#371: STOP Struggling with Anxiety: The 9 Best Tools To Thrive in a Stressful World with Dr. David Rosmarin Harvard Medical School Professor, Program Director at McLean Hospital, & Founder of Center for Anxiety

It is okay not to know. It's a very human thing not to know. And I think throughout almost all of human history, people have really been okay with not knowing because there wasn't even the possibility of knowing. Today we've got these electronic appendages that give us access to all sorts of unfettered information all the time. So we think that, you know, we have, you know, God's dictionary in our pocket. Like it's not. This is fallible. We're fallible with all these tools. We still don't know anything. I shouldn't say anything. But we're still extremely limited in what we can really know and control. At the end of the day, come.

On this journey with me each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close up. Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited for you to meet our guest this week. The timing could not be any better. We've got Dr. David H. Rosemarin, Ph.D. and Associate professor at Harvard Medical School, a program director at McLean Hospital and founder of center for Anxiety, which services over 1,000 patients per year in multiple states. He is an international expert on spirituality, mental health whose work has been featured in Scientific American, the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Through his work as a clinical psychologist, scientist, educator and author, Dr. Rose Marin has helped thousands of patients and organizations to live happier and more productive lives. His most recent book is thriving with anxiety. 9 tools to make your anxiety work for you. David, thanks so much for being here today.

Thanks so much for having me. What an honor to meet you.

What incredible timing with everything that is happening in the world right now. I'm so grateful to be having this conversation. And we were just talking off air about when I feel nervous and anxious. I'm definitely someone who wants to avoid a conversation or not say anything. But right now with so many people struggling around Israel and what is happening in our world, what are some of the tips that you give to people or that you take on yourself in times like this to really deal with massive worldwide global anxiety and stress?

Yeah, that is definitely the proverbial question today. I guess it's not even proverbial for me. It's very personal, you know, as Jewish psychologists in particular and somebody who has close ties to Israel with I even have a sibling there and several siblings in law go quite a bit. So yeah, it's definitely been a week. It's been an intense time. I will Say that to your point beforehand, our culture, our tendency when we're feeling anxious, when we're feeling uncomfortable, is not to lean into it. We put on a mask. We have to perform. We gotta show confidence, to use your word. And I think ultimately, when we don't lean into it, when we don't accept how we feel, we actually become less confident. Because the reality is, stuff happens. And granted, hopefully not of this magnitude all the time. I mean, we couldn't live like this. But, you know, if you look at world history, every, whatever it is, couple years, every couple decades, a couple times a century, there are things that occur that we just don't want to experience, we want to avoid. And the emotions that go along with it, emotional and behavioral sickle that occur in those contexts are. It's hard. And that's the reality. And the more we can lean into that, speak about it, it just normalizes it, you know, and that's one of the skills that I've been preaching and this week I've definitely been practicing it. I gotta tell you.

I mean, I can only speak for myself. It's hard. And this has happened to me many times. And you just articulated very well that, you know, we're afraid to lean in for fear of making a mistake, which then almost amplifies the anxiety to get yourself to, like, make that leap, to say anything makes it so much worse. What can you do to get yourself to make that leap? Because I do believe what you're saying is correct. If you shy away from things, you're depleting your confidence. In any moment, you're either creating confidence or chipping away at it. If you're not owning who you are and what you see and how you feel, you're chipping away at it. How can you get yourself to make that leap?

Great question. The first step, which I speak about in my new book, is that we have to stop pathologizing anxiety. You're human, I'm human, we're all going to feel anxious at some point, literally. I'm, I guess, an anxiety expert in that I've helped thousands of patients do this. I mean, I started a clinic. I have 80 staff working day and night to help patients with anxiety. I've done research on this subject, yet I also have plenty of anxiety. And it doesn't take a world crisis. I got news for you. In order for that to occur, this is a normal human emotion. If I've learned one thing about anxiety over the last two decades, it's that we are over pathologizing and over medicalizing it. We think about this as, you know, as a disease. It's not. It's not. And the more we perceive it as a failure, when we feel unmoored and uncomfortable and anxious and clammy and cotton mouth and heart palpitations, you know, the more we perceive that as dangerous or as a sign of weakness, ironically, the more adrenaline will dump into our system the minute we have those symptoms, which actually creates a cascade and increases our anxiety. So first lesson, this is gonna happen, and that's okay. That's because we're human. We're not supposed to be calm and happy all the time.

