← Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Dr. Cochran: Brain Waves, Breakthroughs and Unlocking the Secrets of the Mind
00:29:19
he episode features Dr. Cochrane, a seasoned psychologist renowned for her work in cognitive behavioral therapy and mental health advocacy. Dr. Cochrane discusses her extensive experience helping individuals, including neurodivergent persons, with issues like self-regulation, trauma, and psychosis.
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- [00:01]
A
Reggie, I just sold my car online.
- [00:03]
B
Let's go, Grandpa. Wait, you did?
- [00:06]
A
Yep. On Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions, got an offer in minutes. Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame.
- [00:14]
B
You don't say.
- [00:15]
A
Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow. Talk about fast.
- [00:18]
C
Wow.
- [00:18]
B
Way to go.
- [00:20]
A
So, about that picture frame. Ah, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested.
- [00:25]
D
Car selling made easy on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.
- [00:30]
A
Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start. Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint, finish and satin or what that clunking sound from your dryer is.
- [00:42]
C
With thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro.
- [00:44]
A
You just have to hire one. You can hire top rated pros, see price estimates and read reviews all on the app. Download today.
- [00:50]
C
This message is brought to you by the Capital One Venture X Card. Venture X offers the premium benefits you expect, like a $300 annual Capital One travel credit for less than you. Elevate your earn with unlimited double miles on every purchase, bringing you one step closer to your next dream destination. Plus, enjoy access to over 1,000 airport lounges worldwide. The Capital One Venture X Card. What's in your wallet? Terms Apply. Lounge access is subject to change. See capital1.com for details.
- [01:27]
B
Welcome to why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide. Hosted by Tony Mantour. Broadcasting from the heart of Music City usa, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests share their raw, powerful stories. Some will spark laughter. Others will move you to tears. These real life journeys inspire, connect, and remind you that you're never alone. We're igniting a global movement to empower everyone to make a lasting difference by fostering deep awareness, unwavering acceptance, and profound understanding of autism and mental health. Tune in, be inspired, and join us in transforming the world one story at a time. Hi, I'm Tony Mantour. Welcome to why Not Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide. Joining us today is Dr. Cochran. She's a renowned psychologist with over three decades of experience in clinical practice and mental health advocacy. Known for her compassionate approach and deep expertise in cognitive behavioral therapy, she has helped countless individuals navigate life's challenges with resilience and clarity. She brings a unique blend of scientific insight and heartfelt wisdom to her work, making complex psychological concepts accessible to all. She has a wealth of information for us. So before we dive into our episode, we'll be back with an uninterrupted show Right after a word from our sponsors.
- [03:10]
A
Reggie, I just sold my car online.
- [03:12]
B
Let's go, Grandpa. Wait, you did?
- [03:15]
A
Yep, on Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions, got an offer in minutes. Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame.
- [03:23]
B
You don't say.
- [03:24]
A
Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow. Talk about fast.
- [03:27]
C
Wow.
- [03:27]
B
Way to go.
- [03:28]
A
So, about that picture frame. Ah, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested.
- [03:34]
D
Car selling made easy on Carvana. Pick up fees may apply.
- [03:39]
C
This message is brought to you by the Capital One venture X card. VentureX offers the premium benefits you expect, like a $300 annual Capital One travel credit for less than you expect. Elevate your earn with unlimited double miles on every purchase, bringing you one step closer to your next dream destination. Plus, enjoy access to 1,000 airport lounges worldwide. The Capital One Venture X card. What's in your wallet terms apply. Lounge access is subject to change. See capital1.com for details.
- [04:10]
B
Thanks for coming on.
- [04:11]
D
I'm excited.
- [04:12]
B
Yes, me too. Great to have you on. If you would give us a little background, what do you do?
- [04:16]
D
Well, I work with people and relationships and I help them get unstuck and I help them get away from fear and avoidance and moving toward what they want.
