Well with Arielle Lorre - 249: How to Break Bad Habits & Change Behaviors to Change Your Life with Maddy Ellberger

Episode Date: May 31, 2023

Maddy Ellberger is a therapist specializing in DBT, with extensive training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Prolonged Exposure and Cognitive Processing Therapy for trauma. She joins the show to discuss how to use DBT skills to change behavior including common impulsive habits we all engage in (overeating, stress eating, impulsive texting etc). She answers listener questions including how to build trust with ourselves while continuing to act in ways we would like to change, how to break bad habits, how to find joy in the mundane, how to practice acceptance, how to sleep better, how to not be dependent on external circumstances & so much more.    This episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.   Get 20% off your first order of Sakara at www.Sakara.com/Blonde or use the code BLONDE at checkout.    This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Find more balance with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/Files today to get 10% off your first month.   Athletic Greens is giving you a FREE 1 year supply of Vitamin D and 5 FREE travel packs with your purchase. Head to AthleticGreens.com/BlondeFiles to redeem.    For a limited time, Alo Moves is offering my listeners a free 30-day trial PLUS 50% off an annual membership at AloMoves.com and all caps code BLONDE    For a limited time, House of Macadamias is offering listeners a free box of their best-seller, Namibian Sea Salted Macadamia Nuts (worth $35) with your purchase at houseofmacadmias.com/blonde  +20% your whole order with code BLONDE   Visit CleanSimpleEats.com and use code BLONDE at checkout for 20% off your first order.   Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The following podcast is a dear media production. Welcome to the Blonde Files podcast. I'm your host, Ariel Lorry, and I'm here to talk all things wellness. From how to achieve optimal health and well-being to the best beauty tips and everything in between, no topic is off limits. I know there's so much information out there, so I'm bringing on expert guests and sharing my own experiences to help you sift through all the wellness stuff without the BS. Enjoy the show.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. I just woke up, so please excuse my morning voice if you can hear it. And I'm also still recovering from my Vegas adventure, my Memorial Day Vegas adventure. Like, who is she? I haven't been to Vegas in maybe eight years. And oh my God, I had so much fun. But that's a story for another time. But I'm really excited about today's episode because I have Maddie Elberger back. Maddie. is kind of my L Woods of therapy. I absolutely love her. I know you guys loved her after she came on a few months ago, which is why I had to have her back on. I think that she just is able to apply these kind of life skills, these DBT skills to really relatable situations that we all deal with. And that's what we are talking about in today's episode. So let me just give you a little background on Maddie first. She received her undergraduate degree in psychology and then her master's and doctoral training in clinical social work from Columbia University and New York University. She completed her internship at

Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital and Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and her postgraduate training at the Center for Cognitive and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. Maddie received extensive training in cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Dibetual Behavioral, DBT, Mindfulness-based stress reduction and prolonged exposure and cognitive processing therapy for trauma. She has provided treatment to children, adolescents, adults, and families with anxiety, mood, behavioral, and personality disorders in a variety of settings, including schools, community, mental health clinics, private group practice, and hospitals. She and I became fast friends after she came on the podcast last time. And she really does live and breathe this stuff. She's so passionate about her work.

But she's also so honest about her own struggles and how she uses some of these techniques in her own life. And in this episode, we are answering listener questions, but also, again, talking about our own lives. And it's kind of just like a conversation between friends about things that we all deal with. We talk about how to change unwanted behaviors like, We discuss overeating or impulsive eating. We talk about sending a text that you don't want to send and how to use DBT skills to navigate those and other impulsive habits that we all engage in.

And then we talk about how to build trust with ourselves while we act in ways that we would like to change and act in ways that we know are not serving maybe our wisest selves, but we do it anyway. So we talk about how to build trust when we're still engaging in that. We talk about how to break bad habits, how to find joy in the mundane, how to practice acceptance, how to sleep better, and how to sleep with anxiety. And she actually has some great tips around things like nighttime routines. She's not telling you to get off your screen at 6 p.m. and get in bed at 7 and don't have any lights on and just light candles. And it's just very practical. And her tips are really like manageable things that we can all incorporate into our own lives and do and not feel.

like failures. That's another thing that we talk about, having the fuck it. It's like when you tell yourself you're not going to do something and you try to exert your will and then you do it anyway and then you're like, fuck it. And then you just continue with that behavior, which I think is something we can all relate to. We also talk about how to not be dependent on external circumstances and how to not place our happiness on external circumstances and so much more. So please enjoy Maddie L. Burger. Welcome, Maddie. I'm so happy to be back. I love this. So happy you're back. Since you were your last time, we became besty. Extremely close friends. Yes. In constant communication. Yeah. Four minute long voice notes. Yeah. Very difficult. You know, I have to say the one thing that I like about

Instagram more than text messages is that Instagram, you can only do one minute long voice notes. And that's like my method of communication. So I love to like send a four or five minute rambling one. But I feel like I have to take notes to respond to them. So my method is a little different. I'll tell you. First of all, I live to ramble. Like as you guys have heard, being concise is not necessarily my thing.

