The Life Of Bryony - 49. Is Anyone Else Terrified All the Time? Dr Julie Smith on Turning Fear Into Action

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

This week, I’m joined by Dr Julie Smith – clinical psychologist, best-selling author and one of the most trusted mental health voices online. With over 9 million followers across social media, Dr Julie has made it her mission to share no-nonsense advice for the moments when life gets overwhelming. We talk about how fear shows up in our lives – from catastrophic thinking and compulsive behaviours, to why you wake up feeling like everything is too much. Julie opens up about receiving a breast cancer diagnosis while writing her latest book, Open When, and how it forced her to practise what she preaches: facing fear head-on and taking action in the service of your own rescue. We also explore the tools that help us reclaim agency in difficult times – including mindfulness, emotional regulation, and learning to question that inner voice telling you you’re not good enough. If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in a spiral of fear or self-criticism, this conversation is packed with practical guidance and real-life hope. 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, please share it with someone who might need it. It really does help us reach more people. Bryony xx BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE 📚 Open When: A Companion for Life’s Twists and Turns by Dr Julie Smith A warm, practical guide to building resilience and emotional strength during the hardest moments of life. CREDITS 🎙 Presenter: Bryony Gordon 🎙 Guest: Dr Julie Smith 🎧 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

Welcome to The Life of Brian E., the podcast where we give you that guidebook to being a grown up that someone forgot to hand you on your 18th birthday. Today, I'm joined by Dr. Julie Smith, clinical psychologist, bestselling author, and one of the most recognisable mental health educators on all of social media. Her latest book, Open When, a companion for life's twists and turns, is packed with practical, no-nonsense advice for when life gets overwhelming. You can't change the fact that fear is here. It is here and you can either use it to avoid everything or you can use it to move you forward. You can use it to your advantage. My conversation with Dr Julie Smith coming up right after this.

Hello, presenter Bryony. Hello, producer Bryony. Hello, producer Jonathan. Do you have any fears or phobias? I think as someone with obsessive compulsive disorder, like my whole life really has been sort of organized around fear. Yeah, driven by it. Like catastrophe, you know, like that's very much, and I'm sure if you're listening,

because I imagine that most of the people, lots of the people that listen to Life of Brian, I don't want to like generalise, but I imagine if you're here and you're part of our wonderful community, that you're probably here because like me, you have lived a quite fear-based life, I would say, you know, but that's what, you know, a lot of mental health issues. It's like we wake up scared every morning. Like I know I wake up terrified every morning. I think I've said this before on a podcast. I wake up terrified and I'm like, I can't do any of this. And my brain's like, you got your rubbish, Briny. And then I kind of get to the end of the day and it's like, thank God, you know, I've got another day.

Another one done. Sorry, I laughed there, I chuckled very briefly because when you said fear based, I make, you know, people have a plant based diet. Yeah. You have a fear based diet. I do have a fear based diet. I did this event the other week, last week, and a woman asked me a question about the running around in my underwear.

Oh yeah. And she was like, how do I get to a place where I have confidence and I don't care about the way I look and stuff? And I was like, that kind of assumed that I don't care about what people, like, do you know what I mean? Like that I don't have that fear of being in my underwear or whatever.

Yeah, it's a very black and white thinking. I totally do. And that's why I do it. Because I'm like facing my fears and going, fuck you. Do you know what I mean? And so like, I do think that the antidote to fear is, it's turning around and sort of, what do you want from me? That's what I ask of fear and leaning into it as Dr. Julie talks about.

Dr. Julie is lovely. I've met her before and she's one of those people who looks extraordinarily put together. And that's why we follow her in our millions. Because she's got her, she seems to have her shit sorted. A quiet confidence. And yeah, and I feel she's very soothing and like she can solve any problem. And I was really moved as she opened up a bit about the times when she was like, shit, I have been confronted with some problems here

that maybe I can't solve. She's been very open about her diagnosis of breast cancer, but she also talks a bit in this episode about having to go through some terrible times when one of her children was young and they had to have a big operation at Great Ormond Street. You know, like we think of psychologists as our therapists as well as like these sort of superhuman characters. The adults in the room with all the answers. They have a or they have all their shit together and it's good to remember that they're human too.

