S3 E1: Understanding & Managing Anxiety

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• EPISODE RESOURCES

• EPISODE TAKEAWAYS

  • As a human being, we will feel anxiety from time to time, if not, often.

  • Anxiety is essentially a signal that there is a threat, such that there is possibility for the experience of ‘pain’ in order to prepare us and to avoid the pain. 

  • Pain can be a lot of different things - physical pain, social pain, emotional pain, psychological pain, etc. The metaphor is that anxiety is like a fire alarm.

  • What is considered threatening to one person could be completely different from what is considered threatening to another person.

  • Although we can be encouraged to ‘put on a brave face’ and ‘tough it out’, it is important to also understand anxiety, including what contributes to it, how it affects us, and how we can work with it.

  • Rather than trying to ‘get rid of’ anxiety, which may not be possible because anxiety is functional in many ways, we can learn about our anxiety. Not understanding it can be dysregulating and catch us off guard all the time.

  • Anxiety is common in situations where we are experiencing something new where there is uncertainty. 

  • Adjustments take time with experience, learning, and getting familiar with new experiences. Adjustments are being made all the time in life, be it in relationships, interactions, experiences, tasks, in how we feel, in what we think, etc.

  • Re-framing new experiences as adjustments can take the ‘sting’ out; it can help take the fear of the fear out of the equation.

  • “We can’t always predict, but we can prepare,” Alexisism.

  • Most people 30 and under are still growing in their executive functions as the brain develops. Executive functions are essential for making adjustments, including the ability to be cognitively flexible, planful, prioritizing, etc. 

  • We need to practice these executive function skills so they can relieve anxiety and this practice is being proactive.

  • Past experiences, such as stressful experiences, traumas, how others have treated/reacted to them, can lead people to use those memories to interpret and explain present experiences, which can lead us to be biased. Therapy can help individuals to re-learn new experiences without the biases from the past completely taking over our interpretations and explanations, so we can think more clearly, accurately, and flexibly.

  • It is also true that we can learn from the valid aspects of past unpleasant experiences so we can use our anxiety to be cautious when it’s valid to be cautious.

  • As humans, unlike dogs :), we are often planning for the future and worrying about the future. Therapy can help individuals to think more critically about our thought patterns rather than just reacting to situations and making assumptions all the time.

  • Our anxiety can have valid parts, like how it’s true that things are not always going to be perfect and there can be unpleasant experiences that do in fact happen. This helps us to be reasonably cautious. However, we can learn how to feel more confident to cope and navigate such potentially unpleasant experiences rather than catastrophize them and become overly-avoidant. This comes from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

  • Expectations can be a way to create a framework that relieves anxiety that comes from uncertainty. However, sometimes expectations can be based in unhelpful comparisons to others, which can create anxiety rather than relieving anxiety. 

  • We all need outlets for the stress and anxiety that comes with life, which can be so many different things.

  • The therapist’s job is not to judge, but to understand. To help individuals understand why and how people think, act, and feel the way they do.

  • Anxiety may come from pursuing something that is not actually aligned with what they care about and value, which is what Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) focuses on. 

  • Holding on too tight to expectations can take us away from being in the present moment.

  • Just surviving, via anxiety, is just surviving. We can learn how to be more proactive in our life to live the way we aspire to in a way that is meaningful and how you want to show up in life. 

  • Being confident in yourself and owning who you are is not being arrogant, it’s about sharing aspects of yourself.

  • Our anxiety can tell us things that seem to be ‘working’ or ‘not working’, which is useful to us. 

  • Anxiety can lead people to think a lot about themselves, which can narrow your thinking and make you more anxious, leading you to neglect a lot of other information and aspects. 

  • Looking at situations, people, life, and ourselves as having ‘parts that make up a whole’ helps us to have perspective (not catastrophize) when certain parts are not working well (or not perfect) while other parts are working well. It can help to accept that all parts are not going to be seamlessly flowing all the time. The same goes in how you feel about other people, you may appreciate certain parts but not ‘jive’ with other parts. 

  • Parents can take on different roles in helping their anxious child. It could be to create space for the child to get things off their chest and think more clearly by doing so rather than holding things in. It could be to help the child put their emotions into words, and to validate aspects that are valid. It could be to help the child work through problem solving, even to more clearly define the problem itself and explore options. It can be important to not jump to trying to solve the child’s problem yourself or getting ‘rid of’ the anxiety immediately. Helping a child to reflect and think more clearly and critically, helps the child to develop these skills in themselves.

  • What a child needs in one situation or context or moment, may not be the same in another.

  • Sometimes, the parents' role is to take the lead and take charge when the rationale is reasonable and necessary. Not in a ‘might makes right’ way, but in a way that keeps things safe and structured for the child. Too little of this can lead a child to feel responsible to do ‘adult’ things.

  • Maintaining quality time and love within relationships is important in relieving anxiety. It takes time, being present, creativity, intention, and effort to figure out how to do this in a way that is genuine and builds connection.

  • Asking the question - “What do I/you need” can help figure out how to navigate an anxious situation.

  • The hardest thing to do sometimes is to just stop what we are doing. This can help us to interrupt the system that is disrupting us. Rather than inefficiently working harder leading to more stress and anxiety.

  • As a society, we seem to be grappling with how to balance hard work with self-care, which can be a difficult, nuanced, complicated process to accomplish.

  • Stress = there is a demand that you need to meet. Stress can activate your body and mind so that you can do something.

  • Anxiety = there is a potential threat that can lead to something ‘bad’ happening.

  • You can learn how to experience the inevitable stress of life without so much of the anxiety within the stress. In other words, recognize where there is fear of potential consequences within the stress we are experiencing. Some anxiety can keep us in check and keep us on track; however, the anxiety can become disproportionate to the reality of the situation which can lead to anxiety. 

  • When we get too stressed and too vulnerable, our mind may fall into extreme thinking that can bleed into anxiety. That is why stress management is important.

  • Controlling what you can and accepting what you cannot is timeless wisdom that can help with anxiety when you think critically about it.

  • Doing a ‘body scan’ or a quick stretch can help to notice and relieve tension that comes from stress and anxiety. It can also help to ground yourself and reset to be more clear and present. 

  • Sometimes over-thinking or talking too much about something is a form of avoidance and the key is to learn how to overcome the avoidance.

  • Sometimes people’s behaviors can reinforce anxiety, such as being overly-controlling.

  • Sometimes our anxiety is signaling to us that there is a legitimate, underlying problem that has yet to be explained, addressed, or solved and we need to create more space, time, and energy into understanding what to do about it.

  • Living life takes bravery to ride out the waves of anxiety that are inevitable and can come and go over time, with experience, with support, and with adjustments that we can make.

• TRANSCRIPTION

  Gerald Reid  00:10

  Welcome back, everybody to the Reid Connect-Ed podcast. We're here in season three getting started with the fall 2023. In season two, Alexis and I took a trip down the road with a few friends colleagues talked a bit about the journeys of excellence. And it was a really great experience for us to get to know these wonderful people and share their stories about what the journey really is behind the scenes. And in season three, we're going to be focusing a lot on people taking care of themselves, you know, Alexis and I, our work essentially, in different versions of it is helping people to take care of themselves and understand themselves and, and so we're gonna go through the fun episodes around the topic of essentially taking care of yourself. And today, we're excited to talk about a topic that is extremely prevalent, it's, you know, something that you can't escape, because as human beings, everybody's going to feel anxiety from time to time, if not often. And we're going to talk about the topic of anxiety, we're gonna talk about what it is, we're gonna talk about how it affects us, and essentially what we can do to take care of ourselves around anxiety and both in a proactive way, and also in kind of a responsive way when we do feel anxiety. So really excited to get back into the podcast with us. And we just got a great intro from our producer, Rob giving us the Wayne's World countdown.

