a thing. But um well, I'll just give you the
Speaker 1: info right now so you will get off if you
Speaker 1: put anxiety bites all smushed together, no spaces between anxiety
Speaker 1: and bites, all upper case, and I'll put it in
Speaker 1: the show notes exactly how you should do it. So
Speaker 1: there's a link down there. And again you're gonna get
Speaker 1: off of her Anxiety Healing master Class which begins on
Speaker 1: June and that is just for my listeners. Before I
Speaker 1: get to that, I probably won't be doing another all
Speaker 1: listener email episode because we just have so many wonderful
Speaker 1: guests coming up and we're pretty booked up. So season
Speaker 1: one ends um second week of August, and our our
Speaker 1: calendar is packed until then. So I thought I would
Speaker 1: just read some emails at the beginning of every episode,
Speaker 1: and I have to tell you the A d h
Speaker 1: D episode, I got such an overwhelming number of emails.
Speaker 1: I think only second to the O c D episode
Speaker 1: where people we're contacting me just from everywhere and saying
Speaker 1: that they felt so much better hearing that the number one,
Speaker 1: you know, most popular, the most normal symptom of O
Speaker 1: c D are these unwanted thoughts about harming others, and
Speaker 1: it just it just helped so many people. But today
Speaker 1: I will read you the emails from the fellow A
Speaker 1: d h D rars out there, and I will tell
Speaker 1: you this, that episode meant so much to me because
Speaker 1: it really took I hate saying this because it's such
Speaker 1: a my own research, and again I don't say that
Speaker 1: about other things, but it did take my own research,
Speaker 1: not not. It's not you know when people say I
Speaker 1: did my own research about the vaccine. I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about I'll her native research to research that's out there.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the people that I was working with.
Speaker 1: My therapist had no information on a d h D,
Speaker 1: and I just felt like I was spinning my wheels.
Speaker 1: And I pardoned ways with my therapist this year. And
Speaker 1: and honestly, if it was from everything I've learned on
Speaker 1: this podcast, in the sense that I realized that there
Speaker 1: are certain specialties I need to find a therapist that,
Speaker 1: you know, who deals more with certain things. There's certain things.
Speaker 1: Do I actually need a therapist, you just need more
Speaker 1: tools over here or whatnot? I mean, I've been with
Speaker 1: my therapist over fifteen years agoing once a week, So
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, I don't recommend everyone to jump
Speaker 1: up and leave their therapist, but this, this was something
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about for about a year, but it
Speaker 1: really became crystal clear when I realized I think she's
Speaker 1: misdiagnosed by a d h D as other things. And
Speaker 1: then of course I have a psychiatrist who you know,
Speaker 1: prescribes medication and who yes, says I have a d
Speaker 1: h D. And and but it's it's just from. He
Speaker 1: doesn't have it himself, and so he's not going to
Speaker 1: know every single thing or how it affects women as
Speaker 1: opposed to you know, and so he doesn't specialize in
Speaker 1: a d h D. So sometimes I teach him things
Speaker 1: from what I've read from other a d h D
Speaker 1: experts or whatnot. But just the things I've been reading
Speaker 1: about a d h D all year have really put
Speaker 1: into perspective my entire life. Moments in my entire life
Speaker 1: where I thought, what was that about? What was that reaction?
Speaker 1: What was this? And it's actually very easy to forgive
Speaker 1: myself because I just had this kind of thing that
Speaker 1: it felt like something all over was wrong with me,
Speaker 1: and in a way it was. I had this, you know,
Speaker 1: neural neurodevelopmental disorder that does touch on a lot of
Speaker 1: the executive functions of the brain that that have to
Speaker 1: do with emotion, or maybe you're bad with money, or
Speaker 1: maybe this or that. But when it's all happening at once,
Speaker 1: it's hard when someone said as oh, you're acting like
Speaker 1: this maybe of quote dependency or maybe of this, and
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, but what of all the other things?
Speaker 1: And you start to think about just like straight up
Speaker 1: crazy which I know is not a term we like
Speaker 1: to use, but in the privacy of our own heads,
Speaker 1: I do think we worry about that whatever we think
Speaker 1: crazy means, and again like to have something that impedes
Speaker 1: your executive functions. It doesn't make you a lost cause,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make you a hopeless case, and it certainly
Speaker 1: doesn't make you quote crazy. It just means now you've
Speaker 1: an answer this one. And it all comes down to
Speaker 1: the same thing self soothing. And for me, it's changing
Speaker 1: my mind about what will make me feel better. I'm
Speaker 1: still stuck in the loop a lot of times that
Speaker 1: getting the thirty five item to do list done in
Speaker 1: an unreasonable amount of time, meaning a short amount of
Speaker 1: time will is the only thing that will make me
Speaker 1: feel better. When everything is off my plate, I can
Speaker 1: my life is over there. My life is just beyond
Speaker 1: the to do list. And it really, honestly, you know,
Speaker 1: we can sit in therapy sessions and have someone say
Speaker 1: do you have intimacy issues, and it's like, I don't.
Speaker 1: I can't even relate to what you're saying. And I'm
Speaker 1: not being defensive, I just no, I'm trying to explain
Speaker 1: that I can't get past this wall in front of me,
Speaker 1: which is there is no relief until all thirty five
Speaker 1: things are done on this list. Do I have to
Speaker 1: pull an all nighter and then my life begins the
Speaker 1: next day? Then I'll have time to call friends back,
Speaker 1: maybe go on a date, maybe a grocery shop, and
Speaker 1: make dinner for myself. And it's like, in times of
Speaker 1: uncertainty and stress, that can be louder for me, this
Speaker 1: notion that my life is on the other end of
Speaker 1: the to do list. I actually had a really good
Speaker 1: handle on it during the lockdown. I didn't have to
Speaker 1: worry about an income, I had some writing jobs that
Speaker 1: I was doing remotely, and I just had this realization that,
Speaker 1: oh wow, I spent a lot of my time pre
Speaker 1: law down in this notion that life begins after the
Speaker 1: to do list, and then, as you know, that to
Speaker 1: do list never ends. And I had a real concrete
Speaker 1: example of you know, how many nights that I wish
Speaker 1: I'd gone out and met that friend, or you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm writing a script or something, you know, I
Speaker 1: wish I'd taken a two hour coffee break to see
Speaker 1: a friend. Because if you're a writer, you don't actually
Speaker 1: write nine to six you know, eight am to eight pm.
Speaker 1: You procrastinating and take breaks, but I get in this
Speaker 1: zone where I can't even engage with other people. And
Speaker 1: and so I had this really great balance, you know,
Speaker 1: right after the vaccine came out and I was fascinated
Speaker 1: and I felt like I was getting back to things,
Speaker 1: and I really from having spent a year alone, I
Speaker 1: felt this real sense of I'm never again going to
Speaker 1: let the overwhelm trick me into thinking I can't do X,
Speaker 1: Y and Z until I finished this other stuff. And
Speaker 1: it worked for a while, but again that was a
Speaker 1: perspective that's temporary because we get used to whatever we're in.
Speaker 1: So back to life. I fell back into the way
Speaker 1: I used to do life. And now that I can
Speaker 1: look at it as this a d h D thing,
Speaker 1: which is like, look, I can keep doing it this
Speaker 1: way and insisting that there's a day when this to
Speaker 1: do list ends or I can sell now. When you
Speaker 1: try to take that to do list away from me,
Speaker 1: say Jen, you're gonna go to bed right now, or
Speaker 1: you're going to watch the TV and you're not going
Speaker 1: to get this thing done tonight, and it's not even
Speaker 1: due to marrows, so you don't need to do it tomorrow,
Speaker 1: I know, But so what feeling are you trying to accomplish?
Speaker 1: And it's like, I'm trying to accomplish a feeling that
Speaker 1: everything is done so that it's not in the back
Speaker 1: of my head when I'm trying to enjoy my life.
Speaker 1: And it's like, well, then your job, Jen is to
Speaker 1: try to enjoy your life knowing you've got this thing
Speaker 1: to write that you're going to perform next month, knowing
Speaker 1: that you have to finish this script you're ready, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like I I have to relearn to to integrate better,
Speaker 1: and I had done it before, and so I noticed
Speaker 1: that it's that a d h D thing when I
Speaker 1: have trouble self soothing around it. If you try to
Speaker 1: tell me you have to take a break and go
Speaker 1: see a friend for an hour, knowing you have things
Speaker 1: to do when you get home, that actually disturbs me physically.
Speaker 1: I start to feel uncomfortable. And I know that intellectually
Speaker 1: I don't even agree with the person that doesn't want
Speaker 1: to take the break. I'm I'm gonna take a break person.
Speaker 1: I'd rather never work again, to be honest. But it's
Speaker 1: like it doesn't matter where it comes from it is
Speaker 1: it would seem too simple for a therapist. It's it's like,
Speaker 1: I know they get excited when things seem to connect,
Speaker 1: but it's not. And how But in your child, did
Speaker 1: you do have friendships? Like I'm a totally social person.
Speaker 1: I don't have intimacy issues. I I literally have this
Speaker 1: bizarre overwhelm right now, and I am convinced that doing
Speaker 1: the same thing over and over is going to get
Speaker 1: me the result I want, even though it's not the
Speaker 1: definition of insanity. Right So I have to force myself
Speaker 1: to do things differently, and it can be putting less
Speaker 1: things on the to do list for me. Recently, I
Speaker 1: started bullet journaling, which is the thing I never thought
Speaker 1: I would do, but it helps my a d h D.
Speaker 1: And I can get into that another time. But so,
Speaker 1: just learning everything I've learned this year has changed my perspective.
Speaker 1: It's helped me actually help myself, and it's showed me
Speaker 1: what types of therapy are working for me right now
Speaker 1: and what types aren't. Anyway, I feel like all of
Speaker 1: you who wrote to me, who know that you have
Speaker 1: a d h D or weren't sure what you had,
Speaker 1: you had a similar realization just by listening to the episode,
Speaker 1: and it makes me really happy. Again. I'm not here
Speaker 1: to diagnose anyone. I just want people to listen and
Speaker 1: if they hear something they like. We're never going to
Speaker 1: solve any anxiety issue in any one episode, but I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that you take the bread crumbs from an episode
Speaker 1: and keep learning for yourself or bring it to your
Speaker 1: therapist or whatever. So I'm just glad that it got
Speaker 1: a lot of your minds going. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: read these, Hi, jan First of all, I want to
Speaker 1: acknowledge what a wonderful person you are. Okay I didn't.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to compliment myself, Okay, I'm just fast forward.
Speaker 1: What a great episode. I learned so much and it stuck.
Speaker 1: I didn't even take my normally obsessive notes. The funny
Speaker 1: thing is, when I saw the title of this week's podcast,
Speaker 1: I was thinking that maybe I should skip this episode
Speaker 1: because I didn't think it would be that much of
Speaker 1: an interest to me regarding the A d h D.
