The Toolkit for Healing Anxiety, Part 1
51:44 Share

The malos podcast is proudly sponsored by omega insurance are exclusive insurance partner. As amica says, empathy is our best policy. That's why they'll go above and beyond to tailor your insurance coverage to best fit your needs, whether you're on the road, at home or traveling along life journey, their friendly and knowledgeable representatives will work with you to ensure you have the right cover in place.

Amec a will provide you with piece of mind. Go to amica outcome and get a today looking for perfect gift for everyone on your list. Egg nike, bareaud dreams, kate spade, new york and more are in north from rex stores now find everything on their wish, less all in one place.

Head to your nord stream rack store to score great brands, great Prices, the greatest gifts of all time. A is your friend male, and welcome to the anxiety talking on the mail cast. I'm so glad you're here.

We are talking anxiety today, and we have questions for five listeners of the malay's podcast. I love this topic. I am so excited to be able to bring you an appointment with one of the worlds reading experts on this topic.

Doctor Kennedy is a medical doctor, a neuroscientist, a beseler author, and he is going to meet with you, unpack the topic of anxiety, stepped by step. And he's doing at at zero cost. If your brand new welcome.

There's an amazing, amazing episode to begin our relationship with together, my named smell robbins on the new ork times best selling author and one of the world's leading experts on motivation, change and habits. And I cannot wait for you and I to experiences this. I cannot wait for you to share this anxiety toll kit with your friends, for you to bookmark this and come back to IT.

This is a paradise shifter. And as you know, the mall Robin's podcast, we're not here to just listen. We are here to do and there's going to be a lot that you're going to be able to do for free to empower yourself and to heal from anxiety.

And I think that's gonna the bigger takeaway. I know doctor candidate's work, my life is changed because of his work. And so this is a topic, whether you have strugling with this idea or not, we are all impacted by this and by understanding IT in a very different way.

And by knowing the difference between just merely talking about IT and trying to live with that or struggle with that, or cope with IT and actually healing you, that's where amazingly starts to happen. And I want that for you, doctor Kennedy. And I have an incredible relationship.

He comes at IT from the scientific neuroscience medical side. And I come at IT from lived experience and all of the research that i've done with our global audience. And so if you don't know dr.

Russell l. Kennedy, let me tell about the man who is in the house for the tool kid. I'm so excited about this doctor.

Kennedy is a medical doctor who specializes in this and childhood drama and nervous system regulation. He is also a neuroscientist, which makes him very, very interesting as an expert. He is a certified yoga instructor, meditation teacher, and he too has struggled with anxiety.

And I love his take on this. The tools that you are under dly gona learn today are gonna change your life. They've changed mine for thirty years. I lived with anxiety, and I am the mother of three adult children who had very serious periods with anxiety. But you're going to learn today in the anxiety took IT.

When you take these steps to hear IT, there is a level of peace and confidence and clarity and happiness that you will be able to access that I so want for you. And with that in reduction, I want to open the door and welcome you in to your appointment with the round world leading expert on this topic. Doctor Russell Kennedy is back and in the house for you to acr. Can .

mr. My god.

so doctor Kennedy, i'm so glad you're back because you have made such a difference in so many people's lives in my life. We had an outpouring of questions and of appreciation after that first episode that you and I did together many months ago. And so thank you so much for .

coming back. now.

We have so many new listeners to the murban s podcast, and they're also a lot of people out there that are experiencing anxiety for the first time or maybe they're seeing IT or worried about IT in their kids. And so I wanna welcome everybody to the table regardless of where you are in the understanding or the experience with anxiety.

And while we covered some of this foundational knowledge in the first episode, the docker Kennedy and I did, which we will link to and all the shows notes um I wanted just rapid fire a couple questions to make sure that we're all jumping into this with the same baseline understanding as we go deeper with questions from listeners. Ers, so dr. Kennedy, first question, how do you define anxiety?

Anxious, for me, is anxious. Ts, anxiety to the mind. Anxiety is not painful itself. What's painful is the sense of alarm. It's in our body, is in our system, and it's the alarm that drives the thoughts, is a very a typical way.

Especially is a doctor in a neuroscientist to look at anxiety as more as a body issue, like all unresolved wounding, that just making sense to the mind, because the mine is this compulsive meaning making make sense machine. So when he feels the alarm in your body from the old wounds that haven't been resolved, IT makes sense of you by worrying warnings. What is worst case in areas .

and that's what happens. Let me see if I can impact that. So for you, you said anxious thoughts like anxiety is sort of those spiral of thoughts. But truly, the the genesis of IT is unresolved trauma or issues from your childhood that is stored in the body .

typically, yeah, okay.

where does anxious come from?

IT comes from that alarm in your body. Anxiety is Normal. You know, anxiety over taxes, anxiety over your kids, that's Normal. But if it's everyday, it's a lentz is like that kind of anxiety is abNormal that typically comes from sort of unresolved shock from from your childhood and it's stuck in your body and in your mind to stem extent.

It's it's a bit of a it's a tough call because when you say anxiety in your body, of course, is in your nervous system, which is your body and your mind. So it's really finding that place of unresolved wounding that the trauma that still sits in you because that's the engine, what's driving your thoughts. So rather than thinking of anxiety as a thought base process, it's actually a feeling base process that's only kind of reflected by the mind.