And Julie, Dr. Julie, she definitely showed her human side in this conversation. And I hope you enjoy it. And I hope you get some good practical takeaways from it too. If you're enjoying today's episode, worry not, as we're twice weekly. Hit follow and never miss an episode. The medical equivalent of Madonna. I am going to hold on to that. You know, like Dr. Julie and everyone's like, of course, I know who you mean. I'm one of the three trillion people that follow her on social media.

That's what they're going to be thinking right now. I mean, it sounds a lot, doesn't it? The numbers are followed and things, but it's so spread out. It's worldwide. So it doesn't really affect my life. I still go and do the school run with no makeup on and I'm not sort of bombarded or anything. Is it strange? Because I do want to talk to you about this because I think it is fascinating how you are you know trained as a psychologist worked in NHS mental health for about 10 years it was yeah and then switched to private practice which is a very kind of common route for lots of psychologists and therapists and you know and a mum, mum of three and then suddenly at the age of what? In your late, what's sort of, in your 30s?

I've just turned 41. Okay, so in your 30s, in your sort of late, late 30s, you suddenly become this huge TikTok Instagram star. I mean before all that happened, I was the person that would miss out on, you know, invitations because I never checked my Facebook and stuff like that. You know, I just didn't really engage with it all that much. People just wouldn't have imagined, I don't think, that I would do that kind of thing. And I sometimes I did it reluctantly. So how did it all come about? So it was with your husband?

Yeah, so I then had two of my now three children and I was still working in the NHS and I realized I can't do this. I can't do it all, not well anyway. So I needed a bit more control over my own time and stuff. So I thought, well, let's, you know, do a really small kind of private practice situation where I can choose my hours. So I would work in school hours and then when my husband came home and things like that. And I had a really nice sort of balance there. I just noticed, mostly young people, but a lot of people that would come through for long-term therapy didn't need that kind of in-depth stuff. Once they had the educational part of it, where they were learning a bit about how their brain works, how they can impact on their own mood and impact on their relationships. A lot of them, and that's where the title

for the first book came from, is people were saying to me, why has nobody told me this before? This is not rocket science, but when I put it into my life, take it seriously, it's making a big change, making a big impact on my life. And then what you're doing is you're just giving someone agency, aren't you? So you're saying, you can have an influence. You're not at the mercy of how you feel all the time. There are things you can do to help yourself. And for a lot of people that was news to them. And so I would then go back, so my clinic room was in the garden.

So then I would kind of go back into the kitchen at the end of the day and just hop on to poor old Matt, say, you know, this should be more available. People shouldn't have to pay to come and see people like me to find out how their own brain works. And he's a bit of a, you know, problem solver. So he said, well, go on then, make it, you know, make it more available. Let's make some YouTube videos or something. And so we made some really embarrassing YouTube videos that I hope are still not on YouTube.

So I want to talk to you as a someone who works in the world of mental health, right? Because at the moment, the papers are full of, you know, the political discourse is very much about overdiagnosis. I don't know if you saw it at the weekend, Wes Streeting talking about how, you know, there's a lot of, it's politicised, you know, there's a lot of kind of weaponisation of mental health and a lot of, too many people are being signed off. And the sort of implication I always think when I read these things is, why aren't you all just a little bit more resilient? And I read it and I think, well, the fact is we're not. For whatever reason, people

are really struggling. you know, people are and that's reality. And I kind of wanted to talk to you as someone who sees that, you see that on a grand scale from the people following you. People wouldn't be following you in huge numbers if they didn't need some sort of help while they're in that storm. They didn't need those people kind of putting their arms around you. And I wanted to talk to you a bit about your, you know, there's a chapter about fear. And I really felt that, talk to you personally about that, but also about, I was thinking how we really do live in a world now that is fueled by fear, really.

