Explore " set intentions" with insightful episodes like "S1EP194 Learning To Dream Again", "4:2 Embrace Letting Go", "4:4 Embrace Connection", "4:3 Embrace Realistic Expectations" and "4:7 - Embrace Compassion" from podcasts like ""Loving Me, Myself & Life", "Anxiety I’m So Done with You!", "Anxiety I’m So Done with You!", "Anxiety I’m So Done with You!" and "Anxiety I’m So Done with You!"" and more!
Dreams are powerful. They can be many things to many people - hope, desire, inspiration.
They can be the driving force to move you forward from where you are to where you want to be.
Join me today as I share some of my early dreams and how I actually stopped dreaming for a while...maybe you can relate?
So, how do we start dreaming again? Join me today and find out!
In this episode, which follows Chapter 4, Section 2: Embrace Letting Go, I share the practical steps to letting go of what no longer serves you. So many people tell you to let go. I show you how. When you listen, you'll learn:
I developed this three-step process when it dawned on me that I wasn't being gentle with myself. Hopefully, it will inspire you to be gentle with yourself since this is the first step to your healing journey.
People struggle with letting go and forgiving because they don't understand what they mean. In this episode, I demystify these concepts and show you how to eliminate the obstacles to using these essential tools along your path to emotional wellness. Firstly, since self-blame is so ingrained into our consciousness, we have to intentionally practice and hone skills in self-compassion.
Then, we must realize that forgiveness is not relieving something for the person who hurt you. Forgiveness is an act of resistance. You forgive because you deserve to heal. You deserve to no longer let the event hold power over you nor define yourself by what happened. You can apply the three steps to letting can be applied to everything you might be holding onto that is hurting you. I can't wait for you to know and use them and find the freedom to let them go.
"Unfortunately, humans often get stuck and immobilized by guilt and shame. Guilt, shame, and regret have a purpose: to call your attention to the situation. Once your attention is there, you can assess and decide what action to take moving forward: you can repair relationships, make up for something, pay kindness forward, or commit to doing something differently the next time. Then, there is no longer a need for the guilt, shame, or regret. They can go. But getting stuck in the guilt, shame, or regret? That does nothing for you or anybody else around you." - Dr. Jodi Aman
Resources discussed in this episode:
About Dr. Jodi Aman
Therapist | Author | Spiritual Mentor
Dr. Jodi Aman is a Leadership and Spiritual Coach who has spent 25 years as a trauma-informed psychotherapist. She earned a Doctorate in Social Work in ’23, focusing on Leadership, Social Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Social Work acknowledges the person in their environment and understands how humans react to situations. Work with Jodi.
“After 25 years of clinical experience, I feel deep resonance and empathy for the complexities of others’ pain and am compelled to stand against the context of injustice that causes it. Using this keen understanding of how and why people suffer, my unique and varied training, rooted ethics, as well as decades being a trauma-informed psychotherapist, I help sensitive souls release what they don’t want, recover their energetic bandwidth, and grok a socially conscious life of overflowing joy. More about me.”
Her doctorate thesis project addresses the current teen mental health crisis. She is designing a psychoeducational curriculum for improving teen mental health. This program, called COMPASS, will help young people navigate human emotions, giving them the information to understand what is happening and the tools to heal themselves and their communities. If you care about, work with, love, and/or are concerned for teenagers and are worried about the devastating mental health crisis too many of them are living through, you may be interested in my research and plans for this classroom-based, culturally-sensitive curriculum for high school health teachers to facilitate during their mental health units. Watch the video here.
Contact Doctor Jodi:
Transcription:
Hey, you're here with Dr. Jodi, and this is Season 4 of "Anxiety… I'm So Done With You!" This podcast is a teen and young adult guide to ditching toxic stress and hardwiring your brain for happiness. If you're new here, grab a copy of my book "Anxiety… I'm So Done With You!" because this series goes section by section through it, going a little bit deeper, giving more examples, and telling more stories. In this season, which follows Chapter 4, we're finally focusing on you making peace with yourself.
Because you can't get rid of anxiety when you're still being your own worst critic. You know what I mean! You have been your own worst critic, and you don't deserve that. You deserve kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. In this season, I will give you the practical tools to do that for yourself. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and leaving me five stars on Apple Podcasts. Please spread the word about this book and series because mental health problems have dire consequences that inflict more pain on young people, their families, and their communities. And I would be grateful if you could help me turn the tide by sharing these tips for embracing self-love.
Welcome to the episode that accompanies Chapter 4, Section 2: Embrace Letting Go.
In this episode, we will finally go over my three steps to letting go. I foreshadowed this three-step process in earlier sections of the book. If you have been following me for a while, you may have heard them already, so I will try to challenge myself in this episode to give you more so you see it through many different lenses.
First, let me tell you how I came up with these three steps.
There was a time many, many years ago when I had a friend ghost me. It was someone that I was very attached to and texted several. When someone cuts you off, they hold all of the power, which is a big reason that being ghosted is so frustrating. You are hurt by the rejection and then annoyed at not being able to express yourself. We can't tell the other person what they did and get any validation at all for what they put us through. We want to, but we can't. It's like invalidation on top of invalidation. So, not only did I feel rejected, but I felt powerless that I couldn't tell her how she hurt me. Plus, there was also a void in my day from the time I used to spend massaging her.
With nowhere to go, my frustrations stayed in my head, where you and I both know they wreak some intense havoc. It was happening. I went over what had happened, what we last said to each other, and what I imagined telling her so she'd feel bad for cutting me off. This is what a lack of validation can do to a human. The rumination went on for weeks. One day I took the morning off to take a hike. I just need to escape and have a break. This situation took up a lot of my emotional and energetic bandwidth, making me burn out quickly, even in other areas of my life. I was hiking a path to a waterfall, and I decided that I would stop thinking about this. I would put it out of my mind and move on. I knew it was making me more miserable to have these thoughts tumble around with no resolution in sight. I had to just stop.
This wasn't the first time that I decided to let go of this. I had been trying, but it wasn't working. All the way down the path to the waterfall, I kept finding my attention coming back to her, and I would get mad at myself for allowing it back. "Uh! Stop Jodi. What is wrong with you!"
When I got to the waterfall, I lay down on the bank to meditate. At one point, I looked up, and I saw these little football-shaped yellow leaves that seemed to be hovering at the top of the waterfall. They were falling but falling slowly. Because of the pressure of the waterfall, just in front of the waterfall, the air pressure was pushing upwards, so the leaves appeared to be floating. I looked at those leaves and thought, "They are coming down as fast as possible." What I was noticing was that there was no demand or pressure (no pun intended ) for them to come down. No judgment that they were taking so long.
I thought I would take as long as I needed to take for my heart to heal. At that moment, I realized that the judgment was making it take longer to get over this. The judgment about still being upset. That judgment, which rejected my allowing myself to feel a regular, appropriate feeling to the situation, made me attach. And that attachment- as I illustrated in Season 1, Episode 1's globs of worry and negative self-judgment - exponentially increased my emotional turmoil.
I decided to allow my feelings, like the leaves to "fall" as fast or slow as they wanted to––even if they took a long time. This seems counterintuitive at first when you don't want to keep feeling something. You want it to go away, and I get that, but the desperation to get rid of it makes it stay longer. You get to go through and out the other side when you allow it. Did you ever hear the quote, "If you are going through hell, keep going."? It means don't stay there. Allow the feeling to come, and then they can go.
The best way to allow your feeling is via self-compassion. Self-compassion is the opposite of negative self-judgment. When you feel something, anything, you say, "I get it; I understand why I feel that way." Remember the gesture to kiss your hand and touch your heart from Season 3, Episode 1? I found that gesture very helpful after walking back from the waterfall. Every time I noticed I was again thinking about this situation, I would kiss my hand and touch my heart, telling my heart that it made sense. Then, I would gently bring my attention to something else. That day, I was on a beautiful trail, so I could look around. But if I was home, I could busy myself cleaning, preparing something, or reaching out to someone to engage my attention on something else. If I tried to force myself like, "Stop thinking about it! No, think about something else!" that would be attachment too. Be gentle with yourself instead, and it will work better.
Let's look closely at how I went from that to formalizing the three-step process. First of all, in talking to clients, I realized that the biggest obstacle to forgiving themselves or letting go of something because they felt responsible for it. They didn't think that they deserved to let go or be forgiven. This is very similar to forgiving someone else when they do something: People hold onto their feelings because they think that if they let it go, it takes away the significance in a way that would be akin to saying it doesn't matter that that happened and that would subjugate their sense of worth. So they hold on to things as if it holds onto it not being okay. This is interesting because also they don't feel worthy in general due to what happened. They go back and forth, so they have to cling onto this more to balance that. It is a no-win situation and feels out of control, so they try to get some control somewhere and overwork, or people please, or not eat, or be obsessive about something. Whatever it is, it often perpetuates being out of control.
Forgiveness is not condoning, and it is not a gift you give the other person at your expense. Think about forgiveness as you no longer define yourself by what happened. You no longer give that person (and what occurred) control over your life and identity. That's what it means to forgive. What happened happened, it was not okay, but it doesn't have to define you anymore.
What happened happened. Letting go can't change that. Nothing can change the past. But right now, you are living the effects of what happened or the consequences. The effects are your response to what happened: namely, how you think about it, how you feel about it, trauma memory, how you think about yourself, how you approach things or other relationships on account of what happened, and how you think about yourself, and more. Those are what is causing you pain now, and luckily these can change. And you have sovereign control over these.
Because I noticed that "deserving" plays a big role in holding on to things, I knew this needed to be addressed first. Therefore, the initial step is
Knowing that you deserve to let go.
We talked about this in the last episode when I showed you how to make meaning that stops the questions of the mind. When it comes to forgiving yourself, this may feel trickier. It is a lot easier to forgive other people than it is for us to forgive ourselves. You do make mistakes, of course, that's human, and you probably and hopefully have regret, guilt, or shame about it. Those feelings mean that you are a good person who cares about being ethical and doing the right thing. But like I said, guilt, shame, and regret have a purpose; to call your attention to something to decide what kind of action you can take. You can repair the relationships, make up for something, pay kindness forward, or commit to doing the next time differently. Staying in guilt, shame, and regret does nothing good for you or anyone. It does have negative consequences, though: you isolate yourself, your self-confidence plummets, and it puts riffs in your relationships. See? There's nothing there for you.
If you think about it, regret means that you are a good person and not the "bad" person you thought you were since your "mistake." Let that you CARE about doing the right things define you instead of the mistake defining you. Think about why someone would make a mistake like that; it is usually understandable. If you still can't forgive yourself and have compassion for your choice, think about it as if it were someone else. If you think they deserve forgiveness, then you deserve forgiveness.