And do you think that society or culture is teeing it up such that we believe we aren't supposed to have anxiety?

For sure. There's no question the messages are all over the place. The medical profession certainly espouses these messages today. If you go into a doctor's office and you say you have anxiety, every once in a while, you won't just get a couple of more questions about it and discussions. You're probably going to leave with a prescription for a benzodiazepine, Basically saying this is a disease and not that it isn't in some cases. I mean, it can get disordered, it can get out of hand. And yes, it has to be managed and discussed. But simply experiencing anxiety is. Means you're human. You know, there's only one type of person who doesn't have anxiety.

Who is that person?

People who are dead.

I don't want to opt in for that. Right. So in your new book, which you mentioned, thriving with anxiety, nine tools to make your anxiety work for you. Can you talk to us a little bit about what those nine tools are?

Sure. All nine of them. Well, I'll tell you this. The first step again, is to just accept that anxiety is going to be part of our lives. You know, I've never gotten a no to this question. Have you ever been anxious?

Yeah.

Yeah, today. Right. And now the question then becomes, what do you do when you feel anxious? We have to change our relationship with anxiety from something we load, something we constrain, something we squelch. It's my new favorite word. Squelch it. To something that we embrace as a part of our humanity and we use it to develop ourselves. And that's what the tools are about. I can't go through all nine tools. I think that'll be tough. I'll tell you, the ones I'm using this week.

That'd be great.

Rebalance. To rebalance, you know, anxiety is an indicator. It sort of like can be a bit like an alarm going off. I mean, it is like an alarm going off. Often it's a false alarm, but sometimes it signifies that things are genuinely a little bit raw for you and you got to take it down a tiny notch. It doesn't mean staying in bed all day. You know, we don't want to go the opposite direction and get depressed. Like that's another book. But when you're feeling anxious, when you're feeling stressed, when you're having a hard day, a hard week because of whatever's going on, whether it's, you know, a factor you can identify or when you can't, it's not the time to take on a new project. It's a time to scale things back and sort of do what you need to do and to rebalance a little bit. So if it's hitting the gym, more sleep, making sure you get adequate sleep, not staying up extra late. Like this week I have a huge drive to stay up really late watching the news and seeing what's going on. Right.

That's causing more anxiety for sure.

There's no question in two ways. One, I'm depleting my sleep and the second, I'm just bombarding myself with information. So I do check in every day with the news, but I am off by 10 o', clock, 10, 10, 30, like latest, at least a half hour before bedtime, I am off. And I'm not bombarding myself with it. You know, I'll check maybe 20, 30 minutes a day just to see if there's any new updates. And then stuff comes across my feed throughout the day, I'll check it later and then that's it. So it's compartmentalized, it's there, it allows me to rebalance. So the rest of my day is what it is. If I have a couple of meetings, great. I'm not gonna go, you know, nine to nine though. I'm not going to have 12 hour days during this week. It's just not happening. More exercise, more sleep, self care. At the core of this is self compassion, just being kind and recognizing like I need to be a little more gentle with myself. That actually means that I'm using, I'm trying to parlay the anxiety into something positive in my life, which is one of the skills in the book. Anxiety can help us to be more self compassionate if we see it as a signal that we need to be kinder during anxious days.

Oh, it's so true. And to that point, I live in Miami. And of course, like any major city, there's homeless people around the city. And today, not always will I go out of my way to pull over to give someone money. But today, it was one of those days. And I think it's because there's just so much negative and there's so much hatred right now, and there's so much animosity and stress and anxiety out there. I just thought to myself, if I can just help this one person, that could make me feel better. Like, it was this one small thing that I thought, I don't know, maybe that one little thing can make a difference 100%.

That's actually the second thing. The second skill I wanted to talk about, which is interpersonally. You know, the first one is my relationship with myself. I'm kinder to myself, not pushing myself as much. The second is a relationship with others. You know, I had an amazing podcast with someone this week, another podcast interview, who conveyed to me, I think it might have been off the air, that when they were feeling anxious, it actually helped them to become more empathic with other people and to recognize. So sort of like you're saying, like, there's so much negative energy in the world, I got to take care of these people, whoever comes my way. And I think anxiety can make us kinder. You know, it's something that we don't talk about a lot in modern psychiatry. Kindness or, you know, good deeds, you know, these are some ways more spiritual than psychiatric concepts, unfortunately, but it does. And those can beget. How do you feel? How did you feel after you gave that money to those?