You know, if you turn on the news, it's terrifying. But also social media, I can suddenly be like, oh my god, I'm not taking this supplement, or I'm not, you know. I don't know, I'm fearful. I'm fearful constantly of what's coming to get me, or what I'm not doing, or what I'm missing out on. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, Julie, I think, oh, my baseline state is fear. And I wanted to talk to you about this chapter in particular, because

you had to you had to rewrite it yourself. You talk about the curveballs that life throws at you. And so while you were writing this book, you had a diagnosis of early breast cancer. you had a diagnosis of early breast cancer? Yeah, so I was about six weeks out from handing the manuscript for open when in to Penguin and found a lump in my breast. And I'm not really that public about personal life and things like that. But the reason I kind of shared about it was because in that moment when I found that lump, bearing in mind I'd had lumps before that turned out to be nothing. And so I knew kind of what the procedure was. And I've heard all the awareness stuff that goes on

about get your checked, all that kind of thing. But at the time, midterm, school routines, loads of things going on, a book to hand in in six weeks, high pressure, I thought, shall I just wait until I've handed this book in before I go and, like, do I have the headspace for this at the moment? And I genuinely had those thoughts. Knowing everything I know about how stupid that is, I thought, do I have time for this right now? Like, shall I just get this out the way and then I'll have more time for me in a minute. And then a couple of days

later I did try and get a GP appointment because I thought that's a silly idea, let's just try and do it. Didn't get a GP appointment straight away. Nearly gave up then because I couldn't get a GP appointment that day and tried again the next day. Then I was about a week away from handing in the manuscript when I got my diagnosis. I thought, wow, how many other busy working parents out there make that same call or have that same thought of shall just wait until things are a bit less chaotic before I look after myself here. Before I prioritize. Why don't I prioritize everybody else? Yeah. Before I

prioritize myself. Yeah. Like what, well yeah, because the kids couldn't possibly miss any sport or you know I couldn't possibly hand the book in a week late. Like but also do you think there's there might be lots of people listening who they don't want to go for it because of fear in itself? Yeah. Fear of a diagnosis. Yeah. And that probably was a bit of part of it because it's that thought of, can I deal with extra

stress of, you know, waiting for results to come back and the worry that that ensues and the pain of things like biopsies is horrible and that stuff does put you off. And yet getting my diagnosis as early as I got it was my biggest weapon and now I'm fine. Touchwood. You know, I'm out the other side and but It saved your life. Yeah, yeah. So what if I had waited and then forgotten about it? Because, you know, you imagine you're going to be at the end of this work project, you know you imagine you're gonna be at the end of this work project you know when you hand the book in oh then I'll have

loads of time no you don't then you're editing and then something else comes to fill the size yeah there's always space left by the other thing. There's always things competing for your attention and your time and and so who knows how long I would have put it off for. So speaking about something as personal as this did this, did that feel quite scary at first? Yeah, it was the most nervous I've ever been putting a video out. But I didn't do any of that until I knew that everything was going to be alright and I knew the plan and my children were aware of it and all my family were aware and all of those things. So there was a lot of things that got put in place before we sort of talked about it. You rewrote your chapter on fear after the diagnosis.

So can we talk about that in that moment? Because this is the thing, like you talk about how, you know, fear is not the enemy, and actually we should work with it instead of running for it. And I love, I always have, like there's a great acronym in the 12 step fellowships that I go to, which is fierce. You can, it can stand for one of two things, right Julie? It can stand for fuck everything and run.

Yeah. Or face everything and rise. And that's sort of the, yeah, that to me sums up the ethos of your advice. Yeah, because I was, as I say, I was a week away from handing in the manuscript for Open Win and we got the diagnosis and then I just thought I just now need to get this off my desk. And I had a few more chapters to go, so I thought I'm just going to finish editing these, get it gone, and then just completely focus on what's ahead. And I just happened to be reading the chapter on fear. And I read it in the,

you know, most fear I've ever, well, almost in the most fear I've ever felt. And I thought, no, this is, this isn't quite what I need, actually. And it was very gentle. And lots of people do want that approach, but at the time I didn't. So what was the advice you could kind of… So the basics and the fundamentals around fear were still there, but it was a much more gentle approach. So the language that I then put… I hit delete, I started again, and the language that I put in was I talk about this idea of predator and prey. So when you get your diagnosis, you don't find out everything at the same time. You don't suddenly have certainty about what, you know, treatment

you're going to have and what will be needed and all of those things. That's agonizing. That to me feels agonizing. Yeah. So like you get told you have cancer, but you don't necessarily know the staging of it? Yeah or how far you've got to have more tests. Is it anywhere else? Yeah. All of that.

