On Purpose with Jay Shetty - 7 Ways to Reduce the Time You Spend Overthinking & Make Better Decisions Quicker

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

How do you know when you're overthinking too much? How can you break the cycle of overthinking? Today, Jay will talk about the complexity of overthinking and how we can turn it around and look at things differently. Jay presents seven practical strategies to help listeners combat the grip of overthinking. These range from the psychological—to limit how many people's opinions we seek, preventing the confusion and indecision that too many perspectives can cause—to the physical, recommending activities that disengage the analytical brain and encourage mental reset, like exercise or simply moving around. In this episode, you'll learn: How to use over thinking for problem-solving How to manage alarmed responses How to use physical movement for mental clarity How to focus on positives and small wins Don't let overthinking hold you back! Start implementing these strategies today and take control of your mental space. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 00:52 Has Overthinking Slowed You Down? 07:53 The Science Behind Overthinking 10:50 #1: Overthinking as a Problem-Solving Approach 14:24 #2: Don’t Ask Too Many People For Their Opinion 18:19 #3: Avoid Responding While You’re Feeling Alarmed 19:17 #4: Move Your Body When Your Mind Is Stuck 20:32 #5: Focus on the Good Thing and Small Wins 22:05 #6: Spontaneous Drawings Relieve Psychological Stress 24:23 #7: Go Back to AnalogSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Discover a new educational and interactive podcast, Stories for Kids by Lingo Kids. Our episodes are packed with fun activities, right Elliot? Oh yes! We went shape hunting around the block and we found spheres and cubes on the street! That was great fun! Join Stories for Kids, the Lingo Kids podcast, inspiring you to learn while having fun. Listen to Stories for kids on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For all the parents out there, picture that it's bedtime. You and the kids have been busy all day.

You know they're tired, but for some reason they just won't go to sleep. And for this reason, I created the podcast Bedtime History. Bedtime History is a series of relaxing history stories that end with an inspirational message. With over 2,000 positive parent reviews, Bedtime History is one of the top education podcasts. Join me and listen to Bedtime History every Monday and Thursday on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Parents, if you've ever experienced bedtime battles with the kids, I'm going to let Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. original kids bedtime stories and cozy sleep meditations, every episode has been specially designed to make bedtimes a dream. Listen to Koala Moon on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you're feeling stuck, move your body. Studies show that working out naturally releases serotonin. And maybe right now you're moving your body while your mind is moving and that's great but if your mind is stuck move your body and if your body is stuck move your mind. The number one health and wellness podcast. Hey everyone welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to listen, learn and grow. I'm your host Jay Shetty and I am so excited that you're here right now. You're investing in yourself simply by showing up and I want you to acknowledge what a big win that is that you're prioritizing your mindset, you're

prioritizing your growth simply by checking in right now. Now I'm sure that overthinking has slowed you down, has wasted time, has wasted your energy for years and years and years and maybe you've been trying to do a bunch of different things to help it. I'm hoping that this episode is going to help you learn why overthinking may not be as bad as you think it is. I'm hoping that this episode is going to help you learn why overthinking may not be as bad as you think it is. I'm here also to help you with tools and habits and practices that are going to help you overcome the unhealthy sides of overthinking. I'm also going to give you some great insights on taking action and making shift and change in your life

by more deeply understanding what overthinking is, how it works and why we struggle with it so much. Remember, if you want to break through something, you have to understand why it's breaking you down. why it's breaking you down. So let's dive into the research. A study of 2000 people discovered that 68% of adults admit to overthinking. Another study found that overthinking is especially problematic for young to middle-aged adults. 73% of 23 to 35-year-olds

and 52% of those aged 45 to 55 overthink. Now, when you break this down further, women are significantly more likely than men to fall into overthinking and to be immobilized by it. 57% of women and 43% of men claim to be overthinkers. So the first thing I want you to recognize as I always do is you're not alone. 57% of women and 43% of men claim to be overthinkers. So the first thing I want you to recognize as I always do is you're not alone. You're not alone and the challenge is

so much of society has set us up to be an overthinker. Now, if you think about the kinds of things you overthink about, and I sat down with my team, I was asking some of my friends and family and the top things that came up, the less serious ones were things like social plans. Do I go or do I cancel? Right, how many of you have ever sat there

for the whole week trying to figure it out, and you might be that person who messages last minute and says, guys, it's canceled, it's over, I'm not coming, I am coming, whatever it may be. But social plans is a big big one when it comes to overthinking. Another one is our appearance. What are we going to wear? How do we look? Do we really want to get that tattoo? Do we want to get that new makeup product? Right? There's all these questions around appearance that we overthink about. Now, it starts to get a bit more serious here as well.