But we we assume that it's the mind because we're so fixated on the mind and nurse society. So it's really a body based to issue. But we focus on the mind and we try and fix IT to the mind. And that's why people weren't therapy for thirty years. There are not a lot Better.

Um that was so to think what you just said, but really went flunk for me was when you said anxiety is a feeling issue but our mind tries to make sense of what we're feeling in our bodies and we try to change or fix the thoughts in our mind, with our mind and what you're saying, which to me is revolutionary no, no, no, no, no. Let's s let's forget the mind for a minute and let's stop into the body and let's talk about the feelings that are triggered, the spiral of thoughts. Is that good summary?

That's a great summary.

I've spent the Better part of my lifetime living with all of this unrest and unease and unevenness in my body. And I have tried for decades to make sense of IT to calm, IT to sue the, to heal IT through my mind. And IT is a revelation to realize IT really starts with thinking about the body. And so I want to ask you one more question. And then we're gonna jump into the the questions for the listeners, which will allows to go to really deep into this topic if the anxiety begins, which I agree with you, with this sort of stored experience in your nervous system, this store experience in these feelings that get triggered in you, how do you know if what your experience in your life right now is anxiety versus day day stress verses overwhelm?

I think if it's chronic, like if you're looking at your life, if you wake up in the morning and you're going, oh my god, up at this, this, this, this, what you've talked about before on the podcast, like waking up with this sensitive dread, that's a sign that things aren't quite right. And anxiety, he is one of the things I get people all the time that say, I didn't actually know I had anxiety until I read your book.

So why I don't know i'm doing any favorite as far as I kind of. But really now I get that all the time because I think that we just we live in our minds, we live in our bodies. This just becomes Normal.

And unless IT rises above this kind of critical mass where we're like uncomfortable almost all the time, then we think while there's something going on and now with instagram, but all the stuff, like everything is trauma, everything is roma. I I washed episode about healing childhood trauma, and I really want to dive into that as well, is so important because the quick the quick version is you probably had traumas, a child that was unresolved for you as a child. Now what happens is, when we get them as children, we blame ourselves.

So a great thing that says, if you abuse, neglect or abandoned a child, child doesn't stop loving the parents. They stop loving themselves, and then that starts the split. And then we start judging, abandoning, blaming and shaming ourselves from that point forward.

And that split causes the sense of alarm that gets lodge in our body. And then because we don't want to feel that alarm in our body, we go up into our heads, which is the only place that a child can go because they're pretty powerless in the environment. They over think, and that's a temporary escape. And then we train ourselves as children to overthink because that's the only say, places in our minds. And then when we get older, go through a couple of forces, you you get a car accident, whatever that stuff tends to come right back up again.

That's really the basis of of where this global anxiety kind of comes struck in people is, is this unresolved trauma? So if your parents love you and you ve got, you know, a supportive family and your a tune and connected and coron quote securely attached, you can go through traumas that we all do in childhood and they won't impact your nervous system to create this permanent change. Or I I don't like using the word permanent because that makes you feel like a hopeless, but IT creates a permanent changing nerves.

And trauma is anything that changes your nervous system, struction nervous system, in a pattern that doesn't allow you to get out of that trauma. And then we just get into this loop, or this alarm in our body. We make sense of IT by making horrible thoughts in our mind, warnings, what if worse case scenarios, which of course, makes the alarm of the body worse, which of course makes the thoughts worse. And we caught in this alarm exide cycle.

And unless we see that, we can get out of IT. wow. One of the things that I love about you, doctor candidate, is you are the loudest voice out there telling people you can heal anxiety, that you're not stuck feeling this way, you don't have to live your life feeling triggered or out of control, or over thinking or on edge.

And for somebody that is really struggling with anxiety, that seems impossible. In fact, her first question comes from a woman named kerry, and IT is a question from a woman who is extremely successful. And i'm sure she's hiding her anxiety, but it's gotten to the point where SHE just can't handle IT anymore. So let's take a listen to Carry.

Hey, ml, i'm the fifty three or a woman creative leader with, to the outside world, at least a circle, great career, I guess you'd say, but with crippling anxiety and exhaustion, overthinking, traveling, accompany by panic attacks. 我， i've had this issue for thirty years, and all the guide of meditations and mindfulness training pods in the world aren't helping.

So what steps can I take to stop this, to heal and find a new piece before I chuck in the town? Just barrick myself in at home. Thanks for everything.

I really relate to Carry because I know that I have been somebody with what they call high functioning anxiety, but it's tortuous because you're just always nervous about something in on edge.

Here's the thing, and this is true with you too, is that in the anxiety drives you to succeed. A lot of people, the aniele, are really intelligent. So we get very, very good at thinking.

We go in to our hands. We've been doing this since we've been five years old and is like going to the the thinking gym every day. So we get very good thinking.

We get very good accomplishing things. The problem is that underlying trauma, I could hear in her voice, for sure, is driving her too much. And you went through this too.

You realize, look, this isn't sustainable going this way. So the solution for her would be to find that little version of herself and see her love, her protector, show her that she's connected. And what we do is we find worthy alarm is in your body.