  Alexis Reid  01:37

  And we're back for season three really excited. So in the emotions episode from season one, we talked a lot about this idea of how these abstract concepts that really aren't tangible, but can oftentimes feel that way can take over. And anxiety is one of them, right? Anxiety is something like you said in the intro is so prevalent, especially in today's day and age. And we need to make sure that we talk about the fact that right now being exposed to so much media in our world, I think that there's a higher level and baseline for anxiety for so many people right now that we're experiencing this, this uncertainty in so many ways, because I think we're exposed to so much. So before we get into the what does this look like? How does it impact us? Let's really dive into your expertise chair really talking about like, what is anxiety? How would you operationalize and describe that to somebody who's trying to understand what this is, we hear about it all the time. But what really is the

  Gerald Reid  02:42

  Yeah, well, we're sentient beings. So we feel that essentially means that we feel right. And because we feel there's going to be things that cause us pain, things that are unpleasant to us. And as we talked about in the happiness episode of season two, you can always be happy. And but obviously, you know, we don't want to feel pain, people don't want to be experiencing something that's unpleasant. It's just inherent in us, it's just hardwired in us, right? For many reasons. And what pain is, could be a lot of different things to different people. Pain could be social, right, we can experience physiological pain, from feeling rejected from someone, if we perceive that way, or feeling shame, you know, around a group of people, right? So pain could be a lot of different things. It could be physical pain, right? It could be an injury, you know, you watch athletes, these very high contact sports and you Wow, she's, I guess they gotta really tamper down their fear of the pain that they're gonna experience because, you know, there's there's definitely pain that goes there. So pain can be experienced on a lot of different ways. It could be emotional, physical, even psychological. And anxiety is essentially our response to expecting pain to happen. And it's essentially telling us as if like an alarm system is gonna go off telling you that there's a fire. That's kind of the classic metaphor that your anxiety is kind of like alarm system telling you that there's danger. But anxiety is essentially preparing us to protect ourselves, right? Because if there's pain, we want to protect ourselves from pain, whatever that pain might be. So anxiety, in a lot of ways is a signal to trigger. It's telling us, hey, you know, watch out for something that could be bad that could be unpleasant that could be distressing to you. And and I'll talk more about how that affects us because it does prepare us. And that's how it affects our thoughts or behaviors and so forth. We'll talk more about that. But on a fundamental level, you know, if you really want to understand what anxiety is, it's like there's something threatening, and what's threatening to one person could be completely different than another person, right? Like I've worked with people who are terrified of just approaching someone to talk to them, but they're more than willing to go skydiving And then vice versa, someone who is not afraid of public speaking, right? Maybe terrified of a spider, you know, it goes both ways. And you never know what someone's anxious about. And by the way, we don't see it. We don't see people's thoughts. There's no thought bubbles, you know, present like a cartoon, when you're walking by someone, you have no idea what people are anxious about. I've even heard people say to me, like, you know, I remember, like an adolescent telling me, you know, a long time ago, she goes, you know, people think I'm rude and angry, but I'm just super anxious. Yeah, he would never know, you know, there's no thought bubble going on?

  Alexis Reid  05:33

  Well, that's what I mean, it's this abstract thing, we can't like, feel it, we can't always notice it. Because sometimes people have developed these coping mechanisms, or they wear a different mask in different situations to put on a brave face, as is the phrase, you know, put on a brave face, if you're not feeling well, and fake it till you make it. You know, we heard this a lot from these really successful people who we interviewed in season two and thinking about, you know, sometimes you got to, you got to suck it up is the phrase, which I don't know if that's actually the case, right? I think we need to really understand what these emotions what anxiety is telling us, so that we can play an improved pair, you know, especially as our frontal lobes are coming online, you know, I'll bring it back to executive function, once we start to be able to assess situations more accurately, maybe some of the stress and anxiety might dissipate a little bit, because we have a preview of what's to come, we can maybe think about what we can do to prepare for it. But you know, I hear people all the time, in fact, just a friend of mine was saying to me earlier, that, you know, how do we get rid of this anxiety, it's actually taking over, you know, our worlds, when you know, my, my kid is having a hard time getting out the door in the morning, because they just don't want to do something, or it might be in an anxious response to something they're worried about or uncomfortable with. And I, you know, my response was, I don't think we ever want to get rid of anxiety, we just don't want it to take over our whole worlds and consume us. Because that's when it can get in the way of us, you know, living a goal directed path, finding and experiencing joy, living presently, in a moment to really experience everything that's coming up. I think when we try to avoid anxiety, I think we're often missing a lot of messages and a lot of really important learning that can come from understanding what it's trying to tell us.

  Gerald Reid  07:28

  Yeah, I'll take, I'll pull apart some of the pieces you pointed out. And as I talk through here, too, today, I'm going to try to bring different theories. You know, I think sometimes people talk about anxiety from one theoretical framework that oh, this is the only way to look at anxiety. And I think there's multiple ways to look at anxiety. It's not always one, you know, one perspective. So I'll try to, you know, sprinkle this in as we go. But certainly, as we talked about in the emotions episode of season one, being aware of what's contributing to your feelings and your emotions, in this case, anxiety is essential, it is essential, because when you don't know why you're feeling what you're feeling, and it's just taking over, it could become very intense. It's dysregulated. It's, it's scary, it freaks people out. It's like, Oh, my God, what, what is my heart is racing, I'm tense, my mind is disoriented, I can't focus. I feel like something is something horrible is about to happen, right? And you can't, you don't really think clearly in those moments. And so that's why I always say therapy is such a great way to slow things down and pick apart the pieces that are contributing to the anxiety so that you know you're not caught off guard all the time, doesn't mean you're not going to feel anxiety. And part of the work is doing something about what you learned about yourself. It's not just it's insight and awareness is helpful. You learn about yourself and then doing something with it isn't the next step. But there's a lot of ways to understand why right and think about something right now. Right? It's for kids getting back into school. Right? And it's only natural to feel anxiety when you're starting something new again. And there's a reason for that. And part of therapy is helping people like just learn about why like what what does that mean? Like why why why would you feel anxiety? Well, think about it, if something's new, you don't really know what to expect. And that's why we use the word adjustment. Adjustments take time. And so when you're trying something new if you expect everything to just be perfect as we talked about in the perfection in the episode or if you just kind of have a fantasy about how you think should things should be are you imagining you know, things playing out a certain way. And then you learn that oh, that's not actually what's happening. Like adjustments are essentially like going out into the wilderness and being like, Okay, what what do I expect? I need experience to learn about what to expect like what goes where how do people respond, like what are the expectations for me for other people? What Could happen. And then as you learn and adjust, you know, your anxiety could naturally come down over time if, if you if you manage it in a certain way, so adjustments are important, and we're always adjusting now, right? We're adjusting in relationships, you meet someone new or something changes in your relationship or you know, you know, something happens that catches you off guard, and you know, you have to figure something out, like everything you're trying something new, it's, it's all adjustments. And if you can reframe it that way, it takes out this thing, and the fear of the fear, you know, you don't, you know, he was talking about being anxious about being anxious. And sometimes you have to normalize the parts that are valid about your anxiety. So you can pick it apart and know that you need something to get through the adjustment. Let's figure out what you need. And sometimes it's just information, right? Like kids applying for college, they're terrified of making a decision, well, you probably need more information. Maybe you just don't know what to expect. You got to talk to people, get some perspective, learn, you know, figure out what your questions are, and get them answered. And on the other hand, some people may take that to the extreme and, and go overboard with planning and getting information. And we'll talk more about why they do that. But

  Alexis Reid  11:15

  I'm starting to feel some anxiety myself, because you just walked right into my world right now. You know, but this this anticipatory anxiety, I'm going to pull it back to where you were before thinking about, you know, the start of school, the beginning of fall, even the changing of the seasons, right? There's so much unpredictability, that we're just not really sure exactly what's going to happen, we can refer back to, you know, last year or previous experiences we've had. But in development, it's so interesting, because even when we think we have things figured out, there's always other changes that are gonna happen, you know, sometimes within us, sometimes around us, and we can't always predict it. So, you know, as, as my clients like to joke, little Alexis ism that I share is that we can't always predict but we can prepare. And I think that's such an important piece. And I've had so many conversations, you know, all summer long, but especially now here in September in the fall, reminding parents and also students that we're still in this transitionary period, right? Things are still new schools, just ramping up athletic sports clubs and activities are just starting to get into the rhythm with practices and schedules and things. And we're not really in it yet. Right? We're just still adjusting. But this adjustment piece, I know, you said, we're constantly adjusting. But this is a big struggle for people, especially who have anxiety, but also those who don't have fully developed executive functions, which we could say is pretty much most people 30. And under, other developed, their frontal lobes are still developing as their brains are developing. But especially those who haven't explicitly had a lot of different experiences. Predictability is key. And it's super helpful, especially for individuals who have mental health challenges or learning disabilities. But sometimes we also need to add in that novelty to practice, so that we can figure out how we can adjust and, you know, I do this all the time, in my practice, in my work with with individuals, one on one or in groups that we need to develop this cognitive flexibility. And, and it's not always something that just comes online. Because when we're when we're working from a place of stress more our bodies and our minds and our beings are constantly stressed, we're anticipating that something might go wrong, or we're anticipating, like you said, the anxiety, we're worrying about the worry, you know, that can trigger in shutdown or Executive Function System, even when we have fully developed skills. So thinking about those who are still developing, it's so important to take a step back and really take a breath and say, okay, things aren't going exactly as planned. Maybe our routines and systems aren't really in place yet. But is this something that we need to dedicate more worry and anxiety towards? Or do we need to take a step back and assess the situation and figure out how we can be in it, and also get through it?

