Heroes in Business - Andy Hahn, Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Founder of Life Centered Therapy and Guided Self Healing, author The One Hour Miracle

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

Dr. Andrew Hahn,  Licensed clinical psychologist and founder of Life Centered Therapy and Guided Self Healing, author The One Hour Miracle is interviewed by David Cogan Host of the Heroes Show. They discuss the effects of anxiety and how to overcome feelings of being overwhelmed, including the 9 types of leaders and what keeps entrepreneurs from truly being successful

welcome back to alliances heroes where heroes in business align to be part of our super community and find out more about alliances visit www.alliances.com all right that's right always so much activity going on and again always appreciate our previous feedback make sure uh the feedback i've just recently gotten is on our interview with the NASA administrator. Make sure that you go to alliances.com to check out past interviews. Go ahead, go there and click on radio. And also, too, is you'll have the opportunity to see him at our next grand table at Alliances. Well, I'm very excited.

This is a very hot topic we've got speaking about next today. So make sure you stay tuned through the entire part because it is going to help you. And that's why we do these shows. So with that, I've got with us Dr. Andrew Hahn. He is a licensed clinical psychologist and founder of Life-Centered Therapy and Guided Self-Healing. His book is The One Hour Miracle. He can be found at lifecenteredtherapy.com. And of course, you can get his book on Amazon, The One Hour Miracle. So Dr. Hahn, I want to jump right in. What I've been experiencing around a lot around me,

and pretty much everywhere I go, and it's just, I don't know if it's with what's going on with the world, is anxiety. I just feel anxiety around me. I feel others being anxiety in that. Let's jump right in and help us understand what is anxiety? Anxiety is the mental component of fear, basically. So fear is an emotion, like, you know, you're going to walk into a lion's den. Anxiety is the mental component of that, the thoughts that come with that, and then the body sensations that accompany the thoughts, like something terrible is going to happen, or I can't handle this situation, or whatever. So there are going to be some kind of thoughts, and there are going to be thoughts that you are judgmental about. It's not like you say, oh, I can't handle the situation, and let's go and have some coffee. I mean, it's going to be, oh, my God, I can't handle the situation.

So there's a sense of overwhelm or judgmentalism about the self, and then it's accompanied by physical sensations. Your heart will start beating faster. You might get sweaty palms. Your throat might start closing faster. You might get sweaty palms. Your throat might start closing up. And so there's a physical component to it, but also these beliefs you have. And you put them together and you have anxiety. And is this something that is, I don't know, quote, contagious? If someone around you has anxiety, does it start spreading? It certainly can because most of us are highly attuned to each other.

So think about it, David. If you walk into a room and someone loves you, right, you can actually feel it in your body. If someone hates you, you can feel it in your body. Well, it's the same thing with anxiety. So you walk into a space and you can feel viscerally the sense of it. Like in your gut, you can feel something's going on in this space. And the contagious part of it is most of us are not, we're highly attuned to what's going on around us, but we're not boundaried enough to be able to say, I'm aware of this thing,

but I'm not going to take it in or take it on. So in that way, it's contagious like anything else, for sure, unless you have a really good immune system so to speak and again we have with us dr andrew honey could be reached at lifecenteredtherapy.com you can get his book on amazon the one hour miracle so in regards to the the anxiety part of it what are um does this seem like there's more out there now? Is it the anxiety over what's going on in government, war, you know, this whole thing on now, you know, after COVID, is there a new strain? Is it the news?

