The School of Greatness - 989 A Mental Health Toolkit: Defeat Loneliness & Learn to Love Yourself w/Kati Morton

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

“With great vulnerability comes great connection and courage.”Lewis chats with Kati Morton, a clinical psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist, and viral YouTube personality whose mission is to decrease the stigma around mental health issues. They discuss the steps to overcoming loneliness, the value of vulnerability, how to recognize and combat depression, and so much more.The Power of Erotic Intelligence with Esther Perel: https://link.chtbl.com/732-podFind Lasting Love with Matthew Hussey: https://link.chtbl.com/811-pod

This is episode number 989 with Katie Morton. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Philosopher Frederick Nietzsche once said, chaos gives birth to dancing stars. And Mr. Rogers said,

when we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. I am very excited about my guest today. Katie Morton is in the house, and she is a clinical psychologist, a licensed marriage and family therapist, and a viral YouTube personality whose mission is to decrease the stigma around mental health issues. She also is the author of a book called Are You Okay?, a mental health guide for millennials and the host of the new podcast, Ask Katie Anything, where she answers all of your questions around anxiety, depression, insecurity, self-doubt, and more. And in this episode, we dive in deep on all these topics about the root of loneliness and the simple steps to overcoming it.

How to learn to love and appreciate yourself even when you're struggling and don't have a sense of purpose, why it's so important to be vulnerable in your relationships, how to differentiate between feeling bummed and actually suffering from depression. This is key for a lot of people. What the best medicine is for a broken heart and so much more. The world needs to hear this message. I'm telling you, you have the power to change someone's life today by sending them this link wherever you're listening to this on the podcast platform of choice.

Just copy and paste and send it to a few friends, post it on your social media, or you can copy and paste the link lewishouse.com slash 989. And you have the ability to change someone's life today who might be inspired by this message. And if this is your first time here, click that subscribe button right now on Apple podcast, and leave us a review and rating to help us spread the message of greatness to more people. Coming up in just a moment is Katie Morton. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. I'm super excited about our guest today. I think this is going to be extremely relevant and timely information and much needed information. Katie Morton is here. She holds a master's in clinical

psychology from Pepperdine University and is a licensed marriage and family therapist. Also, massive following on YouTube. I think almost a million subscribers over there and has an incredible book called Are You Okay? A Guide to Caring for Your Mental Health. And I'm excited you're here. Thank you so much, Katie. Yeah, thanks for having me.

I appreciate this. I'm a big fan of mental health and also having a positive attitude. And we were talking just before this about how positivity can be sometimes toxic and can actually hurt people if they're always positive and not dealing with certain traumas or healing or things that are actually happening, their pain. So is there a point in time where we can be, we can be too positive and it can hurt us because we don't deal with the things that have traumatized us? Yeah, I think, I mean, it's tricky because everyone's different, but I believe that when

we're ignoring how we really feel and only focusing on, you know, how good we can make things and we're not actually acknowledging the bad, because I, you know, how good we can make things, and we're not actually acknowledging the bad, because people always say, like, good feelings, bad feelings, they're all feelings, and they're all okay, and so I think when we go, you know, when we ignore a complete chunk of our life and our experience, and focus instead, it's great to focus on the good, but you still have to acknowledge the upsets, the things that don't turn out the way you planned, and that doesn't make it bad, it's just life, you know? What does it mean we have to acknowledge? It's about allowing yourself to feel it, whatever that is. Like if I need to cry,

I'm going to let myself cry. If some days I just can't get out of bed and do all the stuff I need to do, maybe that's a sign that I need to take care of myself, right? I need to just allow myself to have the ups and downs at the same time. And this is why it's tricky for people is I don't want you to like ruminate or like you know just let yourself wallow there's a time for acknowledgement feeling venting about it to people you know therapist a friend but then then what okay then we take the steps to move forward. How long should we ruminate, vent, grieve over a situation that affects us? And does it matter the weight of the situation where it might be a death of someone close to you versus someone said something mean to me that triggered me from childhood struggles? Like how long do we, is there a rumination period that is healthy? Are we all different in how we grieve and heal and move forward? Is it the level of trauma that matters? Yeah, a lot of it has to do with the level. So if it's someone just said

something mean that really hurt my feelings, or let's say I had a really bad interview, I need to get a job and it just went horribly. And so the whole day I'm feeling terrible that's okay to give yourself that day and maybe the beginning of the next day and then we move on what's next what's another thing I can kind of send out my resume to someone else you know then we take action but then when it comes to like death in the family or wake up yes there's like the top 10 most stressful things your life like like moving, divorce, death in the family, just to name a few. And I know moving sounds crazy, but if you've ever moved,

you know how stressful it is. Very stressful. Those are things that are okay to give yourself like a month or two of adjustment time, knowing that there still needs to be action in there. Like, hey, if I'm having a tough time functioning in my life, I can't be there for my friends or my family. I can't do my job, you know, things like that. Then I should seek out professional help like a therapist or psychiatrist or, you know, any of those things. Why is moving top of the list of stresses, traumas? Is it because we've lived in this old identity and this home feeling and it's just like a newness or a new identity or what is it? I think it's a lot of things. Some of it is newness, also routine. We love routines. Our brains, our bodies love that. I mean, if any of you have ever tried to get up around the same time

and you have like rituals in your day, super helpful for our mental health, physical health, all that good stuff. So moving disrupts everything, right? We have to find new places for everything. The whole scenario where we're at and what it feels like, it's just, everything is so different. Not to mention, you know, having to package up all your stuff. It can be overwhelming. It's traumatic in itself, even though it can seem exciting. It can also be traumatic. Maybe that's why the first, my girlfriend moved Christmas day, essentially like six months ago, My girlfriend moved Christmas Day, essentially like six months ago, right before Corona. And she moved from a different country in with me.

And it was kind of traumatic for both of us. I was excited. I think we were both excited. But then it was like, oh, but this is a challenge for her. She doesn't know where to go to get her nails done or food or find friends and just the normalcy of it. And it's a different culture. It's a different country. It's you're living with someone now. Yeah. And I had my routine, but she didn't have hers. So I

had to constantly like, you know, work together to make it work. So it's stressful for sure. I can, I can relate to that. And I didn't have to move. I'm interested because my entire childhood, My entire childhood, I had a sense of deep loneliness, deep insecurity, loneliness, worry, fear that no one was ever going to like me and no one was ever going to love me. And I'm assuming that it was a number of the instances I experienced in my life, the number of stories, the number of things I witnessed and experienced that built the story in my mind that no one's going to like me or love me. And I took it upon myself when I was a teenager. When I started to have friends as a teenager in high school, I started to still feel a

sense of loneliness with people around me and people liking me. I still felt a deep sense of loneliness and the need to get people to like me. And I took it upon myself to overcome that challenge by spending a lot of deep alone time and falling in love with myself and falling in love with like who I am and writing letters to myself, taking myself out on dinner dates, alone, movies all the time to the point where I said, you know what? I really enjoy my own company. I don't need to feel good around other people anymore.

And it's a bonus. I love people still, but it's like, I love being alone. But it took me having kind of the vision to break this mold, it took me like creating challenges for myself, like experiencing deep pain of, you know, figuring out how to love myself. What are your thoughts on loneliness? Why do people feel lonely in general when they have lots of friends or they don't have friends? And what do you think is kind of the root of loneliness? Yeah, I love that. First of all, that's like all the homework I give my patients all the time, like dating yourself. Really? Yeah. Like writing letters. I mean, if any of my viewers are

listening to this, they know how often I talk about writing letters to yourself, love letters, letters from your childhood self to your adult self. I can really get into that. How to hug your childhood self now your adult self i could really get into that how to hug your childhood self now and heal oh my goodness let them feel heard and understood in a way they couldn't that's so much of this oh you just feel it right as an adult you're like oh that was so hard but i think uh loneliness happens for a lot of reasons loneliness occurs i think uh for some people it's because we never let people truly know us, either because it doesn't feel safe or we don't truly know ourselves.