  Gerald Reid  14:25

  For sure. And it's a it's a proactive process to do that. And I always tell people I work with, you know, lean into being more proactive, you know, with your life. And you know, that takes time to figure out how to do that. But if you're anticipating all these horrible things that could happen and look, some people have gone through very bad experiences. There's a reason people have anxiety and there's different reasons. Let me go through a few reasons. These people have gone through something very stressful, hurtful, traumatic, or just past Veterans in terms of how people treat them, or how people react to them that essentially just leads them to take that memory. And then use that memory to predict what will happen in the future. And, you know, that's understandable. And part of that is relearning experiences, and relearning how to navigate situations, to kind of dispel some of those patterns and to kind of change some of those patterns. And obviously, avoid things that are going to be hurtful to you, and also learn how to not always predict that things are always going to be hurtful to you. So it's a learning and that's a very nuanced learning, right? You don't want to just say, Oh, don't worry about it, like that bad thing will never happen again. And sometimes you have to say, well, there, there's part of that anxiety that you have that you have to learn from it that maybe, you know, maybe do things a little bit differently next time. So or problem solver, figure out who can help you or stuff like that. That's the practice piece. And then also relearning and reach, realizing that your mind could be biased based on your experiences and biases important,

  Alexis Reid  16:03

  I was just gonna bring that up, because you you mentioned that in a previous episode thinking about you know why we focus so much on the negative experiences, the things that don't go well, versus really appreciating and remembering and holding at the forefront of our mind, the things that go well. And I think that bias piece is such an important piece to understand. And, again, if our frontal lobes aren't fully developed yet, we might not accurately assess the situation in a way that helps us to learn from and grow from things that don't go well versus having that expectation that it's always going to happen in the same way every time. Because it has happened that way before.

  Gerald Reid  16:43

  Right? It does take flexibility in your thinking, which essentially means you can think differently, try to reassess situations because we're always predicting like as human beings, we're always thinking forward, we talked about this and probably the happiness episode that your dog Rafa is not thinking in the future, is always in the present. He's not like, he's on the calendar. He's like, What are you doing now? We're doing now, Alexei, come on, let's go play. So we're always planning and there's a reason for that we're trying to make sure things are going to be okay in the future. And part of you know, therapy from a cognitive behavioral standpoint, is to, to think more critically about your your interpretations of not only what happened in the past, what's happening in the present, but also what's happening in the future. You know, and so often, you know, people I work with, and everybody does this, we're imagining things that never happen all the time. All the time

  Alexis Reid  17:41

  imagining things, people aren't thinking, imagining things that probably won't happen, or you know, and there is a protective factor in like, assessing like, what are all the possible outcomes from this. But if you can give yourself enough space and time to say, okay, here are the possibilities. This is my agency in choosing the path forward, that feels most comfortable for me that I feel like I have the skills and resources to be able to navigate. But But that takes time and practice to

  Gerald Reid  18:12

  Well, I mean, let's pick up the nuance here. So but like we're predicting things, and we're imagining all these horrible things happening there. Some of it could be valid. Some of it could be like, some people could be judgmental towards you. Some people could be mean, some people could be like, deceptive and hurtful and all that stuff. And it's like, yeah, well, that's true. Don't Don't be naive in life. You know, we're not telling people to just numb their anxiety and just become naive and just become reckless and disinhibited all the time. But what we are saying is like, think more critically, and because your reaction to situations happened so fast, and therapy, like I said, you slow down and you're like, Oh, I always ask like, what he will go through what goes through your head in those moments? What are you focused on? And people started to put the pieces together? Because they don't do that people don't do we don't do that. Life is moving too fast to like, sometimes I'll be put on the whiteboard. Like let's let's draw this out. Let's let's have all the all the pieces together, so you can visualize it, you can see it, slow it down, and then begin to deconstruct it and say, Well, you know, maybe this part doesn't make so much sense. And maybe maybe I need to not worry about that part so much. But this part, yeah, I probably do need to worry about. And at the end of the day, you know, it takes courage to go through life, and we need people in our lives to help us to be courageous.

  Alexis Reid  19:29

  And I was just gonna say that. That's my favorite part about my job. And I think it's probably one of the best parts about therapy too, is that you get an opportunity to slow down and have somebody objectively help you challenge some of the thoughts that tend to get in your way and give you that moment like step back and if they have a UDL universally designed mind to think about multiple means of representation to say, this is what this could look like. This is what It sounds like this is what it might feel like, and helping an individual or yourself to be able to assess all those different parts of the experience, because it's never just one thing, right. And of course, like you said, we don't want to diminish the experience of anxiety, because there are some things that could be very scary. And we need to, you know, protect ourselves and be planful. And, you know, have some inhibition to press pause, and check ourselves, check our surroundings, check those around us. But, you know, being able to, to assess and evaluate how that process and how those experiences impact us in our day to day and in the long run is so important. And I wanted to go back and talk a little bit about this idea of expectation, because I think that we were exposed to so much in media. And in our day to day, especially if you live in a city or even if you're in a school, right, where, you know, there's a lot of homogeneity, like, there are a lot of people that look and act and talk the same, that we think that the expectation might be to be like everybody else. And I think this is a huge source of anxiety, I see this a lot. And not only my younger clients, but in my young adults and the adults I work with, a even with the parents that I work with that sometimes their anxiety comes from what they think they're expected to be doing, or what they think their kids are expected to be doing. Or, you know, what they have as their own expectations for themselves. A lot of, you know, people in relationships and with families will say, you know, we had this fairy tale, you hear it a lot, even in TV, TV shows and movies they talk about, we have this fairy tale of what our life was going to be like. And it didn't end up that way. And, and because that expectation doesn't get met or matched. They get consumed by the anxiety and the worry around, what did I do wrong? What do I need to be doing differently? What are other people thinking about? What's happening in my world, when in reality we know as adults or in our wisest minds, that none of that really matters. But in the moment, or when we're comparing ourselves to these expectations, wherever they might be coming from, it can be incredibly anxiety provoking,

  Gerald Reid  22:19

  that's all consuming. Well, that's why I wrote the song keep building, which is the chorus goes, life ain't always what we think it should be. So I'll keep building right. So like we got that's, that's a process that takes time. Well, I

  Alexis Reid  22:32

  don't think we officially introduce you as a rockstar as we keep showing Rockstar. Funny, but I, I will mention him because I think this is related to that, you know, we need to find things that help us, you know, distance ourselves from our own anxieties and worries of the world that we in our jobs and roles. As therapists, you you as a clinical psychologist mean, as an educational therapist, we take on a lot of the anxiety and worry of the people we work with. So I will take this moment, I appreciate you sharing that lyric. And also say that, you know, that's your outlet. And to be able to manage some of this anxiety, these expectations. I think one of the greatest things that we can do, and often it's free to do is to go back to the things that bring us joy, go back to our hobbies go back to purposeful expressions of our emotions and of ourselves to try to mediate some of that anxiety that might come up, balance it out somehow, some way. And I appreciate that that's yours. Because I think not only does it help you, I think when people hear the lyrics that you write and the music you make, I think it does help to bring a sense of calm and patience and purpose for others to

  Gerald Reid  23:47

  thank you, Lex. I appreciate that. And it's true. Like we need outlets, and it's good, like figure out your outlet and do it in a reasonable way. I think sometimes people are like, Oh, I'm gonna make this my outlet. And then it becomes like, they start to neglect the responsibilities because they just take it too far. It's like, No, we're not saying that. It's like, just figure out a way to integrate it. So make sense for you in your life. It's only wants to a person. But I want to get back to what you said about expectations. There's a reason people have expectations. And I think it's because expectations are containing what I mean by that is I think expectations give us some sort of structure. It's almost like we'd rather know something then know nothing. And the expectation is knowing something, you know, and life is not always so black and white. But you know, as we go through life we you know, as you get older you kind of try to simplify life as much as you can to contain it because life is so expansive and open complicated. Like we don't know a lot of things. We'll talk about the brain now I'm like, well, like we've been researching the brain for how long like how much do we really know about the brains and most complex thing maybe like on Earth and so You know, to, to say something very, maybe the word is dogmatically that this has to be a certain way all the time, always, as we talked about the perfectionist episode, and that is a kind of a way of coping with uncertainty. You know, and so, so it's good for us to recognize that, that, you know, sometimes we can learn how to, to work with our expectations by understanding how they function, and how they serve us. And we always get to understand like, Well, why am I doing that? Like, what, how does this serve me? And, and so in therapy? You know, I don't, I'm not judgmental about why people do what they do. I'm just like, well, well, tell me about that. Like, I want to understand it. Like, you must be doing it for a reason. And then I'll get into like, you know, what's your motivations? What do you care about? What are you trying to accomplish with this thought, or with this action with this perspective? Where is it leading you? And then all of a sudden, people start to say, Oh, okay. Oh, there's, there's more to this than just some random thought I have about like,

  Alexis Reid  26:00

  but that's really difficult to do. You know, my favorite question is, what's the goal? What's the goal? And then what's your motivation behind like, aiming for that goal? And I think there's so much to it, and sometimes it's scary for people to even unpack. I know you don't love that word, but to unpack and break apart and to understand

  Gerald Reid  26:18

  well, because you may not even know what you actually want in the first place. You may think you want something but you don't like you know, like I talked about this with with dating, right? People will go on dates and they have this fantasy of what they want to be with with some person. And I'll ask them like, I'll say this to some of the guys right because you know, a society guys are like, Oh, you gotta be with the supermodel and and everybody's gonna be so like, Oh, you're so cool with a supermodel. And like, I'm not judging supermodels, I'm just putting making this is the point. Regardless of that, maybe the supermodels is a really great person that you would really jive with for a lot of reasons, your personality, your values, your culture. But if you're only basically going on looks, and just being cool, or people like you know, thinking you're so like, cool, because you're dating a supermodel. Is that what you really want? Because as society I think guys are kind of grown into that type of mentality and then ask well, would you rather be with someone like that? Or would you rather be with someone that you really just love to be with? For for 5000 reasons. You know, and you got to get into those reasons with that person? What do you really want? What are you really looking for, and then you start to get rid of some unnecessary anxiety. And this is the reason I talk about this stuff in relation to anxiety. Because, you know, when those guys would go on dates and stuff, it's like, there's all this anxiety, but I got to impress them, I got to get the hottest girl and stuff, I'm like, well, is that what you really want, because you're anxious about this, you don't need to be anxious about this, if you really think critically about it. And so the anxiety just kind of can melt away when you shift your perspective. And align yourself more with that we care about which a lot of ways is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for into that in terms of you know, aligning with what you really care about in your values.