Speaker 1: But because I have a sister that had it as
Speaker 1: a child, I thought maybe I'll be able to learn
Speaker 1: something about her. So I was only kind of listening
Speaker 1: to it at first. However, halfway into it, I was like, WHOA,
Speaker 1: that's me. Well that's me as well, that's totally me,
Speaker 1: and it kept happening. I ended up skipping the nap
Speaker 1: I was planning and finished the podcast. I happened to
Speaker 1: have counseling this afternoon, so I talked to my counselor
Speaker 1: about looking into diagnosis. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: I think I finally found what's going on with my
Speaker 1: head and to boot I turned forty and my coping
Speaker 1: mechanisms have all gone to pot. So I am grateful
Speaker 1: to have learned that I am right on time coming
Speaker 1: to this realization. I love the surf exercise. I am
Speaker 1: in DBT Dialectical behavioral Therapy, and it reminds me of
Speaker 1: the stop skill, a skill I have found a lot
Speaker 1: of value in. Stop stands for stop, take a step back, observe,
Speaker 1: proceed mindfully. Oh I like that, but it's not as poignant,
Speaker 1: doesn't quite scratch the itch. Kristen Carter has showed how
Speaker 1: to process an emotion, something I have longed for. A
Speaker 1: lot of people say you have to feel it and
Speaker 1: not stuff it, and then they don't really give you
Speaker 1: a map. This feels like she's given me directions to
Speaker 1: emotional freedom. Now if I could remember the task long
Speaker 1: enough to complete it. Ha ha. I really appreciate what
Speaker 1: you were doing in this world. Who knew an episode
Speaker 1: of drunk History would lead me to finding you doing
Speaker 1: this wonderful work. Um. I won't say her name because
Speaker 1: she didn't say if I could. That makes me so
Speaker 1: I love. I love that someone sees the title of
Speaker 1: an episodes, doesn't that's not for me, and it turns
Speaker 1: out it is. I do that all the time with stuff. Hello, Jen,
Speaker 1: I'm an a d H D er. I feel like
Speaker 1: I got a double birthday gift from me. One. I
Speaker 1: woke up to a new episode of anxiety bites, so
Speaker 1: that started my day off great. Two And most importantly,
Speaker 1: I identified with most of the points Kristen and you discussed.
Speaker 1: Everything I need to do is all of the utmost importance.
Speaker 1: I shut down if I can't get things done to perfection.
Speaker 1: And I can remember a random day in elementary school
Speaker 1: with crystal clarity, yet can't remember to pick up everything
Speaker 1: I went to the store for. Fortunately, I have an
Speaker 1: appointment with my therapist next week and I'm going to
Speaker 1: bring this up to her and see what she has
Speaker 1: to say. Thank you for putting this podcast out. Love
Speaker 1: all the good you're doing Again. I won't say his
Speaker 1: name because he didn't indicate if I could. Um and
Speaker 1: my last one here, I just picked three, but there
Speaker 1: are so many, Dear Jen. Listening to the episode with
Speaker 1: Kristen Carter almost made me I on the train traveling home,
Speaker 1: listening to the executive functions and the explanation of all
Speaker 1: tasks being at the volume resonated so deeply that it
Speaker 1: actually explains my inability to be able to focus on
Speaker 1: any one task when I have multiple pressing deadlines. Writing
Speaker 1: all the lists in the world never helps, just overwhelms
Speaker 1: to the point I can be so stressed and anxious
Speaker 1: that absolutely nothing gets done because I don't know where
Speaker 1: to start. It has also been a stalling point in
Speaker 1: progressing further in my career. Although listening to the podcast
Speaker 1: has given names to my anxiety, this episode resonates so
Speaker 1: deeply that I have been on the fence about asking
Speaker 1: my doctor about a referral, but now the appointment is
Speaker 1: made to get started on a resolution, which is my
Speaker 1: at times crippling social anxiety will also get a look in,
Speaker 1: but that's another story. Thank you for the podcast, love
Speaker 1: all that you do. Well. It's interesting you say that.
Speaker 1: My guest today, Alison stepan Are, has a lot of
Speaker 1: wisdom about social anxiety. She is someone that has suffered
Speaker 1: social anxiety herself. We actually didn't talk about it a
Speaker 1: lot on this podcast, and I know that it's a
Speaker 1: subject I've danced around with a few guests here and there,
Speaker 1: never totally went deep, deep into it. But again I
Speaker 1: highly recommend her seven day Mental Health master class. It
Speaker 1: will guide you towards a life of anxiety relief in
Speaker 1: her peace and mental health recovery. Seven days is all
Speaker 1: it takes to start your healing journey, and there's no
Speaker 1: better time than right now to work on your mental health. Remember,
Speaker 1: you are in control of your life. You deserve to
Speaker 1: give yourself a chance to get better and be better
Speaker 1: off if you use the code anxiety bites all caps
Speaker 1: words mushed together in the show notes and again today
Speaker 1: my guest Alison stepan Are. What I love about her
Speaker 1: book is that it's almost like you just want to
Speaker 1: mark up every page. It's everything you would ever need
Speaker 1: if you are into not just cognitive behavioral therapy as
Speaker 1: something that helps your anxiety. But if you're into I
Speaker 1: think spiritual is too spiritual over word to use. But
Speaker 1: if you're into more using your creativity, it's not manifesting
Speaker 1: like the toxic positivity episode we had a little while ago.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not that kind of thing. It's but
Speaker 1: it's visualization, which is really good for your brain and
Speaker 1: really good as a form of a meditation in a
Speaker 1: way to calm yourself down. But to visualize what you
Speaker 1: want without getting focused on you must achieve the results
Speaker 1: or you're some being a loser, but just feeling how
Speaker 1: it feels in your body two figure out what you
Speaker 1: even want. We might have this idea of what we want,
Speaker 1: but if we actually sat down and did a visualization
Speaker 1: exercise of what what what would that look like? And
Speaker 1: what would I be doing? Sometimes you realize I don't
Speaker 1: even really want this, or I do want this, and oh,
Speaker 1: I'm getting excited about thinking when I think about it
Speaker 1: this way instead of when I just let it roll
Speaker 1: around in my head without the construct of a visual
Speaker 1: visualization exercise. I start to say negative self talk. So
Speaker 1: but I really like about her book, The Anxiety Healer's
Speaker 1: Guide Coping Strategies and mindful techniques to calm the mind
Speaker 1: and body is It is a just jam packed, but
Speaker 1: it's a small book. Perfect book to take on a plane,
Speaker 1: perfect book to take on a car trip. Keep it
Speaker 1: in your bag, your purse, whatever, you can always flip
Speaker 1: through and just find one thing that you can do
Speaker 1: in that moment, and it's not just your typical take
Speaker 1: a deep breath. I mean that's in there too, and
Speaker 1: breathing is important. I'll tell you, I'll tell you something
Speaker 1: about our episode. I wanted to make a vision board,
Speaker 1: and her book talks about making vision boards, and she
Speaker 1: and I have a like a mini therapy session about it.
Speaker 1: I also wanted to bring up my resistance to making
Speaker 1: a vision board with her so she could give me
Speaker 1: a little therapy, so that you could all hear what
Speaker 1: a therapy session a lot of times sounds like. In
Speaker 1: case you still are in the dark about it and
Speaker 1: you're thinking, I don't know if that's for me, or
Speaker 1: did they go too deep, or how is it helpful?
Speaker 1: I think our ten minute talk about vision boards could
Speaker 1: then you could be a nice fly on the wall
Speaker 1: in that moment um. I'm gonna be totally honest. I
Speaker 1: recorded the outrode in this episode a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and I don't remember if I talked about what I
Speaker 1: ended up doing about the vision board, I may have
Speaker 1: said I started it, but but either way, I'm recording
Speaker 1: this now, just a few days before the episode comes out,
Speaker 1: and I finished my vision board. So you're getting a spoiler,
Speaker 1: but I think that's okay. But what I noticed was
Speaker 1: everything on the board is everything I already have or
Speaker 1: I'm capable of having, because it's something I've had before.
Speaker 1: It's just I want more and bigger, and and that's
Speaker 1: not bad. I'm not putting myself down by saying it
Speaker 1: that way. You know. I hum things on there about
Speaker 1: performing and specific places and spaces, and I'm working towards that.
Speaker 1: There hasn't been any struggles to get there. It's just
Speaker 1: I'm at the beginning of the journey, so I'm hoping
Speaker 1: it leads to these certain performance spaces there on my
Speaker 1: vision board, I'm working on a one woman show. I've
Speaker 1: I've kind of changed careers, left stand up commenting one
Speaker 1: more towards doing it this way. Um, you know, I
Speaker 1: have on there that I'm a writer who sells TV shows.
Speaker 1: What I have done that before I am a writer.
Speaker 1: But I just what I mean is I want to
Speaker 1: keep doing that. I want to stay in my career
Speaker 1: and not have it end. Okay, let's hope. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: I want to live in New York. I want to
Speaker 1: live in l A. I have both of those on there.
Speaker 1: I do live in both, but I'm renting apartments. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's like I want everything that I already have,
Speaker 1: but just a little more financial security, a little more stability,
Speaker 1: and a little more ownership of things, and then a
Speaker 1: lot of travel, which there's really nothing stopping me right
Speaker 1: now except I don't have time due to all my
Speaker 1: jobs I need to work. It's a little expensive right
Speaker 1: now to actually think of traveling. And then I'm a
Speaker 1: little just kind of kind of bummed out about COVID,
Speaker 1: like just don't feel like traveling. But all of these
Speaker 1: things are very achievable. And what I noticed was I'm
Speaker 1: already mostly living the life I want to live, and
Speaker 1: the only thing is getting in the way are really big,
Speaker 1: big things way out of my control. Because that before
Speaker 1: COVID or just like yeah, I mean, before I have
Speaker 1: this beautiful, brand new apartment in New York or home
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. I've got to earn more money, and
Speaker 1: I've got to save, and I've got to hopefully someday
Speaker 1: be financially in a place where I can, you know,
Speaker 1: buy these dream homes that I may never achieve. But
Speaker 1: there are millions of dollars, so it's fine if not,
Speaker 1: you know. But I'm basically mostly living the life I want.
Speaker 1: The vision board is not something that I look at
Speaker 1: and think, well, I could never have any of this.
Speaker 1: It really showed me that I'm already there in a way.
Speaker 1: I just want more of what I have, and honestly,
Speaker 1: I just want to guarantee that none of it will end.
Speaker 1: So I thought that was very interesting. It made me,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it made me feel. They definitely
Speaker 1: didn't make me feel anything bad. I didn't think, oh,
Speaker 1: you're you know, you don't have any dreams left, You're
Speaker 1: just so boring. I thought the opposite. I was, I'm
Speaker 1: really proud of myself, but I still have a ways
Speaker 1: to go in terms of there needs to be just
Speaker 1: some more security around certain things. Don't We all want them,
Speaker 1: But I think the amount I want is a reasonable amount,
Speaker 1: and in my industry there's there's very little security it
Speaker 1: doesn't always last more than a few months. You know,
Speaker 1: jobs are strange and they come and they go. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I did the vision board and I don't feel embarrassed
Speaker 1: about it. It is on my kitchen table and you know,
Speaker 1: nobody's come over, but if they did, I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: ashamed of it. So it'll really be interesting, I think
Speaker 1: for you to hear my little therapy session with Allison,
Speaker 1: because everything in my head, it's not even really how
Speaker 1: I feel, and I wouldn't have known it until like
Speaker 1: to the steps to tell her and then to then
Speaker 1: do the assignment. Okay, well this was a very long intro,
Speaker 1: and when I am done talking, you're going to hear
Speaker 1: my conversation with the absolutely wonderful Alison Stepanock. I have
Speaker 1: your book in front of me, even though no one
Speaker 1: else can see this but you, but the Anxiety Healer's Guide,
Speaker 1: Coping Strategies and mindfulness Techniques to calm the mind and body.
