6. Change in action: How one person is turning the page on their anxiety and finding freedom

Are you an anxiety warrior? Have you ever wondered, can I heal from anxiety?

What can I do to get to.

The root cause of my anxiety so that I can truly be free? Is there such a thing as anxiety freedom? Today, anxiety warrior, Hannah and I talked about how to turn the page in the anxiety journey. We explained techniques for being in a panic attack in a way that actually reduces future occurrences. We also dive into the steps you need to be taking starting today to get your life back. Welcome to my podcast. I'm Dr. Nicole Cain, a naturopathic doctor with a master's in clinical psychology. I'm a consultant, author, founder of the ACT method, and your expert in integrative approaches to anxiety, depression, but bipolar disorder and trauma. Today we interviewed Hannah and I'm so excited to share everything that we discussed with you. I think you're going to really love this podcast, so let's dive in.

This is Dr. Nicole, and I am here with one of my dear friends, Hannah and I wanted to talk with you guys about the journey of healing. I feel like so many people talk about the encouraging process that healing can have, and so they're talking about it at the beginning and then they talk about it at the end, like, oh, wow, I went through that. I'm a conqueror. But so few people talk about what it's like to be in it and how to be in it. And I've totally been there, and I love to share my story in case it helps or resonates with anyone else. And I was talking with Hannah about this recently, and she's, like, totally down with kind of talking about her experience. And so today is just a conversation and just sharing ideas and experiences, and I hope that it helps you guys. And so here is my beautiful sister, Hannah.

Hello.

I'm glad you're here, my love. So we're talking about the wonderful world of stress and irritability and trauma and anxiety and depression and all of those things which can often overlap and overwhelm, and then of course, it screws up our sleep and our guts and all that stuff. And I was wondering if you could kind of tell me a little bit about your perspective. I know that's very open ended, but I kind of wanted to just like, let you share what you've been thinking about.

Yeah, like more like perspective on the ups and downs, like, physically and mentally of the journey. Like, more about that.

Yeah, yeah.

It's really funny because when I started out on this journey, I thought that I was going in for a particular thing. I knew I had anxiety and I had really bad OCD at the time, and I'm like, okay, I'm going in for this. This is what I'm going in for and learning from you and just getting some more insight on things. I remember you saying, I think you might want to look into some EMDR therapy. Really dig deep. There's. There's probably some. Some more layers than you think there are. And I'm like, okay. At that point, I was just ready for anything. Kind of desperate at that point to figure something out. So I was like, why not? What do I have to lose? Really skeptical in the beginning, because everything that I had tried before was, you know, just a flop or it, you know, worked for a little bit, and then just, I was right back where I was. So when I first started it, I was very, very skeptical about everything. But going into it, once I started actually experiencing things for myself, which takes time. So let the skepticism happen. Let the time pass by. Do it anyway. See if you get some insight. Once I started getting insight, then I started experiencing emotions I didn't know that were under there, and then also experiencing that the mind and the body are not separate because the physical symptoms started coming in, too, as well as I was going through the journey. And so, you know, you start to really. Once you see that for yourself, it becomes truth, and the skepticism releases a little bit. So, yeah, for me, it was really emotional at first, and it still gets emotional up and down. Sometimes it's bigger emotions, sometimes it's medium. But then also navigating the physical symptoms. You know, whether it's headaches, nausea, whatever it is, fatigue. It's kind of a combination of everything as you're going through a certain portion of the journey.

So you were starting out and you're just thinking, like, I have done so many different things. Everything is flocked. It's like, I'll try this. And of course, it's like a totally different philosophy, a totally different paradigm. And naturally, you're skeptical because it's not something you've heard a thousand times. And then, of course, you've been really let down a bunch of times. And so you're kind of. I'm imagining you're standing on the edge of this, like, precipice, and you're like, you don't actually know what to expect. So it's like part of you is, like, really brave because you're venturing into the unknown. And I'm kind of curious, like, how you made that decision to take that step, because so many people I talk with, they would rather stay in the familiarity, even though it's really painful, than to do something completely unknown.