Oh, how do we get to know ourselves? You have to be curious. I think so often we judge. I mean, I'll be honest, as a kid, there's so many awkward moments in my life or times when I wished, like I grew up in the country. And so some of my friends had like wealth, some didn't, some parents were like business people. My dad was a boiler maker. So we were very like blue collar. I grew up on a Christmas tree farm. And there were times I

wanted for that, you know, how come I can't have that? Every kid has that, right? Or why don't, doesn't my body look this way? Why am I so gangly? And why is this look, you know, there's so many things that as a kid, I was so uncomfortable. And I think being open to being curious about that, like, why am I uncomfortable? What is so wrong with me? So often we just accept something's wrong with me. And then we take that. That's what I thought my whole life. I was like, something's wrong with me. No one, you know, no one's going to understand it. I'm wrong. I'm bad. You know, I'm stupid, all this stuff. We have those thoughts. There was something I read. I'm wrong. I'm bad. You know, I'm stupid. All this stuff. We have those thoughts.

There was something I read. I forget the study that supported this, but somewhere between 60,000 and 90,000 new thoughts every day, or not new thoughts, but just thoughts. And 94% of them or something are the thoughts we've had. We've already had. Oh, we've already, we've repeating the thoughts. So at most, a lot of them are bad. I will be honest.

I would estimate like 60 lot of them are bad i will be honest i would estimate like 60 of them are negative well they're probably like fear based of like worry based of am i looking good or this is you know what do they think about me right yeah and that's because our brain is wired to seek out threat right it keeps us safe make sure we're okay and good things aren't threatening so of course we're going to focus on like hey that person was whispering when i walked in the room i think they they're talking about me. I don't think they liked me. You know, it's threatening. Why? I mean, so how do we train our minds for positivity without it hurting us? Part of it is just noticing our thoughts. So often we have them kind of building off of the loneliness, right? We have these thoughts that some shame built and guilt built, like something's

wrong with me. That's shame. Speaking out saying something's intrinsically wrong. People aren't going to like you. You're so stupid. All of those things. We have to notice if we're having those, if those are the thoughts that we're like taking up our, it's taking up our brain space and our time and we're having 90,000 of them in a day. Like it's going to affect us. You're going to feel lonely. You're going to feel, you're going to be sick. You're going to be sad. You're going to be worried and stressed and anxious.

So how do we then get to the root of the loneliness so that we're not feeling lonely anymore? I'm hearing you say we need to discover and pay attention to who we are. We need to explore ourselves. We need to, you know, what else does that look like? Yeah, I think part of it is recognizing why. Kind of we said like it could be because you don't know yourself or you're afraid to let people know you you know um so recognizing that recognizing um you know how honest we're being with ourselves and others a lot of loneliness comes out of that but when it comes it really you mean by not we're not revealing who we are we're hiding things we're not opening up

fully we're we have secrets that we're unwilling to share because we feel like other people are going to shame us or not like us. Exactly. I can't tell you how many times I hear from my patients or viewers that they don't feel comfortable telling their friends, close friends, that they're having a hard time. They're like, oh, I don't want them to think I'm attention seeking. I don't want them to think, you know, and we're making those assumptions, right? Like anxiety comes out of either we think we're like reading the magic eight ball into the future or we're focused those assumptions, right? Like anxiety comes out of either we think we're like reading the magic eight ball into the future or we're focused on the past and we can't just be present. And so a lot of people will say, you know, say I can't even tell them when I'm having

a tough time, but we've put ourselves in our own jail with that, right? No one else put that there. We're saying, oh, it's not okay. Yeah. I feel like, you know, I think a lot of people want to help someone. Like if you say like, no, I'm actually kind of struggling with this today, I feel like people want to be a solution, want to be a listening ear, want to be a helping hand if their friend is going through a challenge. I think when you, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think if you're always negative, like, oh, my life is over every day with your friends, that's a drag.

Yes. And you don't want to be always in need of support. I'm assuming. Well, it's not even in need of support. I think it's not taking sage advice, like you're asking for assistance, but you're not accepting of any of it. So you're really not asking. You know what I mean? And I think that's when it becomes like, I call like an emotional vampire or like a toxic relationship where you're just like if you're the person trying to offer that help, it's just like they're taking and taking and you're giving and you're giving and not getting anywhere. It's like being a mentor in business or life. I get a lot of people that ask me to pick my brain or to give them mentorship.

And the worst thing that a mentor can have is someone who wastes their time, who doesn't take action. I'm like, okay, here's the game plan. If this is what you want, go do this for the next 60 days. And then when they don't do it, you're like, why did I waste my time? If I'm prescribing you something to try, whether it works or not, and you don't do it and you keep wanting more advice, it's a time suck. Totally.

And it doesn't benefit either of you, right? Because it's just lip service it's not actually going to turn out to be anything and say someone's feeling really lonely right now whether it's they've been lonely before corona or now it's like they feel even more lonely like what can they do you know three to four things they could do for the next 30 to 90 days to help them discover themselves, to help them become a little less lonely and fall in love with themselves a little more. Yeah, there's a couple of things. First, kind of going back to what we were talking about originally is noticing your thoughts. Because I do believe if we are able to change our thoughts,

we change our life. It's miraculous. And it's very simple, but it's also very difficult. So if they notice those thoughts and track down your top five, okay? Because remember we're saying most of them are repeat thoughts. So those could be things like, I'm not good enough. They're not going to like me. I'm a loser. I don't know. Trust me. We've all had those thoughts. No judgments. Write down your top five. And then I want you to work using bridge statements, I call them, into more positive. Because no one's going to believe. I mean, I'm sorry, but if I think I'm stupid, I can't be like, I'm smart. I'm smart. I'm not going to believe it. Even in my head. I'm just like, that's a lie. That's a lie. There isn't proof to show like if for me,

I thought I've been stupid my whole life because I was always in the bottom of my class with my grades. So I was like, there's no evidence. So it's a lie if I say I'm smart because I don't believe I'm confident enough to feel smart. Yeah, because you're checking your facts, right? And you're like, hey, based on our horrible schooling system. Right, right. I was very street smart, but I didn't calculate that, and I wasn't aware of that. Well, it's not measured, right? Right now, right?

Okay, so bridge statements statements what does that look like it lives in possibility land it's like it's possible like for your example let's say maybe i'm not as dumb as i think i am it's possible that i could have other gifts in other ways that i'm intelligent i'm open to that idea so we're not saying I am or I'm not. We're just like, it's possible I'm not 100% correct on this. And then we just kind of live in that land and start moving a little bit more than the next step would kind of be something like, you know, I do think I have some street smarts. So it's possible that I'm intelligent in that realm. Maybe I'm going to look into that.

You're kind of building your evidence along with these bridge statements into the space of, you know, I'm super smart. Gotcha. Okay, so that's the second step. What's after that? What's the next phase? Then once we've done that kind of work,

I think the letters to yourself is super helpful. I love that you did that. Come on now, Katie. Isn't this super woo-woo-y? the letters to yourself. Super helpful. I love that you did that. Come on now, Katie, isn't this super woo wooey and self-helpy? That's like, there's no science that backs this. No, there is science that backs it. So the, I mean, in as short and simple as a way I can explain it. You know, we always hear that old adage, like you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but you can. Every day our brain is learning. In our hippocampus where memories are formed, it creates these new neurons every day. And those neurons get together with each other to create

memories and learnings, right? So each and every day, whether we recognize it or not, we're learning new things. And instead of taking that opportunity to teach ourselves nasty things, like I'm horrible, I'm stupid, let's take that opportunity to teach ourselves things that are helpful, supportive. Maybe I can get to know myself because I've never taken the opportunity to actually learn about what makes me tick. I've just numbed out and zoomed through life. So what do these letters look like? Is it once a day you're writing a letter? Is it once a week, month? And what is the letter saying? I like to keep it pretty simple so that it's something we can do.

