Change Your Brain Every Day - Sedona Prince: On Battling Her Bipolar II Diagnosis, Past Emotional Trauma, EMDR Therapy & Peak Performance

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

In this week's episode, Daniel G. Amen, MD sits down with professional basketball star Sedona Prince. Sedona discusses her diagnosis with Bipolar II and past emotional trauma. Dr. Amen shares Sedona's brain SPECT scan results and provides a pathway for healing.

I got a diagnosis about a year ago. Bipolar 2. Something will happen, it'll crash, and then, you know, it's just a week of sleeping for 16 hours a day. Very depressed, just can't get up, can't get out, very embarrassed, just feel like I'm not in my body. All this busyness can be associated with bipolar. I think it's associated with the trauma

and the more trauma work you do, probably the better. So let's talk about bipolar disorder. Typically, you have periods where you're... Sedona Prince is an American basketball player who plays for Panathaniacos in the Greek women's basketball league. Negativity bias, 36. That needs to be better. That makes you more vulnerable to depression if your brain goes to what's wrong. Start every day when today is going to be a great day.

End every day with what went well today. What's a bad thought that's going on? I'm going to get re-injured. Five questions. Is that true? Every day. you are making your brain better or you are making it worse stay with us to learn you can change your brain for the better every day are you excited to optimize your

brain and help the brains of those you love do you want to prevent or treat memory problems anxiety or depression do you want to be happier that's why I created Amen University to take what I've learned over the last 45 years and help you have a better brain, a better mind, and a better body. You can take courses like our 30-day happiness challenge, which was shown in research to increase happiness by 32% in just 30 days, or memory rescue or overcoming anxiety, depression, trauma, and grief, or healing ADD at home in 30 days and much more. We also have professional courses and courses for kids, including Brain Thrive by 25, which was found in independent research to decrease depression and improve self-esteem. And as a special offer, just for our listeners, you can save 20% on your next course.

Visit amenuniversity.com and use the code, podcast 20. So I'm very excited about this week's podcast. We have Sedona Prince, who is a basketball player who played for the TCU Hornfrogs, of the Big 12 Conference. She previously played for the Oregon Ducks of the Pact 12 Conference and the Texas Longhorns at six feet seven inches. She's one of the tallest players to ever play for Oregon. One of the tallest players ever to play for anywhere.

Prince generated national attention in 2021 after highlighting the disparity in facilities between men's and women's NC2A tournaments. February of 2025, she helped TCU achieve its highest ranking ever. Prince signed with Al Riyadi of the woman's Lebanese basketball league in May of 2025, being Lebanese. I'm very excited to watch you play. And you've been public that you've had some brain and mental health challenges. So welcome.

I'm very excited to meet you. I've seen your brain. We're going to talk about it a little bit. What's your goal in being here? Yeah, I have struggled a lot for a long time as being an athlete. A lot of different challenges and just, you know, it's been. a very silent struggle, I think, been a long, just journey of just a lot of confusion about what is going on, right? A lot of misdiagnoses and just medications. And I just want to be,

you know, healthy and happy. And I think that will translate to basketball, right? My body is my job. It's take care of it as best as I can. And I think that a lot of athletes don't consider that your brain is, you know, the biggest part of that. And so I kind of just want to dive in and see what I can do and kind of heal from the traumas that I've been, you know, through in sports and, um, and just become the healthiest, happy as person I can be. So what was it like being the tallest girl? Um, being the tallest, I actually grew up in a very small town in Texas. Um, very conservative, like very small. Um, we moved there. It was population 900, like tiny town. And so it was, first, isolating is just that is a, you know, a very strange thing being a young girl.

just trying to fit in and being so unable to. I was taller than my coaches and like 12 years old, a foot taller than even the tallest boy growing up. And that caused also a lot of bullying, right? It was very different. Everyone knew I was different. A lot of bullying within my basketball team, right, which caused a lot of different things and dynamics throughout sports with me, throughout my teammates and just a lot of just very triggering things, right, throughout my sports career. But yeah, I mean, it was, it was, you know, I used to compare it a lot to, like, tell my parents, which is very heartbreaking as a young girl, I would tell my mom, like, I feel like my world is dark, right? And the road to college, like, college is my white

light, you know? I just want to get out and just get, like, I just need to push through this time of my life, which is my childhood, right? It's supposed to be, like, fun and growing and, like, this, you know, so many good memories. And just sad to think back on that. It's like, that was just, you know, my reality for someone. Well, you know, people say it's supposed to be that. So I, it's public knowledge. I treat some really wonderful, interesting people like Miley Cyrus. I, I just remember with one of them that were mourning their childhood. And I'm like, being a teenager sucks. Yes. It's like, it sucks for most people. I said, you were like performing in Australia. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I, I don't.

I don't think that gets talked about enough that girls that are tall often feel isolated and alone. And it can be really hard for them. You were tall, but you were also excellent. Yes. And playing basketball. Yes. And did you like basketball?

Was that a fun thing for you? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I played volleyball as well. But yeah, I mean, it's kind of a thing, too, at a young age where, you know, I'm six, seven at 15 years old, right? And, yeah, Tuesday, yeah, right? And, you know, it's a decision that, okay, this is something I could legitimately pursue a career in, right? That's when it started to become really serious for me and kind of like a job at 14. Amazing. When were you

first diagnosed? After my sophomore year, I was diagnosed first with depression and anxiety. In high school? No, my freshman year, sophomore year in college. Sophomary of college. About 2019, yep. Diagnosed with depression and anxiety. I'd gone through a really traumatic leg injury. Had broken my leg.