Let's look at an example. If one day you went out with some friends and another person found out and felt terrible that you hadn't invited them, you might feel guilty about that. You may have done it on purpose because, for example, that person steals attention, and you knew another friend needed to talk through a problem. Or, you may have done it accidentally because you didn't remember to ask. They may have been busy lately, so you weren't in the habit of inviting them. Whatever happened, there is a reason that is usually not evil. You are human, you will make mistakes, and those are forgivable. People forgive others for much worse. I have had clients who wouldn't forgive themselves for something little but would forgive others for something much, much worse.
Whether you feel like you deserve it or not, you have to decide that you deserve it and that that consciousness will slowly change your beliefs. You don't have to prove you deserve it. That's ridiculous because it's relative, and there is no truth. Trying to find the truth will make the mind try to ensure it gets it right. That is black-and-white thinking, which is the same as perfectionism. There is nothing for you there. You have to DECIDE you deserve it and make that your truth. Without this in the way, the other two steps of the letting go process will become available.
Step two is…wait for it. Wait for it…
Let it go.
For this, you just set the intention to let go. You've already decided that you deserve to and that you want to, and now you decide that you WILL let go.
I suggest a letting go ritual for this. Humans have had ceremonies for millennia bc they help us feed energy into our intentions, celebrate our accomplishments, and make meaning to sustain our commitments. That's why we have a ceremony. In the What's in Your Hand? activity, I recommend holding a ceremony to help sustain your commitment to letting this go.
We'll come back to planning that in a moment.
Step three is
Practice
Your questioning, your regret, your hurt, anger, frustration- whatever you are holding onto will come back. Expect that. That is what a human mind does. Be prepared for it to come back, and when it does, think about the leaves. Say, "I get it; I get why that hurt me," and then kiss your hand, touch your heart, give yourself a little hug, and gently bring your attention to something else.
You may need to repeat the last step over and over. But the less attached you are to the negative feelings, the more they will space out unless it fades away.
After weeks of rumination about my friend who ghosted me, I started this three-step process, and it went away within days. That was about fifteen years ago. Since then, I have taught this to so many people. It works. It's magic how quickly it fades away. Often, the next time I see them, they have no energy about it at all. They are like, "Oh yeah, hmm, I used to have that...."
It's gone, gone.
Judgment attaches us to negative feelings. When we stop judging, there is almost nothing else to do to heal.
If you are working on steps two and three and it is not working, briefly check in with yourself about whether you feel confident that you deserve to let go. If not, go back and do that work. However, be careful here. Most of the time, I find that people think they have more work to do, but they don't. It is just that they didn't know it was natural for feelings and thoughts to come back. It is common to believe that if something comes back, that means there is more to heal. (Even mental health practitioners and coaches think this!) And this is hazardous because it keeps people paying attention to the problems longer (when paying attention to the problem is the problem).
I saw a meme this morning that I stuck in the blog post that goes with this episode. It illustrates getting distance from our thoughts. Instead of focusing on the content of the thoughts, we are observing the thoughts. This distance and witnessing state immediately regulates our nervous system, decreasing our negative emotions. It gives three examples. In the first one, the person is saying, "I'm a failure" in the second one, the person is saying, "I have a thought that I am a failure," and in the third one, they say, "I am noticing that I have a thought that I am a failure."
See? You are out of the content of the thought. You are not trying to defend yourself from being called a failure or give testimony to why you think you are a failure. You are not debating how much of a failure you are and how your failure-dom will ruin your life and any relationships you have.
In these conservative examples,
"I'm a failure."
"I have a thought that I am a failure."
and then, "I am noticing that I have a thought that I am a failure."
The term failure became less and less meaningful as the distance between you and thought became greater.
So, in summary, compassion allows you to feel validated enough to let go of any figuring out that the mind wants to do, and you can let go. Then, you have to expect it to come back and practice not getting back into the content and taking your attention away. What do you think? What has been wreaking havoc on your mind that you would like to let go of?
Once you decide what you want to let go of, you can get to the fun part––planning your letting go ceremony. If you have the ebook or the audio version, I put a ceremony planning guide in the blog post with this episode; the link is in the show notes. Ceremonies are not weird or woo-woo. They are rooted in so much history, and they work to help you feel connected. You align and work with the energy around you, so you feel less and less vulnerable and instead feel empowered and backed up.
When you offer any intentions to the Earth, you feel supported by the beauty of nature instead of a victim of its chaos. During ceremonies, I always open space by asking for the permissions and protections of the ancestors of the land that I am on. At home in upstate NY, the ancestors are the Hodinöhsö:ni' (Haudenosaunee) people.
I'm a settler person in the US. That means I'm not indigenous to where I'm living. My ancestors came from somewhere else; in my instance, they came from Italy.
Especially as a settler person, it's important to honor the people who historically and rightfully lived in the unceded territory. If you don't know, you can look it up at native-land.ca . The link is in the show notes. An essential first step to stop ignoring that horrible history is acknowledging the atrocities of the settler people on the native communities and environment. You can bring this to your awareness by giving a land acknowledgment as often as possible.
That means to name the ancestors of the land you are on and acknowledge that the land was unceded. The Hodinöhsö:ni' did not leave by their own choice. They were forced to leave.
The beginning of the ceremony is a perfect time to do this. Native Americans have an anointed ancestry. They lived here and in harmony with the Earth for over 20,000 years. And if you intend to live in harmony, they will allow you to tap into that root. Asking for their permission is necessary to measure your intentions and actions to be kind and for the common good.
When I do it, I specifically ask that the intentions or commitments I celebrate in the ceremony be a blessing only to myself, my relations, my communities, and the Earth herself. I also ask for guidance on the next steps and forgiveness for any mistakes I make in the future. This invites consciousness into whatever I do.
When I am done with the ceremony, I listen for a moment. A bit of wisdom and understanding arise, which feels like the exact thing that I need to hear at the moment. Then, in gratitude, I offer a bit of fruit, bread, or a flower to the Earth to say thank you.
I will add more videos and resources in the blog post that go along with this episode. Follow the link in the show notes to head over and check them out. While you are there, say hello to me in the comments. Tell me about your ceremony and fill me in on how you are doing and feeling. Don't forget to subscribe to me on YouTube and Tiktok at Doctor Jodi.
Thank you so much for listing to this episode of Anxiety... I'm So Done with You! with me, Doctor Jodi.
In this episode, you learned the three steps to letting go.
I appreciate your subscribing, commenting, and leaving me five stars on apple podcasts. As always, there is a link in the show notes to the blog post for this episode that has the transcription and more resources for healing your brain, body, and spirit. Plus, you can come hang out with me on YouTube and TikTok at Doctor jodi.
The next episode will cover Chapter 4, Section 3: Embrace Realistic Expectations. Read or listen to that, and I will see you there.
In this episode, which follows Chapter 4, Section 4: Embrace Connection, I review how this culture's unrealistic expectations support your feelings of inadequacy. You'll learn
Humans are social beings, and we need connection. During early human history, communities were necessary for survival. We did not have the warmth, speed, strength, claws, or teeth to survive alone in the wild. So, to ensure we stay together and help each other sustain the species, early humans developed an innate desire to belong. This desire saved us, and allowed us to evolve to use tools, have foresight, and create the world we have (for better or worse). However, it also is the cause of much suffering since the need to belong encourages our deepest fear: Am I worthy?
This episode will answer some of your long-lasting wonderings and explain why so much of what you feel isn’t you. It is a regular human reaction to our modern world. It will give you the tips you need to change the aspects of your life that you need to so that you can live a life that is full, joyful, and connected.
"It's like putting ten ropes in the dryer; after a while, they are so tangled together that they are hard to distinguish one cord from the other until you take time to untangle them. When you get tangled like this, you might think, ‘I am such a mess. No one would want me like this. I better figure this out (stay in the dryer) before I get close to anyone.’" - Dr. Jodi Aman
Resources discussed in this episode:
About Dr. Jodi Aman
Therapist | Author | Spiritual Mentor
Dr. Jodi Aman is a Leadership and Spiritual Coach who has spent 25 years as a trauma-informed psychotherapist. She earned a Doctorate in Social Work in ’23, focusing on Leadership, Social Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Social Work acknowledges the person in their environment and understands how humans react to situations. Work with Jodi.
“After 25 years of clinical experience, I feel deep resonance and empathy for the complexities of others’ pain and am compelled to stand against the context of injustice that causes it. Using this keen understanding of how and why people suffer, my unique and varied training, rooted ethics, as well as decades being a trauma-informed psychotherapist, I help sensitive souls release what they don’t want, recover their energetic bandwidth, and grok a socially conscious life of overflowing joy. More about me.”
Her doctorate thesis project addresses the current teen mental health crisis. She is designing a psychoeducational curriculum for improving teen mental health. This program, called COMPASS, will help young people navigate human emotions, giving them the information to understand what is happening and the tools to heal themselves and their communities. If you care about, work with, love, and/or are concerned for teenagers and are worried about the devastating mental health crisis too many of them are living through, you may be interested in my research and plans for this classroom-based, culturally-sensitive curriculum for high school health teachers to facilitate during their mental health units. Watch the video here.
Contact Doctor Jodi:
Transcription:
Hey, you're here with Dr. Jodi, and this is Season 4 of "Anxiety… I'm So Done With You!" This podcast is a teen and young adult guide to ditching toxic stress and hardwiring your brain for happiness. If you're new here, grab a copy of my book "Anxiety… I'm So Done With You!" because this series goes section by section through it, going a little bit deeper, giving more examples, and telling more stories. In this season, which follows Chapter 4, we're finally focusing on you making peace with yourself.
Because you can't get rid of anxiety when you're still being your own worst critic. You know what I mean! You have been your own worst critic, and you don't deserve that. You deserve kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. In this season, I will give you the practical tools to do that for yourself. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and leaving me five stars on Apple Podcasts. Please spread the word about this book and series because mental health problems have dire consequences that inflict more pain on young people, their families, and their communities. And I would be grateful if you could help me turn the tide by sharing these tips for embracing self-love.
Welcome to the episode that accompanies Chapter 4, Section 4: Embrace Connection.
In this episode,
Humans are social beings, and we need connection. This is why: During early human history, communities were necessary for survival. We did not have the warmth, speed, strength, claws, or teeth to survive alone in the wild. So, to ensure we stay together and help each other sustain the species, early humans developed an innate desire to belong. This desire saved us and allowed us to evolve to use tools, have foresight, and create the world we have (for better or worse). And it also is the cause of so much suffering because needing to belong encourages our deepest fear: Are we worthy of belonging?
Combine this desire to belong with the fact that our brains have the capacity to think 12 to 60,000 thoughts a day. Remember, the brain evolved to solve problems because we had to find food, figure out shelter, take care of our families, and keep ourselves warm. There were so many things to do, so our brains evolved to have tons of thoughts to do those things. We don't need that capacity anymore because most of those chores are now built into the structure of our lives. I know it seems like we are busier than ever, but it's a whole different kind of busyness. It's not a "problem-solving" busyness; it's a pressure and high expectation busyness. The type of busyness that we have now makes those thousands of thoughts tumble around each other like our heads are clothes dryers. They keep going round and round and draining us of our vitality.