I really like to explain, as you know, personally professionally. And so what I do is I will not open a message until I can answer it immediately. So that's why like sometimes I don't like acknowledge you for three days, but then I acknowledge you and I answer immediately because otherwise. we're out. This brain, not holding it in. That's what I do. Like, I'll listen to them, even like the last couple days. I think I've said to you. Like, I listen and then I respond like four hours later and I'm like, hi, I forgot what you said. No, you need to transcribe. You need to transcribe, like especially because I'm saying many things. Yes, yes. But, okay, so we thought for today

we would do a listener Q&A. For everybody who didn't listen to the first episode, go back and listen after you listen to this one, so that you can get a little bit of background on Maddie and what she does, her amazing work. We won't go through like the whole bio and everything. But you can just tell them like briefly so that they know you are qualified to be giving out advice and responding to these questions. Yeah, I'm a DBT and CBT therapist or dialectical behavior therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy here in New York City. I have private practice. I also am an adjunct professor at Columbia. And so in our last episode, we went all the way through DBT and kind of explain the differences and the mechanisms that work there. It's really just

an incredibly effective, highly researched, in my opinion, one of the greatest treatments in the world for emotion dysregulation and it really focuses on behavior change. That's my like, you know, five second pitch. I don't remember if we touched on this last time, but can you just briefly explain the difference between like cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy? I'm a little tired today. Because we did. get some questions from people who were like, when should I utilize which? Sure. So essentially, like the main differences are these. Or let me actually start with the similarities. So cognitive behavioral therapy is based on cognitive behavioral theory, which like kind of gives us this like,

so there's a triangle. There's something called a cognitive triangle. Doesn't matter where you put them, but at each point there's emotions, behavior, and thoughts. Okay. And the fact that it's a triangle implies that if you change one area, all of the other areas will change as well. There's a transactional model and nothing occurs in a vacuum. And so cognitive behavioral therapy, like traditionally, focuses mostly on changing thoughts in order to change emotions and therefore responses, reactions, behaviors, if you will. Dialectical behavior therapy is a cognitive behaviorally based treatment. However, it is focused more on behavior change. And the The idea behind behavior change is that especially if you're a person who has really big emotions, which like I definitely am.

It's like I get that. When we're like in the emotion red zone, if you are, as I like to call it, emotional Chernobyl, like you're in like, it's like nuclear warfare. Like you're not thinking clearly. Like you actually can't think and you become more and more rigid. You see the world in a more black and white or extreme or nothing way. And so trying to find evidence to disprove your thoughts is going to be a certain. thing and often leads a lot of people to feeling misunderstood, invalidated, and doesn't actually help folks change. And so DBT focuses on how do we change behavior because the emotions and the

thoughts, the emotions and the thoughts will follow. Like, it's almost like you have to prove yourself wrong. That's the way I like to think that. That makes sense. Yeah. I'm just thinking about myself and I've always done CBT. And I don't really think of myself as somebody who has like really big emotionals, really big emotions. Killing it. Big emotional. Same. I don't think of myself as someone who has like really big.

Yep. You got it. Oh my God. I'm going to try to get through this episode without laughing like this. So I've always done CBT. However, I do get caught up in these like habituations. I don't know if that's what we're. either. I have behaviors that I do and I think it might be part of like the addict in me. Like I don't

drink and use drugs anymore, but I find other things that I get kind of like obsessive and ruminate on. And I don't like, I don't feel overwhelmed with emotion around them, but there are things that I don't want to be doing, but I do them anyway. So you're my therapist. You've actually said to me before in some of those exchanges with the voice notes, you're like, you, you, need the distress tolerance right now. Like you need to find something else to do. Yep, redirect. Yeah. So to your point, like, yes, we develop, so as a cognitive behaviorist, right, I believe that everything is learned. Like, you're not, you can be born with an inherent predisposition towards a certain level of emotion or, you know, whatever, based on kind of like

your biological makeup. And at the same time, like, lots of, like, the way that we respond, things is learned, right? And so that means that pretty much anything can be changed because it can be unlearned. We can learn to do a different way. So really, like, I have these habitual patterns of responding that I feel like aren't useful to me and yet I do them anyway. That's the way you've learned to sort of like regulate or like get whatever you need in that moment. And so what you would need to do from a DBT perspective is we'd have to learn skills to kind of first stop the behavior. That's like the stress tolerance, problem solve what needs to be problem solved. So like understand the function of why you're doing what you're doing. And then find a more adaptive, mindful, intentional kind of

response. Might be the same response. The idea, though, is that you're not running on a motor. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So yeah. Got it. Nobody wants to go into the summer having gut issues, skin issues, weight issues, just feeling low energy and so many of these things can stem from the food that we are eating. So if you are dealing with any of these, or if you're just super busy, or if you just don't feel like cooking, Sakara is the answer. So Sakara brings expertly designed organic nutrition programs and wellness essentials right to your door. There's science-backed, ready-to-eat meals, deliver results you can see and feel from weight management and eased bloat to boosted energy and clearer.

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Hey friend, I'm Nicole Walters, mom of three, your internet bestie and founder of Inherit Learning Company. If you're looking for the motivation you need to pursue a life of purpose, then join me each week on the Nicole Walters podcast as I share my hard learned lessons and answer your DMs about life, business, and everything in between. We'll laugh, we'll cry, and we'll grant ourselves grace as we do life together. Check out the Nicole Walter's podcast every Tuesday here on Dear Media. You can listen anywhere you listen to podcast. Well, you mentioned regulation. One of the questions that we got, so I had people sending questions on Instagram. That's what we're going to be using today.

So I actually got a few questions around this. People wanted tips for emotional regulation. This question in particular said she used to overeat. And that was how she regulated her emotions and found like some semblance of stability. And I got the overeating and binge eating question quite a bit. So how do you use DBT in that situation? Sure. First and foremost, I obviously have to say this is not a replacement for treatment.

If you already have a provider, please make sure to consult with them first. Thank you. No, I'm not going to get sued. Yep. Not trying to get sued. But anything I'm providing here is psychoeducation. It's information, right? And you're more than welcome to take this information.

I encourage you take this information, do more research, ask your therapist how to integrate this. And I'm going to tell you what I might do with a patient or with myself. Right. So at the core of everything we do in DBT or CBT really is we want to understand what's what's the function, right? I'm going to say that a lot. What's the function of this behavior? So ultimately, we need to get to the bottom line of like why, like what's driving you to binge eat, like what's causing the urge that's like resulting in the action so that we can problem solve for that, right? We need to essentially understand the emotion.

order to problem solve for that. So I would say if we're just talking about stopping a behavior, right, we do this in steps. I think, first of all, we need to understand what situations trigger us, right? So again, everything's couch and mindfulness. We first need to, like, get some data. We can't make change effectively without getting some information because then we're kind of like throwing whatever at the wall and like seeing what sticks. And that's what frustrates us, like, you know, taking a tip from online and being like, oh, well, if I, you know, drink celery juice, nothing against celery juice, then I won't be hungry. Like, you need to understand what's going on for you, right?