You have things like leaving your job, breaking up. And notice how all of these, we can all vouch for the fact that we've overthought about these things before, and they seem like valid things to think about. Finances is another huge one. And then going back to the more daily ones, you've got things like social cues and exchanges.

You're worried about something you said or you're worried about something you didn't say. You're worried about how you came across in an interaction at work. And now you're worried that that person judges you or assumes something about you that you don't believe is true. Or maybe you texted someone and you didn't get the tone quite right, you didn't think it through and now you're concerned that they think that you're not thoughtful, you're not kind, you're not caring. Or you forgot to reply, right? Someone messaged you a week ago and you completely forgot that they messaged you and all of a sudden you're worried about how you've been perceived. Notice how this scale of

circumstantial to existential overthinking exists. Circumstantial or situational are things like social plans, appearances, social exchanges, emails and messaging and then on an existential level you have things like breaking up, appearance, social exchanges, emails and messaging. And then on an existential level, you have things like breaking up, leaving your job, moving country. And what we find is that it's very natural and very normal to overthink

about pretty much all of these things. And sometimes the smaller the decision, the more we replay that thought. And sometimes the smaller the decision, the more we replayed that thought. And sometimes the bigger the decision, the more we try and avoid that thought. Right. How many times have you had it where you're just trying to avoid the fact that you may want to leave your job because it brings up too much discomfort? Or you know that you keep thinking over and over again about a conversation you had two weeks ago because of something you said. Now, again, you're not alone.

Another study found that around 40% of adults overthink how to get out of plans. How many of you are sitting there trying to get out of the plan right now? Here's what I'm gonna ask you to do. Here's what I'm gonna to ask you to do. Here's what I'm going to nudge you to do. Just make a decision and send that message and then don't look at your phone.

Just make the decision. I promise you it won't make a massive difference to your life either way. Now, the same study also discovered that around a third of people worry that co-workers misinterpret their office dialogue. Right. Maybe it's a joke you made. Maybe it's a conversation you had. And what I would say in that scenario is it's OK to go up to someone and say,

hey, I've been worried that you may have misinterpreted how I did this. I wanted to check in with how you feel about this. It's really great to over communicate when we feel we've been under effective in the past. That same study went on to say that over 30% of us overthink financial choices, like how much to spend on a housewarming gift or how to ask someone to repay the money they borrowed. Right? How many of you have lent money to someone and then you're scared to ask for it back?

It can be really perplexing to figure out when to say something, what to say and how to say something and therefore we just let it go. But then in the back of our mind we're wondering, gosh that person still owes me $50, $20, $100, whatever it may be to you. And then you say things to yourself, right? We negotiate with ourselves. Oh, it's not that bigger deal. It's okay. But all the while, we're building up a negative viewpoint of this individual, and we're feeling a bit of angst and pain internally as well. Again, in this scenario, if that's what you're going through, my advice is message that person they probably forgot anyway, even if it's uncomfortable for you, I promise you

it will allow you to free your mind. And I think that's what we're trying to get to with overthinking is we need to get to a place where we recognize that freeing our mind is better than the pressure that we're forcing onto our mind. Now I was reading something from Amaha which is a phenomenal website to do with mental health and I read something on there about the science behind overthinking and I wanted to read it to you. So listen to this carefully from amaha.com. From an evolutionary standpoint, the brain functions to encourage overthinking as a means of problem solving. Have you ever thought about that for a second? Evolutionary standpoint suggests that our brain functions to encourage

overthinking. Brain chemicals like dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin and cortisol participate in initiating and sustaining these cyclical loops of thoughts. Simply put, dopamine is a chemical associated with reward and motivation. So actually reflecting and pondering can be really, really effective. can be really, really effective. Now, adrenaline is a stimulator, Amaha says. Serotonin is the feel-good hormone and mood regulator, and cortisol is the stress hormone. Dopamine promotes the notion of problem solving and hence initiates the loop

