The Liz Moody Podcast - Your Trickiest Mental Health Questions—Finally Answered (By a World-Renowned Therapist)

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

Why are we so stressed, and how can we deal with feeling powerless when the circumstances that cause our stress are completely out of our control? Sometimes improving your mental health is about the small moments we can control, and Dr. Julie Smith is sharing tips and tricks to help you find and get the most out of those moments. From health anxiety to world news, Dr. Julie’s tools you can use to tackle your fears and pull yourself out of a funk. We begin by discussing one of the most common listener questions I get  — what do you do when you know what will make you feel better, but can’t bring yourself to do it? From there, we discuss tackling fears, finding purpose, and supporting your loved ones. As always, the episode offers actionable tips to help you improve your mental health now. 1:35 Why Can’t We Do the Things We Know Will Make Us Feel Better? 8:36 Stressors We Can’t Change 11:17 Feeling Powerless 19:50 Grounding Yourself 25:41 Facing Fears 37:35 Health Anxiety 39:16 Getting Comfortable with Uncertainty 46:25 What If Your Needs Aren’t Attainable? 50:35 Social Anxiety 55:01 Supporting a Depressed Partner 59:41Therapy Tricks For more from Dr. Julie Smith, find her on Instagram @drjulie or online at www.drjulie.uk. Order Dr. Smith’s new book Open When: A Companion for Life's Twists & Turns. Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order Liz’s book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. Connect with Liz on Instagram @lizmoody or online at www.lizmoody.com. Subscribe to the substack by visiting https://lizmoody.substack.com/welcome. This episode is sponsored by: AG1: visit drinkag1.com/lizmoody and get your FREE welcome kit, Vitamin D, and 5 travel packs today. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast.  This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 323. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I know the things that will make me feel better, but I cannot make myself do them. What is going on there and how can we break through that? Your attention and how you spend your time is everything. What are your best tips for social anxiety? You can't control the fact that fear is here, but you can use it to your advantage. Let's say we're in a rumination spiral. What do we do to stop that? These are just tools that help us deal with all that human stuff.

They don't stop it from happening. So what we don't want to do is get down on ourselves for being. human, we just want to use the tools. Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Liz Moody podcast. Today's guest is the incredible Dr. Julie Smith. You've probably seen Julie's advice on social media where she has millions of followers or in her bestselling books, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before and Open When? She famously turns therapy concepts into actionable advice that speak to the very real

problems that so many of us are going through. And today, she is turning that helpful lens towards the trickiest mental health issues that you all sent in. All of those unsolvable problems that take up space in your brain day after day, those are what we are getting into today. This is such a grounded, validating conversation that is packed with takeaways. And if you would like a cheat sheet of all of the key insights, you can find that in our free newsletter at lizmoody.substack.com,

where we break down every episode with action steps, challenges, and more. Dr. Julie Smith, welcome to the podcast. We're going to get into a lot of things. that people sent in, basically their trickiest mental health issues and something that I heard a lot and something that I certainly personally struggle with is I know the things that will make me feel better, but I cannot make myself do them. I will be sitting there scrolling on the couch and I'll be like, I know taking a walk outside will make me feel better. I know calling a friend will make me feel better, but I don't do them. What is going on there and how can we break through that?

Yeah, and I guess if we were in a therapy situation, we'd probably spend quite a amount of time kind of working through that and looking at what's going on in that scenario because sometimes it's just about addiction. The platforms are built to be addictive. If you're sat scrolling and finding it difficult to put the phone down and do the things you know are better for you, that makes absolutely sense. Why would it be easy? You know, everything's set up for it not to be easy to put that thing down. So I think in some ways acknowledging the addictive nature of the stuff that's not good for us is a first step to understanding why it's difficult in the first place. I think a lot of people just blame themselves and just think, I'm lazy and I'm terrible.

and I'm useless and all this kind of stuff. And that doesn't help either because that makes you want to stay still for, you know, even longer, right? But I think acknowledging, okay, this is really difficult and really addictive, therefore, what do I need to put in place that's going to help me? So I used to work in an addiction service and a lot of work would be done around what we call kind of relapse prevention. So you plan for all the things that are going to potentially set you back. So if you know that you scroll on your phone in the evening when you get home from work because you're tired and you just want to relax for a minute, but that turns into three hours on the sofa scrolling and then you feel terrible, then you know that that's a vulnerable time for you. And it's difficult to not choose that if you leave yourself to impulse. So what we would do in, you know, if we're working with a different kind of addiction, be it alcohol or drugs or something like that, you know, if you said actually on my way home from work, I have to pass three to get home and they are moments of real vulnerability for me because I'm just leaving it to impulse

and that puts me at risk of relapse. Then we set a plan for that and we say, okay, there's the risk, there's the risk, there's the risk. What are we going to do? Are we going to change jobs? Are we going to take a different route home every day? Are we going to call a cab so that we don't have to pass them? Are we going to walk with someone? You kind of identify what makes it difficult and then you make a plan for each one so that in the moment you're not leaving it to impulse. Because what we do is in the moment, we choose based on how we want to feel right now or how we don't want to feel right now rather than our future. Our future feels really far away at the moment when you've got emotions and tiredness to deal with.

That's a big part of it, I think. Let's consider addiction. Let's put pieces in place. So maybe if we're tired after work, what's the alternative if we're tired after work? Like we feel too tired to do the stuff that we know we should do. If you're tired at the time and you have an idea of what else would be better for you, because I guess it's also based on your need, isn't it? So maybe you do need a rest.

But are you really getting a rest when you're scrolling and doing something that makes you feel terrible? What else would feel restful? Or if you want to be energized, doing something like gentle exercise or walking or swimming or something can feel like a rest but also de-stresses you. and, you know, re-energizes you as well. So I think that's the key is not just looking at what you're going to take away, but looking at what you're going to replace it with and being really intentional about that. And making a plan ahead of time for that. Yeah. So if I feel tired at that time of the day, what is it that I most need? Is it a rest? Is it to re-energize? Is it to

speak to somebody? And you can kind of experiment with that and try out different things and then see what the impact is and having a think about what feeling am I aiming for and what action is going to help me get there because actions lead to feelings. I think a lot of us feel like we're at the mercy of whatever feelings happen to arrive as if they come out of nowhere. And actually, we invite them with what we're doing or not doing at the time. So you can really then sort of craft how you're going to feel through the day based on a plan of action. But if you're leaving it to that moment, then it's really, really difficult to do. You've got to have a set plan. A bit like with eating and stuff, it all goes much better if you've had a plan and prepped everything, rather than leaving it

to what do I want to eat right now, then it's different. I do think it's one of the biggest fallacies that scrolling is a break or something that is restful in any way. Because if you pay any attention to how you feel when you stop scrolling, it is usually very agitated, very wound up, maybe a little listless. It is almost never, oh, I feel really rested, relaxed, and restored. And yet I feel like so many of us reach for our phones to feel rested, relaxed, and restored at the end of a long day. Often when I talk about stress with people, I talk about taking back those in-between moments. Because a lot of people can't make these drastic life changes. You know, you can't just go and live on the beach. No, but you can take back all those in-between moments that we have filled