Been to a really rough process. I got re-injured. My leg died. Did you break it in Mexico? I did break it in Mexico. Yeah, Mexico City. And then you had to come home by yourself. Yeah, stuck there for two days.

Malone, had to come back, fly commercial, actually, with a broken leg. It was a crazy story, crazy process. Had surgery. was rushed back too fast in my sport, and my leg ended up, you know, the blood vessels were compacting too early of a stage. And so my leg died, my tibia died, became necrotic, and then it became infected. And so I had to fly to New York. My whole leg from my knee down is held together by a big plate. And so it was crazy. I was on a pick line for five weeks, pumping antibiotics as I'm a freshman in college, you know, have a ball of antibiotics in my hand while I'm sitting in

class. Crazy, crazy journey. It couldn't walk for the better part of almost two years. It's crazy and also losing my sport, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Because you had targeted so much of your joy and your energy and your hope. Yeah. And all of that becomes at great risk. Yep. Yeah. So that must have been very traumatic for you. Yeah. Crisis. Yeah. So no wonder. No wonder. the anxiety and depression. Was the anxiety and depression around earlier? I've thought, man. Not so much. I don't think so. I've thought back to it.

I think that it started when I started to have like really traumatic. Like that was the first time when I broke my leg, it was like, that was a trauma that I went through. And then I didn't even realize it was that big of a trauma, right, in the time. And then all these things started coming, like the depression, anxiety and kind of these manic, you know, behaviors and stuff. And I didn't realize what was going on. I couldn't even, like, you know, in that moment, be like, hey, something's up, right?

I just knew that something was wrong. But no, early in my life, I was, you know, never really struggled. Some anxiety, some communication problems as a young girl, right, going through being bullied every day and not being able to express that, you know, my life is, you know, is horrible. I am miserable every day I go to school, right? But, yeah, it started after that leg injury. because I know you've had a number of different diagnoses and you just wonder about them if maybe so much of it is trauma and then an unhealthy brain from all the antibiotics.

People don't think about antibiotics in the brain, but you have a hundred trillion bugs in your gut and that's called the microbiome and they make neurotransmitters and they detoxify your body and they help you with hormones and if you get all of those IV antibiotics they're damaging the bugs which means your microbiome might not be as healthy yeah yeah i actually got poisoned by the antibiotics i had to to stop early because uh it almost made me go into to kidney failure. So it was poisoning my body. So I can imagine that it did some serious damage. Yeah. Because when I show you your scan, emotional trauma is going to be the number one thing. That you actually have a pretty good-looking brain. When I read your history and then I saw your

scan, I'm like, she has a good-looking brain. I bet no one's ever told you that before. and so but it's very busy and when i see that it generally is where trauma sort of got stuck in your brain which can then lead to all sorts of behaviors which we'll talk about what was the turning point that made you want to sort of see deeper answers? I think I recently restarted medication for bipolar, and I got a diagnosis about a year ago, bipolar too. And I just, I felt like I didn't have enough answers about it.

I felt just really confused about what that meant, my moods and the medication that I was on. Like, I just didn't, something was just, I was just so much confusion, right? And so I just wanted to know deeper and what's exactly going on. You know, I've had struggles. I had a very long college career, seven years. A lot of trauma was built up in that. And I'm at a point in my life now where it's heading into my professional career, right?

So as a decision to make, it's, you know, do I take care of this now? Or do I let it continue, you know, to affect me as a person, as a player? And so it's kind of the perfect opportunity before I transition into the next phase of my athletic career is to digest everything that happened, you know, throughout the seven-year crazy college experience I had. so let's talk about bipolar disorder bipolar too um it's a cyclical mood disorder and typically you have periods where you're down sat and periods when you're really up and you can be down for months at a time and up for weeks or months? Is that what happens to you? What were the symptoms that caused your doctor to go? I think you have bipolar disorder. Yep. I go through about,

it's about a week, a week or two, a week and a half. This phase where, you know, it starts with, could start with anything, triggers me into kind of like these highs, right? And through that, I've made some really bad decisions, been really impulsive, that have affected my basketball career as well, right? Injury-wise, you know, just and also being in the public eye, right, through my college career. And then something will happen, it'll crash, and then, you know, it's just a week of sleeping for 16 hours a day, right?

Very depressed, just can't get up, can't get out, very embarrassed of myself and just in these states where I just feel like I'm not in my body, right? And that's when I kind of knew, like, and also I didn't know. it was, you know, do I have this? Because I never always struggled with this. Is this something that I, is real and it's, you know, a part of me? Or is it something that's trauma related, right? And came from the trauma that I've been through.

And do you have anybody in your family on your mom's side or your dad's side that has a serious psychiatric problem? No, I mean, have some issues, a lot of childhood trauma for them, right? But a lot of undiagnosed, right? So we don't know. I don't want to diagnose them. But they've struggled with a lot of things, right, in their past, in their childhood, some addiction issues and stuff that they've gotten through. But nothing like bipolar, nothing like this, you know, kind of what I struggle with the symptoms.