So what are the scenarios in which you might overeat? I can say for myself, if I'm, I have two types of anxious responses in my body. One is I can't eat at all. And that's usually anxiety related to like a loss. And one is like kind of mindlessly eating. and that is anxiety related to something impulsive that I did. So I would say for me, right, the first thing I need to do is understand which situations cause which responses, right?

So I overeat when I send an impulsive text to a guy or, you know, like I put up an Instagram story that maybe I'm not in love with on my personal Instagram, not on my professional. That's very professional. So that's number one. Number two is we can't start to change a behavior until we stop doing the ineffective behavior. And that's why Ariel was talking about stress tolerance.

I don't know why I'm referring to you as a third person. So distress tolerance is a huge part of dialectical behavior therapy. It's essentially the behavior stoppage skills. How do I get through this moment, this experience, this triggering situation without making it worse, aka continuing the behavior that I don't want to be doing. And at the same time, understanding that we're not necessarily doing anything different yet. We're just not doing. So that's how you know distress tolerance works.

So what that means is if I'm in a, if I send an impulsive text, I need to know I'm about to finge eat, right? I'm about to like kind of just grab whatever's in front of me and like stuff in my mouth to make me feel better, which happens to a lot of people. And then I need to say to myself, okay, I'm going to set a timer for 10 minutes and I'm going to sit in a hot bath for 10 minutes before I go get this food. And if the, by the way, I'm obsessed with the ass. You're like laughing.

I'm laughing because I'm like, I would do a sauna. I'm on a sauna. Ariel's personality is now a sauna, which I'm, by the way, extremely envious and I'm going to get her a mini sauna for her birthday, which I said to her this morning. So I might go sit in a hot bath because I'm like really into baths. But again, setting a timer, we're being intentional. If that's not enough to make me feel like, okay, I can't not do the binge eating thing, then I'm going to insert another activity. Maybe I'll call a friend and have them distract me. Remember, we don't vent here when we're in the Chernobyl zone because that's going to make you feel more and more intensely and make you more, like you more.

to act on the urge, right? So we have to practice not acting on the urge by replacing it with kind of essentially distractions. And once we have enough what we call behavioral control, then we can really start to get at the, okay, the anxiety piece, like how do I actually problem solve for that? The answer to that would be probably not sending the impulsive text or sending a text that's actually more effective. We can't really do that if I'm kind of like being erratic because the binge eating is going to get in the way of me being able to go like circle back and kind of get to where I want to go. Are you familiar with Dr. Judd Brewer? I'm familiar with no one. Okay. He is, well, he's, I think he runs, like, the mindfulness research center at Brown med school. He's, sounds like someone I should be familiar.

Yeah. He's so cool. He came on my podcast a few years ago and he had a book out about like addiction and I can't remember exactly, but he's amazing. But he talks about how like, if you have a unwanted behavior, you have to give your brain a bigger, better offer. So like, but I can't remember exactly how he was explaining it. But basically he said, like, you need to give yourself a better reward. So if you're going to like binge eat or you're going for like the late night snack or something, you have to like redirect by offering yourself a bigger reward. But I don't remember how he described like doing that.

But what do you think about that? So I, I love that. And I think it just depends again. on like what your emotional makeup is. Because that already requires you to have some sort of a little bit more of an internal regulatory system. And if you're a person with really big emotions or you're a person with borderline personality disorder or you're a person who has really severe anxiety or severe OCD, like it's just

going to be harder to actually think of what a bigger reward is. Thinking of a bigger reward is already problem solving. We're already at the next level. And it's really hard to get there. we are, our brain is on fire, right? So that, that's like step C in DBT that we get to. We always need to problem solve, the big picture issue. We always need to find a better reward. We need to find the thing that's actually going to help us get to like, you know, give us what we really need because it's not the food. There's just no space for that when we're really dysregulated.

So I like it. It's just, you know, I liked it too. And I was asking because I remember thinking the whole episode, but the reward is the thing that I want to do. Like, I can't think of anything greater than that reward of sending the text or eating the cookie or whatever. So like, it would take so much, so much regulation. And that's like an issue that I always had trouble with, which is why I ended up drinking and doing drugs because I had no ability to self-regulate. So I was like, well, that sounds amazing in theory. But like, what's a bigger reward than like the impulsive thing that you want to do in that moment that's going to regulate? That's like something that you're so used to doing. Yeah. That works. It sounds like your brain. Right. That like I'm okay.

It sends that message that we can turn off the sympathetic nervous system, like the fight or flight. And to your point, I think a different way to think about what Dr. Judd Brewer. Dr. Judd Brewer, I'm so sorry, Dr. Brewer. I am overworked and therefore it's hard for me to remember things. I think a different way, right, if we're going to think in more dialectical behavior kind of terminology, what we might say is we want to think of a long-term reward when our brain is in short term, right? the reward for us, the short-term desirability and the way that we're wired is so strong and intense that it's really hard for us to see the long-term, which is actually I need to figure out how to go back and say to this, I would like to be able to communicate with this person, how I feel.

And so that means not sending the text that maybe is going to be provocative or like get attention or whatever. Yeah, I know. And again, if you've heard me talk or you listen to me on my Instagram, like, I am an impulsive text or like, I know that Ariel's been on the receiving. end of some friends. Oh, yeah, but I was making that face because I do it too. Right. Well, like, right. We all, we all do. I hope. And so, you know, so I don't remember where I was going with that. But again, it's long term. Yes. Thank you. Like I said, like zero memory. Short term.

