67: My therapist’s mindset tips
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Hey guys, welcome back to the Moments Podcast. I am a little bit nervous to record this episode, a little bit excited. I'm feeling kind of every single emotion you could imagine, but I'm here with someone super special today. And you guys know that I usually only record with my mom or with Lisette or with people that I talk to constantly every single day.

But now we have someone new. I actually have my therapist here with me and I've told you guys I've had this idea to record this episode probably months ago and you also know how I work that it takes me a while to do the things I say I'm going to do, but I'm here with Miss...

Dr. Leon? Yeah, that's so fancy because whenever I text my mom, I'm always like, Jessica, Jessica, Jessica. But it's so I like it when you say it like that. And I only am doing that just for your audience, but I really am not particular at all what anybody calls me. And I'd say that most of my clients call me Jessica. Jessica, that's just who you are in my head. And I love it. But Jessica has changed my life, not even to get sappy. Like I first started going to therapy, when was it? About

About a year ago? I would say around the time that I started the podcast. I think right before I started the podcast, I started going to therapy. And honestly, I think I have you to thank for being the reason I started it. She's just been able to teach me so many different strategies and different ways to think. And I don't even know, but she's changed my life. And I know that she can have some really valuable information to share with you guys too. So I put on my Instagram story and I just kind of asked, what would you ask a therapist if you were to go? Or...

What do you need to talk to someone about? And I wrote down some of the things that you guys asked. And then we're just going to kind of talk. This is new for both of us. And I think it makes us both a little bit nervous. So just, you know, bear with us. But we're here and we're going to have a good time. And I'm very, I really am. I'm beyond blessed. First of all, every client, I always feel like I'm blessed to have met them. And for you specifically, being so beautiful inside and out. And what you do for others and what you do.

on a journey for and sharing that, I could not be more honored to be here and to be part of this and to help your audience in with whatever questions that they have. Yeah, and I think it's just going to be awesome. See you guys, she's really just my hype woman. She keeps me going, I swear. But I will say before we get into this, I...

want this to encourage you to talk to someone or let someone help you because It's good for all of us. No matter what stage you're at in your life You don't have to be broken. You don't have to be hurting to go to therapy or to talk to someone It's just gonna make you feel better. And I think that ultimately just make your life better. We'll just get into the questions I guess we should start out with like a pretty basic one. What made you want to be a therapist?

I think, you know, this question actually... Or a life coach. Like what... Well, tell me... Just tell me a little bit about yourself in a way that you want to. I mean, I will say that I have always had a love in helping, whether it was being a babysitter, wanting to do volunteer work, being part of something that was big and being...

in the moment and being able to be like a helper or like a hero in those moments. Those were things that I knew I wanted to do. I never really knew a name for it and it wasn't until I really experienced the situation with

a personal friend's child that allowed me to really see the difference in the impact that I had on such a young child. And because it really evolved into this child's functioning just a little bit better and not being so nervous and anxious, I'm like, oh my

gosh I would love to do this one day and really make this my job yeah good and feel better yeah that's so cool I love it I really really really do and you know actually because you did mention like a few other ways that our role is viewed for example you said you know coach therapist life coach and

It really is something that I think is important to think about because I think some words scare people. And for years and years and years, the word therapy was used to really denote that there's something wrong with you or this disorder or this problem.

And even with these like, you know, I say in quotes like these crazy, you know, I think we're all crazy. But back in the day, it was like these real disturbances. And I think that the work now that most people do in therapy is more related to the counseling and trauma work of a lot of undoing certain, the way that we made meaning of things in the past and having to unwire and rewire.

versus life coaching which is really about skills and you know enhancing whether it's social skills working on your emotional intelligence focusing concentrating time management but most of all problem-solving and coping and that to me is what so many people struggle with and find the challenge and so if you think about what a guy you know a guide or a life coach is is it somebody who has studied all of this and is there to help you with

completely confidentiality at bay and no judgments. There's no, it's not a parent, it's not a teacher. So just going and being able to talk to somebody to get some guidance on how to handle and do things better, I think really is something that everyone should just think about not waiting for a time in your life for a problem to happen because if you're proactive, you really can do a very good job in preventing some of these bigger and serious things.

that can come your way and the way that you're coping you will already have them in place yeah and I always say like I've talked about this I think on my TikTok like if you guys you're listening you've probably heard me say this time and time again like I don't I will go to therapy and we'll have a session even when I'm at like such a healed and happy point in my life because I kind of view it now as like a

class. Like it's like going to my favorite class because I'm always learning something new and I'm always learning something that I'm going to use for the rest of my life. So I'm like, I just kind of see it like that. And it's also taken the, I guess the stigma off of it because I remember when I first wanted to start going to therapy, I didn't really want to go because I was sad. I didn't want to accept the feeling that I was feeling things. I went because I wanted to, I was struggling so bad with my ADHD and I was just telling her this before I started recording that like I was

Told myself I was going to therapy to make myself more focused and like able to process like all my ADHD stuff without doing medication and whatever it was. Instead of just telling myself I was going to just kind of better my life in general. And after however long, it's been a year and a half now.

I just view it as like this tool to help my life be better. And it's really just that simple. Yeah, it's an objective way. It's a way that you can go in without judgments and being able to get different perspectives and different angles of how to see a situation and a problem. And it's cool because even if I can, you know, go to my mom to talk about anything or go to my best friend to talk about whatever it is that I'm going through, it's really cool to be able to go to someone who doesn't know the other characters in the story, if that makes sense. And just hear like,

in your eyes, what do you think, not necessarily what do I do, but like, what pieces of information can you share with me that are going to help me get through this situation? And it's just awesome. It's really the best thing in the world. Everyone needs to go to therapy or get a life coach or something and I will say it until the end of time. But,

Well, can I just add one more thing? Yeah, of course. Actually, which I think you said, which is really important, is that our brain is really focused on seeing and knowing all of the negatives very easily. We're all experts. Kind of like we just sent Condition to do that. Exactly. So what people don't do, though, is ever really take a step back and look at why are things going well?

When you come and you're talking to me about the things that are going well, it is very important for me to reflect back to you. Can you tell me why? Why are things going so well for you so that you can see that you have been the creator and put the things in place that are necessary for you to be in the space that you're in? But we don't often take time to do that when we are in a good space or when there's things possible. I also think back to our last session last week when I hadn't gone to therapy in a

couple weeks or like maybe a month or so just life was busy I didn't have too much to talk about I just kind of wasn't making it a priority and then I had a situation happen and I was like I can't wait to tell her about this like I gotta tell her all the tea and I ended up talking to her that session about what I thought I was going to be talking about the whole time we only talked about it for 10 minutes and we spent the rest of the session talking about what was going right in my life and like

what positives were happening and why they were happening. And I left that session and my biggest takeaway was that sometimes we need to just step back and look at the bigger picture. And I think that that's something really cool about talking to someone is you're taken kind of like, like it's a drum. Like you see the whole view instead of just the one thing that you're focusing on. Yes. And I just think that that's very cool.

