Read the blog post version of this episode here!
>> Carlee: Are you tired of letting negative thoughts and emotions run your life? You'll find out how to manage them on this episode of The Stress Less Show. Hi I'm Carlee Myers, a stress management expert, and one thing I hear day in and day out is that we feel like we've tried everything when it comes to stress management. We may have tried the mainstream approaches to managing stress. But have we really tried to get to the root. Each episode, I bring on experts and leaders to not just put a Band-Aid on your stress but to actually get to that root. So this month, we're talking about mental health, a huge deal. But I feel like it's probably finally coming around to it's time right where we're finally starting to have conversations. But I'd like to add a little bit more. So we have we're actually bringing on an amazing guest Daniel Massi to talk about anxiety and negative thoughts today. This is something that I think is still a little bit taboo. So welcome Danielle. I'm really excited to be talking about with you.
>> Danielle: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here with you.
>> Carlee: Awesome. So Danielle is a holistic mental health therapist and the owner of the Wellness collective. As a cancer survivor, Danielle understands the importance of holistic health and hopes to bring awareness to everyone about the benefits of taking care of yourself. Mind body and spirit. One of her favorite topics is the mind body connection and the power of altering your brain chemistry to take charge of your thoughts. I don't know about you but any hacks, shortcuts, whatever, I'm game. So Danielle I'm curious. How did you get into this line of work?
>> Danielle: I know it's so specific. OK so. The very very short version of the story is that I did neuroscience and psychology back in undergrad and when I became a therapist at the Masters level and then was licensed. I was diagnosed with cancer. And when that happened to me, I was completely unprepared for it. I didn't really have any sickness in my family. I've never been sick before myself. It was a complete shock to myself, to everyone around me even to my doctors. They were so surprised. Like at first when they diagnosed that they were like that can't be right. We're going to run everything over again. So when it happened it was like. All the stress, all the anxiety just hit me like a ton of bricks. And I slipped into a pretty serious depression. As one might expect from something as terrible as cancer. But for me I actually was really lucky obviously because I have this training as a therapist. And I also am acutely aware about this mind body connection. It's something that is so important for us to look at and evaluate constantly in ourselves. Even if we haven't had a huge trauma in our life. Because our body tends to remember things that have happened to us the way that our brain doesn't. Our brain compartmentalizes our body can't. And that's the important piece. So when it came to the cancer thing for me I had all the tools to get out. And I followed them. Sort of by the letter. And worked my way through it. I'm grateful. That it happened even though that sounds weird to say and some people kind of make a face I say it because its cancer and that's terrifying. But I am. I'm grateful that it happened to me. Because it was a crash course for myself. And everything I've been preaching to other people for a very very long time. And it also allowed me to even become more integrated with who I am as a human being and as a healer. And so I launched the Wellness Collective because of it. And today I'm here to share with you guys what I did to actually get myself through that. And the thing I've been preaching to my clients to do for themselves for their own anxiety that they can actually get out from underneath it. And completely ascend. So. On that note, one of the things that I want to acknowledge for all of you guys is anxiety is energy. And energy is not bad. Energy can be channeled however you want it to be channeled it's just energy. So we get rid of this notion that it's bad to have anxiety, we're going to start to feel a little bit more connected to the fact that it's normal. Everybody has anxiety. It's something that's evolutionary. It's a part of our DNA and our structure. We've always had it. In the past, it's been something that has been really useful. Like think back to cave man day right? If there is a bear charging at one of us, our sympathetic nervous system would kick in. And what happens at that point is we start to feel was known as anxiety which is really just a cocktail of adrenaline and cortisol coursing through our veins and it causes us to go into fight, flight or freeze. So the bear's charging at us. All the cocktail is going through our system and we choose run. And we do. Nowadays, our stress is different. We're not really running from any threats for the most part. It's usually something. More specific like an exam, or a work deadline, or feeling like we're behind in terms of the relationship with our peers like other people are getting married, having kids doing all this stuff. Or they're further along in their careers. And that same response happens in our body. It's like a bear's coming at us. Adrenaline and cortisol. And what it can look like for different people is tightness in the chest. It can look like butterflies in your stomach. It can look like your heart racing, your thoughts spiraling out of control, muscles tensing, shaking any or all of those things can happen to you. And so when I went through cancer that kicked in immediately. I was in fight or flight. And the way that I teach other people to get out of that is to first acknowledge the fact that it's just anxiety and anxiety is energy and that's not bad. And once you do that you start to kind of remember it, you can start to do something called Box Breathing. Which is the tip that I want to share with everyone. Everyone should know to box breathe when they start to feel those symptoms within their body. So recognize what happens for you when you get anxious. And what you're going to do is once you start to feel it, you're going to do box breathing. Breathe in for four. Hold it. For four. Breathe out for four. And hold it for four. And you just repeat that. Sort of like imagine the shape of a box. In hold out hold. For four over and over and over again until you sort of hit pause on that sympathetic nervous system. The adrenalin and the cortisol stop going and your whole body starts to calm. And that's the first step with anxiety, just getting yourself back to neutral. Switching off that sympathetic nervous system and switching on the parasympathetic nervous system which is your rest and digest.
