Harvard Professor Says THIS Is the Secret to Success (It’s Not What You Think)
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Hey, it's your friend mal. And welcome to the mall Robin's podcast oh, why you're going so excited. You too in today.

I am doubly excited for today's conversation with you. W, is that even a word double? Excited double? I, I don't even know who cares. We're going to use IT today. I'm doubly excited because I know I am going to get so much out of this selfishly.

Look, i'm always looking out for you, but when I also get doubling the impact, because I need the punch in the face of topic, wow, do we have a duy? What is the topic when I talk about? Well, it's something that you and I do.

In fact, every human being does this. And I don't think i've ever heard anybody talk about IT in this manner before. That's why i'm doubly excited for the expert that we've got on today. We have the world's leading expert on the topic of avoidance. Avoidance, the healthy avoiding smell.

I know, have you ever even thought about IT? I bet you heaven, because until I read doctor luana Marks's new book, bold moves, I hadn't thought about how much I avoid things in life. I mean, holy qua oi, I don't only have a habit of avoiding things that feel hard. Avoidance is everywhere in my life, and I bet it's everywhere in your life. IT is so sneaky how this creep in.

And next thing you know, you're avoiding responding to an email because the email is confronting or avoiding dealing with your bills or you're avoiding having that hard conversation or maybe you're avoiding something really big like that break up or the talk or going to get that diagnosis that you're scared about. Well, what doctor markets is here to tell you is that avoidance is robbing you and the people that you care about of all the magic that you're capable of experiencing in your life. And we ve got to stop doing IT today, and you want to know what else you need to do today.

You have listen all the way to the end. Because in the last episode we rolled out blueberry for the first time, something i'd been thinking about but avoiding doing. You went crazy for our first ever bleepers at the end of the show.

So we're going to do IT again today. So listen all the way to the end. And you're gonna love doctor levana SHE went from being poverty stricken in brazil to becoming a professor, psychiatry, harvard.

He is also on the clinical staff at mass general, which is one of the number one ranked health institutions in the entire world. And today he is. Bring in that world class training to you free of charge.

How cool is that? And he is not going to avoid the hard stuff. She's changed how I think she's highlighted an issue that I didn't even realize was so prevalent in my life.

And the same thing is going to happen for you. Doctor lawana. Welcome to the mall Robin's podcast. Thank you, mom.

So excited to be here with you today. I can even tell you how excited I am.

It's an honor to talk to you. Your work centers around one skill that everybody on the planet needs to learn how to spot and master, what is IT? So my work really .

is about identifying avoidance and overcoming avoidance. That is IT.

Why do we need to do that?

Because avoidance is robbing us for our best life, is keeping us prisoners of our own thinking, in our own behavior. And that keeps us in our own mental jail.

I know that you are a specialist and C, B, T. therapy. We're going to get into that, but I want everybody to hear your background.

Well, you know, it's it's interesting. People comes to me and they say, get rid of my anxiety. But the problem is really not anxiety is what we do, and we are ancient and what we do is we avoid.

And let me tell you that I learned this first when I was like fifteen, and I moved in in with my grandmother. So I live in little city and and the that is in brazil, and I moved in to abilities on you. And I just became terrified of people like my brain, just scream that people, when i'm going to like me, they leave, think i'm different.

They come from a small town that i'm not enough. And so my grandmother, I noticed this share, like White, do you bring friends over? And I like, I just have to study.

I need to really study. And I started to just avoid people, anything related to people. I didn't make friends.

I started to feel lonely. I was really anxious. My brain just was fAiling me.

My grandmother, this woman is incredible, right? He has no college training. SHE doesn't know at that point. C, B, T, was nothing. Gonna behave.

That therapy wasn't really in brazil specifically, the exist SHE when they said to me, luana, let's go to the mall. I I wanted eat at chinese food now, before I move on in my grand there, though, times in our lives that within have food. And so this idea of having chinese food in a big town, my grandma, that was so exciting, I got this little tree.

I still remember red this, my hands like, so excited the chinese, I could smell the chinese food and he said me, do you see that gentleman? They're the elder gentleman. Let's go talk to him and my stomach c male dropped. I was like, no, i'm not talking to him.

What are you talking about? Like, you know that in exciting you take of your stomach just turning and I was like, I can't do this like, I just can't do this and she's like, we're going to talk to him and so we said, and he did all the talking, and at that point I didn't want the chinese food. And you speak clear, I had and and he just kept doing this.

We did IT again and again. I don't remember how many times, but I remember that eventually I could talk to people, and eventually people are not scary anymore. And eventually I made friends, and I realize in graduate school, like later, twenty years later, I realize, and my grandma was going called exposure therapy.

So he realized I was avoiding, right? I was avoiding strangers. And SHE forced me, that I felt, you tell you, that he just helped me approach, but he thought me to go against that avoid and this two goal towards the things that matter.

And i'm telling you shouldn't do that. I probably have developed sociopath bii probably would be stuck in brazil still. And so that's why I think avoidance is sold powerful rubbs us from the lives that we want and the tuna science behind. But I learned from my grandmother.

I have my jaw on the floor. And the reason why is I don't think anybody has really shown the spotlight on the topic of avoids and how it's everywhere in our lives and will dig in to the way that we all avoid. But i'm having this moment i'm going, holy cow.

