The Life Of Bryony - 39. Why You’re Not a Mad Woman – and Why Everything You Know About Anxiety Is Wrong

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Welcome to The Life of Bryony Where we explore life’s messy, beautiful, and challenging moments. MY GUEST THIS WEEK: DR ALEXANDRA SHAKER This week, I’m joined by Dr Alexandra Shaker—therapist, researcher, and author of The Narrowing. Alexandra’s work rethinks our understanding of anxiety, not as a weakness, but as a strength—something we can learn from rather than fight against. We discuss how anxiety manifests in the body, why quick fixes don’t work, and how we can reframe our relationship with mental health. LET’S STAY IN TOUCH 🗣️ Got something to share? Text or send a voice note on 07796657512—just start your message with LOB. 💬 Use the WhatsApp shortcut: https://wa.me/447796657512?text=LOB. 📧 Prefer email? Drop me a line at [e-mail] If you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who might find Alexandra’s insights helpful—it really makes a difference! Bryony xx BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE 📚 Mad Woman by Bryony Gordon Bryony’s latest memoir, now available in paperback, offers an insightful and fearless reflection on mental health. Buy from Waterstones 📚 The Narrowing by Dr. Alexandra Shaker A transformative exploration of anxiety, examining the connections between our emotional, psychological, and physical lives. Buy from Waterstones SOME GREAT RESOURCES Mind UK – Mental health support and information: www.mind.org.uk | Call 0300 123 3393 or text 86463 Anxiety UK – Support and resources for anxiety and panic: www.anxietyuk.org.uk CREDITS 🎙️ Presenter: Bryony Gordon 🎙️ Guest: Dr Alexandra Shaker 🎧 Content Producer: Jonathan O’Sullivan 🎥 Audio & Video Editor: Luke Shelley 📢 Executive Producer: Mike Wooller A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Seriously popular. Briny Gordon, how about presenter Briny? Hello, producer Jonathan. This is the first time that we're being visualized. I know. How do you feel about that? I feel really excited, actually, because we're in like, if you're listening, if you're, if you're watching, old fashioned people that that listens and not watches things, it'll just be exactly the same podcast.

But no, but actually, if I can describe to you, it feels weird describing it if you're watching it on YouTube. I don't I mean like describe away that I'm sitting on like nice, a nice sofa. They've got like a cut out of the life of briny logo. They've got like a cut out of clouds. There's a, there's a, there's a, like a bus. There's a woman with a, with a huge ass like a bus. I'm worried that that won't pass YouTube standards. We're going to have to blur that. There's nipples.

Yeah, I think put our arse ways if you can. It can't be, it can't be like, it can't be variety themed without there being some sort of like nakedness. A couple of things, two things actually on the set. Two, one, the vase game is strong. Yeah, there being some sort of like naked a couple of things two things actually on the set to one The vase game is strong like a lot of vases which I like and I love the animal ones They saw a vase vase you say vase I say vase Okay, different country and other thing we do a lot of episodes briny where people cry

It is this room too cheery for someone to cry in? I think it'd be fine. But can I just say something else that I've noticed? Yeah. Because I don't want to, like, spoil the magic. Yeah, go on. On day, on like episode one of visualization. But we share this studio with the Soccer A to Z guys. And I just see underneath the bust of the boobs and the butt,

it just says, Hanini's sticker book. OK. Plus Bex forward slash Shearer forward slash Rooney. Do you know what we should do? I know it's too soon for it might be too soon for this, but like, let's do one of the episodes from the soccer A to Z set. See if anyone notices. See if anyone notices.

See how we feel. We might get more laddy. I, you know, I, anyway, we haven't, we haven't, we haven't confronted the bit of my life, which is, which is, I don't know, we have actually spoken about my love of Arsenal anyway. Oh, we have definitely. I'll tell you two things we've spoken about, your love of Arsenal and also your

love for Grey's Anatomy, both of which, I don't know which one is stronger, they're both super strong. Have you heard of the marshmallow test? No. In the test a child was given a marshmallow or another treat and told they could either eat it immediately or wait for a short period. I have heard of this. If they wait for 15 minutes, they receive a second marshmallow. Which child are you? Are you the immediate gratification single marshmallow or are you a wait 15 minutes, sit in your hand, double marshmallow gal?