with things that trigger stress response. If you have 20 minutes between meetings, are you checking your emails and not really doing anything with them? Or how about you go and, you know, sit in your car, recline the seat, close your eyes for 10 minutes, or listen to a guide of meditation or some calming music or call a friend and have a laugh together or your choices in those moments can really make the difference. Because even though it's only 20 minutes, if you've had 10 minutes of closing arise or non-sleep deep relaxation, you're going to go into your next meeting ready to go and much more revived than you would if you were, you know, hammering some emails. Other than addiction, why are we not making those choices? I do feel like at this point in the

world, we know in a general sense what will make us feel good. And yet, day after day, so many of us are not choosing that thing on a moment-to-moment basis. Yeah, I think the whole system at the moment is set up in the opposite direction, isn't it? It's surprisingly really because you think when email came along, it was this sort of like, wow, it's going to make everything so much easier. All the other technologies as well, apparently we're going to make life easier. And to a degree they do. But what they've also done is just shift expectation. You used to get into the office and there would be a pile of mail and you would go through it.

And then that was done for the day. And then you could get on with the actual job that you needed to take. Whereas now, if you don't reply to an email in 20 minutes, people are like, where are you? What are you doing? And it's sort of, I'm not sat there waiting to be, you know, needed or spoken to. But we are the first generation that's having to deal with this as well. So we are the big experiment, right? We have to aware and insightful of how it's affecting us, whether or not that's what we want

in our lives and then make these really difficult decisions that feel like they're against the grain culturally to say, actually this is how I'm going to say, it up. You know, I will be on email first thing in the morning, like, or the end of the afternoon or both or whatever. And then in between, I'm going to be doing my actual job so I won't be doing that and, you know, kind of setting those boundaries that once people know what the deal is for you, they'll go with it. But it does take that real confidence and assertiveness, I think. This was another thing that I heard from listeners a lot, which is my work life is draining me and I want to set these boundaries that will protect my energy. But the,

economic climate's really unstable. I'm afraid of layoffs. What do I do? Yeah, you know, I've heard this way too much about even when people ask for kind of flexibility and staff with families and parenting and then are made to kind of fear for their jobs because it's a competitive environment and things like that. And sometimes that is a reality for people. And the thing is with stress and everything being too kind of full on, some people are able to have situations where they are able to make those big, decisions about whether they want to be there or not. You know, if this company is set up in this way and this is how they treat people, do I want to work here? Some people have that option to

go and do something else. Other people get kind of stuck in an industry or something where, or, you know, they've got bills to pay, children to feed, and it's a lot more difficult. And in those situations, I think then it becomes about those kind of smaller moments of, okay, if at the moment this is how it is and I can't control it, what can I control? Let's come back to how can I maximize my own wellness and health while I'm in this chapter. And it might be about preparing for moving on and retraining or something like that in your own time or it might be about doing what you can to cope with stress outside of work and doing really healthy things that are going to help you deal with it while it's a difficult time. But it's not realistic to just suggest to everybody that

they can change it because sometimes the biggest stresses are the ones that we can't really change. And so our best move there is maybe to be actively looking for a plan, a way out, something like that, things we can change that our control and also in the moments that we can control them. We are doing whatever we can in those moments. Yeah. And I just have a supervisor back in the early days who said, always you say push it where it moves, push it where it moves. And that has rung true for the rest of my career really where a lot of people will stand at a

close the door and keep wondering why it doesn't open. But what you have to do is start turning in different directions and seeing, well, where are my options here? The more you explore, the more you will gather information about which of those options are right for you. And some of them won't be and some of them will be depending on you and your situation and what the limitations are around you. You have to explore them. And a sense of agency is so crucial to good mental health. So that idea that if this isn't right, I have the capacity to kind of explore my options and think through what would be better for me. A sense of agency is something that a lot of people are struggling with right now,

particularly in the U.S., many, many, many people wrote into me and said, my biggest mental health issue right now is not feeling safe in the way that our country is going and not feeling aligned with the political climate and feeling. completely powerless in the face of that. If we feel powerless in terms of these greater things that we cannot change and that are scary, what do we do with those feelings? I think with all those situations when you start to feel overwhelmed, you have to draw your horizon inward and focus on the immediate situation that you're in. And I think the tendency is with the way that world is today, we have these 24-hour news channels and you know, you can have constant notifications come up on

your phone or something new that's happened or it's the same thing that's happened but someone's put it in a different light and given a different clickbait title and it's all alarming and it's all scary and and you can torture yourself with that all day every day all night every night if you wanted to so we have to be so clear on where we're putting our attention and when we talk about that sense of agency where i think when you're you're looking at everything as a whole and things that you perhaps can't control at the moment because, you know, there's no vote to use. That's when you feel out of control and you don't feel that sense of agency and you feel just overwhelmed. And the way that we come back to a sense of agency is to come back to the area

of your life that you can control. And if you have ideas about how your community should be set up and how people should treat each other or things like that, you have agency to become a really functional member of that community and you can do really positive things within that community and affect real lives. It might not be a huge number of lives, but they still matter. I think draw your horizon right in and look at what is the next foot that you can put forward and which direction is best for that to go and focus on the people that you know and love and the people that you care for in your community. What would you say to somebody who says, but I have to pay attention to the news, have to pay attention to these greater issues because if I don't, I won't be able to help the

change that I want to see. Like I think a lot of people feel like part of being a good citizen is engaging with this stuff in a way that's making them feel really stressed out and full of despair. Yeah. And I think that it's true to a degree, isn't it? You want to stay in touch with things that happening. There's a distinction between overwhelming yourself with it and making you feel like you can't do anything. If all you're doing is creating overwhelm and stress for yourself, that's not helping anybody, including yourself. So you can get informed fairly quickly. You know, with how headlines are, you can bam, bam, bam, you can kind of get an overview of how things are within a few minutes. And if there's something, a particular issue that matters a lot to you or, you know, is of interest to you,

you can then sort of go down that rabbit hole and explore that further. But you don't have to spend hours and hours going over and over these things that are really kind of potentially frighten. or stressful, your attention and how you spend your time is everything. And so while staying informed as a part of it, recognizing that doing that too much overwhelms you and probably stops you from being, you know, the functional community member that you want to be. There has to be a limit on it like everything else. And so I think we have to be really careful and intentional about it.

I do also think that some of us are addicted to the news in a way that we're, kind of excusing with this good citizen thing. Because if you look at the way that our brains work, again, if you're stressed out, you're not making good decisions. You're not able to take the actions that we need to take. So we're like, oh, I'm doing this. I'm trying to be a good citizen, whatever. But I actually think there's something like happening on a dopamine level that we're just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, the news in the same way that we're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and I think if we are more honest with ourselves maybe about, like, is this really what I need to do to be a good citizen?