I remember when berne Brown first gave that ted talk about vulnerability and the whole world was like, what vulnerability is a superpower? The way you just explained avoidance as something that uncomfortable situations trigger and that it's not being anxious or scared, whatever, that's the problem. It's really what we do with IT and avoiding is the main thing we do.

You're right. You know, thank god for grandmother. Let's give her grandmothers and props everybody. Because dragging you to the mall, dana, and not allowing you to avoid other people, because he did that, IT changed the trajectory of your life. You probably wouldn't be where you are today, if not for your grandmother.

And in reading your new book, I was born away by how prevalent avoidance is in everybody's life. I mean, it's just so easy to opt out, to not go, to not try. It's almost like it's your default. And that's .

what we do like. And we do IT all the time. We rationalized to avoid.

No, I am not gonna with this race because, you know, I just haven't worked hard enough or I am not going on this date because, you know, i'm afraid of dating no, no, no, no. And it's everywhere. It's robbing us from our lives.

And no one is talking about what. And i'm so glad that you caught onto that now because that's right. It's what we do. And if what we do is walk away from the things you're uniform, if what we do is avoidance, then we are rub in ourselves from our best lives.

Holy cow, you're absolutely right. There's somebody really close to us and our family who has had this massive uptick of anxiety happen. IT has been so debilitating ating that this person has actually taken an entire week off of work. And i've been thinking that's actually the opposite of what you should do because if you are scared that you're going to have a panic attack at work so you don't go to work, you're making the anxiety bigger than you avoiding that saying makes the fear bigger actually.

right? This is a great test example of this person, because the instinct and biological, literally, right, is to go away.

So can you walk us through this work example so .

you start to worry about having a panic attack? I worked to lots of people that have panic attack. And so you are work. You have this horrible panic attack, and then you're brain, basically. And now we saying, what work can lead panick attack?

I'm gonna stay home. That makes sense though. If I had a panic attack at work I would want to stay home from.

Or two of what you're doing is you're actually training your brain to be scared of work because now you linking work with a panic attack. And let's be honest, there was no link there.

Oh, that's a good point. I see what you're saying. When I have a panic attack at work, I make this mistake where I link the panic attack with the physical location of where I had IT, rather than telling myself that the panic attack is the result of some internal emotional issue that I need to address. IT has nothing to do with work. It's a deeper thing, right?

Can you get that thing come out of the blue? But then if you take a whole week out of work, then what are you doing? You can't avoid for long, right? You going to come out with a baselines because I so high. And now you're only guarantee you gonna have a panic attack at work because you've been so afraid of IT, right? You're inducing that fight.

flight or freeze. So what do you do? Do you just tell the person to get over IT and get back to work?

The opposite of avoidance is approach. Now just do IT the way, like he tells us, right? Doesn't work with exciting.

You can't tell somebody that having panic a text just go work. But can you drive towards work for a week? Kk, i'm with you.

Yeah, okay. I've been in this boat too. I've actually had the anxiety so bad that IT built and built and built and built up inside me when I was a second year lost student, that I convinced myself that there was no way that I could get on a plane and go to Albertino, mexico, where I had landed a summer job and be able to live and work on my own.

And I talk about avoidance. I called that law firm and told them that I D had a family emergency and I had to not calm. This was two days before I was supposed to get on the plane.

And so I have done this over and over and over and over again in my life. You're right, you do link up. If I just don't do IT, then i'm gonna OK, but you actually make IT worse.

I wish I knew you then because, see, there's two pieces of of avoiding dance that we are talking about. The first one is the perception of threats, right? You flow many times before in your life, but now you bring convinced you that that flight was a threat. I perceive threats not a real .

perception, right? So that's the first piece, is the perception of the threat. And when I think about IT, i've viewed the plain flight as a threat. Because if I was getting on that plane, IT meant I was going somewhere that I was afraid to go for the summer. So the avoidance did kick in the closer I got to having to get on that flight.

And so then the long term cost of avoiding the Prices that you pay, think about this. You did not go in a summer insurance ship that I bet you were wildly hard mile to get. Yeah I I imagine there was like a big ticker and you're brain, just in that moment, said, not gonna do IT and then we have to find a way out. So you created an emergency and that's avoided. You've retreat IT like you avoided by retreating for something though .

so many people. Yeah, yeah, I ve done that over and over and over again. I think that's why I feel so sad for this person in our life who is doing this right now. Like i'm thinking to myself, this is going to create the opposite impact. So you said that your grandmother forcing you to go to the ball and sit with that person and changed the to directory of your life.

hundred person. So there's two things you did for me actually, like, let me just add the second one. So one was pushed me to approach instead of of what the second one was at sixteen, he gave me the alchemist by polo.

I'm sure .

you read the and SHE did IT because the narrative, my brain was no grandpa, single mother, my mom, fighting so hard to get up somewhere. And I should tell everybody, listen to us, my grandma. There was not really my grandma, as he was the mother of my stepfather, who started to date with my mom.

And they came from a different, so that economic, that as he had a different view of the world. So SHE gave the alchemist because when they are sitting with her for coffee, and I said, no, I really don't know what's going to be in my life. You know, I want eventually pursue a medical degree, or I want to do this.

My mom is never gna be, was to pay for college. And the alchemist shifted my perspective. Well, there's a sentence in the book that says, whenever you want something, the whole universe conspires in having IT.