And then when you're having these extra tests, the treatment plan will be decided after you get the results, you're waiting for the results. And so when everything's uncertain, that's when you don't really want to tell people because you don't know what to tell them. And yet this huge thing is over your life and it's hard. So can I just ask you how you in those moments, you know, like in the wild, in the eye of the motherfucking storm got through those weeks. Can you even remember or did you go into a sort of like shock? It's really interesting actually because in the moment I was going to go on my own that

day and because my son had not been well and we were trying to get him an appointment and I said to him, you know, you take him to the doctors and I'll get this sorted and then when we and but because I'd got the phone call like a day before or two days before Matt said, no, I'm coming. And so thankfully he was there because you sort of open the door and there's a Macmillan nurse sat next to the consultant. And as you sit down, you just get this sort of like rush

of adrenaline that just whoosh through your body. So seeing the Macmillan nurse, you knew it wasn't good news. Hang on a minute. This is it, yeah, because I'd been through the process a number of knew it wasn't good news. Hang on a minute. This is it. Yeah, because I'd been through the process a number of times where it was good news. And you know, the consultant's sort of leaning forward and he's got this sad face on. And I totally get that now where people say, I didn't hear a word.

I couldn't remember anything that they said. And it's because you're going through this huge sort of shock response is going through your body But I guess with sort of clinical training and everything I sort of went into work mode You know Matt tried to sort of grab my hand and I actually sort of didn't want it. I was like, okay What's the deal? What's next? What do we do? Da da da da da and I was like action action action let's get through this and and so perhaps use some of those skills to contain myself in that moment. And then once we sort of, we had a little bit of time to just go out for a walk before I had all these other tests I had to go and do. And that's when, you know, we had our

moment of the kids, the kids, the kids. That's the first thing, isn't it? And so that was, and I think that's the thing. Although when I rewrote that chapter on fear, it helped me so much to have that really hardcore, not hardcore, but straight down the line, you can't change the fact that fear is here. It is here and you can either use it to avoid everything or you can use it to move you forward. You can use it to move you forward. You can use it to your advantage. So it's now your responsibility to sort of cultivate that courage to push through this. And so it was very like a coach, like very encouraging and moving and like, let's do this. This is, you know, as much

an emergency as ever. Let's face everything and rise. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It was very much that and but and that did help me every time I read it I then took some sort of action in the service of my own rescue So I booked second appointment second opinions I got advice from medics that I knew and I love that I did you think you took some you took some sort of action in the service of your own rescue Yeah, and the thing is, it didn't change

how difficult the situation was, but it fundamentally shifted how I felt about it, because a sense of agency is everything, you know? So fear can activate you, or it can paralyze you, and I was determined to use it to activate me. And so even though I couldn't change the diagnosis or I couldn't change potentially what the outcome was there were lots of things I could do on the way to work out how am I gonna look after the children through this what am

I gonna do about you know finding the right surgeon or what I did it so I focused on all those things and that definitely I say improved improved the moment, yes it did improve the moment and it stopped it from being worse, it could have been much worse depending on how I dealt with that sort of uncertainty and fear. But that said I don't want to give the impression that there is a perfect way to deal with this stuff either because I had really dark, you know I had some moments where it's really hard when you, all that uncertainty is there. So you don't want to tell the children until you know everything

and you know what to tell them. But also I find it really hard to sort of, I guess, be fake if you like. So it's a, you know, I found that really exhausting because sort of containing that and not being truthful with people I love. So that's when I would sort of containing that and not being truthful with people I love. So that's when I would sort of need those darker moments to myself where I was sort of feeling it all. I think that's a really important thing to kind of actually spread because there will be people listening who might find themselves in that situation, you know, because life is saying like life throws curveballs and you might get a cancer diagnosis or, and that

thing of what do you say to children I know is a really difficult one to answer. And when you say there is no right or wrong way to deal with your own fear, I think that's such a helpful thing to say because I sort of spoke to someone recently about this who had to go through a very similar situation and they were told the only thing, the only kind of wrong thing, quote unquote, to do is to speak to a child just before they're about to go to bed. Otherwise, all bets are off. Yeah, I think, and we actually told them while we were away, we had a wait while a referral was going across to someone else. And we had already had a holiday booked. So we continued with the holiday