And I think this is one of the biggest things for people is if you want, like, healing is a choice. If you are open to it and that's something that is of great importance to you, you're gonna go towards it. But you also have the choice of not doing that and keeping, you know, all of your old beliefs and all of your old coping mechanisms going. So I think it's really more for the people who are saying, hey, I want to heal more than anything, but I just don't know. I don't have enough information to know how to do it, because that's where I felt like I was. If you don't want to do it, you're not really going to care in the first place, but if you want to do it, it's more. I totally. I'm so compassionate with that feeling of desperation and that feeling of, like, going through these hopeless periods sometimes, of, oh, my gosh, I don't know how to. How to run this thing that I. That we call a body. I don't know how to. How to make this operate properly. And so it's really more for those people and the individuals who want information on where to start and kind of to be able to ground their feet somewhere in the beginning of this process and get some insight and some hope and some new information.

So you were at that point in your life where you're standing there on the edge of that metaphorical cliff of uncertainty and basically, like, the desire to heal this part of you that was so determined to heal became louder and took control over the situation as opposed to another part of you that was like, I'm scared. I don't know what to expect. I'm gonna stay right where I am, because at least it's familiar. So it's like heart's work that we talk so much about and I talk about in my Facebook and on my podcasts and things is there's this part of you that you're saying that just has to want it bad enough and to take that risk and then to do it.

Yeah, it's really weighing, you know, the cause and effects of staying the same or changing. And for me, I was at the point where I was just, like, experiencing so much emotional pain that I was like, you know what? I can't. I can't live like this anymore. So rock bottom is really. Is really a blessing. As much as it sucks and it's awful, it's really A blessing because it forces you into action when you hit that rock bottom. And I feel like going through so many things put me there. Which force motivated me, okay, we gotta figure out a way out of this. We gotta figure something out.

I love that that rock bottom can be a blessing in that it can motivate us to. To get up. It's like that Chumbawamba song from the 90s. It's like once you get knocked down, you can practice the art of getting back up. And so I think it takes a lot of, like, I admire you so much for that, because that's really hard to do. And that's why depression is often so difficult to treat, because depression takes away the motivation oftentimes versus anxiety can present really differently where there's like, almost this opposite, like, desperation. Like, I just. I need to do all of the things and so do you have. What helped you when you're like, you find yourself at rock bottom and you have a choice to just, like, lay there and let despair take you over and just, like, give up versus to be like, you know what? I'm gonna keep fighting. And let the anxiety almost motivate you to have the urge to do something different. Like, how did you do that?

This is something that I. I had to develop a really core understanding of how the mind works with emotions in order to really motivate myself even more through this. And this is more of. I mean, I've been doing this for a while now, and I was improving, I was getting better, but I always was like, I'm missing, like, a little thing. I'm missing, like, this little tweak somewhere. And then I realized through this fantastic book on how the mind works with emotions that I was reading is that a lot of us think that our feelings come from our thoughts, but it's really that we have those feelings already inside of us. And so they charge whatever thought comes up into our mind. So say you are a fearful person. You're going to have fearful thoughts because that fear is already repressed within you and it needs to be released and let out. Once I understood how to let go of the emotions, the process of letting go, that's what really helped me have faith in it. Especially most recently when I finally figured this out, you know, after a while of being in this. And I think there's a misconception about the definition of letting go. Because if I were to hear the word, oh, let go of that, just let it go, I would think, okay, well, letting go means to not have it. So get rid of it. But what letting go actually means is that you have a feeling that comes up inside you. So thoughts can be blessings too, because they bring up this charge within us, which whatever the emotion it is, the emotion is the painful thing, not the thought. So if you work with emotions directly, the process of letting go is to drop the thought because the thoughts will go on forever. Bring the emotion up, just feel the energy of the emotion, sit with it the entire time, which took a long time to realize until recently. You've got to really sit through the emotion the entire time, and the emotion will then pass through and the thoughts won't have the charge anymore. So that's what's really helped me. That knowledge in itself has really helped.

Me.

When I've been at my most rock bottom moments, to get through them, because I've done it multiple times now, and I've seen that it's worked for me.

So what you're saying, I think is really profound to make sure that people hear is that the thoughts are actually secondary to this emotion that's in there, that's trapped inside. And then the emotion is feeling the thoughts. And then the most important thing that I'm hearing that you're saying that you've discovered from this is allowing the thoughts to drop because they could just spin on and on forever. And that's where we get in, like record groups and obsessive thinking and OCD thinking is notice like, okay, we have this thought happening, but where is that coming from? And then you're talking about going into that space and noticing it. And then the second thing, I think that is really profound that you said sitting through the entire emotion, because I know that so many people are like, okay, I'm going to spend five minutes being mindful and then I'm going to do something else. Or I'm having anxiety and I'm going to breathe for five seconds while I run and I get my Xanax. And while we may have those tools and they're really good and useful, you're talking about putting a comma at the end of that sentence and saying, but let's also sit through the entirety of that emotion. How do you. How do you do that?

