The Uneducated PT Podcast - #38 Gin Lalli - A Therapist That Doesn't Need To Hear Your Problems

Episode Date: July 4, 2024

In this episode of the Uneducated Pt Podcast we speak to write and therapist of the the Stress Bucket Gin Lalli. We touch on social anxiety, social connection, external validation through social media and much more. This is a great conversation and Gin gives a ton of value you can take and implement in your own life.Gins website

Hello and welcome to the uneducated PT podcast with me, your host, Carlo Rourke. The goal of this podcast is to bring on interest and knowledgeable people from all walks of life, learn a little something from each conversation and for you, the listener, just learn something from each episode. So don't forget to subscribe to the channel, press the box below, show some support and I'll see you on the next episode. You say that you're a therapist who doesn't need to hear your problems. What do you mean by that and what is solution-focused therapy?

What I mean by that, it sounds strange, doesn't it? Like, I don't need to hear problems. So traditionally therapy is thought of is a place you go and you're going to offload all your problems and you're going to talk about your problems of the past. And once you unpick all of this and once you find what the problem is, you're going to feel a whole lot better. And I'm not dissing that. Okay.

There is a place for that if people want to do it. However, in my experience, there's a lot of people that get put off therapy because they don't want to do that. because they've gone on they've thought about that so much themselves they know what the problem is they just want to feel better so solution focus therapy is a therapy so it's a talking therapy yes we talk but i don't need to talk about your past i want to talk about where you are now and where you want to be going forward you have a story i appreciate that there is a story there's something that's got you here sometimes in a first phone call i will get the gist of that

but when it actually comes to therapy, you don't need to unpick that. So where that comes from is the brain is not like an engine, right, or something logical like that. So with an engine, you go in, you find the problem, you fix it, you come back out, you don't. The brain doesn't work like that. And that's what I'm really surprised people aren't understanding. Like, why would you keep reliving problems you've had in the past, going over it, trying to find blame, trying to put something into it where and often it's something that's happened in childhood you know or or teenage years i mean who wasn't a horrible teenager you know what i mean like it was awful puberty's horrible but you know you're now an adult you can't keep holding on to that that happened to you and let that

dictate your future and i think with my clients i hope that i can speak for them they feel so free when they realize you don't have to do that i want you to feel better and actually once you feel better you can then look at your past in a much more objective way. So that's why I strongly believe you don't need to start going over your problems and problems and problems of your past and where you are to make yourself feel better. Because I don't know about you, Carl, but for me, I'd feel worse when I start thinking about problems of the past and what's happened. Yes, it's happened. It's there. I know what happened. I'm a grown up now. I know where it happened. but it's time to move on. It's time to move on.

Yeah, it's so funny because the last guest that I had on here is names Brad and he literally was speaking about his childhood and how he did therapy for years, but he had to leave because they just kept on bringing it back to his past and he said he'd already done that work and it wasn't helping him going forward. Yeah, it doesn't help. So what you need to understand about the mind is really important to remember this. This is really important.

your mind does not know the difference between imagination and reality. We know this. You've probably heard people say that. But the imagination is really powerful, right? So you watch a horror film. Okay, when you watch a horror film, what's happening? Your heart's racing and you're getting scared. Right, it's on the screen.

Nothing's going to hurt you. But it's our imagination is so powerful. So if you had, let's say, a road traffic accident 10 years ago, and that has stopped you driving and it's not your confidence. If you are going to keep going over that road traffic accident again and again and again, you've not had that accident once, you've had it a hundred times. So your brain quite rightly will say, oh, don't get in a car again. You've had 100 accidents.

If you'd had 100 accidents, you wouldn't get in a car again. But in reality, you've had it once. in your imagination you relived it 99 times. So now you've had it 100 times. Yeah. So you just keep suffering until you get through that. So here's my next question then. So in a solution focus therapy,

how do you get someone from someone who, let's say, is just continuing to relive their path or relive their trauma or whatever it is to move forward? How do you get them to that stage? Okay. The very first question I will ask you is this in a session. Hi Carl, how you doing? You're looking very well. Tell me what's been good this week. Tell me what's been good. You must have some good. You must have something good going on in your life. So what we're trying to do is if you imagine like your life is like a fried egg, the yolk, you've made the yolk massive. The yolk is the problem. So that's your trauma. Now you can try and break down that yolk. You can try and make it smaller. What we do in solution focus work, is we make the white of the egg a lot bigger around it.

We're like, no, but there must be some good stuff. Let's take your attention away from the yolk part of the egg. And let's take it to the white of the egg. What have been the good things about your week? What's been good? So we start with that. That's the first question. We talk a lot about how the brain works

because I strongly believe knowledge is power. I think you agree with me on that. I've seen some of your Instagram videos. So knowledge is power. We talk about how the brain works. This is all science. And then when we really get into the nitty gritty of trying to work out solution focus questioning, we start talking like this.

If you were feeling 10% better tomorrow, just 10%, not 100%, if you were feeling 10% better tomorrow, what difference would that make to your life tomorrow, to your day tomorrow? What would you be doing differently? And people say, oh, I'll probably wake up with a bit more energy. Okay, so if you had more energy, what would you be doing? And what we build up is what we call a doing picture. You build up a picture with detail of what you might be doing if you had a bit more energy tomorrow.

Now, once again, if your mind does not know the difference between imagination reality, it thinks that's already happened. So you've gone for, maybe you've gone for a little run. You know, you like to run and you've gone for a little run. And I'll always ask people, would you be pleased if that happened? Would that be good? They'd be like, oh yeah, that'd be brilliant. And you can see someone's whole body language change.