In the short term, it's like it feels like I need to do the thing that I think is going to get a response, except for that that that's probably going to cause me to feel more negative emotions. but that's short term going to give me what I want. Long term, I want to find a way to communicate a need with somebody or communicate a thought without potentially causing more long-term distress. So, you know, worry thoughts about what this person thinks of me or, you know, my own judgments and shame or potentially like fucking up a relationship. Sorry for cursing, but like I do that here.

So, you know, stuff like that is what I would say long-wittedly. I feel like for me, there are things that I do, particularly like in communication where like I know that I shouldn't be engaging in a certain way. I don't. Should the judgment. Okay. I know that it's not helpful for me. I know it's not helpful for me. Long term, it's not leading me to where I want to be.

And I will kind of like make a vow. Okay, I'm not going to do this again. And then the next day I'm like, you know what? Fuck it. I don't really care. And I feel like that is kind of destructive. in a way where you're like kind of breaking that trust with yourself almost. You have to build it though.

Yeah. You have to create it. Like so that thing is is that right. And it's really easy. Like I could see how you might or I might or anyone might then jump into like I said I wasn't going to do this. I shouldn't be doing this. Right.

This is like wrong, wrong. And I'm doing it now. And so now the fuckets are kind of like, well, I've done it already. So like whatever. I already. Yes. I have the fuckets. Right.

I learned about that in rehab. I forgot about it till now. It's the best term ever. Yeah. And it's kind of just like, okay, well, I've already done something bad. Like, I'm a fuck up. I'll just do it. I'll just keep doing the thing anyway.

And it almost gives us an out. You know what I mean? It gives us permission. We're giving ourselves permission in that moment. And that's not, again, it's really about thinking long term. What does my wise mind say? So emotion mind is going to be like, fuck it, do the drugs. Fuck it.

Send the text. Fuck it. Send the nude. Blah, blah, blah. Right. Which, by the way, there's nothing wrong with. not drugs, I'm not going to comment on that, like sending a text or sending a nude or whatever, like there's nothing inherently wrong with that. It's whether or not you're doing it mindfully

and if it's in line with your values. Yes. And so that's why we have distress tolerance, right? Because distress tolerance really, it's like you can't think yourself out or like vow yourself out of a learned behavior when the emotion is so unbearable. And so you're going to do the behavior unless you have a fallback, like stopgap and, As you know, I do like my 10 things to do instead of doing the thing that you don't want to be doing. Yes. And for everyone, again, if you didn't listen to the first episode, we talk about that in the first one. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Getting to know yourself can be a lifelong process, especially because we're always growing and changing. This is something I have been reflecting on lately because I am just realizing I'm such a different person now than I was two years ago, five years ago, nine years ago before I got sober. And I think sometimes it can be difficult for us when we feel like our outer life doesn't necessarily match our inner life. But therapy is so helpful for all of this and more. It's all about deepening your self-awareness and understanding because sometimes we don't know what we want or why we react the way we do until we talk through things. So BetterHelp connects you with a licensed therapist who can take you on that journey of

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Yeah. So this question that somebody sent, you kind of just answered it, but it was how to build self-trust when engaging in destructive patterns repeatedly. So, and this is again, like why in DBT we focus on behavior. And for some people, I think for a lot of people, even if you don't, necessarily need DBT. Like the idea of utilizing DBT skills in conjunction with cognitive behavioral therapy is often really helpful. And so it's really just about, you know, interestingly like setting the bar kind of low, like a lot of times, and this is also something else in DBT we call build mastery. We create a goal and then we don't actually figure out how to get there. So it's like, okay, I'm going to stop sending nudes to this person who is

not being kind to me or I don't want to be sending them to or whatever it might be. And yet I have no like plan to get from A to Z, right? Like how are you just supposed to stop doing something because you said so? Like I say a lot of things all day to myself and I'm only going to do the ones that I set myself up for success. So we have to like this is a hard part of thing. People often give up on behavior change too early because it's like it's not immediate. Right. And so if you have to set small goals that you can get to and like behavioral goals.

meaning like you want to be able to know you did that thing, like actually see it. Like, okay, so every time I have the urge to send to a nude, like, maybe I'll save it. I'll save it for someone else or like I'll like send it to one of my best friends. I'm just like, look at this hot dude. This is the thing I do. That just works for me, right? Like it again, it's just you have to set goals before you get to the like and I'm not going to do this anymore.

Otherwise you're then, then you get the buckets. Right. Okay. That makes sense. Noted. filing that away. Nuded. Nuded.

Tell me the title of this podcast episode. Literally. Okay, let's see. Trying to do this in some kind of like cohesive order. We kind of went over like first step to breaking bad habits. That's what we've been talking about. Mind of us. Yep.

How to find joy and the mundane. Oh, this is like my favorite thing. Okay. If you know me, like put it on my tombstone, not in a morbid way. in DBT we say because like I will constantly say like there's a DBT skill for that because there is. So if you listen to the last episode, you'll know my like diatribe about happiness versus joy. And I think that's really important first of all. Like you want to actually understand what joy feels like. So again, so much of what I'm saying might sound repetitive. It's just that it's first of all,

it starts with mindfulness. It's and it's how do you then like apply these concepts and these interventions to each scenario. And so you first need to be like, what is joy? like what does joy actually feel like? Like where do I feel joy of my body? What are the thoughts that bring me joy? I can tell you that for myself, right? So I think that I know that when I'm feeling joy, I'm like, I'm having such a good time. I'm so, like, thrilled to be here.