Even though I covered this in other episodes, I'm going to remind you again that you don't merely have more thoughts than you need, but your mind makes up things to use them for––which usually take on a negative flavor. To boot, you also make meaning around those thoughts, which compound the negativity of it all. So, for example, you think, "Why doesn't she like me?" but then you make meaning around that by adding, "I have to figure out why she doesn't like me…and why people don't like me…" These second and third thoughts feel like the truth about what you have to do next. As if you have to figure out what ways you are unlikeable in order to survive. This, as you can imagine, brings up any rejection from your past as you search in the memories for a theme to answer the question, "Why don't people like me?"
This is the thing about the human brain: If you are looking for a correlation between two things, even if it is between two seemingly unrelated things, you will find a correlation. Consequently, this is why people can rationalize blaming themselves for something that has nothing to do with them. The creative ways they connect their responsibility to the event can be compelling. In their mind, that is. But if they said it out loud, it wouldn't hold the same power. To another person, their self-assignment of blame would probably seem ridiculous.
Now we are getting to why I am re-iterating how and why the human mind thinks so much: A big reason you need people is that being around people gives you a break from the thoughts tumbling around and around in your mind, growing negative meaning. You see, at first, it's just an idea, and then, you get into it and build a whole story around it.
Because our deepest fear is that we don't belong, a lot of these negative thoughts center around this theme, including
who thinks what of you,
what people know about you,
who likes you,
why someone rejected you,
if you might embarrass yourself,
why you can't trust people, and
why people hurt you, etc., etc.
It's like putting ten ropes in the dryer; after a while, they are so tangled together that they are hard to distinguish one cord from the other until you take time to untangle them.
When you get tangled like this, you might think, "I am such a mess. No one would want me like this. I better figure this out before I get close to anyone." Mostly that, but there are other reasons you might isolate yourself. Like, you feel like you are too dark and you don't want to upset anyone else with your sadness. Or, you think they will hate you if they know what you really are. You may feel like you wouldn't be able to stand being hurt by one more person, so you keep to yourself. Sometimes you worry that if you said what you think aloud, it would overwhelm you, and you'd fall off some insanity cliff and never regulate yourself again. Also, you might be ashamed by your neediness because you think you shouldn't need anyone and force yourself to suppress it.
When you are struggling emotionally, all of these and more make you withdraw from other people. And this is the thing: that is the worst thing you can do. Because then it is just you and your negative thoughts with no one to distract you, love you up, and tell you that you're normal. And you need that last one because this doesn't feel normal.
You look around, and it doesn't seem like anyone else is going through what you are. It's not true, but you think that because people look fine on the outside even when they are struggling on the inside. But when you talk to someone else about what you are feeling, you often learn pretty quickly that they can relate to what you are saying.
Also, when you are needy- which is normal, and you are ashamed and suppress it- you only feel needier and then more ashamed and needier. From that state, you might overwhelm someone, especially a young person who doesn't have much experience knowing how to help. However, when you allow yourself to be needy the first time and reach out to someone, you'll feel better, and they will, too. People love to feel needed, and they love when they can make a difference to someone.
There have been studies that say that kids who grow up with their grandparents have fewer emotional struggles. If that isn't testimony to the fact that individualistic culture is a problem to our psyche, I don't know what is. The more populated your life is, the better you will feel. In homes with more bodies, there's more communication, storytelling, emotional support, tradition, helping, sharing, and problem-solving. To humans, all of these things help us feel safe and secure.
The more we engage with others, the more we feel a sense of belonging. Relationships are messy, but when there are a lot of them, you'll trust that you can handle them, and it'll free you from analyzing every single detail of every interaction.
If you had only one friend in your life and something happened to that friendship, the devastation would be huge. Without that one person you'd have zero belonging. To make matters worse, your body hormonally responds as if you are kicked out of the community and will die out in the wild alone.
But, if you have 50 friends and acquaintances, and 3 or 4 withdrew from you because they were busy and distracted for one month, you would be okay with it. You might notice and wonder about them, and you may even feel upset, but you'd be busy with the others, and there would be less mind space to perseverate over what happened.
Many people blame phone use for disconnecting people in the last decade or so. There is no doubt that young people have fewer face-to-face interactions, and they have more and more screen interactions. But those are not the same. Also, phones give people who are insecure something to hide behind while still experiencing relevance. This makes it easier not to push themselves out from behind it. However, sometimes people need a break from the stimulation of their phones. Unfortunately, they too often choose isolation for their break rather than in-person hang-outs because scrolling through social media makes them sick of people.
Another problem is that phones keep people up at night. This is bad because then they sleep away the daytime hours when there's more opportunities to be with people. Mental health usually takes a dark turn when someone's nights and days are switched around. This switch might happen because of strong negative emotions in the first place, and then it makes it much worse. The reason this is so risky is because of isolation.
When I meet someone who doesn't even care that they get better, I know that person has endured extreme isolation. This is because nothing fun or pleasurable happens in isolation and dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain that releases when we experience pleasure stops triggering. I mentioned this in Season 2, but since that was so long ago, I will review this phenomenon again: When you do something pleasurable, interesting, or fun, you release that feel-good hormone of dopamine, and you decide to do it again, and get the hit of dopamine again and so on.
When you don't do anything good for a while or feel anything good, you stop being interested in doing anything because you have lost knowing what feeling good feels like. It's like a dopamine dessert.
This is why the covid pandemic had such devastating effects on everyone. When we were in lockdown, the isolation and lack of stimulation affected our brains. We experienced fewer
spritz of dopamine, which eventually feels like exhaustion and lack of motivation. Did you ever feel like that? This dopamine dessert made it harder to feel normal when the world started to open up again. Being social felt unfamiliar, too, which brought trepidation. What also made it difficult was not understanding what happened and thinking this meant something was seriously wrong with you.
There was nothing wrong with you. Your feelings were a typical human response to the situation, but maybe no one told you that. And so, your Monkey Mind got to make up why you felt this way. Perhaps you assumed that you lost yourself, can't be around people anymore, have no friends, are awkward, have no interests, or you had other negative thoughts similar to these, which made you feel significantly worse.
The good news is that dopamine returns and starts to function like normal once you get regularly stimulated again. If you were not lost in the worry that something was wrong with you, you may have gone back out around people, the dopamine came back, and you started to feel like your old self again. The brain is amazingly adaptable and adjusts quickly.
If you are a highly isolated person and feel completely unmotivated and don't care if you feel better, I am so glad you are listening to this podcast. This is urgent. Please tell an adult that you trust what you are feeling. You don't have to do this alone. You need someone to help you get out of the house and do something to get the ball rolling so you can come back to feeling more like yourself. Once you feel better, it'll be easier to keep engaging in life and continue getting better.
Sometimes isolated people's days and nights get switched. Your drive to isolate yourself might have had you longing for quiet, or to sleep away the daytime, which people might have expectations of you. Sleeping during the day is also a way to avoid feeling anxious or depressed. But being up at night with these feelings is way worse.
Sometimes people realize this is a problem and try to change it back. All too often, they try to go to bed early in an attempt to adjust themselves. This rarely, if ever, works because you cannot go to sleep if you are not tired. Plus, you are very vulnerable to the Monkey Mind lying there, not falling asleep. However, you can force yourself to wake up if you are exhausted. It doesn't feel good, temporarily, but you can wake up.
To switch back to a better schedule, you need to wake yourself up in the mornings, even if it means being sleep deprived for a bit. After a few days of getting up in the morning, you will naturally begin to fall asleep earlier at night and catch up on your sleep. The only way to do it is to wake up early first. People, especially young people, resist this because if you are already feeling bad, you don't want to make it worse by feeling exhausted and sick when you wake up. Sleeping can be akin to self-medicating, and you can feel addicted to it. But trust yourself here; you are not in danger. It should take a few days of morning discomfort before you sleep better at night. That investment in something that will make a huge difference overall is worth it. Sleeping at night and being awake during the day is a healthier schedule for your body and mind.
Let's talk about connection now since that's the title of this section, Embrace Connection. Connection is essential to humans, like I said, because we needed a community to survive. And we still need a community to survive and thrive, but we also need it because we see and know our own selves through our reflection off the people around us. Meaning that you only experience your self when you are in a relationship. If you are in a vacuum (or isolation), you have a fragile sense of self that came from some leftover sentiment from a relationship in the past. It is withering on a very thin string and your sense of self withers with it.
When you are around people, you see and know yourself reflected by them. When you are around uplifting people, you see the good in yourself. When you are around miserable or abusive people, you feel horrible about yourself.
That's why someone who is abusive towards you isolates you from your friends. So that their expression of you, which is what they have created to disempower you, is the only you that you see.
Two things I want you to take away from this episode, one is to fill your life with a diverse community, and the other is to make the ones you are closest to good-hearted people. They don't have to be perfect because if they had to be perfect, you would never have anyone since no one is perfect. But they have to be well-intentioned, thoughtful, kind, and somewhat insightful so they have an awareness of their limits. Everyone is limited, which is human, but consideration is much more critical to a relationship. You want them to see the beauty in you and reflect that back so that you can see it too.
People want to be relevant. They want to feel a sense of connectedness. Connectedness is a person's perception of belonging. According to attachment theory, social connection is an intrinsic human need. People desire to be personally accepted, included, and respected by others. Particularly in adolescence, this is true because it is a time when you are developing your autonomous identities, making you extra sensitive to belonging. You can experience school connectedness, family connectedness, or connectedness to another group, like a sports team, co-workers, or friend group. Researchers found strong correlations between a person's sense of belonging with lower levels of suicidal behavior and depression, and higher levels of self-esteem. Also, kids who feel school connectedness perform better academically and are less likely to participate in violence, substance misuse, and sexual promiscuity.
People also want to matter. It is normal for you to want this for yourself. Mattering means you feel valued by yourself and others and feel that you also add value to yourself and others. Humans are social beings, so feeling cared about improves well-being and behavior. It affects how people think about themselves, which increases prosocial behavior, friendship quality, and life satisfaction, all critical components to robust mental health.
Being around nice people can have the immediate effect of making you relax and feel happier. Plus, your body biologically feels less vulnerable. Not only do you feel supported by them, but they need you too. This gives you a sense of purpose which we will discuss further in Chapter 5.
It may feel vulnerable to be around people if you've been hurt in your past, but it is more vulnerable to be alone. That is a trick anxiety does; it convinces you that you need to endure ongoing suffering to protect yourself from some future possibility of suffering. It's BS. You need people because people need people.
Also, you don't need to be fully vulnerable with new people. Go back and read or listen to Episode 3-2. Even small talk with a barista will get you out of your head, which will feel good for a bit. String more small interactions together, and they will add up to some energy to get you taking another step in peopling your healing journey.