So with her, I would say, you know, when you get into these ananas ious faces that I call alarm and that you brilliant call alarm all the time, I watch your on healing child hod trauma, and you only use the term anxiety once or twice, which I just love, but getting into the alarm in her body, which basically the alarm is a remnant of your Young erself part of our brain, the a middle that that encode this has no sense of time, so that when we encode these traumatic memories, when we recalled them, IT doesn't feel like they're coming from the past. He feels like they're happening now. So he probably has an unread lt.

Trauma of some kind or traumas that are coming up in your body and temporarily guided meditations, breathing all that stuff will help you. But the key out of this, and I hope everybody gets this today, if you are a chronic anxiety, you have a child in you that is suffering, that is struggling, and all the guided meditations, all the breath work, all the yoga, isn't gonna heal that. What heal that is actually going in finding their child, finding their eyes in a picture, or even in your minds, eye, looking at them, showing them that they are seen, heard, loved and protected in a way now that they didn't get back then. And that's how we heal the root cause of this, as opposed to just helping people cope. Because basically, most of the things that are out there today help you cope.

exactly. I think that's why Carry so frustrated. He's saying she's just coping.

You know, doctor Kennedy, I got to thank you for going into so much depth right out of the gate. And let's hit pause real quick. We need to hear more from our sponsors.

Plus I think we've gone so deep, so quickly that lets just take a breath and I guess what we talked about and maybe Carry and you listening, maybe you want to find a photo of you are Young yourself so that you haven't in front of you when we come back because we're going to go even deeper indecorous question and the specific layers to healing when we were chAllenged. So don't go anywhere. Oh, i'm so excited to tell you about one of our sponsors or a friends. I love them.

why? Because like me, probably took a million photos here. Graduates from high school, Chris, I went on this unforgettable vacation together.

Our family climbed mk katon, where the photos, uh, morally, they be on my phone, but not anymore. Why I have an ora digital photo frame. IT sits on my kitchen counter.

I gave one of my parents, it's on their kitchen counter. I gave IT to candle who lives in la oakly up in his dorm room, or is a digital frame that looks and feels like a Normal picture frame. But check this out.

You just send photos to IT, and all the sudden your photos are right there everywhere and IT updates all the time and your family can update IT. I can love IT. It's the best gift to give yourself, it's the best gift to give everyone else.

And for a limited time visit or a frames dot com and get forty five dollars off or as best selling cover at frames by using the code mill a check out that A U R A frame stock com from a code mail. This exclusive black friday cybermen al is their best to the year, so don't you dare miss out terms and conditions apply as A B to b marketer. You know how noisy the ads base can be if your message isn't targeted to the right audience, IT just disappears into the noise.

With linked in ads, you can precisely reach the professionals who are more likely to find your ad relevant. With lintons targeting capabilities, you can reach them by job title, industry company and more. You will have direct access to and build relationships with decision makers.

A billion members, one hundred and thirty million senior level executives and ten million sea level executives stand out with linked in ads and start converting your need to be audience and the high quality leads. Today, what i've learn first hand is that linton can help you find the people who can actually move the needle for your business. I can't imagine working without IT start converting your B2B aud ience in the hig h qua lity lea ds.

today. They'll even give you a hundred dollar credit on your next campaign. Go to lincoln dot cosas mail to claim your credit. That's link dom flash ml terms and conditions apply linton, the place to be to be what's like to get the new iphone sixteen pro with A T N T next up anytime?

It's like when you first light up the girl and think of all the mouth watering possibilities, learn how to get the new iphone sixteen pro with apple intelligence on A T N T and the latest iphone every year with A T N T next up anytime A T N T connecting changes everything. Apple intelligence coming fall twenty twenty four, with theory and device language set to U. S.

english. Some features and languages will be coming over the next year. Zero dollar offer may not be available on future iphones next up anytime, future maybe discontinued any time, subject to change fees, terms and restrictions apply, see A T T A com flash iphone for details.

Welcome back, I ml. Robins. This is the anxiety toolkit on the mell Robin's podcast, and we're sitting here with a renowned dr. Or Russell Kennedy answering a question from a listener name, kerry, who has a great career, very successful on the outside, but is struggling on the inside as he .

puts IT with creating anxiety and using overthinking traveling company by panic attacks.

Just hearing Carries voice. I just so relate to how frustrated he is. Doctor Kennedy and dr. Tr Kennedy says that you don't have to just cope with anxiety, can hear IT, and there's .

nothing wrong with coping. It's just to heal. We have to solve this at the root cause, which is this typically this unresolved wounding, typically again, from childhood that's still in you, that still activated, and until that child feels seen her love and protected, you're always going to be anxious.

So obvious, and this visual came to mind. And I wanna see if we can maybe tease this out in the some specific steps that somebody might be able to take even on their own today with the support of your expertise. Because you described, in my mind, the three layers that somebody has to go through to address this sort of chronic on edges, this, this stress, this panic attacks Carries talking about.