Because now we're focusing on something small in the future. And actually that when I ask people like on an initial call, like so, okay, so you've told me about the problems. So what's the goal here? What is it that you want? If I had a magic wand and you didn't have this problem of anxiety or depression, if you didn't have this problem, what would your life be like? And every time I ask that question, Carl, there's a pause.

because no one's ever thought of that before. And part of it breaks my heart. I'm like, have you never thought about what you is you actually want here? Because you've been thinking about what you don't want. Yeah. But you've not really focused on what you do want. And again, your brain doesn't work like that. So if I said to you now, don't think about a green buff.

What are you thinking about? A green bus. But I said don't think about it. Yeah. So if you say to yourself, I don't want to be anxious, I don't want to be depressed, what are you thinking about, anxiety and depression? Whereas if you start thinking about, well, I want to feel calm. And if I was calm, I'd be, you know, looking after my family better and I'd be eating better and I'd be doing my fitness better and I'd be motivated to do that. Right.

Now your brain's on a trajectory. So this is neuroscience. This is what it is. I strongly feel with overcomplicated mental health. And once you get them almost thinking on a more positive light, then that kind of drives them into the actions of doing things, whether that's having a shower, you know,

going out and doing daily tasks, maybe going out for a run. And then it's going to have a ripple effect or a trend and upwards effect. That's right. That's right. We start small, you know, we start with those small steps going forward.

You know, we're not going to, because it's really daunting, isn't it? You know that. If you're going to overhaul your diet, you're not going to start with, right, absolutely everything. You're going to start right. Okay, let's increase your water. Let's, you know, let's have a little bit more fruit today or some veg, try a new veg this week. So we do that in small steps going forward. And then that once we pick up momentum, the changes are massive. Do you, do you find that a lot of the clients that you have, because you have to start out small with them, it's even harder for them. Because of what I, seen with people that I work with just even in terms of their health and fitness goals, it's difficult for them to start off small because they want to have this kind of all or nothing approach with their training. And for you to get them to pick out even little small wins or positive things in their life, can that be difficult for them to find or for them

to feel silly for picking them things out? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So it feels silly, doesn't it? So you've come to me with full-blown anxiety, generalise anxiety. disorder and I'm asking you what's been good about your week and I'm asking you to give me these little things yeah and the reason for that is again how the brain works so when our stress levels go up your brain goes into fight or flight or freeze freeze being you're in the cave in your metaphorical cave and you're not going to come out because there's danger out there so what you have to do is you have to coax someone out of their cave you have to coax them out gently you're not going to throw them out the cave. It's too much. So I specialize in anxiety. It's too much to throw people out the cave.

So you coax them out gently. So you do the small steps first. Now, someone who, your example of someone who's, you know, really come to you for their fitness is poor and now they've come to you and they want to go hell for leather, that's still a fight or flight or freeze response because you've gone to the other obsession. It's the other extreme. So you've turned your, the failures around your physical fitness, you now want it absolutely perfect and you're going to do absolutely everything for it. That's not sustainable and it's unhealthy. Once I explain to my clients, that's why we're not going to do that because that is what I call the primitive brain response. It comes from the fight or flight or freeze response of the brain. We're not going to jump to that

because that's all or nothing. So this is for all the perfectionists out there. and I'll put my hand up on perfectionist. Perfectionists think they're either at zero or it's got to be 100%. But there's 99 shades of grey in between. You know, it's very black and white thinking, isn't it? It's really terrible. My, you know, lifestyle's really terrible.

So now I'm going to see Carl and I'm going to be absolutely, I need to do absolutely everything in one go. It's not sustainable. You'll do that for a week and then give up. And then you'll feel like a complete failure again. You're going to go back to zero. So whereas if you do, 1% every day and accumulate that, the changes happen a lot quicker and much more sustainable long term.

Can you tell me a little bit about the stress bucket that you always talk about? Yeah. So the stress bucket is a metaphor for part of your brain. The more you've got in your stress bucket fuels the primitive brain. It fuels the fight or flight or freeze response. The stress bucket fills up, not with the stress in our life, because we've all got stress in our life. Everyone's something. The stress bucket fills up with negative thoughts. So it's how we think.

Because a lot of people, and this comes from my previous career, I used to be an optometrist. I used to be an optician. And I used to hear people's stories, Carl. So you used to hear people's stories. Because you used to talk about blood pressure and diabetes and, you know, people would tell you their story

and they would say, oh, yeah, I'm probably, I had stress and this happened in my life. And now I'm on all these medications. Okay. And then you'd get someone else in. And, you know, I remember distinctly there was one gentleman and I still reference him in my talk sometimes, Mr. Morrison. So Mr. Morrison came in to see me. And he was on no medication.

He was well into his 70s. But over the years I've got to know him. So he was a World War II veteran who'd fought on the front line. He'd come back to England times were hard, but he got married. He had two grown-up children. it was a tough time. So as his children grew up, one of his sons died in a road traffic accident.

And when I saw Mr. Morrison, his wife of over 50 years had just passed away. He was on no medication, fairly healthy. He was grieving, naturally. But he was finding joy in his gardening and his grandchildren and getting on with life. And he'd come in for his eye test because he needed new glasses.