I have loads of good videos that supplement these concepts that I put in the blog post that goes with this episode, like What to do if you are lonely, Anxiety and Trust, Nervous System Privilege, Red Flags, Getting rid of Intrusive Thoughts, What to do if you are needy, and Setting Awesome Personal Boundaries. The link is below to check these out.
Thank you so much for listing to this episode of "Anxiety... I'm So Done with You! "with me, Doctor Jodi.
In this episode,
I appreciate your subscribing, commenting, and leaving me five stars on Apple Podcasts. As always, there is a link in the show notes to the blog post for this episode that has the transcription and more resources for healing your brain, body, and spirit. Plus, you can hang out with me on YouTube and TikTok at Doctor jodi.
The next episode will cover Chapter 4, Section 5: Embrace A Positive Mental Attitude. Read or listen to that, and I will see you there.
In this episode, which follows Chapter 4, Section 3: Embrace Realistic Expectations, I review how this culture's unrealistic expectations support your feelings of inadequacy. You'll learn how to
My goal is to encourage you to be kinder and gentle with yourself and see your abilities and agency instead of your inadequacies and shortcomings.
Unrealistic expectations immobilize, invalidate, and stress you out. Many of them are affecting you under the radar. They are taken for granted as truths and needs. But, they aren’t. Unrealistic expectations are a product of Western culture. In this episode, I show you how they came into your life and then take you through an exercise to pinpoint them and shift them into realistic expectations (like goals and commitments) that charge you up and motivate you.
"When you think of things as experiences instead of problems, you see yourself as less of a victim and more of an experiencer (or experimenter). This is, for sure, empowering. But it also frees you from urgently making meaning to restore order in chaotic situations. When you see things as "problems," you make meaning with the purpose of finding out, "How do I get out of this feeling now?" And, when you have to make meaning urgently, blame is the most common place to land. But blame sucks and makes the problem worse." - Dr. Jodi Aman
Resources discussed in this episode:
About Dr. Jodi Aman
Therapist | Author | Spiritual Mentor
Dr. Jodi Aman is a Leadership and Spiritual Coach who has spent 25 years as a trauma-informed psychotherapist. She earned a Doctorate in Social Work in ’23, focusing on Leadership, Social Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Social Work acknowledges the person in their environment and understands how humans react to situations. Work with Jodi.
“After 25 years of clinical experience, I feel deep resonance and empathy for the complexities of others’ pain and am compelled to stand against the context of injustice that causes it. Using this keen understanding of how and why people suffer, my unique and varied training, rooted ethics, as well as decades being a trauma-informed psychotherapist, I help sensitive souls release what they don’t want, recover their energetic bandwidth, and grok a socially conscious life of overflowing joy. More about me.”
Her doctorate thesis project addresses the current teen mental health crisis. She is designing a psychoeducational curriculum for improving teen mental health. This program, called COMPASS, will help young people navigate human emotions, giving them the information to understand what is happening and the tools to heal themselves and their communities. If you care about, work with, love, and/or are concerned for teenagers and are worried about the devastating mental health crisis too many of them are living through, you may be interested in my research and plans for this classroom-based, culturally-sensitive curriculum for high school health teachers to facilitate during their mental health units. Watch the video here.
Contact Doctor Jodi:
Transcription:
Hey, you're here with Dr. Jodi, and this is Season 4 of "Anxiety… I'm So Done With You!" This podcast is a teen and young adult guide to ditching toxic stress and hardwiring your brain for happiness. If you're new here, grab a copy of my book "Anxiety… I'm So Done With You!" because this series goes section by section through it, going a little bit deeper, giving more examples, and telling more stories. In this season, which follows Chapter 4, we're finally focusing on you making peace with yourself.
Because you can't get rid of anxiety when you're still being your own worst critic. You know what I mean! You have been your own worst critic, and you don't deserve that. You deserve kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. In this season, I will give you the practical tools to do that for yourself. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and leaving me five stars on Apple Podcasts. Please spread the word about this book and series because mental health problems have dire consequences that inflict more pain on young people, their families, and their communities. And I would be grateful if you could help me turn the tide by sharing these tips for embracing self-love.
Welcome to the episode that accompanies Chapter 4, Section 3: Embrace Realistic Expectations
In this episode,
Chapter 4, Section 3 in the book is very simple and short because most of it is a review until you get to the What's in Your Hand? activity. I am a practical learner myself. I like to learn by doing. (I get frustrated with teachers who tell me what to do later.) I want to try it right now and feel what it feels like to do it. I learn through experience, so that is how I'll teach you about unrealistic expectations.
I facilitate an ongoing therapeutic support group for empaths. Empaths are highly sensitive people. They're sensitive to people's emotions, and often feel feelings from people and places around them in addition to their own. I teach them how to tell the difference. so they On January 1st, 2023, one of the members texted the group chat. She said for this new year, and she intended to see things as experiences rather than problems. It made me think about how we make meaning through our Western culture's lens of fear, high expectations, and deficit mentality significantly. Those negatively inform how we think about what happens to us, causing unnecessary emotional turmoil.
When you think of things as experiences instead of problems, you see yourself as less of a victim and more of an experiencer (or experimenter). This is, for sure, empowering. But it also frees you from urgently making meaning to restore order in chaotic situations. When you see things as "problems," you make meaning with the purpose of finding out, "How do I get out of this feeling now?" And, when you have to make meaning urgently, blame is the most common place to land. But blame sucks and makes the problem worse.
When you think about things as experiences the meaning-making purpose changes. The question you are asking, in this case, is, "What is this experience?" You may not even need to make meaning, but instead, let the meaning show up when it wants to. You can keep observing, feeling, intending, and responding in the meantime.
Naming it an experience puts you in the witness role, which, as you know, if you have been listening to all previous episodes, gives you an immediate distance from the chaos. It gives you a big-picture view with a unique perspective to understand and relate to everything in a purposeful and intentional way rather than being blindly driven by negative emotions.
That group member had a brilliant, simple idea: to think about problems as experiences. I like the word experiences because it doesn't insinuate that we must see it positively somehow. Like, "Instead of problems, they are blessings," or "Instead of crisis, think of them as opportunities." I don't think those are helpful.
I also don't believe "Everything happens for a reason." And, I don't think "everything happens for a reason" is as helpful as people think it is. Sometimes it can be harmful because accidents happen, some things are nonsensical, and life is much more complicated than that!
When you use the word "experience," it doesn't dismiss injustice, abuse, or oppression like the words "blessings" and "opportunities" do. Experience doesn't suggest that it doesn't matter that bad things have happened to you because it does matter. Thinking about it as an experience allows you to be upset because you are human. However, you're not panicking, nor are you drowning in the chaos of a problem, which means you take less stress into your nervous system. That way, you'll have more access to your inner wisdom to respond to what is happening in ways that support you and your future.
When I was recovering from my anxiety, I started to think about life as experiences instead of problems, too. My anxiety had me afraid of future possibilities of trauma. I was terrified of something awful happening to me or someone I loved. But something shifted when I thought I would have experiences instead of traumas. It changed my perspective of them. I felt empowered as a witness of my life rather than a passive recipient of these terrible things. It was the utter helplessness that triggered my anxiety. The power I held as a witness instead of a victim meant I wasn't totally helpless. I could respond.
I learned this while studying A Course in Miracles, which is a spiritual text that touts everything is love. It teaches that false meaning-making, including judgment and fear, gets in the way of experiencing everything as love. When you go through the book, there are daily practices that help you strip off your lifelong history of meaning-making, so you can see everything as love. The first exercise in the book tells you to: Sit in a room and look around. Whatever you see, say:
This table does not mean anything.
This chair does not mean anything.
This hand does not mean anything.
This foot does not mean anything.
This pen does not mean anything.
During this, you are removing the meaning around these everyday objects. Letting go of what you know opens space for new meaning to come forth that is not from your ego. The practice is challenging because it equalizes everything. Your grandma's necklace means the same as the tree outside the window and the same as the cupcake you baked to bring to your friend for their birthday.
Okay, let me tie it all together with the unrealistic expectations I am supposed to discuss in this episode. Expectations have the meaning you give them. You think you have to be this way, or that way to belong, and then, you begin to believe it is true that you have to be this or that. It's an idea, but your mind gives it a truth status. For example, "My hair has to look perfect today," can easily become a truth about what you need to do. Here's a tip: Always question expectations, wants, and desires that use the words need, must, should, or have to.
Sometimes these words are just a figure of speech, but most of the time, the brain hears these expressions as a standard of success- as if they define whether we are acceptable or unacceptable. That, my dears, is black-and-white thinking. There is no absolutely acceptable or absolutely unacceptable. The word "acceptable" is relative (I mean acceptable to who or for what?). We don't even know. These expectations sound truths, but there's no substance to them.
You give unrealistic expectations meaning because you have been encultured to believe you need to have them and meet them, or you will be kicked out of society. From this belief, you end up putting a lot of pressure on yourself. Plus, you don't really know how high the expectation is supposed to be, so you overshoot to get it "right." You can't overshoot perfection, but you can try. But it's like being on a hamster wheel. All efforting and not getting anywhere will not feel good or do anything good for you.
People often think that unrealistic expectations keep them motivated. They mistakenly assume that they would not get anything done if they were kinder to themselves. But, I witness unrealistic expectations getting in the way of people's productivity all the time. The pressure and stress about them make people's resistance rise. It even brings out obstinance, making people refuse to try at something, even something they want to happen, saying things like, "There's no point! I am going to fail anyway. Why put the effort in?"
Okay, not everyone lets that stop them, but even if the undercurrents are there, and even if it just makes you feel guilty, but you keep going, your bandwidth is used up for no good reason.
Unrealistic expectations are the basis of all negative self-judgment. Because we have these unrealistic expectations, people in our culture judge ourselves so much.
Sometimes, we don't think about these unrealistic expectations as expectations. They are so ingrained and much of the time implicit. Again, implicit means that they are unseen but still there and affecting you. You feel the pressure of unrealistic expectations even when you don't explicitly think about them. However, once you take them out into the open and look at them, you can change them to realistic expectations.
Realistic expectations are good for you. They keep you charged up and feeling purposeful. They help you grow by having you push the edge between what you can do and what you desire––to expand the bounds of your consciousness, skills, understandings, and relationships.
Do you have any adults in your life who expect you to do well? You know those teachers who are gung ho and believe in you. They don't come across as stern or pressuring but uplifting. Do you know those kinds of teachers? They motivate you, don't they? They have confidence in you and your abilities. It is as if they hold the candle of that confidence and pass the flame to your candle. You can see your success through their eyes, which gives you the confidence to put effort in and succeed.
That's great if you have adults or friends who believe in you. It helps if you have that because sometimes you probably get down on yourself and need someone to hold the candle for you for a bit. They can re-light your candle when you need it. You can also be that person for someone else––that cheerleader who believes that your friends can do what they want and need to do.