Because I think too often in therapy especially and in the woo-woo land of psychology, the self-help land, it can get too labor intensive and then we don't do it. So I like to keep it to a letter to yourself tomorrow. Because the only person I'm competing with is really myself like yesterday. Oh, yeah. And so if we keep it to that, like, you know, dear, dear self, you know, it could be like today I hope for or I'm grateful for this tomorrow. I hope to. I want you just to keep it in a, you know, 24, 48 hour window of what you are grateful for, what you hope for, and what maybe didn't work out. Again, we don't want to negate the things that aren't good. We

just want to acknowledge them like, hey, I tried this and I still felt bad. So I'm not going to do that one. Tomorrow I'm going to try this. And so it just keeps us kind of moving forward and keeping it short and sweet. Just those like, I'm grateful for, I'm hopeful for things that worked out or didn't work out. You're done. It's kind of like that's why five-minute journals are so popular yeah exactly to keep with that and I would encourage people to try to do this if you can every day awesome but at least every other day just so you're checking in with yourself to see how you're moving along how you're doing and I think that will give you the thing that's cool about journaling is we can go back then and be like, oh my God, me six months ago would never have

thought that I could do this. Or, you know, we lose sight of our own growth and development because we're with ourselves all the time. I know. So I really like this idea of quick, short letters to yourself tomorrow. I'm a big fan of meditation. I was just talking with my buddy Jay Shetty last night about meditation and how we talk about meditation so much in kind of our space. But he was like, but 80% of the world, 90% of the world still doesn't know about meditation and isn't doing it. Even though we hear it and talk about it so much, we think like we're sick of talking about the same thing. But I'm a big fan of meditating because I feel like you can be aware of your thoughts and you can start. And I like to plan the day.

I do it in the morning and I like to think about what do I want to create this day? What's the greatest version of myself today? But I really like the idea of, you know, self-meditating over pen and paper for tomorrow as well by writing a letter to yourself. Because you're setting an intention as well. You're saying this is what I want to start thinking about. When my brain starts saying you're ugly and stupid and worthless, no, I'm going to switch it and here's what we're going to do. So you're just preparing yourself for all the different challenges that may come. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think if we don't prepare ourselves or set ourselves up to win, then we're always going to

be in reaction mode because we haven't trained our mind to win. Is that right? Yeah, 100%. It's like a confirmation bias. Like if I go looking, I'm always talking to my audience about this and my patients, like if I go looking for negativity, if I go looking for a reason to be upset, I'm going to find it. And so we want to make sure that we're looking for reasons to be excited, things that we can do better, reaching the goals or feeling productive that day. Whatever that means for you. Productive might be I laid on the couch and did some self-care, watched some TV, talked to my friends. That's still productive. But I think in a lot of ways, we go searching for bad things and then we're surprised that we find them. Exactly. Is there a next step in this process of loneliness and getting to know yourself?

If you're doing the daily letters for tomorrow, what would you say are the next kind of steps? Yeah, I think the next thing, and this is going to be the hardest for people, and they're probably like, ugh, but I want you to tiptoe into social land in an authentic way. So if we have friends that we already talk with and we think, Hey, they don't know me. You know, I'm still lonely. Even though like I've heard from a lot of people, I can feel super lonely, even though I'm in a crowded room with people that I know. Um, I want you to be more authentic. I challenge you to pick one person that I'll give you like two weeks to do this. One person that you're going to be honest with

about how you're doing or what's going on. And that doesn't mean- Not just say, I'm fine. Everything's good. Don't just repeat the same thing you always say, like, yeah, everything's great. When it's not, when you've got some underlying issue. Totally. Instead, we need to say something to the effect of, yeah, it's been kind of hard. I've been going through a tough time. I mean, right now, especially with the coronavirus and our world feeling like it's turned upside down. It's a, I think it's even more acceptable to be like, yeah, it's been, it's been rough. You know, this, these past few months have been pretty terrible and they,

they would understand, you know, and we're just tiptoeing. We're not sharing a bunch. I don't want you to like what I call like verbal diarrhea. We don't want to share it all at once. We don't want to crap all over someone's face. Yeah, exactly. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I wasn't ready for that. So we just want to start with little things like, Hey, yeah, last week was, was, was kind of bad, but you know, I'm trying again this week. How have you been? You know, we share a little bit, we reflect. So don't spend an hour just, uh, you know, going down the deep end, but open up some. Yeah. Letting them know that it's not all peachy keen all the time. What does that do for you and other people when you open up a little bit? First of all, it allows you to be your

authentic self so that people can slowly get to know you. Not to mention at the same time, you get to know yourself. And then that little bit of vulnerability leaves space for real relationships. And I think that that's why a lot of us are feeling lonely is because we don't really either know ourselves or allow other people to know us. It's hard. It's uncomfortable. And that's why I want you to pick one person, one person that you have, if we check our facts and I always talk about being a detective, maybe it's because I love crime shows, but- You got to pick the right person you trust. Yes.

Because if you share the right information with the wrong person, it could backfire and they're not going to be vulnerable with you. And they're going to shame you or something. And then you're like, I'm never going to tell someone this stuff again. And then you go back to your old place of building walls and mass. You know, I wrote a book a few years ago called the mask ofinity with my own journey. Six, seven years ago I opened up about being

sexually abused as a kid and then went on a journey of just like, wow, lots of men have experienced this. One in six men have been sexually abused, one in four women. And I have a hypothesis from, and I might be completely wrong, but from all the research that I've done, the people I've interviewed, relationships, society, the racial injustice, the prison reform, politics, I have a hypothesis that most of the pain caused is from men who have not learned how to heal trauma and not learned how to fully be vulnerable in their emotions with themselves or with a therapist or with a friend. And a lot of it has to do with the inability and the inexperience and the lack of knowledge of how to for men to do that. And I think as I started to heal myself, I found that I wasn't feeling alone anymore. I found that I was okay with who I am.

I accepted myself and became a lot less triggered and reactive towards things that normally would feel abusive, that would feel taken advantage of to the point where I said, okay, I can think here's what's happening in my mind right now. I feel triggered, but I'm not going to try to fight and dominate and win. I'm going to find a healthy way to resolve this. I'm going to communicate calmer. I'm going to collaborate as opposed to compete. And as I was going on, not to go sidetracked here, but as I was going on my tour for my book, most of the rooms were 50-50 men and women. And I would ask the women in the room, I'd say,

how many of you raise your hand if once a week you get together with girlfriends and you talk about your fears, your vulnerabilities, your insecurities, your relationship, your body issues, and 100% of the women at least once a week. And I go, keep your hands up if you do this every single day with a girlfriend. And most of them are like, yeah, every day for lunch, tea, phone call, whatever. And I say, men in the room, put your hand up once a month. You get together with a couple of buddies or a guy friend and you talk about your vulnerabilities, your insecurities, what you're shameful about, anything about that. Maybe two, three people in the room out of hundreds. And I'd say, are you guys part of a church group that does this once a month structured

so it's a safe place? Most of them are yes. So it's a safe place. Yes. And I go, ladies, imagine if you spent a year and you never shared your feelings and your thoughts and your shame, how would that make you feel? And they're like, wow, I'd be, I'd be a mess. I'd be angry. I'd be moody. I'd be so pissed off. I'd be boiling up stuff inside. And I say, imagine if you spent decades in your entire life where you never shared how you felt. Now, I'm not justifying the harmful actions of men or the racial stuff or the political stuff. I'm not justifying any of these things. But I'm just saying, could you have some empathy and understand that men have been conditioned and shamed to not share their feelings or their emotions. But it's not okay, right?

Like even my papa, who recently passed away at the age of 86, was like stoic, right? Like doesn't really show emotions. Like he's the calm. Never cries. Yeah, he's always calm. Calm. Yep, let's figure this out. We'll figure it out he used

to always you know be the fixer and i think that the whole like boys don't cry and not teaching um i don't know why we do this to be truthful because it's it's just so stupid but i don't know why we don't teach boys emotional intelligence the way we teach women emotional intelligence i mean for growing up because i especially in a modern world it's not a hundred years ago where we're living in the woods or something you know it's like yeah and I like to say I'd like to think that things are changing and shifting a little bit and it'll take time right things can't happen overnight didn't this wasn't created overnight but I do see things kind of shifting in that direction but it's there's a reason that most of my patients in my private practice and even my viewers are female. It's a majority.