Yeah, well, it's a. It's interesting because. Because when you do that, it's. It's a simple choice. It's either, you know, am I gonna heal myself or am I gonna become one of the walking wounded that's just walking around with all these things all the time. And so just prep. Once you practice It. It's kind of like, okay, have I done this before? No. Is this foreign to me? Yes. Okay, so am I. Am what I am? Has what I've been doing been working for me? No. So then, even though I'm skeptical about this thing, it's new. Why not try it? Because my old stuff is just. Literally, I've been doing it for years, and it's not doing anything for me. It's just making things worse. So how I do it is. I just. I mean, immediately thoughts are going to pop up in your head. They're just going to pop up in there and they're going to cause a charge. So sometimes you can actually look at the thoughts as a blessing because you're like, okay, here's the charge. Here's the charge that's being brought up. So now I can work on it. So thank you for bringing me this charge thought. Now I'm going to drop you and I'm going to just focus on the sensation of where I feel it in my body. So if you're feeling anxiety, for example, and you have a fearful thought that you think is triggering your anxiety, drop the fearful thought, whatever it is, go into this sensation. A lot of times, anxiety resides in the chest area, and you'll feel that energy moving through. Sit with that. Notice that. Sit with it until it gets lighter. And don't judge it. Don't try and pull it away. Just sit there with it like you're sitting with a friend that's going through a hard time. And once you do that, almost, you know, very quickly you'll realize a sense of lightness within yourself. Because a lot of the pain of emotions is coming from the resistance to the emotion that just compounds on top of the pain of the emotion itself. So you let go of the resistance. You automatically feel the sense of, okay, but then you've got to just sit with that feeling. Say it's anxiety and you're feeling it here. You just sit with that and sit with that and sit with that, and it will pass through. A lot of us have the misconceptions, including myself, for a very long time. My whole life, up until recently, has the conceptions that feelings are forever. Well, they're only forever if you repress them or suppress them. When you don't do that, they move on. And when you see that for yourself, that changes. That starts to change the paradigm, and then you can continue to get. It's like a momentum thing. It changes the paradigm and then the momentum starts to roll. Like, okay, now we're going to keep going now. We're going to keep going. The more you release, the better it seems to get.

I love that. And you've boiled it down to being so actionable for people. And so to reiterate, what I'm hearing is just simply that thought comes up, then the physical sensations come up, you drop the thought, and then you just sit with the sensations. And I love that you're honoring it and thanking it. I think that's really important because so many people, they want to, you know, reject the feelings or hate on the feelings or be angry at the feelings. And I love that you're talking about just honoring them and thanking them because they are a saving grace. They are giving us data, they are giving us opportunities to heal. And so you notice that you drop it and then you sit with the feeling, the friend. And I love that you're talking about also how what we resist will persist. And if you sit with that, it will flow through. I use the metaphor a lot of ocean waves. And so you imagine like, okay, here it comes. The wave is coming to me. And then it swells, and then it's really big and it's really intense, but it's changing the whole time. So you might be noticing the squeezing in the chest is getting tighter, the heat in the body is spreading, the nausea is getting greater. Whatever that is, it's going to grow and swell. But if you can just be there, it will come out. And so you also noticed that you described, I want to emphasize, is that once you drop that need to resist it, that you feel like a sense of, like, you breathed out, it felt like relief to release the need to control it.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think another important thing to mention too is that when you go into a feeling that. Because we have so many programs running in our head that are. That have been programmed in us since we were, you know, young little kids, unconsciously and innocently program that way. You know, that's just what we do. It's important that, you know, you're. It's. It's almost like a paradoxical thing because you go into it and you're like, okay, I'm not going to resist. I'm just going to feel it. But in the beginning, you get feelings of resistance. So then you have to not resist the resistance. So it's like, you know, it's kind of. It's really foreign in the beginning of it, for sure. But if you resist the resistance, then you're just kind of. You just got to let everything go through. Okay. I'm. I'm angry about this. Okay. I'm resistant about this. Okay. You know, just everything's okay. Everything's. Just let it be, let it happen. No matter how you. It might not feel. Okay. But go into it anyway.