Over the years, the most meaningful feedback that my clients have given to me is that they feel my belief in them. People have mad skills; they can do so much. When I get to know someone, I learn about their uniqueness and, through that, learn how they can overcome the problem they came to me for. Over the decades, I have honed the ability to discover people's skills quickly. This is how I do it: I don't try to fix them as soon as they come in my door. When people are upset, it scares the people around them, who then respond out of fear, trying to fix it. It decenters the person upset, taking the focus off of them.
When you are not afraid, because you know people get better and listen as they talk, you see that people have so many skills. I hear them, recognize them as skills and then, reflect them back to them. That is when things start to shift for them. I don't make up their skills. They have them. I just know how to ask and discover them, and so they show them to me, even when they are not visible to themself. I simply reflect back what I have heard. It's authentic, which is why it works so well.
I will share more about being a good listener in the next episode, and I have put my video about how to be a good friend in the blog post that goes with this episode with more videos on lowering unrealistic expectations.
Okay, believing in yourself and having that build confidence is the opposite of getting stalled on unrealistic expectations. At the end of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, he is able to produce a powerful patronus because he knows that he had before. Knowing you can is a powerful confidence booster. If you don't know that movie, I will drop a clip to that in the blog post, too.
Alternately, your mind can make "not KNOWING that you can" stall you. You might think, I'll do it when I know I can. How will you know you can unless you do it? You need to do it to see that you can. The best way to do to build confidence is to keep trying new things. That way, trying things you are unsure of becomes familiar rather than foreign, decreasing that biological and mental resistance.
Okay, back to the exercise in the What's in Your Hand? activity of this Section of the book. You are visibilizing your unrealistic expectations. In the book, I give many examples, because they are so deep inside you need to warm up seeing them, so you can get them out from the depths and visible where you can do something about them.
Here are some examples:
I need to act cool at all times.
I need to hide my femininity.
I need to know what the teacher means.
I need to have perfect makeup every day.
I can't make waves.
I need to ace this test.
Please read the whole list I gave you in the book. Because we want to make these implicit expectations explicit so you have control. And then, begin a list of your unrealistic expectations. Once they start coming out, you may think of more and more. Write them all down and then read them over. Ridiculous? Read these over with a friend, too. You will be surprised by how many you have in common. It's sad to think of your friend putting that pressure on themselves. Seeing it through how it is happening to them gives you the distance to think of your own as ridiculous too.
Have compassion for yourself. You are not crazy for having this list of unrealistic expectations. It is a normal part of growing up in a colonized culture. However, now that you know these are NOT TRUTHS, and not necessary for you to reach, you can re-write them. (Or, you can get rid of them altogether, which is okay, too.)
You cannot get rid of some of them because there is something there that is important to you, for example: "I need to know what the teacher means." You want to do well in the class and don't want to throw that value out. But, implicit in "I need to know what the teacher means" is a lack of trust in yourself. You are judging that you didn't grok it from the first way they gave directions. You are worried that you won't figure it out on your own.
When you re-write this expectation, it looks like this: "I am interested in understanding, and I can take some action to research or ask questions, but I can also be patient because as I begin the homework, the directions will probably start to make more sense." You can hear in my voice that there is less energy and attachment than I need to know what the teacher means!!
When you say, I am interested in understanding, and I can take some action to research or ask questions, I can also be patient because as I start the homework, the directions will probably begin to make more sense; there's a plan of how to go forward, but nothing to hook judgment on. The book has more examples for you to help you integrate this. I also added them to the blog post to assist you.
Keep going. List all your unrealistic expectations–– and dig deep here. While you are doing it, you might as well clear out as much negative thinking as possible. Use this time while it is at the top of your mind to adjust all the unrealistic expectations that you can. Expose them and debunk them, and be free of them.
Thank you so much for listing to this episode of Anxiety... I'm So Done with You! with me, Doctor Jodi.
In this episode,
I appreciate your subscribing, commenting, and leaving me five stars on Apple Podcasts. As always, there is a link in the show notes to the blog post for this episode that has the transcription and more resources for healing your brain, body, and spirit. Plus, you can hang out with me on YouTube and TikTok at Doctor jodi.
The next episode will cover Chapter 4, Section 4: Embrace Connection. Read or listen to that, and I will see you there.
Welcome to Season 4, Episode 7, which accompanies Chapter 4, Section 7, "Embrace Compassion.” I love this episode! In it, we'll discuss:
While compassion has been a constant theme this whole series, it begs for its very own section of the book. It is that important. Compassion and self-compassion are essential to emotional healing and overall well-being. People want to matter. Mattering means knowing you have value and that other people see your worth, and also you see value in others.
“People need other people to treat them like they matter. Again, some common examples of how to let someone know they matter are feeling appreciated, getting thanked for something you did, being noticed, acknowledged, published, picked, celebrated, touched, hugged, held, given compassion, feeling wanted, needed, having a purpose, and receiving compliments. We need those from others to feel good about ourselves. Other people need these from us so they feel good." - Dr. Jodi Aman
Resources discussed in this episode:
About Dr. Jodi Aman
Therapist | Author | Spiritual Mentor
Dr. Jodi Aman is a Leadership and Spiritual Coach who has spent 25 years as a trauma-informed psychotherapist. She earned a Doctorate in Social Work in ’23, focusing on Leadership, Social Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Social Work acknowledges the person in their environment and understands how humans react to situations. Work with Jodi.
“After 25 years of clinical experience, I feel deep resonance and empathy for the complexities of others’ pain and am compelled to stand against the context of injustice that causes it. Using this keen understanding of how and why people suffer, my unique and varied training, rooted ethics, as well as decades being a trauma-informed psychotherapist, I help sensitive souls release what they don’t want, recover their energetic bandwidth, and grok a socially conscious life of overflowing joy. More about me.”
Her doctorate thesis project addresses the current teen mental health crisis. She is designing a psychoeducational curriculum for improving teen mental health. This program, called COMPASS, will help young people navigate human emotions, giving them the information to understand what is happening and the tools to heal themselves and their communities. If you care about, work with, love, and/or are concerned for teenagers and are worried about the devastating mental health crisis too many of them are living through, you may be interested in my research and plans for this classroom-based, culturally-sensitive curriculum for high school health teachers to facilitate during their mental health units. Watch the video here.
Contact Doctor Jodi:
Transcription:
Hey, you're here with Dr. Jodi, and this is Season 4 of "Anxiety… I'm So Done With You!" This podcast is a teen and young adult guide to ditching toxic stress and hardwiring your brain for happiness. If you're new here, grab a copy of my book "Anxiety… I'm So Done With You!" because this series goes section by section through it, going a little bit deeper, giving more examples, and telling more stories. In this season, which follows Chapter 4, we're finally focusing on you making peace with yourself.
Because you can't get rid of anxiety when you're still being your own worst critic. You know what I’m talking about! You have been your own worst critic. I know that because it is very common and it is our culture that creates self critics. You don't how you treat yourself. You deserve kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. In this season, I will give you the practical tools to do that for yourself. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and leaving me five stars on Apple Podcasts. Please spread the word about this book and series because mental health problems have dire consequences that inflict more pain on young people, their families, and their communities. And I would be grateful if you could help me turn the tide by sharing these tips for embracing self-love.
———
Hey its Dr. Jodi here. Welcome to this episode which accompanies Chapter 4, Section 7, Embrace Compassion. We are finishing Chapter 4, My Time to Shine, on connecting with and making peace with yourself. Today, we are talking about
While compassion has been a constant theme this whole series, it begs for its very own section of the book. It is that important. Compassion and self-compassion are essential to emotional healing and overall well-being. People want to matter. Mattering is a term introduced to the field of psychology by Morris Rosenberg and Claire McCullough in the 1980s. Mattering means knowing you have value and that other people see your worth, and also you see value in others. They write, "To believe that the other person cares about what we want, think, and do, or is concerned with our fate is to matter."
This is the thing: Any time you are hurt, there is a devaluing of something precious to you, about yourself, or an extension of you. For example, if someone no shows a plan they made with you, lots of feelings arise. You may feel sad because it had felt nice that they wanted to spend time with you. You may feel angry because they didn't respect you enough to cancel or reschedule ahead of time or hurt they disregarded your time and effort to get to the prearranged meeting spot. You are confused about how they feel about you because the experience made you feel unvalued.
Again, I'm giving a simple scenario as an example here so I don't trigger anyone with something more serious. Still, being no-showed by a friend or a romantic interest is relatable. It has happened to all of us, and it feels really crappy. Anyhow, you get the concept and can use this understanding to think about other ways people have hurt you. You hurt because someone has made you, or something or someone you love, feel devalued.
Understanding this points us to what you need to do to feel better: To be given value again. There are many ways to feel presently valued, such as feeling appreciated, getting thanked for something you did, being noticed, acknowledged, published, picked, celebrated, touched, hugged, held, given compassion, feeling wanted, needed, having a purpose, and receiving compliments, to name a few.
Mattering is particularly relevant to emerging adults because, developmentally, they are in the process of discovering who they are. In fact, studies show that the more teens feel valued, the less depression and anxiety they experience. Unfortunately, what's even more evidence for the need to feel valued is that most suicidal behavior happens after an incident of bullying, exclusion, or rejection, all of which are highly devaluing to a person's sense of self.
People need other people to treat them like they matter. Again, some common examples of how to let someone know they matter are feeling appreciated, getting thanked for something you did, being noticed, acknowledged, published, picked, celebrated, touched, hugged, held, given compassion, feeling wanted, needed, having a purpose, and receiving compliments. We need those from others to feel good about ourselves. Other people need these from us so they feel good. Relationships are a two-way street. These very essential needs are why I suggest you surround yourself with good, uplifting people. This is not because you can't give value to yourself. You can. (And I will go over that in this episode.)
However, you are only a self in relationship. This means you draw your sense of self from what you see reflected off the people around you. When they are positive, you see yourself positively. When you give and sustain positive self-worth, self-trust, and self-esteem, you draw from these positive relationships. If you are isolated or spend significant time with abusive people, doing that becomes harder and harder.
You are already fighting against American society's unrealistic expectations. Like, others in Western countries, you have been trained to be unnaturally modest and humble, lest you think "too highly of yourself." This, unfortunately, makes it feel dishonorable to have a good self-imagine. Rather, your ego tells you to stoically think you are "supposed to see all of the things about you that fall short of being 'enough' and be trying to fix them." In the guise of protecting you from being excluded, the human ego causes so much more suffering.
Back to mattering: To summarize: You want to (need to) matter. When you have at least one person in your life who values you, you can push against unrealistic societal expectations to validate and have compassion for yourself. Let's go into how to have self-compassion, even if it is a review for some of you who remember me speaking about this before.