Absolutely. And that's what that is supposed to serve. And just to say, you know, not every single person, like when you go to the doctor, you may not have, you know, that good vibe or you may not feel like that doctor is going to be as helpful as you need. So don't stop there. Don't not get some guidance or some help. Just because one or two times you didn't really feel like it was going to work. Yeah. You got to just, because I think a lot of people also ask, like, how do you know that

you found the right person that actually is a good I guess we can I don't write that down but we can talk about that like how do you know you found the right person to talk to like obviously with you I knew from the second that I met you I was like this is like a good it's a really cool soul connection I know I'm going to be able to learn a lot from her and like this is just going to evolve into something great but a lot of people have a bad experience with therapy where they go in and they just kind of feel like they're not getting anything out of it and

How do you know if you're with someone who's fitting for you? - There's even in our own programs when we study, we are told that by the first two sessions, if we have not connected to that client, if that rapport from our client has not been established,

there is a pretty significant chance that the sessions moving forward are not going to evolve. - Oh, interesting. - Yeah, so if by the second session you are not feeling a connection, it doesn't mean you're not enjoying the process, 'cause depending on what someone's talking about,

It might bring up certain triggers or it might evolve into a little bit of a heavier session than you anticipated, but I wouldn't use that necessarily. It's really the rapport, that vibe. If you don't feel like someone's going to get you or they're not going to understand the gist of what you're talking about or what you want to explore,

then that's not going to be the person for you. And so it's like when you know, yep. When you, if you know, you know, exactly. Yeah. That's the truth. So you would probably suggest that like, if you are going to therapy and you have a bad experience, the first couple of tries, like try someone new instead of just give up on it.

Yeah, and I mean, you have the right as a client going in to interview them and ask. That's true. So you can certainly even say, like, what is your approach if I'm talking about exploring X, Y, and Z? Or what background do you have? Because also some different counselors and therapists...

have a variety of different modalities. We all do things different ways. Yeah. So you want to certainly understand that person's, you know, background and their theory, because it may not be a good fit for you. And you may say, Oh, no, no, no, no, no. We're not going to go all the way back into psychoanalytic and go there. I just want someone for just this, you know, moment. So I think knowing ahead and asking those questions before you even make your appointment is a good idea.

I like that. I like that. Yeah. I think that that's very valuable. I really lucked out just because of how easy and awesome it was to find you, but I know that it can be harder sometimes. So I'm glad we went over that. And then the next question I have written down was, do you have a therapist? And we talked about this before we started recording, but I wanted to touch on it again just because I really liked the way that you talked about it. So what do you, as a therapist or a life coach...

do when you're the one who's struggling? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, a lot of times there's just a statement that every therapist needs their own therapist, you know, because of the idea, if you really look at what my role is, most people come to me to share the darkest or hardest parts of their life. So it's usually not people that just want to talk about the good things.

and there is a lot of negative energy that somebody takes but I do think that I because I practice what I preach I do a very very good job about being mindful of making sure that I am not in a space where that energy is entering into my functioning because I have so many strategies that I use for just releasing that energy or clearing my mind I I

do practice what I preach meaning that I make sure that I'm taking care of my my brain health my wellness um

doing the things that probably will come up in a few questions that I'll certainly suggest. So I do utilize those so it's not that I would need therapy from my work per se but if I do encounter a situation that's too subjective, it's a little too close to home and I'm finding that I haven't really moved through it or it's impacting my functioning, hang

Hands down, I will absolutely go and seek some guidance or seek advice. And I typically have one person that I would go to that I've gone to through the years. And it's just I go when I feel it's necessary. Mm-hmm.

And the necessary means when it's interfering with my functioning. And functioning to me is determined by your, is it impacting my work? Is it impacting my sleep? And is it impacting my interpersonal functioning? I like those. I like that. So those are a good measure to see whether I really need to go and talk to someone or is it something that I just, I can keep working through myself. And honestly, I think that there's so many of us, and I say us as in like probably everyone who's listening to this in my age and just like where we're at, like we're

who are having situations that are interrupting our sleep, our work, our, like, just life in general. So, again, we all need to talk to someone. Even the therapist has to talk to someone sometimes. Yes. Yeah, so I guess a lot of people ask a bunch of different questions. And I will say that the one thing that I have held on to the tightest from...

like knowledge that you've given me was the ants and I've tried to explain to you guys what the ants are before but I've never been able to do it properly so now I have the person who taught me the ants to teach you the ants and I guess however you would teach like a brand new client what the ants are I guess we could just share it with them okay and I'm gonna start off so that I don't ever get in trouble I want to share that I stole this idea that's the beauty of ideas though we all just kind of pass them around

is from Dr. Daniel Amen. I want to give him the credit. He is the creator, I believe, I think, that came up with the acronym and the metaphor behind it. Now, what he did was he took these ants, which, by the way, stands for automatic negative thoughts.

And there are a lot of other clinical, very, very fancy names for what these really are. If somebody wanted to Google it, it's called cognitive distortions. There are these wired ways that we have automatically that are not healthy for us, where sometimes we think like, you know, everyone's looking at us and we're the problem or we are very all or nothing or perfectionistic.

So there's 30 and that is ridiculous to try to memorize. There's not really 30 of them? Yeah, there's probably even more now. I mean, that was like over a decade ago that I remember that there were 30. So what he did was he took, let's say the top 10 out of those 30 that really have to do with our mental health in regards to unrealistic anger, anxiety, and depression.

And I thought, well, 10 is still a little bit too much. Let me see what I can do. So I created lucky number seven. And I took out of those 10, seven where I combined some, some I made up my own names for them, but the gist is really the same. And I'll explain also the acronym of the metaphor. So when we think of, let's say, red ants, there's not many positives that we come into mind because they bite you, they hurt you.

And so the first instinct that we have when we get bitten is we smack it off or get it off. Or if we already got bit and it's too late, now we're at least putting some medicine or anti-itch something on there. But the goal is that we're attending to it. Yeah. In automatic negative thoughts in real life, we hardly tend to it to care for it. And instead we basically get stuck in a loop and it winds up staying and it grows bigger and bigger. Right.

So the way that you would immediately brush an ant off, we want to in real life when you catch yourself having an automatic negative thought and I'll teach you the seven. I'm literally relearning.

I'm having the same wake-up call that I had the first time you ever told me all this. I'm loving this. Keep it up. Well, great. So it basically forces you to think like, oh, shoot, I just had one of those. What am I supposed to do? You at least are now having an idea that something needs to be done. Now, sometimes in life, you may not have that moment to really deconstruct it and attack it or get rid of it.

But the fact that you knew it was there, so we now know your bit, you've got that poison, you at least at some point in that day, in that hour, you know, or a little bit later, you have to attend to it. And so the way that we attend to it is really what mindfulness is about because you have to deconstruct it. So before we even go into deconstructing it and breaking it down, I want you to just have a little bit of an idea of what, let's say, the top seven are. And I'll do it quick but still with understanding.

So one of the first one I say is called negative attitude. And it's when your mind has a tendency to think things will turn out bad before it even happened. So it's being a negative predictor basically. And there's a lot of reasons why that's kind of like assuming the worst is going to happen. Correct. The bad one is not the good ones. Correct. So Nick, right. A negative attitude.

Now, that one happens a lot of times people will say because, well, I already knew like it happened so many times before. So they're getting their expectations realistic. But what we have to understand is that our thoughts cause our feelings. They are not separate beings. We do not have emotions out of the blue. They are caused by the thoughts that we have.

So if these are automatic, that means that we are automatically putting ourselves in positions to be overwhelmed, scared, nervous, feeling unfair. Any of these negative things that we're feeling regularly are because of those thoughts. So if we are able to understand like, oh shoot, I did that again, we'll now have the process once I explain them all to undo that so that you can think of all the other possibilities, not just the bad ones. So that's Ant 1.