What helps you when you're sitting in that and I'm thinking about. There's a couple of people that I work with who, when the anxiety happens, like, one of my clients, his tongue goes completely numb and the roof of his mouth tingles. Like, you know, when you sit on your foot and it falls asleep, like, the symptoms are really intense. And I know when I've had anxiety and it's swelled up, it could be so intense. And so do you have any words of wisdom for people who. They're like, okay, I'm going to listen to Hannah. I'm going to just sit in that space. And then when that swell is coming and they're like, oh, my God, this is so much. How do you stick with it?

Well, I think that once you start practicing it and you start seeing. Seeing little bits of. Oh. Huh. That was interesting. You've experienced it for yourself as a truth. Rather than relying on other people to tell you what the truth is, you've experienced it for yourself. You practice it with little things. And then if you come into, like, what I would call, like, a crisis, emotional overwhelm situation, where it becomes like, oh, my gosh, this seems huge. This seems huge. Then you know, you have the knowledge from working on my dog thinks somebody's here.

I love it.

Yeah. So you have the knowledge from your previous experience to say, okay, you know, these are feelings that need to be released. A lot of the times, the overwhelm.

Is.

Accumulation of a ton of repressed feelings coming up at the same time. So they're all coming up at the same time. And although it's literally, it sucks and it's like the worst experience ever, they're all coming up at the same time to your awareness. So it's a blessing that they're there as much as. As painful as they are. So it's kind of noticing that, or if you don't notice it, taken into consideration that, hey, this is bringing this up, allowing me to start to let go of this. But when I'm in that phase, I think it's important to let it go in bits and pieces instead of trying to dive into the full overwhelm of it. So that in my opinion, and from what I understand, if you're in an overwhelmed situation, that's when you can, as Long as it's conscious. Say, okay, I'm going to watch a TV show and distract myself for a little bit, but I'm doing it consciously, and I'm doing it consciously so that I can have a break from this and then go back and revisit it and let go of a little bit, and then I'll take a break and then go back and revisit it and go through a little bit more of it. And that helps it to not feel like it's this one huge cluster.

Mm. I really like that where you're taking it and you're putting into more manageable size pieces. And you're also gauging like, I like to use the image of a stoplight where green lights, pretty good, yellow lights, it's getting a little dicey, and red lights, just like straight up crisis mode.

And.

And so some people, I think they could execute what you're talking about in red, but then there's other people, they just, they. They aren't able to do that. And so I think being merciful with yourself and saying, okay, I need to either put this into chunks, that feels doable for me, or if it is red and you just simply don't have the resources to manage it at that time, giving yourself the permission to be. To take that Xanax or to do whatever you need to do. And I think that's really honoring to the process. The other thing that I like that you said that I wanted to make sure was emphasized too, is relabeling where, you know, we're talking about dropping the anxious thought. And you're supercharging that, right, by replacing it with your higher truth of like, okay, this is a conglomeration of maybe past traumas or emotions or things that are stuck in there. And so it's not that I'm going to have a heart attack, it's that my younger parts or these traumas or these anxieties are coming up. So you're discarding what your higher truth isn't, and you're replacing it and relabeling it with your current experience. I think that's really cool.

Yeah, definitely. And just having the basis knowledge to be able to do that is important. And I know for me, when I was starting out at the beginning, someone had mentioned to me, well, you know, and I experienced panic attacks myself. And I had someone say, well, you know, people that get panic attacks, it's the physical kicks in, or not panic attacks. I'm sorry, people that get heart attacks, the physical kicks in first and then the mind starts to get concerned. But when we're in an anxiety state, it's more like we get concerned and then we're focusing on our feeling, and then we're like, oh, my God, heart attack. It's almost like the opposite. Like, the reverse situation sometimes happens. So normally fear comes later if it's a true medical emergency.

I think getting it, like you said, getting the education is so important because then you can go and you can talk to your counselor or your doctor or psychiatrist and say, like, this is the pattern. So you're noticing it. You're not just, like, suppressing it in the beginning. Because if someone's having a heart attack and their key symptom is anxiety and they're just taking pills to cover it, they won't be able to share that data. And then having a really good team that says, like, okay, let me tell you about your body. This is what I think is happening. These are the tests that we can run to make sure that you're. That it is anxiety or it is the heart or whatever. I really think that's powerful. And then noticing your pattern as an individual, like, okay, when I get anxious, I feel the anxious thoughts, and then I fixate on my body where it's getting anxious. And knowing that about yourself will help drop that negative thought and replace it. Nope. This is a pattern for me. I know about this. This is the way my younger part comes up or the way my anxious part comes up.