and we thought that's the best distraction rather than sitting at home twiddling our thumbs. So we continued with the holiday. And by then we knew the plan and we knew that it was pretty much going to be okay. It was really early and stuff. And yeah, we told the kids in the car actually on the way to a theme park, so, look, mommy's got this thing. It's going to turn into something nasty if she doesn't have it out. So she's going to have it out. But the thing is, my son had had a big operation on his skull actually at Great Ormond Street when he was about two. And so we said, you know, mommy's got to have an operation. It's not nearly as bad as what Luke had. And Luke's fine now. So that seemed to be in the moments of them going,

what, what? That comparison seemed to reassure them, well, he sat here and he's fine. So and she said, it's not as bad as that. So that was fine. So that helped, I think. And that must have been a pretty awful thing to have to go through when that happened. Yeah, that was probably the worst. That's probably worse than, yeah, I'd much prefer to do this again than go through that again for sure. You're such an example of how you can take really shit things happening to you in your life and use them to power you forward rather than holding you back. Yeah, I think you have to use the emotion to your advantage in a terrible situation, don't you? The best

part about fear is how activating it is. You then get to choose what action you're going to take. Is it going to take you through and out the other side? Or is it going to leave you proud of how you dealt with it or not? I think that then allows you to kind of look at, okay, what action do I take? It needs to be something, you know, at least doesn't make the situation worse. So let's get into the... This is a paid advertisement for better help. There's this myth that at a certain point in your life, you should just have everything figured out. Our careers, our relationships, our self-worth. But the truth? Nobody has it all together. Not really. And that's okay. For me, therapy has always been the place where I can be myself

and work through the things that hold me back. Perfectionism, people pleasing, the fear of getting things wrong. It's a space where I don't have to pretend. And honestly, that's been life changing. With over 5,000 therapists in the UK already, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a wide variety of expertise in mental health. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash bryony. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com slash bryony. That's B-R-Y-O-N-Y. Let's drive good together with Bontera and Volkswagen. Buy any sustainably focused Bontera bathroom tissue, paper towel, or facial tissue, and

you could win a 2025 Volkswagen all electric ID buzz. See in store for details. Bonterra for a better planet. No purchase necessary terms and conditions apply. See online for details. Lizzy gritty of it for anyone listening or watching who feels that they're living a life ruled by fear because that will be quite a lot of us. And you are an expert on this shit. That's the official title. It would be remiss of me not to use your brilliant brains to help our listeners or viewers today. Because as I was saying, I think life is ruled by fear much more now. In the year 2025, Donald Trump has access to the nuclear codes and we also, you know, we have a lot more information

available to us, which on the one hand is a good thing, but on the other hand can lead us down all sorts of rabbit holes where we become far more anxious about our health, for example. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's, I feel like I'm forever reading about increases in this horrible illness or, you know, what can I do to stop myself from getting this horrible illness? And it's all very sort of fear-based when actually in reality we are living longer and healthier lives than ever before. So what I wanted to ask you Julie is for the fearful person, when fear arises, what do we do with it? How do we take it from, oh my god, the worst thing in the world is about to happen to using it as an activating emotion that propels us forward?

Yeah, well, I guess there's different aspects to the experience of fear, isn't there? There's the sort of the emotion in terms of how that feels in your body and all the sensations that come with it. And a lot of that is really uncomfortable because it's supposed to be, because it's the discomfort that makes us move. That's the activating part, right? So, but that's also the thing that makes us want to squash it or numb it or get rid of it. So sometimes I would, for example, this is like a personal thing, a lot of the time I feel fear, I'm too terrified. In the past in my life, I've been too terrified. So I've numbed it with alcohol, drugs, food, television, mindless scrolling. And a lot of the time we move through that little bit of time so quickly that we don't

even notice what the emotion was. We just noticed that we've got a head in the fridge or, you know, I just bought six chocolate bars from the garage. Yeah. You're like, no, I mean, you notice that it's not even that the head is in the fridge. The head is out of the fridge and you've eaten it all. Yeah. And then you go, what was that about? And you sort of squashed this feeling down, whatever that was, whether it was fear or shame or something. Yeah, exactly. And so, and so part of the work, particularly in therapy, is sort of stretching out that period of time where in between the feeling hitting and all