And my grandma is basically is said to me, listen, you are responsible for the narrative in your brain. You can, you can believe what your brain telling you, or you can change the narrative in your brain. And he forced me to push.

C, what would you when I said, what eventually I want to become an exchange for, and eventually I want to get to the us. And she's like, you're responsible for creating that. And somehow know that this conversation in my grandmother would sit with me every day and have coffee and have those conversations. I started to believe that just maybe I could do that, that maybe I could, by approaching and change in the .

topic that makes so much sense. So your grandmother gave you this incredible gift where SHE forced you to face something, to approach IT write the fear of people. I'd love for you to share how that experience helped you continue to confront avoidance all the way to a professor ship at harvard.

How about we do that when we come back from a short break stay with us? Oh, i'm so excited to tell you about one of our sponsors or a frames. I love them.

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Welcome back, I ml. Robins. I'm so glad you're here because you and I are getting an eye opening. Look at the habit of avoiding things in our life with doctor lawana. Marcus and SHE was just about to tell us how confronting the habit of avoidance changed the trajectory of her life and LED her to a professor ship at harvard and the clinical staff at mass general hospital.

So my grandmother, in helping me to approach instead of avoided, and shifts my prospect, the first thing he did has helped me change my narrative. But the interesting thing about a witness is that continues to drop in your life. And so when I applied for college in the U.

S, I remember writing the essays, and, you know, my english still wasn't very good. And my brain kept saying, you know what a little girl from brazil can apply like it's not you're not good enough. I held on to the applications so much now because of those believe that my step dad had to one point like we need to mail IT.

You're not gna yet and if you don't submit your applications and I like, oh yeah, there's that thing called a mining and I submitted them and then I got accepted as tony buffo. And so I and that is Sunny bufo. And when I was applying to the doctor program, so I got to go and partition ally before as an undergraduate, this was, you know, I really, I never thought was going to be a psychologist.

I thought was going to be a medical doctor in brazil, their medical doctor, a lawyer, that how you pay the bell came to the west, and I started to take biochemistry premiere courses. And then, as I call course for the fun of IT, and I loved the psychology courses, loved that my brain keep saying, you need to be a medical doctor. You need to be a medical doctor.

So I went home to brazil. My grandma doesn't all my stories i'm sorry, but that's the reality and I said to my grandmother said, you know, i'm thinking about being a psychologist and but I don't know and she's like, it's simple. You think psychological classes, you take biological classes, which one is easier in your brain? That's what you do for living.

Why do you have to have a hard life? Do things against your brain? And I looked there and I said, I get a seam biochemistry. I get A A plus. And psychology says, go be a psychologist.

And I was like that simple, just like, yeah, like, why do fight? Why do people fight so much to be what they can be that comes easy to their brain. Why do we? Because I think we avoided, we avoided our reality. Like, facing reality does not mean we like IT.

And I had to face reality that they, and I remember going for a walk with my dad, and I stepped dad and trained to him, like, I know you're helping with college of that, and but I don't want to be a medical doctor and anymore. I was shaking, like shaking of anxiety, you know? And he looked to me and he said, you know, you gna be poor.

If you a psychologist, you can be a psychologist you really like. And I was terrified that he's gna pull the plug and to help with college anymore. And I looked at him, I said, you know, i'm good at this.

Like, I wanna do this and like, I almost avoid IT. Like, I still talk about a chemistry or I think he was organic chemistry for another season until I finally claimed clean again with him as I can't like, this is not me. So then I got a graduate school and want to applied to harvard, as I told you before.

And and people said to mean, state students don't get in. And I was still terrified, cried, cried a lot, and then applied. I remembers that they are walking for the interview. My generals listening to the news, is that brain singer to pump me up and like my entire body, who wants to run them up as a way like, you know, I wanted to void, but I showed up and and I applied and got in. And i'll here one more example of sort of you landing.

However, in about two thousand and seventeen years, I wanted to be the present of the anxiety I in the pressure association of america, as in the board, and the Youngest person in the board, an organization that tends to be majority White, I was the only latina person in the board, only person color in the board, and the opportunities run for president came up. And I just had my son. He was like three metal as home.

And I went for dinner with a colleague, a senior colleague, the night before the election. And SHE heard that was running, and this woman literally said to me at dinner, SHE says, yeah, too Young. You shouldn't do this.

You shouldn't run for this. I amazing to me how women do this. Other women, by the way, that, and I got home crying to my husband, said to him, David, you know, I am not gonna ly like I may be.

I'm too Young and and maybe i'm not gonna a good mother and maybe i'm not gonna have enough energies to be the present. And so I rule an entire meal to the board to pull my application explaining, not what this woman told me, not the truth. By the way, I was gonna europe example of the last school.

I literally was going to the urk example I was going to, and I SAT there, and my husband, like, hells my hand, he looked at me, says, since i've met, you've wanted this. He like, do you really want to stop what you want based on what this woman still to do? Like, he called me out on my avoidance, and I delete to the email. And I have so interest for that interview the next day for the election, one I want, can you believe? IT?

I've became the first meeting.

a present of exciting oppression, social of america. And IT could have been taken for me if I listen to what this woman said .

to me by yourself.

by myself. And that is we are the worst problem. We are we are the ones avoiding I can't blame her SHE. Can I mean, people see all sorts of things first.

but do we have to believe that? Yeah like if somebody said to you, won't you just leave your son on the side of the road you feel like, are you fucking crazy? But we listen and indulge other people's opinions about things that really matter to us, and then we avoided IT and we avoid.