  Alexis Reid  27:59

  Oh, you know I am. But there's this cognitive and psychological flexibility is really tough to develop an inner love for a lot of people doesn't just come online, it needs to be intentionally developed to be able to shift from this expectation of what you think things need to be. And well, first of all, good plug, because we're going to have an episode later this season about relationships, stay tuned. But also, you know, when you were talking about expectation, being something that we know, that we hold on to it reminded me of I had this image in my mind of his anger. And in the mindfulness realm, we want things to help anchor us and ground us. And it was interesting, as you're saying, next, I was thinking about how our expectations might actually anchor us but they end up getting us stuck in patterns of behavior that don't actually serve us well. Right, because in an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and act, when we think about, you know, some of these blockages, some of these stuck points, I call them that can get in our way. It's really important to hold on to a more flexible approach to thinking about things. Because if we're stuck on this as the expectation, this is how it's going to be. Sometimes we just don't have the ability to move past that if that's all we're holding on to. And we talked about this in the perfectionism episode. And it make sense that it's coming up here when we talk about anxiety because they're so related. But you know, sometimes we don't have the skill set. Sometimes they don't have the resources. Sometimes they don't have the bandwidth to even meet those expectations. But sometimes they are so prevalent in our minds is this is really has to be that we miss so much beauty around us when we get out of the present moment. And we maintain being anchored to the expectation.

  Gerald Reid  29:58

  Sure and you just survive of life. And yeah, we're always trying to survive. That's part of being human in any species is like we got to survive. But we do have the ability to not just survive. And that's the productivity. Yeah, be proactive, do things because you're doing them for intentions that are meaningful to you. Be nice to people, because you want to be nice to people. So let me give an example. So people with social anxiety, we have a whole episode about this. But this is a bit of a, an add on to the social anxiety episode. A lot of times it comes down to how do you want to treat other people? And, and as much as people have social anxiety about, oh, I'm going to be judged for this, I'm gonna be judged for that. I'm not going to be good enough, I'm not going to be cool enough, I'm not going to be this enough or that enough? Like, it's it's a never ending cycle, right? And so often, eventually, there's a long process of getting there's different steps and different, it's not just this, but a lot of times it ends up moving towards how do you want to be with people? How do you want to treat people how you want to show up? Yeah, because you're always thinking about yourself when you're anxious, because it's a protective thing, right? So people are socially anxious, they're just constantly thinking about themselves. And I had a girl recently said, Wow, that kind of feels like kind of, like, a little self absorbed thinking about myself all the time. She's not doing it for that reason. But it's because she's so anxious about what's happening, but she's learning, you know, we all can learn, you know, get out of your head. And by the way, people want you to be comfortable yourself. And that's a total mind shift. You know, people are like, oh, like, they actually don't want you to be anxious, they want you to just be comfortable yourself, they don't want you to try to impress them, like if they do, then maybe that's not the person that you want to be around.

  Alexis Reid  31:38

  I dropped a comment about what I thought was one of the most attractive things in a former episode. But I think also that is the other piece to it. You know, you attract people, whether it's romantically or in friendships, or collegially. When you are confident in yourself, and this isn't about like being the best, or showcasing like the best of yourself, it's really just owning who you are. And showing up in an authentic way. I know that word gets overused, but I think it's so important to appreciate. Because I think, again, when we go back to these comparisons and expectations, we're constantly thinking about others. And guess what those others are probably thinking about themselves, or other people comparing themselves to other people that like becomes the sixth cycle, you know, and anything gets so important. I, you know, I have been having these conversations for a while now. And you'll see eventually, that I am building my own brand, of who I am in the work that I do to be able to provide these services and communicate, to communicate it and to showcase it. And honestly, the same purpose of the podcast is to get resources out to people who want to make changes in their lives. That's the purpose, right? And, you know, part of it is also a new chapter in my own life, where I need to accept who I am in the work I've done to get to this place and to own it, and to be confident sharing that with the world. And one of the things that I've said a couple different times, and I think listeners, and you'll appreciate this is that there's so many brilliant people out there saying really important amazing things, especially in the educational world, in the mental health world. And, you know, sometimes I question myself, my goal, I know I'm helping in this realm. I know I have expertise in this. But there's so many other people who do too. But, you know, one of the things that I keep reminding myself and the amazing people around me keep reminding me is like, you know, there's only one you. Yeah, there's only one version of you and how you're showing up your own experiences, your expertise, the way you authentically share yourself and your work with others. Your personality, you know, all these pieces make you who you are.

  Gerald Reid  33:56

  Yeah, it's kind of like, it's like love. It's like, there's a lot of people are sharing love, there's no downside to that. There's a lot of people sharing something that's positive, you know, it's, you know, people obviously, debate what's positive or not, like, if people are different voices, sharing something that's positive, people have different versions of how to share love, it's similar thing, like you have a different version of sharing something positive that that's great, you know, just spread the love, you know, spread the love and, you know, different people will resonate with different versions, right. It's like music, like some people like this music, some but it's all music.

  Alexis Reid  34:29

  And it comes back to acceptance because not everybody is going to like everything about everybody. Right? Not, you know, same thing goes in my work. Not every person who comes asking for assistance in developing their executive function skills, or to do the work that I do with them is going to drive with me. Right and I can't take that personally happens. Everybody happens everybody, you know, and it's it's important for parents to understand for coaches to understand educators, therapists, doctors, people that you You're looking for relationships and friendships that not everybody's going to love everything about you and not everybody's going to be the best match for you either. And that's okay. And that's okay to just accept and own. And this is where it comes back to this acceptance piece that I think is so important not to get rid of anxiety, but to understand what the anxiety tells you. Because oftentimes, when you get these signals of like, oh, this doesn't feel right, or I'm a little worried about this, it might actually be really great information to tell you like, Hey, this is working,

  Gerald Reid  35:34

  this isn't. And so let me take that right there. This is working, this isn't so part of working with anxiety. Also, in some ways, this comes from internal family systems therapy, which kind of looks at kind of a holistic version of a person. It is to say, the anxiety is telling you one thing, but anxiety narrows your focus on one thing, and it's like, oh, only this matters. And then you realize there's parts to a hole. And what you're focusing on is one part to a larger hole. And that's why when you pull back from anxiety, and you have perspective, or you think flexibly as you're saying, you can say oh, there's different parts, like okay, there's something about this person that I don't really jive with, but there's other parts that I really respect. And I'm going to, you know, I'm going to jive with that part, I'm going to let them know, I really respect this about you, even though there's another part that I'm like, Ah, you know, I just, maybe we're not going to be best friends, but I can still respect this part of you. Or I can work together with you in some way and in figure things out, and that also goes with life, not just relationships, you know, this one part of my life is not going so well. And some people can be devastated by that, and extremely anxious because, Oh, this one thing's gonna ruin my whole life and reality, you pull back. And you're like, well, there's different parts of my life. You know, there's this aspect, that aspect that is actually fine right now. And this other part has some growing pains, and that's normal. You know, all your parts are not going to be just like seamlessly rolling along through life every day, such as life Life is like that, too.

  Alexis Reid  37:07

  Yeah, it's, it's so interesting in you and I have a shared client is this young athlete, who I'm working on executive function, academic stuff, and you're working more on sports psychology, understanding, anxiety, performance, anxiety. And, you know, we were talking together, we had this as the beauty and you and I collaborating, sometimes, we were talking together to frame the work we're all doing together, that was great. And I framed it in a way that I was talking about, you know, kind of like when you go to a clinic, to build your skills in the sport, where you're breaking down pieces of the process. And you're talking more about the mechanics of it. You know, I shared with him and we talked together about how, you know, our work together is kind of like, let's focus in on the mechanics of it. What is this telling us? How does this work? Well, for us, how does this not work? Well, what do we need to tweak? What do we need to improve? What maybe we want to keep? What maybe shows up in different contexts and in different ways, because when you can break things down without overly obsessing about the mechanics, and fully understand it, once you've practiced in this way, it becomes so integrated in who you are in how you show up, and all these things we're talking about, that allow for you to not let that anxiety get too noisy, and interrupt or interfere with the things you're doing on your day to day.