There's this first phase of self awareness, and then there's the second layer where you make an attempt to cope. And then there's a third phase, healing IT and getting to the root cause. And the first level is self awareness, right? So there may be a large number of people that are listening to this from around the world because this point, we're reaching two hundred countries, seventeen million people, and there's a lot of people that are thinking for the first time, huh? I wonder. Five, anxiety. And so listening to podcast, reading books, watching videos or watching the show on youtube and having the self awareness that maybe this is something called anxiety that you're dealing with, what are some of the surprising signs, doctor Kennedy, that people should be looking for, that they may not know, could actually be anxiety?

Well, one of the big ones that people don't really realize is constantly looking for external validation. I am constantly looking for a love and attention outside of yourself and when you get IT, it's amazing. But when you don't get IT, you gain into that lonely this space.

And there is a study on, uh, I can't member how long go and I don't member the exact but basically he was they took women and they gave them an electric shock, not a big electric shock. Uh, and he was voluntary. And then they had three scenario.

One where the moment was alone, one with her hand was held by a stranger, and one with her hand was held by a partner. Now, to shut in the sub, the brain has to work really, really hard if you're lonely. So when he was alone， twelve places in our brain layup, we don't have to go in to orbit frontal cortex and all I kind of step.

But twelve places our brain when SHE was held, uh, hands with a stranger. Eight places in her brain let up when he was held, holding hands with their partner. Four places.

So only four places needed to come online to reassure her. So IT just shows that power of human connection. But if we're constantly looking for validation outside of us, that is a sign of anxiety. Typically.

that makes a lot of sense. I mean, that's exactly what I would do, and I think that's what Carriers doing to. And most people anxiety.

you know my book, anxiety R X is about anxiety, but really, it's about child, a trauma for me, IT showed up as as chronic anxiety. For some people shows up as depression. Other people that shows up as eating disorders, personality disorders.

But all of IT IT comes from some sort of unresolved childhood. Wounding IT will make itself obvious. For me, when I was a child, my brother had ordered tic issues, my dad with schizophrenic.

A lot of people know about that to watch my my channel. A lot of my mother's attention went to my brother and my dad. So I had this sense like, hey, what about me? Like, what about me? I have this drive to be seen, and that's why i'm on the male robots bag.

There's a drive in me that needs to be seen and validated. But there is also a part of me that was bullied in the school that hates crowds and hates attention. So you can help people that are highly and they're driven by their .

anxiety like me and Carry. It's a double edge sort.

but it's a tread mill. Eventually, after a couple of the divorces, you know or or something that happens in your life that that you can control, then IT comes out, and then it's unmanageable. One of the things that I see with people is looking for, looking for love in all the the wrong places.

You know, all of these things. Addictions are another one of those things that the reason why I think people take drugs or alcohol, whatever, is when they're inadequate, face in the brain in the gaba receptors are all set up and you feel calm and peaceful. I think that's one of the times that people actually feel connected to themselves.

嗯， ironic, it's odd. But in general, anxiety occurs because you blocked love for yourself. That's really what happens. So one of the things that drugs and alcohol do is they take away some of those blocks. They make you feel connected to yourself.

It's so true. I've never thought about IT that way. Maybe that's not what Carriers struggling with, but there are so many people who have anxiety and turn the substances for relief from IT .

anxiety addiction hold hands like they are so close together. They both come from child of wounding. And the alcohol or the drug or whatever allows people to feel connected to themselves.

And I think that's what I mean. And this is this like galaxy. I think it's just a way of getting connected to yourself because that's you heal if you become connected to yourself. IT doesn't come from outside of you, but we have to have that love from outside of.

But as well, of course, and you know, as you talk about the biggest relationship is the relationship you have to yourself and this class and woo and all that's up as IT sounds and as a neuroscientist and a medical doctor, somehow want a seize what I talk about this, because it's just so nonscientific love and healing is non scientific. We can't reduce IT down to something that we can reproduce in a science lab, and that's what heals that. So science will help us cope.

But I haven't seen many science help us heal out of all the incredible advancements we've made in neuroscience in the last fifteen years. And they have been amazing. Very few of those advancements have actually LED the different clinical outcomes when you're sitting with a patient.

So that's one of the things that, that i'm kind of disappointed about in science a little bit. But science is very helpful at helping us a cope. But to heal, it's an insight job. You really have to learn how to connect with that Younger wounded party. And if you don't, you'll always have alarmist, always be anxious.

Let's say. The one exception is the exciting research in the area of all these psychodeviant s but I think you just pointed out the reason why this is the biggest breakthrough because when you have an a guided therapeutic experience with academy or m dma or slicer ban, you have the ability to reconnect and join in with yourself and repair.

What you say is the original cause of anxiety, which is a situation in childhood where you felt separate from the caregivers whose only job was to make you feel safe and loved and looked after, cared for. I want to go back to this vision of there. These three phases, as i'm listening to speak, there is the phase of self awareness and awakening and this kind of wake up moment. You're like, holy cow, maybe the overthinking and the obsessiveness with achievement, maybe feeling on edge all the time. Maybe this isn't the way I meant to feel.

Maybe this is anxiety, you know, so there's this first phase of self awareness in the wake up moment, and then there's the second layer going a little bit deeper where you make an attempt to cope, whether that's through therapy or IT, is through breath work, or you mention meditation or exercise, the brazilian different things that you and I have both done for decades in order to cope with our anxiety, which for me meant trying to turn that down a little. And then there's a third and deeper face, which is what you are teaching everybody. And that third phase is healing, IT and going deep and getting to the root cause, which you have so beautifully taught us, is separation and feeling separate from others, and feeling separate from yourself.