Speaker 1: What I love about this book is, to me, it's
Speaker 1: a bible of every single thing about anxiety, from the mental,
Speaker 1: to the physical to the spiritual. Do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? Yes, well I have. I have actually called
Speaker 1: it that before and other interviews. I had the Bible
Speaker 1: of anxiety, or I actually call it now the encyclopedia.
Speaker 1: That's the word I'm using. Less religious, the encyclopedia. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: non domination. Um, but yeah, essentially. I so I've struggled
Speaker 1: with anxiety for most of my life. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: I struggled with anxiety as a child up until like
Speaker 1: ten years ago. I didn't really know. I knew I
Speaker 1: had problems as a child socially and emotionally. I'm a
Speaker 1: very highly sensitive person. Um, But I don't think there
Speaker 1: was a lot of language back then for my parents
Speaker 1: and most people to know what kids were going through.
Speaker 1: And anxiety and a child looks very different than it
Speaker 1: doesn't an adult. Children don't have words to express themselves,
Speaker 1: so it comes out thematically a lot of times. So
Speaker 1: for me, it was in my stomach all the times.
Speaker 1: I had stomach aches all the time. So I recently,
Speaker 1: um started you know, not recently, and my journey has
Speaker 1: been probably ten fifteen years since I had like a
Speaker 1: real my first real panic attack, and that's when I
Speaker 1: knew something was really wrong. Um. It was on my
Speaker 1: thirtieth birthday and my sister threw me a surprise party,
Speaker 1: and that will never happen again. No one will throw
Speaker 1: me surprise parties. UM. I was just going through a
Speaker 1: really hard time in my life at that point. I
Speaker 1: hadn't talked to anybody about it, and so my sister
Speaker 1: had invited all these people to this party that I
Speaker 1: didn't even like anymore, and I didn't even want to
Speaker 1: talk to you and ended up in the bathroom and
Speaker 1: in my room the entire day, and everyone's like, what's
Speaker 1: going on, what's wrong with you? It was, Yes, it
Speaker 1: was really really difficult, and so UM that day, I
Speaker 1: knew something was definitely wrong because that was a panic attack.
Speaker 1: So I started seeking out. And I am a psychologist
Speaker 1: full disclosure, you know, I'm a therapist to UM, but
Speaker 1: I'm also human first. So I realized that I definitely
Speaker 1: needed to get some extra support, which I did, and
Speaker 1: started researching a lot about anxiety and reading more on
Speaker 1: it UM and understanding more about the therapy that I
Speaker 1: had been working on with clients that I wanted to
Speaker 1: try it on myself, which is cognitive behavioral therapy that's
Speaker 1: the research on that has been so effective for anxiety
Speaker 1: disorders UM. So I started learning more about my childhood
Speaker 1: and just that I've really struggle with social anxiety, which
Speaker 1: no one would ever who knows me, would ever say,
Speaker 1: because I'm very energetic and I'm engaged with people when
Speaker 1: I'm out, I'm really engaging, but I'm also very insecure,
Speaker 1: and sometimes being in that environment, it's almost like I
Speaker 1: have to be on I have to be this type
Speaker 1: of person, and that's what gives me the anxiety. So
Speaker 1: in doing all that education research for myself and for
Speaker 1: the clients that I worked with, I started putting together
Speaker 1: this toolkit for myself um of all different strategies and
Speaker 1: resources and coping techniques and created this toolkit for myself.
Speaker 1: And I remember thinking as I was thinking about the book,
Speaker 1: like I wish I had something like this book when
Speaker 1: I was going through this in the beginning that I
Speaker 1: could go to and say, oh, my gosh, you need
Speaker 1: to create a toolkit. But I don't even know what
Speaker 1: these tools are, Like it took me years to research
Speaker 1: a lot of these Eastern you know, Eastern world tools, right,
Speaker 1: Like in the holistic world, Eastern medicine is not something
Speaker 1: that's taught a lot in the Western world. Learning a
Speaker 1: lot more about meditation and I kind of consider myself
Speaker 1: a Buddhist, so I am spiritual. Um, you don't have
Speaker 1: to be, you know, to do this work, but um,
Speaker 1: you know, learning more about just nature and the therapy
Speaker 1: of nature is huge for me. And how to use
Speaker 1: your mind to visualize calming spaces, and um, what kind
Speaker 1: of tools are really self soothing, like tangible tools and
Speaker 1: all of them. I just wanted an encyclopedia. There was
Speaker 1: something that really hit me about your surprise party that
Speaker 1: gave you a panic attack. To the uninitiated, to someone
Speaker 1: who's never heading anxiety, they might think, oh, she just
Speaker 1: doesn't like a lot of people, and the surprise is
Speaker 1: what gave our panic attack. But when you said, you know,
Speaker 1: some of these people didn't really like anymore, I feel
Speaker 1: like there's something with being someone that has anxiety. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it takes us a really long time to kind of
Speaker 1: know what our feelings are, and we may not even
Speaker 1: be sharing our thoughts and lives with those closest to us.
Speaker 1: We're figuring it out for ourselves. So there's no world
Speaker 1: where your sister would know who you like and don't like.
Speaker 1: And it's almost like you're living this separate life and
Speaker 1: people are like well, I didn't know what I mean,
Speaker 1: how was I supposed to know? And You're like, why
Speaker 1: I didn't know to tell you? And I just think
Speaker 1: it sounds more like the anxiety was about this isn't
Speaker 1: my life? Why are you giving me this party? Like
Speaker 1: this isn't me? Was that what you're experiencing? You just
Speaker 1: hit the nail on the head, because I don't think
Speaker 1: I really knew who I was until like ten years ago.
Speaker 1: So I'm forty going to be forty two, and so
Speaker 1: that was kind of close to my thirty birthday. So
Speaker 1: after that and I started really this journey of learning
Speaker 1: more about myself and why I react in certain environments.
Speaker 1: So for ten years I've been sort of learning and
Speaker 1: creating this toolkit. But before then I had no idea.
Speaker 1: I actually in my twenties, I numbed a lot of
Speaker 1: depression that I had. Also, an anxiety and depression are
Speaker 1: very connected as well. I kind of called them siblings,
Speaker 1: like their symptoms look very different, but the thoughts we
Speaker 1: have are very similar, and we go through both of them.
Speaker 1: So I was struggling with both. But I had a
Speaker 1: lot of depression and I was masking it with drinking.
Speaker 1: I was drinking a lot. I was going out with
Speaker 1: my friends a lot. I mean, obviously, you're in your
Speaker 1: twenties are going to be like having fun, but like
Speaker 1: I was blacking out and that's not healthy. Um, I
Speaker 1: couldn't remember some of my nights I remember, again, going
Speaker 1: back to the social aspect of it, I've always been
Speaker 1: more insecure around men, right, So I you know, I
Speaker 1: enjoyed the whole fun of like meeting guys, and I
Speaker 1: never really knew how to have like a steady boyfriend.
Speaker 1: I sort of was just like I loved the attention
Speaker 1: from guys so like, but I was so insecure. So
Speaker 1: I would go out and the only way I would
Speaker 1: feel scure about myself as if I drank a lot.
Speaker 1: So that was that was something that stemmed from childhood
Speaker 1: that I learned about that I just didn't feel good
Speaker 1: about my body and I had this sort of disordered
Speaker 1: eating also, um, and just had to learn so much
Speaker 1: that that was connected a lot to my childhood because
Speaker 1: I know we're talking about this before we started, but
Speaker 1: I was bullied really bad in grade school. And you know,
Speaker 1: when you think of trauma, you know a lot of
Speaker 1: people hear the word trauma, they think of a huge catastrophe.
Speaker 1: And these are traumas for sure, like and very serious
Speaker 1: ones and different types of abuse, right, Like, definitely taking
Speaker 1: that serious and that's traumatic. But there's also other traumas
Speaker 1: that happened in people's lives that I don't think, um,
Speaker 1: they give credit to because maybe it's like a little
Speaker 1: t trauma, you know, and they're just like, maybe that's
Speaker 1: not a bit of a deal, but it really is,
Speaker 1: especially for children. So like, bullying is a huge traumatic
Speaker 1: thing for a child, and the situation I went through
Speaker 1: has carried on. Well, you mentioned, you know in your
Speaker 1: intro that when you were talking about your book, that
Speaker 1: kids experience anxiety differently, so it's so madic for them.
Speaker 1: Does that mean that means in the body right, yes,
Speaker 1: because children don't really have the language to know how
Speaker 1: to express their feelings. So a lot of the work
Speaker 1: I do in my private practice with kids is feelings education.
Speaker 1: So I'll give them, um, you know, feeling faces with
Speaker 1: the feeling word underneath and like a page of them,
Speaker 1: and I'll teach them how to use ice statements at
Speaker 1: that say I feel this because and honestly I do
Speaker 1: that with some adults too, because if you're not taught
Speaker 1: that as a child, You're not gonna know. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. When I was a kid, I went to
Speaker 1: the nurse's office a lot with the stomach game. And
Speaker 1: I remember that again like just kind of vague memories,
Speaker 1: hushed tones. Is there trouble at home? It always went
Speaker 1: to there must be big T trauma going on and
Speaker 1: you being hit or beaten, which I wasn't, you know,
Speaker 1: like the stomach gigs were happening us cool because I
Speaker 1: was being picked on by some people. I had friends,
Speaker 1: but then there were boys that picked on me, and
Speaker 1: it was weird because it went to this. People didn't
Speaker 1: have language for this in the eighties, so it was
Speaker 1: either you're being beaten by your parents or everything is normal.
Speaker 1: And since I wasn't being beaten by my parents, nobody
Speaker 1: could figure out what the stomach aches where. My mom
Speaker 1: took me to the doctor and they said she's allergic
Speaker 1: to milk. But I I brought the bullying to my
Speaker 1: parents and they treated it seriously. But the school didn't.
Speaker 1: And this was you know, for years and years, they
Speaker 1: just did not They just thought it was normal. And
Speaker 1: so my point is that those little T traumas it's
Speaker 1: It's been very hard for me as an adult to
Speaker 1: think that that had anything to do with anything I
Speaker 1: may feel now, because I go, I wasn't trying to
Speaker 1: be friends with the boys that are bullying me. I
Speaker 1: truly thought they were jerks. I didn't I really didn't
Speaker 1: value their opinion at a very good self esteem. But
Speaker 1: of course it hurts, and it does something to you,
Speaker 1: and people are just being cruel for no reason, and
Speaker 1: adults won't protect you like that has to do something, right,
Speaker 1: What does that do to the kids? Well, word, no
Speaker 1: matter how old you are, like words, if someone says
Speaker 1: something about you. And I think that's the hardest part
Speaker 1: of this entire journey, and that's so connected to mental
Speaker 1: health in general, is really loving who you are. And
Speaker 1: so as a child, you don't really have Again, you
Speaker 1: don't have the language to your You're learning who you are,
Speaker 1: so like, who do I love? I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: learning who I am, right, So it's up to your
Speaker 1: caregivers and it's up to the people around you to
Speaker 1: like reinforce those things about you that are wonderful, and
Speaker 1: but they can't control everything right, And so much of
Speaker 1: anxiety about wanting to control things, so the people around
Speaker 1: you you feel so out of control as a child
Speaker 1: because the other people around you don't know how to
Speaker 1: protect you either. So the trauma is basically this sense
Speaker 1: of feeling this loss of control and not knowing how
Speaker 1: to regulate yourself. So that's where kind of like the
Speaker 1: science comes in because we have our nervous system, our
Speaker 1: autonomic nervous system has a sympathetic side and a parasympathetic side,
Speaker 1: and the sympathetic nervous system is our fight or flight response,
Speaker 1: and our parasympathetic side is our you know, rest and digest. So, um,
Speaker 1: there's back then there was again wasn't really education about there.