So what is the difference here? He's had a life. He's had this stress going on in the, his life, some real trauma, but he's getting on with it. And the reason for that is that, yes, grief is a process. He's had stress in his life, but he was dealing with it. And he was finding this way of acceptance. And he wasn't ruminating in the negative. And ruminating is the strong word there. And that's what goes into your stress bucket. I ask you a question, why is it that some of us do that some of us kind of linger in our problems, whereas

Some people just seem to be able to, no matter what life travels at them, they, you know, are an optimist and can kind of just carry on and enjoy life. Great question. Could be a little bit of, you know, nature versus nurture. So if you've been brought up in quite a positive household, you know, it's a lot easier to do. But I also believe that modern life is not promoting us to do the whole, right? Let's get resilient and move on. there's you know we're talking far too much about problems of mental health the news is full of obviously bad news social media doesn't help everything's coming into our homes now we can't even

find safety in our homes you know everything's come in at 24 hours a day you can access the news now in this little computer called your mobile phone that's in the palm of your hand so we're not feeling safe anymore so everything is negative negative negative And we're not almost, so when I speak to, when I ask my clients what's been good about your week, they'll give me a few and then they'll stop and they'll say, gin, it feels like I'm bragging. I was such a shame, isn't it? Like a brag away. This is your bragging away hour.

Bragg. Tell me what's been good. We need to start talking more positively. We have got good things going on in our life. So yes, there's a bit of nature, the nurturing thing that if you grow up in a more positive household, you tend to be more positive. but it is a habit you can create, you can develop resilience, it's a skill, and it's something that if you really want to do it, you can. If you are, okay, I don't mean to sound harsh, but if you are enjoying being a victim, I can't help you.

So if that's the place you want to be because you want to, you know, really dwell in that place until you feel you want something different and you want to get out of it, that is the time and then I can help you. I'm sure you see that a lot of people with kind of a victim mentality. Like how do you help people get out of that mentality? Or do they need to get out of it themselves? Yeah, they need to want to. Yeah. Does that come from self-awareness? Yeah, but also desire.

Just desire. Let's keep it simple. Like, do you want something different? Like, you might not know what you want? So you know when I said when I asked people, what do you want, if you didn't have this problem, what it would be? Yes, there's a pause. But as long as you say, like, I've had enough of this, Jen, I want something else.

This is awful. That's what I need to hear from people. And actually the saddest answer I got once to that question was someone said to me, oh, I can't imagine myself without this problem. It was anxiety. There's a lot of anxiety. I can't imagine myself without this problem. I was like, well, I want you to imagine.

If you didn't have this problem, what would your life be like and what would you be doing? Oh, I can't imagine it. So there's got to be a desire to do it. Now, that place, that victim place, is a place that can actually get, this is going to sound strange, it can actually get quite comfortable. It's comfortable because that's the place you've known for a long, long time. And so anything outside of that feels quite scary. I know this place.

I know this place where I stay in. I know this place where I'm very obsessed about my locks and switches. I know this place where I'm also getting maybe a lot of attention. And if I change, what does that? that say about all this time I've wasted there. And if I now want to transition into a life that is more hopeful and optimistic and get on with things, well, then I've got to take it off myself. So if I can't blame my childhood or something trauma that happened in my past, that means that it's on me. And that's, yeah, taking that responsibility is hard. You know that in fitness. Like,

I don't know if you'd agree with me, but, you know, I strongly believe. And that's, because I do help people get that mindset around what they're eating and how they're working out. We all know like McDonald's is bad and fruit and veg is good. Okay, I'll simplify it. McDonald's bad, food and veg is good. So we all know that. So if someone, the distance between the plate and your mouth, that is in your control. So if someone puts McDonald's in front of you, you cannot say, oh, well, McDonald's got put in front

of me. So, well, that's the easy option, isn't it? because the bit you have under your control between the plate and your mouth, the table and your mouth is on you. And that's where we need to start taking more responsibility. Because all of this mental health awareness is brilliant, but mental health solutions aren't spoken about enough. Yeah, it's difficult to want to take ownership because that's essentially what it is. You're putting it back on you. Yeah, exactly.

It's hard. I don't say any of this to sound harsh. No. Okay, but it is a reality. It is the truth. I know. I've been there. You know what I mean? I know what it's like. You're like, oh, God, we're just playing something else. It was the world or it's politics or it's the economy or it's my partner or it's my family. It's how I was brought up. All that has got to stop and you've got to think, like, what can I do to take control, even in a small way. Yeah. And we can even do that in the moment and then maybe a couple of minutes or an hour later when we've kind of calmed down, we can be like, okay, maybe that's my responsibility. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You touched on social anxiety there. So that was a topic that I definitely wanted to discuss, which obviously, do you find that more and more young people are suffering with social anxiety these days? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. outright, yes. I mean, I also don't know if it's because we've got the language for it now. That's what I was going to say. Is it that people can kind of define these terms more? because I've even noticed even over the past couple of months maybe like things like people diagnosing themselves with ADHD has jumped up a lot and I'm thinking is that now because it's just more normal to brand yourself with them things or has it always been the case?

Yeah. Oh, this is a fact. This is an absolute fact. So I'll give you an example. Gun crime in America. When a gun crime occurs, the incidence of gun crime goes up. Shocking, isn't it? So when one crime occurs in America and it's all over the news, the incidents of gun crime goes up.

So it's, again, it's how the brain is, it's like it's bouncing it back to us. Yeah. This is happening. This is going on. This is happening. This is going on. So if we see that around us, we're like, well, maybe that's me as well then. So that there's all of that. So and that's why I'm saying awareness is great, but we're not moving on from awareness and talking about solution. do you want to feel better? And we should be talking more about the Mr. Morrison's of this world who are getting on with things.