Like, I know when I feel like I just am like having, I'm like so present and I'm like having such a good time, like that's joy for me. And so how do we create joy in the mundane? you have to, that means potentially build it in, right? You don't, nothing is going to be inherently joyful, right? It really depends on the context of what you're experiencing. And in fact, we want to be really mindful of not invalidating ourselves, like in a situation where lots of other people might be like super joyful, you might have other complicated emotions. And so it's, it's a DBT scale called accumulating positive experiences where it's about actually like scheduling

in mindful joy. And I know that sounds like, well, I think I don't want to be judgmental. I think I could see how it would sound like, well, like you're scheduling and your joy. But especially if we have a hard time recognizing that, we need to be structured about it again. And we need to be willing to do things that we think aren't necessarily going to work or whatever in order to build the momentum. And so I would say like, you know, if you wake up every day and you're a person who wakes up, showers, brush your teeth journals, and has coffee and you like coffee a lot, then in those five minutes where you have your first sip of coffee, like, you want to be really mindful of like, I'm so happy to be here or whatever your joy thought is. And like you also want to

be extremely unmindful, as you say in DBT, of like the other thoughts that could very easily filter in the worry thoughts or the I don't have time for this, whatever, you know, like you want to focus on the 30 seconds of joy that you feel there, right? I, I friggin love my coffee. God bless this goddamn coffee. Praise me. Okay. Like, and it. And it. Like, it sounds ridiculous, but it's like if you're put yourself and you want to go, like, stand at your window, open the window, have your coffee, experience that, bank it, right? If you're being mindful, it means you're banking it like in your kind of thought well and move on with your day.

Every single one of those mindfulness of positive experiences builds joy into your day. It has to be intentional though. We cannot wait for something to bring us joy. We have to be looking for it. That makes sense. I can't remember who I had on my podcast. Another smart doctor person like yourself. And she talked about slow dripping happiness throughout your day.

So happiness, joy, whatever I think she meant kind of the same thing, semantics. But like slow dripping it that way. Like you open your window in the morning. You stand there for, you know, 30 seconds. You drink your coffee if you love your coffee. You do implement these things that you know you love throughout your day. Because, yeah, we can't just wake up and expect happiness, like a Disney movie with like like the birds flying around our head.

L.O.L. That actually sounds a good nightmare to me. Absolutely want no birds near my head. But I feel like a lot of people, maybe it was on TikTok, which I mean, that's like comes to the territory. But people take issue with that. Like, no, we should pursue happiness and expect happiness. Like that should be the goal. And yeah, you're making a face right now. Well, there's a couple of things wrong with that, right? Well, there's a couple of things that I would say are going to get in your way in terms of being able to be present. And number one is the should, right? Like if you guys take one thing away from this podcast, it's literally take replace your should with could. Replace your

should with I'd like. You can have an opinion, but should implies there's only one right way. So if you don't have that one right way or you don't achieve that goal in the specific way you think you should, that's why we're also like afraid of failure. Because if you say could, it's the acceptance that there's actually several ways to experience or like to get to the outcome that we'd like to get to. even if they don't look exactly like the choice that we think is going to bring us the most happiness, joy, success, whatever, right? So the first thing is like, no one should feel anything. People can feel whatever they feel in the moment. And until we accept that, like, you're kind of fucked for lack of better words. And then I think it's really, again, I mean, you know how,

you know how I feel, but this is why I was making a face. Like, what happiness means, like, you know, you can handle your stuff, in my opinion. Like, you know, the shit that comes your way, you know, you can handle. Like at the end of the day, that looks different for all of us. And we should wake up experiencing joy. Like, said who? Like, you're setting yourself up for disappointment there. And it's really kind of taking like the locus of control or like the capacity to, you know, create your own internal experience. And it's placing it externally. Like that's so dangerous, right? Like if I'm constantly like, well, this needs to happen and this needs to happen and this needs to happen in order for me to feel happy, that I'm totally helpless.

Yeah. Someone said, how do you accept things that aren't in your control even when it causes pain? And I feel like this is kind of like a similar thing. Like that ability to accept what's happening and to be resilient and to be able to handle whatever comes your way. Like that is one of the things that I learned in recovery. Like life on life's terms and being okay no matter what happens and no matter what comes my way. And that is such a strength. I think to be able to have that. And it does come with accepting a lot of shit. Like, and it doesn't mean that you have to be okay with it necessarily. But like to be able to accept it and just be like, okay, what do I, what do I need to do like to move through this? How can I move through this effectively? Gorgeous. You're already a DBT and mindfulness guru.

I couldn't have really said it better. I mean, I'm making a board as bigly. That's actually. I'm not like a trumpet thing. Huge. Okay. My awful, my awful, awful impression. Anyway, so, yeah, so that's exactly the point.

I love the idea. Is life on life term like an AA thing? I love that. I mean, like I stand so hard for AA for folks that, I mean, feel connected to the community. It really saves lives, I think, in the same way that DBT does. And I've worked closely with sponsors. And so we rock AA. And I love that term.

I'm actually not laughing at addiction right now. please know. No, I just, I gave her a wink. Yeah, we're having moments. So, you know, I think the other side of this is it is radical acceptance is a practice, right? You don't just get to a place where you accept. Just like you don't get to a place where you make decisions in wise mind, right? Like, and so it's, you are challenged with needing to accept things over and over again. And, you know, I think if you're a success-driven, achievement-oriented person, the concept of accepting is so uncomfortable and hard. I have a much harder time with acceptance personally than I do with problem-solving. I am a doer. I am a changer. And I know,

like historically for myself, that if there's something that I can fix, I almost always can fix it, right? And I'm constantly asking myself, what do I need to accept here? You know? Because in DBT, and this is really important, we problem solve until we can't, right? The first step is not acceptance. Usually we try to see if we can fix something. And if we can't, then we have to accept it. And the beautiful thing about acceptance, a radical acceptance, the full acceptance of something, is that oftentimes once we practice radical acceptance and really kind of like around this issue, whether it be a breakup or, you know, God forbid a death or, you know, a missed opportunity or traffic that you're stuck in where you need to get somewhere. It doesn't really matter.