Ant 2 is when you have a tendency to disregard the positives in your life. So I call that ignoring the positive. I struggled with Ant 2 for a long time, I think. I remember when you first taught me the ants, I was like, oh, that one. That one hit the hardest for me at the time. And I also noticed at different phases of my life,

Different ants bite me harder. Yes, yes. It's so interesting. Yes, it's all going to be based on where you're at and what's happening or who's in your life. Because sometimes other people's ants can actually come and affect you if you're not aware. They just bite both of us. Yeah. And I think actually, I think number two, the one where we have a tendency to focus on what's not good and what we haven't done or what we don't like or same with someone else is

It's because our brain is actually meant to protect us and it is meant to be aware of all these negatives. But we as human beings in this world today, we don't have to function in fight or flight like we are a caveman looking for the next thing to either kill us or for us to eat.

So we have to learn how to break that habit of not only seeing all the negative and it could even be even in our own skill set when we think something bad is going to happen and you're only seeing that and it could be true. But what about your skill set that can get you through it? Because maybe you're resourceful and capable. Yeah.

So that's number two. The third one I think just most people have and it's a tendency to just exaggerate a negative. We make a bigger deal out of things than really what the problem is. We're all drama queens a little bit. Yeah, yeah. I think so being realistic and recognizing that we'll have tendencies to be more of that but maybe in certain scenarios.

The fourth one is where we get into that very black and white thinking. So I call it extreme thinking. And this one is really where you just only can see things in one way. So you may have a tendency to say these toxic words like always,

Never. Oh, this is when you taught me. What was the one I would always say? I should be doing this. I should be doing that. Okay. So that leads to Ant 6, which is perfectionistic thinking. But in this one, it's like saying like, well, everybody else wound up getting that, but I didn't. Makes you feel that everyone in the world, everyone in the whole entire world, because we are saying it with such an extreme, which is going to bring you to an emotion that feels so isolated and so left out and rejected.

that, um, which our emotions cause our behaviors. So it will then lead you into such an extreme behavior, either something pretty significant that you will do or something pretty significant that you won't do. Like it will withhold you. So extreme is really about, you know, all or nothing, everybody, nobody, and always and never type behaviors or type words, you know? Um,

Let's say I just said I get very nervous when I do anything on film or anything that's being recorded. So if I said, you know what, I'm just never going to do anything like that, that's an all or nothing. And what it does is it eliminates all of the possibilities of me always wanting to share as much as I can share with as many people. So it's a really toxic thing.

trait to be very all or nothing. And I think that that's kind of like how I was, especially at the beginning of our sessions. I would show up late, not would, I still do show up late to almost every session that we have. And, but I would always say like, it's just who I am. Like it's part of, I'm never going to change. Like, is it, that would be this aunt, right? Nope. It would be aunt five. See?

I'm still learning all the time. But I love that you actually are aware. You know, sometimes even if you don't know which one it is or what it is. I might not know which one, but I know it is one of them. Right. If you know it's toxic and you know it's bad, that's good enough because what you want to do is you're going to want to make sure that you get that out of you and undo it. But what that is is that's like a negative label. Okay. So that's a perfect segue into Ant 5. Perfect.

I did that on purpose, obviously. It's, um, see how we make meaning? Exactly. It really is just, um, it's a very, very, very, um, uh,

Long explanation for Ant 5 compared to all of the other ones because this is where we have associations. Most things in life, we make associations without even realizing it. They can be positive or they can be negative. I can say the word church and based on your association with that word, it could be very positive or it could be very traumatizing and triggering.

I could, I have helped somebody who, let's say, um, they went to a, um, a really cool ice cream museum in Miami beach when it opened, they fell on the sprinkles on the stairs and they wound up breaking their wrist, their back. Like the word sprinkles and ice cream, it is not a positive association. So everybody in life has an association to things either for themselves, to words and events or to other people.

So, you know, a little small silly thing is I'm not the biggest fan of my husband's ex. So when I hear her name, I always get like this little cringe. It's like a negative association. And so the funny thing what I do when I have my friends that have that same name, like I just call them their maiden name. But that's, so it's this automatic negative association even if it doesn't have

you know, something significant like behind it. But for you, when you would say for yourself, like, oh, I'm always like this or I'm so squirrel or I'm so anything and you label yourself, you will have very little chance of changing that because you've identified a negative association and label to yourself. Yeah. And I think when I first came to you too, this is just something cool. I've

probably talked about it on here before. Like I came to you and I was like, my brain is all over the place. I'm such a squirrel. And I thought it was like the worst thing in the world. Like I viewed it as something so negative about me that I wanted to change and I wanted to fix. And obviously this is just from like learning more about myself along the way, but also through everything I've learned from you, I have taken my squirrel brain. And now I view it as kind of one of my most powerful tools because I think it's what keeps me creative. It's what keeps me wanting to do more and wanting to share more. And,

it's just very cool to see how like I've shifted my association with my squirrel brain, like to something so positive that I'm so grateful for versus how it used to be, what I hated about myself and what I wanted to change. And I think that,

I just think that that's cool. You created a positive association. Like that's a little, you know, that's like a little skip ahead on how do we undo things. But in that specific one is you take a negative association and you start developing either a neutral or a positive association. And that is one of the biggest like wonderful things in life is when you take something that was a limitation and you make it a superpower. And you, you know, in our talking earlier and we were talking about things in my life,

And I do get asked a lot because I do have a lot of responsibilities and I do a lot of things. Like, how do you get all that done or how do you do it? I'm like, because I have ADHD. Yeah. I have the energy. I use that type of energy and even a squirrel mind in my creativity or my ability to do all of the different kind of, you know, multitasking. Yeah. So when you learn to shift your focus and

And not focus only on the negative, but focus on the positive. You're able to pull out things and recognize that some deficits are actually superpowers. Yeah. And it was really cool. I don't know when that realization really clicked for me. I think that it... Because honestly... It's during a journey. You'll never identify specifically, but it's during a journey. Exactly. And even if it was something that I was trying to work on a year ago, like...

it's been a year now and it's just kind of now clicking for me. I realized I was writing a poem about it a couple of weeks ago, just like writing about why I like the way my brain works. It was such a cool moment for me because I was like, wow, this is something that I used to just like, I wanted to get rid of it like so badly. And now I wouldn't be me without it. And I would never want to know me without it kind of thing. So just learning to love myself along the way has just made everything in my life.