During my whole career, over 25 years, I have seen the unrealistic expectation for over-modesty and humility cause undue shame and block self-compassion, causing undeserved and intense emotional turmoil. You have been encultured to judge yourself. If you are not actively granting yourself compassion and would only be if someone taught you to, the judging can get out of hand quickly. And this judgment attaches you to whatever negative feelings provoke it, exponentially increasing it. For example, if someone hurt you and you thought you should get over it fast. That judgment creates more chaos. You have to defend yourself, trying to tell yourself that you are "not that bad," which makes you judge yourself harder. To counter this defense, you start to prove that you are that horrible, and you also can get lost trying to figure out why you are so horrible. You see, it adds turmoil.
However, if someone hurt you and you felt hurt but had compassion for this feeling, there's no conflict. You are allowed to feel, and the feelings can process, and when they are processed, storied, and understood, it dissipates.
In this section of the book, I use the example of anger. People always tell me that they want to get rid of anger. They hate it, are embarrassed by it, scared that it will make them lose out on things or will make people leave them, and are ashamed of it. Never mind that most of the things that make us angry would make anyone angry.
Also, sometimes when we are triggered, we get angry because anger is so much easier to feel than loss or hurt. I should say that at first, it seems easier to feel. Because anger quickly feels out of control, which makes us feel very uncomfortable. People get angry and then angry at themselves for being angry. Unfortunately, both of those reactions get lumped together and sometimes make us feel like we are overreacting to the original anger trigger, which increases negative self-judgment and on and on it snowballs. You all know what I mean when I use the snowball metaphor, right? Rolling a ball of snow collects more snow and gets bigger and bigger.
I recently watched a speaker say that feeling uncomfortable or awkward is a sign of rapid learning. He went on to say that you stop or learning slowly when you are comfortable and cozy. (Learning that made me uncomfortable, 😂). It flipped the script I had about discomfort. Even though I have done intentional work on leaning into unease for years, I still, well, feel uncomfortable about being uncomfortable. I am not alone here. Discomfort is too often associated with a problem, vulnerability, or a sign that you are unsafe. It bothers you. Remember from Chapter 1 that when you are bothered, your adrenaline gets triggered. But, if you took to heart what was expressed in this video by thinking, "I'm learning something here," when you feel discomfort. This changes the connotation or meaning of your feelings, changing how you experience those feelings. Your mammalian brain overrides the "bothered" reptilian brain.
Now, if you feel anger and had compassion you'd allow yourself to feel the anger. You do this by acknowledging to yourself that you understand the anger and why you feel it. Saying "I get it" to yourself. If you do that, you'd feel validated and wouldn't have to champion the hurt. You know what I mean. When your feelings are invalidated, you have to defend the hurt, hoping that convincing someone (or yourself) WHY you are hurt to encourage them to give you validation. When you defend the hurt, it grows in power and intensity. When you provide yourself with compassion, the feelings don't get worse. They get better.
So this is how you give yourself compassion. Whatever you feel, it doesn't matter what it is; you say, "I get it. I get why I feel that way. This makes sense in the context of what is going on." A nonverbal feeling also goes along with this, and if I were to describe it, it feels like you are giving yourself a hug –– like you are holding yourself.
When people experience trauma, they have a sense of being un-held or abandoned. Sometimes that is attached to a person (like a particular person abandoned you). And other times, it is a general sense that you are alone and vulnerable during this experience that overwhelms your senses. Anxiety, unworthiness, or depression can also be described as feeling untethered. And so holding yourself is a remedy. Feeling held roots you back into connectedness. This holding feels like being seen, accepted, and mattering, which robustifies your sense of self and gives you the strength to move forward.
This is the magic of self-compassion. It's amazing! Although it is free and easy to practice, it creates greater physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual impact than anything else you can do this readily, in a way we need so desperately in our world.
I'll leave you here for this episode. That wraps up Chapter 4, My Time To Shine. In this chapter, I have given you the tools to embrace your whole self. You are embracing your humanity by accepting yourself: your hopes, dreams, skills, commitments, and values, and also your vulnerabilities, mistakes, and shortcomings. You are human, and that means you are not meant to be perfect. We usually have it the wrong way around thinking perfect opens access to your hopes and desires, but it is the opposite. Perfection is limiting. It makes you rigid, anxious, and focused on things that don't matter, taking your attention away from things that do. It's mistakes and discomfort that enhance your learning, therefore unlimting you.
Allow yourself to be human. Embrace this humanity. Humans are pretty cool, smart, and resilient beings. We are capable of so much. It is easier to tap your huge potential when you stop trying to be perfect and just allow yourself to be the you that you are meant to be.
Thank you so much for joining me in this season. I appreciate your subscribing, commenting, and leaving me five stars on Apple Podcasts. If you want practical tips for your brain, body, and spirit, hang out with me on YouTube and TikTok at Doctor Jodi.
Next up is Chapter 5, Self-Care is the New Health Care. I love Chapter 5. I think you will love it too. Read Section 1, and I'll see you in the next episode.
Welcome to Season 4, Episode 6, which accompanies Chapter 4, Section 6, "Embrace Hope." In this episode, we'll discuss:
And, though this whole book is hopefully making you feel better, we will talk about something can do while you're waiting.
“There is one guarantee in life, and that is: change. Things don't stay the same. What you feel right now is not going to stay this way. Sometimes you are suffering, and you want to stop suffering, and also, you are scared that the change in suffering will feel out of control. While you are suffering, it is a "suffering that you know," so even though it feels out of control, it also feels in control. This, as you can imagine, keeps you stuck here. You are not crazy for feeling that contradiction." - Dr. Jodi Aman
Resources discussed in this episode:
About Dr. Jodi Aman
Therapist | Author | Spiritual Mentor
Dr. Jodi Aman is a Leadership and Spiritual Coach who has spent 25 years as a trauma-informed psychotherapist. She earned a Doctorate in Social Work in ’23, focusing on Leadership, Social Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Social Work acknowledges the person in their environment and understands how humans react to situations. Work with Jodi.
“After 25 years of clinical experience, I feel deep resonance and empathy for the complexities of others’ pain and am compelled to stand against the context of injustice that causes it. Using this keen understanding of how and why people suffer, my unique and varied training, rooted ethics, as well as decades being a trauma-informed psychotherapist, I help sensitive souls release what they don’t want, recover their energetic bandwidth, and grok a socially conscious life of overflowing joy. More about me.”
Her doctorate thesis project addresses the current teen mental health crisis. She is designing a psychoeducational curriculum for improving teen mental health. This program, called COMPASS, will help young people navigate human emotions, giving them the information to understand what is happening and the tools to heal themselves and their communities. If you care about, work with, love, and/or are concerned for teenagers and are worried about the devastating mental health crisis too many of them are living through, you may be interested in my research and plans for this classroom-based, culturally-sensitive curriculum for high school health teachers to facilitate during their mental health units. Watch the video here.
Contact Doctor Jodi:
Transcription:
Hey, you're here with Dr. Jodi, and this is Season 4 of "Anxiety… I'm So Done With You!" This podcast is a teen and young adult guide to ditching toxic stress and hardwiring your brain for happiness. If you're new here, grab a copy of my book "Anxiety… I'm So Done With You!" because this series goes section by section through it, going a little bit deeper, giving more examples, and telling more stories. In this season, which follows Chapter 4, we're finally focusing on you making peace with yourself.
Because you can't get rid of anxiety when you're still being your own worst critic. You know what I mean! You have been your own worst critic, and you don't deserve that. You deserve kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. In this season, I will give you the practical tools to do that for yourself. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and leaving me five stars on Apple Podcasts. Please spread the word about this book and series because mental health problems have dire consequences that inflict more pain on young people, their families, and their communities. And I would be grateful if you could help me turn the tide by sharing these tips for embracing self-love.
————-
Welcome to this episode, where we will discuss self-harm and thinking about suicide. These are intense topics and can be triggering for some people. If this is a sensitive topic for you, I suggest getting a friend or family member to listen to it with you. In fact, if self-harm and or thinking about suicide is something you are familiar with, I want to encourage and plead with you to please tell someone today. Don't wait.
I understand what you are going through; I mean, not exactly, everyone has different contexts of their lives, but I know what it is like to feel deep pain. I know it doesn't feel like it now, but you don't have to live feeling this horrible forever, and hopefully, you won't feel this bad for much longer. People do get better, even after feeling this bad, and you deserve that, too. And you deserve help to get better. Maybe negative thinking is telling you you don't deserve it, but it is lying. You deserve support, and you need it right now. So I want you to reach out. Don't tell a peer or someone who has been unreliable in the past. They may mean well and love you but not be sure of themselves enough to know what to do. Please tell an adult that you can trust.
If you do not have a problem with self-harm or thinking about suicide, you may know some friends who do and do not know what to do about it. Again, this is too big to hold yourself. Let your friend know that you are worried about them and want to let someone know so that you can help them feel better. In the blog post for this episode, I link to my article about how to support a friend if they are going through this. If you need that, you can check that out. The link is in the show notes.
Being a therapist has taught me a lot about these topics; for one, people often engage in them for different reasons, so it is not ideal that this episode is about both. But in another sense, thinking about suicide and using self-harm are both acts of wanting to stop feeling so bad, so they do have something in common. However, this is the thing; they don't help you stop feeling bad. Instead, they make you feel crazy and out of control, worsening the situation exponentially. Luckily, I wrote this book section and made this podcast to get you better without hurting yourself. If it is hard to listen to, make it a point to do some hearty self-care like taking a bath, cuddling up and watching a funny movie, or taking a long walk outside with a friend.
In this episode,
And, though this whole book is hopefully making you feel better, we will talk about something can do while you're waiting to for relief.
Let's get started.
There is one guarantee in life, and that is: change. Things don't stay the same. What you feel right now is not going to stay this way. Sometimes you are suffering, and you want to stop suffering, and also, you are scared that the change in suffering will feel out of control. While you are suffering, it is a "suffering that you know," so even though it feels out of control, it feels in control, like enough that we want to hold on to that sense of control. This, as you can imagine, keeps you stuck here. You are not crazy for feeling that contradiction. That is a common way to feel. But it is actually making things worse for you. I promise. If you change for the better, it is, by definition, better than this. Not worse. This is a tactic of the negative thinking to get you to keep it, to tell you that you would feel out of control if it wasn't there. When you stop paying attention to the negative thinking, you will feel so much more in control of your life, not less control. Never less control.
Okay, first, let's talk about self-harm. Why do people engage in self-harm? Now, this isn't universal, but it is a common reason: People mostly engage in self-harm because they feel overwhelmed by their emotions and decide that transferring that to physical pain seems to relieve the emotional pain. And while it does have that effect, it doesn't last very long. For some people, it only lasts a moment before they feel out of control again. And, not always, but too often, the trigger for feeling out of control again is negatively judging yourself for this behavior. So people engage in self-harm and then, implicitly or explicitly, tell themselves: "Only crazy people do this," "I have to do this," "Why do I need this?" "What's wrong with me?" "This is my life now," "I can't handle things," "I need this." or "I am someone who needs this."