Yeah, definitely. And it's really like, once you have a basis, information that you can. That you can kind of go into, honestly, it's like when you. When you're at a point where you're. You really want to heal, and it doesn't matter how difficult it is to heal, but you want it that bad, and you know you're going to do it. You kind of, in the very beginning, are going in with the sense of, like, a blind. A blind faith and a blind hope or whatever you want to call it. And then as you experience things for yourself, then those things start to become truth and you can build on them. And it's kind of like. It's hard to see in the beginning. I would say, for me, it was really, really, really hard to see in the beginning, because I started the process and I had a little bit of awareness. Not much, though. And so it's like when you got all these emotions that we've accumulated over our whole life, it's like stuffing all these. I don't know where I came up with this Analogy. But I just thought of it the other day. It's like stuffing all these butterflies into this butterfly net. And the butterfly net's getting so full, and now you can't see through the butterfly net to what's true and what's not. You're just. Just covered in this whole cloud of confusion. And once you start removing, you know, the pieces, the butterflies out of the net, then maybe you have a little hole that you can see. Oh, you gain awareness here and. Oh, you gain awareness there. And it's a slow process because we've accumulated this over our whole lives. So when you pull them out and you see you get those little blips of awareness, then that even increases the momentum more that you're on the right track, you're doing the right thing. And it gets. Although you may feel uncomfortable emotions and uncomfortable physical sensations, there's another part of you, a higher part of you, that has seen the truth. And once you see the truth, you can't unsee that. And so it just increases the momentum of you keeping going.

And some people, they really struggle with holding on to their truth. So they've seen it and they have a hard time holding onto it. And I think I really dealt with that a lot because when I was. And, you know, you. And I've talked a lot about my anxiety journey is the anxiety, the thoughts would get so loud that they would, like, deaden out or overshadow the truth. And so a couple things that I. And I'd love to hear what you've done in the moments like that to help with uncertainty. It's like, okay, is this really true or not? I don't know. The two things that helped me the most was one is writing down the anxious thought and identifying that I call it my lie thoughts. And then in a different color writing utensil, I'll write the truth thought so that when that thought comes up, my brain's associated it with the dark light. I use, like, a black pen, and then I'll use, like a purple pen for my true thought. And so that I can try to start retraining my brain so that I recognize. Remember that. And the second thing that I've done that really helped me is recording myself saying my truth into my audio recorder and my phone. And then when I was really anxious, I would put my earbuds in and I would go for a bike ride, and I'm moving my body. I'm out in the sunshine in Arizona, and I'm listening to truth so that it's overshadowing the lies and the anxiety.

Yeah.

What do you do? What helps you?

I think that that's such a great idea because when the truth. And I've experienced this literally so many times, countless amount of times, exact same phenomena where it feels like the floor drops out and you don't know north from south anymore because you're literally changing your entire world map. So of course you know you're going to be confused, but it's really uncomfortable when you are. And a lot of times when we're confused, we all of those kind of negative thoughts are going to come into our head and it's great. I love the idea of distracting, not distracting but like dumping the negative thoughts and listening to the truth so you can actually hear that over and over and over again. It's important because it builds, you know what, it builds all the neuro systems to be able to work together and more efficiently that way. For me I do that also because you taught me that and that's so helpful. And also there's, you realize too that there's an attachment to the confusion. Like confusion has a purpose. So it's more like what is the benefit of me staying confused and staying in the dark? What do I, you know, if you just ask yourself, okay, for what? Like I feel confused and I can't, you know, feel like I can grasp on to something I can hold on to. Well, if you ask yourself the benefit, like just ask yourself the benefit through whatever thoughts come to your head. Like, well, what's the, what's the benefit of me being confused? What, what is the benefit overall to my system of staying confused? And sometimes that takes a while to figure out. But once you understand that it's your brain's trying to keep you in this, the same old pattern system because it thinks it's helping you survive, then it's like, well, what is the benefit of this? And once you ask yourself that and you start to break that down, it may take time but once you get to the core of what the benefit of that is, then you can start to let go of that underlying emotion. And that can help you kind of release the attachment to certainty or. And you'll find that you actually have an awareness of what is true rather than just feeling it becomes more concrete than just a feeling of truth. When you go through that, if that makes any sense. I feel like that's kind of complicated.