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quick little intermission you guys we all know how important it is to prioritize the right things in our life and maybe for you that's prioritizing doing leg day at the gym or making sure you go for your hot girl walk but how often are you prioritizing your mental health and making sure that therapy is a part of your weekly routine if it's something that you've been open to if it's something that you've been considering i highly recommend better help and thank you so much to better help for sponsoring this episode

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You know, it just goes back to hopefully what you can gain when you do come to someone who's a therapist or life coaches, learning that really you do have the power within you to change all of that. And so if you don't like the way your brain functions, you are not stuck with that brain that you have. You just have to learn how to tweak things and shift and pivot. That was another one of the first things that you ever taught me was just shifting. I've

was there a phrase that you said like, or it was just shift? Well, it was like, well, you know, instead of saying like, oh shit, I don't know if you can curse, but yeah, you can be like, oh shift. You just shift the mindset. And so that is everything. Honestly, it's,

Looking at yes, you can see it in that way But if you shift your mindset, you will actually see a whole variety of things, you know I mean, I guess like even in this room like there's so many beautiful parts of this room But if you only stayed in one way you would only just let's say see this and see you know the mirror but like Turning here and shifting. It's this whole other vibe and then having this way It's this whole other vibe and then the outdoor in the nature So yeah, just that pivot that shift allows your lenses the way that you see things

to see something from a different angle. Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. I liked the visual with the room.

because I've never really thought about it like that but that was good yeah it's tough okay wait okay so yeah yeah so okay so now we're leading to so um this ant six which is what you mentioned a few you know a few moments ago um which is a really really hard I'd say one of the hardest ants to crush because this ant perfectionistic thinking is what a lot of people identify

do think struggle with and it has become part of their personality and perfectionistic thinking is not necessarily needing things to be perfect but it's that the idea is already in your head of how it should look or what it's supposed to be even friendships if you have an idea of what friendships are supposed to look like and let's say they're supposed to call you back every time you call it's like we set expectations yes it's

it's all about expectations but they're unrealistic and so like where did they come from how did you even develop that so we have to learn that if we say things like should have to need to that's really leading your emotions to guilt to pressure so if we're gonna say things like that we have to really really be aware what is it that we really should who said and what if I don't do that

So that's what deconstructing is. That's the strategy on all of these ants is to deconstruct it. Like, so what if, or what if it actually turned out this way? Or where did I learn this from? So if I think that I'm supposed to do, let's just say the dishes every time before I go to bed, why? Because maybe you saw your mom do it or did you feel like that's going to make you less of, you know, of, of,

a responsible person or do you feel like you're going to be dirty just because you didn't like clean the dishes or even something as simple we say like oh I have to go brush my teeth well you know certainly over time and in a ratio of what we you know need to do there's a difference but like if one or two days you didn't like let it go

Or for anything that you're finding that you're saying to yourself that you have to, should, need to. It's really, really important to break that down. Well, because then you beat yourself up if you don't do it, which is something I struggled with for a long time and obviously still have my moments of struggling with it is just this negative self-talk, which is actually one of the questions on here that I really wanted to dive into is like,

Negative self-talk for me used to be the only person talking to me. Like, I was not my own teammate in my head. Like, the voice inside my head was evil to me. Like, she told me I wasn't good enough. I wasn't doing enough. I was never going to be pretty enough. I am doing everything wrong. I'm never going to be able to make other people happy. Whatever it was. But I've kind of now been able to make, you know, the little person in my head, like, my teammate. And that's something I learned from you, too. And...

I think that so many of us just have that little voice that just keeps telling us, do this because of this if you want to make this person happy or this person or, you know. I would say that it's that aunt alone is you can develop your own nice voice, your own nice teammate, friend, whatever word someone wants to say to be kinder would go such a long way. I think now I have both of them because don't get me wrong, like my...

The girl who isn't proud of, you know, me right now, she'll still come out sometimes. I'll still be hard on myself, but it's in a different way because I also have my teammates. So I don't know how to explain it, but it's like two against one. It's like that person who's trying to tell me I'm not good enough, I'm not doing enough. I have someone to fight back and be like, you know what? Actually, I am. Like, even if I'm not doing this in this moment or evolving my life right here, I'm evolving it somewhere else. And I'm just kind of...

being able to be kinder to myself. Yeah, you know, I mean, there's a lot of psychology terms, you know, the id, the superego, and the ego. I was just learning about that in my little

My little class I'm taking that's like an online one. And it's, you know, what a lot of people know that as. For anybody who does know what those terms may reference, it's like, you know, you have a devil on one shoulder, you have an angel on one shoulder, and it's like, how do you know what you're supposed to do and how do you find that balance? Well, the goal is you, your ego, like your best friend voice in there so that when there are things that have to talk to that other voice, it's like, okay, so? So tell me why. Like, why can't I?

Or prove to me that I'm not good enough. Like, whoa. Because I have all these other proofs that are. Exactly. So that ego is really... Like, that's what we want to be able to use is because it's our confidence. And someone who's always looking at just, like, the positives. You know, we also want to sometimes counter that and look at, like, sometimes there's risks involved. And so what risks... So I think that those two voices are important because sometimes, like, and I shared in my story...

I sometimes love the voice that says you can't because, Oh, tell me you can and I will do it. Like, yeah, that's what I know. I'm motivated by people saying you can't or, or that I think it's also the way that we view that voice because I used to be that voice as like something like, I'm trying to figure out how to word it. I don't know how I used to view it, but now I view it as like,

Kind of like a coach. Like, okay, well, if you're feeling this way, let's evaluate why I'm talking to myself in that light. And then I kind of just, I don't know, work on it.

know. That's the goal. If everybody can just listen and take that, all you're expected to do is just challenge yourself. Like, so why are you feeling that? Like, why am I thinking this? Like for what? Oh, because so-and-so told me this in eighth grade. Well, I'm not an eighth grader anymore. I don't need to listen to that voice. So as long as all is you're just, you're challenging, like give a little bit of a fight with that voice. Don't allow that voice to basically be the dictator.

It may be right in something, but prove that it's right about something. Especially if there's all of these other angles to see it. If you haven't seen those angles yet, then you're not really speaking the truth. Yeah.

I like this. This is good. This is good. And then just the last one, it actually, a lot of people are like, really? So that one is number seven out of all of the ants. Like that's that, that important. And it is, it's blaming what it basically means. I forgot about this one. It's right. It's so minimal, but it's so powerful because when we take time to find fault, let's like, I'm going to be clear. Like there are real things that actually may be true and they may be the reason or cause of something, but,

But this is the gist of it. If we waste our time finding fault, whether it was our fault, whether it was because of the pandemic, whether it was because I didn't get to do, you know, X, Y, and Z because of the weather or because of someone else, you are stuck in the problem. Your brain will not ever go to how can I do something about it now though? What kind of resolution or problem solving can actually take place?

So that is why it made the top seven is because it puts you in a powerless, a helpless or hopeless position when the moment you're there, you are not going to be able to problem solve or work through the solution. Well, yeah, because if you're sitting there trying to figure out who did it or what did it, you're not going to move past it. You're going to just...

stay right there in the moment. Because of that fault, so there's nothing you can do. Yeah. But that's so not true. Yeah. Oh. Yeah, I had totally forgot. For some reason, I also thought there were only six, so that makes sense that in my head, I just deluded myself.

that one because I just didn't want to think about it. But yeah, it's also hard because I try, I do remember all of them, but kind of just in one big scale, not what each one means, which I mean, you know, as long as I'm aware of it, it's still a good thing. The awareness is key is that there are ways that we think and we cannot always believe our thoughts. That's the gist of it is that there are thoughts that we have that are automatic, that are not real. And in fact, some of them are lies. Like when we do all or nothing, it's an impossibility for you to really ever say like,

I always get left out when so and so or it always rains when I wash my car no it doesn't it just stands out in your mind exactly because you're aware like you're it's like you're looking for it you're creating it you're creating and you're creating these unfair opportunities or like everybody else has like all the colors of converse but me so like I'm sure people

People in Uganda haven't. There's lots of people, but you put yourself in a very rejected, isolated, extreme position. And so what we just have to be aware of, of these ants, is these ants equate to the way that we talk and think about things and to ourself. And our thoughts cause our feelings and our feelings cause our behaviors.