But then if we can, and then if we can accept, which means like just being in the moment, as opposed to trying to be okay with the moment. Ariel's point, you don't have to like something to accept it. You can be, you can have a negative emotion. But when we get to that acceptance, it often opens up to like further problem solving, which is like the cool thing. Like it opens a door for us. Otherwise, we're spinning or we're on the hamster wheel or we're like kind of like, you know, just trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, which I always say wrong.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But yeah. Yes. It is hard. But I feel like in my experience at least, like it was so counterintuitive to me in the beginning when I was sober. And I am like a willful person. And I want a problem solve.

And I want to do things my way and I want to get what I want when I want it. and achieve what I want. And I am like stubborn like that. So for me to be like, no, I accept this. You know, it was like so hard. But I think out of discomfort, the skill to be able to accept was born because I realized like, oh yeah, I can. Like the more I resist, the more I'm like in that willfulness, like, the harder.

Yes, the harder my and more uncomfortable my life is and my state of being is. And when I can just like let go and, you know, surrender. as cheesy as that sounds, but that's a huge thing too in recovery. Like I had to surrender my old way of living for this new way. Well, that's willingness. That's what you call willingness. Yeah. And I had to be willing because I almost died. Like so it was kind of easy. I was like, okay, you know, I do surrender because like if I don't, like, I will drink again and I will die. You'll die. But then I was able to kind of collect evidence like, oh, that time when I was holding on so tight to this thing. And then I like let go. I accepted.

that actually ended up leading me to this place. And I'm like, oh, interesting. Like you kind of get into the flow of life, I feel like when you're able to do that. Exactly. Right. Because you're present in the moment. You're not, you're not expecting something to be different that actually cannot be different. Right. It sucks. What is that? Except the things you cannot change and the wisdom to know the difference. Love AA. I have a patient that once gifted me like the whole book set from AA. And it was like the most meaningful thing ever. I literally hysterically cried. in session. Like it was like a beautiful. I'm just like I love AI and it fits so well in with the concept of DBT. Like it really, it's just like big, big sleigh. Yeah. Big sleigh. Huge, huge sleigh,

Bill W and company. I hope everybody listened to my episode last week with my nutritionist, Robert Yang. If you haven't, definitely go back and listen. He has so many incredible tips for nutrition and digestion and something that he is known for is his emphasis on protein, fiber, and fat at every meal. And then he really taught me to focus on healthy fats when I am snacking. So one of my favorite snacks, you guys probably know, are macadamia nuts. I love doing my macha and macadamia nuts in the morning. Some people have asked if, since I'm now eating within 30 minutes of waking, do I still have the macadamias? Yes. It is a habit that is ingrained into my lifestyle. Um, I love it, and it still fits into this kind of approach to eating that he taught me.

So why I love macadamia nuts, they are the lowest carb nut. There's more healthy fat than even avocado, and they are rich in the rare omega-7s that no other oil or nut has. So macadamia benefits are totally unique. And a recent study showed macadamia oil, which I've also been using lately, has even more beneficial effects to overall human health than olive oil or coconut oil. So those same omega-7s have been linked to natural collagen production, hello, increased skin elasticity, anti-inflammatory properties, and fat loss. So, you know, when we think about glowing from within, these are the things that can really help that. So the macadamia oil, it's amazing for roasting vegetables. It has a higher smoke point than other oils as well. So you're

not getting those free radicals that you can get with other oils that can cause aging. and is often created when heating during cooking using something like olive oil. And then the macadamia nuts just help me with my energy, with my appetite. I feel really satiated when I have a handful of nuts with that fat content. So you really can't go wrong. The only issue with macadamias is that they have a stigma of being the world's most expensive nut. And they're very rare. And a lot of the macadamias, I don't know if you've run into this,

have a weird plasticy aftertaste. Not the case with House of Macadamias. They bring the highest quality premium macadamias directly to you in a range of bars, purified oil, nuts, and nut butters. For a limited time, House of Macadamias is offering my listeners a free box of their best seller, Namibian Sea Salt macadamia nuts or $35 with your purchase at House of Macadamias.com slash blonde. And they will give you 20% off your whole order with the code blonde.

So again, house of macadamias.com slash blonde. So I was traveling the last couple weeks. I went to New York. I went to see my parents in Rhode Island. I went to Florida. And in each of those places, I spent time with family and friends. And in each of those places, I had family and friends who started drinking AG1 from listening to my podcast.

And I have to say, I was very pleased because this is like. like the ultimate wellness micro habit. I think if you're going to do like one thing, it's such a good thing to incorporate into your routine because it's kind of the one thing that does everything. So I gave A.G. I want to try years ago because I was really trying to work on my gut health. It was actually started because the founder was having really bad gut issues was taking so many supplements and nothing was working. And it can also help with like increased energy, immune system support. It can help with mood and sleep. support and so much more. And it's just the most convenient thing because it's made with 75 super high

quality vitamins, minerals, and whole food sourced ingredients. And it eliminates the need to take a bunch of supplements, pack a bunch of supplements. So if you are traveling, you have a busy summer schedule coming up, definitely incorporate AG1. They have amazing travel packs. So it's so convenient. And I like to just mix it with eight ounces of water in the morning, drink it. First thing on an empty. stomach and I feel good going into my day knowing that I covered so many of my bases and especially when I'm traveling, then I can go eat like all the pasta, gelato, pizza, as you can tell, I have Italy on my mind and feel like I got a lot of nutrients, micronutrients, all of that in so that I can just go and enjoy my day. So if you want to take ownership of your health today is a good time to

start. Athletic Greens is giving you a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. Just go to athletic greens.com slash blonde files. That's athletic greens.com slash blonde files. Check it out. Let's talk about sleep because this is another thing that you love to talk about. And I got a lot of questions around this. So we'll start with how to sleep with anxiety.