What are maybe some of the main triggers? And then the second part I'm going to ask you is, is how do we either ease it or avoid it? I don't know if you can, or what can we do to, to, to help, you know, get over it? I can speak to both of those things. Well, what creates anxiety, David, basically is a sense of lack to think about it for a second. You don't get, if you have enough of everything, why would you be anxious? If you have enough of everything, why would you be anxious? If you have enough resources, you're not anxious. If someone presents you with a problem and you can say, I have enough wisdom to solve the problem, you won't be anxious. So if you have enough mental resources or enough emotional resources or enough what you might say action resources, you won't hit a tipping point of anxiety and you might be stressed,

but the stress might actually call you to action because people think stress is just a bad thing. It's not, you know, so you could say, well, now I'm going to be able to, that's going to focus me. But when you hit a tipping point, you go over an edge and suddenly you're overwhelmed. Anxiety typically is about a kind of overwhelm. Although you can certainly be anxious about other things too. I mean, you can be anxious about things that are too bad or too much, but as soon as there's a two in there and you can't just say, I can master it or handle it, you're going to be anxious. And so that's why I say it's a question of, do you have enough to handle whatever the situation is, whether it's know in terms of mental capacity which is wisdom emotional capacity which is a kind of

acceptance or you might say visceral capacity which is the capacity to take action and if you don't have enough you'll get anxious in a way that will be debilitating and as I say then not only will you be anxious in terms of the visceral things about it, but you'll also be anxious because you'll start to believe things about yourself that you might know aren't true, but you'll be feeling them anyway. So then you get sort of like a left-right combination. They hit you in the gut and they hit you in the head and they knock you out. What are a couple the, what are a couple of the secrets we can do when we start feeling anxious or this anxiety and we feel like it's really, I mean, it's almost,

I feel like it's almost like there's something in the air that just kind of starts spreading and stuff. Well, there's, there's, there's what we could do as individuals and there's what we could do collectively. So let's start, they're related, right? Because you could say, well, the collective is a bunch of, what's the collective? It's really, what are we? We're made up of a lot of parts. So you could say even we're a collective. But I'll tell you what I think the simplest way,

given the limitations of our time, which is you want to go from saying I am anxious to anxiety is being experienced, but it's not who I am. So the second we identify with it, we say I am anxious. Now that's our identity. And then we've got a problem because I'm no longer Andy. I say I am Andy. No, I am anxious. My new name is I am anxious. So you lose all witnessing capacity. There's no capacity to sort of like step back and say, wait a second, can I be in relationship with this? So you want to get to where you're saying, I'm experiencing, I'm aware that I'm experiencing anxiety, but it's not who I am.

And I will tell you the easiest way to do that. who I am. And I will tell you the easiest way to do that. Whenever you're feeling anxious in that moment, and anxious meaning it's too much, it's too overwhelming, it's too bad, whatever it is, in that moment, a sensation will be born. So like I said, you might have sweaty palms, or your throat might be closing up, or your heart might be beating fast, or whatever it is. But you'll notice probably your little toe is feeling fine. So not all of you is anxious. There's a certain part. And what you want to do is you want to give that part its own identity. So instead of saying, I am anxious, you'll say, I'm experiencing anxiety. And when I'm experiencing anxiety and I scan my body, I'll notice heart is beating fast. Okay?

So we're going to say heart beating fast is like you and I. It was born in a moment. It has a story to tell about why it's anxious. And if we could bring our attention there, something remarkable happens, which is we no longer unconsciously identify with it and say, I am anxious. We say, I'm here with you. I can even choose to be you, like in the same way that an actor could choose to be a character, a role in a play or a movie, or an author could create a character in a novel, or we're really reading a

novel and we're immersed in it. At the end of the day, we know we're not the character in the play. You know, Robert De Niro, no matter how good he is, at the end of the day says, I'm not, you know, I'm not whatever his name is. Right. Right. You know, he says, I chose to become it. And if we could choose to become Heartbeating Fast, then something remarkable happens. We no longer unconsciously identify with it and live out its story it's more like we're with it and we say you share your story with me but I'm not you I will be here with

you and I will accept you because what you'll notice is the problem around anxiety is we start to be judgmental there's something wrong with but if we could let it share its story, then it's like we're being an unconditionally accepting parent who says, I'm here with you. And I bear witness to you and I can hold you, but I'm not you. And suddenly we identify with the chooser

who's bearing witness and holding and not with that which we've chosen, which is the heart beating fast. So that's the key, is to find the experience in the body, choose to become it, and then say, I will let you share what you're anxious about, but I'm the one who's holding you. I'm not you. And if you have one practice, one practice, because there are a lot of practices that I could give people, but if you have one practice that anybody could do, they could remember, find the body sensation, choose to become it in the same way that an actor would choose to become a character in a play, and let it share its story while you hold it.