- [04:26]
B
Okay, can you expand on that? Can you give us a little information on the types of people you work with?
- [04:32]
D
Well, I work with children and adults. I work with trauma, I work with people who are neurodivergent, I work with couples who are neurodivergent. And I help a lot with strategizing, problem solving and giving options for basic and sometimes complex psychosocial stressors.
- [04:50]
B
When you work with someone that's neurodivergent, what are some of the issues you see that can arise and then how do you problem solve it?
- [04:58]
D
Well, generally the kinds of things I see are people whose brains work differently than neurotypical people. And so when they are stressed or they are faced with a problem, often their amygdala or the emotional part of the brain takes over and they start responding from there. So they'll get really angry or they'll cry, or they'll just kind of curl up in a ball and, you know, stop. And they don't know how to do something called self regulation, where you learn to calm yourself and get your prefrontal cortex back online so that you can be present in whatever it is that's going on.
- [05:33]
B
Well, that's pretty interesting. So what led you to do this?
- [05:37]
D
Well, my undergraduate degree and my first Master's degree are both in special education. So I've been working with people of all stripes for a very long time. I found as I was doing that work that more and more people were coming to me with questions and concerns that didn't really have to do with spelling or math or any of that. You know, it was, how do I solve this? How do I deal with this? What do I do with my child when they do this or that? What does it really mean to have adhd? What does autism really look like? I'm scared for their future, how do I plan for that? You know, those kinds of things. And so that sent me off into the giggle weeds of education. And I got degrees in social work and I did work with traditional ego psychology and also transpersonal psychology.
- [06:17]
B
When you was getting your master's and you was getting all these degrees, was you working with a doctor? Was you teaching? What was your journey to where you are now?
- [06:27]
D
Well, of course, when you're training, you have to have supervision. But once I was able to practice on my own, then I do supervision for other people. And I also help therapists sometimes when they get stuck, because sometimes you're working with a patient and you're not quite sure which direction to go. So I do that primarily these days. I'm doing a lot of coaching with folks. The reason why I like to do coaching versus the clinical stuff is because I can coach all over the world, anywhere I want to. As far as being a therapist per se, I still bring all my skills with me. But you can't bill insurance outside of California, which is where I live. Those are the rules in each state. You can only practice in the state you're licensed in. So I only do psychotherapy inside California, but outside and around the world, I do coaching. And it's so much fun and it's so rewarding. I love it.
- [07:13]
B
So give me the difference between the psychological part you would do in California and then the difference of the coaching you would do in any other state or any place in the world.
- [07:24]
D
There isn't any. You just can't bill insurance for it.
- [07:27]
B
Okay.
- [07:27]
D
I bring all my experience and wisdom and everything with me wherever I coach. But you can't bill an insurance company because I'm not licensed in that state.
- [07:35]
B
In other words, it's just private pay.
- [07:38]
D
Yes, Correct.
- [07:39]
B
Okay, gotcha. Can you give us an idea of what situations that you might take on? This way the listeners can get a better idea of exactly what you do.
- [07:50]
D
Well, coming back to the couples thing, a lot of times I will see a neurodivergent partner with a neurotypical partner. And as you might guess, there's some miscommunication there, a lot of uncertainty. And if there are children involved, that gets even more complicated. So opening lines of communication, teaching self regulation, talking about problem solving, safe language, and how to make sure that you're being consistent in what you're doing versus being not so much.
- [08:20]
B
What are some of the more difficult situations that you've had? You're working with the people, you working at a surface level, then you start digging a little deeper and you find other issues that start popping up. How do you handle that?
- [08:35]
D
Carefully. How's that for an answer? Well, generally speaking, people will come to me with a specific concern. And as we're working through that concern, that's often, as you say, other things kind of bubble up to the surface. But for example, someone might come to me and they're having problems in their relationship or they're having problems in their parenting. After a little bit of conversation, I found out that person was sexually molested as a child or badly beaten or abused as a child. And so they haven't been able to process that and finish that piece. And it's interfering with their world today. So the trick is in the work I do is help keeping people in the now. Because if you're in the past, you're often depressed. If you're in the future, you're often anxious. But if you're in the moment, not only can life be a beautiful thing, but you can solve problems and not have them become future issues.