Which do you think? I think we might be the same. Three, two, one, answer. Single. Instant gratification. I never, ever, ever, ever could. I mean, now, I probably probably now as a 44 year old woman I've done a lot of therapy. Yeah been to rehab all sorts of other horrific shitty things

I've had to go through. Yeah to get to this stage now I probably wait 15 minutes for this for the second marshmallow, but that's not who I am as a person No and how I've this came up this week for me is I'm still the marshmallow immediately person because I freelance and sometimes I do my evenings during the day so I use the window free time that I have, I'll use it in the morning, but then I'll resent the fact that I have to work into the evening. I'm like, Jonathan, you're doing the same eight hours as everyone else, you just chose

to front load that with fun stuff. And now here you are at 9 p.m. That's bad. Working. It is, and I realized that's the marshmallow test. I've said, oh my God, I'll have the free time now please. And then I'll deal with consequences later. Always get the, always do the hardest thing in your day first.

Okay. That's true actually. It's easier said than done. This chat that we're about to have this week's episode, which is kind of broadly speaking linked to my book coming out this week on paperback, but really it's a more wider conversation I wanted to have about anxiety and how we're kind of thinking about it all wrong. And we've done a lot of, you know, she was, we were talking a lot, I was talking to someone recently who was telling me this fascinating thing

that I wanted to kind of mention to listeners or viewers of The Life of Briny. And they were talking about when you are this idea that anxiety or depression is a weakness. It's kind of like, it was a way of reframing that and talking about when you go into anxiety, when you go into a panic attack, you are actually, your body, you are actually the strongest you ever are.

So your mouth dries out. So if in an evolutionary term, it's so that you can grab. Wow. You can like grab onto someone with your teeth caveman style and all of your blood rushes away and goes to like your primary organs so that you're ready and poised. And put simply, your body is actually, when it's in panic, when it's in extreme anxiety, it's the strongest it's ever going to be. And I really liked thinking about that in a different way. How do you enjoy your chat? We are chatting with Alexandra Shaker today. I really enjoyed this chat because it was so wide-ranging. So Alexandra Shaker is a therapist. She's written an amazing book about sort of anxiety and its journey through the body

and it's just really fascinating and I love doing these episodes where we're talking about stuff more generally and you know I feel like we really I feel like the way I think about mental health has really changed in the last ten years between when I first wrote about my own mental health in Mad Girl to writing about my mental health now in Mad Woman and the way I think about it has completely changed and the way I think people think about it generally is changing a lot. And I love this idea, which I hope people will get from this episode of looking at their, what they perceive to be their flaws and their failures in a different way. And sort of, you know,

that idea that what is anxiety trying to tell us? Yeah. You know, and it's not the obvious thing. It's not the black and white thing. No, it's more like maybe it's trying to tell us that the way we're living our lives at that point is out of alignment with how we should be. There's something we're ignoring. You know, it's only when I was speaking then and to Ali that I realized, you know, like I would say, truth be told, about 98% of my waking life is spent in a state of anxiety. Do you think?

Yeah. That's a lot. Yeah. And I need to get honest about that, like, because I think we can put on these sort of faces and I spend my life either in a state of terror or kind of laughing hysterically. Okay. Often at the same time.

Yeah. Um, oh, I like, I'd hope I was going to say no better woman to sort that out than Bryony Gordon. Like I feel like you will, if you look at mad girls, mad woman, what happened like in a, that space of time between writing those two books. Imagine yourself. Yeah, like when I get to Mad Old Lady. Oh my god, you're going to have it sorted. One thing I learned from your conversation with Ali was about, it was really nice, about your nervous system being complimentary or

your nervous system needs another person's nervous system to kind of relax. The nervous system needs to know it's not alone. And I'm right in thinking that's you should find other people's nervous system that you can compliment. It's that idea of kind of co-regulation. Yeah. Yeah. So we need to be together. Can I ask you a question? Another question, third question everybody. Do you think my nervous system compliments your nervous system? system asking for a friend? I don't know. I think I have a great effect on you. There are different people in your life that your nervous systems do different things together.

Are you saying like eyebrows or nervous systems are cousins and not sisters? Is that what you're saying? So there are definitely like I have different people that do different things to my nervous system. Okay. I'm just getting you deflect the answer here. The answer was yes. Briny. My nervous, my nervous system enjoys being with your nervous system. If I could get that in a hallmark card by the end of the week.

It has a laugh when it's with you. Good. We got there. Whereas with Ali, I felt very kind of like calm, you know, and there's some people, my nervous system, it- Fight or flight gets activated, right? It goes into total fight or flight. Sometimes it goes into fawn. There's loads to learn from this episode, but not in this intro to the episode.

There's nothing. Skip ahead. You've learned nothing in this intro. Don't worry. There's loads coming up. Sick of dreaming smaller? Sick of investing but not seeing your money grow? Loads coming up. It's time to get the financial future you deserve. Get yours, Questrade. So, Ali, you have written a fantastic book called The Narrowing. It's a kind of exploration of anxiety through our bodies.