That was another one that I remember from one of the first sessions I have written down and I still think about to this day because it'll start in my mind and I will notice when I'm thinking something that I know is going to make me feel bad and I'll kind of just shift the thought into something that will make me feel good or just redirect it or refocus it or put my energy elsewhere because it's so true. Like if I'm thinking...

Early on in the day, oh, I don't want to drive to the gym today because there's going to be traffic. And I was just – I've told her a lot lately about how much I hate sitting in traffic. But if I'm thinking that, I already am going to start to feel the stress and the anxiety that I have to drive to the gym. I know this is such a silly example, but, like, we all have our own little silly examples. And then on my drive to the gym, I would just behave with anger. Like, I don't know how to explain it, but everything just kind of shifts, and I'm mad at everyone. If someone, like, tries to come in my lane, I'm like, really? Like, why are you doing that right now?

Versus, I don't know, if I shift it into, "Oh, I get to go to the gym and I'm gonna use this drive to listen to my favorite song and to just not be on my phone and to be peaceful for once in this day." So think about those words. You just created a different sense of looking forward to it. Like excitement, curiosity maybe, feeling good. There's just all that being, you know, the adrenaline is all going to be in a positive so that because now this is the only area I could say is very black and white science.

You cannot, you can't mess with science. It's a formula. So your thoughts cause your emotions, your emotions cause you to do or not do behaviors. Very simple. So how much of your life are you going to focus on making sure that you choose a better narrative of something you have to do or that you've already experienced? Because that narrative, whatever you say is going to absolutely equate into what emotion you're about to feel. It's one of those, instead of saying I have to do this, it's like, and I get to, and I,

I love that one. I kind of think I've, I've thought about that for a really long time, but when I actually apply it to my life, life is just so much more enjoyable. Yeah. And it sounds like really silly and cliche, but it's so real. It's light. You appreciate all the things that you get to, like there is, having to go pee in the middle of the night, I don't know, something like that. Like I would be like, damn, I gotta get out of bed right now. It's dark. Gotta turn the light on. If that were to happen to me now, I'm like, oh, okay, I get to pee. Like I'm, I don't even know how to explain it. I,

am capable. I get, there's, look, I think, you know, I think, but look though, I think that that example is good because it is so off the wall and silly, but there are real people. That's what I was just going to say. There are people who don't have working limbs and,

or who may have to have, you know, a catheter because they don't have that capability. And, you know, I have a lot of people that will say like, yeah, I know, but that's not me and I'm dealing with this. Okay, but there's lots of people that wish they could be dealing with that. So if you just change your mindset and...

Like, what if I didn't even have legs to be able to walk to the bathroom to go? So like, you know what? Yeah, let's thank God that I actually have, this is not that big of a problem. So what you're doing is you're breaking down ant three, really the magnitude of, okay, so it's no big deal. Like there was way more. Would you trade that problem with other people's problems? No. No.

So when you do change your mindset, even though, yes, you're still experiencing something you may not like or want, it's knowing it could actually be 10 times worse. So thank everyone goes through crap. Everyone has stuff. If this is the crap that I'm dealing with, I'll take it. That's what I want to say. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Well, I guess I'll just ask some of the things that I wrote down, like coming to you as me as,

but with someone else's question, I guess. What is the healthiest way that I should handle rejection?

So this is actually, this is a great question because I think that there are moments in our day that we're just being rejected without even realizing. Sometimes when we want to get into a certain, you know, line and we're waiting from a side street and we're not allowed, they're not letting us through. That's a pure rejection. So I think one of the biggest things that I like to mention is the four agreements, which is one of them. I won't go into them all, but if anyone wants to look them up, there's just four of them. It's a great book.

Everyone should read it. I think I've told you guys about that before. I need to reread it because it's such a good one. And it really, they're just like the four, I mean, I'll say the four basic ones without having to go into them all, but do not assume, be impeccable with your word, always do your best, and here's the big one, do not take things personally.

So that is a one big piece that I do want there to be an understanding of, of what does it mean? Like, what do you mean? Don't take it personal. They literally told me no, or this person doesn't want to date me. And that's one thing that we all do. I start with taking things personally all the time. Yeah. It's, it's definitely a human behavior, right?

But what I think is important is, you know, number one, to recognize that not everything really is about us, that something that we're getting rejected for is not really necessarily like about us, but it could be that it's not good or not okay for somebody else.

It also could mean that whatever we're experiencing a no or it's being taken from us, this is where there's a little bit more of a spiritual perspective, but there has to be some sort of reason that that is not serving you right now. Even if you're like, no, but I want it or I have to have it, like how am I not able to go to this or do this?

You have to believe that if you were to do that now, it is filling the space for something better that you just don't know. And it just comes down to trusting it. Whatever it is that you trust. Trusting and having faith. And that's a huge... I've told you guys this on the podcast before too. Like one of my biggest words for 2023 is just trust. Yeah. And just believing that everything is coming to me at the right time and in the right place. And I think the mindset shift as simple as that changes everything for me because I'm able to just handle...

rejection at its finest. Like I'm like, okay, well that's not what's meant for me right now then. And we're just going to keep moving. Yeah. I'm not going to stop my life and my future for something that's not even meant to be in my life right now.

And I think that there's also a difference between self-reflecting and taking a moment to say, is there anything that I could gain from this? Like, is there something that maybe if it was an interview for a job, is there anything that I could do a little better or maybe I wasn't clear? Sure. We can take those little pieces of moments, but go back to the same mentality you just said. You've got to look at it that there's something bigger. And for those that say, well, like, I can't just trust that easy or I don't have faith like that.

Well, I would certainly challenge you to say, look in your life, you have a lot more trust than you realize. If you're in a car, you're definitely trusting that other people are stopping at the red light. You're trusting that when you eat your food, that it is going down the right pipe, that when you're going to the bathroom, it's all coming or we're doing what it's supposed to do. Like, so we have trust and faith in so many tiny little things that we don't think about.

So if we could just expand that to be my whole... And if we also pause and think about where we're at in our life right now and realize we've already made it through so many different things, so much adversity. Like, it has proven to work. Like, everything is happening for a reason. You're here for a reason. So that helps me think about the future too because I'll stress myself out about it. But then I'll realize...

It's already worked out now. I see it continuing to do this. So I think you bring up something really important that sometimes things aren't just like these easy answers where you just do it in a moment and it like works. It's things where you have to develop a mentality so that you can practice this type of mindfulness. And I think... It definitely doesn't happen overnight. Right. And I think that's something a lot of people think that, oh, like if I just... It's so instant. And it's not. It is... It's never. You're always learning. You're always growing. And I think that we're always adapting to different things that our brain...

creating you said something before the podcast started that about you know really learning to connect the dots and that mindfulness and it's so so so important to understand you cannot connect dots when you're in it though you can only connect dots after after

So if though you're someone who does look at connecting the dots, then you would know things do work out for me. So I can trust that because all of these other things like I'm okay now. So even if I was in a bad place or a bad spot, I'm still okay now or I was able to get through it or I'm healthy now.

then that is what's needed so that when you are in those moments, you don't just wait for them to be reactive. You're proactive. You already have a mindset that I may not understand things in the moments when they happen. I think, for example, the stomach flu. Like, if we're not talking in a mental health way, in a physical health way, when you get sick, you get a cold, you get the flu...