in an effort to reward the brain. When you're striving to solve the problem, adrenaline is released as a source of energy and you become pumped. The mind loop is augmented by serotonin as new options are emerging. Now when the loop produces no effects or solutions, serotonin is blocked and cortisol is released. Cortisol causes a stress response and unhealthy rumination is brought on by this. So notice how we're actually being encouraged to problem solve, but when we can't think of a solution,

that's when serotonin is blocked and that's when stress begins. Now, I'm going to be talking to you in this episode about how to actually make sure you get to some solutions, so stay with me. Going back to Amaha, it goes on to say that overthinking may present as rumination about the past or anxiety about the future. Two groups of neural networks in the brain play an important role in regulating experience, the default mode network

DMN and the direct experience network DEN. When our attention wanders while we're engaged in a routine task, the default network is activated. It engages in brooding, imagining and planning. It tends to shift thoughts or consider experiences or reflections from the past or future. When you're not considering the past or the future, the direct experience network is active. When you're completely mindful of the present moment, you're living in the now.

For instance, when you feel the water striking you in the shower or the bristles of your toothbrush on your teeth. So here's point one. I don't want you to see overthinking as all that bad. I think there's a part of us that's built a negative relationship with overthinking. We see ourselves as, oh, I'm an over thinker. I'm a procrastinator, I'm someone who's just always stuck in my head.

We have this negative belief system. We don't look at it as a problem solving approach. We look at it as an anti problem solving approach. Right, we think overthinking is wasting time, is ruining our options, is letting us down rather than actually going a couple of steps back and recognizing actually if I see overthinking as problem solving, then maybe I'll actually have the opportunity to overcome the problem. opportunity to overcome the problem.

Now it is true that excessive rumination or worry can have a negative impact on us. So as much as we don't want to go that far on one side, we don't want to be at the other extreme where we're trying to come up with decisions and make decisions immediately. Right? So you don't want to go from making no decision to making a decision so fast that you haven't had time to think about it, well you're not rewarding yourself. So why do we struggle with problem solving? One of the biggest reasons we struggle with problem solving is we're not exposed to enough insight around that topic. Right, so let's say you're someone who's struggling with saying no to social plans. There's a great book called The Art of Saying No by Damon Zahariadis.

I hope I'm saying that name right. But the reason why I'm recommending this book is I promise you that if you were to dive into that book over a weekend, you're actually going to strengthen your skill in saying no. Now that's the challenge, right, with social plans. We don't recognize that learning to say no is a muscle, learning to say no is a skill, learning to say no is a habit. And because we don't have the skillset,

we can't get to a solution quick enough. We think that there's some issue in our mind, there's some emotional reason, but we haven't really given it the time of day. And so developing the muscle, developing the skillset allows you to be able to say no. Another reason we see overthinking as bad and not as problem solving

is because we haven't strengthened our ability to problem solve. So let's say you are struggling with whether you should stay in your current job or not. A good problem solving tactic would be to say, okay, well, if I stay here for the next five years, what will my life look like? And if I leave, worst case scenario,

what will my life look like? If I stay here, what's best case and worst case, if I leave what's best case and worst case, notice how a problem solving paradigm, a problem solving methodology adds structure. And that's what we're really looking for. Overthinking is no structure.

Problem solving is structured. And so as soon as you start to add structures and systems to the way you reflect, the way you ponder, the way you think, you switch from overthinking to problem solving. And that's what I'd encourage you to do. So that's the first step. Don't see overthinking as this negative bad thing. See it as a way of moving into a direction of problem solving. This segment is sponsored by State Farm. It's the start of a new quarter and my favorite time to reflect and focus on the good that has happened this year already. Focusing on the good and celebrating small wins help me thrive mentally and keep me from letting the bad days outweigh the good.