And what I keep getting, and I hope that you're getting as you're listening, is that your whole life is one giant gift waiting for you to on rapid. And there are ways in which you sit there and stare at IT, and you actively avoided reaching out to shed the paper or pull on that ribbon. And IT begins with the stories that you're telling yourself.

So when I tell my story, people, I got so incredible, so bold. No, I can hit list a lot of the times bottom lie. And I wanted to avoid when I was as soon new buffalo.

My mentor was really tough for me, actually. And I wanted applied to have a internship and as general hospital in boston. And when he says state students don't get in, and I remember sitting my office crime as I write this application out of thinking, maybe I should just apply somewhere else, maybe not good enough.

There's the narrative in your head again.

hundred percent. And I remember in that time is like, you know what? I don't apply that.

I remember my grandmother. If you don't try, you don't know, and I apply. I share this in the spirit of life.

We can get rid of anxious. I know everybody wants to, but we can. What we can get IT of is a once that we can get enough.

can we on pack avoidance because it's not just an anxiety response. I am thinking about the number of conversations the people avoid, the number of situations the people avoid, uh, the number of experiences that people want to do. I can think about one for myself or my daughter.

So and Chris have both gone skydiving. And our son turned eighteen and he wants to go skydiving. And I feel this poll of wanting to do IT.

But I am scared shitless of doing IT, and I can feel the avoids dance of my boat. It's not anxiety. IT is like a wall. But I feel like this avoidance topic, can we blow IT open so that anybody listening, because I don't have anxiety, but you're avoiding something or so, talk to us about what avoidance looks like, what are surprising symptoms are ways that people avoid things.

I'm definitely going to talk about avoiding this time. But before I wanted to commit to sky diving with me, come on now, we can do. Yeah.

we can do IT. All right, you're invited to oakland eighty birthday skydiving party. I'm going OK. I'm gonna go.

So only reason I went there is so I learned I had a fear height hike in your seminary national park. I had no idea my hell life. I just said I D didn't like world costers know, I wasna avoiding local, local, like the coast, who need you want more to anyhow.

But I was hiking. I get to the end of A M national bank, and you have to hold to this cables, right? And I just start to cry.

The whole high fulvia just came in, and my professional career is getting people to approach to, not avoid. And I was like, okay, I can't do this. And so I started my own hye archy, and I started by doing chairs and then stairs, and then going to for my house.

And then I got to the top of IT, which was skydiving. I was so terrified, and I avoided, eventually, all my friends is like, you know what to do? So he took me a sky diving, and I went three times in a world in the same day.

That's the only way to overcome their fear of heights, is that you have to train your brain to just do IT over and over again. And now I love sky. Davy is like, so fun, really. I am not joking.

So could you go back to your semi now? And I be with those cables one hundred percent because what I always used to say is i'm not afraid to heights. I have this feeling that i'm falling .

but but that's that's just biology mail that's just about and is the same biology behind avoidance so so you asked me about one. So avoidance is anything that we do. You don't do. Kk, in response to perceive threat that is designed.

So there's a perceived threat that signed to bring our anxiety, discomfort, you name and downs, okay, but he keeps us stuck long term, huh? So let me and let me unpack this for, I call IT, the three hours of avoid you read a retreat, react or wring. okay.

So if we retreat, what do I mean by that? Is what you're doing about sky day. You have this thought and you like, i'm just gonna ve away retreating, yes, is moving away from this comfort.

That's the flavor of people retreat when they get an email that they don't like, they don't read that email. My husband time he puts an email on the the other screen is like, I just not going to look at that. We've retreat by not having conversations with people in our head.

We are thinking. We are ruminating, right? We're moving away from this comfort. For some of us, avoidance is reacting, not how I avoid. Whenever something threatens me, perception of threat, an email about somebody that I don't like or flick, I feel so anxious. So I write email, I can't believe you said there's a little like percent and then i'm like stuck on email jail because now I just reacted without thinking and that's avoidance whenever I feel threat .

the way he reacts with anger oh yeah, I yeah at my dog and that he's barking too much.

That said, because your dog barking is creating some this conference nobody that this conference nobody. Basically you have to attack that this conference, so you feel Better, right? Responding to male anger, grab in a drink too fast, have a bad day and just going to.

oh, so r is having a smoke of APP, hitting a joint, pouring a drink. That is reacting the third one.

And then we can pack examples. But the third one is remain. This is the deer in the headlight.

IT is staying in a situation when you know no longer works. You a job is, is like, but the fear of another job IT just makes you so paralyzed. They stay, stay in a relationship that you don't like, right? It's frozen.

So they remain of avoid your frozen in place. You know it's not working, right? But you're not going towards this comfort and moving away. You just .

literally frozen for anybody that feels like what I am, anxiety, what you do have our moments every single day where your emotions get trigger and you're comfortable. That's IT. And what i'm gathering from this conversation is that your work is really about creating a baseline of emotional peace.

That's a hundred person. So what I want to create is a comfortable ly uncomfortable world, a world of that you're just enough out of your comfort zone towards the things that matter the most, and that you're finding the real enemy here, which is avoidance. We just turn on the T V N M A. We go on social media and those little moments it's like, that's what I love your five second room because that's sort of the same ideas. In five seconds, you can choose to go towards a life that matters, or you can choose avoidance and it's a choice.