We'll be able to have more of the results that we want. Yeah, and a good citizen is someone who kind of, you know, takes action in a positive way for the people that live in their communities. And so just the scrolling isn't really doing that. And in some ways, if it takes away your sense of agency, then that probably stops you from doing positive things anyway, doesn't it? If you're just making yourself so overwhelmed that you can't function, that's not helping anyone.

How do you help people who are afraid that the world just is getting worse, though? The climate change is happening, that there's stuff happening politically, and that we're just on a downward spiral, and there is no hope for the future? Do you know, I think that kind of sense of pointlessness then can creep in when you're kind of focused on all of those things, you can start to feel like, well, nothing I do matters. And you couldn't be more wrong. You know, this is your life. And if this is the only one you get, then you need to use it. You have a duty to use it in the most positive way possible. If you feel that you don't have any way of having a positive influence for large numbers of people,

then you have to have your positive influence with the people that you can reach. You know, whether that's your family, your friends, the people who live in your town or in your local schools. There is so much need out there and so much suffering. There is, you know, probably more people than you could count in your local area that could do with your help. Again, it's the pulling your horizons in. You know, we can sit here and just scare ourselves silly with horror stories about, you know, everything at large. And then also sit here and say, but I can't do anything about it.

You have to make it constructive. So, yes, you inform yourself. And then you ask yourself, well, what can I do to contribute to that? But also, how can I focus on my own town? If everybody did that and focused on improving their own town and their own communities, then you'd see improvement on a massive scale. Do you generally have hope about the future? Yeah.

I think through all of history, there have been some pretty dark times, times of absolute hell that you just wouldn't imagine we could have recovered from. And we did. So you always have to have hope. Otherwise, that leads to all the pointlessness and the nihilism and the stuff that really just doesn't help anyone. So you have to mix that hope with a sense of constructive action. If things could get better, what would that look like? And what would be my part in that?

What can I do that means that I'll be proud about the contribution I made? So almost let the action lead the hope, not let the hope, lead the action in a sense. Yeah, it's probably a two-way street, isn't it? You had a little bit of it to start. I've been in therapy of people who had no hope and therefore just didn't see any point in a living. And sometimes in those relationships, I remember, you know, saying to me about allowing me to hold that hope for them while they just put in this work to begin with, because the feeling often comes after the action. So sometimes you just have to move in the direction that you feel and hope to be right.

And then the emotion is often a consequence of the positive action. So sometimes you just have to keep going in the direction that you know to be right and true. And then the feeling changes later. It's interesting, as you say that, I feel like that might be what a lot of people are looking for right now is somebody to hold the hope for them a little bit so that they can take the action. And I feel like people are casting about and coming up without that.

Yeah. So maybe this conversation can be that a little bit for somebody out there. Hopefully. And I think that's it is to know that feelings, you know, like hope, come and go, like any other feeling. And so there will be times when you don't feel as hopeful, but you have to keep moving in the direction that you know, that is based on your values and that's going to allow you to make the kind of contribution that's going to leave you proud. How do we deal with the sense that life is unfair? that certain people have privileges or advantages or opportunities that we will never have. And we're just stewing on what opportunities we won't have.

We're just stewing on that sense of unfairness. I think it's just a super pointless approach. The world was not built fair. Our whole civilization, our whole species and every other one, is built on competition. And it was never meant to be fair. it was just about fighting to survive. And if we sit here and stew over what's fair and what's not, again, it just doesn't get us anywhere. And there has to be a certain acceptance about the fact that the world isn't ideal.

It wasn't sort of gifted to us as this ideal place where everything would be easy and a level playing field and fair and nice and equal. It is how it is. and then it's up to us to if we would like to make it more fair or anything like that, then we can use our own skill set, whatever we have to offer, to make it more that way. I think there is this tendency to ruminate where you just churn over an idea that makes you feel terrible without the intention to do anything about it or without even the feeling that you can. And that does not lead to good places. is, you know, rumination is one of the key maintaining predictors of depression.

So, you know, if someone has depression, that rumination will come thick and fast. They will spend lots of time ruminating over things. It's sort of like a thoughts washing machine. It just goes round and round, and round, with no constructive action to come with it. And it keeps that depression going. And so, you know, a big part of a treatment in depression is using skills to kind of halt that and allowing people to notice when they're doing it, call a stop to it, and be mindful. So often rumination is about, you know, the past or something or worry about the future.

And mindfulness is often about noticing when your mind has gone to the past or the future and bringing it back to the present. Because if you spend all your time thinking about the past, you tend to get depressed. And if you're focused always on the future and things that haven't happened yet that might happen, then you get anxious. But in the present moment, there's much less to be anxious or not. depressed about is just us here in the room with this moment. You then have this control over where you're placing your attention that can influence your mood and your emotional state.

Pragmatically, let's say we're in a rumination spiral. What do we do to stop that? We've actually used this kind of idea of as soon as you notice it, because it's so difficult to stop it, sometimes saying out loud stop and putting a hand up like, stop, you know, I know what I'm doing and then doing something to come back to the present. And sometimes you can do that with just practicing mindfulness where you choose something to focus on in the present moment. This microphone, okay, I'm going to look at it. I'm going to just notice something about it that I haven't before. But you can also use all of your senses to bring you into the present moment, something you can touch, ground yourself on using what you can see, what you can hear, what you can smell, all of those

things. Your sense is bring you into the present moment. They give you information about the here and now. So when you engage those, you are helping to pull your attention to the here and now. Whereas when you're in your head, sometimes you're not even aware. You know what? Sometimes when you're driving, you arrive somewhere and you think, I don't even remember driving here. I don't even know which route I took. I'm just here.

And that's because your mind has been somewhere else and you haven't been fully engaged with all of your senses. And because driving, you know, if you drive a lot, then your brain is so great at automating things for you. It's just kind of taking care of it. but you're thinking about, you know, something that hasn't happened yet. So it's kind of clicking out of that autopilot and being in the present. But practicing mindfulness as much as possible is a sort of gym for the mind almost.

So it's just building that mental muscle to be able to say, I know where my mind's gone and I'm going to bring it back to the here and now. Oh, there it goes again. I'm going to bring it back. Oh, there's gone to that. No, I'm going to bring it back. And you might have to do that a thousand times. But every time you do that, it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong, means you're practicing.