Yeah. I mean, I really like what, you know, Michael Phelps is like the spokesperson for as a kind of talk space. And it's like, he's putting himself out there as this elite athlete. And you know, the greatest of all time, Olympians saying like, this is something I do and I recommend it. I think there needs to be more men opening up. It's just so challenging that there's so many models of men who don't talk about it, that are more aggressive maybe in business or life. And they're like, why would I ever talk about my feelings? Yeah. And I think, I mean, we're doing half of our population a disservice.

I think that a lot of it also starts like with children. Like, I think it's, it should be more acceptable and regularly practice for a father to say to a son, you know, what's going on? You seem kind of upset. Did something happen? And talking about it. Yeah, I've had things happen to where I felt sad and it's okay to cry. And, you know, having those conversations instead of like, brush yourself off, get up, boys don't cry, you know, snap to it. Like that kind of tough love. I think we're recognizing now to your point that like, it doesn't bode well for the future. If we're so pent up about how we feel, and feeling like hyper vigilant as a response from constant trauma in our life that we haven't processed, no wonder we lash out at each other online. No wonder people are

fighting in the streets and yelling at each other. I think a lot of the upset we're seeing now isn't really about what they say it's about. Part of it maybe, but a lot of it's just this inability to thoughtfully engage with life, to express how we feel and be okay with it and to have discourse, right? To disagree, but not lose our cool. Yeah. What happens when we store trauma in the body or in the memory and we don't talk about it over years, decades, a lifetime? It festers into a lot of issues, everything from high blood pressure and other health concerns. I'm not a medical doctor, so I won't get into too much of that, but I've been reading, because I'm writing a book about trauma currently, so I'm like knee deep in research of all sorts. So it can manifest physically that way,

but it also comes out as like fly off the handle. We have like no control over our emotions. It feels like we're always reactive, which is something you kind of mentioned, like just being reactive, not responsive. Defensive, reactive, yeah. The hypervigilance, I think, is something that a lot of people don't. Yeah. The hypervigilance I think is something that a lot of people don't recognize. What's hypervigilance? It's like on edge, like really jumpy. Something is like, Oh, what's going on? And instead of just being like, Ooh, like we're scared a little, we can often be reactive. Like when a punch, I'm going to your fight flight response. It's like extreme reactive yes and you're

right on that cusp all day every day which is honestly exhausted your immune system's got to be exhausted yes and i wouldn't be surprised if we don't see more like adrenal fatigue and stuff like that coming out but again not a medical doctor i'm just hypothesizing but also it can you know like the the fatigue i hear from a lot of my patients, how just exhausted they are from being hypervigilant. Imagine being on edge. Not to mention we don't sleep very well. That's one of the first things to go because our dreams can be filled with trauma.

We can actually be re-traumatized in our sleep. In our memory and be scared to sleep. And then we're up all night and then our health and our body is messed up. Yeah. And then addiction comes along with that too. To numb the pain. Yeah. How do we numb out?

How do I just, I need to sleep. How do I make that happen? So how do we heal addiction or how do we end it? I feel like we're all addicted to something. And if we're going to be addicted, we should be addicted to service, giving, love, humanity, those things. But there are so many negative addictions that people build up for certain reasons. How do we end addiction? Is it first healing trauma and loving yourself?

Or what are the steps? Yeah, it's really getting to the root. I talk a lot about like the root of the root. So often we just want to like put a bandaid over a broken leg and it's not going to fix it. It's like, oh, we'll get them into drug treatment, or we just put them in housing, you know, because in LA we have a huge homelessness crisis. And I'm like, no, we have an opioid and addiction problem. And so the real issue is, I think to your point, the amount of trauma and abuse that our children, boys and girls sustain throughout their life and never have any support or coaching on how to properly process it. And so we spend our whole lives feeling like what we're talking about, that hypervigilance on edge, being in fight flight for years when it's supposed to be a short-lived experience, right? I hear a

scary person in the alleyway, I run away. Boom, I'm safe. I shake it off. I'm good. But this is sustained through our life. And I really think the more we get to identify traumas and understand how they're affecting us, and we're given the safe space to talk about them and be validated in it, the better off we'll be. There's something that I'm writing about in my book is like big T's versus little T's when it comes to traumas. Because when we think of trauma, a lot of people think, oh, car crashes, going to war. I mean, shell shocked was from the war. And that's kind of where the PTSD diagnosis came from. So it makes sense that we still think of it that way. But there are so many other little traumas, like having to move a lot as a child and switch schools, being bullied

for a few years even in school. That's a trauma. And these little T's, it's kind of a colleague of mine, Dr. Alexa Altman, she's a trauma specialist, and she describes it best. She talks about like, if you're wading into the ocean and one big wave takes you, oh, you come up, you gasp for air, and you run back out. But imagine if medium waves just keep hitting you. You can't ever get your head above water fully. You're always fighting. That's what all those little traumas are. Could be everything from emotional abuse, having a father or a mother or someone in your life who tells you you're not good enough, who tells you not to cry, who ignores your needs and your pleads for a hug. There's all of these things

that can happen to us over the years that build up. And so I do believe that our addiction problem is really a trauma problem and we haven't fully recognized it or treated it. And we're still using treatments from like the 1950s. It's like there are other treatments out there, but it's not widely available. What's the best treatment to treat addiction and addiction you've had for years, decades, multiple decades? What do you think is the best treatment for healing addiction? I think the first is getting into a treatment center. We know it's so hard. Any stressor can throw you back. Relapses are very common. My specialties in my practice are self-injury and eating disorders. And I like liken those to addiction. They're all coping skills, right? It's what we'd call

a maladaptive, meaning unhealthy coping skill for something bigger, like a trauma, PTSD response. And so if we get people into treatment centers where they get around the clock support and the language to put to what's happened to them, I think a lot of the healing components of therapy are just having language to put to what happened. I can't tell you how healing it is for a lot of my patients to say, yeah, I was assaulted or I was traumatized, which sounds so simple to us, but oftentimes in our head we've said, oh, I made that up. That didn't really happen. I'm not sure. Maybe I'm exaggerating. You know, we just like, suck it up, just move on. Yeah. People have it worse or whatever. Always. Yeah. And it's not pie guys. If one person has it worse, it's not like taking away from your pain. Yeah. And compare,

and even if someone has a trauma that's, you know, they lost their whole family or they've moved a dozen times and someone picked on you for months and it affects you, it's still trauma. It's still going to affect you and you can still talk about it. You shouldn't just say, well, a lot of people have it way worse. And I have a house that I'm living in and I have food and a lot of people don't have that. But I think minimizing your trauma is also something that you need to be aware of, right? Yeah. Yes. 100%. Well, like one of my favorite quotes is comparison is the thief of joy, but I think it's also the thief of pain because if we don't, if we're always looking out someone else, oh, they have it worse or this is going on, then we don't feel like it's okay for us

to be that way. And then, then what, what are we left with? You know? And so back to your question about like treating addiction, I think getting that support, getting the language to put to what happened in therapy, we call it like creating the trauma narrative because that's how our brain like remembers and processes things is through stories. So telling the story of trauma. So how important is it to retell the story? It's very important. The moment or the years of moments. So it's important to share the story with someone else, right? And this is what I did almost seven years ago where I, for the first time in 25 years, actually told the story of being sexually abused from the vivid memory. And it was the scariest thing I ever did.