And I wanted to talk to you, we've got books coming out at sort of the same time. My book, Mad Woman, is coming out in paperback at about the same time. And I, it's like, even though yours is a very different it's much more sort of much more thoroughly researched. Well you know I don't know I mean I thought your book was incredibly insightful. My book is basically a personal case history of my own experiences of anxiety. Your book is like a deep dive into the wider world of anxiety. But I think that where they come in together, and this is why I wanted to do this episode, because I get so many questions from people.

As someone who's spoken openly about my experiences of mental illness, I get so many messages from people going, what do I do? How do I stop these feelings? How do I stop myself from being depressed or anxious or having OCD or being an alcoholic or all of these kind of like the big soupy problems that make up the human condition? They want to know how to stop them and how to not feel it. And I also wanted to do that when I was, you know, at the beginning, well not just at the beginning of my journey and my journey, by journey, I mean my life. I mean, I for a long time also wanted to know how do I stop my anxiety?

How do I stop depression? How do I, how do I not feel these terrible, horrible things that my body keeps making me feel? And actually, what I've realized as I've got older, is that the mistake I've been making is to try to not feel them. Looking for the way to drown them out, to quieten them. And what I really realised and what my book is really about in Madwoman is it changed so many of my thoughts about mental illness. The 10 years since I wrote Mad Girl, which was my first book.

I thought I was the problem and I realized actually I'm the solution and that anxiety and depression aren't like, we're going about it all wrong. The way we tackle it is all wrong and the way we try and get rid of it is all wrong. Anxiety, depression, these mental illnesses, they aren't the problem per se. I mean, they are a problem, obviously, but the solution lies in them. And actually, you're much better off leaning into them and asking them, what are they trying to tell me? And I really felt reading the narrowing that come across this sort of different way of looking at anxiety, this problem that so many of us are experiencing. Like in your book you say, as recently as 2020

researchers identified sobering increases in anxiety, depression and thoughts of suicide. In the United States reports of anxiety or depression have just about quadrupled over the past two years and similar studies from the UK show anxiety and depression nearly doubling. I mean, that's an incredible statistic. It's horrifying. I mean, it's really troubling. I think it wouldn't shock me actually if the numbers could be higher than they appear in the data, who's to say.

But I think that the sort of like cultural movement toward hacks and quick fixes is sort of reaching a limit. And I think I've always found that approach to anxiety and to depression incredibly frustrating and sometimes even patronizing. I feel that way for myself. I've felt that way for others. And I think I'm so glad that this sort of message came through to you in the narrowing,

because that is absolutely what I am driving at, that there are other ways of perceiving these experiences that aren't to say that they're things we enjoy or want, but that we can approach them differently and in fact see in ourselves strength and capacity for sort of insight and understanding and depth through these kinds of experiences. And I think I just, I do wanna say I loved Mad Woman.

I thought it was brilliant. And I think the approach that you have of sort of integrating this incredibly brave personal story with your deep intelligence and humor is such a gift to people. I loved it and I haven't read anything like it. Mental illness, you know, just like if something goes wrong, if you break a leg, you'd get it patched up, you'd take an ibuprofen or whatever. And it was very much like, you know, it's a chemical imbalance, I'll take a pill and that'll make it better.

And that isn't my experience, actually. The more I've gone into it, the more I've started to realise that actually mental illness is often our brain's very sophisticated ways of telling us that something isn't right. And so even though it's incredibly painful, they are warning signs. The only way I realized this was during the pandemic. I always say that the thing that all mental illnesses have in common from like anxiety through to psychosis and beyond and eating disorders, everything, is that they work by isolating you and they tell you you're a freak and they tell you that you're alone and they tell you that no one's going to understand what you're going through. And you talk about this a lot in the narrowing about how connection and togetherness is often the kind of way to get through these things.

But my experience of mental illness had always been that I felt very much alone and that no one understood what I was going through. And during the pandemic, I remember I was like, I'm very depressed. I am clinically depressed. But it was the first time in my life I'd realized I was clinically depressed and that everyone around me was too. And I went, but of course we are, because our lives have been, we've been disconnected from one another. We're not living our lives as we're supposed to be. And I was like, wow, this is actually a really appropriate way to be feeling. And this set me off thinking, what if, what if all along, actually, my madness, my mental illness

that made me a freak, was actually the appropriate way to be feeling. And it was my brain's way of telling me that the way I was living my life didn't work for me. And that really, absolutely blew my mind. And then when I started to think of that in like the wider scope of how women are expected to be everything to everyone, and I started to go through an early menopause, and I was just kind of like medically gaslit at every turn and told that my palpitations were just, you know, they were like, it was emotions and it was, and it turned out I actually had an arrhythmia. I was like, of course I felt like this my whole life. Of course I felt fucking bonkers because I'm not allowed to be me in any kind of safe way you know being a woman a woman is all about you know being neater smaller you know more

glossy have more children be more successful do all of this do all of that it's like I can't be myself in any kind of meaningful way I don't know if I'm making any fucking sense now I think you're making absolute sense but also I don't need to make any sense. This is just how it is. And so I started to really think, well, hang on a second. What if the most mad among us are actually the most sane? And what if you're not the problem, actually?