My team and I host weekly gratitude for this purpose and have seen a massive positive shift in our personal and professional lives. An HBR report from 2011 titled The Power of Small Wins looked at small wins in 26 project teams in multiple companies and collected nearly 12,000 diary entries and what they found was that while most of the progress was categorized as minor steps forward these small wins produced outsized positive reactions. Here are some examples of small wins for me and I encourage you to begin your list. I woke up this morning and chose movement. My last podcast episode helped someone through a breakup. My last quote I shared on Instagram helped them through a tough time. I spent quality time with an old friend that I

hadn't seen in a while. My team thanked me for a productive off-site meeting. Some of the ways that I help remind myself to celebrate the small wins is through daily gratitude. If you've ever listened to my podcast or read my books you've most likely heard me talk about the importance of gratitude in my daily routine. Each morning and each evening, I set aside time to reflect and express gratitude. Often in these moments of gratitude,

I'll find myself highlighting these small wins, whether it's something that happened in my personal or professional life, or an interaction with a random stranger. Getting in the habit of this type of reflection each day allows us to take a moment, slow down and remind ourselves to celebrate the wins in our life no matter how big or small. With State Farm you can celebrate small wins too. The State Farm personal price plan helps you create an affordable price just for you. Talk to a State Farm

agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is an NAACP of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.

The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is an NAACP and Webby award-winning podcast dedicated to all things mental health, personal development and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. Here, we have the conversations that help black women decipher how their past informed inform who they are today and use that information to decide who they want to be moving forward. We chat about things like how to establish routines that center self-care,

what burnout looks and feels like, and defining what aspects of our lives are making us happy and what parts are holding us back. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. And I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Take good care and we'll see you there. Take good care, and you might know me from the Bedtime Story podcast, Nothing Much Happens. I'm an architect of Cozy, and I invite you to come spend some time where everyone is

welcome and kindness is the default. When you tune in, you'll hear stories about bakeries and walks in the woods, a favorite booth at the diner on a blustery autumn day, cats and dogs and rescued goats and donkeys, old houses, bookshops, beaches where kites fly and pretty stones are found. I have so many stories to tell you and they are all designed to help you feel good and feel connected to what is good in the world. Listen, relax, enjoy. Listen to stories from the village of nothing much on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Parents, if you've ever experienced bedtime battles with the kids, I'm going to let you into a little secret. I'm Abby, a mother of two, and I had these battles myself. Endless excuses, delay tactics, and many tears and tantrums. But I've created a solution. The perfect kids podcast that makes bedtime a dream. It's called Koala Moon and it's hosted by me, Abby. With over 300 episodes, packed with original stories and sleep meditations, Koala Moon makes bedtimes easy and enjoyable. Episodes start out engaging and really rather magical but as they progress

they gently slow to a calm and relaxing pace to have your little ones out like a light. Since launching in 2022 Koala Moon has helped with over 20 million night sleep and received over 6000 5 star reviews. Win back your evenings. Listen to Koala Moon now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Second step, don't ask too many people for their opinion. One of the biggest mistakes we make today is we go onto that WhatsApp thread, we go onto our SMS chat, we go onto our group chat,

and we ask everyone what they think we should do, right? Should I date this guy? Should I quit my job? Do I think this party's worth it? Do I like what I'm wearing here? Now the truth is everyone's got a different opinion. And now you're stuck with a bunch of different opinions and now you're dealing with the other overthinking of,

well, if I listen to them and I don't listen to them, but then they see me at the party, they're gonna think that I listen to them and not them. And they already know that I don't really agree with that person on everything, but then it's gonna, right? Like we've all been there. Now we're overthinking about something we already over thought about. So what do we do instead? There are four types of people in your life. The first is

someone that you go to because they care about you. For me this is my mom. If I'm thinking about my health, if I'm thinking about my well-being, the person I go to for advice, apart from my doctor, is my mom. She doesn't care whether I've done a talk at this amazing place. She doesn't care who my latest guest on the podcast is. She cares if I've drunk enough water, eaten my meals on time and had enough sleep. So if I want someone to give me advice from a personal perspective, I'm going to go to the people that care about me. Now, if I'm going to ask my mom a question about something else, she may not have the right answer. She may tell me to not fly across halfway across the world for

something amazing for the part, right? And so from a care point of view, she's spot on. Now, I have someone else in my life for people that are competent at certain things. Now my mom is competent in a lot of areas, but there's a lot of areas she's not the person who's the most competent. So if I'm asking for advice on, let's say you're asking for advice