You know, IT is there is a big lie that we're telling ourselves. I believe if you're really honest with yourself, you'll see that avoiding the hard stuff, avoiding the things that you fear, avoiding taking a risk that's actually more uncomfortable because you know that you're selling yourself short. I would think that sitting alone in your apartment with no friends as a teenager was way more uncomfortable than sitting with that dude the first time with your grandmother.

One hundred percent I love, theyve said, is a lie. IT is a lie, because that this comfort that we feel facing things is so much less than this monster that we create in our head of what they would be like. I bet when we go skydiving and you all of that playing, you, you know, I learned that I was like, this is the best organs.

Whatever like, this is Better than anything else is true, because it's so liberating to overcome a fear. Once you're out of that plane, you will feel some fear, jump in up, but then artist and your whole system cuts down and you like, oh my god, i'm leaving my best life and that's what I wish for. Everyone that they find their little corners of avoids overcome IT. They can show up like, are you being your best self? And if you're not, because you are waiting.

Dq, ana IT beggs. The question, why the hell do we do this? Yes, let's have you answer that question. And I also have a great question submit by a listener for you and will answer both after a short break and everyone stick around to the very end because we've launch bloopers at the end of every episode.

And trust me when I tell you, you do not want to avoid the chance to laugh with me and all the mistakes that I make as I record these podcast episode free stay with us. Have you noticed that the experts on this podcast keep telling you and me over and over, if you want a Better life, you need Better sleep. And you can do that on an unsupportive uncopyable matters that you've kept around for twenty years.

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Welcome back, I mell Robins. I'm so glad you're here because we're getting a master class on the habit of avoidance from harvard professor and best selling author dr. Lu ona Marcus. So doctor, we know we avoid things that were nervous to do, but why, why do we avoid even the simple stuff like we're lying to an email from somebody we actually know?

IT were biologically wire to avoid. So the brain cannot differentiate real threat from perceived threat. Our brains wired to do what to predict and protect. That's what our brain is doing to protect in is the anger and it's predicting is predicted based on past information. So your family member who is having some trouble with avoiding dance and work, the brain is using the perception of work as something really bad, like it's a lion. Oh.

so it's predicting, it's predict and then it's making a call on how to protect you based on its prediction .

that that and that call is avoidance, right? So instead of going on fight fighter freeze because there is actually a lion, that's why I coin the three hours of avoiding because it's the same biology on fight flight or freeze, but it's a perceive threat.

Wow, this is really thinking in. And now that I understand how prevalent this habit of avoidance, I see IT everywhere. For example, when Chris and I were in a financial free fall, I would avoid opening bits because I didn't have the money to pay them.

I can also think about situations right now in my life. For example, I know I have to go through the close of my closet because half the stuff and there doesn't fit because of the way my body is change with maniple. I don't do IT.

I haven't done. I just closed the door to the closet and I don't deal with IT. I used to explode at my kids with frustration. And the reason why I would do that about stupid things is because I was avoiding the bigger conversation that was really upsetting me with the family, because I just didn't want to take down a deal with the conversation.

I can also, my god, I avoided a maio gram after I got my explain surgery, because I was afraid the'd find something which seems so stupid. Because if you are RAID, they're going to find something, then you should go at the test, right? Or what about this one? I didn't get on the pallets on bike for over six months because I was so out of shape, I avoided how painful that first workout was gonna in the realization of how out of shape i've gotten.

This is everywhere. You know, I was also frustrated, come to mind with Chris and depression, but I avoided the conversation because, you know, I just didn't want to to have to deal with IT. You know, and I know that sounds lame, but I think that's relatable.

This reminds me a lot of this episode that we did on procrastination and how procrastinating when IT becomes chronic is a freeze response. And that can be tied to trauma because you are uncertain about how things are gna turn out. I mean, this is absolutely everywhere, doctor ana, so now that we all see IT, can you talk to us about cognitive behavioral therapy? Because that's what you use in your clinical practice. What is IT? And how can I help us break this habit and pattern of avoidance .

cogan behavior? There be your cbt is a widely study kind of therapy that's action oriented, and it's really designed to change what we say to ourselves, how we behave and how we feel.

How does cognitive behavioral therapy work? Because you can't just change what you say. And boom, suddenly your life changes. Can you break this down for us? We really get IT.

I mean, because for any one of you listening who sees that you're avoiding something in your life right now, what is the first step of C. B. T?

Such a great question. Mall, because the first thing we need to create a pause, and in that pause, we need to do a couple things. First, we need to understand what was the situation that reared any kind of thought, emotions and behaviors I actually call. There's the thought, emotions and behavioral cycle.

Can we take the example of waking up and not wanting to get out of bed?

Yes, absolutely. I woke up, my brain starts to spin. And basically side of what if mell Robins doesn't like me was the first thought I had this money to have to, just behind us with everybody.

Now, I mean, the inches brain never quite down, right? And so that thought what he doesn't like me LED to an emotion which for me was a little excited in hard pounding my heart pounds pretty, pretty strongly. Then my behavior was, the third component was what? Into just saying bad. I was like, maybe I just want to stay in bed.