That's the lifting of the weights, right? That every time you do that, congratulations, because you're putting in the reps for noticing where your mind is gone and bringing it back. Is there any way of distinguishing if we're ruminating because it's actually a problem that we need to solve? Like sometimes if I do the mindfulness stuff, I'll be like, okay, you've calmed yourself down now, but like you need to come back and figure out a solution for that. Or if our brain is just ruminating and it's not actually a problem that we should.

bring our attention back to at any point. Does that make sense? Yeah. And that's really the distinction between kind of ruminating. And because people, you know, some people will think, oh, you know, if you go to therapy, you're just kind of navel gazing and it's not going anywhere. And that's completely wrong. So when you sort of go over things in therapy, you're doing it really constructively. So you'll be guided in what you're focusing your attention on. And there will be a plan around that. So it will be to understand something. And you will literally write it down. You create a formulation and a map for whatever that is that you're stuck in and feel that you can't get out of. And then it becomes constructive because you start to look for the ways out and the ways to

break those cycles or the things that are going to help. And then you start exploring how do we take action on this and what do we try first? And we set goals and then we come back and reflect on the experiences. And I think the different, the sort of distinction there is, is it going to lead to constructive action. And if it's not, then it's likely not to be that helpful to you or constructive. When it comes to wellness, you're going to get the best results by focusing on the big needle movers. A lot of us spend a lot of time trying to optimize that last 1%, which creates a ton of stress and it actually doesn't help our health that much. At the top of the needle mover list, sleep. And one of the best ways to optimize your sleep is to optimize your mattress, which is why I love avocado

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That is branchbasics.com and use code Liz Moody. Okay, I have a specific scenario and this is me using our time for me, which I don't do that often. But I'm afraid of flying. I've been in therapy for years from my fear of flying. And recently there's been a spate of plane crashes. There's also been changes with the FAA. There's been concern about air traffic control. There's been like some real things happening in the flying world.

And I can't tell whether that's something that I should be thinking about in a logical way. this should impact my desire to fly, my feeling of safety on a plane, or is this just my ruminating like anxiety brain being like blowing these things up that I shouldn't be paying attention to? So I cannot tell if this is a real problem, even though I have no power in this other than, well, I guess so my power is do I get on the plane or do I not get on the plane? And in the past, I've always been able to talk myself into it. But there's a part of my brain now that's like there's real differences between now and a year ago, say. So maybe you shouldn't get on the plane.

But I can't tell if that's my anxiety brain or if that's a real change. How do we make that differentiation? I guess you've got options here. So you can go down the logical route because logically it still makes sense to fly, right? So you hear on the news every time there is any problem with a plane, but you don't hear every time there's a car accident. Yes. So it's still statistically safer to fly on a plane than go in a car or a boat or

or whatever. Or even on a bike, probably. There is a potential route to go down and make that logical argument that might then reassure you enough to get you on a plane. But really, the thing that helps you to address a fear

is by doing that thing as much as you possibly can. Because the thing that maintains a fear or a phobia is avoidance of the thing that we fear. So I had a lifelong fear of heart. heights, right? As a child, I can't really remember how it started, but maybe I kind of showed some fear and then my parents were like, okay, don't worry, we just won't do this. And so I was allowed to kind of avoid those things. And then after I did my training and I realized, you know, how we kind of

treat phobias, I knew that exposure or graduated exposure was the way to address that. But I live in a really small town. We don't really have any high buildings or anything. So I'm not exposed to it regularly enough for it to extinguish. And it's kind of similar with flying, isn't it? Unless you become, you know, a pilot or a hostess or something, then it's really difficult that fear always comes up because there's these stretches of time between actually being in that situation. And it's also hard to do the graduated exposures because like I get on a plane, I'm having panic attacks. So then I'm even more associated in flying with panic attacks. I'm not associating with like, oh, I did it. I'm like, I feel like every time the plane lands, I cheated death. I'm very,

much cementing in the fact that flying is cheating death. How important it's flying to you? Very. Why? I feel like it's the single biggest impediment between me living the big life that I want to live that's filled with exploration and adventure and friendships and all of that. It's the biggest hurdle to me living that life. So it would cost you deeply if you decided to avoid it. Yeah, that's why I cheat death regularly to do it. Okay. So that's incredible, isn't it, that you have this clarity around what matters to you most and your values and the kind of life you want to live. And that that involves taking a degree of risk every time you go on one of these adventures. That's something to start with, isn't it? The fact that, okay, this is really important to me. I have this vision of the life. I want to live.

It involves this scary adventure, but it feels worth it. And so I don't want to stop. It would cost me too dearly to just avoid it. Therefore, I'm going to do it. how do I manage that degree of fear to allow me to do it in a way that means I don't have to have a panic attack every time? How? Yeah, so that's the good that you're already deciding, okay, this is worth it and I'm going to do it. Yeah. And then it becomes about, okay, you can go down the logical route and you can get all your stats around exactly how safe flying is in comparison to things like drive, you know, because you could drive places, right? You can't drive to Japan, but you could get on a ship.

Yeah. It's looking at facts too, isn't it? You don't have to try to convince yourself with that. You just have to look at the facts that are there and remind yourself of them. And some of them will convince you a little bit or some of them will just loosen off that idea that I will definitely die if I get on this plane. They have a kind of limited power, but I think a lot of it is just you don't have to eliminate the fear. You have to take it down to just a level that feels manageable. I will use different techniques in when I fly.

I found that sort of, I don't have a phobia of flying, but something about having children makes me kind of thing, oh, this feels like a big risk. And one of those skills that I will use on a flight is the power of where I place my attention massively. So if you get on a flight and the temptation is to start looking at on the wing, listening for unusual sounds, signs that is all going to go wrong. And when I notice when I do that, my mind is really ready. to come up with the worst case scenarios and in full color you play those out in my mind. That is going to lead to panic. And actually, once I sat in a plane, there's a really small plane and I was squeezed right up against the window as a big person up against me and I didn't really have much space.

And I started to feel claustrophobic with it. And I had to sort of go in on myself really and close my eyes, breathe slowly. So you can stop fear from turning into panic by slowing the whole sort of biological response. So if you slow your breathing, then your heart rate can't increase. to the degree that it needs to to create that panic. There are lots of different ways to do it, but you can do like a 7-11, so you can breathe in for 7 and out for 11. The key is to breathe out for longer and sort of more vigorously than you breathe in for.

So you're just slowing that whole response down and calming the body. That doesn't mean you won't then re-trigger stress or anxiety with the thought processes. So you have to have control of your attention, whether it be focusing on the breathing or distracting yourself by watching something on your iPad or whatever. So we can't choose what our feeling is going to be directly. You can't say, okay, I'm going to wake up today and feel confidence and love, and then it appears. It just doesn't. But we know that feelings are influenced so heavily by where we place our attention,

the thoughts that we're giving our attention to and buying into and believe in, and what we do or don't do. So everything that you choose to do, from the moment you're at the airport to the moment you get off the plane, matters. It has to be controlled and planned and thought through. If we were, you know, doing full therapy, you'd have lots of stories about the best flights you've ever had and what you were doing that helped you to stay calm. And you'll then pick out what you did that were so successful. Maybe you were chatting to someone or maybe you were distracted. or maybe you were telling yourself, this is fine, I did it yesterday and I know it's safe now.