What if you are the solution? And what if, you know, the reason so many of us are experiencing anxiety, are experiencing depression, is because we don't live our lives now as we should. Yeah. I mean, I think you're pointing toward the pandemic as this sort of clarifying period, although very painful, is so accurate. Because I think what certainly with anxiety, oftentimes what happens, and I think this applies to depression as well, is that there is this sort of lack of a certain buffer that people without anxiety seem to have.

And there's lots of sort of scientific and theoretical ways to think about that, but sort of more colloquially, people with anxiety tend to sort of experience the fears and the awareness of uncertainty that is actually true for all of us all the time, but it's front and center and it's not clouded over or sort of obscured in any way. And that is really painful. At the same time, a period like the pandemic sort of showed us the reality of our lack of control, our lack of certainty, our sort of tiny, tiny place in this world

and how painful that can feel when we're faced with it. And so I think what you're saying really resonates with me and sort of how I think about anxiety and mental health more broadly. And I wanted to sort of also address the part about women's health in particular, because I think, you know, women are historically under-researched, medically ignored, minimized. This is lethal in many cases.

It's seemingly unending. I think menopause and perimenopause are sort of this new area through which we're seeing the lack of research and understanding in women's health sort of like really spotlight. And I think when it comes to sort of this sense of being sort of told your experiences are meaningless, they're nothing, you should just ignore them. This is a dangerous, dangerous way to be treated by whether it's in a psychological setting or a medical one. It is, and one thing I try to speak to my book

is that it's not just that it creates discomfort emotionally. It's actually really medically bad for us. You know, these are bodies and our minds, not to sort of use cliche, but they are one thing. There is no line between them. They are all one thing. And so in fact, there are very physical ramifications when we don't take seriously our mental health.

This is the reality we live in. And I think for women, it is sort of amplified because women are so often ignored when it comes to their concerns, their pain, the changes that they notice in their bodies and so forth. Let's talk a bit more about the kind of mind-body connection, because that's very much something changes that they notice in their bodies and so forth. Let's talk a bit more about the kind of mind body connection. Um, because that's very much something that I've realized by health anxiety or

just, you know, we know that panic attacks feel like heart attacks. We know that our bodies are very good at telling us like often our bodies, I mean, not often, all the time our bodies feel that something's wrong almost before our brains realize it. But there's obviously a massive disconnect. Like we hear a lot about how anxiety is, you know, it was an, it's an evolutionary response that kept us alive when we, you know, when we were first humans living in the plains of Africa and like, oh, lion coming, rival tribe over there. Obviously in the year 2025, it's not necessarily very helpful because there aren't lions coming for us, but the lions are different,

do you know what I mean? The lions might be trolls or they might be someone at work or something. With our bodies, I think because most of us have been sort of raised in a time when we're generally at least taught to see the function of our minds and bodies as fairly separate. And certainly I will happily admit, I was, I have been quite skeptical around sort of really accepting the depth of sort of oneness

of it all. But I think in fact, there's just abundant evidence that when we sort of quiet problems in our minds, they are expressed in our bodies. And it's not just, you know, that you have an upset stomach when you're anxious. There's actually a lot of sort of internal evidence-based reality to changes in response to our mental state. And that was really one of the points that I most wanted to communicate in my book was that you can't just sort of get out of it. You know, there is no just getting out of it.

And there is no sort of like quick way to absolve the problem and move right on. It will express itself somewhere else. Hacking your brain. Yeah, you can't. This is the thing we do live like, you know, it's sense, you know, instinctively I want to be able to create a podcast clip that is like you going, you can hack your brain to free of anxiety in 10 seconds by doing this. There is no way we do this. Like this is learnt stuff we learn over. We win. It's hard won through experience. And I know that's really horrible for someone who might be listening. I'm like, but I want to just feel better now. And of course you do. But in my mind, part of

the problem is how we're brought up to think that only happy is a valid feeling, you know? And if we don't feel that, we're failing in some way, you know? And actually, the more that we understand that actually, no, we're not, we're just being human if we're sad or we're anxious or, you know, our brains are trying to tell us something and the quicker we listen to it, the quicker we're going to move through it. That's right. I mean, absolutely. I think that, you know, when someone is in the throes of really intense anxiety, of course, you want something to fix it. That is true for all of us. And I think, you know, it's like there are things we can learn to help in the moment, like people learn breathing techniques, for instance. It's not that those

things aren't useful. Those things, however, will not be enough for most people. They just won't be. And so I think this is where the sort of approach rather than avoid stance when it comes to anxiety comes in and becomes so important because otherwise you're sort of chasing your tail, sort of doing the same thing again and again and finding yourself in the same place. And that is ultimately, I think, a really painful way to live, a really hard way to live and quite limiting, I think, ultimately.