After someone engages in self-harm, they feel out of control, making them feel worse. So at the moment, they feel worse, but also it makes their depression and anxiety worse overall. In addition, harming oneself has other negative consequences that I list in the book for you.
All of this energy, even if you are not aware of it because it's in your subconscious, makes self-harm something that is very easy to get hooked on. You are not compelled to do it because something is wrong with you. By the nature of it, is it just an easy thing for humans to get attached to. I am telling you that because––not knowing that–attaches you more. Thinking it is you that is the problem always makes you worse. You are not the problem. Self-harm is the problem. You are a person with a problem. It is human to attach to a problem, but it causes suffering, and so we want to get you out of there. The more you are attached, the harder it is to stop. It is possible to detach and feel better. It can be challenging, but it is possible.
From my work over the years, I have learned the secret to stopping self-harm. You have to decide to stop. Seems simple, right? Most people who engage in self-harm think that they need to continue it. They feel compelled by the attachment and assume they have no choice in the matter. They think they simply cannot withstand the pain without being able to relieve it somehow. They literally use words like "I need to" and then believe in that like it is the truth.
However, when people realize that is not the truth and when they realize that the risks of engaging in self-harm outweigh the fleeting benefits of it, they decide to stop. And then, they stop.
If they ever decide they need it again, they start again. And then, if they decide to stop again, they stop. When they are not conscious of this, they think they have no control over it. They don't see that they are deciding to do it or not do it. And I understand that it doesn't, at all, feel like a decision. But it is a decision.
It's only once you realize that you have the agency to make that decision that you have the freedom to make it. The belief that you can is all you need here. Believe that you can do what you want to do. The negative thoughts want you to think they are in control, but they aren't.
Some people want to continue to engage in self-harm, but it is usually because they feel like they need to. It falsely feels like one thing they have that is theirs to control. But you have a lot in your life that you can control, and this chapter is all about helping you see that.
Okay, now that you know it is about transferring emotional pain to physical pain, you can see that there are other options for you besides self-harm. Think of exercise or challenging physical movements. This is why people sprint, lift weights, and push themselves physically. There is such a focus on the body when your muscles are burning from the lactic acid, which helps you get out of your mind. This is why yoga and working out are so good for people who have experienced trauma. It gets them out of their head and into their body. So walk, lift weights, do push-ups or swats, rearrange furniture, organize a closet, learn a new trick on a bike, skateboard, or something like that. Do something physical that is hard. Not only will it take you out of the emotional overwhelm, but it will also be good for your body and build your confidence in overcoming challenges.
Treat the desire to engage in self-harm as any other intrusive thought we've spoken about in this series, just like any anxiety chatter, self-doubt, worry, or negative idea. "Hey, 'feeling like I want to cut,' I knew you'd come back, just have a seat, I am busy right now." Then get yourself engaged in an activity. Don't judge, get upset, or worry about it coming. You don't want to attach to it with that kind of energy. Expect it, notice when it comes, and tell it to take a seat.
There are apps out there that track your days free from self-harm. I recommend this because it is excellent to chart and celebrate this achievement. You will feel so good about yourself as you see the days add up.
Okay, next, we are going to touch on suicide. In this episode, I aim to encourage you to hope things will not stay this way. There is light at the end of this tunnel if you stick around. You need to believe it is there because it makes it easier to get it. Remember, thinking that you will never get better is the biggest obstacle to getting better.
If this is something you think about, this episode is not the only thing you need. Don't try to do this alone, and don't only tell a peer. In this time in the world, most teenagers are struggling, so they may not have the bandwidth or the skills to help you in the way you deserve. Please also tell a trusted adult. People get better when they have help, and you deserve this help.
Okay, there are a lot of reasons people might think about suicide. Mostly, they feel a loss of hope that things can get better or that there is a social situation that feels unresolvable. And, if this deep sadness makes a person isolate themselves, which it often does, it also can come with feeling like you don't care if you ever get better. So you can feel the grief that you won't get better, the disinterest in getting better, or a bit of both. Human emotions are highly contradictory. That's normal.
Thoughts of suicide mostly come after a rejection, worry about an impending rejection, fear of being different, experiences of abandonment, loss, being bullied, or failing or perception of failing something. These experiences can feel impossible to come back from. They are not impossible to come back from, but they definitely feel that way.
Death feels like an escape and potential relief from the unresolvable suffering. If someone is going through intense emotional pain, of course, they would want to escape, right? It would be weirder if they didn't. I know I just said that severely isolated people don't care if they feel better, but that is a different situation. Typically, people don't want to feel pain, even when the monkey is trying to tell them that they deserve it, they don't want it.
So thinking about suicide is understandable. We don't want people to die, but we can understand what triggers it.
So lay down your negative self-judgments if you are or have ever thought about suicide. And take into your heart that you can get better. I know so many middle-aged people who felt suicidal or attempted suicide when they were teens, and they have vibrant and happy lives now. Thank God they did not die or would have missed out on so much goodness. Unfortunately, I also know many people who have died by suicide, and we'll never know how their life could have turned out. Death by suicide among adolescents is rising, especially after the pandemic. You can stop this from happening to you.
There's another phenomenon that I want to mention here. It’s a little different than suicidal thoughts and behaviors from depression and anxiety. It is that sometimes people think about suicide in the course of their normal activities, and this freaks them out. They:
Having these visuals feel unnatural and crazy, but it's not. It is actually so common that there is a term for it. It's called the "call of the void." Life Science says the call of the void is "a brief, entirely out of character…thought of leaping from a high place or driving headfirst into an oncoming vehicle." It is widespread and normal.
However, if you don’t know that it is normal and especially if you are sad anyway or going through a hard time (and what teenager is not?) and then, you experience the “Call of the void,” you may assume it is connected to the saddness. And so, you become very concerned about yourself for having this thought.
The energy that this worry brings attaches you to the thought and it gets pulled into your consciousness over and over again. Then it feels like, "Oh no, I am thinking about this so much!" "Why?" this invites curiosity and more worried meaning-making, which feeds it more energy and attention. When you don't know what it is, it could take you down a really dark rabbit hole. It feels like you are sad and thinking about death all the time. It feels out of control, and you get more overwhelmed and think about it more, and then it gets worse and worse.
Alternately, if you felt the call of the void, and you were like, "Oh interesting, that's the call of the void. Weird and wacky stuff!" and then went on with your day, that visualization wouldn't come back to you over and over again. It just wouldn't garner the energy and attachment and soon fade away. You give it meaning, which means you control how to think of it and that affects how you feel about it.
I’m letting you know because sometimes I get people in my office that have become obsessed with their call-of-the-void scenarios. Sometimes it is so painful that death seems like a relief. In fact, people often assume it is the only escape from the torture their thoughts are putting them through. I witness this enough to know that this is a common problem. If this sounds like you, please know that you can get rid of these thoughts and feel better again. I made a video on intrusive thoughts like the call of the void that is embedded in the blog post that goes with this episode. The link is in the show notes. I’m convinced that if more people knew about this, we can save lives.
We are coming to the close of this episode, but I want you to know If you are or have ever thought about suicide, I am so glad that you are here. I love you, and I am thinking about you. Because you are listening to this, it seems like you have decided to live, at least for today. You may be exhausted and not have any energy to do anything for yourself. That is why you need to get some help. You deserve to get some help. Tell someone today.
In the meantime, as long as you are here, why not do some easy activities that you can do even when you are exhausted? They help! Even if you relieve a mere smidge of pain, it is worth it because that may give you the energy for the next step in the healing process.
I made an animated video with some ideas for some easy activities that you can do. I put that in the blog post that goes with this episode. You can check that out. All the resources I mentioned and some extra ones are also in the post. The link is in the show notes.
Thank you so much for sticking with me through this episode of "Anxiety... I'm So Done with You! "with me, Doctor Jodi.
We got through this challenging content together. Please know that happy times are coming in your future as long as we keep bridging the gap between where you are now to where you hope to be. We've got this. Let's keep you moving along with these episodes until you get there.
In this episode,
I appreciate your subscribing, commenting, and leaving me five stars on Apple Podcasts. If you want practical tips for your brain, body, and spirit, hang out with me on YouTube and TikTok at Doctor Jodi.
Read Chapter 4, Section 7, and I'll see you in the next episode.
Welcome to Season 4, Episode 5, which accompanies Chapter 4, Section 5, "Embrace a Positive Mental Attitude." In this episode, we'll discuss:
There are two contexts that each affect both your physical and mental health: Your physical and mental context. Your physical context powerfully influences your life. Feeling secure, having people around you who lift you up, having food and warmth support your body's thriving. However, life is hard, and we don't have all of those things every day. While your mental context is impacted during challenging times, it also can help you survive them.
“The stories you have about yourself build around themes and then form beliefs. For example, if two separate classmates bullied you in 4th and 8th grade, your mind would lump them together around the theme of being a target of bullies. Those two stories, around this theme, garner more significance together than they would separate. You then form the belief that maybe you allowed it somehow or deserved it because you are "a weakling." You could take the exact words they used to hurt you and start believing those things about yourself. What's worse is that those beliefs, which were just ideas, soon become the assumed truth about who you are. They are not the truth, but they get to hold a truth status in your mind. And that can last long after the bullies are gone from your life. These constructed stories become a lens through which you understand and make meaning about future experiences. Someone could look at you funny, and it could take you back there." - Dr. Jodi Aman
Resources discussed in this episode:
About Dr. Jodi Aman
Therapist | Author | Spiritual Mentor
Dr. Jodi Aman is a Leadership and Spiritual Coach who has spent 25 years as a trauma-informed psychotherapist. She earned a Doctorate in Social Work in ’23, focusing on Leadership, Social Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Social Work acknowledges the person in their environment and understands how humans react to situations. Work with Jodi.
“After 25 years of clinical experience, I feel deep resonance and empathy for the complexities of others’ pain and am compelled to stand against the context of injustice that causes it. Using this keen understanding of how and why people suffer, my unique and varied training, rooted ethics, as well as decades being a trauma-informed psychotherapist, I help sensitive souls release what they don’t want, recover their energetic bandwidth, and grok a socially conscious life of overflowing joy. More about me.”
Her doctorate thesis project addresses the current teen mental health crisis. She is designing a psychoeducational curriculum for improving teen mental health. This program, called COMPASS, will help young people navigate human emotions, giving them the information to understand what is happening and the tools to heal themselves and their communities. If you care about, work with, love, and/or are concerned for teenagers and are worried about the devastating mental health crisis too many of them are living through, you may be interested in my research and plans for this classroom-based, culturally-sensitive curriculum for high school health teachers to facilitate during their mental health units. Watch the video here.