I wanted to cry because I. It reminded me how much worse things can always be, that somebody's always in a more challenging situation. Suddenly, me being stressed out about what I post online today or I say, you know, when I interface with someone isn't as important as I just made it in my own head.

Puts things in perspective.

Right?

If we can parlay again, I'll use that word, our anxiety into recognizing how other people feel. I'll tell you a story. Many years ago, I had a group of people who all had generalized anxiety disorder, and we were working together in my New York office, and I decided to do, like, a social experiment. So I said, okay, today for our group, we're going to go outside and just notice other people's needs, go around the city and see, like, somebody who's down on their luck, somebody who has a scratch on their car, someone who's, you know, has a kid in tow, and they're like, you know, some like really super anxious parent, someone who's struggling with all their bags and trying to, you know, open up a door or someone, whatever it is. Everybody came back an hour later with a whole list of like 10, 20 things that they noticed in other people and simply by getting out of their own head and focusing on others. Firstly, they were so good at doing it because by having anxiety they understood the emotions of others better. So first that. But by doing it, there was such a palpable buzz in the room. Like everyone is elated. It was like instant thriving. It was amazing. It was an amazing experience.

It sounds like the way that you have teed it up and teed it up in the book is that anxiety isn't a bad thing. It can be a blessing.

Can be. Not always. Now if we get more focused on ourselves and we can't, sometimes it's hard to get out of your own head. You might have to be more self compassionate for a protracted period until you're ready to be kind to others. And how to use which skill is more of a clinical discussion. In the book. I'm just presenting the skills and whichever ones people can use on their own, that's the purpose. But yeah, it is. It could be. Anxiety can be used in a very positive way.

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Does somebody know the difference between they're having anxiety which as you said, everybody's having anxiety at some point you're Having, quote, unquote, normal anxiety.

Normal versus abnormal.

Yeah. Like, when is it a real. A real problem?

Yeah, Great question. Invariably, the distinction between normal and abnormal anxiety is a subjective decision based on a committee of people sitting in some room in the American Psychiatric association offices of Washington, D.C. i mean, it actually has changed over time. Children today, normal, healthy school children, have the same levels of anxiety that psychiatric inpatients. Right. The most distressed people in the 1950s. I kid you not.

What? That doesn't make any sense to me.

That is the data. The level has shifted because we're so acutely aware of our anxiety and have this incessant need to feel perfect all the time, that it's actually elevated our stress to levels that used to be, you know, abnormal. Today it's actually, ironically, it's gone the other way.

But isn't there something inherently wrong about that?

Yeah, I think that the question, therefore, is not whether it's normal or not. The question is, what do I do when I start to feel anxious? Whether it's severe distress or whether it's somebody who's flourishing and has a little bit of stress one day, whether it's someone who's languishing, but, you know, they have panic attacks every once in a while, but they're doing pretty well, you know, irrespective of where you are in that continuum. And it's a broad range. I think the question is, what do we do with the level of anxiety that we have as opposed to, like, when is this really a problem? You know, irrespective of whether it's severe, moderate or light, so to speak, or lower levels of anxiety, we can use it in a positive way. I've seen moments on inpatient units with people who are debilitated. They can't go to work because they're so anxious. There are moments of thriving where they grasp onto connection with others, have, aha, moments in therapy, hard conversations with themselves, with their loved ones, and lean into their feelings and allow themselves to experience it without self judgment, without criticism and in a connected way. That's what thriving with anxiety is about. It doesn't matter where you are. It's what you do next.

Can you share a story of one of your patients that you've seen go through something like that?