This person cannot sleep about pills. Okay. Well, the first thing I'll say is I would talk to a medical person. professional, like I would seek out a psychiatrist to get an understanding of what you're taking, getting an understanding of, like, whether or not that needs to be adjusted. There's nothing wrong with medication. And medication and psychotherapy work hands in hands. And so it's not like effectiveness or pills. For some people, it might be instead of. And especially if this is, you know, illicit drugs, I definitely say like, you know, get help as soon as you can. A-A-N-A. So I just, like,

again, we're not being black and white here. I think you need to kind of understand there's a lot of different pathways to being more effective with your sleep. So you want to check in with your routine at bedtime. It's really about consistency. So you can watch TV before you go to sleep. You can look at your phone before you go to sleep. There's a lot of emerging data that's actually the blue light is not necessarily the problem. And also, by the way, dim your phone because that she will blind you at night. Like that's how I feel. I'm just like, I can't see this. You know about this button? Oh, I excuse. Yeah. No, Ariel just did sorcery on her phone. Yeah, it turns every, you, if you hit the side, I think. Maybe somebody set this up for me, but if you hit like the side button,

where's your phone? I don't know. Somewhere. Oh. If you hit it three times really quick, it turns it to like a red light mode. Fabulous. So we can do that sorcery there. I'll just said I'm not, you know, a tech genius like her. So I think every phone does it. Or this. Or I can. We're going to research. Well, yeah. We're going to circle back to that. But again, dim your, dim your phone. You can use your phone, you can watch TV, you can be on your computer, it's about consistency. You know, if you need to do a little 20-minute TikTok before you go to sleep, like do it every night, right? So first things versus sleep routine actually sends a message to your brain that like, oh, this means it's time to wind down. And so you want to be doing that consistently. Similarly, you want to be having a consistent

wake-up routine because that sends messages to your brain to wake up. There's a bunch of different other interventions that we could do. Like if you can't fall asleep, you need to get out. out of bed. You need to be doing something that's mildly stimulating, but not too stimulating. You just can't be in your bed because beds for sleep and sex. So we just want to like, you know, sit on the floor. It's so annoying at two in the morning to just like get out of your bed. And at the same time, like you will actually, once you get tired, fall back asleep so much more easily and effectively. That's something my husband does. Like if he ever has insomnia in the middle of the night, he'll take a book and go like read somewhere else like on the couch or somewhere that's

not bed. And that doesn't really happen to me often, but in the few times that it has. Because my issue is waking up too early and not being able to fall back asleep. That's my thing. So that's another big thing. This is like my favorite thing to teach people is the two hour rule. So you really, in order to like build consistent sleep routine, you want to be waking up within the same two hour window every day. So two hours before or two hours after. So if your normal wake up time is seven, around seven, right? I wish. I know. Same. My mind's five, by the way. But like, so then you, but like, the idea is then you wouldn't want to set an alarm for earlier than five or later than nine. So that means, yeah, like on the weekend, you get your ass up at nine. And the idea here is that it helps us, again, set a circadian rhythm. It sets our body clock. And therefore, if we're off of our body clock, we're going to be more tired. We might go to sleep earlier.

We still need to make sure we're waking up within that four hour window. or if we go to sleep, you know, later, we still need to get up with that four hour window. So you're resetting your clock regardless by actually listening to your body. So that's really important. I love that one. I'm obsessed with that one. That's interesting about the light. Let's talk a little more about that.

I am like off my phone. Generally don't watch TV before bad. Like I'm a reader. I like to read with like my amber light. I got a Kindle. I'm like, I don't know how I feel about it because I feel like I'm reading my phone, kind of. And it messes with my sleep. And if I do watch TV, like basketball or like a movie or some playoffs right now.

So I know that that's going to mess with my sleep. But like I do notice if I watch something with my husband even like until 10 o'clock and then I'm trying to go to bed at 1030 like I'm waking up throughout the night. So is that not the light? Well, it's because it's not part of your routine. Oh, got it. So if you are, I'm going to turn the TV on in the morning or like that's a daytime thing. Those are wake oriented activities.

And again, this is the importance of. a routine. Obviously, like, we don't want to be rigid and, like, we want to be consistent. And so if you are a reader before bed and then, like, once in a blue moon, I feel like Dr. Evil. Like, you know, everyone in your community is going to be like, who's Dr. Evil? Because everyone's young. Austin Powers, guys, 96. Look it up. 96. Really? I think so. I think that's the first one came out. No way. Look it up. Look it up while I talk about this. So if you once in a blue moon are watching TV. That's a wake-oriented activity that's going to send wake-oriented signals to your brain. 97.

Thanks. Doing. Wow. Literally like we are old. I thought that was like 2005. No. We are aged. We are aged, if you will.

The wise elders of the world. Yes. We are wise elders. I mean, I'm the biggest Peter Pan of the world. I hang out in the place where 25-year-old hang out. Times Square. Let's go. Yeah.

So if you're. reader, you need to read. If you're a TV watcher, you need to watch TV, right? Like, it's just about doing the same thing that sends the message to your brain, oh, this is a sleep related activity, this is a wake related activity. The one caveat I will say, and this is the mistake that I've been making recently, being mindful of it, just knowing it, is that you don't want to watch something when you're going to sleep that's like super activating. Like three weeks ago, decided that it was time for you to watch Succession for the first time. Not sure why. I mean, I cannot. We can do a Succession, DBT Podcast at another juncture,

because I'm literally obsessed with the show. It's actually a problem. It's a problem for my sleep, actually, because what I've been doing is because I work late and yet yet, I've been making a choice to watch Succession at the end of my night. And that's problematic for me because I then want to watch more. So I'm activating my brain because I'm super duper engaged. It's really different than putting on like an episode of Law and Outer SVU that I've seen a thousand times or like friends or the office, right?

So the caveat is if you are doing something regardless of a book or a movie you or this or that, make sure it's not something you want to keep doing because, again, that's sending wake signals to your brain. That's been me with the playoffs. Exactly. Exactly. I get, especially like if it's my team. When I'm watching the other games, I don't get as obsessed, but when the Lakers are playing.