Yeah, it sucks in the moment. You feel like it's never going to end, but it does. In the same way I think that our emotions do too. It passes. Everything passes. They do. It's temporary. There is a temporary piece to this. And that, to me, in the mental health world, is something that is so, so, I feel like, urgent to get out there. Is that all of our problems, really, other than death,

are temporary. Everything is temporary. So let's not ever make these permanent statements and permanent decisions over things that are temporary. And feelings are fleeting.

And feelings are created by us. So if we don't like what we feel, it's like a TV and a remote. If you don't like what you're watching on that TV, change the channel. And if you still aren't getting what you like, then you keep changing it until you land on something that works. I like that one. I like that one a lot. And I also like, I think I told you guys this on last week's episode, but that emotions are energy in motion. And that just helped me find so much peace with understanding emotions.

this feeling isn't going to last. It's just moving through me at this moment. And eventually it will be out and I'll be moved on to the next emotion. And you can say, what am I doing to help move this through me? Because some people stay stuck or they don't do much. And I really do talk about, and I know that you embrace this as well. There are a variety of ways. And I might even mention this again in another question, but there are a variety of ways to move through those things and through our feelings. And it's by doing something physical and

Doing something spiritual, emotional, and social. I honestly think we should go over those now because this is another thing that was so valuable. You said every day you need to do something this, this, and this. Yes. Forget what they are now. This is just my side I need to learn. Yes, yes. And again, take this for whatever questions you have. This is an understanding about really now the brain is a complicated organ because of the fact that there's a lot of different chemicals that come out.

And we have the power to release particular chemicals that are related to, you know, joy and peace. Those are the two main words that I use. And just like as much as we can create a lot of anxiety and stress, there's those chemicals as well. So when we do, now I'll start off to say, when we do one thing from each of these categories that I'm about to tell you, you put yourself in a very good position to combat all of the additional stressors and, you know, negative chemicals that we produced.

So, physical, any movement, anything that we can do that involves movement. Either think about things that you did a long time ago when you were really little.

think about things maybe you're doing now or what would you love to do that you never ever did before? Me and Lissette got ripsticks, we have skateboards, we go do playtime. Oh, that's so cool. And this is my favorite form of the physical aspect. Like just going, we call it playtime. Like we'll go play kickball, soccer, football, basketball. Like we will just act like little kids because I think that also heals our inner child a little bit, which is great. I'm a play therapist, so you're totally, you know, preaching to the choir, like play and

is a language and the way that we play and the way that we move through things really is helping us have that aspect where it doesn't get stuck. And it's, you know, and I mentioned it, your issues are in our tissues are, you know, they're in our tissues. Emotions are just that, you know, energy and motion. All of that helps come through when we are physically active. So yeah,

In that aspect, there's like several different chemicals that we release when we are active. The emotional category. Emotional category are things in our life that bring us such a feeling of productivity or joy. They're usually our hobbies or these places that we go that we really feel like some people might say the beach. Mm-hmm.

But going and finding those things to be able to do and incorporate. And again, we look at it doesn't have to be the same thing over and over. It can be, you know, something that evolves into like if you're a photographer, you might say, well, you know, I'm only going to photograph things that are inspirational. Next week, I'm going to photograph things that are all animals or only things on my nature walk. So you can mix it up so it doesn't feel so boring. But the emotional category is pretty big. And a lot of people don't realize it. But there's, you

that's kind of where you create a little bit of a life outside of other people. It's the area where you can have your aloneness and still feel good and accomplished. So that's what we want to think of. And if we don't have many of those, we should start thinking of more to add. And again... Because that's another thing that I have got a lot of questions about is just...

The difference between being alone and loneliness, and I think that that's something a lot of people struggle with. I know that because I've gotten a lot of messages about it. Like, I feel alone. I don't know how to enjoy alone time. I don't know how to be alone. So maybe after this or right now we can throw it in. Like, what do you suggest or what pieces of information do you have for someone who feels alone? Well, I think what's happening is that they are missing these assets.

aspects to their life that are called like our life like you know more so the spiritual emotional and physical there are things to that that you can feel accomplished and accomplishment is a I'm going to speak a lot about that because that is the only way for us to develop our self-worth and our self-esteem is the way that we feel accomplished about stuff not how many people tell us

how, whether pretty we are or how accomplished we are or what trophies we have. Because yeah, if you don't believe it yourself, no matter who tells it to you, you're never going to feel like you've actually succeeded in that. So finding things that you're like, you know, Oh my God, I love doing my crochet or I really love, um,

Going out and doing, you know, photographing these things and finding the meaning and making that meaning that removes loneliness because you feel fulfilled, you feel satisfied and you did it by yourself. So that's,

It's a journey. Again, it's a journey. It's not an instant thing where you just all of a sudden don't feel lonely. But there's also the piece with ants because a lot of times people get stuck with their ants, their automatic negative thoughts when they're alone. And then they start feeling anxious and they're like, I don't know what to do. When you're alone, you're kind of forced to think about... To be with yourself. Yeah, you're forced to think about the things that you're thinking instead of just talking to someone else or changing the subject. You have to be with your thoughts. And the thing is, I think that so many people avoid their own emotions instead of...

feel them, that it just makes it hard, hard. They avoid it by either being so, so, so, so, so busy or they avoid it by maybe possibly diving into an addiction, not maybe even intentionally, but that's what winds up taking over. And so you're really not ever attending to those. And then what you're left with is when you are blindsided by them and they just supposedly happen, you're like,

I don't know what to do. And you get stuck because they're not right. It's not instant. It's a process. It's a practice that we have to develop. So, so really, if I were to answer that question, I'd say there's so much more work, excuse me, with the ants, um,

And breaking those cognitive distortions, those negative ways of thinking, so that you have different lenses when you are alone. You're not using those lenses where you see only the negatives or not being not good enough or, oh, how sad I'm by myself. And recognizing that aloneness is actually really riveting. It's very... It's wonderful. You're not told what to do. You can do whatever you want. I mean, I've always kind of been okay with being alone, but in my recent past few months, I...

in my alone time. And I just, I do think that's when I learn the most about myself and that's where I feel the most

to like create a future for myself. I don't know how to explain it, but being alone has become my favorite thing. Just like doing things that used to kind of scare me to do alone, like going to eat, for example, by myself used to terrify me. I would never do that. And now I'm like, I feel empowered when I do it because I get to be with me and I have turned myself into my own best friend where like I don't even feel like I'm alone because I have me. Does that make sense at all? It does. It's because you created a meaning for yourself

and a meaning behind it of what it will evolve into. So now, because of the lenses you have to go into it and being alone, you've created like, in order to be successful and even mentally healthy, successful, like that,

We have to put on our, we have to have our own oxygen. We have to be okay with ourselves. I like that. We have to love ourselves. Oxygen. Yeah. Yeah. This podcast is supported by FX's English teacher, a new comedy from executive producers of what we do in the shadows and baskets. English teacher follows Evan, a teacher in Austin, Texas who loves to play with his kids.

who learns if it's really possible to be your full self at your job, while often finding himself at the intersection of the personal, professional, and political aspects of working at a high school. FX's English Teacher premieres September 2nd on FX. Stream on Hulu. Because I think so many of us now, especially in this, I guess, day and age, we just crave other people's validation. And we feel like we need other people's validation to do anything or succeed at anything. So we're always surrounding ourselves with people to validate us.