Oh, excellent. I love it. Yeah, that's great. And what happens then, which is an amazing thing, is something that's split off, right? You believe you are heart beating fast. It's dismembered, becomes remembered. And when it becomes remembered, something extraordinary happens, which is heart beating fast goes away because it no longer has an identity. It's no longer matter.

It becomes what it truly is, which is just kind of like a flow. And then instead of being, oh my God, I'm anxious, it will be, you know, anxiety is here. But so what? All right. Excellent. Excellent. And again, you're watching, listening to me, David Kogan, host of the Alliance's Hero Show. Make sure that you go to, I'm going to share a secret with you. Go to Eliancer.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-R.com. And in the search bar, type in Andrew. You'll find his past episodes too there. And I know you're going to want to make sure you go there and listen. He's a licensed clinical psychologist, founder of Life-Centered Therapy and Guided Self-Healing.

His book is The One Hour Miracle. You can get it on Amazon. You can also go to his website at lifecenteredtherapy.com. I want to bring up another thing that's very important too, is what about parents helping to their children who are anxiety? And it's everything from anxiety, right? First day of school, test after test, final anxiety of, you know, who's, you know, does this girl like me? How can parents go ahead and work with their children to help them cope with the anxiety?

I will tell you it's going to be one step removed of the same thing. So once you know the first trick, then you go to the second trick. What is a parent's job in this case? To be there with their child. What's the child's job? To be there with their child. What's the child's job? To be there with whoever is anxious, right? So you can, as a parent, you could teach your child a skill, which is why you can teach yourself, you can teach your child.

And believe me, kids love this because they love to tell stories. So you say, if you're a parent, you say, I'm here with you. You don't deny that they're anxious. What you want to deny is the judgmental. They'll say, I'm here with you, you don't deny that they're anxious. What you want to deny is the judgmental. They'll say, I'm so anxious. Well, don't tell them there's nothing to be anxious about. That's nuts. Then they're going to be anxious and they're going to think that, you know, there's something wrong with them because they're anxious.

So now people say, don't worry. You got nothing to worry about. Now I have to worry about the fact that I have nothing to worry about. So this is a problem, right? So you never, ever, in my experience, want to deny what the child's experience is. You want to invite them into a different relationship with their experience, which is to say, I will hold you in your experience. You can share anything you want. And I have a trick for you, which is let's see if we can get you to a place where your anxiety is sharing with you as opposed to you are anxious.

And then you can teach your child what I just told you, which is have them find the sensation in the body. And then you're going to say to them, you know how you love to tell stories? Well, Heartbeating Fast has a story to tell about what's making it anxious. Now, the second you bring your attention to it, Susie or Jimmy or whatever, you're going to be doing for it what I'm doing for you. You're going to say, I'm here with you. And you watch what happens to your kids. It's like doing kind of a mindfulness meditation. You're teaching them in a funny way how to meditate, but in a very focused way about the thing that's really upsetting them. So they're not generically meditating. They're specifically meditating on something going on in their body.

And then they're going to breathe. And they're going to say, I'm here with you, heart beating fast. Tell me your story. And then you say, make it up. And you say, oh, my God. And they'll start telling the story. But they will no longer be identified with Jimmy. They'll say, oh, that was heart beating fast story.