  Gerald Reid  38:28

  So let me give some advice to younger people who are anxious, this is not gonna apply to everybody. But I often hear kids talk when they're anxious, and their parents will tell me when they're anxious, they just don't want to talk about anything, they just get really upset and angry and all this and I can't say anything to them. And so, um, so, you know, parents in kids lives when they're anxious, you know, it could seem like, the little things don't matter, but the little things can matter. Right? Like if your kid is anxious about something, and you know, maybe what they need is just some time to go for a walk with you and get things off their chest. And just to have a space to let it out. And maybe, you know, hold back from trying to fix it or correct it so quickly. Maybe what they use is just get it out. And sometimes people can get perspective like, oh, yeah, maybe you know, I might be overreacting now that I've said it out loud. That sounds a little ridiculous. Maybe I'm overreacting. Or maybe they begin to clarify what their problem actually is. Because they have a legitimate problem they're anxious about and they need to talk it through. I can't tell you how many times in therapy it's like problem solving comes up because there's a problem that hasn't been clearly defined a problem and hasn't been clearly solved any degree and person is confused or upset and just avoids it altogether. So you know, as a parent, like pull back and just let the process happen. Instead of thinking that it's a tragedy or that it's so terrible, obviously they have some kids can be Yeah, so dysregulated, you know, really scary and upsetting and all that I don't want to discredit that, but figure out what the kid needs in those moments to work through their anxiety, and there can be steps to it, just like you said, there's parts to a hole, there could be parts to helping the kid get through the anxiety. And knowing those steps can be very useful, even if it doesn't make their anxiety go away immediately. But those steps, you keep planting those seeds, you keep providing those opportunities. And over time, the kid can develop the capacity. Let's think about this. If you're asking a kid, I'll tell me more about that I want to understand a little bit more. And you're getting them to reflect you're getting them to face their fears by talking about it, no talking about is facing some ways and talk about their problems, you're actually teaching them how to reflect on themselves. And that is a great skill for kids develop. And there's a lot of great, you know, psychologists writing books about this that, you know, actually providing the space to talk through things with your child, and to reflect back what they're saying, say, Oh, I understand. Let me validate what you're saying. Let me let me let me put this into words in paraphrase or summarize, or, or empathize with you? I understand. Okay, that makes sense. Why you feel this way, based on what you're saying to me. And based on what you're thinking, that doesn't mean you have to agree with it doesn't mean like, oh, yeah, of course, you know, the monster under your bed? Of course, yeah, there's a monster in your bed, you shouldn't be afraid to validate it. And to acknowledge it doesn't mean that you're agreeing with it, it means that Oh, because you're thinking this way. That's why you feel this way. And here's all the reasons it's helping them to be reflected. And then, you know, a lot of good things can happen from that over time.

  Alexis Reid  41:37

  Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just jump into because you said so many things, in what you're talking about it and referring to it as this is what parents can do for young kids, mostly because they're still developing these skills and understanding themselves. But the same things you're saying, for younger people, it applies to adults, too. Oh, totally. I don't want to just let it be lost on that moment and talking about it. Because I say that self regulation these days is like a superpower. Right? It's not to get rid of emotion, it's to understand, and to be able to bring it back to a place where we can regulate ourselves to think more clearly. And when we talk about executive function, we've talked about it a million times, you'll hear this a lot more just in talking to me about anything, that when we are dysregulated, and we can't think clearly, and then we fall into this trap. And this system that often can get stuck in the anxiety or anchored in the expectation instead of being able to understand what our options are, and to make a good decision and be critical thinkers. And the other thing that I think when we do talk about parenting and caregiving, for anybody who, you know, has any wisdom or age that they're trying to impart on somebody else, to remember that we don't always want to jump to problem solving in people's lives. And I catch myself all the time, because my brain constantly goes to problem solving mode. It's just it's a strength of mine. Because you care. Yeah. And, and guess what? That's not always the solution or the answer. So I have to really consciously press pause and inhibit all of that to say, what is needed right now. Because like I said, before, developmentally, what's needed in one instance, and context or one point of time, might not work? It might not be what's useful in another moment. And we have to be so aware of that. And this is where the flexibility comes in both psychologically and cognitively, to say what is actually needed in this moment. Because if we, if we keep trying to problem solve, especially for young people, they're going to lose that ability to do it for themselves. And then they get wrapped up in, oh, what am I supposed to be doing? Which per separates the anxiety even further and shuts down there executive systems, where they can't think clearly to do that, and make good decisions? And

  Gerald Reid  43:59

  that can make you afraid of a problem? Totally. Because you're like, Well, other people do that for me. I don't do that for myself. Right.

  Alexis Reid  44:05

  Right. And there's this over reliance on other people to help them and a lot of reassurance seeking, even when they do make that decision, like, oh, is this right? And did I do this? Right? It? Can you check it first? Which, you know, when we think of scaffolding, like supporting a little until the skill has been developed, like that makes sense. You know, check in, make sure it's okay, that will hopefully help the dissipate that anxiety around am I doing this, right? But, you know, we don't want to do that forever. We want people to have independence and agency around their thoughts and actions. And we want to give them these opportunities to do it. Yeah.

  Gerald Reid  44:44

  And so, like, as a parent, you get to give a role a few ways, right? Sometimes, sometimes you got to take the lead as parents like sometimes you you have to be the adult in the room and say, Well, this is what we're doing because and there's a very good rationale. For it's not just impulsive. It's not just like, you know, might makes right. As Ross Greene says about the explosive child book, you know, it's not just I'm not gonna do this because I have to overpower the child. It's like, no, because this is my perspective as an adult that makes the most sense, based on life experience, and based on just knowing a lot more and having a wider perspective, whatever that is. Sometimes you got to take charge as a parent, I mean, kids feel safe. When parents do that sometimes, right? It's like, yeah, if a parent's going to be pulled back and not kind of confidently take charge in certain situations that can be scary for the kid, because then the kid may feel like, oh, no, I have to take charge. That's when you see, you know, what we call kind of prenta fied kids that feel like they have to do adult things that they don't really have to do. And that creates anxiety that, you know, sometimes it happens to a degree and it's not all or nothing, sometimes it can happen to a degree or not. Or their perception is

  Alexis Reid  45:51

  that that's what they have to do. Yeah, right, exactly. Even if it's not accurate.

  Gerald Reid  45:55

  And login, sometimes it may actually be important to do that for the kid. Now, who knows, there are certain special situations where the kid actually does have to maintain stability, and to stay safe, and to stay safe, and so forth. Right. That's why we don't want to say that there's a one size fits all for everything. But there's also this role of a parent to create us as a safe and secure space for your kid. And I always say to parents, like you guys love each other, that's great, keep nurturing that. Keep giving space to have that love between you and your kid, we have that quality time where you get to just bond like truly a bond not in some way where you're like, just like, you know, maybe watching the show does it for you, maybe it doesn't, I'm not sure it depends on the person, but we are really emotionally bonding with them. And you're giving space for them to open up even spontaneously, where the kid's gonna start talking about stuff because they want to, and kids are gonna want to when they feel more of a connection, you know, it's like your favorite teacher, sometimes you like, Oh, I just wanted to share things with them, you know.

  Alexis Reid  46:54

  And I'm going to jump in and say that one of the most important things to do in those moments is to be present. Yeah, prep for exactly, there was that social media post that showed a father with his son doing different activities. And in one instance, he's on a phone, Michael, like set up a situation and go play with a car or something or go play basketball, and the kid is playing. And in one instance, he's on his phone, in the interaction, you could see like they're there together, like they might think they're present, because they are in the same space around the same activity. But the father's on the phone, and then the other video representation of the same exact thing. The father's engaging, having interactions that have nothing to do with other technologies. And he's fully present with the child. And it's interesting when you see the behaviors that the child exhibits in both of those situations,

  Gerald Reid  47:51

  right? It's like your dog right? When, when literally this happens, for the people listening, Alexis will be on her computer or on her phone for like, a millisecond. And then her dog Rafa will just get his paw and just SWAT her hand away. What is he doing? He's trying to get your attention. So true. So it's so hilarious. But I mean, parents are busy parents have their own issues and their own stuff. We're not criticizing parents, we're just saying, you know, parents also have the problem solved for themselves. Yeah, figure out how you can structure your life maybe slightly differently to have more that bonding quality time. Even if it's like, you know, in a very small way, you know, after dinner, you guys do some special after dinner, and every time or something, you know, that you can do something special, every consistently make it consistent, make a ritual or, you know, be creative with it. And we're not saying has to be an all or nothing kind of thing.