Or maybe you were saying some sort of mantra to yourself or slow breathing or whatever it was. And you can look at all those things as your kind of toolkit for, okay, what do I pull out the back when I get on this flight? What do I need to be doing? If you give your mind free rein, you can get into a panic in no time at all, right? What I love about what you just said is you can apply it to daily life too. You can think about what did my best days, the days that I really felt the way that I wanted to feel all day long. What was I doing? What actions was I taking that day?

What did I do from the moment that I woke up? And you can begin to put those pieces together. And I think a lot of times, like you said earlier, we wait to feel a certain way to take the actions that we feel like align with that feeling. When I'm happy, I'll go do this. Instead of saying, what did my happiest days look like and how can I kind of reverse engineer and put those actions into place to create those happy days? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And so last summer, I was diagnosed with an early stage breast cancer. I mean, I was full of fear. I mean, I'm okay now, but you don't find out you're going to be okay at the beginning. You find out in stages, right? So you get this diagnosis and you think, oh my gosh, have I got a future? What does it look like?

In absolute fear of your own mortality. And at that time, I was about a week or two away from handing in the manuscript for Open When. And I was sort of polishing up and editing and things. I wanted to get, get it finished. of the death so that I could focus on treatment. I just happened to be reading through the chapter on when fear shows up. And I read it, oh, this isn't the approach I need right now, actually. I need something much firmer and controlled. And so I hit delete and I rewrote it there and then just for myself or what I felt like I needed in that moment. And there was lots of language in there around not being the prey, being the predator in a situation.

So at that point, when you get a horrible diagnosis like that, you go, you just feel like a rabbit in headlights, which way to turn, I don't have good control of this. When you think like prey, you behave like prey and all of your actions are then looking for the threats and just darting between them and trying to avoid them. Whereas a predator who's in the same scenario has a goal. It sets something in its sights, and it's going to put all of its energy into making that thing happen. And so in that scenario, where I am faced with my immortality, I thought, I'm not going to be the prey here. I'm going to be the predator. If there's things coming after me, I'm coming after it. And just changing the language like that, in the chapter that talks about how you can't control the fact that fear is here, but you can use it to your advantage.

Fear is a state of readiness for action. And so I knew that I could use that to kind of cultivate this courage that I needed to move through it and out the other side. That didn't change the situation I was in, but it felt fundamentally different. It was like going from the back foot to the front foot. Like, okay, I'm moving on. And it worked. Every time I read that chapter, I did something in the service of my own rescue. So I got advice from people I knew in the medical community about surgeons they knew, or I got second opinions, or I got second opinions.

or, you know, made appointments, those kind of things. And I did the things that I knew were going to kind of help me through because I had this idea of I'm cultivating courage to do this because it matters to me. And when you think about that kind of situation with something like flying in the service of the life you are determined to live, a lot of it is that rabbit and headlights feeling, you know, someone else has got the controls, you just kind of sat there hoping for the best. But there's this idea, isn't there, of what if I'm set on this plane?

feeling so proud of myself that I am in it. I'm facing my fear because this is me being courageous and living the life that I want to live. And there's something quite fundamentally different about that feel, isn't there? That I'm here, but I am choosing to be here. I'm still really freaking scared, but I'm choosing there. For me, I just found that so helpful, even when you can't take the fear away and you can't take the situation away. You can't just make it all okay. There's never any guarantees with flying or with cancer or with anything else. But you can kind of choose to take part in your own survival and your own rescue.

And I'm choosing to do this. I'm choosing to move through and be in motion. I heard from a lot of people who really struggle with health anxiety. As somebody who's dealt with cancer and obviously a wonderful therapist, what advice would you give to people? One of life's most important skills are being able to tolerate uncertainty because it's all uncertain.

Nothing's a given. And in some ways that was a real gift for me to just be reminded that none of this is a given. And I'm so grateful for all of it now. And I was before, but in a really thorough way, like every cell in my body

is so grateful for everything because we don't know what's going to happen. And I could sit here in fear that I don't know what's going to happen or I can use that as my meaning for having a really good time and doing something really positive and being the best person I can be, being the best parent I can be, and staying as healthy as I can. But I'm under no illusion that I can control everything. And as soon as I start to buy into that idea, that's just going to lead to a spiral

of anxiety and compulsions and I know that's not a good place to go. So I have to kind of do what I can to, you know, reasonably stay healthy, but I also have to live as if I have a future. I think a lot of people struggle with what that line is. What are the things I can reasonably do to stay healthy? And what are the things where I'm just becoming too obsessed with this? And I'm trying to control that, which really is not in my control. Yeah. And I think then it becomes the question around, is this having a detrimental effect on the quality of my life? And that's usually the marker for sort of anything clinical, is it stopping you from living the life that matters most to you? And if it is, then it needs probably some work. Do you have any pragmatic advice for becoming

comfortable with uncertainty? It's almost a maturity, isn't it? You get good at it with experience. And what children need is security and predictability and certainty because they're so vulnerable. So they look to adults and parents for that reassurance because they can't control all that themselves. And then as you sort of move into adulthood, there's this new acquaintance called uncertainty and anything can happen. And when things do happen and you're becoming acquainted with what real life is like, then that's scary and frightening and an adventure. And because equally, you know, bad things can happen, but really good things can happen too. I mean, look at us sat here and, you know, good things have happened. And we're really lucky to be here and to have

connected and have come and have the chance to speak in a way that other people can listen to. And uncertainty can be good and bad, but we can't have one without the other. I love that. I've asked that question to many people because I do think it's kind of the fundamental struggle. Like a lot of the questions that I'm asking you today come back to how do I tolerate uncertainty better? I love the idea.

I've never heard before uncertainty can be positive too. Like there's so many beautiful surprises coming in our life that we cannot even begin to predict right now. And as an anxious person, I think about all of the horrific disasters around the corner. But I love the idea of just sitting on there's so many beautiful surprises that await me. Yeah. And it's all about where you place your attention, isn't it? That they are all possible. And we know the outcome. If we sit and brace ourselves for terrible things, we know the emotional outcome of that is not pleasant and ruins the moment that we could have enjoyed. And so the fact that everything is uncertain, I think for me becomes my meaning. It becomes my reason to

have a positive purpose and take positive action in my life and try and use my life as something good and try and be a good person because it's not all given. This feels related to something that I heard from a lot of people, which is they have a real fear of death and they don't know how to navigate daily life, being so aware that we're just going to die someday. How would you suggest they approach that? I would get busy living because it's the fear of both the inevitable and the unknown, isn't it? So we are all going to die. And yet there's such horror around the thoughts of not knowing how and not knowing what that

would be like. And I think a lot of people fear the process of death. and pain and things like that. I fear the nothingness. Like that's, I don't believe in the afterlife. I wish I was raised in a way that I could, could believe in that, but I don't. So I fear the idea of oblivion is my fear on death. What was the oblivion like before you were born?