And so with bipolar, when I think of mania, I think of you don't need to sleep and your thoughts go fast. and you can begin to believe things that are not rational when you're in your sort of sane mind. Any of that happened to you? Yeah, a lot of, like, I've taken flights before, like, in the middle of season, right? Just, like, this thought that comes to my head is, like, I have to do this. Like, I have to go and do something, and it's, like, chasing this kind of, like, not high, but it is high on, like, this excitement, right?

and that comes up like impulsed decisions right spending and you know with nil and this new era of college athletics right being able to make money um you know it's very crazy for me this like shift and all the sudden overnight i was able to make all this money and then dealing with all these things and it was just like you know kind of the the perfect storm to to make some really crazy decisions interesting um in your therapy you have found eian EMDR helpful. Amazing. How many times have you done it?

I've done it for about a year now, every week, one day a week. I love EMDR. So for people who don't know, it stands for eye movement, desensitization, and reprocessing. And you bring up whatever's triggering you, whatever's bothering you, you do the EMDR. And then how I do it is I get people, like, get on a train and go back to when it began. Is that similar to what you do? So helpful, because it just, like, cleans out a lot of the triggers. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's been eye-opening to go back to as well, like, you know, the leg injury itself, but also, you know, I had elbow reconstruction, a lot of crazy things. I was out of college sports for a year, right? And so a lot of, like, this crisis that I went through in many different areas in different years, I was able to kind of, like, look back at it from a different perspective, a different lens being later in my life. I think the biggest thing I learned was, like, having me. so much empathy for myself, right? And what the things I've been through, like, forgiving

myself for so many things and just like seeing myself as a young girl going through all these things for the first time at like an outside perspective and being like, wow, like I'm so sorry to this young girl that I put so much pressure on, right, and just thought that I was bulletproof. And, you know, it was a crazy experience just feeling, you know, almost like bad. I'm like, I feel so bad for this girl that, you know, had to go through all these things. if you looked at your 10-year-old self how would she feel about how you're doing now I mean I would be mind-blown I think

being from a very small town and you know I was did not fit in very just dorky and shy and kind of the goofball and the outsider of my life to looking now of like you know being someone that I walk around in public and recognize people you know, look up to me young girls in my sport when I was that age.

Thank me for the work I've done in women's sports, right? It's just I wouldn't believe it was true. I don't think. So you'd be pretty amazed. You're like a whoa. So she would be very proud of you. Yeah, absolutely. I love that.

So much. I've been waiting for this. Our best-selling L-thian gummies are finally back. I take them for calm, focused energy, and they taste amazing. They sell out fast, so grab yours now at BrainMD.com with code Podcast 20 for 20% off. So part of our process is we test your brain and then we look at your scan. You know, I was telling you before we started, psychiatrists are the only medical doctors who virtually never look at the organ they treat.

And so to have multiple different diagnoses with no one looking at your brain, that's insane. And I'm a psychiatrist. I was taught to diagnose crazy. And that's crazy. Because the first thing I'd have done is like, oh, well, let's look at her brain to see what is going on. So we do a study called brain spec, S-E-C-T imaging, and spec looks at blood flow and activity. It looks at how your brain works. And it basically shows us three things.

Areas of your brain that work well, areas of your brain that are low in activity, and areas of your brain that are high in activity. And then my job is to balance. If it works too hard, want to calm it down. And if it doesn't work hard enough, we want to stimulate it. And when I read your history, I'm like, your brain is going to struggle because you've really struggled. So here we're looking at the outside surface. Here we're looking underneath the brain. This isn't yours.

This is what we want it to look like. And this is down from the top, one side, then the other side. and it should just be full, even, and symmetrical. I'll show you that view. And then this is going to be the money view for you or the one that really matters. So here we're looking underneath the brain. Top is the front.

This is the back. And blue is average activity. Red is the top 15%. White is the top 8%. So white's like the super active. And it should be here. in the cerebellum, which is in the back-bottom part of your brain, and you're a professional athlete, and that should be really busy because that's involved in coordination,

reaction time, thought coordination is really important. When we look at your brain, so again, looking at the outside surface, I mean, you have a very good-looking brain. Thanks. It's a little bumpy. Do you see the bumpiness? Yes, I do. So I don't like the bumpiness. And when it comes to things like alcohol, marijuana, cratum, you've got to get rid of those. You want a sustained long-term career where you're making good money and having fun, you can't poison your brain. All of those things are poison. And the one question I want you to leave here with that I want you to ask yourself every minute of every day, is this good for my brain or bad?

for it because I want you to love your brain and you have a great brain right no one's ever told you that before but you have a great brain this is a brain that can do anything okay um the problem is your brain works way too hard we'll get to that in a second and so you're probably constantly trying to like shut it down because it's bothering you a lot shut it down alcohol shuts it down Kratom shuts it down. Marijuana shuts it down. But they're terrible for you because they're toxic. And as soon as you do them, you're going to be in withdrawal in a couple of hours,

and you're going to have to do them again. They're insidious, and that they make your brain crave them. And so they're trying to steal you. So, if it was me, I would see them as the devil and stay away from them. Yes, sir. That's a little bit of bumpiness, but nothing's permanent. You don't have permanent damage from anything. All right.

So if we go here, your brain is freaking on fire. your cerebellum's beautiful so that's not the problem your emotional brain's high that can go with depression anxious angst angst or feel just really uncomfortable inside was probably true yes and you worry and you hold on to things and if things don't go a certain way, it pisses you off. Yes. Have I read about that? It's correct, yeah.