those actions that keep you stuck in it over time, I would sort of numb it in the short term but make it worse in the long term. And so, part of that is becoming super aware of A, the sort of physical sensations that come with it. So yeah, my you know, maybe my heart pounds and I get sweaty or but also the the cognitive element of it. So the thought processes and and that you mentioned the the worst case scenarios and your brain will go okay. And that the thing is people talk about fear as if it's us getting things wrong as if as if that's a malfunction of your brain and it's not. It's your brain working at its absolute best. So your brain's job

is just to keep you alive, just to keep you safe. So any time that it gets any signs at all that not all is well, its job is to make sure you're aware of that. But it only has so many clues to go on, right? So it will take clues from inside your body. So your heart rate, your blood pressure, temperature, breathing, these kind of things, and outside, and it uses all your senses to do that, right? So let's say you had three coffees this morning,

and so your heart's pounding. Hang on, sorry. Yeah. How do you know I had three coffees this morning, Jimmy? And then your brain senses that actually your heart's going 10 to the dozen and that is like a smoke alarm going off. That's a clue that not all is well. And then you're looking at your stimuli of how you live life. So you're looking at the news and going fucking hell.

Yeah, you've been on your 24 hour news channel all morning and thinking that the world is about to end. And so that's triggering off its own stress response. And, and then maybe you're going through your email, you know, list, you know, which is essentially your to do list of things, you know, need to do but haven't done yet, or in all these different things that might be triggering off stress response. And so your brain is then going to set up to then make you fully aware of what the outcomes could be so that you can avoid them. So that's when you get this like, it's like horror stories going, oh, it's like a horror movie, isn't it going over and over

again? Catastrophizing. This could happen, that could happen. And that's your brain doing a good job. It's saying not all is well, watch out for these scenarios. To prepare you should they, It's a kind of a... It doesn't actually bear most of the time any relation to reality. I guess it depends. So sometimes...

And that's why... Sometimes it will. Yeah. So that's why we don't have to... We don't need to kind of squash them and numb them. We need to notice them for what they are and then make a careful choice. So when I was going through the diagnosis, I would have thoughts of the worst case scenario them, we need to notice them for what they are and then make a careful choice. So, you know, when I was going through the diagnosis, I would have thoughts of the worst case scenario,

but then I would sort of make a really careful decision to also think of the best case scenario and some things in between. And then, so I love the idea of thinking about, okay, sitting in a theatre and the stage in front of you, all the actors that come on stage are different thoughts, right? They've all got something different to say. And we want to control the actors that come on stage. We want to get up there and say, no, not you, not you. I just want to think positive stuff, right? But we can't do that because they're coming and going as they please But what you do have is the spotlight You have control of the spotlight so you can choose which of those thoughts as they arrive you can choose which ones you grab on to and give them all the limelight and all the time and attention and

The more attention you give them the longer they'll stay The the less attention you give, not pushing them away, but if you were, let's say you can be there, but we're focusing here, the less time they'll stay. And that is essentially mindfulness, isn't it? Is allowing them to come and go, but being very intentional about where you give, where you put that spotlight. And when you do that, it has this incredible impact on how you feel. Because, you know, people say, you know, if I think certain things, it makes me feel this way. But also, when you feel a certain way, you're more likely to think in a certain way. So we said, you know, your

anxiety can come first, then the horror story thoughts come. But it can go both ways. But that means it shows us how we get stuck. but it also shows us the way out. Because you can't wake up in the morning and say, I just want to feel love and pleasure today. We can't sort of directly choose our emotions. But we know that it's influenced how we feel is influenced by all these other things. So it's influenced by where you focus your attention and the thoughts that you spend your time with. And it's influenced by what you do or how you treat your body and influenced by what you do or don't do in terms of interactions. And so the things that you can influence will also influence how you feel. So you can sort of invite certain feelings to be there more of the time or less of the time.