Well, that's what I call tuesday morning. It's totally reliable, right? You wake up, you worried about something, and that trigger you to feel overwhelmed and that trigger the behavior of avoidance, which for me was hitting the snoozed button, which I did did every single morning for years. But does this thought, emotion, behavior cycle that you're describing does IT always have to begin with a thought?

Well, IT depends of the entry way for me. As I thought my, she's not going to like me and not anise and then I wanted to behave a certain way, but they think punk like, right? If I lady Better a little longer, I bet.

have gone this way. Thank you for using the term pong, because for me, IT usually begins with an emotion or a feeling of heavy ness. And my body when I wake up, and then that ping pong gs, the thoughts and those thoughts spiral, and the thoughts then make IT worse, hence hitting the snooze button and not wanting to get out of bed.

And for you listening, I want you to stop and think, right now, what is IT like for you? If you think about those mornings where you want to just pull the covers over your head or you want to hit the snooze button, are you more like doctor levana, where you recognize that its thoughts that start this ping pong ging? Or you more like me, where it's this feeling or emotion in your body that then trigger this spirit? Al doctor, want to let's go back to this story of you being in bed and invited in the bed with you this morning.

And can you walk us through your thoughts? Spiral in detail? Yeah.

I didn't bring the right outfit. The outfit makes a difference. She's so powerful. She's really not gona like me. What if I say they are wrong thing and those thought to go really fast, think his sight I would cheow up and then the cover would come over.

And then by the time I got out of bed, my baseline in ing society is so high that i'd be having trouble thinking that trouble thinking you have been carpet as, oh, see, you do have a problem with his iee. And now the evolution. And so it's a pain point and it's so fast, and that's why that pause is so important.

So what do you tell your patients to do when they catch themselves in this pingpong death match with their ancient thoughts .

whenever existing? Ty S, S, this is a trick that I can share with everybody that you can use and you can do IT right now. How do you post this a question? right? Take a piece paper and literally right down your thoughts. Link them to your emotions, link to .

specific behavior. O, so you get one when the thoughts start to spiral and you are someone that you love and you feel that anxiety avent the doctor you want to just describing on number one, you need to create a pause. And here's one way you can do IT take out a piece of paper and write the thought, right, the emotion that you feel, and write the behavior that are digitizing.

And in doctoral one, as example, the thought is mel's not gonna me. And then that made her fuel nervous. And then that feeling makes her want to pull the covers over her head. Why is this technique work? Doctor wana.

this is why what we know scientifically is the rainy activity, the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex, the part that helps us organize, execute, right? It's the center of the brain.

That's the critical part of the brain. IT is always competing for energy with our miglia. The fight, fight to freeze part of the brain.

So one, when one is on the other, one tends require down. So if you are your anxious in, get out of there by writing your thoughts, emotions and behavioral cycle. Just a little trick alone. I've seen hundreds of patients stopped their anxiety cycle in that avalos by creating that pause.

Oh my gosh, that makes so much sense. You know what? This also explains why my five second rule is so effective with anxiety spirals, dana, because when you count backwards five, four, three, two, one, what you do is you interrupt that death match in your mind, and the five, four, three, two, one, IT creates a pause.

And it's in that pause that you can then choose what you think or do next. And I want to make sure that every one of you listening really gets what doctor lawana is talking about. And so doctor lajuana, i'd like to do a second example.

Let's walk through the example that we talked about earlier of being afraid to go in to work. Okay OK. So the situation is that maybe you afraid you're onna have another anxiety attack or maybe that some big sales meeting and you're afraid that you're going to screw up.

And so you start to have this feeling where you're worried and nervous and then you start to tell yourself, I don't think I can do this. I don't want to go in and you're now in this available of avoidance that we've been talking about. So what do you do? In fact, what do we do this? Let's role play this scenario.

I'll be the person whose nervous about going into work. And you can be my therapies. okay. So a couple of things.

Um a lot of our anxious fed do what we are saying to ourselves, right? We started to have heart pounding and we've been talking about heart pounding. If I came home from a job in my was pounding and but like, okay, but if I am sitting here getting ready to work in my hard pound, you will brain want to make sense of IT.

So then IT starts to create a narrative about their heart time. But IT just a hard pm, that's all of is true. So we pause the first one.

I would write down the specific thoughts, right? Okay, i'm gonna mess up the sales meeting going, i'm going to have you up. That's what i'm gonna do.

okay? Once we pause, then we wanna be able to ask questions of our thoughts, right? Let's interrogate. Let's become lawyers together. Okay, what is the evidence that you have right now?

They're onna messed IT up. I've messed IT up before.

Okay, how many times have you messed up now? Twice, twice. How many presentations have you given to the team?

Hundred, one hundred. okay. So based on that, what's the probability they're onna mess IT up?

Two person, two percent. okay. So maybe you are onna mess IT up this two percent chance. Um if you messed IT up once the worst that .

will happen um i'll be embarrassed.

Have you been embarrass before? Yes, have been a was tolerable.

Yeah IT sort of sucks.

Yeah as you IT sucks. So the worst case scenario you going to be embarrassed is two percent chance.

What if they fire me?

When was the last time they fired you?

They have a fired.

I M still employed. Oh, really, it's amazing. So may be they'll fire you, but sounds like the probability .

small as well. Yes.

no. Has anybody in this company ever been fired on the spot? Like, look, you messed up, embarrassed, fired.