Okay. And it's in a trauma pattern. And I bet if I had this before the 50 sessions of EMDR, it'd be even crazy or worse. Yeah. Because that's what EMDR does. It calms it down. So even if you're in Europe, I'd have a really good connection with your therapist and keep doing it. And any time you get a trigger, write it down.

especially if you do what I say and you just get rid of the substances you know I always tell my patients let me do your drugs I'm better at them than you are and for this brain I actually quite like limictal which is what you're on how much do you take about 150 milligrams right now it's at 250 at one point but yeah

and why did you go down I just got with a new psychiatrist and we restarted and so I went back up Okay. So I would get a Lamotrogen level. The Lamotrogen is the generic name of Lomitone. I would actually get the level in your blood. And I would target mid to high range just to calm this thing down. So you're not having to calm it down with other things. I actually just did a show with KTLA, some big news station here in L.A. I scanned the anchor and the producer. And then a year later, I scanned them again. And not the anchor, the weather person, Casey Montoya, I love her. Her brain was so much better because she just did what I said.

The producer's brain was worse, which really made me unhappy. And I'm like, why is it worse? He goes, I don't know, I'm doing what you said. He picked up Kratum from his first scan to his second scan. It's not a good thing. No, it's not good, yeah. And I'm not happy it's legal. Yeah.

Because, I mean, it's basically an opiate. Yeah, literally, yeah. All this busyness can be associated with bipolar disorder. I think it's associated with the trauma and the more trauma work you do, probably the better. But I agree with you. If you're going overseas and you want to be stable, have a really good doctor you're working with, and do what he or she says.

And plus in those countries, those kinds of drugs will get you into a whole bunch of trouble, as we saw with another WMBA player. Yes, another very tall. Yeah, we got to all sorts of things. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. What's legal here is not legal there for sure. Is your goal to come back and someday play in the WMBA? Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's been a child of the dream of mine, you know. It wasn't the right

timing now, but, you know, it's been, that's the goal, right? As a young girl is, that's what you have put in. My goodness, I count thousands and thousands and thousands of hours at this, you know, since I was 10, 11 is my life and I love it. I have a gift. I get to, you know, play a sport that connects me with people and I get to use my platform to make change and talk about really cool things. And so, yeah, it's my, you know, my goal is to, you know, improve the WMBA make you bring more attention to it right attention to a lot of the things that I you know brought attention to in the NCAA right um same kind of things going on if there are then you know use my platform in the same way that I have been for a long time well do you

have you gotten any mental health training for sport um not really and I talked about it before coming here with um one of my best friends it's kind of crazy how thinking about it, being in college sports for seven years, right, and being in three different schools, and also meeting a lot of different athletes, being on a lot of different athletes' teams, right? I've had so many different teammates. It's crazy how they treat college athletes mental health, right?

It really is just, let's give them that quick fix. Medication, right? Give us your symptoms, okay, get you meds, because, you know, have you for four years and you're there to perform, right, at a certain level. It's so they need you to perform at that level. And it's kind of just like, you know, and then when you're gone, it's, you're gone. And that's that.

And then it's good luck, you know, into the real world. And then there's a college athlete you're stuck with, okay, well, I'm taking this medication. Is it right for me? Like, you know, why did I get prescribed it? I was young. I was going through all these different things, this, you know, very difficult college athlete life, right? And it is very much of, there's not very many like mental health resources, just psychiatry

and medication, right? Let's fix it. Let's get, you feeling better, get you back on the field, back on the court. and then that's something you're going to have to deal with, you know, when you're on your insurance plan. Do they do any elite mental training or not? We do some here and there. I mean, you know, TCU's an elite school. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, all the schools you've been to are high-level schools. In two weeks, Julius Randall is going to be on our podcast. Wow, how awesome. And I love him so much. Yeah. And we're going to talk about the alter ego effect. Have you ever seen the book, the alter ego effect? No.

You should read it. It's so good. And I heard about it. We had Todd Herman on the podcast. And I was watching a documentary on Kobe Bryant. And Kobe Bryant's alter ego was the Black Mamba. And he talked about the book. And so I got the book.

I read it. And I'm like, well, oh, half a week. should have an alter ego. Yeah. But when they, like, step on the court, it can't be all their failures and worries, right? It has to be, like, the Black Momba. Yeah, yeah.

So you should listen to that podcast. I think you'll like it. But I would also get the book because it's really good with elite mental training. Like every day you win or you learn. Yeah, absolutely. And why the NBA allows their players to smoke pot and then go play.

I'm just, I'm at a loss. Yeah, marijuana does not speed up your brain. No, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, one could argue, I certainly would understand why you would, but it's not going to get you what you want. Getting to the right to so lamental could be really helpful.

And then doing the trauma treatment could be incredibly beneficial. We also tested your brain. We did an X test, sort of an ADD test, and you sure did okay on that. But this one is called Total Brain. And you're good at recognizing faces. You recognize positive faces faster. than negative ones.

If you get your feelings hurt, it sort of sticks around a little bit. You're under a lot of stress now. Is that accurate? Yes. And you're sort of depressed now. Yeah. Let me give you something called happy saffron.

28 randomized controlled trials. So when it's equally effective to antidepressants, will not flip you into a manic episode, like some antidepressants might. But it also helps with focus and memory. Because I think that's important to treat. Limitol at higher doses also has antidepressant qualities. So I like that.

Your long-term memory is great. Focus here, not so much. And you also take concerto? Yes. I stopped, but I did for a while. I was diagnosed ADHD 2020, after, you know, some of my staff at Oregon were like, hey, we think you have ADHD, right? And so got the test and they gave a medication.