And when you feel separate, you don't experience love, you don't experience safety. And so what I wanna know, doctor Kennedy, going back to Carriers question is, is there a simple series of steps that anybody who's listening today that's like, holy cow, I have anxiety. You I want to go deeper and start the work of healing IT.

What do you do? Can you give me and Carry? And everyone listening who thinks or knows that they have anxiety, give us three things, doctor Kennedy, that we can do, starting today, that work to go and reconnect with the part of ourselves that has been separate since childhood.

I mean, there's a lot of who in child stuff, like people get really fired up by this concept of inner child. And I find the people to get the most fired up by the inner child. That's a bunch crap child od wounding.

They don't want to go back there. That's right. good. I do have to admit anytime anybody uses those two words in her child and like I stupid but as an but as a neuroscientist and a medical doctor who specializes in this, what the fucking are you talking about when you say in our child?

Yeah, the science people, it's the ammidon, a based remnant of the trauma. So for you, for your car accident, when you rolled in this on the sky trip.

oh yeah, you know. And for those of you who don't know what doctor candidate is referring to, my mom and I got into this major car accident where we slit off the road and the car as we were driving um up to a ski resort when I was really little in michigan and IT was a very traumatic experience and the first time doctor Kennedy was on, I was telling him that now decades later, whenever I here frenching snow, I immediately remember what I felt like to be in the car it's a trauma response personal to me and that traumatic .

incident there is your a coupled sound of crunching snow yes. With trauma? yes. So now whenever you go to the mailbox after crunching snow, your amida coupled that sound with the trauma, so your body will feel exactly now on your, on your way to the mailbox as you did back then.

I want to share one other example. For those of you who haven't heard the first. Episode that we did with arrogantly dy.

And there's a second coupling that happened for me, which is I was buy an older kid during a sleepover in the fourth grade. And when I woke up the next morning, I felt in every cell of my body that something was very wrong. And what happened is the trauma.

And now you're saying in our child and the base of the amiga la, coupled the experience of waking up after being a victim and the feeling that something's wrong with morning. And ever since i've been in fourth grade, I wake up every morning. In the morning itself triggers me to feel exactly the same way as a fifty year old woman that I did when I was in the fourth grade and I woke up that morning. Is that that's what you're saying, right?

Yeah, when you came down on stairs, your mom making pancakes and he said, how did you sleep punny and you saw the other kid, if you had a chance at that point, if there was a magic one where, you know, you you went over your mother and said, hey, you know, gotto talk to you about something and SHE and, you know, you went to different room and then you talked about what happened and he sued you inside you are fall to wrap your back.

That probably would have mitigated this whole thing. Well, because if we have this love and attention from our our parents and caregivers, we are protected. So everyone has trauma in child ec, like there's no way of avoiding.

But there is a difference with you like drama and trauma. Trauma is when the event actually changes your nervous system. So IT gets stuck any on position. It's kind of like if you are on our our railroad and the old time switch, you know switches these .

down on the of course.

So Normally you know if you you go along, you have good enough parents, you know you have a reasonable to childhood. You go along with the track. The track is state, and you just mature.

Now if you get trauma in there, it's like one of those railway switches that switches you off track. So IT takes you into this mode of protection as opposed to this mode of growth. So if you keep going on the track, you're in a growth mode, you feel safe. But when we have this trauma and is not resolved at the time, that's which gets thrown and our nervous system changes again, I don't like in using the word permanently because we can with IT back, but the medal and ever forget there's always a random of that.

So what can someone like Carry, or me, or anyone listening do to put the switch in the right direction? So we don't feel so anxious all the time, await hold on afternoon. I think we are all gona benefit from what you're about to say, and i'm looking at the time.

And so I want you to hold that thought because we will answer that question after the break. 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 uncover mattress that you've kept around for twenty years.

I think about IT. You eat right exercise, you make a big moves in your life, and then you go and you flap down on a crappy, lumpy, gross mattress. I mean, come on now, as you push through the crazy unions of the holiday season, feeling well rested is extra important.

Sleeping on the right mattress you deserve that matters. Firm knows the importance of undiscussed quality sleep and can match you with the right mattress for your best. There are still around.

They've got the top mattress in the game and the close port. If you see the matters at a lower Price mattress firm mal match, plus free fast deliveries, you'll be snoozing like a pro in no time. A good night sleep is the fuel you need to tackle every day with energy and confidence.

This is a gift you need to give to yourself. Get matched at matters firms, black friday sale and sleep at night. Text mail to seven, six, six, six, nine, three for one hundred dollars off your next purchase at metro firm exclusion apply.

Let's talk about the special bond you have with your pet. Don't just sometimes wish you could understand them well. No more gas work, pet tivy health kits and smart products give your pet a voice and empowers you to provide the best care possible.

Imagine a little box, the tracks, your cats habits and the text changes, or an easy to use kit that does a deep dive and to your dogs, got health, petite ity handles at all. They use data and the latest and greatest technology to learn your pets behaviors and to learn you to potential problems that you can act on. E T I V I T Y 点 com to learn more。 This show is sponsored by Better help for me.