I did it in like a small group of an emotional intelligence workshop where I felt safe after weeks of being in this group. And it was like my life was over before I shared this. It was like, I'm going to die. No one's going to love me. Everyone's going to laugh at me for the rest of my life. But it was kind of at the point where I was just like, I want to keep going farther and farther and figuring out what's holding me back emotionally and having me so triggered and feeling so abused in my life and taking advantage of where I want to fight all the time. And I was just like,

it's not worth it anymore to feel the pain. And the pain served me in certain ways to get bigger, faster, stronger and be driven, but it left me feeling lonelier and lonelier and unfulfilled, and I just said, okay, I'm going to go here, and I'm going to do it. I remember feeling so scared, and afterwards, I was bawling. It's like I could not control my emotions. I was just like bawling, and I ran out of the room, and I was like, I'm not going back in there because my life is over. That's how it felt for me. And it might feel that for some people. And

I remember, luckily I had a great group of people that came out and hugged me and then they shared their vulnerabilities. They were like, this happened to me when I was 12. This happened to me when I was six or whatever. I was like, what? For the first time, I think a lot of people don't feel like anyone else is experiencing the same trauma. Oh, we always think it's only us. It's only us. I didn't think anyone else had been sexually abused. And I was like, everyone's going to laugh at me in the whole world. It's going to ruin me, my business, everything. And what it did is it built stronger, deeper relationships because people were like, wow, I really trust you now fully. Well, again, that's kind of back to our loneliness. You are your real authentic self. And yes,

vulnerability feels super uncomfortable, right? We're allowing people in a way that they could really damage us, right? That's why it has to be done in a caring, supportive environment. People who we already kind of have evidence to know that they're supportive. It doesn't mean it's going to be easy. Like you said, it was still really difficult yeah but with great vulnerabilities come great it comes great connection and courage and we we find a part of ourselves we maybe didn't even know existed that can go that much farther you know a big believer that the key to success in life is uh relationships and the key to successful relationships is vulnerability. You can't build deep connections with someone at a 70% surface level and not fully diving in. You truly connect

when you know the worst, the shames, the traumas of that person you're in a relationship with. And I believe that the level of connection you have is based on the level of intimacy and vulnerability you both share with each other. Otherwise, it's just going to be, oh, it's a good friend. And I like hanging out with this person, but the depth comes from the vulnerability. 100%. Otherwise, we'll still feel lonely, right? Because then- You could have all the friends in the world and be like, but no one knows me. Yeah. And maybe I don't allow myself to know that deep part, right? I don't know. I don't accept it myself. I don't share with other people. So we still feel alone.

You could be the most popular person in school or in your industry and still feel depressed and lonely. Of course. Yes. 100% true. Isn't that crazy? It is crazy. And I think it's, you know, it's unfortunately what we've just been perpetuating as a society, like put on a happy face and just go out there and like grin and bear it, white knuckle it, all those phrases we use all the time to essentially mean ignore how you really feel, just push through. How you feel doesn't matter. I mean, we even see it in the discrepancy between payment of physical health and mental health when it comes to healthcare in the United States. It's like so much more difficult to get coverage for our mental health. Meanwhile,

our brain runs our entire body. So I don't know who thought that that was going to like, you know, I could really go down a rabbit hole. Our thoughts dictate our life. My next book is about, that I'm still researching on, is about self-confidence and eliminating self-doubt. that I'm still researching on is about self-confidence and eliminating self-doubt. How do we eliminate self-doubt and believe in ourselves if we don't heal the past and if we are constantly feeling depressed, anxious, or stressed? How do we build confidence and eliminate that self-doubt? It's all about those thoughts and those bridge statements and then compiling your evidence. I always talk to my patients and my viewers alike about compiling the evidence to support the goal that you're wanting, right?

So kind of back to that, like what I'm looking for, I'll find. Instead of looking for things that are gonna prove that I'm worthless, I'm not good enough, I could never be that successful or that liked or whatever. And I'm gonna look for things

that prove that I am good enough and that I think maybe I can do this. A lot of us have doubt, and there still will be those periods of time when, oh, I'm writing a new book, and I always am like, who am I to write this? What do I know? And then I'm like, no, I'm doing my best. I'm researching. I'm writing as clear as I can. I'm using stories from my, you know, I have all my evidence, right? So every time that doubt comes back, I pull up that, you know, that big filing cabinet filled with evidence. And I say, no, look, you know, there's this, this, this. So I think starting with those thoughts, building up the evidence, supporting, like supporting the positive thoughts and the good way or what you want to create in your life will just change. It'll get rid of that self doubt.

Yeah. I'm curious about, there's so much to talk about with mental health, but I'm curious about depression because I feel like it's becoming a bigger and bigger topic. More and more people are saying they feel depressed. They are depressed. I know you've had some great content and videos around depression. What would you say are the key signs of depression that we'd be like, okay, no, I am depressed or they are depressed with these four or five or six keys?

Yeah. The first one is when you don't enjoy things you used to. And that's one of the key, like if we're talking diagnostically speaking, when it comes to like how we diagnose and treat all those checkboxes, that's a big one. And so this could be anything from, I used to enjoy listening to music and it just doesn't do it for me anymore. Or I used to enjoy writing. I don't like that anymore. I used to enjoy spending time with my friends. You know, the lists are endless. So just kind of take note of what you maybe used to find joy in. If you don't anymore, that's, you know, recognize that.

Another is that there's been a lot of changes in your diet. Like, am I overly hungry or not hungry enough? Like changes in appetite. That's kind of important. Also changes in sleep. I know I kind of talked about that with regard to like trauma, but this also applies to depression. Am I wanting to sleep all day? Am I not able to sleep at all?

You know, those are things that are important to notice if there's been changes, if it's not normal for you, we need to start tracking that. And one that I think is really overlooked a lot is struggle with concentration. People who are depressed, like, you know, you have your book, you're reading, rereading, rereading over and over these two pages, and you're like, I have no idea what I just read. You know, keeping those things in check, I think is a good place to start. Obviously, there's the things like body aches. A lot of times if we go to the doctor, we think we're sick and we're not. We call those psychosomatic symptoms, which is like how our body is showing our mental illness, which we talked about kind of PTSD. You can be like jumpy or I can get like sweaty and just like stressed out

feeling when, and big crowds or something. Our body expresses what our mind maybe can't easily express. Interesting. Yeah. So if we're not expressing how we feel, our body will manifest it. Yes.

Potentially. Potentially. That's why trauma untreated can lead to like high blood pressure. I have a lot of people struggle with binge eating as a result. Again, it's like a numb out, you know? So is depression a choice or is depression a disease? It's a mental illness. I like to call it like an illness because we talk about like physical health versus physical illness. We can talk about mental health versus mental illness. I call depression akin to like catching a cold, you know?

Interesting. We're not taking care of ourselves. Oh, okay. Is it a gene that you're born with? Is it part of the brain makeup? Or is it something that you can get and then you can also heal? We can be more predisposed. If we have someone in our family who suffered from depression, primarily like our, our mother, father, you know, grandparents,

someone close, it increases our risk. So let's say our regular risk is 9% or 4% or something. It makes it like 15% or sometimes 25%. The risk of catching depression or? Yes. Yeah. Of like having that mental illness show itself. But we know through research that it's not just the genetics. It's like not nature versus nurture. It's both. So if we have those genes, we have a triggering event. And so you might have, you know, a home life growing up that nurtured, I guess, catching depression

or being around people that are depressed and you kind of catching that cycle and system. But it also sounds like what I'm hearing you say is that our thoughts can break that cycle and depression is in the mind. Is that what I'm hearing? It's in the mind. It's a ruminating of thoughts, a negative thought process, a cycle, a loop pattern that you feel stuck in.

You can't get out. Yeah. Yes. So how do we get out and end depression? I mean, a lot of it is taking, I call it like opposite action, which is a part of a form of therapy called dialectical behavior therapy. And opposite action is like when I want to stay in bed and do nothing and feel bad about myself, I'm going to get up, I'm going to shower. I'm going to go talk to somebody. I do what I don't want to do. Exactly. If I want to throw myself

a pity party and feel all the bad feelings and just think terribly about myself, instead, I'm going to talk about positive things. I'm going to get together with someone and I'm going to, you know, focus on other. So I think opposite action goes a long way. I also tell my viewers all the time, I'm like, a shower can change your life. So just cleaning yourself and just feeling like some, listening to some music, it can be like, oh, I feel like a new person putting on some nice clothes and like walking out in the sun. Yep. Vitamin D is important. Getting sun on your face can change your mood. Yeah. Not eating sugar,

which causes like such spikes in your blood sugar, blood levels. And then just makes you feel a crash. Totally feel like crap after, right? Good for a minute, terrible after. So yeah,

just kind of to build on what DBT or dialectical behavior therapy talks about is like taking care of your basic needs. So I always talk about halt, which is like, don't do anything until you, are you hungry? Are you angry? Are you lonely?