- [09:26]
B
For someone that's been abused, that can be physical abuse, that can be mental abuse. Both are tough to deal with. How do you get them past that? I mean, that's a tough situation to let go of.
- [09:39]
D
You're right, it can be, for sure. And depending on how they've been treated with regard to that issue in, in the past can also complicate things. So, for example, if someone's tried to talk to a parent or a trusted other about what happened to them, they were told that they were a liar, or that's stupid, or making it up makes it a harder to resolve it than if, you know, they were taken at their word. So there are a number of things that you can do. The biggest and most important part in dealing with trauma is to get control of your amygdala. And I talked about that a few minutes ago. That's the part of your brain that does emotion. Now here's what's interesting. I love Brains, by the way, I'm a big brain girl. And what's interesting about it is that the amygdala is very closely co located with the hippocampus. And the hippocampus does memory and learning. Now, if we think about it from a evolutionary standpoint, that's a good thing because we need to remember where the people eating animals are, more importantly than where the blueberries are. So our amygdala gets very much involved in our learning. The problem is that a lot of the things that happen to us, we will react as though there's this animal that's going to eat us when it's really only a blueberry problem. And that's when we get into difficulty. The human brain, you see, has not evolved in about the last 10,000 years. So we've got 10,000 year old soft software, 21st century problems. What could possibly go wrong? Well, a lot. And you're seeing it all over the world right now. So it's learning how to control that amygdala and get the prefrontal cortex, which is here at your forehead, behind your eyes, activated again so that you can think about what you want to do versus a kind of knee jerk reflexive response, which is what you're feeling. And the thing I think I teach people the most, and this is so, so important, feelings are not facts. Let that sink in a second. Feelings are not facts. Because you feel a certain way about something does not mean it's true. You have to use a testing process and that's where your prefrontal cortex comes in.
- [11:33]
B
Okay, so if I have a perception that something is real, then in my mind it's real.
- [11:39]
D
Yes.
- [11:40]
B
How do you get a person past that, especially if it's not fact and they're just running wild with their own emotional thoughts.
- [11:49]
D
Okay, so there would be two ways I would need to look at that problem. One is you may be having hallucinogenic or psychotic process. So my first job is to figure out, okay, is everything running smoothly in your head? Are you oriented times three, as we say in the trade? And if I determine that you are, then my next thing is to help you understand that you've got to slow the process down. Because what happens is your amygdala gets to firing so fast that eventually it developed neural pathways that bypass your prefrontal cortex so it never gets there so you can't resolve the problem. So my job is to help you slow that down so that the prefrontal cortex can catch up with what the amygdala's got going on. And there are a number of different ways to do that. One of them is called cognitive behavioral therapy. There's the Havening technique, there's emdr. There's a ton of different ways to go about it. But basically they all focus on being able to slow things down so that you can think your way into or out of whatever situation you're in.
- [12:50]
B
Okay, so you just brought up psychotic events. So that would imply that you've worked with people that are in psychosis before.
- [12:59]
D
Oh, of course.
- [13:00]
B
So when someone's in a state of psychosis or anosognosia where they don't even realize there's a problem, how do you approach that?