December is all about cozy nights at home. I'm talking soft landing ts hot tea sinking into the couch with my family nearby and the fireplace were in. There's something about that kind of comfort that just feels good, isn't there? But you wanted know what, comfort doesn't have to be something you only feel for a month.

And if i'm be honest, the best gift i've ever given myself is the kind of comfort that comes from work and on myself, especially through therapy. It's a way to keep that cozy, grounded, wrapped up in a blanket feeling all you're long no matter what life throws your way. So if you've been thinking about starting therapy, check out Better help.

It's a super easy way to get started. You just take a quick question, ae, to match you with a license therion and it's all online. You can switch the represent time without any extra charges.

You can find the right person for you. Fine comfort this december with help. This is Better help that come to smell rose today to get ten percent off your first month as Better help H, L, P. That comes smile.

Welcome back. I melt robbins. And this is the anxiety toolkit on the melt Robin's podcast. I'm here with doctor rusal Kennedy, who is a world rounded expert on anxiety, and he says that all anxiety is rooted in unresolved trauma from childhood.

We are unpack a question from a listener named kerry, and right before the break, doctor Kennedy, you said that the childhood trauma that makes anxious people like me and Carry, and perhaps you listening to us get stuck feeling anxious and on edge all the time, has to do with our nervous system getting stuck in a state of being on alert. Now, kerry tried coping with IT through mindfulness. And I want to replay her question though, because SHE ask you a very specific question, and we all want the answer.

What steps can I take to stop this, to heal and find a new piece before I check in the town and just barrick myself in at home? So what we have to .

do is go back, find that child at that age Young her self into child. I usually use Young erself because IT doesn't turn people off so much, but find your Younger self, give them the love and support now that they need IT back then, because, again, the amica has no sense of time. So we can use that fact that the mega has no sense of time to connect and through her, give her what he needed back then.

And that starts to heal the room cost. So then we can pull the switch back. But the older we get and the more that that thing is in grade, the harder that switch is rusted into the on position.

So every time the train goes down that track and we experience something like that, we wake up IT goes IT goes off that track IT goes into that protection mode rather than the growth mode of going straight head. So if we go back, we find the switch, we heal that Younger version of ourselves. And again, I know how flicky this sounds, and as a neuroscientist, is really difficult for me to talk about the Younger self in our child.

But I know, after suffering from thirty plus years of crippling anxiety myself, this was the only thing that allowed me to heal was to go back. I an yoga teacher. I mean, I meditation.

I done all this stuff i've done at all and nothing really helped. And like you, I have morning anxiety or alarm and wakes me up. I feel IT. And then I just, the big thing about having the alarm is don't add dots to IT, like, allow the alarm to be there.

Go in a sensation, you know, use your breath, use the grounding you're around if you're flying in your bed, feel the grounding, feel the support, feel your body even if it's uncomfortable, and then go back and find that Younger version. So you're asking for sort of a this step? yes.

So basically, when people get anxious, they go in other heads and they started over thinking, and that's a trap because you'll never get out of that. You never get out of that over thinking because the mind says, hey, we have the answer with more thinking. And it's like I thought anxiety was a problem of over thinking.

I no, no, it's not. It's not just keep thinking and that doesn't work. So what you have to do is go into your body.

Now, the problem is your body feels alarmed. So why am I gna go down into my body when IT feels alarmed? And that's why we have things like international family systems.

There are be so tic experiencing, like delis, some to make you feel safe in your body again. Because once you feel safe in your body again, then you have the platform. So when you're feeling anxious, or as I like to say, alarmed, go where my body do.

I feel this? Where is IT for me? It's in my solar plexus. I talk about that in the book, but find where the alarm is in your system inside people it's in their throat. Some people it's in there across their shoulders.

But see if you can put your hand over and just sort of make a mental connection with that alarm and see if you don't feel Better almost instantly. Now it's not going to take you away. But there is a sense when I first started doing this is like, hey, you know, this is the first time in thirty years that i'm actually on the right track.

So when you feel anxious, don't go in to your head, go into the sensation of your body, even if IT hurts. Find that alarm. Find where IT is.

Because I drill down with people like, just have a shape, just have a color. Does I have a temperature? Like I really drill down in there because it's a part of our brain called the inside the insult cortex. It's kindly like the mediator between the thinking brain and the feeling body.

And that insula, I think, will be in the next few years, really important in changing this old pattern so that when we feel that in our body, we can go back, feel the exact same way that we did back at the time, you, with crunching snow and me in the mornings as well, and go, okay, there is a different path. I can actually stopped the railway sleech back over to the growth part and get out of protection. So it's really about connecting with that feeling of alarm in your body, because that feeling of alarm in your body is your Younger self.

So Carry myself. Anybody who has anxiety, the pathway to healing is to connect with the Younger self. The part of view that felt separate. But can we go into the specific tools?

Doc Kennedy, because I think the second that you start talking Young yourself, a lot of us check out, do I print out a photo of when I was little? Do I make that photo? My screen saver, which I kind of feel like maybe I should. How exactly do we start?

So that's me a trip.