And it helped for a little bit, but then it kind of just, it made my manic episodes so much worse, right? It's so risky. With your brain, you don't have an ADD brain. Yeah. You have a busy brain. Usually ADD is a sleepy brain. Your brain is not sleepy. It's like, hey, what's going on?

Yes. Planning is good. You're processing speed. I don't think I've ever seen 98. It's really good. That's what a professional athlete would have. I don't know if you know, but I did the big NFL study when the NFL was lying and had a problem with traumatic brain injury. So we've seen 400 NFL players.

Wow. And their processing speed was like this. always great. Flexibility, not good. So I want you to learn the rule of 12. I don't get upset until the 12th thing has gone wrong. So if you need to work on flexibility, you do. You need to have a program.

And the rule of 12 is just perfect. It's like you're competent, you're capable. We've been around the world. you can handle problems. And so when something bothers you, it's like, okay, that's one. And you cannot get upset, yell, scream, have a fit, until the 12th thing has gone wrong. And then you can.

So hopeful. Short-term memory is fine. Negativity bias? 36. That needs to be better. that makes you more vulnerable to depression if your brain goes to what's wrong rather than because I have people that score one or four. So 36 isn't terrible, but it's not good.

Start every day with today is going to be a great day. End every day with what went well today. So every night I say a prayer and then I go what went well today. And I start hour by hour going through my day looking, at only what went well. And the bad stuff shows up and I just kick it out because I'm like, not now. Deal with you tomorrow.

It helps so much to begin to just train your brain. Because whatever you allow it to think, it's going to think over and over and over because your brain is lazy, which is why you practice, right? You shoot free throws over and over and over again. So when it's an important point in the game, you make them because your brain knows how to do it.

Same thing's true with thoughts. Whenever negative thought shows up, if you allow it there and you don't take care of it, they create these little grooves in your brain. So unlike positivity training, today is going to be a great day, what went well today. Your resilience can be better, but you're very social, which is awesome. Questions? That's a lot. Yeah, a lot of questions.

That's a lot. Yeah, it's super cool. It's very precise. I like it. It's insane, you know. I think to see my brain, too, it's, I was really scared coming in just because, you know, been doing a lot of, you know, me too, some of the stuff you've done. But you've not had a big head injury.

No, thank God, no, I've not gotten any, I mean, a ball to the face here and there, coming off the rim really hard. But other than that, no, no, no, you know, falling down or hitting my head, which is very common in basketball. And so he helps him so. high up too, right? I don't really get elbows to the face. I have the one usually giving them, so. And what's your position usually? Center. Center. Yeah. Yeah. Um, all right. So repeat back to me what you heard me say about your brain. Um, very active, very active,

which I, it makes so much sense. I knew that coming in, right? It's like so, there's so much going on. It drives me nuts. It's like I'm, I said I can't escape my own head sometimes, right? And it's just so exhausting. It never can stop, right? And I think it's why I got the ADHD diagnosis as well. It's like just, it's constantly going. And I think the people around me didn't understand like what was going on with me. And they just assumed it was ADHD because that's what they've heard about. But yeah, it's kind of like I'm stuck in like, I have been for a while, like a prison of my mind, right? And it's exhausting. It's overwhelming. Right. And even when I say, sleep, it's, it's just so, I'm so active, um, which I see here in like the, the 12 step.

I love that, right? And a lot of things do not go right. Um, a lot of the time. And I've learned to just kind of like, just become numb to it, right? Not even just, I'm not even accept it or process it in time. Like I just ignore it and like kind of disassociate from it. It's not real, right? Um, which I think then I just can't, I'm not processing it in real time, right? And it's been a struggle for me as well as like, you know, then later down the road, I look back at it and I'm like, oh my goodness, right? And then I make decisions from it based off of it, you know, this emotional things that come up from the things that are going on around me instead of

realizing, uh-oh, this hurts, right? This went wrong. I'm upset with this. Let me deal with this and these emotions in real time. It's not like that. It's like, uh, put that away, right? It didn't happen. It's not real or I'm fine.

I'm, you know, I'll make it for it. Give me an example. Oh, um, yeah. I'm in 20, let's see what year, um, 2020, I was going into what would have been my senior season at University of Oregon. Super excited. This was like my year, you know, making more playing time coming off, you know, I'm going to get, you know, a lot of more minutes. I'm really excited for the season or the great year. It was kind of like going to be like my breakout season before WMBA. And about a month before the season started, I went line dancing with some friends.

And I tripped over a curb, dislocated my elbow, and that was it. Dislocated it toward the top ligament, and it needed a full reconstruction on my elbow. And that was it. I, like, literally in real time was like, it's not real. Like, I had just lost everything, right? Getting through this crisis. And I couldn't be there anymore. I couldn't even face, like, my teammates, I couldn't be in that space that I was supposed to have the season of my life.

And within two weeks, I left. I moved down to LA, got surgery, and just kind of started a new chapter of my life, right, without even processing it, without talking about it. And coming off of years of not ever talking about my leg break, I never talked about it with anybody. I just kept going through these things, right, and just processing them, you know, I'll get to it later, right? It's not affecting me. I'm super resilient. I'll be fine. I'll get through it. And then, you know, I look back and I'm like, I was going through a crisis. I was going through a crisis. I was having all of these emotions, right, without even understanding what they were. sleeping all day, right? I was, oh, my brain was going of like, I've just lost everything, right? My life is over, my career is over, everything I've worked for, so much humiliation of like, you know, the injury was my fault. I could have saved my career, right? I'm going to look back at this for the rest of my life and just regret this for forever, right? I beat myself up for this.