- [13:09]
D
It depends on how psychotic they are. I mean, if they're floridly psychotic, sometimes all we can do is sedate them, help them calm down, and then help them, you know, get some medication for it. If it's a more mild form of psychosis, maybe just a little bit of paranoia or something like that, I'll just say to them, well, here's an example. The gentleman came to me. He said, I have a problem. I said, oh, what problem is that? He said, well, I have all these ghosts at my house. I need you to help me with the ghosts. And some people do have ghosts. I mean, I'm not going to say they're crazy because that's the first thing they say. But then I'll say, okay, well, tell me about the ghosts. You said, well, they're on my front lawn. Ah, I see. I said, what do they look like? He said, well, they're kind of have on Victorian kind of clothes, you know. I said, oh. I said, so are there any in your closet? He said, yes. And I said, how about coming out of your tv? Yes. How did you know? Have you seen them? I've tried to wake up my wife and show her the ghosts, and she can't see them. So we're talking about a psychotic process. You're not a haunting. So I said to him, you know what? Sometimes your brain can go a little wrong. And when it goes a little wrong, it's a little bit like getting a short in an electrical wire, and it makes your lamp flick on and off. And sometimes, you know, when your lamp is flicking on and off, you see everything clearly. So there's some medicine that I can help you get. We'll talk to your doctor, and I can help you get. And it'll help that electrical signal work better so that your lamp stays on all the time. And he said, really?
- [14:27]
B
You can do that?
- [14:28]
D
I said, well, not alone, but, yes, I can help you do that. And within about three to four days, the ghosts were gone and he's feeling better.
- [14:35]
B
Yeah, that's a great story. Now, over the last year or so, I've had a chance to speak with a few different people about this. What about the ones that are seeing demons? And unfortunately, in order to save that person, they have to kill the demon. Unfortunately, they kill the person.
- [14:52]
D
Oh, dear.
- [14:53]
B
How do you work with those people that are seeing demons? They think that everything they are seeing is real.
- [15:00]
D
Of course. Yes, yes.
- [15:01]
B
How do you handle that and help that person that is so far in on what they believe?
- [15:07]
D
If they're that far in, then we probably need to call 911 and have them taken to the hospital.
- [15:13]
B
That's good in theory. Unfortunately, some states, when it gets to aot, it comes down to if they are not a threat to themselves or others, they have to let them go.
- [15:24]
D
Well, that's true. However, if a patient is at the point where they're seeing demons, they're going to tell the doctor about that, maybe. And they're also going to tell the doctor what they're going to do to the demons. I have to kill them. I have to cook them in an oven. I have to do this, I have to do that. Yeah. If they're seeing demons, they're going to tell that story because it does feel normal to them. They don't think there's anything to hide. Now, there are people who are suicidal sometimes who will go in and lie and say, no, I'm fine, everything's fine. My family's just overreacting, you know, blah, blah. So that can happen. But if you're floridly psychotic. Yeah, we're going to pick up on it in the er.
- [15:57]
B
Well, we would hope so. Unfortunately, I have heard a lot of horror stories. Can you think of a situation that you started out, you kind of thought it was really not going well at all. You didn't know if you could help them because they just was not accepting what you was telling them. And then finally you hit that tipping point when things just started turning around and all of a sudden you had a success story.
- [16:21]
D
Yes, a number of cases like that. I have to say, you know, as we're talking about this, it's a great honor to do what I do. People put a lot of trust in me, faith in me. I consider it a spiritual practice. It's my way of giving back to the universe.
- [16:34]
B
That's a really good way to look at it.