Oh my gosh. Oh, rusty.

That's rusty.

So for those of you who are listening to this, are not watching this podcast on youtube, doctor Kennedy just told up the home page of his phone, and there was a photo of him, that's three years old. I just made my heart go.

He's pretty cute.

So what does he do if you do that for yourself?

Well, that's the start, right? That's the big thing, because the child line's needs this love and support. So much study creates all this alarm to get our attention. And yet as adults, we push the alarm away.

So it's kind like I think I might mention in the no podcast that we did is that if if the child came up to you with their hands up in a grocery store like they d lost their parents, of course you would do them, but we have this alarm that was off in our system, which is essentially the Younger version of us going, hey, pick me up. Pick me up. I need some attention, I need some love.

And instead we go to the internet and some mistral instagram, or go into our addictions or whatever, and we push the child away. So the child just gets loud der, the alarm just gets loud der, and louder laughter. But there is a resistance to going back.

The adult doesn't want to go back and visit the child because the child holds all their pain. And the child has a real mistrust of us as adults because we've been ignoring the alarm for thirty years. So IT is really important that we start slowly and you make that connection. So when you say get a picture that can be really trigger ing for people.

So sometimes I just say in your minds, eye picture yourself at any age as a child that you want, you know picture what you're wearing um pitching yourself maybe at a happy time in your life, you know like for you was like skiing or something like that, pitching yourself in this happy place and that way you start making that connection. 嗯， so go to a place that you felt good. And I use this a lot when I when I work with people is what was the best time in your life, what was the best time .

in your life um I just immediately had this image of being on the front yard of our house in michigan and there are all kinds of kids around and IT was a beautiful summer night. It's my favorite time. And I dust when the twinkle starts first start to come out. And it's kind of confusing because the sun up, you see the moon and we are playing games like we're playing uh base and statue and tag and like just that moment right there with my brother and a bunch of other kids in the neighborhoods unna being kids in the front of yard of our house in michigan.

Rup, okay, so close your eyes and really get into that image.

Okay, I will. And I want you listening to do this with me if you're not driving a car right now and you can just stop like, take your hands off the keyboard, put the dishes down, sit down on a bench if you're walking your dog and just stop for a minute and lets do this together luxury .

shoulder for luxor jar nice breath and know just really see if you can drink in the emotion of that. Where do you feel that in your body?

Oh, like, I kind of feel IT from my cheeks all the way of my heart. It's like this sort of like definitely like we're i'd like for sure the heart.

So this, you know, this is something I would add to hide. Hiding yourself in the mirror is go back to the best time in your life when you're high, hiding yourself in the mire because then we're getting your insulin volte. We're getting your brain involved in this whole feeling sake, because the feeling that is what changes us.

We can change our thoughts at a dime. The feeling state is what changes our nervous system. So when you do the high five habit, when you are driving yourself in the mere recall, the best time in your life, and just try and see if you can really get a felt sense of that.

Now, what I will do with people who have suffered trauma is I will take them once I have them grounded, and once they trust me and step, I will take them into their trauma and then I will take them into the best time in their life. So with you, I might do and we're shorting this considerably for the podcast. But for you, I might say, okay, if if you feel safe enough that we talk about that kid, waking up with that kid on top of you and getting into that feeling now, where do you feel that in your body.

like right in the gut, is OK into this? Oh yeah, absolutely OK OK. Like I need is like, went from, like the heart being fall to, like, like right in the gut and the ankles.

weird the ankles. So what I would do is I would go back and go, okay, now go back to that feeling of dusk. It's your house. You're playing, playing statue.

嗯。

fine, if you come peaceful, happy. Now let's go into your god. Let's go into that sensation again of, you know, waking up. But I kid on top of you if it's okay to stay there for a second. And then lovingly go back up into that place in your chest, in your throat, where you felt really peaceful and happy playing with your brother.

Amazing, because I feel the gut like pulling me down like that. It's easy to drop into the gut up and a bad experience. It's hard to pull yourself from that back up into this experience that I can feel that positive. Is that Normal?

That's absolutely Normal. We're wired that way now. We're wired to pay more attention to fearful situations than pleasurable ones because in our evolution, that basically will keep us alive.

So we have to heal this at a feeling level. You know, we can talk about that kid on top of you for the rest of your life without really changing IT too much. You might get a Better understanding of IT connectivity, but to really change that sensation, we have to use another sensation because that's the language of trauma is sensation.

It's the body. So we use that good feeling that you have. And then we just we go back and forth. We hostility between back and forth and and IT starts weakening the power. That negative feeling in your body that you associate with being a Victor, with being helpless. Yeah, I love when you say you're talking about play because trauma activates both the sympathetic, the firefly and the paris sympathetic. The rest is just at the same time because .

we're so confused .

we don't know yeah because once you get up to a certain point in synthetic activity, your body can handle anymore. So IT shuts down. So we go into pair sympathetic, we are going to pleasant personates tic, but we go to shut down synthetic and then IT goes back and forth and back and forth.

And a lot of us with the anxiety that's what happens during the day we go into this place for our body just gets exhausted. So we feel okay. We don't feel that tremendous, you know, anxious anymore.