I think it's quite limiting. I do think this sort of time we are living in, in which happiness is sort of the ultimate commodity is really, it's really quite frustrating. I think while it's great to feel happy, it's important to feel other ways too. Yeah. There's more to life than just happiness. And when we are happy, we can hopefully appreciate that and enjoy it. But there is so much about the human experience that exists in other places in our mental

sort of environment and really important meaningful experiences to be had in them as well. So I do find that quite frustrating, that sort of like constant drive to happiness. Well, this is a paid advertisement for better health therapy online. What are some of your relationship green flags? We often hear about the red flags we should avoid in the dating world, but what if we focus more on looking for green flags in friends and partners? If you're not sure what they look like, therapy can help you identify those green flags, actively pursue them in your relationships, and even embody that green flag energy yourself. Whether you're dating, married, building a friendship

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That's betterhelp.com slash bryony. That's B-R-Y-O-N-Y. I think it's, you know, it's kind of inherent in the way we live our lives now, this sort of dopamine chasing, if you will. Like we don't even realise it's happening, you know, because we are all so tied into our phones, you know, like every day and millions of way. I mean, these are devices that are designed to be addictive. So they're working on the same brain places as cocaine, as alcohol, as cigarettes, whatever. Like the alerts, the, you know, the likes, the, it's all boosting, isn't it?

It's all boosting dopamine and you get used to it. And when you're, And when you're constantly chasing dopamine, you're in a, it's hard to be happy. Yes. I worry about the younger generation now who has really never experienced life without that. But I think even for those of us who experienced it first in adulthood or in late teen years, it is highly addictive and it is, it's just so powerful. It's so hard to step outside of. And I think we find other ways as well offline where we're also sort of looking for that fix. Yeah. Like what? Like food? Like, I think food is such a great example. I mean, certainly all kinds of substances, all these sort of momentary sort of physical sensations.

Ice baths. I mean, okay, I have to tell you, I was very admiring of your bravery with the cold water swimming. I can't fathom it. But I realized that's maybe chasing some more fucking dopamine. The whole way we live our lives now is like, look, I'm going to run a marathon. I'm going to go and have an ice bath. And I'm like, Brian, would you just sit down? Would you just sit down? Like you're, you need to just have a moment. But I think it's really interesting. Like you talk about the biggest sign that you will be able to

deal with anxiety in a kind of resilient way is it's to do with attention. Yeah. Are you able to move your attention from one thing to another? Right. And I looked at that and I thought, oh yeah, that's true. Yeah. But we are, I would say, without being a bit like dopamine-y about it, it appears to me that we're living in a sort of an attention crisis. Like no one has any attention anymore. You hear so much about rising lumbers of ADHD, but even if you don't have ADHD,

everything is vying for our attention. I'm vying for everyone's attention right now doing this podcast, you know? Absolutely, I mean, I think the power to control our attention, at least a bit more, is one of the best ways that we can care for our mental health. Explain what that's about. Yeah, sure. When we have no sense of control over our attention and it is moving at the

whim of these external demands like social media and things like that, we are sort of constantly reacting and responding rather than making decisions about how we're reacting rather than responding. Yeah, I was thinking those as two quite different things. That's a really good way. Okay, that's an interesting distinction. I hadn't thought of it in those terms, but that's a really interesting distinction. Right.

So like this reacting, being sort of more impulsive and responding, being maybe thoughtful and, and more paced out. I think that's a really good way to look at it. And so I think with anxiety and attention, when your attention is being drawn to what feels like a crisis or a danger or something that has to be, that you perceive as being very urgent,

you lose that space, you lose that capacity for reflection for consideration before you react. And this is where I think we all get quite stuck with anxiety. And I think this is true for OCD as well, that it sort of cuts out the space. The space is lost. And so when I think about learning to use our attention, control our attention for our well-being, much of that has to do with sort of adding in time and adding in mental space before we act. Um, and, and so I think this is a lifelong process.