Oh, sure. Oh, my God. I have so many. Well, I have one who I'm meeting with today, actually, later on today, in fact, after our meeting. Now she's in crisis. She really is in crisis. She's struggled with anxiety for a long time. A lot of obsessive compulsive disorder about her health and she knows that really nothing's wrong. She's a very healthy, robust, 20 something female, no health concerns. Any doctor who's looked at her has given her a clean bill of health in a minute. But she's so anxious about these tiny little things that are going on in areas of her body. She's been really obsessing over those. And as opposed to letting the anxiety come, as opposed to just letting herself experience it, taking down her stress, talking to other people about it, she's been so focused on getting rid of those feelings that over the past two to three weeks, she's not thriving. She's really not thriving. So we're going to have a conversation later today prior to this. I think she knows, I think she's finally coming to it today, just not getting rid of it. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable and to open up and to invite the possibility that, yeah, something might be wrong and not fighting against it. Anxiety becomes such a bigger issue when you fight it and when you want to get rid of it, which is what she's doing. So that's my afternoon.

So. Well, thank goodness that she has you. I'm grateful that she had found someone, you know, that can help her. When you were explaining that, you know, what's funny is in my mind, I don't think of myself as an anxious person. However, I deal with anxiety just like everybody. As I mentioned, I got anxious about talking about the topic of Israel as soon as we got on Zoom together today. So I get anxiety. I have it from time to time. But when you explained her story, what hit me was I call that fear. I wonder if I just label it differently. And I was just thinking in my mind when you were explaining that when I'm taking a big stage or when I was giving my TEDx talk, like, these are high moments of fear for me that I've had that they came through crystal clear in my mind visually. But I call it fear. I don't think of it as anxiety. Is there any power in the way that we label it?

There is a power in the way we label it. And let me ask you if this resonates in clinical psychology and psychiatry today. Fear and anxiety actually share the same brain circuitry. It's actually the same response. However, anxiety is when it's not based on something real. Fear is when it's based on something real. If there's an actual imminent threat on you right now, that would be a fear response. The heartbeat, the increased breathing, the muscle Tension. Those are mobilizing you to take action. Maybe for a TEDx talk, it could be something similar because there's, you know, there's a social aspect to this, like, what's. What could happen. I mean, it's not like a real physical threat, but there is a social threat there. So I could see that having elements of fear and that the intention of that, your body's dumping in adrenaline to get you more motivated, more activated. You probably gave a better talk because you were a little bit amped up as opposed to being sluggish and boring.

Right.

It's a healthy thing. Anxiety is when it's a false alarm. You don't need to have that. That's my patient. There's nothing really wrong with her body, but she has this, you know, cricket going off in her head, like something's wrong, something's wrong. So that's what makes it anxiety as opposed to fear.

So what is the question people should be asking themselves? Or should they be asking themselves a question? You know, is this real? Is there a real threat to me right now?

Yes and no. The answer on the yes side. We do have to know whether we're truly in danger or whether this is in my head. However, the fact that it's in your head is also normal. People have false alarms. I prefer to have a fire alarm in my kitchen that gets triggered a little bit too quickly than one that's going to sleep through an actual fire. It's fine to have a false alarm once in a while. It just means that your neural system is primed for being able to protect you and to be able to give you a fear response if you so need it.

Well, it's funny that you bring up fire alarms. So yesterday I was interviewing Jim Kwik for my podcast, the same show that you're on right now. And all of a sudden, my building started testing firearms. And there is no rhyme or reason to it. There was no notification for it, and actually one went off today. So I was so grateful. I haven't heard one since then. However, you never know. We could get one next. I'm not living in anxiety about right now, but yesterday I was. There was no threat to me. Nothing horrible is going to happen to me. I just had to explain to him, listen, I'm not going to be able to talk very much in this show because I need to keep my end on mute so that we can hear and learn from you. But I could feel my heart racing. It was causing, like, this stress. How can you, when you feel anxiety like that there's no fear. It's just your own mind feeling badly for a situation, you know, whatever it is. How can you flip something like that to bring the anxiety down in the moment?

Let me ask you a question. Talking about it right now live on your podcast, when your listeners are going to be hearing. How does it feel?

Fine. I don't feel stressed out about it at all.

Is it better? I mean, do you, you know, getting it off your chest as opposed to holding it in?

Yeah, I mean, I think always. Oh, gosh, I've been in a lifetime of therapy always and forever. It's better to get it off your chest than to hold it in. For sure.