Or are you tired? Check in with those things. How are you doing? And there's, you can go on like the DBT. They also talk about like, did you take your medication? You know,

have you, have you physical illnesses? Yeah. Just, just checking in with yourself. I think so often we ignore what signs and symptoms our body has been showing us. Like, you know right have you every physical illnesses yeah just just checking in with yourself i think so often we ignore what signs and symptoms our body has been showing us like are we ignoring that we're hungry and that's why we're feeling really agitated you know hangry is a word for a

reason it exists and that they have low blood sugar um so when i mean i know that it's i'm kind of laughing about it but depression is is serious. And I think the more that we recognize our own symptoms and when those symptoms are happening and taking opposite action, tracking those thoughts, you know, using those bridge statements to move them into a more positive place, speaking openly with a professional or even just a friend or supportive person about what's going on. All of that is, is really powerful. And I always tell people, if anybody out there is really struggling and you feel like it's just not getting better, I hope that this can at least be the little spark of hope that can maybe, you know, start that little fire to let you know, it'll get better.

It just takes work. I think it's, it can be really challenging. And there's, there's many years of my life where I've been in a black hole for weeks and months. And it's hard for me to admit that, especially as someone who's so driven and positive and on this journey of personal growth. even college. I remember I went through a breakup with a girl in high school and I went on to college and I was like just in my room in the fetal position for what felt like months, like at night, feeling so alone, feeling so like my life is over unless I'm in this relationship or whatever my feel. I'm longing for this intimacy, this connection, this person. And you can really create some horrible thoughts about doing bad things to yourself, about not being deserving of love and being like, what's the point of my life? I've spiraled. Never to the point of wanting to commit suicide or wanting to really hurt myself. I've never gotten to that point, but I've thought about the thoughts, which just scares me to think about that. One experience can make us go down a

black hole of pain and suffering that's hard to get out. And I just remember being like, no one understands me. No one gets me. And I wasn't doing the opposite thing. I wasn't reaching out. I wasn't finding therapy. I wasn't telling a friend. I wasn't reaching out. I wasn't finding therapy. I wasn't telling a friend. I wasn't telling family. I was just suffering alone. And I think it's really hard when you're in that black hole of depression to reach out. It's extremely challenging. And that's why I think therapy is such a powerful component of life that it's almost like having a doctor, family doctor, where you go to once a year, a year for checkup like just having a family therapist that you can be once a year even and just say hey i just want to talk about everything that's happened this year that

way you know you can go to someone that you feel comfortable with when you are in an anxious or stressed place i think it's extremely important to have or having something like talk space where you could do it virtually on the phone but But that's why I love therapy for people and myself when I really need it. Yeah, same here. I mean, I've been in therapy off and on since I was 15. And I just, I mean, I'm 36 now. So for most of, you know, majority of my life, I've been in therapy. And there's no shame around that.

I think having someone to check in with is really important. And you are right when we're feeling down and out, super depressed, the idea of doing anything is impossible. It's impossible. You're like, I have no energy to even call someone, nor do I want someone to see me like this. Yeah, exactly. Because the shame, right? The embarrassment of it. And I think that's kind of opposite action does work. And if we can muster up even just the strength to shower, that's all it asks of you, right? It's just eat something and take a shower. And then... I'm such a believer in this. I love that you call it opposite action because in my teens and 20s, as I was just unhappy with myself on these feelings and I wasn't sure what

I was doing, I just created challenge after challenge for myself. All my biggest fears, I wrote a list of them. I was afraid to talk to girls when I was like 15. what I was doing. I just created challenge after challenge for myself. All my biggest fears, I wrote a list of them. I was afraid to talk to girls when I was like 15. So I was like, okay, every day I'm going to do, I usually run away from girls. I'm going to run towards them, even if it feels like I'm going to die, and just start a conversation.

And then you feel comfortable. You don't feel scared after three months of doing it. The same thing with every one of my fears, public speaking. I was like, I will kill myself if I have to stand in front of five people because I'm so embarrassed and humiliated. And I was like, that's why I need to do it every single week. I'm going to show up and embarrass myself until I feel confident. And we should all be exposure therapy. Like you created your own. I love it. Yeah. What is exposure therapy? What is that? So exposure therapy is when we have, it's usually applied to like people with OCD or anxiety and

OCD is obsessive compulsive disorder. And so when we have these anxiety disorders, we can feel like I'm going to die. I'm going to have a heart attack. I'm going to pass out if I do X, Y, Z. And so we slowly stop engaging in those things and build up these huge walls around ourselves so our life can feel so limited, right? I can't do all of these things because it's too scary. And so kind of to my point earlier about like gathering your evidence, exposure therapy allows you to slowly engage with the scary thing, proving to yourself and those false thoughts that it's actually not that terrible. That like, I'm going to talk to a girl. I'm not going to die. Yeah.

I'll be okay. If she does reject me, it's all good. I'll make a fun experiment out of it. It'll be a story. It's finding something else that makes it enjoyable and it's not the scary thing. Exactly. Stress, trauma, anxiety, depression. It feels like people are having a lot of that these days.

Like this minor depression. It seems like a lot of people are having that these days, like this minor depression. It seems like a lot of people are having that. It's like situational depression. Right. Exactly. What is the difference between minor suffering and depression? And is it okay to be bummed out from time to time? When does it get the crossover to like, oh, now you're depressed? Yeah. Of course, it's okay to feel bummed out from time to time. That's just being human. That's the human condition. Sometimes life can feel terrible. Diagnostically speaking, and I'm not a huge fan, just to throw it out there, of our diagnostic manuals. I feel like

it's like trying to put square pegs in round holes. It doesn't always work. But I do believe in one portion of every diagnostic criteria is, does it impair your level of functioning? And what that really means is, can I not do what I need or want to do every day because of this thing? So, okay, so I'm stressed out or feeling overwhelmed, but I'm still, I'm getting up. I'm on, I'm at work or I'm on my Zoom calls for work in time. I talk to my loved ones. I still make dinner. You know, I do the basic things that I need to do. If I'm not able to, that's when I believe it rolls into more of a stress or just a difficult period to a mental illness. Because we talk about like depression, you have to have depressive symptoms

for most days for at least two weeks. Or like generalized anxiety disorder says that you have to feel anxious for most days for like six months. So there's all these different criteria. Um, and that's why I just, I really think it's more about functioning. If I can't do what I need to do, something's wrong. You know, if I, we think of physical health, comparing it to that, if I'm so sick that I can't get to work, I don't, I don't feel good. I have a headache. Maybe I'm throwing up. I need to see somebody. I need to go see a doctor. Something's wrong, yeah. I guess it's different for everyone.

But what's the speed in which someone can have a mental illness, depression, or some other mental illness and heal themselves? I'm assuming it's dependent on the case and how much work they're willing to do and all these things. But can you heal depression or mental illness in a couple of weeks? but can you heal depression or mental illness in a couple of weeks? Or if you've been feeling trapped and suffering for years, does it take a lot longer in your experience? It depends on how long you've been suffering. Kind of going back to what I spoke on briefly about neuroplasticity, like learning new things, the fact that our brain grows and changes.

I don't know if this will make sense. Let me know if it's like not clear, but I like to describe patterns of behavior in our life saying like I had a day so then I ruin the rest of my day because I allow myself to wallow okay right the morning was bad so the rest of the day is bad yes it's like our brain is a balloon filled with sand and those actions those thoughts to actions are rolling marbles between them and it creates these big ruts and so when we go to change that that marbles gonna is gonna want to go in that rut it knows that rut it's comfortable in that rut it wants to pull us back in and we're gonna fight to keep it out and so at the beginning people always say why is it so hard at the

beginning because we have all those ruts that we know we hate those r ruts, but they're comfortable. Our brain is used to it. It loves routine and patterns. It's like, hey, when we have this thing, we go right over here. I know how that works. And we're like, no, no, I don't want you to do that anymore. I want you to come this way. And so. Yeah. And you might be surrounded by people that love misery because misery loves company. So it's like you're, you have to change the conversations with your close friends. If they keep you in the rut or if they support the rut, you need to ask them, hey, don't let me say these things, right? Totally. And I don't know if you've experienced this, but in my life as I've tried to better myself, sometimes those relationships fade out because they really only fed off. Absolutely, which makes you feel more lonely because you're

like, all my friends leave me or I leave all my friends. This is what I felt after college. I was like, I was going off and chasing dreams and doing different things and trying. I felt like, not all, but a lot of my college friends were like, they kind of stayed in the same place. And they stopped. I would reach out to them, but they wouldn't reach back out to me. And I was like, always frustrated. And I later realized like, I was just out chasing something and trying to evolve myself and it scared a lot of them or they weren't familiar or they didn't feel confident with themselves because of the reflection in me or whatever yeah the comparison that they had of you know their own issues right it held them back you should be losing friends or evolving with your friends every year. Agreed. I always like to say we're like snakes. We should shed past skins of ourselves. You know?