And these are things with EMDR that I've now been able to process, right? Without EMDR, it was just, I just was so just unaware of all these things going on, right? things that is. Because no one had ever taught you to manage your mind. Yeah. Correct. Right? That everybody has accidents. Not your fault. It's a freak thing. What can I do? What's next? Right. Yeah. Yeah.

I like Ariana Grande's song. Thank you next. And I'm friends with her. And I texted her when I listened to that song. Because, you know, it's sort of like a silly pop song. Until you realize it's mental health and three words. gratitude for whatever happened looking forward so thank you next gratitude looking forward and yeah and with the MDR that'll help I have a process I teach my patients called killing the ants automatic negative thoughts the thoughts that come into your mind automatically and ruined you.

And a long time ago, I coined the term ants because I'm like, oh, my patients are infested. So they need an ant eater. And so whenever you feel sad, mad, nervous, or out of control, write down what you're thinking. And then just ask yourself whether or not it's true. But the act of writing helps to get it out of your head. how do you do in school

great I had my master's I just finished up actually my master's in liberal arts and then I got my business degree from University of Oregon so okay that's sort of not ADD yeah right yeah right I mean you're able to focus and

yeah for the most part yeah I can track here and there and it's just because my brain will start hopping to different thoughts right of even not thoughts of my life and things that are going on yeah I'd be very careful with the stimulants I'm not convinced ADD is. I think, and I wrote a book called Healing ADD about seven different types. And if you had one of them, it would be the ring of fire, which is stimulants usually make worse.

We're going to calm, spraying. Yes, please. Let's calm this when you're anxious and not with alcohol and not with cratum and not with marijuana. I make something called gabacalming. Like if you're like feeling anxious, thianine from green tea can be so helpful. Or Gaba Comey, I'll give you some and try and tell me what you think. Thanks, yeah.

I took Adderall for about two and a half years during the middle of season, right? And it's very difficult to have intensified manic episodes on Adderall in the middle of, you know, a massive college basketball season, right? and hiding it, I think masking it, I had to. I had coaches and stuff. Like, you know, they knew I'd make, you know, dumb decisions and they'd be like, come on, Sedona, you know, like get together. You're, you know, what are you doing all this stuff?

And I've been diagnosed something that was literally just in, like, heightening my episodes. And then, you know, I'd go for days without sleeping in the middle of season, right? I'm a professional athlete. I work out four hours a day every day, right? And then imagine that I was doing my body, right? And then a week and a half, I just crash and just be just devastated, right? In the middle of every day having to wake up and go to practice and be a teammate and a leader and a captain, right, and be a part of a team unit for a, you know, a common goal.

Yeah, we should have met like 10 years ago. Yeah, right. Yeah, that would have been to save me a lot of a lot of struggling. But, you know, every day I want you to think about this. Every day you win or you've learned. And if you have that mindset, there is no failure. It says every day when or you learn. And it's just the right mindset to have as a professional athlete, right?

Because you're not going to win all the games. And you're not going to make every free throw. And Michael Jordan said he missed way more shots than he made. And yet it's the greatest of all time. Yeah. Right. Yeah. questions um i think a part of like a part of my brain too is you know the quick fix right it's it's so much

i really struggle with like and it's really all i've known for a long time because i didn't have you know the resources or had not the people around me to put me in the right kind of therapy that i needed for a long time and so it became like this quick fix to just shut it down right for today because I just need I can't deal with this today my brain is just going crazy right I'm having all these thoughts and just going through all this just this nut like I can't you know I can't escape I don't know what to do and my brain tries to like stay away like it scares me this long road of healing you know and I've gone out with EMDR and it's helped me tremendously right but I think that's a part of the fear that like you know how long is it going to take right is it going to be

worth it on the other side, right? Because I think the stimuler, you know, the things that I've relied on have worked my brain into becoming, you're right, poisons, devil, right? Saying, oh, no, it's easier, right? It's easier and you'll be fine. And, you know, it's not worth it on the other side. Like, it doesn't matter. I can just give you it dopamine right now or just calm me brain down right now, right? How do I, I mean, how do I even go about that of like, you know, with the thoughts, yes, of like every day, but it's something it's been ingrained. and what I do every day, right, that decision to just, oh, this will, you know, it'll be today and I'll go tomorrow and start tomorrow on my mental health journey, right?

You've any advice for that? Do you ever listen to Hardy, the country singer? I've heard of it, yeah. Yeah, he's got a song called Jack. Yeah, you want to listen to it. It's so good. I love the song. And it's just about that.

It's like, hey, I fixed you. Even though everybody hates you, but I fixed you. yes i think in you have to have like mantras in the moment like what do you want like if i asked you that what do you want peace you know peace yeah is a quick fix going to give you peace is that your experience with the quick fix A piece in a different, somewhat, yeah. It's, I think quiet is a better word for it, quiet.

Okay. Yeah. So you probably have to up the lebectal. Yeah. To calm down this very busy brain of yours, right? If I was your doctor, I'd go, okay, what's your level? Then you might be, because you're a big girl, you might need 600 mellow rooms. Yeah.

So it's, you never want to get away with the least amount of medicine. You want to go, what's right for my brain? And when it works right, you're going to notice it's just quieter inside. And you always want to feel better fast in a way that lasts. So, Gabba calming. In the moment, that might calm it down. Or we make something called Thea Nenguys. That might calm it down.