- [16:37]
D
So as we talk about these things, it's important for your listeners to understand that I don't take credit for what happens. I always tell my patients, you know, you're driving the bus. I just have the map. I can tell you what's going to happen if you do this or do that, but you're the one ultimately, you know, who's going to make the decisions. So I've had many, many cases where someone came to me and they thought I was crazy or I was giving bad advice. Sometimes it was on a more severe level, like serious mental health. Sometimes it was more just couples counseling. As an example of that, A couple came to me one time, and the wife was just crying, and the husband was really angry. And he said, you know, she doesn't want me anymore. She doesn't want to make love anymore. She doesn't want to be close to me. You know, maybe we need to get a divorce. And she was just crying so hard, she couldn't talk. So I taught that couple about something I call skilled deference. What that means is that when a man loves a woman, and I'm talking for the moment about heterosexual couples, but other kinds of couples take on the role of the more assertive person or the more nurturing person. They want to take care of their partner. And so early in the relationship, they have certain ways of taking care of, we'll use him and her for the moment, her. And maybe it was chocolates and flowers. And then in the 30s, kids came along, things changed dramatically, and what she really needed was not chocolates and flowers. What she needed was time to talk, time to rest, time to take some of the emotional load of running the household off of her mind. But he doesn't understand that. He's still back when they were dating, trying to give her those things, and she's not happy, and he's really hurt. So I said to this gentleman, I said, you know, I think right now what your wife needs is a couple of loads of laundry, a few meals a week, and some time to just sit and be quiet for a little bit. He said, that's ridiculous. He said, I've never heard of such bad advice. I can't believe I paid you for this. How's that going to have her make me sexy again and want to make love with me? I said, okay, well, you know, I can only give advice. You don't have to take it. So he stormed out. Oh, he was just madder and a wet hen. And by the time they got back the following week, they were both smiling. I said, oh, well, what happened? He said, well, it's damnedest thing. I did what you said and all of a sudden she wants me again. So I said, yeah, okay. So here's the key going forward for skill deference, you have to be able to check within your partner and find out what they need now and how you can best provide that. And you'll be holding hands and close to one another until you leave this life.
- [18:53]
B
Yeah, that was a great resolution for sure. Now let's bring it back to the autistic world. I have a person I interviewed about a year ago. He was autistic, she was neurotypical. In my opinion, they had the very best way of looking at it. I'm curious on how your approach would be. They looked at it as two different people from two different countries. Basically, they had to learn each other's ways of doing things. This worked really good for them. Now, what are some of the things that you've used to lessen that gap between the neurotypical and the neurodiverse and raising families?
- [19:33]
D
Well, I often talk about concentric circles. So there's the neurotypical person on one side, the neurodivergent person on the other side, and they come together and then there's this piece in the center where they overlap. And the trick is that I'm really, really adamant about life is never going to look all the way neurotypical. Life is never going to look all the way neurodivergent. What you have to do is come up with a common nomenclature, common language, to be able to talk to each other, to get your needs met, get things done in the relationship. And it isn't going to look like what either of you used to. It has to be an amalgam of the two. And the work in the relationship is to develop that language and ability to be flexible and open and neuroplastic.
- [20:14]
B
Sure, yeah. It has to evolve.
- [20:16]
D
Yes, absolutely. Life is a process of becoming, but it's not always such a becoming process.
- [20:22]
B
Absolutely. Now, when you're dealing with adults, I'm not going to say that it's going to be better, but hopefully they can process things a little bit different because they are a little older, lived life a little longer. What do you do when you're dealing with teenagers? They can be going through bullying and all the drama that goes around them in school and life in general, because things can just not be so good. A perfect but unfortunate example is what happened here just a little while ago. An 11 year old girl that lives just 10 or 15 minutes north of where I live committed suicide and the bullies told her how to do it. Oh, that is the extreme. Now, how do we get it to the point where this can be under control and doesn't happen again?
- [21:19]
D
Well, honestly, the key is vigilance. You have to pay attention to where your child is, who they're talking to, what kinds of things they come home from school with, what their attitude looks like about going to school, how they feel when they come home. And you've got to be hyper vigilant about their use of a computer. You know, we have to have a license to drive a car, which is a very powerful machine that can go quite fast and hurt people. Computers are incredibly exponentially faster than that and can kill people, too. But we don't watch our kids. We think, oh, well, you know, you're 11 years old. How much trouble can get into A lot. You can end up dead, you can end up kidnapped, you can be groomed by a pedophile. I mean, all kinds of things. So vigilance is really what's key. And having regular conversations with your children. And I don't mean things like when the child comes home and you say, how was school? Fine. What'd you do? Same old stuff. Okay, that's not a conversation. That's a reflective response. So a conversation would look like, so how was school today? Fine. Oh, okay. Well, what was the. What was the best part today? Oh, what was the worst part today? When you got to that worst part, what was your plan? How did you handle it? Are you still feeling like you're not sure about that? You see, that's a conversation, and that way I'm digging into what's going on. If my kid is saying to me, so and so said you should die, well, you can bet your buns I'm going to be at the school, like, now. That is not going to happen again. And it's not necessarily a question of vengeance, so to speak. It's more about no boundaries are called for here and they have to be set and my child has to be protected. And that other child needs support and help in learning empathy because they're stuck. Right? So that's what I'm going to advocate for when I get to see the principal. Look, we have to work on both ends of this issue.