Speaker 1: There's way more research now to show that there are
Speaker 1: hundreds and thousands of exercises and strategies you can use
Speaker 1: to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is basically my book.
Speaker 1: Every single exertise in my book has been researched and
Speaker 1: activates that parasympathetic nervous system. So being able to kind
Speaker 1: of create a toolkit of what works for you of
Speaker 1: these strategies and your support systems and these exercise is
Speaker 1: is and coping tools, breathing exercises, that's the best thing,
Speaker 1: like returning to your breath, UM, like yoga, meditation, learning
Speaker 1: how what works for you, UM and creating that is
Speaker 1: going to help regulate your nervous system. But you have
Speaker 1: to make it like a daily practice. You can't just
Speaker 1: kind of open the book when you're in the middle
Speaker 1: of a panic attack and it will calm you down instantly.
Speaker 1: That's not really how it works. Well, you know, it's
Speaker 1: so thinking back about bullying. So when somebody is bullied,
Speaker 1: for example, and it's in their body, and you know,
Speaker 1: their therapists tells them or something twenty thirty years later
Speaker 1: as an adult, but that's still affecting them, that's how
Speaker 1: right it's not. I think a lot of people go, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't affect me because they're they're thinking about feelings, right,
Speaker 1: They're not feeling sad about it, they're not feeling mad
Speaker 1: about it. But you're saying, if somebody bullied me or
Speaker 1: bullied someone, that's going to upset your nervous system. You're
Speaker 1: going to go into some kind of fight or flight
Speaker 1: as a kid. And then maybe if there's a situation
Speaker 1: that mirrors that when you're an adult, that kicks in
Speaker 1: again and you're and you're in fight or flight and
Speaker 1: you need to learn to regulate. Is that is that
Speaker 1: how it works. But even even worse than that is
Speaker 1: that when you experience any type of trauma, you sort
Speaker 1: of your body goes into the and your mind goes
Speaker 1: into the state of fight or flight and actually never
Speaker 1: really leaves it. It's sort of in that state. There's
Speaker 1: ways that people might feel, you know, well, I'm laying
Speaker 1: in bed right now. You know, I'm not. I'm not
Speaker 1: really like having a panic attempt right it doesn't look
Speaker 1: like I'm panic, But their mind could be racing about
Speaker 1: a million things. They could be watching a show. So
Speaker 1: it's you know, you're in this constant state of it
Speaker 1: a fight or flight and sometimes you just don't know
Speaker 1: because we have like fifty thoughts a day in our
Speaker 1: conscious and subconscious mind. So just being able to process
Speaker 1: those thoughts that's why I'm obviously a therapist, but I
Speaker 1: so a proponent of therapy. Um. But it's it's just
Speaker 1: having someone that can help you kind of tear away
Speaker 1: at the brain like kind of an onion, like peel
Speaker 1: away those thoughts and like see which are intrusive. And
Speaker 1: that's where the CBT comes in for me. Why it's
Speaker 1: so effective being able to understand your thought patterns and
Speaker 1: how intrusive they are, what thoughts are irrational, how you
Speaker 1: can challenge your thoughts a little bit, and what you
Speaker 1: can do to challenge them and learn how to love
Speaker 1: yourself and find self compassion more often. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: all part of the process. It's a lifelong journey too.
Speaker 1: It's not just you're going to be like cured, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's like to anyone listening who hasn't started on
Speaker 1: their journey of anxiety recovery, it's like, it doesn't take
Speaker 1: thirty years to feel better. It just takes thirty years
Speaker 1: to keep learning every single thing. Yeah, but you will
Speaker 1: feel better. I think you could feel better by the
Speaker 1: end of the day if you started doing some little
Speaker 1: things here and there, right at the very least right well, So,
Speaker 1: so that's and I don't I don't know if you
Speaker 1: got to this part of the introduction, but that's why
Speaker 1: in the introduction is so important. So I would say,
Speaker 1: you don't need to read my book like cover to cover, um,
Speaker 1: except for the intro. Read the intro definitely, and then
Speaker 1: create your tool kit by practicing some of the exercises
Speaker 1: in whatever chapter you want to start with. I mean
Speaker 1: there's a chapter of breath work, and then visualization exercises,
Speaker 1: self soothing tools, distraction ideas. I mean, there's all different chapters.
Speaker 1: You don't have to go, you know, in chronological order.
Speaker 1: But with the introduction, one of the most important things
Speaker 1: you can do to start with is begin by rating
Speaker 1: yourself every day. So I have a rating scale in
Speaker 1: the introduction and it goes from one to ten. Ten
Speaker 1: being the most scared and anxious you've ever felt. Maybe
Speaker 1: you had a panic attack and you're in the e
Speaker 1: er right, that's like the worst, and one is the
Speaker 1: most calm you've ever felt. I mean, where are you?
Speaker 1: What's your happy place? Right like your brain? You just
Speaker 1: feel really calm and balanced. And the reason it's not
Speaker 1: zero is because the emotion of fear and worry is
Speaker 1: something we need, right like actual emotion. Both of those
Speaker 1: emotions they protect us in a way from actual danger.
Speaker 1: So if we're actually and if we're in front of
Speaker 1: a bear, we need we need worry and we need
Speaker 1: fear to tell us what to do. Like our sympathetic
Speaker 1: nervous system. Do we fight, flight, freeze, you know, what
Speaker 1: do we need to do in that moment. The hard
Speaker 1: thing about anxiety is that anxiety is just a really
Speaker 1: debilitating and perceived fear and worry. Right. It's something we
Speaker 1: perceive is dangerous, but in reality it's really not that dangerous. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like there's actually no bear no, but our body
Speaker 1: doesn't know the difference. So that's why people with panic attacks,
Speaker 1: they could be sitting in the middle of class and
Speaker 1: they just start having a panic attack, and it's because
Speaker 1: their brain is something, the thoughts they're having something is
Speaker 1: making them feel they're unsafe. So you want to start
Speaker 1: by rating yourself from one to ten. So wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning and rate yourself right in the middle
Speaker 1: of the day, right yourself at the end of the night,
Speaker 1: rate yourself. And there's actually another writing scale that's on
Speaker 1: the the other page that is like how to heal
Speaker 1: yourself when you're at that certain number. So you know,
Speaker 1: if you're at a two or three, you want to
Speaker 1: practice like one or two of your healing tools all
Speaker 1: that stuff. Um, when you get to the higher numbers,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a lot harder to come out
Speaker 1: of that. So you could practice. You could definitely practice
Speaker 1: some of these tools, especially breathing is really good. These
Speaker 1: breathing exercises are great when you start to panic, but
Speaker 1: it's going to be very hard because our brain is
Speaker 1: already in an irrational state, so we're not going to
Speaker 1: be able to come out of it. So that's why
Speaker 1: I say, practice whatever is in your tool kit when
Speaker 1: you're at like A two or three or four. So
Speaker 1: that's a mix. It a daily practice, and then it
Speaker 1: becomes a habit, and then you just know what to
Speaker 1: do when you start feeling these triggers. I had this exact.
Speaker 1: One of my first experiences with working on any kind
Speaker 1: of anxiety was I had never been to therapy, but
Speaker 1: when I was nineteen or twenty, I took a Fear
Speaker 1: of Flying class Stop. Yeah, I went to the airport.
Speaker 1: We talked about this m on our pod, my podcast
Speaker 1: to the Anxiety Checks. We talked about this and my
Speaker 1: my co host at this class. It was the best
Speaker 1: thing I've ever done. It was it was in Boston,
Speaker 1: you know, back in the nineties, and you could just
Speaker 1: kind of walk into the airport and they had there
Speaker 1: was a conference room in the Delta Airlines lounge and
Speaker 1: there was a plane parked right outside of the window.
Speaker 1: And my panic was so bad around flying, my phobia,
Speaker 1: which turned out, you know, as we all know, just
Speaker 1: a fear of panicking on a plane. Yes, once I
Speaker 1: found out, oh it can't really crash, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the odds or this and that, well, I still have
Speaker 1: the sensations. And that's because I'd had a panic attack
Speaker 1: on a plane as a kid and that never wanted
Speaker 1: to feel that again. And then it just kept getting
Speaker 1: worse and worse. And then I practiced avoidance for years
Speaker 1: and didn't get on planes and missed out on so
Speaker 1: many things, and we basically desensitized ourselves slowly. So that
Speaker 1: plane that I said that was outside the window. He
Speaker 1: didn't open the blinds until the third week of class,
Speaker 1: and then we spent one class with just a plane
Speaker 1: right out there, and we would rate our panic levels
Speaker 1: or anxiety levels beginning middle end of class. He taught
Speaker 1: us what to avoid eating, not for life, but just
Speaker 1: you know, obviously, don't have coffee before you get on
Speaker 1: the plane. Simple things. But we did visualizations every night
Speaker 1: while we were supposed to do That was our homework,
Speaker 1: and we had to do thirty minutes of progressive Muslim
Speaker 1: relaxation every night, my favorite, my favorite, and then we
Speaker 1: had to visualize ourselves um in a happy place. But
Speaker 1: then the visualizations graduated to try to keep that feeling
Speaker 1: of the happy place, but now visualize yourself on the plane.
Speaker 1: And anyway, we It didn't make sense to me at
Speaker 1: the time because again you were doing all this in
Speaker 1: the safety of our living room. And but we did
Speaker 1: it every night, and it does change. You know. I
Speaker 1: still had a lot of anxiety on the flight, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't as bad as as it used to. Got on,
Speaker 1: I got on, we flew. I think everyone in the
Speaker 1: class honestly did a little better than me. But it
Speaker 1: because I still didn't fly for a while after that.
Speaker 1: I needed more practice. But because I could, I honestly
Speaker 1: was stubborn. I couldn't let go of the fact that
Speaker 1: this like it was like, well, it's working, but what
Speaker 1: if it doesn't. I couldn't stop the what if it
Speaker 1: doesn't the hardest But anyway, all that to say that
Speaker 1: when I think about hearing the words visualization or practice
Speaker 1: this when you're calm, it is actually one of the
Speaker 1: greatest things that helped me, because you're giving yourself as
Speaker 1: you know your own experience that you can when you're
Speaker 1: in an anxious situation, you can say, hey, remember when
Speaker 1: I was sitting on my couch and I felt great
Speaker 1: or I felt relaxed, Let's try to go there now.
Speaker 1: Instead of someone telling you how to feel, you you
Speaker 1: have your own experience to draw and you you know
Speaker 1: you don't. It doesn't feel like someone's telling you what
Speaker 1: to do. You it's your own work that you've done.