I don't know. Like, obviously I'm not, yeah. Yeah. So it'll probably feel the same, right? If that's your belief around you just don't experience anything. Doesn't that feel horrifying? Like a black hole? I don't know.

that sounds so scary to me. That feels so scary to me. Maybe I'm egocentrist because I'm so attached to my mind in my body or whatever. It's interesting though, isn't it, that we can, this tiny amount of time we have here with all the things that there is to do and see and experience, how tragic that we would spend that time paralyzed with fear about what's on the other side. The scariest thing, really is that we would waste that time that we could have, you know, when you experience joy or you experience a real sense of purpose when you're doing something and you're, you know, when you're with a bunch of people and you're all working on something that feels like a really good thing to do and you're all a group and it's, you're that lovely experience of being in a

community and doing something positive or experiencing your body, you know, if you're climbing up a mountain or you're cycling down a hill or, you know, that sense of existence. where you feel really alive, all the things that we can do to feel really alive, that feels so incredible but won't last forever. It's sort of tragic, isn't it, the thought that we might choose to spend a significant portion of that opportunity just in fear about what might be after. Yeah, it is tragic. Yeah. And yet we do it. Like it is, I feel like, isn't that the story over and over and over? Like, isn't it tragic that we spend? literally years of our lives addicted to social media, scrolling instead of making real connections.

Isn't it tragic that many of us wake up, go to work, come home exhausted, and then like repeat the whole thing again the next day for years and years and years? Isn't it tragic that many of us are so afraid of death yet aren't really living in the moments that we're here? It's a repeat story over and over and it's all really sad. Yeah. And yet I think we have to listen to that because when we turn towards something and experience or a realization with curiosity, we can see what it's teaching us and what we should take from it. You know, it might be telling us what we need, which, you know, might be for someone that they need to spend their time doing something that feels more meaningful to them or that they

need to connect with other human beings that matter to them or that they need to switch jobs or travel the world or whatever it is. And it's different for everybody. But I think when we start to feel that way and when we become overly focused on something, that we cannot control. We have to notice what our mind is doing and then reassess and make some decisions about what's going to bring me back to living and life. And often, a sense of service does that really well. You know, gratitude and service. I'm so, you know, that frightens the hell out of me, the idea of, you know, death and things like that. What can I do now to either enjoy my but also be of service and do something really positive. The trouble is the more you focus on yourself,

the more miserable you become, right? That inner world is like a sauna. There are some benefits to being there when it's constructive, but only if you don't stay too long. And the more you stay there, the more sad or confused or anxious you become. And life is just out here waiting for us. And like we said before, there is so much need out there. And when you focus on being of service to somebody else or another group of people, it's not only them that benefit. It's you that benefits too, because that becomes your purpose and nothing is more fulfilling than a life of purpose. Even if it involves working from dawn till dusk and you're in pain or you're not sleeping enough or you're not joyful every day, if it feels meaningful and purposeful, then that's what matters.

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You need money or a job or just things that don't feel within your power to get. What are we doing then? You've got to have things as not as a specific but as an ideal, haven't you? As a sort of an idea of what you're heading for. Yeah. So if you want a family or you want a relationship, of course you do. You're human, right? Let's say someone wants to have children, but biologically they're not able to do that, for example,

or then there are ways to have and create what a family means or what a family brings to someone and to be able to nurture another human being or to connect with someone. There are ways towards all of those things, but they don't always look exactly how we first imagine them to be. So to a degree there's an acceptance that needs to come with the fact that our lives never really look for everyone. Our lives never really look like how we imagined them as a child and, you know, when we were kind of fairy stories and stuff. And I think part of maturity is accepting that it won't look how I previously thought it might. But I'm still going to aim for that sort of idea in my mind or something close to it because it's telling me something about what I know. need. Maybe I need connection with another person and maybe I need to nurture a child and

help them into the world and whether that be, you know, one you birth yourself or or another child in need or it's what we're built to do, right? That's what we're here for is to look after each other and help each other through. So whatever way you do that is okay, the push it where it moves thing, right? Yeah, I love push it where it moves. I think that's like a phenomenal mantra. I'm going to add that to my my back pocket mantras. Would we want to sort of dissect a little bit the thing that we think we need? So it's like, what is it about this thing? What does family mean to me? And then you can see these alternative paths to that. If I'm like, oh, I really wish I were rich and I'm not rich, what does rich mean to me? What am I getting with rich, et cetera? Yeah. It's interesting. And that's the

difference, isn't it, between a sort of a goal and a value where a goal is something that you can get there and then it's done, whereas a value is more of a path that you always want to stay close to, but it never ends. So my value might be lifelong learning and always trying to improve myself. My goal might be to pass my exam in psychology or whatever. So I can do that, but then I'm not lost after that goal is complete, or even if I fail and ditch that goal, I'm not completely lost. I'm not completely because I've got this path that I'm always trying to stay close to. And sometimes life will pull you away from those paths because other things take you for a while. But then you notice that and you just try to steer back towards it and keep going. So you'll have values around,

it might be like education or career or wealth or health or friendships or your intimate relationships or parenting or all of those things. You'll kind of have a set of values that are those past, that sort of not what you want to happen to you and what you want to get and what you want the world to deliver to you, but who you want to be, how you want to show up in that part of your life, what you want to represent the other people in that area of your life, and those sorts of things. So it gives you a template then for how to be in good times and bad, how you want to kind of show up in a way that's going to make you proud, what you would have to be doing and how you'd have to be doing it. That way, you know, goals can come and go. And I've had a fair

bit of that actually where I've worked with athletes and stuff who have had lots of success, but then maybe have, you know, the careers ended for maybe, you know, injury or different reasons like that. And then, whoa, and we have to do a whole re-evaluation of what matters, because you can get so in the zone with one thing that it pulls you away from other things that also could have mattered to you. What are your best tips for social anxiety? I mean, I'm super shy, introvert type person. When I started doing this kind of thing, I noticed, I went to someone's book launch and I was on my own, didn't know anyone, and I noticed these kind of covert avoidance things that I would do. So I sort of held onto my co

until someone took it off me and then I sort of stood at the bar for a while and took way too long to choose a drink and then I kind of nursed a drink for a while and then I went off to the bathroom and spent some time there and all of it was avoidance of just starting a conversation with someone I didn't know. And it's not until I sort of cultivated that courage to do it that the whole experience of the party changed for me. And you start to realize other people are waiting for you to do the same thing that you're waiting for them to do. And then you make a connection and it feels positive. And then you get this new bit of evidence in your brain that I can do that and it can go well. Or I can do that. It can feel really awkward and excruciating.

and I survive it. So even if it doesn't go that well, you learn that you can get through it and it doesn't break you. You check your own avoidance because you can tell yourself you're exposing yourself to a situation, but overcompensate and all these kind of safety strategies stop you from actually getting in there and experiencing it. But when you've decided, okay, I'm going to be in the conversation and do that, how do I cope with that fear? There's a distinction between someone who's confident socially and someone who's anxious socially will focus on different things. If you're socially anxious, your focus will all be inwards on how am I coming across? What are they thinking of me?