We're talking about pretty advanced techniques which is. It's so fun to get to talk with you because you've so brilliant and you have so much wisdom, and I'm learning from you. Like, every time you open your mouth, I'm like, oh my gosh, I gotta write this down. But what I think that you're talking about, I'm hearing you say, is that there's a part, and this part is producing a feeling of uncertainty. And that part has an agenda. And so you want to figure out what that part's agenda is like. Okay, so we'll pull this part out. Who is this part? What is her agenda? What is her unmet need? Why is she there? Where did she come from? And realizing that that uncertainty is there for a reason and it's just an invitation. Like you were saying before, those negative thoughts, anxious thoughts, the uncertainty is the same kind of. To understand what's inside those, those butterflies, which is such a great image. It's just, it's one of the butterflies. And you may have. That butterfly may keep reappearing in lots of different places because it may be a really deep layer. And I think you think of developmental trauma where children have to believe either my caregiver is right and they can keep me alive, or they're, they're not and I'm going to die. It's like very black and white concrete thinking for children. And so in order to survive, they have to believe that their caregiver is right and it results in them doubting themselves constantly. And so the brain becomes wired around this self doubt. And this is, this is the foundation of what we call gaslighting. You know, I don't think our parents a lot, most of our parents don't do this on, on purpose, but it is a form of where we know what is true, but we're told it isn't true. And then we start to doubt ourselves. And then those patterns come up and we have to identify that part and what that part's need and suffering is.

Yeah, definitely. And doubt and denial seem to work really well together to, to fuel the confusion part. It just seems like, I mean, that's what I've experienced for my, for myself. But. And this, keep in mind, it's taken like a really long time to get through this. I mean, it's not something that a lot of the realizations are more like, okay, I'll take that into consideration. And then a couple weeks later, after you've been processing, you're like, oh my God. Obviously, you know, it just takes a little bit of time. It doesn't hit right away. A lot of things, most things don't hit right away, but yeah, that's exactly right. And I learned from you. I mean, literally, the only reason that I'm in the position that I am now is because of you and because of the therapy that you've introduced me to. And I learned everything. I learned a ton from you all the time, too. So I'm so grateful.

I am so honored. In our last five or 10 minutes together, I wanted to touch base on this. We talked in the beginning about the Grand Canyon, right? And so we talked about you're standing on the edge, and, sister, you were a bold, brave warrior. You went in. And then we were talking about how rock bottom can be pretty motivating for some people like yourself and other warriors. It's like, babe, just do it. It's worth it. But then you're in the canyon, right? And we're unpacking things, and so we've been talking about these parts, these layers, these butterflies, these different things that are coming up. And it's like, oh, my gosh, when is this ever going to end? And so I was hoping that before our time together ends, if you could sort of speak on how does somebody function when they're basically in the dark canyon and they don't see the light on the other side and they're just like, feel over their heads, totally overwhelmed. All of these parts are coming up. The body's like, yay, I'm going to express all of my suffering. And you're like, slow down. So what do you do in those moments when you haven't quite gotten to see the sunrise on the other side yet, but you're pressing forward?

Well, I would say when you're in the Grand Canyon, as much as your brain wants to not acknowledge it, you do have a lot more knowledge when you're at the bottom, because you have to start in the beginning and you slowly, as you unpack stuff, like you have taught me, you know, you kind of go like this for a little bit because you're unpacking all this stuff. You're in the Grand Canyon, and your. Your brain really wants to kind of stay the same and not change. But it's, I think, for me, you know, trying to drop the thoughts and going right into the emotion. But then also, it is really nice, and this helped me so many times, is to have someone to go through it with that has experienced similar things or has been through tough times. I talk to you a lot about things. I know you've been through a lot of the processes with different things. And so having seen that people can go to the Other side and that have been there is incredibly helpful. And also seeing people with. Also when you're down in that. In that dumps and you had all these, you know, awful beliefs that are running through your head, talking to somebody that has a different belief than you, you know, just being like, oh, well, this person isn't, you know, devastated about this thought or this feeling, and I am. So if they're not, then that doesn't mean that this is universal for everyone. So I can get out of it. I love that.

And, you know, there's this really interesting study that I read that talked about how people. If you compare someone doing just individual therapy to people who are in a group or have some sort of a supportive community, the people in the group have 85% greater amounts of success than just someone who's all alone and doing individual. Which I think is speaking totally to. What you're saying is to know you're not alone, to see other people going through it, to be able to process it and see there's hope on the other side, but also to get exposure to people who think about the things that you do but have a different conclusion. And then to question yours.