So as I'm listening to you, what's coming to me, sorry, I sound like some sort of psychic, weirdo, but like what's coming to me is that thing. And I feel this so much as someone who had to get sober, right? And when we get sober, one of the things we're taught about is like taking a moment, right? It's about responding, not reacting. Yeah. Right. So if you're an alcoholic and you're in your cups, you know, you will immediately go, you know, that you'll get the fear and you'll be like, right,

reach for a drink, reach for a drink to numb it. Right. Yeah. But it's actually going, okay, well, the first thought, in my case, Julie, this isn't the same for everyone, but in my case, my first thought to something is usually I should not listen to, right? The second or third thought might be sensible. And it's this thing of I have to take a moment and assess what the situation really is. And so as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking in practical terms someone at home might be going okay I'm feeling

fear. Take a moment is this fear something it's that it's is it appropriate? Is it appropriate because you are in a fearful situation such as you found a lump in your breast or a harsh email from a work person or something you know or is the fear being caused because you've had three coffees, you're on the tube, being crushed up with people, your body's in total overwhelm because your smartwatch is telling you news, you know, sending you news alerts, telling you that this person's WhatsApp'd you, do you know what I mean? Is that why your fear response is in? So it's actually sitting and having a moment where you go, okay, what is the cause of this?

Yeah, and we teach that really well in acceptance and commitment therapy, so ACT therapy, where we call it diffusion. So it's you getting some distance from, you can do it with thoughts and feelings. So it's you being able to put something at arm's length so that you can see it for what it is. So, you know, if I get you to kind of put a hand over your face like that, then you can't see anything clearly, including your own hand, right?

And it's gonna dictate whatever you do next. But if you pull it back to here, oh, okay, I can see the shape of my hand now, and I can see what that's about, and I can work out what to do with it next, and I can also see everything else around me. And doing that with thoughts and feelings is just allowing you to...

It takes some of the power out of it, and then it creates that moment, that just enough space for you to see it for what it is and then decide what is the best thing to do next with it. You know, because sometimes you'll want to give your attention to something and sometimes you'll want to shift that tension. And you can do that in really simple ways as well, so sometimes just shifting into saying something like I'm having thoughts that, so maybe you're being super self-critical.

I notice I'm having really self-critical thoughts right now. I notice I'm telling myself I'm ugly or stupid or whatever it is. Just by doing that, just by adding that at the beginning, rather than saying the thought, you're taking it from being absolute, taken as absolute fact to there's one perspective. Oh, I see another one. from being taken as absolute fact to there's one perspective.

Oh, I see another one. And then it's from here, I get to choose what I do with it. Whereas if I'm just saying, I'm stupid and ugly, then that's here. And then I can't see anything else. I'm taking it on as factual, and then it's gonna have power over what I do next. Talk to me then as well about, you talk about, so taking ownership of language is quite important.

And I have to do this so often, whereas I find myself sometimes I'll be in conversation with someone and I'll be like, my OCD, you know, is, and I'm like, whoa, stop. I have anxious feelings right now. Talk to me about that, taking responsibility for what's going on in our minds and not, I suppose, falling into sort of victim mode with them. Yeah, and I think a big part of that is this misconception that if you have a tendency

to feel certain things more at the time, that that's somehow who you are. And it's not, it's an experience that you have. And maybe something in the setup of your life or, you know, things that have happened to you makes you more vulnerable to having those feelings more of the time, but it's not who you are as a person. And so when we shift from one of those to the other, if something is who you are, that feels unchangeable. But if something is an experience that you encounter, then you have that agency in there. There's stuff you can do with, you can make choices about how you deal with that experience. And there are things you can do to either encourage it to leave more quickly or be there less of the time or that kind

of thing. It's about shifting from that to the agency, I think. Again, it shifts from judgment to curiosity as well because if it's just who I am, then I might feel shameful about that or I might feel that I'm not good enough or something. But if this experience washes over me, then I can actually then turn towards that with curiosity. And the only way we get to move into the agency is if we do that. Is if we, you know, often that's something that happened all the time in therapy.

Someone will be feeling something or will have done something. And then it will be followed with just self-loathing about the fact that it happened. And there's always a shift, okay, well, let's notice that, just notice that self-criticism, and let's just turn back with curiosity. Isn't that interesting that that happened? What's that about? And it's just that shift. And that takes, you know, it shifts you away from the

shame or the judgment and allows you to learn from it. But when you're in the shame, you can't learn from it. It's so fascinating because all mental illnesses and all these conditions that we have, so for example, for me, I developed obsessive-compulsive disorder and it was a coping mechanism. All of these things come about and our brains are attempting to help us. They go awry and actually might be really useful tools when we are little children, do you know what I mean? But as adults are less so. And so it is about retraining our brains. Like you are never stuck in one thing. You may have a propensity towards it, but you are not your illness.