So here's my question then. Is it a net negative or a net positive that we can now define these terms? I think it, for me, it's a net positive. Yeah. Because we've got the language and people are talking about it more. So they're saying, well, yeah, I've got the social anxiety. I've got this. And so, but they're not asking the next question.

So what now? So if you've had a diagnosis of ADHD, it explains a lot about your past, maybe how you went to school, if you struggled, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what now? The world is not going to adapt for you. Now you have that knowledge. Use it in a powerful way. You know, you're not going to expect, and don't be entitled. Don't expect like your workplace to make loads of adaptations for you.

You're like, okay, so I've got, you know, even if you've got anxiety, So if you've got anxiety, got quite a lot of social anxiety, well, you know what? There's a limited amount of parties I can go to. You know, so you've got to take, again, that responsibility on yourself. However, if you want to go to more parties than you are at the moment, then let's deal with your anxiety. Say, well, actually, I would love to go to more parties than I'm doing. I'm really not going out enough. I would love to go out more, but I've got social anxiety right now is the time to deal with it.

The other thing that bothers me as well is labels. So I'll have people say to me, oh, well, I'm an introvert, Jin. So I talk about something called the three P's. So the three P's help you create serotonin, which is doing some positive activity, having some positive interactions and doing some positive thinking. So when I talk about positive interactions, people will jump straight in and say, oh, but gin, I'm an introvert. So I went, no, I haven't finished positive interactions.

What I mean by positive interactions is talking to one person and having a lovely coffee with them, talking with your friend and going out for a walk with them. I'm not saying have a party every week. So drop the label because you just gave yourself an excuse. When I'm an introvert. That even goes back to what we said about going from zero to 100 when there's 99 in between there. Yeah. There's so much in between.

So that's what we mean. So once you give yourself a label, you're almost putting a little bit of a limitation around yourself. You're putting your own blinkers on. You're putting your own limitations on. so I you know people say to me oh jean you're such an extravert I'm like I'm not an extra I'm just I know I've just got self-awareness I'm pretty confident I love talking to people but there's times when I've talked to people all day and then I need to get in I don't want to speak to anyone there's nothing wrong with that there's a reason why that's happened I've just got enough

self-awareness to know that so I'll know right well this weekend I don't I think I'm just going have a quiet weekend this weekend but next weekend I yeah yeah I'm definitely going to go out I've got some plans and I'm going to do that. But I don't call myself an extrovert. And also, we're all different. Isn't it fantastic? We're all different. So whatever part of the spectrum that you're on,

fantastic. We need different people in this world. So let's say you have a client who is really, really, really, really suffering with social anxiety to a point where, you know, they might not even, they might struggle to even leave their room. Like, what are some techniques and tools?

that you do with a person in that situation to get them to, you know, be able to have some sort of quality of life. I would ask them what they want. We're going to go back to that. We'll start off with what's being good. So even if in their room, they've been watching some lovely films, they've been reading some lovely books, they've tidied their room, blah, blah, blah, okay, that's good. That's going to get you into your intelligent brain first, the rational part of your brain. Then what is it that you want? So we start talking about, well, you know, I would just really love. And this is where everyone's different. So I'm waiting to hear it from you. I strongly believe the answer lies within you. We are not giving ourselves enough credit for how intelligent we are.

You have an intuition. You have something inside you that tells you you want to do something more. So I'm waiting to hear from that client, the example you just given me. What is it that you want? If you felt about 10% better tomorrow, what would you do? And I'm waiting. to see what they might say. They might say, well, maybe I'll phone someone. Or they might say, maybe I'll just go downstairs and have a chat with my mom in the garden, even. You know, great. Or, you know, they might say whatever they want to say is obviously what their mind is ready is starting to think about because they want something new. Now, the key there as well is, is the fourth step that I do in a solution focus process is some relaxation. So once people have got a lovely image

of what they would do if they felt better, I have to get the timing right, and that's when I'll ask you to lie down and I'll take you through, just a guided relaxation. Nothing to do with that image. I'm not telling you what to do. I'm not doing anything.

But what we're trying to do is we're trying to drop, get you to relax to drop the vigilance of your primitive brain, because your primitive brain's really on high alert, and it's not allowing that lovely image to kind of go through to you. Because it's just standing there, defending itself,

because it's so hypervigilant, and so stressed with social anxiety, no, no, no, it's saying no, there's a filter there saying, no, that's not going to happen. Is that like the freeze response? Yeah. Yeah. So it's really rejecting it. It's rejecting such a lovely image.

But if I can get you to relax and start accepting that image, it's much more powerful. So that's probably the final stage. So that's probably the key to get that timing right. And then what happened is when I see you next week, I'm not going to ask you if that happened, that thing. I'm just going to ask you, what's been good? And what would you do tomorrow if you felt a little bit better? I'm waiting for it to happen. Of course I am.

I'm waiting for some changes to occur. But there's no pressure. The homework I give isn't pressure to start doing those things. I'm waiting for you to tell me one week, oh, Jin, you know what? I went out for a walk from a friend. It was really good. I'm like, great.

Now I can see change happening. The other thing I focus a lot on is sleep. So I give people a relaxation recording to, to sleep too every night. So if you can improve sleep, you know, when you wake up in the morning after a good night's sleep, you're invincible. So we start to improve sleep. The problem with anxiety is when you've got anxiety, you don't sleep very well. So we try to come back sleep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You also touched on, you touched on your phone there in technology. Do you think that's ramped up people's social anxiety because they're not interacting with people as much as they might have in the past?