And then I would say the one other thing, like, if you really feel like, okay, I can't get in touch with anyone at the moment. Well, it's when the beginning of the process, which I didn't do this, and I wish I did, I'm gonna try and start doing it. Is label, like, your little wins that you have along the way. Cause when you're down there at that bottom, you forget all of that. And so just going back and being like, oh, oh, oh, this is where I've gotten in the past couple months. So you can even be that for yourself. You don't necessarily need to rely on somebody else to do that all the time.

I love that. And doing a wins board. And sometimes a win is, like, legit. I washed my hair. And other days it's that I dropped one thought. And I think that focusing and, like, making yourself pick a win every day and then those wins will accumulate. I think that's amazing because it's so easy for us to look at what we wish we would have done better. And it's hard to look at our wins. We're not necessarily biologically wired to look at our wins. And I think being intentional about that, that's a really great. I think that people need to start doing that immediately.

Yeah, it would help. We definitely forget about it when we're in that bottom. Like, Awful feeling place. Your brain just wants to be like, there was no wins. It wants to tell you all this terrible information, but then if you can go back and look back on it, you're like, oh, actually, I do. So, yeah, that's the.

I think one of the coolest things about when you and I get to connect is that you and I remember things from the past. We were able to reflect on it and be like, oh, my gosh, I have so much more insight about that, or so much better, or, this has totally changed, or, oh, I forgot that happened. It's not happening anymore. And so having that relationship has, I think, created a space where we can reflect back on how this whole thing has evolved.

Yes. Yeah, definitely.

And then I wanted to speak, too, about. So we've talked about, like, starting the Grand Canyon, those changes that are going to happen as you go into the Grand Canyon, how to be in that space. I love labeling the emotion, dropping the thought, watching the waves, having the support. And then it is counting your wins and realizing that there is another side. And I am really passionate about telling people that there is always hope and you can get better. And what you and I are talking about today, Hannah, isn't just changing thinking. It's literally. And you touched on this. Is changing the literal structure of the brain. So one of the cool things I think that you're talking about doing earlier is your brain has an emotion, and then the brain attaches a thought to that emotion, and then they associate together. And part of the work that you're doing is feeling that emotion. But then suddenly, the association with that emotion starts to change, because you're not feeling the burning and the panic and the heartache, the palpitations, and then just having all those panicky thoughts and then dulling it as you're working your way through it and feeling that it can go somewhere else. And then your mental experience during that is going somewhere else. So if I'm making sense, you're literally rewiring the way that the brain is existing in a panic attack, to not be in a panic attack. Do you know what I'm saying?

Exactly. Exactly. Because the thoughts. You can have a million thoughts around one feeling. If you're really trying to analyze it from an intellectual perspective, the mind just wants to come up with an excuse for why you feel the way that you feel. And sometimes it's right, but sometimes it's wrong. So working with the feeling itself is gonna basically create a much faster route to neutralizing that emotion. And once the emotion neutralizes, which they naturally do. If you actually let them be there, as long as they're gonna be there, and then they'll pass, you realize that the thoughts go away because that they don't have a charge anymore. It's not the thoughts that are hurting us. It's the feeling about the thoughts that's hurting us. So once the hurt is gone, the thoughts, they're gone.

So it's that emotion that's the main thing, is that emotion. And we can't attach ourselves to the thoughts that come with it, because the brain is designed to theorize and analyze, and that doesn't get us the answers. We got to drop those, look at the emotions, look at the body, and start to explore what that hidden message is so that we can examine that butterfly and let it free.

Definitely. And one of the newest things, because I'm still in the middle of this whole journey, like, smack in the middle of it, is that once you start removing these things, you realize that a lot of us try and search for truth. We're constantly looking for truth, trying to find it somewhere out there, but it's really that we have the truth inside of us already. It's just removing the blocks so that the truth can reveal itself within us. So it will, but you don't have to try. All you have to do is work on removing those blocks, and then you get these insights that seem like they come out of nowhere, but you're just now not blocked to them anymore.

It's like the scales fall off of the eyes, and they can see. They were always able to see, but there is a block. The butterfly moves out of the way, and you can see through, through that little space to the truth that was always there. And that's inside of you.