But you didn't learn to be a great basketball player quickly. Right? And if you want to get on top, I'm not a fan of bipolar or borderline personality disorder. I would lose that diagnosis. It's completely unhelpful. I think bipolar too I sort of see that plus traumatic stressors were

those would be the two based on your scans I would hold on to and so I'd get my lemitals to a therapeutic level I'd keep with the EMDR I would add to start journaling your thoughts and if you do this process

that I have on just 30 thoughts your brain will start to do it by itself. But you have to initially, like let's take a bad thought. Like, what's a bad thought that's going on? I'm going to get re-injured. I'm going to get re-injured. Okay, five questions.

Is that true? No. We not know. I don't know. I mean, you're a professional athlete. They get injured, right? Is it absolutely true? That's a question two.

It's absolutely true you're going to get re-injured. No. No. How does that thought make you feel? Anxious. Yeah. How would you feel if you didn't have the thought? Free?

Fine. Yeah. It's the thoughts that make you suffer. It's not what's actually happening. It's the thoughts that make you suffer. In fact, one of the things I would do is I would do EMDR specifically around I'm going to be reintroducter. and because your subconscious thinks it's protecting you with that thought when it's really hurting you.

So I have a fun story. Alicia Newman is a Canadian pole walter. And she did my show just like you're doing it. And afterwards, I did EMDR with her. And she completely failed in Tokyo. She had a concussion. And then she went to Tokyo in 2021 and didn't even jump one bar and got drunk on the plane home and then DM'd me and I saw her. And, um, 2023, she was the world indoor pole vaulting champion because she got her brain right.

Yeah. And then she went to Paris. But in February of that year, doing something stupid. like she was hurtling after her workout to just sort of wind down, tripped, sprained her ankle. But she had disciplined her mind by that time, and she ended up. But that was the thought, I'm going to get re-injured. So we did the EMDR on that. And of all things, minions came up in her mind as her subconscious.

And they're like, well, we thought we were protecting you. And she goes, you're not protecting me, you're hurting me. And she won the bronze medal in Paris. I'm so proud of her. But it comes, you guys remind me of each other, that her brain was so busy. You can discipline this. Because you're a disciplined person, right?

I mean, you don't get to where you were. if you're not a disciplined person, right? You have to discipline your mind. And so any time you're triggered, I would take that to your therapist. But the fifth question, I'm going to get re-injured. Is that true?

I don't know. Is it absolutely true? No. How does it make me feel, scared, anxious? How would I feel without it, peaceful? So it's the thoughts that make me anxious. is question five is let's turn it to the opposite and just ask yourself so the opposite is I won't get injured do you have any evidence that's true yeah I mean I've been playing

uninjured now for two years it's a lot of evidence that that's true so if you focus on I'm injured you're going to feel bad where you bring your attention always determine It's how you feel. And so if you focus on, I'm going on two years. Now, I'm not going to be stupid, right? You're going to be thoughtful as you play. You don't play with 100% abandon, right? Nobody's been injured does that.

Yes, yeah, yeah. Because you learn. Give me another thought. Oof. I'm going to think. There's a lot. I'm not going to, you know, I'm not going to make my dreams come true. And I'm not going to be a failure.

I'm going to fail. Is that true? And remember, this is not about positive thinking. It's about accurate thinking with a positive spin. I like the verse of the New Testament. know the truth. The truth will set you free. You're a failure. Is that true? No. Your 10-year-old self doesn't think so. You've already established that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. My dream won't come true. Is that true? Is it absolutely true? Now, how does that make you feel? Awful,

ashamed. Yeah. And how would you feel if you didn't have that thought? proud and and like look at what you've done yeah yeah we have 2.4 million people who follow you who are interested yes in you um so if we take that thought of my dream is not going to come true and turn it to the opposite my dream is coming true do you have any evidence your dream is coming and true? Yeah, I'm playing professionally, you know, signing contracts and, you know, making an amazing salary. I get to play in Athens, Greece, this next season. So where people go on vacation, you're... I get to live in downtown Athens for seven months, yeah, yeah, not the worst thing in love. Playing the game you love. Yeah. Playing the game you're good at. Yep, for an amazing amount of money.

Do you see how your brain is the one stealing from you? It's your understanding. It's your understanding. It's your undisciplined mind. Yeah. That should piss you off. Yeah. I've been cheated out of a lot of joy. Not so you kill yourself, right? But so you go, oh, no, I have to do work.

Yeah, yeah. Because you're not afraid of work. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. Done a lot. And it's paid off in dividends, right? But, yeah.

It's not talked about it. It's not talked about, I think, the women side. I have a whole chapter. Give her a copy of your brand as always listen. There's a whole chapter on this ant killing stuff. And if you do nothing else from me but stop poisoning your brain and kill the ants, you will love me for the rest of your life. That would make me so happy.

You know, I was 28 years old in my psychiatric residency. One of our professors said, you have to teach your patients not to believe every stupid thing. thing they think. And I'm like, but I believe every stupid thing I think. There's nowhere in school where we teach people to manage their minds. And it's not pie in the sky thinking, right? Yeah. You're living your dream, right? I mean, maybe it'd be in the WMBA and that would be awesome. Maybe, unless you're on Caitlin Clark's team, they're so picking on that poor girl. yeah love her right i mean fame gets you haters yeah yeah for sure yeah right yes indeed i have them too i mean like who would hate me i'm like the nicest person yeah and i can't i can't blend in

which is the crazy thing too you know bored to stand out so it's definitely different in the public you're bored to sound out yeah good yeah that's crazy That is a lot of... We have to calm this thing now. But it can be. That's the cool thing about your brain. It is imminently treatable. And so I actually...