I think that very few people, certainly not me, are great at this. Um, and I think we're living in a time when it's especially difficult. When we give our brain space, they come up with the solution to life's problems. That's what I've discovered in life. And I think this is where the meditation, the mindfulness comes in. And I, you know, I know that people might be listening, thinking, oh God, please don't tell me

the answer is meditation. Because telling someone with anxiety to meditate is like telling someone in a led suit to go for a swim. Like it's really hard. It's just not, it's not really like a viable ask for someone, you know? Yeah. But what I would say is that like for me,

as I've got, as I've gone further along in my like, what I would call my journey of sobriety or whatever, I don't meditate per se, but I have moments where I sit and I am not with my phone or I'm not with a device and I don't meditate per se, but I have moments where I sit and I am not with my phone or I'm not with a device and I don't have the television on or I'm not even reading a book. And I would say I get that with I go to 12 step meetings and I always find that when I'm sitting in a 12 step meeting just listening to someone else talk or I don't know what happens but with that space when my brain isn't crowded,

the problem I've gone into that meeting with, it'll always, the answer will come. Yes. Because I've stilled my brain and I've shut off the rest of the world. And I'm like, oh, that's what I've need to do. That's what I need to do. And I guess that's what I get when I like go running or whatever. It's like I shut off the rest of the world and I give my brain that hour and the reward I get back is the solutions for the other 23.

There is a sense of meditation is like the recommendation for anxiety. Meditation is wonderful. I think if people are gonna do it, that's great. I do not meditate consistently. I always feel that I should. I don't do it, that's great. I do not meditate consistently. I always feel that I should. I don't do it very consistently. I might have like, you know, in the average year,

like, you know, one month of consistent meditation. That said, I think there are, to your point, lots of ways that we can sort of find an internal space that might not be precisely meditation. And they might be as simple as taking a walk. For me, walking is one of the most sort of meditative states that I achieve regularly. It's not perfect. I know it's not the same, but I do think it does not have to be meditation for everybody. So we live in a sort of state, our nervous systems are sort of constantly activated. I mean, that's, that's essentially the way we live now, kind of hypervigilance.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I thought this was really interesting because actually, for me, a lot of good mental health is about switching ourselves out of that. It's like calming the nervous system. You know, this is essentially what we're talking about when we talk about brain hacks, you know, it's like, so this is what, you know, splash water in your face or ice bath or whatever. But this I thought was the most beautiful thing that I read in your book, which is you talk about, you talk about, this is in the chapter called Regulation and Perseverance, you talk about polyvagal

theory. Central to polyvagal theory is the principle of co-regulation. So this is what should happen to us when we're babies, doesn't always, but our parent carer teaches us how to regulate our emotions. Now, obviously that doesn't happen, didn't, you know, for various reasons. But these social experiments begin at birth between a newborn and their mother and if we are lucky they shape our lives and foster a sense of being safe in the world. I felt sense of safety can emerge in conversation with a trusted teacher or by spending time with

a close friend or in the comfort of reciprocal love. And though one could argue that these are in many respects physiological experiences, they are also something else, something that measurement can't touch. Soon after speaking with him, I attend a talk at a trauma conference where a doctor describes co-regulation ever so poignantly, saying, the nervous system has to be convinced it's not alone. Yeah. I was so touched when he said that. Stephen Porges, who founded Polyvegal Theories,

sort of developed it over decades, has an incredible capacity to describe our emotional lives and our physical experience in tandem. And co-regulation, I think, is such a powerful principle for the experiences of babies and children, but also for us as adults. I mean, I think that so much of treatment for anxiety and for OCD in particular has this element

of trying to sort of train yourself to feel that you can tolerate distress alone. I'm generalizing when I say that, but there is this bent on sort of tolerating things alone. I'm generalizing when I say that, but there is this bent on sort of tolerating things alone. And I think that one thing that I find really important to take into consideration is the fact that we don't exist, we don't really exist well alone as humans. We need other people. We need a sense of safety, ultimately, which is what Polyvagal Theory is very much about,

and love and connection. And so I think that ultimately really treating anxiety, really treating OCD, it has to include this element of our sort of social need. It can't just be that we learn to tolerate our pain on our own. I think there's value in tolerating things within ourselves, of course, a great deal of value,

but it's bigger than that. We are part of a much wider system. When babies are tiny, you soothe them and you look them in the eye and you tell them that the eye and they, you know, and you tell them that they're going to be okay. And that goes through childhood. Child falls are down, you pick them up, you graze their cart and you say, it's okay. You teach them. And that's what's supposed to kind of happen. And it doesn't always happen

for various reasons. You know, we don't learn, you know, instead of being taught, you know, it's okay, this bad thing has happened, bad things happen, but this is okay, and we're going to feel this, and we're going to move through it, and then it will get better. Often what happens is it's, you know, you'll find a child cries, stop crying, don't be silly. We're never taught, you know, and that isn't, that isn't, that's not to say that the parent is a terrible fault for that, it's just the way Western culture has been, right, for many ways. Of course. Stop it. Be quiet. Stop crying. Don't be silly. Stop being the drama queen. Whatever. Right?