She's a sporty girl, you guys. It's kind of bad. Like, I will watch the game while being on Twitter reading all, like, the sports tweets at, like, live. And then after I'm reading everything, I'm getting like really fucking workup. If we lose, but if we win, I'm even more hyped up. And I do not sleep. Correct. So I've had to like schedule my days.

Correct. Like the next day is around knowing that I'm going to be up all night. And then if I actually go to the game, like it's over. Yeah, no, definitely. Right? Because that's again, like that's super activated for your brain. Yes. What I would say, by the way, if we're trying to keep a consistent circuit in rhythm,

even though you don't sleep the next day you still want to wake up within that window so that your body is maintaining like tiredness and you fall asleep even if it's earlier. like you're resetting your cloths. Yeah, well, my body doesn't let me sleep later than 630 usually. Like, that would be late for me. The other day I woke up at 7 and I was like, wow. He's like, well, what year is like. Let me tell you how good I felt that day. I felt like I was on drugs. Like, I felt, I literally felt like it was crazy. She could take over the world. Like I was on ecstasy. Yeah. It was amazing. Nine hours of sleep. I was like, I'm a different person.

Wow. Nine hours of sleep. A different person between like last night I got six and a half. Not great. Like definitely running on fumes. The fumes, if you will. Yes. Love those. But like I can't, I can't sleep no matter what. So I don't ever wake up to an alarm really. Do you think that if we're running on fumes, it's bad for the environment? Sorry. You're canceled. I like literally had to make a stupid show. By the way, huge environment supporters. My notes on this episode for my, my editor and my producer are going to be. Please remove anything. Anything that will get it canceled. Okay. Let's close it out with, I want your opinion on something. Great.

This is not my original question, but I am curious. Someone said, what do you think of people saying that all this therapy speak is making us selfish? Ah. I'm actually so glad. that you said this to me because this is like a passion of mine. And I think people are going to be surprised at what I say or not on if you know me and not for my patient. So here's a thing. I think the way that I see it is that we have kind of like popularized certain language and like sort of caked it in this idea of like this means I'm taking care of myself. And actually what

it's allowed us to do is to become less conscientious, mindful. and compassionate to other people. And so it's this idea of like self-care over everything. And that's actually not really how we maintain relationships. You know, I think number one, and this is honestly why I started a professional Instagram, because there's so much stuff on the internet of like self-care is, you know, 17 bubble baths a day or self-care is X, Y, and Z. Self-care is something that makes you feel restored. And cutting off relationships or being able to avoid people or telling people how,

Hiding, hiding behind this idea that you can't take care of yourself unless you're, you know, only doing what you want is really, is really extreme. It's pretty black and white. And so, you know, to me, the way I like to say it, like self-care is therapy. Self-clear is being able to say no and being able to push yourself to say yes. Self-care is calling a friend and being like, I am in a weird place right now. I need help. my best friend, Sydney, incredible human being, I was like, this was a couple months ago, I was going through a weird, like, situation should breakup that you know about. And I was like really upset. I was like 6 p.m. And I was like in my bed. And I was like, I'm just like not going to do anything. And she's like, you are going to come out to dinner right now with me and my friend. You don't

know her, but like you're going to do it. And I was like, I really don't want to. And she's like, you know you just need to get out of your bed. You cannot go to sleep at 6 p.m. And I didn't want to. and I did it because I knew that was effective. And that was self-care for me. Like actually getting myself out of my bed and sitting with Sydney and like being a human and connecting with people with self-care. And so this idea that self-care is solitary and it's above everything else is just not mindful.

And you really need to understand like what do you, self-care is like like rejuvenation, right? And our entire life cannot be rejuvenating. And sometimes we have to like compromise. And so I do kind of. kind of agree with this idea that there's been certain language that's been popularized that allows us to be inconsiderate of the way other people think or feeling or what they need. And I have a big problem with that in short and long. Yeah, I was talking to somebody about this, somebody who kind of like mentors me. And she was like, you know, I just think there's like a lot of navel gazing.

Like you start to like just focus so much on yourself. Yep. And that magnifies everything. And really like the answer for me at least is getting outside of myself and like focusing on other people, taking contrary action, doing things like that. Like when when I absolutely do not want to going on that walk with a friend or something because it gets you out of yourself. And we're so focused on like, okay, I need to like wake up and I'm going to meditate about my life. and then I'm going to journal about my life and then I'm going to go do this about my life, me, me, me, me, me. And it's like, and then we like isolate ourselves behind our phones.

Yep. 100%. There's no solution there. We, the world does not revolve around each and every one of us. We live within the world. Like it does. And I think this is particularly like for our generation, the younger generation, like, fostered by like helicopter parents and this idea of like, and like COVID, all these

different things. And this is obviously just my opinion, but we have to coexist with the world. Otherwise, we are going to be really. unhappy people, really not functional people. And so, you know, that means that self-care is pushing yourself sometimes. Self-care is is being communicative. Self-care is about tolerating your own distress. We need to remember, right, that it's really just not, there's no world where it's all about us. That's a really lonely place to be. Love it. All right. We'll tell everybody where they can find you. You can find me at Millennial Mindfulness Doc on Instagram. It's,

millennial mindfulness doc on there, you can get my practice website and my professional email. And again, I always encourage, like, if you're looking for therapy, if you're looking for resources, please DM me. I usually get back to people or shoot me an email or contact me through my website. I'm happy to make referrals and help people get what they need because that's kind of the whole point. Amazing. Thank you.

Love you. This is amazing. I hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you liked it, and if you like the show in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes a long way, and it's actually the best way to support the show. Also, if you want to see more about each episode, you can head over to the Blonde Files podcast on Instagram. You can go to Arialore.com, and I'm always posting about each episode over on my personal page at Arial Lori. Please note that this episode may contain paid

endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.