Yeah. And your brain can continue to learn in the way that it learned before. I think perhaps where people get it wrong is they think they have to eliminate something before things can be good again. And actually, you can't eliminate old learning, you can add to your learning with new things, right? So that those old paths will always be an option. The old ways of dealing things will always be a possibility because those neural connections have been made and when you're making these new neural pathways, it feels like, you know, it's the

equivalent to if you've already got a path through the jungle that was made long ago and it's wide and it's really an easy route, but it doesn't go somewhere you want to go, then when you're trying to carve out your new path, you've got to take your machete or whatever and you've got to hack it down. And then if you leave it too long before you pass through that path, it's going to grow back and then it takes a lot. So the idea is when you're doing something new and you're starting a new habit, it takes so much conscious effort to make it happen because you're creating, you know, it's not automated yet.

Your brain hasn't automated it. The old stuff, that's a well-trodden path. And so even when you're trying to do this new thing and you've done it several times, if you're under stress, your brain is set up under stress to take the easiest route. And so that that well-trodden path will be the easiest route. And that's why when we're under stress, things like, you know, compulsions seem to just come up like out of nowhere because before we know it, we're going back down all paths because we're under stress and the brain's taking the easy path. So fascinating, isn't it?

I mean, I definitely feel as I've got older and done more and more work on myself and more therapy, that thing now of when the compulsions come in. So when I notice that I am taking photos of candles or something to check before I leave the house or photographing the oven or, you know, just check it. Like these are quite like hardwired primitive things that come up in my brain. I'm like, what's going on here? What's going on in the rest of your life, Bryony? And when I look out, almost certainly it will be that I'm under a hell of a lot of stress. And OCD comes in and thinks, I'll help you. I'll stop the house burning down. And it's like, whoa, whoa,'s what I would say to anyone listening who feels

stuck in fear, stuck in terrible anxiety, is that it won't always be this way and you can hack through that jungle, but it can take time, but it's still worth doing. Yeah, absolutely. And those sorts of things are so addictive because they help us feel safe almost instantly. And it's the moment you do it, you get that little hit. And then it's 10 minutes later, you think I need to go and do it again, because because they don't work in the long term, they only work in the short. They actually make things worse in the long term.

Yeah. Yeah. Because they just continue to grow. You almost build up a tolerance. So you have to add to it and add to it and add to it to get that same feeling of safety that you originally got from doing the light switch a few times. And as a general rule, anything that helps in the short term, probably not going to help in the long term. The stuff that's really helpful is the stuff that's not so instant and takes time.

That feels to me like the perfect place to end this conversation. I feel, I genuinely feel, I feel quite privileged. I feel like I've had like a, I've secretly like got myself, had myself a little therapy session with you, Julie, without probably going on the very long waiting list. You're so brilliant. And I love the practical way you deal with such deeply difficult stuff because it's genuinely helpful because sometimes when we're drowning, we need to be handed the life raft and said, hold on to this, do this, just do this until you get to shore. And that's what OpenWEN is. But that's what I think a lot of your content is as well.

It's like it's practical and it helps. And when you're an over thinker and when you're a sensitive person, a highly emotional person, that practical stuff means so much. So I just want to thank you. Thank you and I think for anyone who is doing that kind of thing, I think it's like doing it in the dark. So someone hands you that life-ass and said, there is land that way, keep kicking, trust trust me it won't last forever and so I think there is a degree of kind of trust of trust of the process and that if you keep going things do get easier over time but it won't be easy to start with.

Oh Dr Julie how do I love thee let me me count the ways. She is like a rock star psychologist. Open When is one of those books that you will, well, listen, I can't speak for you, but I know that I keep reaching for it in the moments when life feels like a lot. And let me tell you, life often feels like a lot. If the same can be said for you and this conversation has helped you, can I ask you something? Please, will you hit like, subscribe or follow or share it with a friend?

If you're feeling really generous, how about leaving us a review? But actually, the most important thing I want to ask of you is to look after yourself, take care, be kind to your hearts, and tune in next time for more Life of Briony.