And often I find that this is the point that you make is that actually it's like there's a re-parenting. So that nervous system needing to know it's not alone is even just, even if you're the person, even if you're telling your own nervous system, you're not alone. It's okay. Like often I find that's what I'm doing to myself. I'm talking to little briny. Yeah. I think that in in our children's distress, we are often actually more troubled by our distress. And we see the gaps in our own experience through that lens. And then as adults, we have to sort of simultaneously tolerate our distress and hopefully teach our children

to tolerate their distress. And doing both of those things at the same time, which I think is what re-parenting is often sort of trying to do, is quite challenging. And I think it shows people blind spots and it shows people sort of gaps in their own experience. But I think ultimately what we're talking about is this sort of sense that you can be okay

and I can be okay and we can be okay together. And that's not from pretending you're not upset or pretending you didn't hurt yourself. It's from acknowledging that you did, but also it's going to be fine at the same time. I mean, certainly as a parent, that is what I try to do to sort of, I mean, and I am far from perfect,

but I try to sort of be able to say, yeah, like you're upset, something happened, it's not what you wanted, it's not what you expected, here we are, I see that, we can deal with that. And also it's gonna be fine, you know? And this is a constant juggling act, I think for all parents. You talk a lot about health anxiety and all the different ways in which we try to control our longevity.

So many of us are desperately trying to sort of control our wellness with supplements and different diets and different exercise things, you know, and that in a way has become like, it's become the great sort of way of trying to control anxiety in the year 2025, is this kind of like the worried well. Yeah, it's so interesting because it's like, on one hand, I think there is this sense of, okay,

so we are coming to see as sort of a society generally, that the body and the mind can't really be separated. So there's this push toward wellness as a way to tolerate pain, emotional distress, et cetera. But it almost like misses the mark, because you can take all the probiotics you want. At this point, I don't believe that will ultimately, you know, treat anxiety in any really useful sense.

So you know, so I think that there is this way that we're sort of like trying to get toward this integration of body and mind in the context of emotional well-being, but we're putting all this attention into sort of wellness practices that are, I think, like a mask. You know, they are a form of control and kind of regimen and so on. They give an illusion of protection, an illusion that we're going to, you know, deflect mortality a little bit more or something. But I think that they are kind of like a false version of seeing the body and mind as one thing. You know, and it's like, yes, we have these physical experiences like running or, you know, cold plunging,

these things that can have absolutely useful impact on our mental health, no question about it. They can't be the only thing. They can't be the only thing. There has to be another layer. And I think that sometimes people sort of like rush toward all of those kinds of treatments, the supplements, the probiotics. The hacking. The hacking, ultimately. You can't hack life. You cannot hack it. You cannot hack it. I mean... There aren't shortcuts, right?

No, there just are not. And I think that probably you and I, as much as any, as any people would be delighted if there were. Oh my goodness. Simple options. Yeah. Powder I can put in my drink. Yeah. That would like take away everything, make everything easier. You know, and I think also it's really important to say about this kind of

worried well health, anxiety thing is that, you know, there is, you know, like if you're going to get cancer, you're going to get cancer. You know, if you're going to get one of these illnesses, you're going to get one of these illnesses. Like, and I think that that's, it's a terrifying thought, but it is also reality. Do you know what I mean? And I really don't think there's any amount of like supplements or whatever that you can take to stop this from happening and I think it's also really depressing for people that do have cancer when you see all this stuff and it's like I know I've got friends who you know they they have breast cancer and people like oh do you eat sugar right you gotta stop eating

sugar and they're like fuck off yeah that is not why I have breast cancer or whatever yeah the longer we go on in life, the more experience we have of encountering lots of situations in which there is no known explanation for a terrible catastrophe of health. There is no known explanation for it and we have to live with that and that feels horrible. You know, people who have horrible illnesses for no explanation and that is just very difficult to tolerate. It's very difficult to live with.

You know, and I think, I mean, I think about this all the time. I think of people in my life who have illnesses that are devastating that we have no logical, controllable sort of factor at play. It's just shitty luck, basically. As far as we know, it's shitty luck. And I think it makes us feel small and out of control and terrified. And I think this is, this is, yeah, there are no supplements to solve that. And it is a, it is a sort of painful reality to face, but we have to face it, you know, we have to face it. We can,

we can do what we like in terms of our sort of wellness, et cetera, if it makes us feel good and that's great, that's fine, but we will not conquer the reality that we don't have control over this. I think it's a really important thing to say and actually feels really powerful because I think I can see a different kind of anxiety in this sort of, I see it in people, they, you know, that this obsession with ultra

processed food and like, I get it, you know, like, I can see that, you know, we can take control by like not sitting around eating crisps the whole time. I totally get it. But like fundamentally, you know, also this obsession with like not having anything that is, you know, that is slightly processed or, you know, and, and not, you know, and worrying about everything is really unhealthy in itself. Like I just feel extra stress we put on ourselves now. Like I know we're not, we're not going for the kind of like, the easy quick fix hacks. That's not this kind of, that's not that kind of podcast. You're not that kind of therapist.