  Alexis Reid  48:46

  I'm gonna bring it back to that to it that's so important that you were talking about making consistent time to bond and share special times together. And I brought up the idea of not being with a phone, because I think we all need some disconnection from technology. Right? It's not just about those special moments when you're bonding with a child or I want to

  Gerald Reid  49:07

  interpret. I was thinking about this the other day when you when you wake up. And the first thing you think of is like, Oh, what am I missing? That's on my phone right now. What in the world is that doing to our brains, when the very first thing we work we got when our cortisol levels are also high in the very beginning when we wake up, like literally the first thing we think of is like, Oh, I wonder what I'm missing. Like, I don't really do that much. Because literally, I'm on social media for the first time of my life, except for a small blip of Facebook when I was in college, but I feel like I'm a walking experiment. I'm like, now I'm on social media. But like, you know, I think we can all be aware of that. Like, we don't know what that's doing to us

  Alexis Reid  49:45

  changing our brains, that's for sure. But it's such a good point. And I work with a lot of families. And the parents will say, you know, we have these expectations for what our child is supposed to do to take care of them. selves to do their homework to put their things away to show up and contribute to the household. And it doesn't always work. And it's so interesting and fascinating that sometimes, right? So a lot of times the children or the people are building skills to be able to execute those tasks and do it independently, no doubt. But a lot of times, there's sometimes interruption in them following through on their responsibilities, because they're trying to get attention from their parents and caregivers. To get that interaction, even if it's,

  Gerald Reid  50:35

  everybody wants it. Everybody wants a genuine, positive connection with with anybody, right?

  Alexis Reid  50:42

  Yeah. I mean, I crave it. A lot of times, I noticed that in myself, well, everybody

  Gerald Reid  50:46

  wants it. But when you don't really realize you're not getting it, that's a problem, isn't it? Like we're on? If you're using technology that you don't feel like you're truly bonding with you, if you don't even realize that what you need? And you're not getting what you need? That's also a problem societally, totally. And so, you know, we got to think critically, that's why, you know, we always say, therapy pullback. What do I need, you always ask, like, what do you need, and let's figure out a way to get what you need. Sometimes kids just need to have fun sometimes, because some of these kids we work with are just constantly doing something they work more than adults do. Sometimes they have school about that all the time, from like, early in the morning. Yeah, till the school is over, then they have sports than they have music than they have. They gotta like fastly eat dinner, then they have like three hours of homework every single night, and looked at some some kids, it's going to take longer, because not everybody's the same. Sometimes it takes longer than other kids, you can't blame them for that. And then at the end of the night, they're on their phones all night, because they have what's called Revenge, procrastination, because they want to do fun stuff. And they do it on their phone at like 3am. Because they didn't have any time to do anything fun, when they were during the day. And so, you know, I don't know what the solution to that is, but like, be creative to figure out what the kid needs, maybe you got to, you know, insert some quality time, maybe you got to help the kid. You know, find some strategies to make their schoolwork more efficient. So that you can take less time to get help, they need to ask for help, and so forth, or, and just insert quality time, like you can get quality time throughout the day doesn't have to be like a structured thing. It could be like, you know, in the hallway for the kid, or it could be during lunchtime, it could be we're gonna go for a drive, we're gonna get a burger or something like just insert little experiences,

  Alexis Reid  52:26

  I mean, without without it being artificial or overly planned or over the top. And, you know, this is my PSA to the world. We all need this, whether you have children or not. I think we all need to be able to take time in our days to find joy in connection in some way.

  Gerald Reid  52:43

  You got to be present to that and open. Absolutely. We're all for the listeners. This is hard. We're not suggesting this is easy. No, it's hard.

  Alexis Reid  52:54

  But I do want to validate Can I go back for things that are harder with it's totally agree. And I want to go back and just validate, especially for the people we work with. And for students out there who might be listening that I think about this all the time. And I have very long days, you know this, but I put it in perspective. And I think about my students who maybe have to take three buses to get to school in the morning. Or they're going to practice their sport or their activity, or they show up for me at 7am or 8am. Before they go to school to meet with me before they start their day. You know, and then they're going through their day, sometimes they have after school, where they're supposed to be doing their homework, but really all they want to do is have fun and let loose, or they have sports or activities. And then they come home and they have chores and responsibilities. And then they have more homework and things to do at night before the end their their day. Their days are so long and so packed. And I think it's sometimes a necessity, because parents lives are often busy as they're trying to provide and support. And I totally get it. But my point and validating this and shining a light on it again, is that I think we all need to give ourselves number one a little credit for how hard we're all working even when it doesn't always go as planned. And number two, to give ourselves permission just to exhale and debris. This is what I like about meditation so much is because it's the meditation and concerts for me. I might have said this before. It's the two experiences where my brain totally shuts off. And I can completely be in the moment without trying. Right? It's just the intention and the goal is literally to be present and enjoy it. And we all need to find something in our worlds and in our lives to be able to do that. Even if it's just going for a quick walk, looking up at the sky and noticing the clouds taking in the sunshine if you have it available to you. Making a connection sometimes just giving a hug so I'm going to bring it back to what you said previously to that sometimes parents need to be in the role to say, we need to stop. And I've been so proud of so many families I work with, especially these past few weeks, I've been hearing it from a lot of people where they're like, my child's coming home is super anxious, doesn't know how to get started on their work, or just has no more energy to give their work, where I just said, We need to stop. And what they do is, sometimes they need to suggest what needs to happen. But ideally, outside of that really anxious moment, we all should be coming up with a list of tools and strategies that help us, I mentioned before hobbies that bring us joy. But maybe it's something as simple as I need to take a cold shower, or a warm bath, or I need to snuggle with my pet, or I need to go for a walk, I want to go look at the stars, you know, we need to come up with our list of things that nurture us. Because we're just gravitating towards technology to turn our brains off. Yes, but it's actually overstimulation. It doesn't give us the opportunity to calm ourselves, to regulate ourselves to decide what comes next. And as adults and young people's lives or partners in each other's lives, or family members or friends, sometimes we just have to say we gotta stop. Yeah. And we need to take a step back for a few minutes.

  Gerald Reid  56:28

  It's hard to stop by. If you ask anybody when they're doing so much like, what do you wish you can do? I wish I can stop. But I can't. Isn't that so ironic? Like, literally stopping is not doing something, and people are not doing something. And there's a reason for that.

  Alexis Reid  56:43

  I think I think it's also because people think it means we're not being productive, or we're not making forward progress. Or we're not keeping up again, going back to this comparison moment. But really, that we need to interrupt the system that's keeping us stressed and anxious. Otherwise, we can't move forward, or we can't move forward. Well, I've been saying this so much to my clients chair, that you're gonna get this stuff done, you really care, your values are that you care about doing well, and you're going to do it. But at what expense, I don't want you to do it without feeling the joy and the satisfaction of doing it in in a less stressful way.

  Gerald Reid  57:25

  I think I think as a society, we are grappling with this. We don't know how to do this in a nuanced way. Had to say you got to work hard, like the old school values. There's, there's nothing like we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and say like hard work is bad, right? And then everybody's like, just stop working.

  Alexis Reid  57:44

  I'm not sure that's healthy for people, you know, kind of going through that a little bit. Now.

  Gerald Reid  57:47

  Well, let me finish this up, because I think it's important. At the same time, other people are arguing that it's too much like the way society is the way the structures are built in is like, you have to maximize everything all the time, all the time all the time. And, like there's pros and cons to everything in life. I think that's a philosophy, I try to see how it applies. And maybe both things could be true and integrated. And it's hard to figure out how to do that. Like, like I said, before, we all want certainty. We all want to say it's always this or it's always that. So when people talk about these topics, sometimes it's like, it's only this and it's only that when the truth may be in the middle somewhere. And so how do we do that is hard, because that's a complex problem to solve and to integrate into different systems. So that we can work hard, but also take care of ourselves at the same time. Because both things can be equally important. And so, so let me, we got to think we've got to wrap up with the timing here, but I just want to make one more larger point. So in regards to this, let me let me make this kind of one more. Bigger Picture point is stress is not anxiety, some which some would, some would suggest they're different things, stress is sort of like I have a demand and I have to meet that demand. And therefore your stress, right you need stress to do something stress, motivator, it activates your body, it activates your mind so that you can actually do something. Anxiety is not necessarily stress is I am afraid of something bad happening. Great point, right? I can go to this piano over here, this nice looking piano and just start playing. And I can have some stress that activates me to like figure out what I want to do. But if I can have anxiety that Oh, like I might play the wrong note and everyone's gonna think I'm horrible at playing the piano. That's anxiety. That's fear. That's fear of something that happening those are different things. But I think what happens in society as we're talking about before how life is can be so too stressful. Stress can bleed into anxiety, because when we're vulnerable, our mind is more likely to err on the side of thinking extreme thoughts. That's. And so as an example, right, if you're just constantly stressed and people got stressed, you can't blame people for having stress. Like they got health problems, money problems, they got relationship, like, there's a lot to be stressed, how many problems can we get through in life? Like, that's why I said in the beginning, if you're not anxious, you're not human. Right? So, but when we have so much stress, you know, we're more likely to treat those things that we're trying to approach and deal with, with anxiety, because the fear starts to bleed, and it's not like, Oh, I gotta take, I gotta approach this person, or I gotta go do this task. It's like, oh, God, like, what's gonna happen now, because you're angry resources are depleted, you lose confidence, you lose trust, you, you, you're disoriented, you're not thinking clearly. And so, you know, that's why people talk a lot about stress management. And that's not like an all or nothing thing, either. It's like just figure out ways to calm yourself down to think more clearly to create space, to not have to not be too vulnerable all the time. It could be sleep, it could be nutrition, these things are spirals. That's why when therapy is like, what are these cycles, okay? You're too stressed. So you're not sleeping, you're not sleeping, so then you're more stressed, and even more stressed, and more anxious. Like these things all feed into each other. That's why it's not like, there's no silver bullet to helping someone you know, in therapy, sometimes needs to be complex. So you got to figure out what can you control and what can you not control. But control the controllables is a big part of life and therapy, for sure.