Yeah, they're not in the moment. So the definition of anxiety is you are negatively fore-concour. the future. You are thinking about things that haven't even happened yet. And because your mind doesn't know the difference between imagination reality, you're getting stressed now. However, right now, where are we, Carl? You're quite happy sitting there. I'm quite happy sitting in my office. Everything is safe. There's no polar bears around me. We're having a good chat. But I could be very anxious in my mind, or if I get into my phone and start looking at what other people are doing, or looking at the news or what the bad stuff going on in the world, I am now there.

My mind thinks I'm there. Well, actually, I'm very safe sitting here. So, yeah, we are, our minds are somewhere else and our bodies are here. And we need to bring them back together again. I wanted to coach a little bit on validation because it was a podcast of yours that I really, really enjoyed. And it's something I'm very hyper-vigilant at the moment, especially someone who works on social media

not to be seeking too much external validation. So why do people seek validation? And why do some people tend to seek more validation than others? Because we're not getting it from somewhere else. Yeah. You know, our breakdown in families, communities, you know, means that we're not getting the validation in those kind of places. And we're looking for it from somewhere else.

Yeah. So for me, I'm lucky, yeah, and I know people don't have, you know, supportive parents or families, but we can still find it in friends. We make our own family is what I strongly believe. We make our own family. Yep. So friends of the family, we choose. So there must be other ways of getting this validation if that's what you need. However, once you start working on your self-confidence, you need very little external validation. So it's a lack of, self-confidence, lack of self-esteem. Once you build that, and that's what I help my clients do, build some confidence, build self-esteem. You don't need an external validation. It's lovely if you've got one person in your life who will really love you and admire you. Oh, you're doing so well. I'm really proud of you. But you actually need less once you work on yourself more. So once you work on yourself, and then actually even the criticism you can take, you're like, okay, if you don't like it, that's fine. I was in my Facebook group this morning and saying to people, look, You know, what I talk about here is it's not for everyone.

My therapy is not for everyone. I'm not for everyone. People might not like me. And a couple of people in my Facebook group like, well, people don't like Eugene. I was like, yeah. It doesn't bother me. I don't like everybody. So why would I expect everybody to like me?

Some people don't like me. Some people in my family don't like me. It doesn't bother me. So here's my question then. But obviously you've done a lot of work on yourself. on yourself esteem, on yourself, confidence. What about, you know, we're in a digital age where there's a lot of even younger people

who haven't really built any skills or done anything of significance coming on to social media and, you know, building followers and doing this? Do you think that is a dangerous thing in terms of, you know, how social media can magnify you getting all this validation that you need that you might not, you know,

have the self-worth in yourself just yet. Yeah. Yeah. You've got to start working on yourself. And it's why are we only looking at social media? You know what I mean? Like join a club, join a class. Go to a small gym.

What are your group of friends who you are with, you know, your social group, your family group, your cousins, anybody. So the real life interactions are far more important. Everything on a screen, it's just a trailer of someone's life. It's not their real life. It's just a trailer of the best bits that are going on. So if you think that, you know, to have a life, you need to be, you know, bikini body and have a super yacht and a, you know, a flash car and you're living in Dubai and spending loads of money, you know, that's just not reality. And even if that is what you see on social media from others, that's a clip.

That's a clip. You know what I mean? Like Dubai, it looks lovely. I would never live there. the amount of restrictions as well no one's talking about that the amount of restrictions that are there the strictness of the place as well the cultural difficulties no one's talking about that so just by just only focusing on social media to be the one place you get your validation it's dare I say it's sad we need to find it in other places we need to I mean you and I

have never really spoken before we've been messaging each other But as soon as like we started chatting, it was like, it felt really good. I thought, all right, this is great. And you were saying, oh, I loved your podcast. And I was saying, I love your videos on Instagram. Like, that's validation right there. But it's in real life. And I'm not saying that just to, you know, big up your ego.

I'm saying, like, I genuinely like them. I think they're really funny. And you were saying, oh, I really, that validation podcast was really interesting. Can we talk about that? These are real life conversations now. They're not virtual. We're not sitting there in a key book. being a keyboard warrior.

And that's why I like, you know, the format of podcasts where you actually having proper conversations with people and actually creating that connection. And that's obviously something that is lacking in society today is people struggling with connection. Do you have a lot of clients who come to you

who are seeking more connection because of the world that we live in now? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, they're lonely. Loneliness is now one of the biggest killers. Yeah. As well. So yeah, we're getting lonely.

as a community. What is your advice or how do you approach something like that with a client who comes to you and says that they're lonely? So it's about micro interactions. So there's a very well-known big pharmacy chemist here in Edinburgh. They've just opened a new store. Carl, you can go in there. They're fully stocked.

It's beautiful, but very bright white light. Fully stocked. You can get what you want. you don't speak anyone because they're always fully stocked. You can take that to a self-service till. You can walk out of there without having spoken to one person. Yeah, not good. It's sad.

Yeah. So start using the serviced tills where someone is sitting. Have a chat with them. Oh, hi, yeah, how are you? You know, they're putting your shopping through. How are you? Oh, yeah, it's raining outside. Have you seen?

And blah, blah, blah. This is what's going to get us connected. again. So all self-service tills should all be banned. Yeah, they should actually. Yeah, that's a really good. That's a really good point. Yeah. Get rid of them. Anything self-service should be banned. We should be. And the other thing that's happening, because on the news, we see that, oh God, everybody's a murderer or a rapist. So we're not going to talk to strangers now. Yeah. We don't talk to strangers. And that's what I love about living in Scotland. Like, you have to speak to absolutely everybody in the street. Okay, good morning, good morning, blah, blah, blah. And you have to carry on. So everyone talks to everyone. So everyone talks to everyone.

we need to find that connection again. Then from there, what do you do? If you like reading, join a book club. If you like sewing, go to a sewing club. Go to your library. Your local libraries always got loads on. You know, the loss of our libraries is a problem. As well, we haven't got those community places that we used to do.