But if we were to sum up the kind of one of the most useful tricks to getting through life and to growing resilience to things like anxiety, depression, sublimation. Can you explain this to me? Sure. So, I mean, sublimation is an old term. It comes out of psychoanalytic theory.

And the premise is that we can sort of take something in our lives that is difficult, troubling, and sort of twisted around into something that we can make use of, something that can be of benefit in some way, potentially. You can think about something like art, the way that perhaps there is internal struggle, there is pain, there is confusion, et cetera, and someone maybe finds a way to transform it

into something beautiful or meaningful or with a great deal of depth. So when I think about anxiety, I think about rather than trying to sort of hack it or eliminate it or erase it, I think about the ways that we can turn it into something with some meaning, with some use for ourselves, hopefully for some other people as well.

And I think that sublimation really captures in a beautiful way that potential within all of us. And it doesn't have to be anxiety, this can apply to depression, it can apply to any number of experiences, but at its heart, I think it requires us to see and sort of live with the painful parts of ourselves in order to kind of find the door within them, if you will, kind of coming back to the beginning. So it's like taking the negatives and turning them into positives.

Finding something, yeah, finding something of value, finding something of meaning and something that you can feel enriched by, you know, in a small way or a large way. I feel like that's what my whole career is basically. And I suspect it's the same for you. That's what I'm trying for. The books that I write are like my attempt at taking all this shit stuff that's happened in my life and trying to turn them into positives to like in the hope that, because it's not just that, it's like, I don't know about you.

And obviously when the narrowing comes out, like it's that thing of people now come up to me and they're like, oh my God, I read this thing in your book about, I have that kind of OCD too. And I'm like, what? You have that OCD, no way, you look really normal. And then we have a hug and it's like,

oh wow, that connection. Like my nervous system learns it's not alone. That's right. That's absolutely true. And I think I also kind of get that sort of feedback sometimes people being like, huh, you know, you don't seem anxious. You seem laid back, whatever.

You seem like, yeah, you don't seem like an anxious person. I mean, you know, I torture myself exclusively. You have written the book on it. Well, thank you. If there's something I want people to take away from Mad Woman, and I hope that, and I kind of feel like I took away from the narrowing, is like, don't dismiss yourself. Don't dismiss your feelings just because you've been taught that's what you should do. If you do that, your body will show you in a catastrophic way sometimes.

It will try to get your attention in a different way. And it will narrow your life right down to that sort of that. So that's your only, your existence is whatever is going on. And I think that's a really important thing to say to people is that if you're feeling shit and if you're feeling anxious and you're feeling depressed, we're taught often just ignore it, dismiss it, put it away, try and be happy, try and think of happy things, try and actually don't do that. Don't do that. Listen to yourself. 100%.

I think that's absolutely the common, one of many, but absolutely the sort of like resounding common through line. And I think that would be, I hope that that would, I think that would feel like something people would be happy to hear and sort of make use of. So yeah. Do you find that you have clients, patients shaming themselves? I think that at the heart of feeling anxious, whether that's in the context of OCD or another sort of anxiety, is a terror that what we are experiencing is something that is sort of crazy and which we are alone with. is something that is sort of crazy and which we are alone with. And this is where I think the value of a book like Mad Woman

is so especially profound because you are so honest about the nature of your specific experiences in ways that I think will allow many, many people to feel this comradery that they have otherwise probably felt totally lacking in their lives. But none of us are alone. None of us are alone and this is ultimately what I think is sort of at the heart of all of our health, which is that we are not in fact alone even when we feel most alone.

There is always hope, there is always potential. In the times when we feel most sort of isolated, these are exactly the moments in which we have to find a way to connect with somebody else. Otherwise, I think that things grow, just like children sort of with monsters under the bed. When we are alone with them, they feel much bigger. They feel much more frightening.

In saying them, in telling them to another person, we can sort of little by little find them to be something we can face and tolerate a little bit more. So that is my biggest takeaway from this chat that we've had, right? Which is find someone who makes your nervous system feel less alone. Find. Yeah. Find someone who, uh, yeah, whose nervous system goes well with your nervous system. Yes. Yes. Exactly. I feel like my nervous system has really enjoyed hanging out with your nervous system. My nervous system has enjoyed this so much. This was such a joy.