Oh, I just said that weird. What are they thinking of that now? And it will all be that inward self-doubt of just constantly hammering you. And you're constantly then triggering more and more anxiety. Whereas someone who's confident socially will not be focused inward on how they're coming across. They'll be focused on the person in front of them. and, you know, what do I want to know about this person?

How am I going to get to know them? And what ways do we connect and relate to each other? And that outward focus does not generate anxiety, right? You're just focusing on what you should be doing. And it's the prey predator thing in a way, not that you're being a predator to someone, but your focus is on something that you're going to do rather than all these threats that you're going to avoid and judgment that you're going to avoid. So that's a really key thing.

And I've actually worked with people in situations where we've sort of clients and things who have been super anxious and paranoid and really struggled to be around people, but we had to have multidisciplinary meetings about their treatment and stuff. And I would give that person like a piece of paper, and they had the job of listening. And whenever someone said something that might be a part of the plan, they would write it down. And all that was was a shift of attention.

So rather than looking around the room, working out who's, you know, thinking about him or judging him, it became a, what's the plan for me? So it was just a shift of attention that allowed him to cope with the situation in a way that he just wouldn't have been able to before. And that's the power of choosing where you focus. I love that because I do think fear of judgment is like what most of social anxiety stems from. And it's just such a pragmatic thing that we can do.

If you're afraid of being judged, if you're afraid of how other people are perceiving you focus on the other people, how can you make them feel comfortable, how can you listen to them, how can you engage with them? It's just a really simple shift, but I think it's a beautiful one for both social anxiety, but also real connection.

Yeah. I also love that you notice these little things, like I was holding my coat in this way. My sister's a therapist, and she always talks about opposite action, which is the idea that if we are doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, we're probably not going to get those.

So we need to identify the things that we're doing that are leading to the results that we don't want and sometimes take a completely opposite action. to get the different result that we want. I found it helpful for me because it almost gives me a plan, like in moments where I'm skulking around my husband and I would normally just kind of like ice him out because I'm annoyed with him for a while.

I'm like, what if I did the opposite? What would the opposite be? Oh, it'd be to like give him a hug and say, I'm sorry. And then I'll like go do that thing. And I'll avoid five hours of feeling absolutely awful. Yeah. You know? Yeah.

I'm not good at saying, sorry. That's something I'm working on. Yeah. That's like a personal challenge. but I'm getting better. I'm getting better at it. Okay, let's do a few more. How can I support my partner when they're struggling with depression or anxiety? That's a big one. I think a lot of people expect themselves to be a therapist and to know exactly what to say and to say at the right time and then they just hammer themselves when they think they're getting it wrong. It's not easy

caring for someone who is unwell with, you know, depression or anything else. If you're going to sustain it, you have to be able to take care of yourself as well. The tendency is, you know, when you really love someone, is to just put everything into them and make such sacrifices that often, sometimes I need it at the time. Sometimes these illnesses can last for a long, long time. So you've got to care for someone in a way you can sustain. And that involves having certain boundaries around it. And actually, boundaries in that situation are a bit like boundaries with children actually creates a sense of safety and it takes the guessing game out of things and it stops people from feeling like a burden. So if you've got someone that you need to ask for

help and you know they'll say yes because they say yes to everything, even when they really shouldn't or even when they don't have time or even when they're not well enough, then you're going to feel kind of unsure about whether you should ask them because you don't want to be a burden to them, you don't want to make life harder for them, you already feel guilty about everything. And it creates this sort of uncertainty in a situation where you might not ask because, you know, you don't want to be a burden or you keep asking because they always say yes. And then you notice they start to seem a bit resentful or they suddenly pull back or there's an argument. And because they haven't been able to kind of hold that boundary and say what their limitations are for helping, you've stepped over the mark without

realizing it and now they're not okay with you and it ruptures the relationship. When you're caring for someone, it's so good and so healthy, even if it feels uncomfortable at first, to work out what the parameters are for that care or support and where you come into that equation, what you need in order to be able to sustain that kind of care. So what might that look like in practice? Let's say your partner is going through sort of a depressive episode. Would you say to them, I'm going to be available to talk at this? Like time, what does that look like in practice?

So actually a key point is I would make sure that you don't do anything for that person that they can still do themselves. So you know that tendency is to kind of scoop people up and rescue. Oh, it makes them feel like powerless, huh? Yeah. Yeah. So it's really difficult to claw things back when you've stopped doing it. Because that's a big thing with depression is avoidance.

And you don't feel like doing anything. and it feels hard to even get out of bed. But let's say that person is managing to get out of bed and make themselves breakfast in the morning or make themselves a cup of tea or have a shower. Don't start making that breakfast for them. Allow that to continue because that's progress. That's steps towards being well and functioning.

And yeah, I would say don't kind of scoop everything up so that they then have to put that back into their lives. allow that to continue, but help in the ways that are more necessary. So it might be, I'll look after the kids and drop you off at therapy, helping in ways that lead towards recovery, not away from it. It's hard when somebody's in a funk of any sort and they don't know what would help them and you don't know what would help them. And you know that it's like codependency to need them to feel a certain way for you to feel a certain way. But also, we live our lives with other people. You live your life with your partner. You live your life with your life with your family. friends, you live your life with your family. So it's like, I cannot exert control over your mind, but I also have to live with your mind. Yeah. Yeah. And in that way, I would have actually done therapy with a lot of people who have been supporting a partner or a family member with a mental health problem because you need that support yourself. Just so hard, isn't it? And when I think about,

gosh, my husband and I depend on each other so much, but because we're a great team, right? So we use each other's strengths and it works when we're both okay. But I can't imagine for a minute if he suddenly became really unwell or it would just be so tough. So I would say don't be afraid to seek her own support that could enable you to just get through when it's really tough. Are there any little therapy tricks that you could teach us, like things that work especially well for a lot of people that more of us should be doing? So actually a lot of people when they're weighing up decisions and choices that they make about whether they should or shouldn't do something, should I make this change or shouldn't I? And a lot of people will kind of weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of doing that thing,

whatever that new changes. But a lot of people will forget looking at the advantages and disadvantages of not doing that thing, of staying the same. So, you know, if you feel stuck and you know you want to make a positive change, what is it costing you every time you don't? do that thing. What is the payoff as well? So what does it gain you every time you don't? So often there'll be a gain in some way of staying the same or staying safe or whatever it is. But people won't often explore that. They'll just look at how if I, I don't know what the