Even, you know, places of faith like churches and things. So I'm Sikh, so I would seek temple. It's a community centre. Yeah. I go for the chat. Yeah. You know what I mean? I'm not going to forget the praying.

There's always a lunch. So there's a free lunch. I'm definitely going for the food. I'm going for the chat. I'm going to meet friends. Check in on some of the older people. See how the kids are doing if they're learning their Punjabi. You know, it's those kind of community places we've lost.

So we need to start creating them ourselves. So many people have started creating their own communities, you know, saying, oh, well, I love reading. I love listening to True Crime Podcast. Let's all get together and talk about True Crime Podcasts. So. And that's the advantage of social media. There's online communities now. Yeah, that's so true because I have, like, I've gone to many kind of seminars and stuff like that just from finding groups online that have been quite impactful that that you wouldn't have found without social media.

But at the same time social media could create that disconnect as well. So I suppose it's what it's what you're looking for really, isn't it? You've got to curate your feed. Yeah. It is what I say. So curate. So I know I get a lot of recipes coming up in my feed because I always like, I love cooking. So I'm always looking at recipe videos.

And oh, I like that. I like that. So the more you like, the more that will start showing up for you as well. Now, if I go on Twitter right now, it is full of, for me, all I'm seeing is racism. Okay. So I'm, if you're listening on the podcast, you won't realize this. But if you're seeing it on screen, I'm brown. So for me, I don't need that in my life.

So I've got to switch that off. However, racism isn't everywhere. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. But like, again, right now in my life, I don't experience it because I've got great friends, you know, everyone I work with is very professional. I'm living in my home. I'm quite safe. It's not going on.

But if I went on Twitter, I would never go out of my house again if I believed everything on there. So my feed generally, apart from Twitter, but like, say my Instagram feed is all very much lots of recipes, foods, lots of cultural. things about Punjab and India, which I love, music. There's a lot of music on there. So I get fed now the things that I like. So my feed is curated. I unfollow anyone that I think is sounding a bit offensive. I see who they follow in case it'll come up in my feed. I don't want any of that. So we've got to take control back. Yeah, that has to come from self-awareness to realize that

this certain thing isn't making me feel the way that I want to. feel. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to feel like this or what am I going to do about it? Because it will still keep coming into your feed and it's almost by stealth. So I don't know if you thought there was a guy who did an experiment with social media. And what he did is he liked two very right wing posts. Okay. He's got right. I'm going to just press like like. Slowly it started drip feeding into his feed. More right wing stuff. More right wing stuff. more right-wing stuff. Before he knew it, he didn't even realize his wife said to him, why are you getting so violent and angry all the time? You're really angry. You're getting really, you know, angry and violent. This is not good. He didn't even realize it was happening.

So it's that, it's like, it's almost like by stealth, it's coming in. So even with self-awareness, he knew what he was doing, he liked it, but slowly over time. And he started believing these stories. He started believing that, oh, my God, all this is bad. And, you know, I need to start voting for, you know, right-wing parties and stuff. But he started to believe it because it's so believable, isn't it, on social media? Well, it's like you said, it's like you open up your phone and you're, you're essentially letting people into your home. That's exactly what you're doing. So that's how I see it. That what I would not let you into my house. Why am I letting you into my phone? And I am in my home now. I'm sitting in my home. I'm opening up a feed where you can spew wherever you want at me.

No, thanks. You're going to get switched off. If someone came. to your door and said those things, you would slam the door in their face. So that's the equivalent of switching your phone off. Do you think we're fighting an uphill battle with that in terms of technology being bombarded at us in terms of, you know, going to the counter and not even having anyone to interact with, having to scan your own field where, you know, most people who used to work for companies now, they all work at home and they don't even get to interact with each other anymore. Yeah, that's right. So I know that the onus is essentially on us now to create that community for ourselves.

But I presume a lot of people don't even realise the problem that they're having. Absolutely. Yeah. Again, it's just coming slowly and creepily. And, you know, so like my dad's 76. He's not going to scan a QR code for a menu. Okay. He wants a proper menu.

And then he wants to pay at the till and he wants to have a chat with someone as well. So we need to go back to that. There's got to be some kind of revolution. going on that, you know, that we start pushing back on this to say, no, I don't want to. You know, when people say, oh, well, here's a QR code to scan. I'll say, no, have you got it? Have you got a normal menu? If you haven't got a normal menu, guess what I'm walking out? Yeah. You know. It's, it's something that I've really opened my eyes to now over the last couple of years.

Like, for me, it was all physical health diet, physical health diet. And now all I can really see is or social health and there's that there's that crazy study of like you know loneliness can be as bad as smoking up to 15 cigarettes as the day and and as bad as obesity and uh yeah uh inactivity so yeah and it's and it's something that people probably don't notice which which makes it even more difficult i don't realize that it's something that's harming their health yeah yeah we're and that's where i'm saying that we've a lot more intelligent than some people are giving us credit for are strongly, you know all this, like you and I are talking now. And what's happening is someone is listening to this and it's like listening.

It's, it's, you're quite right. Podcasts are really intimate because it's almost like everyone else is listening into yours and mind conversation. If we were in a coffee shop, no one would be. Okay. But there's so many people listening into our conversation now. Okay. So it's something that we have lost that connection with people.