>> Carlee: So how do we know if our body is starting to calm down? Is it like do we continue this for as long as it takes for our thoughts to stop racing or for our...our body to start stop being clenched? Or like how to... What is the process in terms of self recognition there?
>> Danielle: So all of those things. Anxiety looks a little bit different for everybody. So if you get anxious just notice what happens within your body in a very nonjudgmental way. Is it the racing thoughts? The heart beating out of your chest, the palms sweating, the shaking. What happens for you? And then when you start to do the breathing, you'll start to notice them go away. Your thoughts will center, your breathing will slow down, your stomach will unclench. You'll stop sweating. And as that happens and you start to feel more at ease. You know that it works. You completely turned it off. And if you're thinking to yourself maybe it's like most of the way, maybe it's out there. Keep breathing. You're not all the way there yet. It's like an orgasm. When you're there you know.
>> Carlee: I love that. I love that. So what about folks. Like I know I tend to be one of these people where the thoughts start to go and go and go and go. That spiral that I think we all talk about. What do you recommend for someone who's got those automatic thoughts we don't even think about it they just come up?
>> Danielle: So this is the next part of what I actually did for myself. So I'm glad that you brought this up. Something that's a little bit more of a long term shift that we all need to do is to reprogram our brains. And obviously we have those automatic thoughts that come up, but they're not automatic in that we were born with them. We learn those. We learn them over time. It's sort of a culmination of everything we've heard, from our families, from our friends, from our teachers, our coaches, our mentors, our partners. And all those negative thoughts get sort of formed up into one voice and become our inner voice. And it's almost always negative. You're never going to blah blah blah. You couldn't do this because this person says you can't, whatever the voice is telling you it's all usually negative and it's automatic. But it's not your voice. And that's key. Because that is empowering. That means that you can replace it. Through a process called synaptic pruning and synaptic genesis. So our brains are wired sort of like a really intricate highway system. And when we're born, there's not a lot going on. It's sort of like. Being in the middle of America where there's like one highway going and there's not a lot of action nothing's really built in, but over time we start to lay down new highways based on our experiences. So what we do is we have to get rid of those old thought thoughts by replacing them with new ones. By every time we have an automatic thought, say something positive instead. So replace it with a mantra. Choose it today if you want to. Write it down on a piece of paper and every time you think the negative thing, think the positive thing. Afterwards instead. And eventually that positive one will replace the negative one. It takes twenty one days and that's it.
>> Carlee: That's. Amazing. So. Replacing our negative thoughts with our positive thoughts. Crowding them out. It sounds like too. So Danielle thank you so much for coming on this show. We're going to make sure to share all of your social media links for those of you who want to connect with her in the show notes. If we want to work with you. Where do we find you?
>> Danielle: You can find me everywhere at Wellness PHL, but very specifically if you want to do any of this work and go deeper and dive right into this stuff. I have a program called unstuck that I actually just lowered the price for you guys because I feel like I want to just get it out there. And have everyone able to access it. So you can get it from my link tree that's on my Instagram. Which is therapy and thoughts. And all you do is click there click on Unstuck and we're good to go.
>> Carlee: Wonderful. So thank you again Danielle for coming on the show. This concludes this episode of The Stress Less Show and we'll see you next week.