Speaker 1: I mean, those those exercises and PMR Progressive mess or
Speaker 1: relaxation is like a huge it's bold, like stars in
Speaker 1: my tool kit because it is the most effective I
Speaker 1: think for people that experience stomach aches or other physical
Speaker 1: symptoms often that don't turn into a full blown panic
Speaker 1: attack yet, but you know, you can feel like things
Speaker 1: are happening. Progressive muscle relaxation is so helpful for that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, practicing these exercises like when you're you know,
Speaker 1: at the lower when you wake up, I mean most
Speaker 1: people will wake up at that I've talked to you
Speaker 1: at like a two or three. UM, but there's people
Speaker 1: that you struggle with morning anxiety for sure that they'll
Speaker 1: wake up at a higher level. But in general, UM,
Speaker 1: it's a good if you can fit that into like
Speaker 1: your morning routine something as far as you know, UM journaling.
Speaker 1: I also talk a lot about in the book doing
Speaker 1: some gratitude exercise in the morning, UM, doing a short
Speaker 1: yoga UM for anxiety video or a meditation. I love
Speaker 1: inside timer. It's my favorite. I know people use calm
Speaker 1: and headspace and they're all great, Um, I just love
Speaker 1: insight timer. I like that no to youah, and just
Speaker 1: making it part of your routine in the morning as
Speaker 1: best as you can. I know people have families and kids,
Speaker 1: and I know sometimes like what am I supposed to
Speaker 1: do that when I'm like trying to pack a million lunches,
Speaker 1: but being able to make it a priority so and
Speaker 1: and I hope people listening are and be like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I can't do that. But waking up like
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes earlier, if you know that you have you
Speaker 1: don't have that time, and just making it you don't
Speaker 1: even need to leave your bed, just do a meditation
Speaker 1: in your bed for them. I've done that to where
Speaker 1: it's like I always feel so great in the morning.
Speaker 1: I'm because I'm probably sleepy, but it feels very calm.
Speaker 1: So it's hard for me to motivate to do anything.
Speaker 1: So like I feel great, you know, but I've started to, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not started to, but I've realized that, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the time to do that stuff. And of course,
Speaker 1: like I don't have kids, so I can you know,
Speaker 1: just get up and do that. But of course it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It's still hard to motivate, you know. UM. And I
Speaker 1: will do a five minute laying in bed meditation and
Speaker 1: I'll set my alarm just in case I fall asleep.
Speaker 1: But you know that perfectionistic brain goes five minutes also
Speaker 1: going to do anything. And if I can shut that
Speaker 1: up and do it, it's motivating me to do maybe
Speaker 1: five minutes more. You know. It feels good, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: And and that's I mean, perfectionism and anxiety are very
Speaker 1: very connected as well. I mean every single client I
Speaker 1: work with, am I in my UM practice and people
Speaker 1: I've talked to in my d M s UM, perfectionism
Speaker 1: is huge. And I think what what it comes down
Speaker 1: to is so in the CBT world, UM, we talk
Speaker 1: a lot about something called core beliefs, and essentially they're
Speaker 1: just these like beliefs that we have about ourselves that
Speaker 1: kind of create our world view and how we see
Speaker 1: and perceive the world, and they're very, very deep rooted,
Speaker 1: so it's difficult. It's way more difficult to change those
Speaker 1: core beliefs than it is to kind of challenge a
Speaker 1: thought right or reframe a thought like that's that's easier
Speaker 1: to try and do those exercises, but when it comes
Speaker 1: down to these core beliefs, it is really hard to
Speaker 1: change them. But it's not impossible, and it's one a
Speaker 1: thousand percent. You know, in recovery, you can do it. Um.
Speaker 1: I For me, I I thrived when I was with
Speaker 1: a professional and helping me with this. But I would
Speaker 1: say that's the core beliefs for people with anxiety. I
Speaker 1: would say, like the number one this is not based
Speaker 1: on my research, but that I've heard over and over
Speaker 1: again and with myself is feeling like you're not good enough.
Speaker 1: And so with perfectionism comes this belief about yourself. A
Speaker 1: lot of times it's like I'm not doing enough, I'm
Speaker 1: not good enough. Um you know, I just did a
Speaker 1: post on my Instagram about this today, about feeling like
Speaker 1: you're it's so easy to compare yourself to other people
Speaker 1: now with social media and we didn't have that back
Speaker 1: when we were younger. I mean it was kind of nice.
Speaker 1: This is the one part I was happy about during
Speaker 1: my bullying thing. I could actually go home from school
Speaker 1: and not have to I couldn't escape it. I didn't
Speaker 1: have social media, and I that saved me. I feel
Speaker 1: like being able to not see those kids are here
Speaker 1: or nothing. They weren't able to do anything besides school,
Speaker 1: and so being able to but I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: contributed to my belief about myself is like why am
Speaker 1: I not enough? Why are these people saying these things
Speaker 1: about me? So the perfectionism is real and being able
Speaker 1: to tap into that belief and understand like where does
Speaker 1: that come from? And am I really not enough? But
Speaker 1: what makes me enough? You know? And that comes that
Speaker 1: there comes a self love and a self compassion piece, Like,
Speaker 1: there's so many different parts of who I am, and
Speaker 1: anxiety is one piece and that makes me feel damaged sometimes,
Speaker 1: but there's so many other wonderful parts of myself. What
Speaker 1: are they? You know? Are they really things that? And
Speaker 1: sometimes when you're first starting this work, you're just like
Speaker 1: I don't think I have any parts of my and
Speaker 1: you're just like, um, okay, we let's think about what
Speaker 1: do you do in your life, what do you like
Speaker 1: to do? And then you kind of talk about it
Speaker 1: and you just learned to love yourself more. We'll continue
Speaker 1: the interview on the flip side of a quick message
Speaker 1: from our sponsors. I don't think my anxiety got manageable
Speaker 1: or better or dissipated until I truly loved myself. And
Speaker 1: I wish I could tell people how I did it,
Speaker 1: but it just was over years and years of work,
Speaker 1: and I didn't even know I didn't love myself because
Speaker 1: I you know, it's hard to explain what that feels like, right,
Speaker 1: But it was more like my life was more chaotic
Speaker 1: when I did, And I don't know how to put it,
Speaker 1: you know, yes, sure, yeah, And so I think that
Speaker 1: for anxiety, it's it's like for people that can't begin
Speaker 1: to do the littlest thing to alleviate symptoms, I always
Speaker 1: suspect somewhere in their mind is a belief you you
Speaker 1: have it worse than anyone, you can't get better, which,
Speaker 1: then under that is like, you know, what do you
Speaker 1: even deserve to feel better for? You know? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean there's almost there's also so much shame because
Speaker 1: there's still stigma associated with mental health in our country.
Speaker 1: I mean, and let's not even talk about other countries
Speaker 1: that don't even some of them don't even have mental
Speaker 1: health resources. They don't even really believe in psychology, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's UM which is why I actually love
Speaker 1: my platform because Instagram is like, sometimes I'll get messages
Speaker 1: from people in India or other other countries that have
Speaker 1: no access to therapy or resources and the only education
Speaker 1: they're getting is Instagram my page. And you know, I wonder,
Speaker 1: how like I just think about how amazing that is
Speaker 1: that they can actually get information, at least if they
Speaker 1: can't have access to it. I was interviewing UM, this
Speaker 1: woman named Dr Nina Vassin, who is a She works
Speaker 1: at Stanford University and she teaches kind of young entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: how to create things that will help in the anxiety space.
Speaker 1: Because there's some statistic I'm gonna get it wrong, but
Speaker 1: it's it's out there on the previous episode that of
Speaker 1: all the millions and billions of people that have enough
Speaker 1: anxiety to warrant help, there just aren't enough therapists. And
Speaker 1: so things like your Instagram page and things like your
Speaker 1: book or even this podcast or whatever can help people
Speaker 1: because it's not like you do nothing or you go
Speaker 1: to therapy. There's those little breadcrumbs along the way, like
Speaker 1: someone can pick up your book and they can learn
Speaker 1: to rate their anxiety. They can learn rectangle breathing. That's
Speaker 1: going to alleviate things. It will change their anxiety, They'll
Speaker 1: have a little more self esteem, they'll be able to
Speaker 1: get up and do the next thing. Maybe some people
Speaker 1: don't even need therapy right, Maybe they just need some tools.
Speaker 1: Maybe they'll need therapy later or whatever. But I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm glad to hear doctors and therapists
Speaker 1: saying no, this is good because I'm always afraid, Oh
Speaker 1: my god. You know, I can do a podcast, but anxiety.
Speaker 1: I'm not a therapist. Like, we're not giving therapy, we're
Speaker 1: giving um actual tools that people can use. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like you watch a home improvement show on h
Speaker 1: G TV. No one saying now you're an interior designer.
Speaker 1: They're just saying, here's here's what ship lap is and
Speaker 1: here's how to put it up in your kitchen. Like
Speaker 1: you're allowed to do that even though you're not a
Speaker 1: therapist or a client or patient of one, Like, I
Speaker 1: think that stigma too of like are we allowed to
Speaker 1: do this? You know it always seems like that is
Speaker 1: for the closed doors and laying on a couch and
Speaker 1: and it's liberating too to say we can help each other, right,
Speaker 1: totally it is. And it's so great now that you know,
Speaker 1: this is the upside of social media. Right. I talked
Speaker 1: about a lot of the pros and kinds of it,
Speaker 1: but being able to work with people like you, right,
Speaker 1: and we can work together, I mean, and I think
Speaker 1: it's so wonderful that I've been able to meet so
Speaker 1: many different people that aren't just I. Not not just
Speaker 1: in the psychology field. I mean I just being able
Speaker 1: to end the stigma for mental health and raise awareness
Speaker 1: for it, but not being able to yeah, like have
Speaker 1: And it's really about education, right, So we're talked about
Speaker 1: like kind of bringing a full circle. We talked about
Speaker 1: as kids, we didn't our parents didn't have feeling education
Speaker 1: or like and if you think about it, it's no
Speaker 1: one's fault, right, Like it's a generational thing. Like their parents, Um,
Speaker 1: their parents were just trying to survive. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was like the Great Depression, right, No one's thinking about
Speaker 1: like how you're feeling there just trying to eat every day,
Speaker 1: but we're just learning that feelings education is so important,
Speaker 1: which is why I was a school counselor for a
Speaker 1: little while before I went into my private practice and
Speaker 1: as an elementary school counselor. Now, the guidance counselors go
Speaker 1: into the classrooms and they have guidance lessons, which I
Speaker 1: think started maybe ten years ago. Yeah, so and I've
Speaker 1: done a number of them. Go into the classrooms and
Speaker 1: you have a you know, a lesson about feelings and
Speaker 1: about anger management and social skills and yeah, and the
Speaker 1: guidance counselors. I don't know in every single state, I
Speaker 1: know just prefen Sylvania. Well I'm sure, yeah, but the
Speaker 1: curriculum now definitely includes social emotional learning and a lot
Speaker 1: of elementary schools which that was never a saying like
Speaker 1: we never got social emotional learner. Can I tell you
Speaker 1: in my other career as a comedian, I have a
Speaker 1: bit about being bullied that I managed to make funny
Speaker 1: and I finally struck back at the bullies one day
Speaker 1: physically and I got in trouble for beating up a
Speaker 1: boy with a hockey sta M hmm, look at you
Speaker 1: that I had to go to anger management. They told
Speaker 1: me boys would be boys. I had to go to
Speaker 1: anger management. And I always joke, you don't know the
Speaker 1: guidance counselor is there until you have to go see her.