And most of the time when we do that, we haven't even validated ourselves. Like we're not giving ourselves. That's exactly it. It's, it's, we have not validated ourselves. So we don't. So if you can validate yourself, you're not requiring the other validation. We are living in a society where all of these things are, you know, in social media and you put a post on there and then you're looking all day. Like, you know, you're seeing all these, like whether they're fire emojis or what people are saying about you and to you and the truth is. How many likes it has, how many shares it has. Exactly.

It means nothing because what it really has to do is like, you know what? I'm proud of the way that I might have been scared to post this and I posted it. I'm so proud that whatever I've put in this, that I put so much effort in and it evolved into this, you know, final product. So what we have to learn to value is our effort and our performance, not so much the final product or like... This is another one that just like stuff... What is it exactly...

- It's about effort, not outcome? - Oh, yeah, so our outcomes are not at all in our control at all. As much as we would love and wish that they could be, we have zero control of outcome. What we do have control over is our efforts. And that is the only thing that we have control over. So if we focus on our efforts,

there's more likelihood that we can try to achieve the outcome that we're trying for. But those efforts is what you want to use to value, you know, your, yourself and your performance, not the grade that you may have gotten on a test or on a certain score, but,

But did you really feel like with what it required and what was on your plate and how you tackled it and how you handled it, do you feel like you did your best? That is what you learn to evaluate. Not so much what that outcome was. I think that that's hard, so hard for people to do right now in a society that is so, like I think back to high school, for example, like I didn't, I wasn't aware of any of this at the time, but looking back on it, everything was based on what your outcome was. I think standardized testing, I think getting into colleges, like everything

That's why it's become so prominent in our lives and everything that it's only about where you end up and not what you did to get there. But I think that when you can at least recognize for yourself that you did your best, it just makes, I don't know, everything feel a little bit simpler. But you're, I want to say like 100% correct. There was this mentality that...

maybe 30 years ago, 40 years ago, I don't know where it got established, where you were who you were based on your successes with a type of school or what GPA or what your job was. And I will say, and maybe that's some of the positives even of social media, is that we are learning, though. We're starting to kind of break that, not necessarily stigma,

But that you don't need. Yeah, totally. You don't need to have exactly what this was years ago to still be able to be a successful person or to be able to be a quality person. Um, and somebody maybe who, who doesn't, you know, have the ability to have a job that, um,

let's say, you know, either makes a lot or has a lot of notoriety, that doesn't mean that that person has any less ability to be happy because if, for example, let's just take somebody who does drive-through at fast foods. If that person goes in and says, "My effort is to be as kind to anybody even when I get adversity," which they're probably going to get adversity because outcome is not under control,

So if they were to be able to do that and know that their job is to hand out that food every day and not leave it at the window and to hold their arm out, the end of the day, this is what they look at. With everything that happened in their day that was on their plate, how did they handle themselves and how did they handle their effort? That is what they would qualify whether they had a great day or not for themselves. Because not whether how many people were rude, but how many people were rude and I didn't let it bother me. Or I wound up saying, here's an extra...

You know, it'd make you happy. But it's just the ideas. It doesn't matter who you are and what you do. It's all about focusing on your efforts and yourself and letting like the distraction of everybody else

not get in to your mind about how you are doing with your effort and and the way that you are handling yourself basically. Yeah, well I think back to when I first went to college I didn't get into the FSA, I didn't get into the university and I was really embarrassed that I didn't get in. I was like my test scores were so good, my essay was great, I was included in every single thing that I could have done in high school I was involved in and I was embarrassed to tell people that I didn't get into the college that I wanted to go to and

The thing is also, it wasn't a very hard quote-unquote college to get into, so I just didn't tell people that I was going to community college. I just lied that I was going to the college that I didn't even get into. And I did that for a long time, just because I didn't want to hear what other people had to say. Like, oh, you're going to community college? You're doing this and you're doing that? It's funny to say now that I've dropped out of college in general. But it was really hard for me to do, and I finally got to a point where I was like...

I did my best and I am really okay with where I'm at in my life. If anything, I'm really proud of where I am at in my life and I wouldn't be here if it weren't for me going to community college because say I got into the university, I would have done probably a sorority, probably would have stayed there instead of come home for school. All of the pieces that happened, happened for a reason. And like,

I am just now proud of the fact that I did that and I don't really take what other people have to say about it because people still say stuff like, oh, you're a dropout. Oh, you went to community college. You're going to fail at what you do. Social media is stupid. You know, people have things to say, but I don't let it affect me because I'm like,

proud of what I've done. Oh my gosh, I was just gonna, yep, because I was almost going to interrupt you and say like this is, like I just love this stuff, but this is exactly why even the question about how to handle rejection, it, when you develop a pattern in life of really focusing on the things that you're doing well and making sure that you recognize your efforts in situations that even the outcome can be awful, but your effort and your role that you played and how, you know, well you did, it's

that supersedes when somebody says something mean or nasty. It really doesn't matter. It's almost like kind of laughable or you just like say a little prayer for them because you know inside really the truth and what matters most, you know? So I think that that to me is the most important, you know, um,

of your story about that confidence where, you know, now, you know, again, you can look back and connect all the dots to see that all of these pieces needed to happen for you. So it's a nice reinforcement though that just sharing all of these things are not some of these little isolated answers for just people to just do like take risks

They can take one or two, that's great, but it's more about like, it's this journey that we have to be on. And it's not just taking one of those, but knowing that mindfulness is still part of it. Knowing what, making sure that you're always thinking about your accomplishments and your efforts and giving yourself, you know,

some kudos to that and some kind of reinforcements to yourself because, yeah, not everyone is going to do that. And I think that that's what's cool too. Like even though we've only maybe talked about one or two of the questions on here, I think that everything we've talked about is almost the way that we would answer each of the questions that are written down, you know? Yeah. Like everything that we've talked about

the tools and the pieces of information that have made my life feel so much more whole. So it's cool. Like, I don't even know. We've been talking for an hour. It does not feel like that. Oh, no, it doesn't. Especially since I was so nervous and so scared when we started. We were really nervous to do this, but we've been talking for an hour. I don't think I've ever even done a podcast that long, which is just so interesting. And obviously, we'll go through a couple more things, but it's just...

Well, you know, you used the thing about having a drone and like now being able to like be above and see everything. So that's what it's like. It's like, it's not just like, you can't have a forest without tons and tons of trees, but you can't only just like look at each tree. So it's really being able to understand that without having all of these individual trees, even like the trees that got,

cut down and even the trees that have rotten them it all it makes part of it yes and that's why another reason it's not gonna be overnight because you know you got to plant the seeds for the trees and they got to grow yeah and eventually they grow and then you learn and eventually it just kind of becomes a habit to think in this different way and I think that that's where like my I have just noticed that

the way that I think now versus how I thought two, three years ago, one year ago, yesterday, is constantly evolving. And when I tell myself that I'm constantly evolving,

I notice my life feel better. And even if nothing changes physically, if I'm changing the way that I think mentally, I feel as though everything has changed physically, if that makes sense. It does because the way that you... It's the meaning you make. So the way you view it, the lenses that you have on are going to be the way that you make meaning. And the way you make meaning then equates to the emotions that you're going to feel. So that really is exactly how it does work. And so, I mean, I think it's just so important to really...

you know, reinforce that. I guess like I keep saying this is just a lot of times people look for these quick answers and I want them to really be able to understand that it's developing a new mindset and developing a new mindset. It's like if you take a poster that's been rolled up for so long, just because you've opened, it doesn't mean it's going to stay open. It's going to keep rolling. Yeah, you have to roll it out every single day. You've got to keep...