So by listening to this conversation, it feels like you're having an interaction. but it's not real. Okay, it's lovely. You might, hopefully you might learn something from it. We might make your laugh a little bit along the way, but you've got to start really being proactive and trying to make physical connections with it, in person, in real life connections with people,

even if they're small. Even if they're small. Like I say, I call them micro interactions. Saying good morning to someone, not going to the self-service till, you know, refusing to sort of follow it. you know what everybody seems to think is the trendy thing to do. Like it's not.

And then we can't and there's up. I really don't like it when we're starting to talk about mental health problems. I'm like, well, here's the solution. It's right here. We've created some of this ourselves. We've created some of the problem. And now we need to start talking about some of the solutions getting back. Saying that, a lot of people love working from home.

I know I certainly do. But I have to make a point in my diary to make sure I'm getting out and meeting people as well. Yeah. Yeah. That was the exact same as me. It's like I've been working now online at home for the last five years and I was like, okay, right, my first priority of tasks to do for the day is set some time to actually go outside my house and if I can meet people, then that's about this as well. Yeah, yeah. Because that used to happen inconsequentially, didn't it? So even if you worked in an office or whatever used to go in, you have a chit chat with a few people to speak, you know, get on the bus, you used to see people, we used to see the world happening. And we actually, we were,

grateful to come home and close the door. So now we've got to do the opposite. So before I used to really, my social life just used to happen. And my work diary was kind of full. Now it's the other way around. My work diary is happening. But my social life, I have to put it in every day. So I'm, you know, I'm meeting friends for coffee tomorrow.

I went to yoga this morning. They all go in my diary now. Yeah. They have to. Yeah, I think that's really important that you set that time. And it's like, you have to see it as, especially if someone is very much kind of a workaholic or someone who loves to be busy, it's like you have to see that as actual product of time to be able to go

and see people. Yeah. Yeah. So this whole, you know, let's be busy, let's be busy. It makes us feel very important. Yeah. You know, we're very busy and important. But, you know, what you're doing is you're pushing something else away by being busy. You said that on the podcast that I felt seen straight away. I was like, oh. Sorry, did I get to you? You got me. Yeah. I was like, that's me. I was like, that's me. pretended to be busy because it makes me feel important. Very good. I was like,

oh, you're welcome, by the way. It's funny, though, isn't it? Because everyone's busy, do you know what? The whole world's busy, no. Like, and I think there was, I think I read something the other day. It was really good.

It was like, like, like the happiest people aren't speeding up. They're slowing down. Yeah. I think that's something that I need to learn to do. Yeah. So people say to me, oh, what are you doing at the weekend?

And I'll go, nothing. And they're like, what? Like really shocked. I said, look, I'm planning to do nothing. What nothing means is I'll be reading, I'll be watching some Netflix, I'll be cooking some good food, I'll probably go out for lunch with my husband at some point. It's just I haven't got anything planned. I'm not running here, there and everywhere.

That's not me. Again, I've curated my life for it to work like that. You know, so there's certain decisions I've made which mean that's what in my life is. What that means is I might be missing. out on something, I don't see it as missing out. I'm like, no, I need to, you know, but if there is a party that I want to go to, I will go. You know, if there's an invitation to something. But saying that, that's not my kind of thing anymore. It's more about, you know, lunches and dinners with friends and having a drink with friends. That'll be it. How do you help a client to create a life that they

want to live if they don't know what they want? You don't know what you want because you are overwhelmed because your stress bucket is overflowing. You do know what you want. It's just that you can't see the wood for the trees right now because if your stress bucket is overflowing, you've lost control. So the first thing to do is to empty the stress bucket. So that's what I do. Once you feel a bit more rational and in control, it starts to become clearer what it is that you want. So towards the end of sessions, I end of my course, what I say to people is right, I want you to put yourself in six month's time. So, you know, because six months is just within touching distance, but it's not far enough away. In six months time, if I rang you up and you were number 10 on a happiness

scale, so from zero to 10, you were number 10, everything was going really great. I ring you up and I ask you that question. I always ask you, hi, Carl, what's been good about your last six months? What would you say to me? And let your imagination go. So, you know, people, it's so surprising what people say because no one has ever said to me, Carl, that I will be hench and I will be, I will have won the lottery. They say, all they say is, I've been on a lovely holiday and I'm eating really well and my family are really healthy and I'm doing really well at work and just normal things. That will tell you what you want and what your purpose is and that is what will drive you forward.

And then once you know that then you can start saying no to all those distractions. Yes. Eventually I'm getting the happiness that you want. Once you're very clear about that, guess what? Your personal boundaries slot into place so easily you won't even realize. So if that is what you want, you want this certain kind of life. And someone says to you, oh, do you want to come to Ibiza? We're going to get really wrecked in Ibiza for a week.

You'd be like, no, I don't really fancy that. No, thanks. Do you get what I mean? Like it just comes naturally. And that's my job as a solution-focused therapist. I want you to feel it. So people understand all of this stuff we're talking about. They understand it intellectually.

Yeah. But they don't feel it emotionally. And my job as a therapist is get you to feel it emotionally. And that's so powerful. So once you know what you want, you will subconsciously start saying yes and no to the right things. I have three more questions for you and then I'll let you go. All right. Number one, how can we stop letting fear hold us back from having a fulfilled life?