Speaker 1: And it's not the nurse's office. That's socially acceptable to
Speaker 1: go lay down if you feel sick, but the guidance
Speaker 1: counselor's office is like there's another door that you go
Speaker 1: through the nurse's office, open the door to the guidance counselor.
Speaker 1: She's like in some nether world and like you know,
Speaker 1: she sits there and it's like you're the weirdo if
Speaker 1: you go to the guidance counselor. And and that was
Speaker 1: me and I remember, like, you know, I loved it
Speaker 1: because I was like, yeah, I'm gonna chill and talk
Speaker 1: to the guidance counselor. You know, I thought it was fun.
Speaker 1: But it was like you know that now even now
Speaker 1: you're even more stigmatized. First of all, you're the bullied person.
Speaker 1: Now you're the person that talks to the guidance counselor.
Speaker 1: Like so the fact that now the guidance counselor is
Speaker 1: coming out from behind her office and it's so great.
Speaker 1: Both so great. Yes, I mean I don't remember when
Speaker 1: I was in schools and this was just like seven
Speaker 1: eight years ago. Still like kids will come into my
Speaker 1: office even though they knew me I was around. I
Speaker 1: was not just in my office, but they came into
Speaker 1: my office and sometimes asked me, you know, am I
Speaker 1: in trouble, which is just so telling about still talking
Speaker 1: about things openly, right, It's it's not you're not in trouble.
Speaker 1: You know, talking about feelings is healthy, and then you know,
Speaker 1: teaching them that it's okay. I mean again, there's still
Speaker 1: a stigma. There's still a lot of cultures in the
Speaker 1: US and a lot of family dynamics that talking openly
Speaker 1: about feelings makes you weak, right, that there's this idea
Speaker 1: that it makes you weak or um, you're just fine, right,
Speaker 1: Like I grew up with parents that definitely I had
Speaker 1: a lot of strong emotions. It's like you're fine, You're fine,
Speaker 1: very dismissive, right, not validating. So yeah, it's kind of
Speaker 1: just letting the kids understand that it's okay not to
Speaker 1: be okay. Yeah, Well, you know, it's funny when when
Speaker 1: I took that fear flying course. The panic was so
Speaker 1: intense I couldn't drive to the airport myself because once
Speaker 1: I saw the signs of the little pictures of the plane,
Speaker 1: I'm full body shaking. I would have crashed the park.
Speaker 1: So my dad drove me, and my dad's born and
Speaker 1: there's therapy, you know, and he sat in on the
Speaker 1: class and he look I could see him coming to life.
Speaker 1: He'd never seen coping mac and he loved it. And
Speaker 1: I just saw his world open up where I really
Speaker 1: think he got a lot out of it. We never
Speaker 1: really discussed it, but when I would do the progressive
Speaker 1: muscle relaxation, he would join me in it. Um when
Speaker 1: I played my little tapes and yes they were literally tapes.
Speaker 1: And I think it's so important that like my parents
Speaker 1: never I don't know where they got this instinct, because
Speaker 1: again they did not have learning about this when they
Speaker 1: were growing up. But I think they appreciated that even
Speaker 1: though I feel like looking back on my life, nobody
Speaker 1: was talking about it, was a little more than in
Speaker 1: their lifetime, and so they were really supportive and they
Speaker 1: did the progressive muscle relaxed Nation with me because they
Speaker 1: thought it was fun. And like everyone should do it,
Speaker 1: even if you've never been anxious in your life. And
Speaker 1: so I feel like a lot of times parents will
Speaker 1: write me and I'm like, okay, shit is bad if
Speaker 1: you're writing a comedian with a podcast, it was no.
Speaker 1: Kids like, I don't mean sh it's bad in your life.
Speaker 1: I mean ship's bad out there. I mean yeah, And
Speaker 1: I'm like all I can tell them is like what
Speaker 1: my parents did, which is just they didn't have to
Speaker 1: do too much to normalize it. They just had to
Speaker 1: join in and make it seem like, hey, this is
Speaker 1: kind of fun, Like this is a good life skill
Speaker 1: anybody should have, you know, Like that's that makes a
Speaker 1: huge difference. I think I love that you said that,
Speaker 1: because you know, when a child comes into my office, right,
Speaker 1: the parents are bringing them into my office, and um,
Speaker 1: it used to be more often like this, but not
Speaker 1: so much anymore, which is good. But the parents would
Speaker 1: think they would just drop off the child and I
Speaker 1: would work with the child and they picked them up
Speaker 1: like they just wouldn't have like they're taking a piano
Speaker 1: lesson or something. They don't have to be involved in
Speaker 1: that because they don't know about yeah, right, And I'm
Speaker 1: like and I so my first session is always with
Speaker 1: just the parents, not even a child yet, and giving
Speaker 1: them education about like how the process works and that
Speaker 1: we're trying to change a dynamic of what's going on,
Speaker 1: and not to say anything. A lot of parents I
Speaker 1: think to just take on so much blame themselves, and
Speaker 1: it's really nothing. The parents do the best that they
Speaker 1: can with the tools that they know because they didn't
Speaker 1: get tools from their parents. Like it's nobody's fault. It's
Speaker 1: very generational. It's just about learning and a lot of
Speaker 1: thank goodness. So many parents I work with are so
Speaker 1: open to learning how to help their children. And that's
Speaker 1: when sometimes will be in the room together and we'll
Speaker 1: all do a feeling's education exercise together. Right, I'll hold
Speaker 1: up the sign, I'll say, you know, to the dead,
Speaker 1: can you say a nice statement with how you're feeling
Speaker 1: right now? And they'll go around and it's so nice
Speaker 1: to see the child they're like staring at the parents
Speaker 1: and they're so it's so excited to see their parents
Speaker 1: talking about openly about that and they're just like, wow,
Speaker 1: you feel like that. It's so cute. And it is
Speaker 1: more about just changing the dynamic anxiety bites will be
Speaker 1: right back after a quick little message from one of
Speaker 1: our sponsors. So what I love about your book is
Speaker 1: how many things you have that are backed by science.
Speaker 1: But I call them the fun things because they're what
Speaker 1: I do for fun. Um affirmations, vision boards, yourself, soothing box,
Speaker 1: tagging yourself in the mirror. And I know, if I'm
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast, I always try to jump into
Speaker 1: the listener's head. I think it's the comedian and me.
Speaker 1: I'm coming out on stage. I'm like, already know what
Speaker 1: you're gonna say. You're gonna hackle me this, but I
Speaker 1: hear everyone, but I don't want to do all this.
Speaker 1: You know, visions and this and that's cheesy. And it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's cheesy, but maybe it works. And
Speaker 1: I love this as I keep calling it stuff. You
Speaker 1: talk about visualizations and you know again. On another episode,
Speaker 1: I talked to Whitney Goodman, the author talks of positivity,
Speaker 1: and we were talking about when things like the secret
Speaker 1: get all twisted in our society and we have people
Speaker 1: trying to manifest a car or a house and then
Speaker 1: it doesn't work and they blame themselves and that's not
Speaker 1: what you're talking about with your visualizations, it's more, uh,
Speaker 1: tell me the tell me the science backed, and like
Speaker 1: why visualizing what you want is okay to do? Yes.
Speaker 1: So I do believe that for some people it's wonderful,
Speaker 1: and I think that it is great for for motivation.
Speaker 1: It's very good like motivation for some people that I
Speaker 1: think are in a stable place. But there's a lot
Speaker 1: of days I feel really unstable and I'm not just
Speaker 1: gonna like lay down and be like I want you know,
Speaker 1: I want fifty new followers by tomorrow, l and I'm
Speaker 1: going to manafact Like now, I'm actually feeling really down
Speaker 1: and having imposter syndrome right now, So let's think about this.
Speaker 1: So it's more I think that's the thing about visualization.
Speaker 1: It's more of like validating for yourself. It's not going
Speaker 1: to like right, it's you. You want to validate where
Speaker 1: you are in that moment and what's going on. And
Speaker 1: maybe you are sad or maybe you're scared or worried
Speaker 1: about something and your brain is taking it to a
Speaker 1: dark place. So a lot of times your brain take
Speaker 1: and that's what anxiety does. Right. Your anxiety is like
Speaker 1: your reactive brain and it's just going to react to
Speaker 1: something you're triggered by, and it's going to take you
Speaker 1: to a dark place. Sometimes it can make you start spiraling.
Speaker 1: Like you said, you're what if thoughts. That's like for
Speaker 1: me to what if thoughts right and just starts spiraling.
Speaker 1: And by rating yourself right, by really gaining more control
Speaker 1: over your body and like how you you can rate yourself,
Speaker 1: you can decide to really shift what's going on in
Speaker 1: your mind at that moment. Right, and you do have
Speaker 1: these thoughts, you want to become more of an observer
Speaker 1: of them and recognize that your thoughts don't have power, right.
Speaker 1: Your thoughts are just thoughts. They seem scary, your anxiety
Speaker 1: is trying to make you think they're scary, but they're
Speaker 1: really just thoughts. You don't really know what's going to
Speaker 1: happen in five minutes from now, five years from now.
Speaker 1: You just need to be in the present moment. So
Speaker 1: that's what a visualization exercise really doesn't. Everything in my
Speaker 1: book is training the brain to be in the moment,
Speaker 1: in the present moment. They are more of like what
Speaker 1: we call guided imagery. If you've ever heard like a
Speaker 1: guided imagery. Yeah, for example, I said insight time or before.
Speaker 1: They have something called sleep stories, So if you ever
Speaker 1: struggle with nighttime anxiety. The sleep stories are basically like
Speaker 1: a deep meditation, but they use your your imagination to
Speaker 1: to listen to a story someone is telling with a
Speaker 1: very calm voice, is telling you a story. Um, that's
Speaker 1: very descriptive. I've listened to these, by the way, Like
Speaker 1: what I love about them is they're low key boring,
Speaker 1: but in the best of ways. It's like the story
Speaker 1: of the Man in the Castle and it's like, I
Speaker 1: don't the man never even gets into the damn castle,
Speaker 1: and I'm asleep because it's like he is walking on
Speaker 1: the grass. It's so mindful, right, Yeah, So I I
Speaker 1: listened to one about like a lilac field or something,
Speaker 1: or it's about a flower field. And the reason it's
Speaker 1: so effective is because the person is is literally describing
Speaker 1: and using all of the senses to describe what this
Speaker 1: place is like, like how it smells, how it looks,
Speaker 1: how it feels. And that's a huge exercise I write
Speaker 1: about in the book multiple times, is using our sense
Speaker 1: of senses when we're in the middle of a panic
Speaker 1: attack to recognize what you see around you. Like describe
Speaker 1: the color and the texture, like what you can feel
Speaker 1: around you, what you can hear, and that brings you
Speaker 1: back to the present moment. That is one of the
Speaker 1: most effective exercises. But that's what visualizations do and the
Speaker 1: sleep stories do as well. Is it gives you this
Speaker 1: image of this calm space. And as quickly as our
Speaker 1: brain can imagine a dangerous place like anxiety, right our
Speaker 1: brain can just make up that we're scared right now,
Speaker 1: that's something Dad's going to happen. Our brain can also
Speaker 1: reverse that by using these exercises and and remembering that
Speaker 1: we're safe right now and we're in you know, we
Speaker 1: can imagine ourselves in these safe places and our body
Speaker 1: response to that, and I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: things that go, well, I've got to imagine the worst
Speaker 1: case because that's how I stay safe. And it's like, no,
Speaker 1: you don't. You don't again, only if the bear is
Speaker 1: actually there. But yeah, it's it's funny. So you're bringing
Speaker 1: up something for me that I never realized the sleep
Speaker 1: stories were about, which is it's not that they're boring
Speaker 1: you to sleep, it's that you're using You're you're just
Speaker 1: letting someone tell you what to think. You're using your
Speaker 1: imagination and oddly it doesn't stimulate your brain to keep
Speaker 1: you awake. I don't know how that works. It's kind
Speaker 1: of magic. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's basically tapping into
Speaker 1: a different part of the brain, right, it's and and
Speaker 1: it's it's activating that part of your body, right, the
Speaker 1: rest and digest part by creating this image in your
Speaker 1: mind that is complete like serene, right, and and calming. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously everybody has different traumas. So like if you something
Speaker 1: happened to you on a beach, don't listen to a beach.