- [23:00]
B
That's all true, but sometimes the child is just very reclusive and goes into their shell and doesn't say anything to anyone, especially the parents. So how can you dig that out because sometimes you can dig and dig and dig, yet they just don't say anything. It could be because they're ashamed of it, they're depressed because of it. That's the last thing they want to talk about is what they're ashamed of and depressed about. It's a totally different situation than what parents are used to dealing with. How do they handle that?
- [23:35]
D
Well, that's where a therapist comes in. Because, you know, there are things children won't tell their parents, but they will tell a therapist. And that is a very powerful, sacred, safe space. For example, I had a little girl who came to me. She had been adopted by this family, and she kept running away. She was 5, and she kept running away and asking people, you know, can I live at your house? Nobody could figure out what was wrong. And it took a couple sessions, but she finally told me what her adoptive daddy was doing in her bottom. He was putting things in there, and she didn't like it. And so she'd sneak out at night and try and find another house. Because she'd been adopted once, she thought maybe somebody else would let her be her little girl. So, needless to say, I got her out of that situation lightning fast. But it wasn't something that she would tell anybody else, but she would tell me because she knew and she could feel this was a safe, protective environment and that her needs and feelings were first.
- [24:25]
B
Yeah, that's great. She felt that way. What do you think is very important that our listeners hear not only about what you do, but what they need to do and how you can help them accomplish the mindset they need to move forward?
- [24:41]
D
Well, I think the thing that I want everyone to know more than anything else is, please, please, please don't be afraid to ask for help. Sometimes parents feel like, oh, if I, you know, go to a therapist or something, I failed as a parent, or, you know, there's something I'm not doing right. Absolutely not. The way that we learn our parenting skills, for the most part, comes from our family of origin. The family that we're born into isn't necessarily the family of marriage or the family that we're living with at the time. And they don't have those answers. And that's why people like me go to school for a very, very, very long time and learn how to solve those problems and teach you how to do it, but not teach you with what's wrong with you. You don't know. This is teach you with support and caring and the belief. Because a big part of my job is to believe in people. You'd be surprised, or maybe you wouldn't. How many people don't feel believed in? They don't feel like there's somebody who says, yeah, I know you can do this. I know it looks scary and hard, but I know you can do this. And that's a lot of what I do is to remind them y and I'm going to give you a new skill that you can apply to the problem and you'll be able to resolve it in a new and more productive way.
- [25:46]
B
Yeah, you just brought up a really good point. The fact that people do not believe that they can do things. Part of that is because of that green eyed monster that comes out, which is called jealousy. Sometimes people don't want to see people succeed. Many times it's because they didn't have the courage to do it themselves, so they don't want them to do it it right. So how do you work with a person that is unfortunately starting to believe what he or she is being told? How do you give them the confidence so that they'll get out there and try even if they fail? Because many times when you fail, you learn and that gives you the opportunities to do it better and succeed.