Well, theyve laid people off, but I don't think not that I know of IT sounds me .

like your brains basically saying i'm going to be embarrass and then they gonna find in the spite and i'm going to be, be me. I'm going to be in the .

corner all alone. Yes.

which makes me to avoid. Of course he does. I would, I mean, feels off. But what is the probability really well that all those events are gonna en in that sequence?

Very, very small. So what can you say to yourself .

based on your performance in the past, that I change the narrative new brain right now who.

uh, this is harder to do than that sounds because even though this is just during my role playing, I can see that you're trying to get me to look at the situation objectively and to use my intellect. But when you're super emotional or nervous, it's really hard to reason with someone when they're like that. So yeah, I can say that objectively speaking, i've been nervous before and i've shown up and i've done a presentation.

And when you say that yourself, how does he feel?

Like I don't believe .

IT yeah absolutely .

because that anxiety you know has that grip on you.

And when we just start to change our perspective, shift our thinking, yeah we don't believe right away because there's so much history of the anxious, driven and thoughts. So I don't needed to believe in what I needed to do. He's be able to say that to yourself over and over again. And I needed to show up. Now I needed to vote.

You know what I love about this? I love that you said, I don't have to believe that .

you don't have because it's impossible to you brings. And everybody thinks cbt, we are trying to just force people to have positive thought that does not work. Let me say that again, positive thought to alone does network.

We have to reframe. We have to rewire our brain, and he takes time to rewire brain. He can be like overnight, but is the first step towards a Better life, right? I mean, if we talk to our best friends the way we talk ourselves, we will be clear we'd have no friends.

That so true, that is so true, is approach, always the answer when IT comes to things that you're avoiding so your .

family member doesn't want to go to work. Approach to me has been always the answer. Because if I stop and think my brain and be really and ask, sometimes your brain isn't .

the only brain that can be a real assets. Doctor luana, right? Everybody is your brain and assets. Sometimes I know same.

Doctor luna, when we prepared for this episode with you, I gather a bunch of questions from listeners ers. And a lot of our listeners asked very similar questions. And this one from sharmaine really covers a lot of the topics that people asked about. So let's roll this question from sharmaine.

I want more peace, more love, more compassion, more passion, more connection, more joy, less struggle, less stuff, less complications, less stress, less things. I and I don't just want IT for myself, but for every woman, this shit is real. I see in my god friends too, and this human experience. My question is.

why?

Why does this feel like a struggle? Thank you. Well, for being brave enough to do this work.

I love you. I love herman's question hermine. This is a deal. This question is what I call the magical one. Everyone magically wants more happiness, a Better life, less trust we all wanted.

So why? Why do you stuck? Because we avoid in terming, what are the things in your life right now? They are not taking control because this struggle is there because you are not taking action.

right? We knew, scientifically know that if we act in line with our values, we actually have less stress, less than xiety. We have Better quality of life.

In such harman am asking you, what are the actions you can take towards those things that matter the most that would stop this avoidance? But little approaches towards the things that matter the most can't started to really change our lives. And that's how we get more happiness. That's how we feel Better.

I'm curious if somebody y's struggling, is that a sign that avoidance is everywhere?

yes. And this is why i've never met anyone in my life, professionally and personally. The avoidance is not behind their struggle. I ve never met like in my moments that I myself am having the most hardest time. It's because i'm avoiding .

what are the top things that your patients come in and are struggling with and how does that connect .

with avoidance. So mary came in because he was in a job that he hated. Yeah, SHE put one hundred pounds in that job, one hundred pounds.

But cap doing that because her brain said, well, at least I have an income. yes. And he was facing that.

He was just going to take their reality that SHE hated that job. I am a CEO, a fortune five hundred company worth to us, avoided dating his superpower in his job. And if you met him, the study, like this guy, can get anybody that he wants.

He was terrified of dating and women. Now he's forty five, super successful, no relationships, no meaning relationships. Joana avoided asking for a race.

She's single mother, three kids that race. She's in the same job for ten years. People getting promotions.

She's not getting those promotions. And he just was so terrified that he wasn't good enough. SHE hadn't done enough. SHE couldn't ask for a race. He told me, you know, if I was really good, they would have given murrays like, well, I IT works that way sometimes. He does sometimes, but but it's in the corporate world, sometimes he doesn't.

Um those are great examples. And so as their therapies and uh practicing C B T therapy, R U N coaching them through the approach method.

So the first thing we really do is we identify their avoids um I just had a patient make a list of everything she's avoiding and like I don't need to make a listen, like i'd like to see that less because we lie to ourselves. So the first thing I do, every patients, let's identify all the amazing your life for avoiding. We need to figure out what you can tolerate that is comfortable ly uncomfortable.

So for example, if what you wanted do is leave, they immediately. Can you stay for extra one minute? Can you stay in the room and just observe the room for thirty seconds?

If a minutes too much to, if you walk out of the room, can you commit to walking back to the room? Is staying for a minute? Walk out of the room again, walk back in the room? Those could see. We approach, we rewind in the brain and teaching the brain that there is no lions and ever, and I would be, start increasing them a minute, three minutes, five minutes, put a timer in your watch. And in one thing we didn't talk about me that I do want to add is there are moments in life that you need to avoid, like in the case of domestic violence, like my mom delt t with right, poking the bear and trying to approach, sometimes he does not work, have to be safe and get your place where you then can figure out how to approach your life.