And in my first book that came out a couple years ago, I talk about how I'd like to think that if I walk down the street, like people from, let's say, my childhood wouldn't recognize me anymore because I'm so different. Your energy is so different. You might look similar, but your energy just is like, Oh, there's something that, Oh, what have you been up to? Yeah, exactly. So if the longer we've been behaving in ways that aren't helpful for us, the harder it can be to get them out of those ruts. But I mean, I've seen people, it's all about motivation, right? If I'm really motivated for change, like it sounds like you were super motivated for change. I believe truthfully in a month, we can make a huge dent in how we experience life and what we do if we're motivated. So like if we're feeling super depressed

and we're doing opposite action every chance we get. All day, every minute. Yep. And we're just fighting it. And yeah, we might still feel terrible, but we're making appointments. Maybe I'm looking into medication because I still feel bad, but I want to do it. So I make an appointment with a psychiatrist. You know, I'm doing all the things I believe will get out much more quickly. But it's also, I always tell my audience, the process, not perfection. Don't think one setback means that you're back at the beginning. You haven't lost all of that learning and that rut that you're trying to cover over,

right? Fill back up with sand. It's still halfway filled up. Yeah. And it might take you a couple of years until that habit is fully formed of not going back to a depressed state of mind that cripples you for weeks. You might just feel moments, but you have your tools, your skills to just go back onto that, what you want. How important is developing a vision around a new identity for who you want to become? So say I feel depressed, I eat like crap, I'm lazy because I have a mental illness, I can't function, I can't focus. How important is it to say, okay, I'm going to kill this identity and I'm going to become a positive person who focuses on fitness and focuses on whatever. Like is shaping an identity of what you want to become a thing in therapy or not? It can be. It depends on what

motivates you. That can help because it can help us to see almost like we're talking about the journaling, right? Like who am I today that's better than yesterday and who do I want to become tomorrow that's better than today? So that can give us some structure to that. And I think for people who are visual learners or visual motivators, that can really help because you can imagine this version of yourself and that can be exciting. So I think that that can work for a lot of people. For other people, you know. Like a vision board or something of like, here's the type of lifestyle when I have, here's the way my body, I want it to look and then we can see it every day of like working towards something. Yes. And that can really help for other people. It can be, you know, it cannot be as positive or motivating. It kind of depends on the person. So if it doesn't work

for you, don't think that, you know, it has to work for everybody. But yeah, I think that can be really beneficial. For sure. There's so many things we could talk about around this subject. I want to ask a little bit about relationships because I think, again, the key to success in life, I believe, is relationships and having quality relationships. And it doesn't matter how much money you have, how much success you have, how healthy you are if you don't feel connected to someone's and if you don't fit in my opinion. And it seems like a lot of people are going through stress in their relationship during this last four months of coronavirus. I'm seeing a lot of big personalities talking about divorce and splitting up and breakup. I'm hearing, I don't

know the stats, but I'm hearing that domestic violence is up more than ever right now. What are some things we can do during a time of isolation to create better boundaries and healthier relationships in general with our loved ones? Yeah, there's so much to unpack here too, because I do agree with you really briefly that relationships and connection are really important to our overall health and mental health. And to the level of depression or mental illness we have. If we don't have quality relationships, we feel more susceptible to mental illness. Yes. They've talked, people can, if they really want to dig deep in the science world, you can look up Dr. Stephen

Porges, P-O-R-G-E-S, and a polyvagal theory. And to kind of take neuroscience speak and try to make it make sense, is that we find through social connection, our system can both be calmed while also being engaged. And that is actually the best solution slash antidote for our stress response, meaning our fight, flight, freeze, which I think a lot of us are in right now because of the coronavirus. It's a threat, right? Our brain is thought it out. It's like, that's a threat to my life, people that I love's life. So I'm in fight, flight, freeze. And connection is actually what helps that, helps us feel better. And I think that applies to a lot of parts of our life where we can feel, like you said, the trauma response,

it can calm us. It actually makes us feel safer, more relaxed. Yes. Yeah. Because we're in it together and that togetherness is super, super powerful. And so, so just keeping that in mind. And then I think during this time, boundaries are, they're always important, but even more so now because a lot of us are sharing space that we didn't have to share 24-7 maybe. And I think people think of boundaries as aggressive or, I don't know, kind of too intense. Like by me saying, I won't allow that behavior, you know, we think of it as like sassy or aggressive or rude, like it's going to put someone out. or aggressive or rude, like it's going to put someone out. I think instead we have to consider boundaries as ways that are acceptable for me to allow people to treat me and for me to treat others. Okay. What do I think is okay? And I don't think enough of us spend time considering what

that is. What am I okay with or what am I not okay with our body already tells us if we've ever had anybody overshare information and we go oh makes me uncomfortable you know or someone that we don't know touch us in a way that we're you know as a woman that happens all the time someone I don't know put their hand on my back and I'm like I don't know you what are you doing um kind of creeps me out so I'll make sure I don't hug you in person. Well, now I've met you. It's okay. But you know, like in a crowded restaurant or something. Sure, sure.

I'm like, I don't like that. So there's these things that our body tells us. It's not okay. That's uncomfortable. And those are all signs of boundaries that we already have. We just haven't acknowledged them. And so when it comes to us being stuck at home, I think we have to increase our communication around,

and I would frame it as what makes me comfortable and what doesn't make me comfortable. And so it's okay to say to your spouse or your, your child, you know, cause we could all be sharing all of the space. Hey, from 10 AM to 11 AM, I just need some alone time. I'm telling you because it's just hard for me if I don't get that time. Do you understand? You know, you can ask, and that might sound condescending, so you can say, do you get it? Like, you probably feel that way too. We can kind of, you know, and we can set that boundary. So we have to have a communication about it.

Then the tricky thing is upholding it. So it's when someone tries to walk over it and invades let's say i'm sitting in my office between 10 and 11 trying to get my stuff done on my own then i can someone comes in let's say my husband comes in i'm like hey i love you just remember i told you i need this alone time it's not about you it's just about me i just need this space so i'll talk to you at 1101 cool right right you know and if they try to throw guilt, like, no, how dare, you know, we live in this space. I need to talk to you. People will push, you know, you got to create boundaries. Otherwise you're going to feel like resentful

and walked all over and invalidated. Right. And so it's just important we continue those communications and you can just validate them. Yes. I know this is difficult. It's a change, right? I get it. Things are weird right now. But this is just what I need. Okay. You know, we just keep asserting you, you, you know, you got to stand up for yourself. You got to do that. It's really hard. It's a new muscle, especially if someone reacts and gets emotional or upset or hurt or offended. You got to find, you got to make sure you respect yourself first. Yeah. And I encourage people to not apologize. Yeah, I know.