Speaker 1: You know, if you've been bitten by shark, please turn
Speaker 1: off the beach. Maybe the beach wouldn't be the best place.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, But that's why this book
Speaker 1: is about creating your own toolkit. Right, You're not going
Speaker 1: to put like the beach visualization I have in my toolkit.
Speaker 1: I love um three visualization exercises that I write in
Speaker 1: the book is called my happy Place, the serene beach
Speaker 1: scene in private garden. Like I love nature, so like
Speaker 1: nature for me is always healing. So whatever I can
Speaker 1: do to imagine myself in some type of nature outside
Speaker 1: is going to be in my toolkit. Other people might
Speaker 1: be like, no, I want to be, you know, in
Speaker 1: my bed. It's just about figuring out what works for
Speaker 1: you. You You talk about distraction, and you offer short term
Speaker 1: distraction solutions for um, you know when you're anxious, and
Speaker 1: of course you know, we always hear I feel your
Speaker 1: feelings don't distract. But you're not saying that. You're just saying,
Speaker 1: like in the moment, right, what what is a distraction technique? Um?
Speaker 1: And people listening might go, I'm not supposed to distract.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by them? Okay? So this and
Speaker 1: I explained this kind of in the first part of
Speaker 1: the chapter. So, um, you can read more information about
Speaker 1: why this is effective. But in the short of it,
Speaker 1: if you are finding that you're rating is going up
Speaker 1: to like a five or six, right, we want to
Speaker 1: get in. We want to stay in that like below
Speaker 1: five range, that's like ideal you're anxious reading of one
Speaker 1: to ten. Okay, yeah, yes, yes, um, that's ideal. So
Speaker 1: if you find yourself like getting closer four or five,
Speaker 1: you know, all that using a distraction technique, Like for me,
Speaker 1: I love I'll watch a certain TV show I'll watch
Speaker 1: like The Office and it completely gets my mind out
Speaker 1: of something or a movie, or I'll do like a
Speaker 1: game distract game on my phone, I'll do an app
Speaker 1: um and that is in and of itself, it helps
Speaker 1: me physically. It helps my body not to respond physically,
Speaker 1: so I want my brain is starting to literally go
Speaker 1: to a place that's going darker and saying, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm scared. I'm feeling anxious. I'm getting scared what's going on.
Speaker 1: Everything's gonna start spiraling. Being able to just distract myself
Speaker 1: quickly and know that, yes, now, I know this already
Speaker 1: that it's not a long term solution, right, Like distraction
Speaker 1: ideas are not long term solutions. So in my mind
Speaker 1: I already know that, right I have this tool kit,
Speaker 1: Like I know that when I put on the office,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying, oh good, I'm gonna not be anxious
Speaker 1: at all. Ever again, I'm trying to regulate my nervous
Speaker 1: system right now, and I need to kind of like focus.
Speaker 1: Or another one is I'll get up and I'll walk,
Speaker 1: I'll take I'll move my body and I'll get up
Speaker 1: and I'll go into a different room or take a
Speaker 1: walk outside. And it's all about just gregg elating my
Speaker 1: nervous system. So these this is another way of just
Speaker 1: helping your sympathetic nervous system not explode. And then as
Speaker 1: you're as you know, your body is getting um a
Speaker 1: little bit more calmer. Maybe you're into these shows, then
Speaker 1: you can do some of these other exercises. Right you're
Speaker 1: more like, okay, now, I kind of think I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm ready for a meditation now. Yeah, So that
Speaker 1: makes sense because I have a little like tool kit
Speaker 1: that I bring on planes, um that I don't do
Speaker 1: so much anymore because I really don't have the phobia
Speaker 1: as much. But there are times when I've taken a
Speaker 1: fashion magazine, I just looked at pictures and just distracted
Speaker 1: myself to get down to a level where I'm no
Speaker 1: longer about to go full blown panic. Then then I
Speaker 1: can think about it. Then I can breathe if I want.
Speaker 1: That's really what it is, because your brain, as you
Speaker 1: start to get to a more panic attack mode, your
Speaker 1: brain is not thinking rationally. So you might not be thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to try this breath exercise right now. You're
Speaker 1: just thinking, oh my gosh, something's going to happen. Something
Speaker 1: I'm scared. I'm really scared right now. And if you can,
Speaker 1: if you can find what works for you to kind
Speaker 1: of just distract you from that for a little while
Speaker 1: and then recognize, Okay, my body is like at a balance,
Speaker 1: stayed again for the most part. But I know, obviously
Speaker 1: I need to, like I'm still there's still something that's
Speaker 1: making me feel uncomfortable. So let's like figure out how
Speaker 1: we can what else we can do. So, no, it's
Speaker 1: not a long term solution. We'll be right back. I'm
Speaker 1: going to utilize the fact that you're a therapist and
Speaker 1: you're gonna give me like a mini session. You talk
Speaker 1: about making vision boards in your book. Now, this is
Speaker 1: something I used to do all the time. I'm living
Speaker 1: in New York right now. In my apartment there's really
Speaker 1: really small, and I I love making a vision board,
Speaker 1: but I think, well, I don't want to hang it up.
Speaker 1: It's too small in here, and I don't want to
Speaker 1: put in the closet and then take it out. So
Speaker 1: I get the perfectionism. I don't want to do it.
Speaker 1: So then I go, okay, well, you know, maybe make
Speaker 1: an online vision board. And I've googled online vision board
Speaker 1: websites I have two apps, and I won't do them
Speaker 1: because I'm like, it doesn't count to do it on
Speaker 1: the phone. So now I can't do it because I
Speaker 1: don't want to do one visually like physically, and I
Speaker 1: don't think it counts on the app, And all day
Speaker 1: long I think I'd like to make a vision board.
Speaker 1: So what do we do here? What is the importance
Speaker 1: of doing one for you? Why is this so important?
Speaker 1: Because I do like the idea of getting the thoughts
Speaker 1: out of my head and somewhere I can see them.
Speaker 1: And I do have like goal and dreams like lists
Speaker 1: that I make, but that's not working for me. I
Speaker 1: want to see it in pictures. And I also just
Speaker 1: want to do it because I just I feel like
Speaker 1: why not. It's like an untapped thing and like maybe
Speaker 1: all something will come of it. I don't know what
Speaker 1: will come it, like if if the actual goal will
Speaker 1: come true, or I'll just learn something about myself. But
Speaker 1: I feel like something saying, hey, something's gonna shift. And
Speaker 1: I really don't mean like I'm going to manifest, but
Speaker 1: something's gonna shift if you do this, Like but I
Speaker 1: think it sounds like to me because you've said this
Speaker 1: earlier in our conversation that the perfectionist part of you
Speaker 1: is keeping you from starting it, that there's some resistance
Speaker 1: that if you do it the wrong way, then it's
Speaker 1: not going to happen. Right, Oh okay, interesting, Right, If
Speaker 1: I do it the wrong way, it whatever that is,
Speaker 1: it is, whatever you're hoping to get out of, it
Speaker 1: might not happen. So that's where a lot of procrastination
Speaker 1: and avoidance comes in because we're really scared that will
Speaker 1: either fail at it and we don't we'd rather just
Speaker 1: not even know than to try it. So here's another
Speaker 1: exercise for you. If someone, if if like a best
Speaker 1: friend came to you or someone you love came to
Speaker 1: you and said that same exact thing, what kind of
Speaker 1: advice would you give them? I'd probably say it a
Speaker 1: lot differently than like a therapist, but I'd be like,
Speaker 1: just make a fucking vision board. Where do you embarrassed
Speaker 1: to put it up in your kitchen? That's probably what
Speaker 1: it is. You're embarrassed. You're embarrassed that you're in your
Speaker 1: forties and you're making a fucking vision board like you
Speaker 1: did in your twenties. Like, what in your life hasn't
Speaker 1: come true that you need to make a vision board.
Speaker 1: You know. That's well, that's I'd say that to the friend,
Speaker 1: I'd say, that's what you're thinking. But make the Gandham
Speaker 1: vision board. There's it's great, you should make it when
Speaker 1: you're eighty. It's what's wrong with you? You're judging yourself?
Speaker 1: I love that. But can you say that again in
Speaker 1: a more self compassionate way to that person? Well, yes,
Speaker 1: probably because that was so good and very much like
Speaker 1: you learned a lot about yourself just then, right, like
Speaker 1: why am I embarrassed at forty to do this? Like
Speaker 1: there's something in me that feels embarrassed. So what would
Speaker 1: I say to someone? And that's what you really want
Speaker 1: to say to yourself, but in a compassionate way, So
Speaker 1: I'd say, Okay, it's funny because at first I thought
Speaker 1: it was embarrassed to make the vision board and have
Speaker 1: it up just because it looks cheesy. But it's like
Speaker 1: I have so many cheesy things in my apartment that
Speaker 1: makes me happy. Like maybe someone wouldn't the wallpaper I have,
Speaker 1: but to me, I think it's cool. So it's really
Speaker 1: about like, oh, do you still need to do this? Oh?
Speaker 1: Jan you know, and so which nobody would do. Everyone
Speaker 1: I know would be like, I should make one. I
Speaker 1: hang out with people that make vision boards. I don't
Speaker 1: have anyone in my life that would judge that. Um
Speaker 1: So I would say to myself, Yeah, I know, it
Speaker 1: probably feels a little uncomfortable to make a vision board
Speaker 1: because you're saying, but Jen, you're not saying things haven't
Speaker 1: gone right in your life and that you know you
Speaker 1: need to keep doing this. You're you want a big life.
Speaker 1: You have a big life. You keep achieving so much,
Speaker 1: you keep learning and growing and having so many new experiences.
Speaker 1: You're just asking for more. Maybe you will have some
Speaker 1: of the same goals that didn't come true, but maybe
Speaker 1: they're not supposed to yet. But just make a vision board.
Speaker 1: You're just cutting out pictures and put them on a thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's supposed to be fun. Don't don't do
Speaker 1: it unless it's fun. But you're not going to do
Speaker 1: it beating yourself up. Yeah, and you just said you
Speaker 1: said a word and all that. What do you say? Judgment? Judgment?
Speaker 1: So a lot of times you're saying I feel embarrassed.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's probably a part of you that
Speaker 1: feels judged sometimes or you don't want to feel judged
Speaker 1: by other people. But every time that we think about
Speaker 1: being judged from other people, were really judging ourselves. Because
Speaker 1: if we loved who we were and didn't give a
Speaker 1: ship like we don't care, if like five people were
Speaker 1: in the room telling us that we sucked, we wouldn't care.