on your taxes and your accounts. Let's say you're asking for advice on what to wear. How many times have you asked someone and then go, I don't like what they wear anyway. It's like you're asking someone who you don't believe is competent in the area of your question, but you still ask them and now you're overthinking it. Focus on asking people who are competent and skilled

in the area that you're struggling in, not everyone in every area. If you're thinking about quitting your job, if you speak to your friend who is not going to quit their job, chances are they're going to struggle to give you good advice. You want to speak to someone who has quit their job, about the challenges of it, about the greatness of it, about why they quit their job. Go to someone who has had that experience. The third type of person in your life is someone who's consistently been there.

I think these are the people that you reach out to when you're reflecting on yourself. When you're reflecting on your qualities, your characteristics, your abilities. Someone who's been there in your side for a long time. They may have some good notes to share. And the fourth person in your life is someone who is high

character. Maybe you've got a moral question. Maybe you've got a question about faith, spirituality, religion. Maybe you've got a question about, you know, a dilemma that you are having morally or ethically. You have someone of character in your life. So think about your overthinking in terms of who is the best person, who is best placed to actually help me solve this versus how many people do I know that I could possibly ask to try and almost do a audience reaction, right?

You're almost trying to get a well, seven people think this and three people think this, but actually I trust the three people's opinion more than the seven people. Focus on care, competence, consistency and character. The third thing, I think a lot of us overthink because we are trying to respond in alarm mode or alert mode. So you get an email that you're worried about responding to, but you're trying to respond to it while you're worried. Right? You get a message and now you're in anxiety trying to figure out what to respond

because you're trying to respond while you're alarmed. It's so important to step away, to find stillness, to find peace. So you respond from a place of peace. If you respond from a place of peace, chances are what you put out there will be much more steady, will be much more stable and will probably feel more aligned than if you just reacted. Don't respond from a place of being alarmed or alerted.

Now, step number four, often it can feel like your mind's just stuck. We just talked about how cortisol gets released. Serotonin is blocked, right? You're feeling stuck. And so if you're feeling stuck, move your body. Move your body when your mind feel stuck. Studies show that working out naturally releases serotonin so move your body when your mind is stuck. I want you to remember that and maybe right now you're moving your body while your mind is moving and that's great but if your mind is stuck move your body and if your body is

stuck move your mind. I want you to remember this if your mind is stuck move your body and if your body is stuck move your mind. When we change our mindset we can change our physicality and when we change our physicality we can change our mindset. They And when we change our physicality, we can change our mindset. They both work together. The problem is when we're stuck in our mind, we're putting all our energy into changing our mind. Or when we're feeling stuck in our body, we're putting all of our energy into changing our body.

We have to realize we have to use the alternate one to actually make a shift. Now, number five, this one's huge. This one's a really really important one. It's so important that we focus on the good things and have gratitude for the little things and we recognize the power of small wins. A lot of us overthink because we don't give ourselves the credit of the little progress we're making, the power of the small steps in the right direction. Maybe last year you would have spent a month responding and

overthinking figuring out if you want to go to an event and this time you spent a week. That's progress. Maybe last year you would have over thought a decision for a month, but this time you made a decision in three days. We have to be grateful for the little things in our life. The reason we overthink is because we're concerned we're gonna miss out, we're concerned that someone's gonna think something of us. We're missing out on being specific about gratitude.

We're missing out on being specific about how the gratitude and thankfulness for the little things can reduce our overthinking. We start to go, okay, well, I know that what I said wasn't perfect, but my intention was right. Okay, I know that I should have probably said no earlier, but I had the courage to do it anyway. Honoring those moments, recognizing progress are so powerful.

Now, this is probably one of my favorite ones, too. A lot of the time when our mind is stuck, we need to feel movement. And I find that writing, doodling and painting can be brilliant. Now, I was reading a Harvard research health blog from Srini Pillay, and in that he talks about how spontaneous drawings may also relieve psychological distress, making it easier to attend to things. Shunyipile says we like to make sense of our lives by making up coherent stories, but sometimes there are gaps that cannot be filled no matter how hard we try.