I mean, and I think back to when I first came to you, I wanted you to fix me. I wanted you to take away my ADHD and make me be normal. And like, that is how I thought about it. I was like, I'm going to therapy to do this. It's just crazy the way that I see it now. Like now, one, that's become my superpower. Two...

It wasn't an overnight thing. Three, I never needed to be fixed. Like I, I just needed to accept and love like who I was. And it's just been so cool to like have that journey happen. I just, I feel like I've grown up so much since I first met you because even when I first did, I thought I, and at the time I was still pretty mindful and aware of what I was going through and how to handle everything.

Just not at all compared to where I'm at now. And it's still, believe it or not, going to keep happening to you. Oh, I believe it. You don't know what you don't know. Exactly. Next year I'll be like, I thought I was all situated then. And also it's cool to see too that this is just a wave. And I might be at a really high point in my life right now. And that's not to say I'm never going to be sad again. Even with all of these healthy coping skills, I guess, and tools, I'm still going to face...

hard moments and hard days but now I just kind of know you're more resilient so your mindset that you became that you got stronger and stronger just like when you go to the gym and you start off at a smaller weight and you eventually graduate different weights and you go up or you start off only being able to run for a minute and then it goes to two or three or four or five you become you have that endurance that you wind up developing

winds up tackling now another problem that comes your way the problem doesn't seem as significant as it may had months ago because you already did some of that work and that mental work to be able to look at it as like that's why it's not that big like it bothers me and I'm sad about it but it's not going to impact your functioning that's the difference oh yeah yeah it's like it's like what Oprah calls those taken moments of those aha moments like take it in you know it's you really when you if you think about it

It's not that things just don't bother you. It's that you have developed such a mindset and an understanding of the way that life works and the way that you are, that when something happens, it's just, it's solvable. Like you, you have the capabilities and the resources in your mind already to pretty much figure out what,

what to do with it but it doesn't mean you don't have a feeling about it it doesn't mean you're not sad or worried you just don't get stuck in it and that's when people say like feel your feels like recognize it and I ow and I think

Beans wanted to climb up my leg with his nails. Classic Beans. Beans interrupts almost every question. Sometimes I have my camera set up like on his toy because I'm too lazy to buy a tripod. He'll climb up there and like try to knock off the camera and I'm like, Beans, come on. Oh, that's so funny. He just loves to be part of it. He wants to be part of everything. And I love cats so you can use my leg which is a little startling to feel that little pinch.

Not the nails, right through the jeans. But that totally, I have no memory now of what I was even saying. This is,

And that's the great thing of not having to be perfect. Exactly. That's what, because before we started this episode, we were both kind of just like, oh, I'm nervous, I'm nervous. But that was the most beautiful part about it. Like, we're humans. We're going to feel nervous. We're going to feel anxious. But we're not going to let that stop us from doing it. Continuing to help others. And that's just like why I, one TED talk I watched that I loved is called Dancing with Fear or something. Now, every time I'm scared of something, I just use it as that much more motivation to do it. Because I know that it's going to evolve me in some way, shape, or form.

or just strengthen me or push me out of my comfort zone. It always comes with good things. That was like that great one. I don't know if you ever watched it, but it was on like 100 days of rejection. And when, oh my gosh. Well, add it to the list. It's basically somebody who puts themselves in a position to be rejected, which is one of the questions. Oh, you did tell me about this.

And what it does is it just minimizes the feeling of rejection every time he's already heard the word no. And even if you think about it too and what he'll describe is like, okay, so they said no. Like, okay, so then what? Like, or what? Like, is it really that detrimental? Is it really that horrible? Or, you know, and so the idea for him was no matter what he was going to ask and he realized also through it,

The different things he gained by not having the fear of rejection get in the way. But it was just, I think it's just a wonderful thing because we are supposed to force ourselves. That is the one force is to be outside of our comfort zone. Because if you don't, and this is where I guess it leads back to kind of what we were talking about before. If you don't allow yourself to experience something out of your comfort zone and you're always being a passenger in life for it to happen to you. This is another one. Stop being the driver. Stop being the driver in your life.

is you know then you wind up being that passenger and feeling a little bit of out of control and not being able to assert yourself and take that as a driver and deal with it because you never allowed yourself before so I think that that just kind of speaks to the more we allow ourselves to deal with stuff we don't like and that we don't want or being outside of our comfort zone you become less affected when something else happens again that you may not be prepared for yeah wow I think that this

that this was I feel like we covered so many right without even questions exactly and this is what I was saying before I was like I was kind of figuring out like how we were gonna do this how we're gonna go about it and I was like well we'll just kind of read through the questions and it'll lead us into one thing and then another and we made it through maybe three questions but still covered so much of what we would have talked about yeah it just been the questions which I think is so cool but I

I guess we could probably kind of end it here because I don't think people listen past an hour. I've never done one this long. Usually I do, I think, like 30 to 40 minutes. But...

We should do this again sometime. I would love to. Because I think that this was just... I don't even have nerves now. Like, my sweating stuff. Right? Like, once you do something once, it just makes it so easy to just go and flow and talk. And, like, I think that this is going to be so valuable for everyone listening. I mean, even just me rehearing these things just hit all again. Like, I feel like I just went to my first session and it was so good. And it was just...

So cool. I'm very excited to share all of your knowledge with the world and just how awesome you are and how much you've impacted my life. Thank you. And I feel like, you know what, even just with some of the little questions that we did, there might be so many more questions of the answers on these questions that we can expand or explore. We'll definitely do a part two and have people just like, if you guys want to, I forget that

They're listening. I'm like talking to you, but if you guys want to just, you know, DM me like what else you want to know and what you want us to dive deeper on. And we can definitely do that. And I think it'll be great and it'll be awesome. But yeah,

I guess like, thank you for coming on the moments podcast. This is so cool. Thank you so much for bringing this into my world to, you know, to do, cause I've never done this before. And, and just again, the fact that there are so many people who are listening that are just looking for, even if there's one piece that they can, you know, gain from this, um, to then listen again and to just keep hearing more. I think that, um,

This is such a blessing to be able to be part of something that is so wonderful that is helping others. It's just so cool. Even though we talked about how society can be a little crazy right now with the way that it works. We have opportunities like this and we focus on that. It all gets a little bit better. But if you have one more thing that you want to tell everyone in the world, what would it be? What is your one piece of life advice that you would share? I...

it is like such a loaded question because I don't know. So much advice. What's the first thing that pops

pops into your mind? You know, I guess it's just to know wherever there's darkness, there's light. And wherever there's light, there's darkness. It is your choice what you're going to pull out of that. And so even when you are in the hardest of hearts and you are in the most challenging times, I promise you there is still something that you can have a win from. So if it means you're pulling something that's inspirational for you moving forward, if there is something that you gained in that moment or why it didn't happen, but

But that to me is the biggest piece because that has to do with our prefrontal cortex, our frontal lobe, which really means our logic, our ability to problem solve. And so our emotion brain usually takes over. So if we can get in the habit of finding opportunities and seeing that, then when that happens more often, that's how we prevent ourselves from getting so stuck in the problem and the negative and being in that loop.

So just know there is always light where there's dark and there is always dark where there's light. You choose, you choose your heart. It's such a, that's such a good one because it really does just make all, all of this makes such a difference, I think in, in everyone's mind. So thank you guys for listening. And I guess that we'll talk to you next Monday. All right. Bye.