Speaker 1: So it's really me. I'm judging me because honestly, I
Speaker 1: am the only one that's going to see that vision board.
Speaker 1: If I have some people over, Yeah, I might move
Speaker 1: it in the closet just because it's my private thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe it won't. So who's the big bad wolf in
Speaker 1: this situation? Yeah? You just give yourself some credit because
Speaker 1: you're diving deep into your own psyche right, and your
Speaker 1: worldview about yourself and your and other people and why
Speaker 1: there's certain things that you might choose to do or
Speaker 1: certain environments that make you feel uncomfortable. That's going to
Speaker 1: be really telling if you can have some like for
Speaker 1: everyone going through this journey, being able to have more
Speaker 1: awareness of yourself and your own triggers and your thoughts
Speaker 1: and your feelings and your reactions to things is going
Speaker 1: to be the healthiest place to start. So you're becoming
Speaker 1: more aware of your emotions too. Right, just having this
Speaker 1: short conversation, the feeling word that came up for you
Speaker 1: was embarrassed. Right, So maybe you ask yourself and you
Speaker 1: dive deeper later. Maybe I don't know if you like
Speaker 1: to journal or whatever, but you know, why would I
Speaker 1: feel so embarrassed if somebody saw this? Like, why would
Speaker 1: that even matter to me? Why is the judgment there?
Speaker 1: Like you can ask yourself those questions and dive deeper
Speaker 1: into your own and get more awareness of your your
Speaker 1: own judgment and why that might be happening. Well, this
Speaker 1: is so exciting because I knew I was going to
Speaker 1: ask you this question. I had a feeling where it
Speaker 1: might go, where it's going to be just more about
Speaker 1: procrastination and perfectionism. But I really didn't think that I
Speaker 1: would uncover that I'm judging myself and then I'm embarrassed,
Speaker 1: and then I think it's just like I'm to anyone listening,
Speaker 1: Like this is the fun of therapy. But you can
Speaker 1: also get Allison's book and do exercises like this on
Speaker 1: your own. And like you said, journaling, I like to
Speaker 1: think I love doing it, but man, do I have
Speaker 1: to force myself and then once I'm doing it, I
Speaker 1: love it. It's so it is really hard to start.
Speaker 1: If if anyone listening asn't started yet, I can definitely
Speaker 1: And that's why Actually my chapter that's dedicated to journaling,
Speaker 1: I have like I don't know, over a hundred prompts
Speaker 1: to use that actually will prompt you into whatever type
Speaker 1: of anxiety or having or what part of your life
Speaker 1: you're feeling like is lacking, because I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people with anxiety like direction and structure. So sometimes
Speaker 1: just saying okay, go journal, you're just like, Okay, what
Speaker 1: am I writing about? Thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: onto my podcast. I mean, if you take one thing
Speaker 1: on your plane ride with you, or if you're afraid
Speaker 1: to fly, if you just start here, I keep holding
Speaker 1: it up. I'll no one is looking at this. No,
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. I know you keep voting it up.
Speaker 1: And I love that when you held it up you
Speaker 1: have um like post it notes on different pages, because
Speaker 1: that's what people have been telling me. They've been putting
Speaker 1: different um post it's and just so they can flip
Speaker 1: through to the page that they need. And my whole
Speaker 1: you know, talking to my publisher initially, the whole um.
Speaker 1: You know, vision I had for this book was to
Speaker 1: make it portable where like you take it with you,
Speaker 1: like you take it with you wherever you are, and
Speaker 1: you you know, bookmark those pages and so that almost
Speaker 1: can make people feel safe in and of itself, just
Speaker 1: to have the book with them. Absolutely. Um. I know
Speaker 1: for sure when I have objects with me that have
Speaker 1: information I need, it does make me feel safe, especially
Speaker 1: when you bookmark something, because it means I've been here
Speaker 1: before and I got through it all right. Who's going
Speaker 1: to make a vision board with me? If you make
Speaker 1: a vision board, will you send me a photo of it?
Speaker 1: You can tag me on Twitter at Jen Kirkman or
Speaker 1: on Instagram in the stories at Jen Kirkman, or email
Speaker 1: me Anxiety Bites weekly at gmail dot com. Show me
Speaker 1: your vision boards. I actually I told Alison that in
Speaker 1: the wrap up to this episode I would give my
Speaker 1: progress report. But I tend to record a lot of
Speaker 1: these intros and outros a few weeks before each episode,
Speaker 1: so I am coming to you from the past as
Speaker 1: I talk. I've probably made some of my vision board already.
Speaker 1: I did today by poster board, and I bought I
Speaker 1: bought a huge one I mean, I've made vision boards
Speaker 1: in the past. I think this might be the biggest
Speaker 1: amount of poster board I've ever purchased. It's a huge,
Speaker 1: huge size. So I've got a lot of visions and
Speaker 1: I've got magazines. I've got glue, all kinds of I
Speaker 1: really went nuts on the glue, all different kinds. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm going to be in the mood
Speaker 1: for like an Elmer's kind of paint, rubber glue. I've
Speaker 1: got the stick glue, I've got a spray glue. Will
Speaker 1: just say no, you will see what mood I'm in,
Speaker 1: but I'll keep you updated on my vision board. But
Speaker 1: I will be doing it. She really did. In that
Speaker 1: quick little mini therapy session. She made me realize that
Speaker 1: I was just in full self judgment and I'm really
Speaker 1: only holding myself back from having an experience by judging myself.
Speaker 1: Now again, am I going to make the vision board
Speaker 1: and all my dreams are going to come true? Uh?
Speaker 1: Probably not? Maybe not maybe. But the point is it's
Speaker 1: not that I'm missing out on all my dreams coming
Speaker 1: true if I don't make a vision board. It's just
Speaker 1: that I'm missing out on doing an activity one day
Speaker 1: for no good reason. You know, it's not dangerous, it
Speaker 1: doesn't harm myself for others, and it's something I want
Speaker 1: to do. The only reason I'm not doing it is
Speaker 1: from a completely judgmental place and a place that is
Speaker 1: not really from a place of self love or compassion.
Speaker 1: So there's no reason to stay in avoidance of it
Speaker 1: because I might feel a little embarrassed. Maybe that embarrassment
Speaker 1: about making the vision board will be instructive in some way.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll learn something from it, Maybe I'll get an
Speaker 1: interesting story out of it. Who knows, or maybe nothing
Speaker 1: I'll feel embarrassed in. It will pass because everything passes, right.
Speaker 1: So anyway, let's do the takeaways from my conversation with Alison.
Speaker 1: And again these are always up on my website, Jen
Speaker 1: Kirkman dot com click anxiety bites, but the link is
Speaker 1: right there in the show notes and so you can
Speaker 1: read these, print them out, whatever you do, send them
Speaker 1: to a friend. So here are the takeaways from my
Speaker 1: chat with Allison. Anxiety and depression are very much connected.
Speaker 1: Even though the symptoms look very different, the thoughts of
Speaker 1: an anxious or depressed person very similar. The word trauma
Speaker 1: doesn't always have to stand for a major catastrophe or abuse.
Speaker 1: There are small T traumas that happened to us in
Speaker 1: childhood a k a. Only that stick with us. Because
Speaker 1: children don't have language yet to express their feelings, their
Speaker 1: anxiety is somatic for for them, which means in their body.
Speaker 1: If you're not taught as a child how to face
Speaker 1: a feeling by putting a word to it and saying
Speaker 1: I feel, you are not going to just automatically know
Speaker 1: how to do that when you become an adult. Part
Speaker 1: of the journey of mental health is really learning to
Speaker 1: love who you are. Caregivers and parents may be wonderful,
Speaker 1: but they can't protect their children from everything in the world,
Speaker 1: and some children can feel anxiety because seeing their caregivers
Speaker 1: or parents not know how to protect them makes them
Speaker 1: feel out of control. But it's a normal part of development.
Speaker 1: An example of a little T trauma is like that
Speaker 1: feeling of loss and control but not knowing how to
Speaker 1: regulate yourself, meaning you don't know how to go from
Speaker 1: the sympathetic nervous system and overdrive fight or flight to
Speaker 1: letting the parasympathetic nervous system take over, rest and digest.
Speaker 1: People with anxiety should create a tool kit of strategies, exercises,
Speaker 1: coping tools that help regulate the nervous system. It can
Speaker 1: be breathing exercises, yoga, meditation, listening to a podcast, listening
Speaker 1: to an app, et cetera. Having an anxiety tool kit
Speaker 1: is a daily practice. It's very difficult to just stop
Speaker 1: a panic attack with a breathing exercise when you're in
Speaker 1: the middle of one if you're not practicing those breathing
Speaker 1: exercises every day when you're not feeling anxious or panicked.
Speaker 1: One part of mastering anxiety is through cognitive behavior therapy,
Speaker 1: and that just means understanding your intrusive thought patterns, what
Speaker 1: thoughts are irrational, and how to challenge those thoughts while
Speaker 1: finding compassion for yourself in the process. Reading how anxious
Speaker 1: you are on a scale of one to ten, one
Speaker 1: being the most calm, ten the most scared and anxious
Speaker 1: you've ever felt. Doing this every day is a good
Speaker 1: way to get to know your anxiety patterns. Check out
Speaker 1: the Insight timer. That's an app. It's a great resource
Speaker 1: for free guided meditations and other things. Allison sees that
Speaker 1: most of her clients and patients who suffered from anxiety
Speaker 1: tend to suffer from the disease of perfectionism. In cognitive
Speaker 1: behavioral therapy, there's something called core beliefs. So these are
Speaker 1: beliefs that we have about ourselves. They create our worldview,
Speaker 1: how we see and perceive the world, and they're very
Speaker 1: deep rooted, and it can be more difficult to challenge
Speaker 1: our core beliefs than it is to challenge a thought
Speaker 1: or to reframe a thought. A common core belief of
Speaker 1: anxious people is that they're not quote good enough. Practicing
Speaker 1: visualization is a way to train the brain to be
Speaker 1: in the present moment, get away from what if thoughts.
Speaker 1: For example, guided imagery is a really good practice for this.
Speaker 1: For people with trouble sleeping, Allison recommends listening to sleep stories.
Speaker 1: It's where someone with a calm voice tells you a
Speaker 1: very descriptive story and you follow along in your mind,
Speaker 1: and it helps your mind tap into that rest and
Speaker 1: digest parasympathetic response. And trust me, I have listened to
Speaker 1: these and I am passed out within usually seven minutes.
Speaker 1: I call them boring. Alison, of course, has a more
Speaker 1: scientific way of putting it anyway. In a moment of
Speaker 1: high anxiety, using distraction techniques, like watching a favorite TV show,
Speaker 1: listening to music, looking at a magazine. It can be
Speaker 1: a good way to calm you down enough so that
Speaker 1: you can then get into a breathing exercise or meditation
Speaker 1: that gets you to regulate your sympathetic nervous system. Notice
Speaker 1: the way you talk to yourself and ask yourself if
Speaker 1: you talk to a friend this way. And finally, don't
Speaker 1: judge yourself about making a vision board. Again, thank you
Speaker 1: for listening. Rate the podcast five stars on Spotify or
Speaker 1: Apple podcast. Those are the places that allow you to
Speaker 1: leave podcast reviews, tell a friend about the show, and again,
Speaker 1: remember anxiety fights, but you're in control. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.