  Alexis Reid  1:01:33

  And that's why in my work, too, I talk a lot about that cycle that you just referred to, because when that is so prevalent, and it's taking over, it can directly impact the way in which our executive functions come online to allow for us to work towards goals. And it makes it really tricky. And it makes it again, tricky to think clearly, to think critically, to be strategic, there's so many things that can be impacted by this. And, you know, sometimes it does come down to are we taking care of our bodies and our nervous systems, because when we are constantly in a place of stress, it can lead to so much more. So when I appreciate that people are starting to pay more attention to their nervous system. And one way that I like to try to do this, because I just noticed, like tension in my body. Right? Sometimes I'm like, so busy and so intense, and so focused on the thing that I noticed my shoulders are crunched up. And my my muscles are kind of tight. And maybe that's exercise without exercising. But I actually it impacts the way in which I feel when I'm doing something. So I'm constantly checking in with myself, even just doing a quick body scan, in the middle of the day in between sessions, when I stand up to stretch, like sometimes those little moments good just brings you back to where you need to be to, to just give you a little more clarity, and a little bit more presence, which I think is so important. And it's just these little tweaks sometimes, you know, sometimes we feel like, there's too much going on, I'm too stressed, I can't control all these things, which turns into anxiety. And I wanted to refer to this and have you talk a little bit about how oftentimes anxiety is a product of trying to over control. Yeah, you know, we talked about these comparisons and expectations, I think that creates a lot of anxiety, fear of unknown or fear of things that have happened in a negative or harmful way in the past, that all creates anxiety, but sometimes a function of feeling so out of control that we need to control is a function of anxiety to I wonder if you can speak to that as well

  Gerald Reid  1:03:45

  totally, you know, control the things you can accept things you can't timeless wisdom. If you like what you said, you know, the body scan, kind of calming the nervous system down from moment to moment when you get a chance to and grounding yourself is great. I would also suggest from a different angle, because you always want to try to look at things from as many angles as you can to treat a complex problem,

  Alexis Reid  1:04:09

  especially because not everybody's gonna respond in the same way to the same thing for sure.

  Gerald Reid  1:04:13

  So my suggestion is if you have stress in your life, number one, you're human, you're gonna have stress, some people have more stress than others. Take the anxiety out of the stress, and maybe your life will be a little bit better. And the way to do that is you describe that a little more. Yep. So you know, you got stressed because you have a deadline to meet. You have stress because you have something to do right. And maybe there's legitimate reasons you have anxiety about it, like you know, you could get fired, you know, you don't do something that's that's first of all, you should have anxiety about that to some degree, because that anxiety is going to remind you anxiety can keep us in check sometimes, like well don't do that, you know, that'll get you you know, that'll get in trouble or you know, that's that's going to, you know, make your life worse gives

  Alexis Reid  1:04:58

  us some limits in the decisions We make and it does help us keep us on track again, as long as it doesn't overwhelm us.

  Gerald Reid  1:05:04

  Right, exactly. And that's the nuance. And that's what therapy is like, how can you dial down the anxiety? And so and also understand the thoughts and the beliefs and the perspectives that contribute to unnecessary anxiety.

  Alexis Reid  1:05:21

  That's key

  Gerald Reid  1:05:22

  unnecessarily. So like, you know, if you're going to do this, this catastrophic outcome is going to happen. You know, if you, you know, if you do something embarrassing in front of someone, or if you don't know how to get started on on a test, or if you don't know how to get started on a paper, or if you're confused about something, right, take take the catastrophic, unnecessary anxiety out of that, to change your thoughts and beliefs about it to say like, Well, okay, I think I'm my anxiety is what we call disproportionate to the actual reality of the situation is disproportionate and that takes time to figure out and sometimes we just got to talk through people, like talking is so helpful. It's like, oh, okay, yeah, maybe maybe I'm over reacting a little bit to this. And just need to talk through on that. And I hear this all the time with patients like, Oh, now that I said it out loud. Okay, I didn't think about the employee said out loud.

  Alexis Reid  1:06:13

  That's so important, too. And when we talked about other people hearing about people's fears and anxieties, sometimes our perception might be different than theirs. So if you were to say like, Hey, Lex, I am super anxious about doing this podcast. And I'd be like, Sure, what are you talking about? You've done tons of talks, you have all the skills, you're ready to do this. If I were to invalidate your anxiety, you might be like, you might actually have more anxious. Yeah. So there's that there's a way to challenge it that I think is very nuanced and important. And this is why I always say, like, get curious. It's my favorite strategy. It's like, if somebody presents in a way that maybe doesn't make sense to the situation, especially based on their skills and their abilities, you can you can challenge it in a really delicate way. By just asking a good question.

  Gerald Reid  1:07:05

  Yeah. So my questions are, what are you concerned about? What is What are you specifically concerned will happen? Yeah, what are you specifically imagining? And there are, let me also see this, there are times to when people want to talk about it, but the Talking is actually avoidance. So this is a bit of a nuance about therapy, right? Sometimes it's like, oh, yeah, you kind of figure out oh, okay, I think this person is avoiding confronting someone by talking about it constantly. And you know, you don't know until you figure that out, or you kind of collaborate the person to help them to gain insight, if that's the case isn't and it could be the case a little bit. Yeah, sometimes people have to confront things with bravery. And talking about exactly avoidance. And so you know, what, I'm not gonna go into great detail about that. But you know, there's a nuance to it.

  Alexis Reid  1:07:50

  The other thing, too, is sometimes people will live in a highly anxious state or dis regulatory state, to avoid the thing that they're most anxious about, too. I see this all the time,

  Gerald Reid  1:08:03

  well, you said before about control, right, you're trying to control everything, and plan everything and make everything expected. That's also could be a form of avoidance, yes. Because you know, life doesn't work that way. And if you're trying too hard to control things, that's going to actually create anxiety, because you feel like, if I don't control that, then this catastrophe is going to happen. And you got to learn to confront the thing that you're afraid of. And that's what exposure therapy is. And there's a lot of really great aspects of exposure therapy, you know, it's not for everybody, and it's not for every situation. And sometimes there's reasons that people are anxious that go beyond just facing something, you got to kind of resolve things in the past or, or deal with deeper things that people are grappling with that, you know, they do, and but there's also some times when people have to gain confidence that they can confront something, even if it's uncomfortable, even if things don't work out great. And that they can cope through it and persist and they gain wisdom from it, they gain confidence. And we all need to feel like people are supporting our confidence, our bravery sometimes. Yeah, and

  Alexis Reid  1:09:02

  I want to just mention this for especially for caregivers, and coaches and, and teachers, that sometimes when people are feeling very anxious, there might be a behavior that seems unrelated to the thing that they're most anxious about. Good point, right. So, for example, I have a student who will like often start giggling uncontrollably, or acting pretty immature or silly in a moment, at the exact moment where they are trying to avoid something that feels too challenging for them. Totally. Right. And I see this all the time, or for young children who can't express what they're experiencing, where they might have a tantrum in a moment. Right, right. And you're like, Well, this is something we've done all the time. You knew what to expect, why are you behaving this way? It might be their own anxiety coming up and coming out in a way that they can't express and communicate. Eat effectively. So a lot of times too, we want to be mindful that these big behaviors, whether you're an adult having an adult tantrum, screaming, yelling, because you're trying to get your point across about something you're afraid of, or a young child doing something similarly, that seems unrelated. A lot of times, not all the time, but a lot of times might be coming from in stemming from an inner anxiety, where things like exposure therapy can be very helpful. Yeah. And also, you know, calming it down, saying, we need to take a break, we're not going to be able to figure this out right here. And right now, in this moment, with all these big emotions, feel what you're feeling? Let's figure out how to bring you back to a moment where we can think more clearly. And then we'll see what happens next.