- [26:31]
D
Well, the first rule to interrupt indoctrination, and that's what you're talking about, is to not allow the person or the child to be isolated in a group of people that continues to tell them they can't. That's step one and it's really important. The other thing is, whether you're a child or you're an adult, I'm going to teach you how to calm yourself with one of the techniques that I talked about a little bit ago. And then we're going to begin to implant new ideas so that you can make new neural pathways. You can actually reprogram your brain in about 28 days with something that I call vitamin G, which is gratitude. Gratitude. Practice is so easy. All you have to do is start out your day and end your day just running through the things that you're grateful for. For example, I'm so happy and grateful that I get to do your podcast today. I'm so happy and grateful that I get to see my patients today. I'm so happy and grateful that I have four wonderful therapy dogs. I'm so happy and grateful that I live on a mountain with all kinds of trees and water around me. Those would be some of the things that I would say that I'm happy and grateful for. Okay, now you might say, well, that Just sounds dumb. I mean, what difference is that gonna make? Well, the difference that it makes is as you remind yourself of those positive things, it shifts you from a mindset of paucity, which is there's not enough and it probably isn't going to work into a mindset of plenty, and that I'm only limited by my imagination. So what you begin to see as you move through the 28 days is you'll notice, yeah, you know, this. This used to bother me a lot, but it doesn't bother me so much anymore. Or this used to really set me off. And, yeah, I didn't even notice it. You begin to become more sanguine and calm, and your prefrontal cortex is now in control instead of your amygdala. Now, let me say this. In the beginning, if you're feeling crummy, it can be hard to come up with things you're grateful for. And that's okay, it's normal. But just pick something. I'm so happy and grateful I have purple dinosaur socks or just anything you can think of, right? And you'll find as the days go along that the list gets longer and longer and you'll feel better and better. And pretty soon, as I said, after about 28, 30 days, you'll notice, wow, my outlook different. It works for depression, it works for anxiety. It works with people who are dealing with neurodivergent issues. It works for everybody. But it only works if you do it. Gotta take vitamin G twice a day.
- [28:43]
B
Yeah, that's great and sound advice. Now stop and think about this someone, this 25, 35, 45. It doesn't really matter. They've lived their life, good or bad. They can be out there working, feeling good about everything, and then all of a sudden, boom, Something just reminds them of something bad. It triggers that switch that just takes away everything that they've been working for that day to feel positive. How do you stop that switch from being flipped on?
- [29:16]
D
You tell them about it. Look, this is likely to happen to you in the early days of what you're doing. You're likely. You know, everything is. Most people have heard of the learning curve, right? You. You go forward and then you go back a little bit. You go forward and then you go back a little. That's normal. You're not failing, you're not bad, you're not uns. Successful. It just means that you're going through your learning process. If we talk about addictions, for example, and someone has a lapse. A lapse is a teaching moment. It Says, ah, okay. You weren't taking care of yourself the way you need to take care. Let's look at that. What did we miss? What do we need to do differently? So it's not about failure. It's about. Okay, that was a learning tool. You can't have success without failure. So preparing people for that, helping them understand, is kind of like the waves of the ocean, right? It goes out, it comes in, goes out, out comes in. That's just the nature of things.
- [29:59]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree. Now, is there anything that we haven't touched upon that we need to.
- [30:07]
D
Well, that's a big question, isn't it? Let's see. No, actually, I. I think you've. I think you've done a good job. I want to pivot back to, though, to remind folks that feelings are not facts. And here's a way to break that down. Slowing the process down, as I talked about before, is very helpful. So get yourself a piece of paper and make three columns. Column one, you write down what it is that's bothering you. The worry thing. Right. Column two is, okay, what evidence do I have that that is true? And column three is, what would I tell a person who came to me with this problem or concern? Most people give excellent advice. They just don't take it.
- [30:45]
B
Yeah, that's just so true. Well, this has been great, great information, great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today.
- [30:55]
D
Well, thank you so much for having me. It was fun.
- [30:56]
B
Yes, it was my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know someone who has a story to share, tell them to contact us at WhyNotMe World. One last thing, spread the word about why not me? Our conversations are inspiring guests that show you are not alone in this world.