How do you know the difference like you said this thing about I just don't like kites. How do you know the difference if you're actually avoiding something that you need to approach in face in your life versus you just don't like IT or it's an issue of safety?

So the first one is robbing you from your best life. So one of there is a Price tag that I think about this. There is a Price tag with avoidance.

And he sleeping, you stuck, right? And sometimes the patient of mine was a different patient, was in a job that he really disliked. So he called me and he says, hello, wana, I just want to check some avoiding or not and we had a conversation about this job.

He wasn't going well. He was clear she's going to have changed. Jobs said, but why are you staying? And he said to me, i'm staying because if I stay six more months, I have this big bonus I would just tolerate for six months.

And then once I get the bonus, I would just find another job. I said, that's strategy. That's not avoidance, yes, strategy.

That s yes. raby. He was so trained to think about avoidance. She's like my avoiding by things. Now that strategy, sometimes they have have strategy life.

Well IT seems like avoidance is very reflective verses a strategy which you can calmly, with emotional peace, rationally explain to somebody that is exactly that.

And everybody, if you have trust yourself, yeah, and you pause and you really look at what's in front of you, you're gonna able to smell Aidance pretty quick.

Oh, how do you begin this process?

The first step is really pausing. Give yourself five minutes, sit down and think about the things that you want to do. So let's think about the dream life.

What are the things you want to do and then ask yourself why you're not doing that, what are the things they're getting the way and you're gonna a pretty quickly identify our wins. I'm not doing this because i'm afraid of heights. I'm not doing this because if I ask for a race, i'm going to find out there.

I'm not good enough. I am not going on this date because I don't think i'm pretty enough. That's the first step to changing. Wow.

what about parents or loved ones that have somebody that struggles with anxiety and a lot of avoidance? I made this mistake when our kids, candle and oak in particular, had pretty significant episodes of the anxiety. There is a six months period where each one of them slept on the floor of our bedroom that that wander down in the middle of the night.

I wouldn't want to have to get out of bed and walk them back up and deal with the push back and deal with the emotions. And then IT morphed into me just making a little bed on the ground, on my side of the bed. And the funny thing is, as they were smart enough to know, even when they were sleep walk, that they don't go to Chris, a side of the bed because he would get up.

They just come to mine. And I could almost in the middle of my sleep, sense that they were there, and I would just lift up at the middle of the night. And at last year, for six months, I made IT worse.

You and you're not alone. Mail, i've heard this from so many mothers before, because you is also IT already right, and he makes what for you and the kid, because we are teaching the opposite, we won't teach the kid right.

What would you council a patient to do if they were in that cycle where as child coming down, wanting to clim B2Bed, what do you do?

You have their conversation that this is your bed and that's where you sleep, and you cannot have any sleep ups. The first day that you let them sleep there, even for ten seconds, you're basically telling them that they can push the boundaries. And so in situations like this has to be zero tolerance.

No, you don't come here. No, you don't come here. You're right. And pretty quickly find the truth is, if you do that, you stingier ed the behavior.

It's true because there uncomfortable being alone in their bed. And so you're teaching them to tolerate that discomfort that is in .

that is still they need to learn for the rest of their life. It's called the emotion regulation psychology. And you are teaching them basic emotion regulation by teaching them that is OK to have that discomfort and that they're safe in their bed and over time he goes away.

And that's what you need to teach .

ourselves that take .

exactly because all these avoidance is simply us not being able tolerate as adults our own uncomfortable emotions.

That is all there is. We get uncomfortable when we run like we're a kid to go out and into my parents room and an hour stuck in a cycle.

Yeah but instead of running to moment das room, we're running to the vita bottle or we're avoiding the email or we're holding onto the application and we .

are just building more pay, more fear and more.

This is so fascinating. And what I love is that you're on a mission to teach this to people so that they can truly unlock all the incredible things that are available to all of us in life.

Within each one of us there is ahead and amazing rule. And if we take avoids away, we can all be shining with our own domains of life. We all have a gift.

Every single person has a gift inside of them. Right now, I want a world where people are bold in their own way, that they are protesting the things that matter the most. And can you imagine that world? I just be so .

much Better. I'm so glad you didn't become a medical doctor, but you went into psychology and that you do what you do. You are a gift.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being with us. Um you are gone to come back again and again and again and you know I based on the number of missions i've head while docked and do you doctor leana, I think the blue show in the episode are gonna. So thank you.

Thank you. Mom has been so the light fte, you are amazing for everybody is listening. Just the kindest person, like just the kindest person will thank you.

Thank you. dr. Or ana markets, we love you.

And i'm so happy here with us today in case no one else tells you today, I wanted to say, I love you and I believe in you to stop avoiding all the shit you need to do. And five, four, three, two, one, go. Do IT all right. I'll see in a few days.

Is this thing on jersey? Son, okay. Author doctor, doctor leana mar, oh my god.

Okay, let's try that again. You probably wouldn't be where you are today. Are you shitting me? I got that draw mouthing going.

So, doctor lawana, are you kidding me? Hold on a second. All on a second.

One more. Let me take a simple water. O okay, excuse me, here we.

go. Oh, and one more thing I know, this is not a bluebook. This is the legal language.

You know what the lawyers, right? And what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend.

I am not a license therapies, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional. Got IT good. I'll see in the next episode teacher running. A small .

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