  Gerald Reid  1:10:47

  Definitely. And, you know, there's other aspects too, you know, what is there could be behavioral aspects, you know, what is the person getting out of the tantrum? Maybe, you know, that's a way to control things to, you gotta try to, there's nuances to this, I don't want to say there's, this is always the case. And I don't, you know, obviously, I don't know the listeners too. So don't don't say, Oh, this definitely applies to my child. You got to work with therapists to figure this out, you know, is it more of an emotional thing that they have to learn about their motion to express them? Or is it more, there's something behind the scenes that they're kind of getting reinforced reinforcement for and so forth? Right? Like, but, you know, so both things could be important, helping the kid to express their emotions accurately. I was just in class, and I was teaching my the grad students who are going to be therapists. You know, they're like, Well, what if, you know, what if a kid were We were role playing, I was like, I'm going to be the kid, you're going to interview me in the parent. And in the kid, and one of my students said, okay, little Johnny, you know, like, tell me how you feel like, tell me what emotion you're feeling when this happens. And I was like, a 10 year old or something. And I responded to my students said, what are emotions? You know, they make a joke out of it, but also be the real to really hone in the point. And they're like, Well, what do you do? If they don't know? And? And I'm like, Well, this is your point Lex is sometimes people need to understand what's happening internally, and make sense of it so that they can work through it.

  Alexis Reid  1:12:13

  Yeah. And that's why, you know, a lot of the social emotional learning programs are so helpful. And I would say they're not just helpful for young children, they're also helpful for teachers, right? We can't just teach this stuff, we need to really practice it ourselves as adults in the lives of children and other people around us. It's so important to be able to develop the language again, break it down to the mechanics, what is happening? How do I practice what's helpful in the moments when this happens? So that things get more seamlessly integrated into how we navigate through life. And we can't talk about anxiety without my favorite reference to anxiety. Because you and I both grew up on the water and the beaches of New Jersey, I'll give them credit. And when we think about anxiety, we can think about the metaphor of the wave. And I wonder if you can talk about it a little bit.

  Gerald Reid  1:13:08

  Yeah, I mean, when when we get anxious, it could peak it, can we use the zero to 10 scale 10 being the highest, you can feel like a nine out of 10, where it's like, Oh, my God, like my anxiety is so high. And as you said, in the emotions episode in Season One, it could feel like your feelings are going to be there forever. And so the idea of kind of writing out the wave is essentially suggesting, give it some time, like how many times have you done something new, and you're like, Oh, this is the worst thing ever. And over time, we're like, Oh, this isn't so bad. Okay, I'm getting the hang of it. This is the adjustment, we're talking about. How many times have you met someone, you're like, oh, I don't like that person. But like, over time, you're like, Oh, I kind of liked them. I just needed to like break the ice with them. Maybe they were anxious around me, I was anxious around them. And like, we just need to get comfortable with each other to, you know, to just get, get things moving.

  Alexis Reid  1:13:56

  Sometimes you need to break down our initial bias and take a broader look at a situation or a person or a new topic, or whatever it is, right.

  Gerald Reid  1:14:05

  And so the idea is like, try not to make things more worse than it needs to be in certain anxiety situations. Sometimes your anxiety could actually be like, yeah, like, this is bad, you gotta get out. Like if your anxiety peaks, and there truly is something that's just like something's wrong. And it may not be in that moment, it may not be like a wine is about to attack you or car's gonna hit you. It could be like, there's something like a real deep problem in this situation. Like maybe the kid really is being bullied really bad and like there is absolutely no solution. And that anxiety is actually useful because as long as you use it appropriately and say, Okay, I got to talk to people and really figure this out. My anxiety is telling me that this is a problem that has not been solved and that anxiety is useful. But sometimes the anxiety is peaking, and then people can make it worse by ruminating over catastrophizing. Oh my god, I'm anxious. I'm anxious that must mean Some things are gonna happen. Why else would I be anxious, it must mean things are going to be horrible or horrible things are going to happen when in reality, you're just anxious. And once you get moving, the anxiety is going to go down, you're gonna realize things are generally okay. And so the way we respond to feeling anxiety is important. Okay? This is why I'm feeling it, I understand that this is what triggered it. I have thought that popped in my head, or I noticed something that triggered it. And then by understanding it, it's like, oh, okay, I get it. I've seen this movie before. You just more like at ease, because you're a little bit more at ease. You're like, Oh, I know how this works. I know, I'm anxious. It's okay, it's gonna come down a little, but just give myself some time, maybe go to the bathroom and splashing water in your face and get back in there, you know, and realize, okay, I got this, I can do it. It'll be okay. But we got to learn about ourselves by going through life and being brave and realizing Don't make it worse, you know. And again, like, there are some times where it is actually worse. And you got to figure that out and deal with something deeper. But but sometimes when we're anxious about things that are unnecessarily anxious about, just ride that wave out and realize I don't need to think more about this. I just have to accept, and I'm anxious, and it's going to come up, it's going to come down. Don't overthink it. Now the overthinking is I hear it all the time. And people always tell me like, you know, I really got to stop overthinking that. Yeah. And when you stop you like you start living, you start being present, and things can flow a bit better. And that takes time to develop.

  Alexis Reid  1:16:30

  It's like the tides, no, there's can be high tides and low tides, there's gonna be somewhere in between. And we could predict that that's going to happen, right? If we can accept and understand that there's going to be ups and downs, highs and lows, then hopefully, it brings us to a place where we can be more planful of how to navigate it. Right. And oftentimes, and when we were younger, I remember sometimes the biggest waves are the most scary, but the most fun. And they they are the most impressionable sometimes when we're able to ride the wave and really enjoy that ride. So I love this metaphor, in the symbol of a wave, to help remind us that if we are overthinking if we fall into a thinking trap, or something else gets stuck and anchors us in these like loops of what we think needs to happen or should happen or should be in a certain way. Then we're gonna get all consumed by the water. And we're gonna miss the beauty of that ride.

  Gerald Reid  1:17:33

  Totally. Another quick metaphor be looking at the weather from outer space. Oh, the weather is coming. It's gonna go you don't realize it unless you're up there looking down. Yeah, big. Have a bigger perspective. I always tell people, I will be like a veteran veteran on a sports team, the veterans like i Guys, we it's okay, I understand why you're overreacting. But this is how this works. Let's just calm down and figure this out, we're gonna figure it out. Maybe we'll figure it out later. And like, you don't have to solve problems immediately, like, oh, well, we'll deal with this later.

  Alexis Reid  1:18:03

  Sometimes we need to just be in it, we got to sit in it, we have to understand what it's telling us. And to let it pass, there you go. But if you can't let it pass, reach out for support, ask people to help guide you. And to be a part of the moment because these are beautiful moments that we are privileged to be a part of good and bad, begun small, anxious and calm. All of it is information that helps us to become that person that hopefully we can all show up being and feeling good about being our truest, most authentic selves. Because it's all a part of our processes. We're human. So I have a feeling and if anybody has any ideas, we'll do another episode on anxiety where we can share some more specific examples. We shared a range of different examples of how it might show up in different circumstances and situations. But as we said, you know, not everybody's gonna have the same experience. Not everybody's going to react and respond the same way to the same interventions. But what we do know is that we need to be empathetic to the fact that anxiety is prevalent, and it shows up in different ways for different people in different contexts. And that's sometimes when we get curious. And when we give space and time, we can hopefully ride the wave to get to the other side. Thanks so much for joining us today. We're excited to be on this journey with you for season three, and lots more to come. Thanks, Jer

  Gerald Reid  

  Thanks for tuning in to the Reid Connect-ED podcast. Please remember that this is a podcast intended to educate and share ideas, but it is not a substitute for professional care that may be beneficial to you at different points of your life. If you are needed support, please contact your primary care physician, local hospital, educational institution, or support staff at your place of employment to seek out referrals for what may be most helpful for you. ideas shared here have been shaped by many years of training, incredible mentors research theory, evidence based practices and our work with individuals over the years, but it's not intended to represent the opinions of those we work with or who we are affiliated with. The reconnected podcast is hosted by siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid. Original music is written and recorded by Gerald Reid (www.Jerapy.com) recording was done by Cyber Sound Studios. If you want to follow along on this journey with us the Reid Connect-ED podcast. we'll be releasing new episodes every two weeks each season so please subscribe for updates and notifications. Feel free to also follow us on Instagram @ReidConnectEdPodcast that's @ReidconnectEdPodcast and Twitter @ReidconnectEd. We are grateful for you joining us and we look forward to future episodes. In the meanwhile be curious, be open, and be well.

As such a prevalent aspect of life, anxiety is an emotion that can feel all consuming. In this episode Alexis & Jerry focus on understanding and managing anxiety. Once we understand what it means when anxiety comes up for us, what it is signaling or telling us, and how to work with rather than against it, we can determine which path can be the best for us. 

Be curious. Be Open. Be well.

The ReidConnect-Ed Podcast is hosted by Siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid, produced by and original music is written and recorded by www.Jerapy.com

*Please note that different practitioners may have different opinions- this is our perspective and is intended to educate you on what may be possible.