Yeah, exactly. Because when you have an emotion, say you're anxious, it's like you put it on. You put on these anxious goggles, and everything in your world is tinted with anxiety. So once you let go of that feeling, it's like you take the glasses off, and then you see the world differently because you're like, huh?

So I feel like we could probably talk for hours. And I'm so grateful for your time and your wisdom and also your authenticity, because there's such power in understanding each other's stories. It's like going back to what you said is in the canyon. If you can find another hiker that's on that journey with you, I think it's a lifesaver for so many people, myself included, is having our warrior companions. And so you could Very well be changing someone's life just by being a little bit vulnerable with yours. And I want to honor that and thank you for your time and sharing.

Well, thank you so much for having me and having this opportunity to talk with you because you've been one of my biggest teachers and I've learned so much from you and I definitely would not be where I am now without your insight and your brilliance. So I feel the exact same way about you. And yeah, we could definitely, we could definitely do like a part two, part three. I mean, we could probably go on for a while about it, but it's really. Yeah, I mean, if it can help someone, then that's the biggest thing.

So to get support, I want to tell everybody that I created a Facebook group and it's totally free. It's no pressure. It's the Anxiety Freedom Facebook group. So if you go to Dr. Nicole Caine, my just regular Facebook group, the header has a one week Freedom challenge. And so you just go to the link there, it'll take you into the group, it'll ask you three questions and then one of the questions is asking for your email address. I promise we won't spam you. It's just so I can send you a giant, beautiful, 30 page magical workbook that has two tips for every single day, seven days in a row. It comes with lots of videos, then you can be in the group. And in the group, I'm posting tons of content. We have a supportive community in there of warriors. And so if that would be helpful for you, join. And like I said, it's free, it's no pressure. Then the other thing that's coming up is I have a somatographic imagery webinar. And so Hannah is talking a lot about these pretty advanced techniques where you're looking in your body, you're doing a lot of body awareness work. And that's quite different than just like a logical cognitive reframing your thoughts work. This is actually going in and doing some parts work. And so what Hannah's talking about, you can learn in the somatographic imagery webinar. Again, that's free. I'm going to be posting, I'm going to do that live in a week and then I'll be posting at Evergreen so you can get it later too. So I wanted to tell people about that. And then Hannah mentioned you mentioned a book earlier that you read that was really helpful for you. Do you mind sharing? Do you remember what that was?

The book is called Letting Go by David Hawkins. Yeah, if you're on this journey. I highly recommend reading that book. It'll definitely help you through some of the basis of how to kind of work this so that you can move through it as smoothly as possible.

I'll get that name and that link and I'll put that in the show notes and I am so grateful for your time. Are there any last thoughts or words? Do you feel like this is a great place for us to hit the stop button in the recording?

No, I think this was great. Thanks so much for having this conversation. Every conversation with you is so insightful, so this has been just such a fantastic experience.

Thank you honey. Awesome. Thanks for listening. I'm everybody, we'll talk to you soon.

Hey everyone, thanks for listening. This has been Dr. Nicole Kane. If you want more free information on how to get your life back, check out my website@www.Dr.nicolecane.com. you can send me questions, learn about consulting with me directly, and even preview my online courses. Today we talked with Hannah and we talked about the journey of starting the anxiety healing process, what it's like to be in the canyon of healing of anxiety, and we talked about how to hold on to the hope that the sun will rise on the other side. If you want to learn more about this process, check out the show notes and we'll have lots of helpful links for you. And now for the disclaimer.

The recording you just listened to consists of of the personal opinions of Dr. Nicole Caine, a naturopathic doctor with a Master's in Clinical psychology. While these opinions are based upon literature, her counseling, education, medical training, and clinical experience, this content should not be viewed as the definitive opinion on these subjects. Listening to this podcast is not a substitute for any sort of medical, psychological or other form of treatment. If you are in a Crisis, please call 911 or or call the National Suicide Prevention Line at 1-800-273-8255. If you're in need of counseling, don't hesitate to make an appointment with a counselor in your area. Dr. Nicole Cain is so passionate about people getting their life back. If this resonates with you and you think this podcast would help someone you love, please share it with them. Stay in the conversation with Dr. Nicole Cain about writing the next chapter of your life life so that it plays out just the way you want it. Explore your options for working with her at www. Dr. Nicolecane.com that's Dr. D R Nicole N I C O L E Caine c-a I n.com when you're there, be sure to take advantage of the free anxiety freedom one week challenge. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the get your life back podcast. Here's to your next chapter.

Shift.