I'm with it. And you're going to be as the parent with Jimmy or Susie who's being with it. And your job is to line up with them and to say, I can be with you being with it. I'm going to hold a container for you. That's my job as a parent. And watch what happens. It'll be, dare I say it, it'll seem miraculous because your kids will start to say, you know, I'm aware that I'm feeling anxious, but I'm not anxious. I'm just, this is an experience I'm having. Well, I can handle it. I can master it. Do you feel that there's some people that are almost addicted who have had so much anxiety? So for example, the anxiety of, am I going to, you know,

find a mate or something like that? They end up finding a mate and then it's like the next anxiety, are they going to stay with me? Am I going to want to, am I going to continue to love and onto the next and the next? Yes. And what you'll find then is that the thing that they think they're anxious about isn't the thing they're anxious about. So they may have a story from when they're very young about, there's something to worry about everywhere. Okay. They're, you know, four years old or they're eight years old or something. And no one ever held them in whatever their story was about like, the world is an unsafe, let's say it's the world is an unsafe place. And I don't know what I can count on and what I can't count on. Let's say they're running that store for whatever reason. Okay. Then they play it out in 57 different ways, right? They say, I don't know if I'll ever find a mate. If I do, we'll be a bad person.

They'll also play it out in allergies. Why? An allergy is the same thing. You know, this thing that's supposed to be, you know, a lovely thing called the flower is going to hurt me. And I don't know if it's, is it dangerous? Is it not dangerous? I can't tell in the world. I don't know if the world is a safe place. And they're really playing out the same story over and over and over again in all these multiple different contexts. So if you could find where it crystallized, right, which you could go and find the sensation again that they associate with, okay, I'll never find a mate. Okay, I found a mate. No, he's going to betray me.

Okay, well, if he doesn't betray me, I wish he would have betrayed me because I found the wrong one or something. Okay. Well, they're in some story someplace that they're playing out an echo of. So find the sensation that's associated with all these horrifically awful things that might happen and all this doubt, right? Say, what happens in your body when you're feeling this doubt? And you're doubting the world and you're doubting yourself and you're doubting everything. What happens when you're experiencing, you know, you doubt the world and you doubt yourself? And they say, oh my God, I'm feeling sick to my stomach. All right, then you're going to say, you're not feeling doubt about your doubt. Sick to stomach it. So we're going to say, you are going to become sick to stomach and we'll ask sick to stomach question three questions what have you

come to share about this doubt that the world's bad or dangerous or something bad's gonna happen where are you beginning and what's happening to you and then you bring your attention there and one of three one or more three things will. Either you'll suddenly be in a story, maybe when you're a little person, or maybe like an imaginal story. I don't care. Any story. It's its story. It's not your story. You don't know its story.

If I want to know what's going on with David, I'd say, well, I know what's going on with David. I asked David. Well, you're going to ask sick to stomach. Sick to stomach, what have you come to share? And you have to be open to whatever it might say. What have you come to share? And you have to be open to whatever it might say. It might say, you know, I'm nine years old and everybody is telling me I shouldn't trust myself.

Or it might say, I'm in the French Revolution and I thought everyone was there to get me and they're about to cut off my head. I don't care, right? If they're going to cut off your head, though, you might have neck pain. But whatever it is, right? but whatever it is right everything you want to share and then you ask it do you need anything and if it says no i just need to share my story watch what happens to their doubt it will go away because they'll say i'm experiencing doubt but it's not that i'm doubtful. It's the same process over and over and over again. And if you remember that one thing, that every sensation, every time there's something that you're anxious about or judgmental about, you can find a sensation. And every discomfort

has a story to share. And if you ask them their story, they will actually tell you. Excellent. Excellent. Well, and Dr. Han, you guide your patients on the path to a fuller life that's healed to help them where they can experience more joy. That's a hero. Dr. Andrew Han, licensed clinical psychologist and founder of Life-Centered Therapy and Guided Self-Healing. You can reach him at LifeCenteredTherapy.com-Healing. You can reach him at lifecentertherapy.com and make sure that you get his book.

Don't wait. You can get it on Amazon right after this interview. Look up The One Hour Miracle. Again, this has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show. Coming up next, the co-founder of Match.com.