Contact Doctor Jodi:
Transcription:
Hey, you're here with Dr. Jodi, and this is Season 4 of "Anxiety… I'm So Done With You!" This podcast is a teen and young adult guide to ditching toxic stress and hardwiring your brain for happiness. If you're new here, grab a copy of my book "Anxiety… I'm So Done With You!" because this series goes section by section through it, going a little bit deeper, giving more examples, and telling more stories. In this season, which follows Chapter 4, we're finally focusing on you making peace with yourself.
Because you can't get rid of anxiety when you're still being your own worst critic. You know what I mean! You have been your own worst critic, and you don't deserve that. You deserve kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. In this season, I will give you the practical tools to do that for yourself. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and leaving me five s tars on Apple Podcasts. Please spread the word about this book and series because mental health problems have dire consequences that inflict more pain on young people, their families, and their communities. And I would be grateful if you could help me turn the tide by sharing these tips for embracing self-love.
_______
Welcome to Season 4, Episode 5, which accompanies Chapter 4, Section 5, "Embrace a Positive Mental Attitude." In this episode, we'll discuss:
There are two contexts that each affect both your physical and mental health: Your physical and mental context. Your physical context powerfully influences your life. Feeling secure, having people around you who lift you up, having food and warmth support your body's thriving. However, life is hard, and we don't have all of those things every day. While your mental context is impacted during challenging times, it also can help you survive them.
Humans are storytellers. We create stories out of our inner and outer life experiences. You have many stories about yourself and your life. Some are benign, like, "I brush my teeth every day." Others are precious, like, "I am close to my grandmother." And still, others are quite negative, like, "I am a loser!" These seem like statements, but they are actually stories. A lot of lived experience, evidence, and memories construct each of them. You have countless stories about yourself: you're a sibling, a musician, a candy lover, a skater, a writer, a student, and more. Do you see how the stories you have about you become your identity? That is good when the stories are ones you approve of and not when they are diminishing of the person you want to be.
Unfortunately, the stories you have about yourself build around themes and then form beliefs. For example, if two separate classmates bullied you in 4th and 8th grade, your mind would lump them together around the theme of being a target of bullies. Those two stories, around this theme, garner more significance together than they would separate. You then form the belief that maybe you allowed it somehow or deserved it because you are "a weakling." You could take the exact words they used to hurt you and start believing those things about yourself. What's worse is that those beliefs, which were just ideas, soon become the assumed truth about who you are. They are not the truth, but they get to hold a truth status in your mind. And that can last long after the bullies are gone from your life. These constructed stories become a lens through which you understand and make meaning about future experiences. Someone could look at you funny, and it could take you back there.
Also, if many things happen to you, even if many are good, the one experience that matches the story about you being bullied will stand out and can render the good stuff invisible. I mean...you would know the good things happened cognitively, but they wouldn't stick to you.
Imagine thousands of thoughts going through your mind in a day. It is as if the few that are scary, disturbing, familiar, upsetting, or weird light up. Some are hard to ignore because they are practically flashing neon red. So you pull them into your consciousness. That's when the monkey starts cooking with gas. The negative thought is causing inner chaos, and you urgently desire to restore order in your mind: This means you must make sense of the thoughts by giving them meaning.
Remember, this example is about nonsense two bullies said years ago because of those bullies' misery in their life. And here you are now asking yourself, "Why am I thinking this? There must be a reason I'm thinking this."
Here are some options you might come up with:
Perhaps, I didn't heal this.
I can't believe I am still holding onto that.
I am so broken.
Maybe I deserved it.
I can't believe I let that happen.
Only crazy people would be thinking of this.
I think I have PTSD.
Maybe I have Dissociative identity disorder.
If one of those ideas about why you are thinking the negative thoughts stick, that becomes part of the overarching story, forming more beliefs about the world and who you are. These beliefs become the lens through which you understand future experiences.
This book section is on having a positive mental attitude, and you may wonder why I gave an example of a negative attitude. I do have a point. I'm interested in your understanding of why and how easily beliefs are constructed and what feds them so that you can shift this process.
Did you hear "The tale of two wolves," accredited to a Cherokee elder? Here it is…
The Tale of Two Wolves
ONE EVENING, AN ELDERLY
CHEROKEE BRAVE TOLD HIS
GRANDSON ABOUT A BATTLE THAT
GOES ON INSIDE PEOPLE.
HE SAID “MY SON, THE BATTLE IS
BETWEEN TWO ‘WOLVES’ INSIDE US ALL.
ONE IS EVIL. IT IS ANGER,
ENVY, JEALOUSY, SORROW,
REGRET, GREED, ARROGANCE,
SELF-PITY, GUILT, RESENTMENT,
INFERIORITY, LIES, FALSE PRIDE,
SUPERIORITY, AND EGO.
THE OTHER IS GOOD.
IT IS JOY, PEACE LOVE, HOPE SERENITY,
HUMILITY, KINDNESS, BENEVOLENCE,
EMPATHY, GENEROSITY,
TRUTH, COMPASSION AND FAITH.”
THE GRANDSON THOUGH ABOUT
IT FOR A MINUTE AND THEN ASKED
HIS GRANDFATHER:
“WHICH WOLF WINS?…”
THE OLD CHEROKEE SIMPL
So how do you feed a positive mental attitude without going into toxic positivity territory?
There are always thousands of thoughts in your mind. The ones with flashing lights are those that you have given meaning to. Maybe this is unconscious at first. It's your reptilian brain trying to protect you. But then they increase your stress, create efficient neuropathways to this line of thinking and feeling, overflow and upset the people around you, and cause you to isolate yourself. None of these are helpful.
This is what I want you to remember: You have a mammalian brain that can override the reptilian brain. By consciously and repetitively taking yourself in a different direction, you can decrease your stress, enjoy being around people again, change your neuropathways, and ease the view you have of yourself and others.
It seems like a huge challenge to change beliefs, as if it is the hardest thing I could tell you to do. But ask yourself, where did you get the idea that it is hard? "Hard" is just a meaning that has been given this process. What if I said changing beliefs is an easy thing to do? Really! This is the thing: You have 100% of control over changing your beliefs. You don't need to convince anyone else; it is just you have to worry about. How many things in your life is that the case for?
When you think something is hard, it is for real hard. When you start to think, "I am not sure if this will be hard or easy, let me experiment with it and see," you lose up the construction.
I love it being an experiment. When you think of it as an experiment instead of a goal, you cannot fail. "Experimenting" is a sweet spot without the pressure to succeed that you'd rebel against and with enough interest in the results to motivate you.
I want to pause a moment here to first remind you, if you are overwhelmed by negativity, get some help. Find an adult that you can trust. Second, I want to let you know that I made a "How to think about your thoughts" animated video that I put in the blog post for this episode. The link is in the show notes. And third, if you are feeling hopeless, the next episode is about finding hope, so please make time to listen to that next.
The benefits of a positive mental attitude are you are in the driver's seat of your mind. You control your inner sanctum, which will, in turn, affect your life. Yes, things still happen to you, and yes, they do affect you, but you get to make meaning out of them, which affects how much they affect you. Remember the three-step process to dealing with difficulty:
This process will take you out of the chaos of the thoughts and give you time to let your mammal brain override the unnecessary negative thoughts. You will be active and feel empowered to affect the outer context of your life with the steps you decide to take. You are not as exhausted and stressed out by chaos on top of the chaos, and you can use that bandwidth to move forward in life in ways you prefer, including taking risks and seizing opportunities.
This positive mental focus minimizes how anyone else holds power over you. That doesn't mean it will eliminate injustices in the world, but it will, for example, take away bullies' power over your life. Plus, with the extra robustness, confidence, and faith the positive mental attitude will bring, your relationships with be sweeter, easier, and closer. This benefits your friends and family as well as yourself. This positivity is contagious and will help them immeasurably. Think about the ripple effect of kindness and compassion. Instead of conflict and people trying to grab power, folks would want to take care of each other.
With the invigoration you'll feel since you will no longer be bogged down under the weight of negativity, you can join like-minded people and form groups that advocate for justice in your community. This is how your inner landscape changes the landscape of the world.
Before closing this episode, I want to remind you that I am live every Monday at 11 am E on YouTube and Facebook. Or you can catch me on TikTok @doctorjodi.
Remember to come on over to the blog post for this episode, where I have extra videos and resources to help you integrate this section of the book. The link, as always, is in the show notes. In this episode, you learned
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The next episode will cover Chapter 4, Section 6: Embrace Hope. There's a trigger warning for that episode because, in the book, I discuss suicide and self-harm. The intention is to help you feel better, but please take care of yourself here. Read or listen to that, and I will see you there.
Peace Pursuits!! It's the Season Finale!! Can you believe we're already at the end of 2022?! The end of the year always brings a time of reflection and a hope for the future. In this episode, I share my top 5 takeaways from my Transformation Year along with some practical tips to implement into your life. Additionally, I provide a preview of my intention for 2022.
Transformation Year Takeaways:
- Obedience Is Better Than Sacrifice
- The Power of Setting Your Intention For the Year
- Pause Before The Pivot
- Don't Minimize Your Impact
- Enlist the Elite In Your Vision
Key Quotables/Takeaways:
"Your obedience will likely cause you to sacrifice something, but it shouldn't cause you to compromise." - Patrice Grimes
"Things that are worth it, take work." - Patrice Grimes
"I needed to transform these areas of my life so they didn't transfer into my relationships, my body, or my finances." - Patrice Grimes
"When you change on the inside, it shows up on the outside." - Patrice Grimes
"There is an element of having to die to yourself, dying to the old version of you, dying to old patterns, dying to antiqued belief systems. You have to die to those things in order reincarnate as a better version of yourself." - Patrice Grimes
"Sometimes we're entirely too busy that we don't even take the time to sit in the chaos. We don't process the pain and that's what breeds trauma responses instead of triumph responses." - Patrice Grimes
"What is it costing you when you're pivoting so quickly?" - Patrice Grimes
"We'll try to manufacture new relationships because we don't have access to someone else and it ends up causing us more pain than the initial chaotic event that disrupted our life." - Patrice Grimes
"Am I doing this for people or am I doing this for purpose?" - Patrice Grimes
"We have to get in tune with ourselves so we can ensure we're making decisions out of peace instead of pain." - Patrice Grimes
"If i'm not creating impact, then i'm living in vain." - Patrice Grimes
"You have to do an inventory of impact." - Patrice Grimes
"Not everyone is equipped to be enlisted in your vision." - Patrice Grimes
"Sometimes, people will fail to stabilize your vision, because they aren't secured in theirs." - Patrice Grimes
"Balance is not something that breeds continuity or transformation in the long run. It actually breeds burnout." - Patrice Grimes
57:05 "Limit portions of the vision you share only with people that have the capacity to see it and visualize it with you." - Patrice Grimes
Episode Sponsored by:
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