And then when we get arrested in the pair of pathetic, then the sympathetic comes back online, and we go right back and one anxiety again. So play is so important for healing. Another thing that activate both the paris sympathetic and the sympathetic activity.

At the same time, trauma activates co activation. They raumer activates simultaneously, so is play. But play allows you to start in metabolic. So when you're in co activation, when your payment athel and your impatience is active at the same time is like having your foot on the gas and the break at the same time, when you're in play, you start realizing, hey, you know what, this sensation is actually OK IT doesn't have to fire me right into the trauma. That's why play. One of the reasons why play is so important in healing trauma is because we get that felt sense of of activation about the paris synthetic and the sympathetic at the same time in a safe place because place is is safe and it's fun.

okay. So going back to Carry number one, IT was very clear to you as an expert, antiethical doctor and neuroscientist that she's dealing with stored drama. And step one is kind of recognizing that. And then the next thing he needs to do is to recognize that thinking keeps you in the coping, and that this is really going to be about dropping into your body and learning how to reconnect and heal in your body.

And one of the things that you have recommended is that we think about this as Younger self work and that you can go back to positive times and feel that good sensation that if you're ready for IT printing out a photo of yourself or putting IT on your phones, that you are reconnecting with that version of you, or you started to feel separate or unsafe or scared, and that that is a way to start this process. Is there anything else that you would recommend that Carry? Think about.

yeah, you have to do IT slowly. Because the thing is, when we go into our alarm, we don't want to go in there like IT feels painful to go in there. Do IT slowly.

If you have a real significant trauma, you know, emotional, physical, sexual abuse, you probably need a therapist and maybe a thematic therapies to kind to help you get into this place because it's not for amateur. S in a way, if you have big trauma, if you have trauma is manageable, absolutely can work on on, on your own. But if you have big tea trauma, doing this on your own can retry mize.

So you need someone else there. You need someone there who you wish was there at the time of the trauma, you know, and that person is you, that person is you is like, you can go back. We can use our medal.

We can use that sense that we are we are not locked in time. We can go back and find that like what I have on my phone, I can look in his eyes, and I can imagine his eyes too. And that's how you heal for me, anxiety and alarm. We can cope all we want, but if you want to heal, you have to find that child in you and you have to show them they're scene heard up, the protected. And one of the ways that I do that every day as I start my my day looking at him and I I use different pictures of me, but that's the main one because it's on my phone and it's right.

They are already wow. Let's go to another question. We get a lot of questions about anxiety and sleep. In fact, the next listener is somebody named Jason, and his anxiety is starting to creep up at night, and it's not only impacting his ability to fall lesly, but then he wakes up in middle of night and his mind is racing, and he can go back to sleep. And so let's listen to this question and then talk about tools.

Hey, now this situation, I always get anxious before I go to bed and then wake up in the middle night worrying about things. How do I stop myself from doing that? Thank you.

Doctor Kennedy, here's what I want to do. I want to give the remaining four questions, the service that they deserve. And we covered so much about the Younger self work and there's already so many takeaway that doctor Kennedy, we're going to turn this into two episodes.

And I want you listening to take everything that you've learned today, and there's a lot you have learned about the three phases. You've learned about self awareness. You've learned that coping is important, but that's where a lot of us, good, stuck. And we started dispatch the surface on what IT means to heal. And if you felt inspired by the meditation the doctor Kennedy walked me through, where he took me back to remembering a time, my life, that was really awesome memory, where I was playing, I want you to spend some time in the next day or two, bringing yourself back to that place.

If you feel inspired, like I feel inspired, I feel very inspired, red, to print out a photo of myself in the fourth grid and put in on the homework reen of my phone paint IT up in my office, because I think it's going to shift the way that I relate to that alarm inside of me. Because what i've learned today is that alarm is an anxiety. That alarm is the fourth grade reaching your hands up and saying, please, somebody help me, please reinsure me.

Please tell me i'm going to be OK. Having that physical photo is really, really, really gonna. So, doctor Kennedy, we're gona continue this OK.

It's going to be part two of this and we're going to answer for more questions from listening ers. We're going to keep on going. And I promise you part two will be released in a couple days.

So hit the subscribe button and this next part of the conversation will be there waiting for you. The second IT drops. I do this because I love you, and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to take these steps to heal, to find peace, to feel safe and confident and energized.

Again, you deserve that. Alright, dr. Kennedy and I will be back right here, waited and for you in your feet in a couple of days.

Oh, one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes and is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional. stitcher.

Experiences make life more meaningful, and with mastercards Priceless that com, you can immerse yourself in unforgettable experiences in dining, sports, art, entertainment and more in over forty destinations. From a round of golf, the legendary player to a cooking class with a celebrity chef, you can fuel your passions and create lasting memories. Explore experiences today at Price less that come exclusively for master card card holders, terms and conditions, supply.

Celebrity cruise es black friday event is so good, you're gonna a bigger bucket list. Explore the kerival in europe or alaska, seventy five percent off your second guess plus bonus savings book today and see why nothing comes close to celebrity cruises. This is celebrity 点 com， call one eight hundred celebrity or contact your travel advisor.

Offer applies to select sAilings. Savings amount varies by state room category, other terms supply. This is celebrity 到 com for details， ships registry, multa and equator.