You feel the fear and you do it anyway? Okay, so the fear is this. And that's the title of a really good book. I'd really recommend. Feel the fear and do it anyway by Susan Jeffers. What she says in that is this and it's so powerful. If you are scared of something, you're not scared of that thing. You're scared that you won't be able to have.

handle it. Once you start using that mantra, I will handle it. There's no fear. Does that make sense? That makes perfect sense. Yeah. I'm just, I'm thinking about it from my own perspective. Yes. Public speaking was something that I fear this year and I've done four. Right. There you go. Yeah. So you weren't scared of public speaking. You were scared that you wouldn't be able to handle it that you're going to, something's going to go wrong. You're catastrophizing. Oh my God, I'm going to die a death up there. Once you start thinking, well, whatever happens, if I freeze up there, I will handle it. Then that, that breaks down that barrier of fear.

And the other thing to do, which is what I talk about a lot in my therapy is, the reason you've gone into fight or flight or freeze is because that fear, public speaking, to you, became a polar bear. Yeah. This was life or death. Hang on a minute. Intellectually, you know, it's not life or death. death. It might not be very nice. It might be very uncomfortable, but you're not going to die.

But your primitive brain has kicked in now. It's gone into fight or flight or freeze. This is a polar bear. No, we're not going to do it. So you feel the fear and you do it anyway, but the mantra you use is, I will handle it. I can handle it. I can handle this. I might not be good at it. I might not do very well. You went into that. I'm sure that first public speaking, you done all your prep, but you were ready to screw it up. but you did it anyway because probably because you thought that right if I screw it up

I'm going to put my hands up and handle it you know just to say yeah I'll handle it it's your brain just trying to protect you isn't it exactly so you've got into survival mode and that's what we used to do as cave people fight or flight or freeze so we've still got that part of the brain so the fight or fight or freeze part of the brain

we've got it's like old hardware in our brain that's never had an upgrade what we've got instead is this whole intellectual brain, that's where the forehead has come more forward. This is all new sophisticated software now. But the dialogue between those two parts of the brain is what's causing the problem. We still revert sometimes to the old primitive brain, especially when we're stressed. Or the fear has kicked in, the polar bear's kicked in. What are some positive changes people can make straight away to improve the quality of their life? Sleep, better. Yep. Everything

to do with sleep. You know all the ones. How much caffeine are you having? Are you eating too late? Make sure your room's really cool. Go to bed at a regular time. Wake up at a regular time. We have taught ourselves how not to sleep. We've got 24-hour news. We've got video games, social media, technology. We can Netflix binge all, whole series and series and series. And I strongly believe if we all got a little bit more sleep, you're going to create a huge change to your life. So my sleep is non-negotiable. Last question I have for you. What would you say to anyone who feels like they don't have any purpose in their life at the moment?

Okay. Purpose is something that takes a lot. It does take a lot of work and then it doesn't. And what I mean by that is that you are cleverer than you know. Don't let anyone tell you you haven't got a purpose. Your purpose is what do you do that makes you happy? Who in your life makes you happy? What kind of things do you want to do?

that you think would make you happy. That's your purpose. Don't overcomplicate this. You know, I'm writing about purpose in my next book, actually, because it's a topic that comes up all the time. But this is about, you know, just, again, going back to what you were saying, self-awareness. Again, when your stress buckets empty, it's so clear.

So if you can't find your purpose now, are you stressed? Are you overwhelmed? You're not going to find your purpose that way. You need to find your confidence and your self-esteem. steam back and your purpose will naturally, it's like magic, it just comes up in front of you. And it's going to that, as I talked about, that six months ahead. Think of yourself in six months' time.

What would you be doing? That's your purpose. You know, so people will say to me, oh, well, I will have traveled here and there. And okay, so their purpose is travel. Why do they like travel? Oh, because they love different cultures and different foods and, right, that's it. So their purpose in life is to see the world. So it comes a lot easier than people.

think again we've overcomplicated it our purposes are everyday life that we're doing there'll be something in your day that you already do every day that is showing you your purpose you're not picking up on it because you're so overwhelmed yeah it's right in front you and you can't see it yeah yeah yeah um jane this has been unbelievably insightful can you just tell me a little bit more about your book and also um tell people where to go through your podcast as well which i love and um a little bit about the one-to-one sessions that you do yeah So my podcast is called Stress Bucket Solutions. It's available everywhere on Spotify and iTunes.

I've done loads of episodes. I'm trying to reorganise them a bit in a minute. My book is called How to Empty Your Stress Bucket. It's available at Amazon, but you can order it at any bookshops as well. And my one-to-one program is 10 weeks of therapy. Roughly 10 weeks, I'm a bit loosey-goosey about that because in those 10 weeks, I'll give you as many sessions, you want. To me, it's not about number of sessions. To me, it's to get you the result that you

want. So I specialize in anxiety, but I help you empty your stress bucket to get your life back. And it's done in a solution-focused way. I will not be talking about problems, but I'm a kind of therapist that I will be asking you questions and I expect an answer. But it's brain training for your brain. So like I do personal training for your brain. Once we start exercising the brain in the right way, you're going to start to feel a difference. And what about you also have the Facebook group you mentioned as well? Yeah, so my Facebook group's also called How to Empty Your Stress Bucket. So you come in there.

And actually this week I'm doing a bit of a reset in there. And I come on there and do live videos regularly and lots of tips and hints. And actually every Friday, I ask people what's been good about your week. And you have to give me a big list of things as well. So I push people to really take time during their week to start focusing on what's being good. That's the first step in solution. focus work. I'll have everything in the show notes as well.

You've been unbelievable. Thanks for watching. If you like that episode and you want to see more content like this, make sure you're subscribed and I'll see you on the next one.