Someone gets offended, that's not your fault. That's their response or reaction. So tough. It's really hard. Oh, trust me, I'm totally on the train. And it's a constant thing I'm talking about in therapy. Yeah. What are the three questions everyone should ask their intimate partner every day or week

to continue to improve the quality of the relationship? I mean, if you're setting aside time to communicate, hopefully, maybe over dinner or something, you can say, you know, how have things been today or this week or whatever, just checking in, leaving room for conversation, and then sharing your own vulnerable, like what's really going on for you, you can set the stage that way. Then the second would be because I even do this with my husband, I always ask, like, do you feel connected to me, like we're making time for one another um and turning off work or being a parent um because a lot of times people talk about like cheating on your

partner or spouse when it comes to like being with someone else but a lot of us cheat on them with being a parent like with the kids i only you know spend time with the children or only do those things or i only work we can cheat on our partners with our career so checking in do you feel really connected like am I making enough time for you are there ways that we can make more space and time and then I think the last is just like how can I be better I ask my husband that all the time too like are there things that I could do better am I not am I not checking in on you enough like I love the five love languages if anybody doesn't know what that is I'm a huge supporter of it like do you need more physical touch do you need more words of affirmation are there shared activities we can do that

like expressed you how important you are do I need to buy a gift because some people love gifts as love languages so yeah I mean there's so many things you could say but I think it's just making that opportunity that time yeah you're the mouth those are great three questions you could ask for sure. That would at least set you up for success, continued success, if you're communicating what you need and if you're listening and if you're taking action on those needs. What do you feel like is the, you know, with all the breakups happening,

or it seems like a lot of breakups are happening, and, you know, I have friends who have lost parents, who have lost pets, who have gone through break, just heartache, broken hearts. What do you think is the best medicine for a broken heart? Support. Because I think too often we think of grief as only happening when someone passes away, but it happens all the time.

Relationships especially, we have to grieve the loss of the dream of what we thought it was going to be. Because if we were the one that got left or broken up with, we could have thought that they were the one. We could have thought. We had a story forever. Yeah. Yes. And so we need to grieve that, the difference between what's happening and what, you know, what we thought would happen. And then reaching out and getting extra support is really the best. Again, we want to off, like, allow the other people in our lives to still talk to about their issues. We don't want to make it all about us, but it's okay to say like, yeah,

I'm still having a tough time and I really miss them. And I find most of my patients who are grieving in any form sometimes just want someone else to be there. So that's something you could offer to a friend. Hey, I'll pick up, you know, some takeout and I'll just come and sit and we'll just watch Netflix or something. I think that that that's really helpful and kind of back to our discussion about depression is if you have a friend that you can ask to just be there for you um i think that that's what a lot of people need is just i don't need you to fix anything i don't need you to even maybe listen to what's going on i just might need someone with me just hang out yeah Yeah, exactly.

Seems like there's a lot of pain in the world right now. Yeah. I, unfortunately, yeah, I think there always is, but I think as long as we're acknowledging it, talking about it and offering resources, you know, it can get better. Everything gets better. And I, you know, with all the heartache out there, there's a grieving process and time that you should definitely just be in the grief. And then I think Tony Robbins is the one who said, make every moment a situation that's an experience that's happening for you, not to you. So it's like, I'm going through this divorce that I had this story in my mind. This person was the one I've invested so much time and energy. This isn't happening to me. It's happening for me because something greater. It's kind of like what you talked about with a bridge statement. Okay. Well,

I don't see the evidence of what's going to happen, but I can see other things unlocking potentially and creating like this for me experience as opposed to to me. And everything's falling apart. It happened to me and I'm a victim as opposed to to me and you know i love that everything's falling apart it happened to me and i'm a victim as opposed to this this is sad and this is hurtful and this hurts but it's happening for me and repeating it like yeah there's going to be a reason in the near future it's going to show me why this is happening for me i think that really helps us get out of that negative cycle as well totally because being a victim takes away all our power right all the power if it's happening to me, then I have no control over.

Zero control. And that's just such a helpless position to be in. And nobody wants to be in that. How do we get in control in general? Not when something horrible happens, but how do we gain control when we feel out of control? Because we can't go to the store. We can't see our friends. We can't work.

We can't whatever. How do we gain a sense of control back? You have to take action where you can. I think so often we focus on what we can't do. And again, it's like, you know, shifting that focus to look for evidence of the contrary. So it's like, what can I do? Especially with the coronavirus, I've been talking about this a lot with people is like, does it help? And this might sound silly to some, but helpful to others. Does it help if I like wipe everything down in my house and clean things makes me feel a little safer. I feel better.

Okay. Do that. That's why people were organizing and cleaning. Like at the beginning, it helped us feel like, you know, we can take action. And control. Here's something I can do. I can control my space. Yeah.

Yes. Um, and so that, you know, that could be like setting up zoom hangouts with friends and, and finding other ways that we can get our needs met in this new, I hate that they call it the new normal, but for, for lack of a better phrasing, the new normal. Um, so, you know, what can we do for that? And that could be, there's all sorts of things. Like I used to go to yoga and my yoga studio. And so I'm doing it at the, at the house. I've made a little space. I set up my laptop with my streaming, you know, so find ways to still get your needs met and to take the action that you used

to take. Um, and also if you're just feeling really overwhelmed, stressed out on edge, just icky, shake it out. We know that shaking it's all that energy, all that stress is like caught up in our system.

It readied us for action. Move your body. Yes. So like walk, run, jump. Yep. It really box, whatever. I even just shake like one of those little blow up balloon guys by the car dealers, you know, it goes down and shake, shake, shake. I'm a maniac. And. And you'll feel better. It's really interesting. It just helps regulate our system, help us feel calmer. Yeah. This has been powerful, Katie. I've got a couple final questions for you, but I want to make sure people check out your –

you've got a YouTube channel, Katie Morton. You're also on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, everything, katiemorton.com. You've got a book, Are You Okay? Make sure you guys check that out, A Guide to Caring for Your Mental Health. And I just launched a podcast too, actually. We did. Yeah, it's called Ask Katie Anything,

and it's just me answering mental health questions. Ooh, I like that. That's powerful. Yeah. So if you guys want to check that out, go subscribe. A couple final questions for you. This is called The Three Truths. Okay.

So imagine it's your last day on earth many years away from now. You've accomplished everything you've dreamed of. You've had amazing relationships. You've done it all. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your content with you from written to video to audio, and no one has access to your information anymore. But you get to leave behind three things you know to be true

about your life and your experiences in life, kind of the three lessons you would share with the world. And this is all we would have to remember you by. Wow. I call it the three truths. What would you say are your three truths? My three truths are it can get better. I feel like that's a message that I've always tried to get across to people,

that you're never alone. Like me being a therapist, this is not like a message that I've always tried to get across to people that you're never alone Like me being a therapist. This is not like a path that people take I would never have thought that this could be a thing I never thought people would want to watch my content or that it would turn into anything But you know when you put good out there people will come you'll find your tribe people that you know You maybe never had connection to you're able to connect so just know that you're you're never alone the last would be i don't know something about like like just focusing on the love i think so often it's easy to focus on the hate but i hope that i've created like a community and a feeling of the fact that that you can be positive you can spread love and not hate and it's's, and it's a really, really powerful emotion and a powerful action for good. We all know there can be some nasty

things, but he's got to focus on the love. There's nasty stuff. You know, it's hard to hate up close. So yeah. Well, I want to acknowledge you Katie for a moment before I ask you the final question. And I want to acknowledge you for, you know, working so hard to treat people and support people one-on-one in your practice, but also to take more and extra time to create meaningful, valuable content for the world to learn how to heal, to learn how to manage depression and stress and mental illness. You know, we need more people like you who are willing to put themselves out there and create useful, helpful content. So I really acknowledge you for the gift you are and the value and the love you bring to so many of us. And I'm excited to learn more and get to connect in person soon. Yeah. Thank you.

Of course. And my final question for you is what is your definition of greatness? Oh, my definition of greatness is even if you fall down, you don't stay down for long. You just get up, dust yourself off, no judgments, move forward. I feel like that's just what it is. We always think, I always think people think of success or greatness as being like this A to B to C to D. And I'm like, no, it's more like, you know, but you just keep going.

You challenge yourself to do better tomorrow. That's it. Katie, I appreciate you so much. Thank you for being here. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Thank you so, so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, make sure to share it because sharing is caring. Listening is caring, but you definitely have the ability to transform and improve someone's life today by just sending them a copy of this link of this episode. LewisHowes.com slash 989 or just copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to it over on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or anywhere else online. Again, if you share it out, you have the ability to transform someone's life.

Make sure to subscribe over on Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star rating and review as we really love seeing those reviews. They help me make this show better. They help spread the message to even more people over on that platform. And if you want inspirational messages from me every single week, text it to your phone, then text the word podcast to 614-350-3960 to get motivational and inspirational messages right from me to your phone every week. And I want to leave you with this quote from Susan Ertz, who said, Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I'm so grateful for you because you are an incredible gift in this world.

You are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.