He goes on to say doodles fill these gaps, possibly by activating the brain's time travel machine allowing it to find lost puzzle pieces of memories bringing them to the present and making the picture of our lives more whole again. With this greater sense of self and meaning we may be able to feel more relaxed and concentrate more. This blog goes on to say that although doodles may look like a scribble, random words that make no sense, or a partial face that suddenly becomes something extraterrestrial, they're not quite as random as we might think. Dr. Robert Burns, the former director of the Institute for Human Development at the University of Seattle, uses doodles to diagnose the emotional problems of his patients.

He believes that doodles can reveal what is going on in the unconscious. He asserts that in the same way that EEG leads transmit brain activity to a piece of paper, your hand also does the same. Many other doodle researchers would agree. Now, I was blown away by this because maybe you're one of those people who, when you're on the phone, you're doodling, right? When you're messaging in between people, maybe you're writing things down. I think one of the reasons why journaling is taken off so much

to help with overthinking is it's getting out of your head and onto a page. Even if it doesn't make sense, even if it's lots of random things, I encourage you to get out of your head and onto a page. Now, one of the reasons why we overthink a lot is we're living too digitally is we're living too digitally. And my encouragement here is go back to analog. We are literally processing 74 gigabytes of information a day. Now you may be thinking, Jay, that doesn't sound like a lot. Well, remember a few years ago, that would have been the size of your hard drive, right. We were happy when one gig was a memory card. Now we're talking about 74 gigs a day. Now,

just to give you a sense of what that is, that's 16 movies. Can you imagine processing 16 movies movies per day. Storylines, characters, emotions, energy, thoughts. I mean it is so much. 16 movies a day. Go back to being analogue. I've been practicing this new thing where when I'm at work I'm putting my phone away and I'm simply, obviously I'm on my laptop and I've disconnected my SMS and my WhatsApp from my laptop so I can't check it. And I found that just not having that level of 74 gigabytes coming at me in a strong way, imagine back in the day you drove down a road

and you saw a billboard. Now you're seeing billboards every three seconds on your phone. Like just think about that for a second, how much it's changed. So we're asking our brains and our minds to overconsume, we're overexposed, overwhelmed. No wonder we're overthinking.

Go back to analog, go back to analog. I wanna thank you so much for listening to today. I'm so grateful that we got to spend this time together. I hope that these seven steps make a huge difference to you. And I hope that you find your path to recognizing that overthinking can help you problem solve, that overthinking will be reduced when we start celebrating the small wins, the small steps,

and being grateful for the progress, and recognizing at the end of the day that it is natural. We're not alone if we're overthinking and that we're living in a world that encourages overthinking but we can make better decisions. Thank you for listening. Remember I am always in your corner and I'm forever rooting for you. Thank you. If you love this episode you'll enjoy my interview with Dr. Julie Smith on unblocking negative emotions and how to embrace difficult feelings. You've just got to be motivated every day and if you're not, then what are you doing?

And actually, humans don't work that way. Motivation, you have to treat it like any other emotion. Some days it will be there, some days it won't. At one of the most famous restaurants in the world, there's a table in the corner where the most incredible conversations on the planet are happening every week with owner Ruthie Rogers, an amazing guest, like Martha Stewart. But I did have an affair with one of his best friends. Jimmy Fallon.

Do you want a zipline over your dad while he gets attacked by alligators? And Paul McCartney. John and I hitchhiked to Paris. We've saved you a seat. Ruthie's Table 4. Listen to Ruthie's Table 4 on the iHeartRadio app And Paul McCartney. John and I hitchhiked to Paris. We've saved you a seat. Ruthie's Table Four. Listen to Ruthie's Table Four on the iHeartRadio app

or wherever you get your podcasts. The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is your space to explore mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta,

Georgia. And I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Take good care and we'll see you there. Hello, this is Laverne Cox. I'm an actress, producer, and host of The Laverne Cox Show. Do you like your tea with lemon or honey? History-making Broadway performer Alex Newell. When I sing The Holy Ghost Shows Up, that's my ministry and I know that well about me. That's the tea, honey.

Whoever it is, you can bet we get into it. My guest and I, we go there every single time. I can't help it. Listen to the Laverne Cox Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.