example is, say take on a new healthy regime and exercise, it would be positive because I'll be healthier and happier. But it will cost me in terms of like time and effort. I'll have to go to the gym and but if you look at what it costs you not doing that maybe then you start to delve into the reasons that you want it in the first place that you can really engage with that help to drive you forward to that change when you look at the positives to staying the same that's usually the stuff that's keeping you stuck that actually the idea of going to a gym makes me really anxious and every time I decide to start next week, I feel safe. Then you can really uncover why it's really difficult to make the change. So, yeah, when I do that kind of advantages,

you draw a kind of cross across the page and you do advantages of both the change and same and the same. The same. That's a genius. That's so genius. I love that. I'm going to do that. I think I unconsciously do that for like, even with the flying, we've talked about like what's the difference between not going on the plane and going on the plane. And I think I'm, I'm going to do that. all the time. I think that's genius. Can you just leave us with one homework assignment, something that anybody can do the second they turn off this podcast to begin to feel a little bit better in their mind? Most people come to therapy and say, I don't really know what the problem is, but things just don't feel right. Everything feels a bit pointless or I'm a bit lost.

And one of the biggest things that helped people get clarity on their life is doing the values exercise is that I think I put them in the back of both books actually just because they're super helpful. And I use them, I probably do it every few months or so, or if I'm feeling a bit kind of out of sorts. And you just get a piece of paper and you cover it in sort of boxes. And each one is a different area of your life. So you might have one for parenting, one for relationships, one for friendships, one for friendships, health, creativity, education, career, whatever it is, all these different areas of your life. And in each box, you spend a few moments just thinking about, well, like we said before, the kind of person you want to be in

that area of your life. What are your values? What matters, most to you. So not what you want to happen to you, but who you want to be. And you get all these words. And then when you filled that up, you then rate each one just crudely out of 10. Like, how important are these values to me? Zero being not at all, 10 being the max. And you get all these kind of scores out of 10. And then you go around and you rate them all again. And this time you ask yourself, how much have I been living in line with those values? the last month or the last couple of weeks. And another score out of 10, zero not at all, 10 is brilliant.

And then what you get is an indication of where you should focus on. Because if you've rated something as 10 out of 10 important to you, but you've put 2 out of 10 in how much you're living in line with that at the moment, then, oh, that's interesting. What's been pulling you away from that? And it's not really, it shouldn't be a source of self-criticism because it is impossible to get 10 out of 10 on all of it, all of the time, right? Because life pulls us in different directions. You can't focus on everything at

once. All it does is it gives you a bit of a bird's eye view on your own life. It's like a map that says, hang on a minute, that thing over there really matters to me, but something else has been pulling me away from it for a while. So maybe I'm going to give that my attention for a bit and see if I can just up that score a little bit. And something else will give in the process, and that's okay, and then I'll come back. And it's this idea of, you know, if you're on a balancing beam. You're never really on this sweet spot where you've found the balance and then there's no more movement. There's a constant shifting. So you notice when you're shifting too much one way and then you make the movement to shift back the other way. And so you're constantly kind of finding that

moment and you're moving through that balance with all these values and these different layers of your life is more of a kind of harmony thing where you're always moving. And while I'm here, I'm not with my children, but in a minute when we're done, I'll be with my children. children and then I won't be doing my work. And there's this constant giving of your time and flow. You're like the waves on the beach kind of thing. You come and go in different areas and that's okay. But just doing that, it gives me such clarity around, okay, I know what matters. I know where I'm headed next. Can I ask, what do you do as a therapist if you wake up and you're like in a funk, you're having a bad day? Oh, take it out on everybody else. I'm a real nature girl, really. Nothing

it helps me more than being in the green or by the ocean or something like that. And it's not always possible, but I mean, I live out in the countryside. So it is to a degree possible. But, you know, sometimes you just got a lot on and you're working and you're in an office and you're feeling terrible. So knowing what helps doesn't always make you do it because life happens, doesn't it? And I think that's something I've always tried to be clear about is that knowing the stuff doesn't mean you should be perfect at the stuff because you're still human. And so I never want to

give people the impression that I have it all together all of the time and I never have a bad mood or I never get sad or overwhelmed or, you know, make mistakes. It's just not true. And these are just tools that help us deal with all that human stuff. They don't stop it from happening. So what we don't want to do is get down on ourselves for being human. We just want to use the tools. Love that. Can you tell us a little bit in your own words about your wonderful. new book, Open When? Well, my first book, Wysn't I even telling this before, I had some lovely feedback from people who were saying, it's so helpful, we're using all these skills, it's so helpful that

I'm carrying it around in my bag with me for times when I need it the most, when I'm in crisis and stuff. And that was really nice, but I couldn't get it out my head that I just didn't write it for those moments. I didn't put in there the words that you need to hear when you're struggling. And it was more of a sort of tools for when things happen in the future. So here's how to learn mindfulness, and then in the future when things happen, you'll have that tool under your belt. Whereas when you're in the thick of it, you're in the eye of the storm, what you need, you don't need someone to say, you should have learned that six months ago and you be right now.

You need someone to kind of grab you by the shoulders, look you in the eye and say, look, I know a way through. Let's do it together. Follow me. And so Open When became a series of letters really from me to you to say, if you're in this now, I'm here with you. we can move through it, I know the way. And often it's just about redirecting your attention. And you might have someone like that in your life where when you're dealing with something confusing and there are all chapters, the 26 different chapters on different areas of your life, different things that happen to all of us at some point, right? But they're things that leave us confused or with high emotion and it's never really clear what to do about it. And you might have someone in your life where when you're in one of those moments, he seems he, he, he,

or she seems to say the right thing at the right time. And it just sets you back on track, doesn't it? And it just sets you back in motion like, oh yeah, I can deal with this. Okay, I know I need to do. But not all of us have that person. And even people that do, they're not there all at the time. Sometimes you just have to deal with stuff alone. And so that was the thought behind the book was if you're dealing with one of those human moments and you're on your own or you don't have someone that seems to say the right thing, then how could I kind of reach people in that moment to offer some words of encouragement and support. And so each chapter is a different scenario.

And then each one starts with a letter from me that says a bit of a kind of grabbing you by the shoulders thing. And then followed by some kind of real-time tools. So things you can do in the moment that will help you to kind of move through and out the other side. Love it. It's a wonderful book. And I so appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today. Thank you. Thanks to having me.

That is it for this episode of the Liz Moody podcast. If you have a friend who's been feeling stuck or overwhelmed or just like they need a little emotional toolkit refresh, please, please, send them this episode. Let's all help make these topics less taboo and just help each other feel the way that we deserve to feel. If you're not already following the Liz Moody podcast and Apple Podcasts on Spotify or on YouTube, make sure that you hit that follow button. That way, new episodes will always show up right in your feed and you will never miss out on one. You can also now watch full video episodes on Spotify and on YouTube too. We bring you this show completely free thanks to the incredible brands that we partner with.

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