I would kill the stimulants, optimize the lemectal, start happy saffron, because I think you'll be happier. And... Come up with a list of ten things. that don't hurt you to calm you down yeah right i'll give you two gaba calming that'll calm you down the inning gummies have you ever been hypnotized no oh you totally should yeah oh i think you should find a hypnotist that you like that just helps you with peak performance and helps you with

anxiety and um so hypnosis can calm you down i have an app called brain fit life 5.0 you should download it i'll have natalie give you a code for it there are six hypnosis audios, one for peak performance, one for sleep, one for anxiety. I think, and then there's, so we have Gabacom and Thianan hypnosis. There's a breathing experience on it. If you learn to breathe in a specific way, that will calm you down. So we're already four out of the ten. Yeah.

I love that. I've learned my last year of college was, I was 24 also playing with, you know, I've been doing this for a long time of college basketball. But it was this, like, I need to start training my brain, like a professional athlete, right? It was the last step in, like, my performance. And so I got a sports psychologist. And he has been, like, every day, I mean, went through a lot of, like, social media stuff and gained a lot of haters, right?

A lot of hatred. And so that translated literally into going into basketball. arenas and being booed out by thousands of people, right? While I'm playing the sport that I love, it's like the place where I come to escape, right? It's my peace, my safety. Basketball always has been. It's a place where I just get to go and just, like, just be me, be free and do what I get to love and like, you know, entertain people, right? And I mean, literally being booed by thousands of people, right? Thousands of people every time I touch the ball. It's crazy experience going into that. And it was how do I master this, right? Because, you know, for instance,

played at Kansas State, and it was to, we had to win the game to, like, win the regular season for sure, right, to make the end of our season much easier. And went into their place, we hadn't played him yet. They were undefeated in the Big 12. We were undefeated, killing it. And I went in, and I kid you not, a C of student section. Every time I touched the ball, right? It was the loudest, people said they could hear it to the TV. It was crazy, right? And the whole time I just was like, I just want to sink into the ground. Like, I just want to shrink and not be here, right? And just this, this is insane.

And I told my sports psychologist, you know, we lost the game. I played horrible. I shot horrible. Every time I touched the ball, I was like, get out of my hands. But we had a game a few weeks later. We lost. So, okay, now we have to win out, right? We had a few games a week later.

There's a last game of the regular season at Baylor, who we had just beat them for the first time in 31 years in school history. When you play them twice a year, it's about 68 games of never beating Baylor in TCU history. And we just beat them

on our home court a couple weeks earlier, right? And so I said, I'm going into Baylor in a few weeks and it's going to be worse, right? Their student section is going to be crazy. It's packed out. I broke my finger in the arena

last season on Baylor's home court. How do I master this? And we worked every single day on breathing, on being present in the game, right on facing it right turning to the crowd and looking at these people right not shying away not being scared but facing it as these are human beings right they can't hurt me they're they don't know me um and just having this all three ago almost like like like embracing it and being like

hell let's go and in the first i think 10 minutes i had like 12 points right and just went off and it fueled me right and so that was my goal is how do i and we won we won the big 12 season on that game And it was just, you know, that moment of it taught me, like, I can really put my mind to anything I want to. It was my thoughts of like, oh, I'm small, right? And it translated into me playing horribly and, like, throwing the ball out of bounds and doing things I never done before. And then instead of, like, for weeks being like, I have a goal, I'm going to achieve it

and I'm going to work on and I got it, right? It was my test. And it was amazing. I passed and it was, you know, it gave me so much more confidence. So I want you to do that in your real life. But in your sport life, I want you to have an alter ego. You maybe even want to work with Todd Herman. I think it would be a good investment.

He's got like a course online, the alter ego effect or alter ego effect.com. Because when you bring your amazing mind, you do amazing things. when you bring the scared little girl who's been hurt and traumatized, you do terrible things, right? But ultimately you have a choice of how you show up and alcohol feeds the fear and Kratom feeds the fear and marijuana feeds the fear. And it's like, no, you want to face the devil and you want to use the energy to be great. Because your goal is to be great, right?

Yeah. And you won't ever do that if you don't discipline your mind. But you can see, I mean, that's just such a great example of you allowed them to bully you. And you played terrible. And the bully showed up and you punched them in the face and you played great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's easy to think of it like, it's my job, you know, and it's so easy to be like working at basketball, right? because it's like a step outside of my, you know, it's a different version of, you know,

the person I am every day I go home and it's quiet and it's, nobody sees that, right? And it's something, basketball is somewhere I'm, it's so important to me. It's something that's almost easier to like work on it and pinpoint focus on it. Yeah, but you want to love yourself. Yeah, that's the most important. Yeah, exactly. You want to love it for your sport, but then you want to translate it to who's the alter ego you want to show up at home. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Never focus on like that. That's the most, it's also affecting basketball too. Right. I mean, Kobe Bryant, when he was dead, was not the black mama. He goes, that wouldn't work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Be sneaky and hurt you. Yeah. Yeah. But figure out who you want to be in all of these situations. Yeah. What a joy. Yeah. Such a joy to meet you. Ditto. Autism. What is? How do you know?

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