There you go. A lot of people don't. A lot of people are like, oh, I shouldn't feel this way. I got to put on the smile. I got to hold it together. And that's when panic happens because it just builds and builds and builds until you can't hold it anymore. And then it's your body's way of like leaking it out and saying it's time to accept this and talk to someone about it and connect with other people. I like that you mentioned that you've been through a lifetime of therapy. Has that made you more able to connect with other people emotionally?

I would think definitely so, yes.

Everyone says yes to that question. Almost everyone says yes, that question when you're able. This is what I was going back to, what I was saying before about when you have your own anxiety experience and you can use that to understand the emotions of others, it turns it into something that helps us to thrive as opposed to something that beats us.

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Your book that I was interested to diving into is how anxiety enhances our spiritual connection. Yes, that's really interesting to me.

Me sure. Actually that was the third thing I was using this week, let me tell you, sort of on the personal side and we can talk about it more, you know, professionally and what other people can do. So again, I'm from the Jewish faith. That's my sort of specific brand, if you will, of spirituality. But spirituality is a broad construct and many people have different paths to it. Anything that's sacred or separate from the physical world, if you will, is sort of under that large umbrella called spirituality and it's Many, many different pathways to get there. One aspect which is really common among any faith tradition, and even those who have none to some degree, people who don't even identify as spiritual, is that we are only human. And we have this very small little corner, not even a corner, small area, footprint of the universe in which we operate for a very limited amount of time compared to the duration of world history. I was on a plane last night and it was a clear night. And I'm looking down over, I think it was Hartford, Connecticut, or maybe Springfield, Massachusetts. And just seeing all the different lights and all the different people and just taking it in, how small we are. Yes, I have a job to do. Yes, I'm going to do it. But there's an opportunity for me to relinquish control and to really accept that there's only so much I can do at the end of the day as a human being in this world, because I am finite in my space and in my time. When I feel anxious leaning into that as opposed to, like, I gotta do this. I gotta get it done. Like, no, David, no. It's just not necessarily your fight. That acceptance is hard, but it's so healthy. It's so healthy. And I think anxiety pulls for us to be more accepting. It occurs when we don't know what's going to happen next and we don't have control. And when we lean into that and say, you're right, I don't have control and I don't know what's going to happen next, the anxiety actually gets converted into something positive, which I think is akin to spiritual growth for many people.

Oh, my gosh, that's so powerful. Anytime, different times in my life, I've been closer to God. Different times I haven't been as close in relationship. And anytime that I am really connected and in a spiritual practice and praying, I have so much more ability to let go and let God. And that is so incredibly freeing. For people that don't specifically believe in God, how can they frame up or use the same methodology to their benefit?

So, living in Eastern Massachusetts, I definitely have a lot of these conversations with folks. You know, it's not exactly the Bible belt over here. Part of my research at McLean Hospital within the Harvard Medical School system is about developing language to do this. You know, interestingly, you were the one who mentioned God. I did not, by the way. And I think that a lot of individuals who don't have a God concept or specific religion that they affiliate with or associate with, it'll still resonate with them, the concept that we need to be humble and we need to do the best we can, but there's also has to be at certain point, letting go. At a certain point, there's a letting go of control and understanding that we just can't know everything. We are so limited as humans.

So is the verbiage then turning it over to the universe or turning it over to something greater than ourselves? How have you heard that framed up?

I like to match the language of the patients who I speak with if I'm doing this in a clinical setting. So if patients will say God or Jesus or whatever it is, and I'll try to match their language out of respect. And it's usually the best way to engage people about it. Turning over to the universe. Some people do say that's one way to talk about it. I think either way, the concept is the same of a real acceptance and a real relinquishment. Oh, I was getting personal before and talking to you about the situation now. It's hard. It's just hard what's going on in Israel, especially with my family there and my mom's actually there right now visiting my sister and just to, you know, yes, like we're going to do whatever we can, but at the end of the day, like, there is just a natural limit and there is a technique here of actually thinking about. It's hard to lean into, but really thinking about the worst what could happen, thinking about and trying to get to a place of acceptance about, you know, potential possibilities that we don't want to think about or accept. I think there's something very human about that. I wouldn't do it all the time, but I do think it's not a bad idea to be prepared for adversity and to really just think about conceptually how vulnerable we are.

That is not something that I practice currently. So here's what's interesting and I want to know what your medical opinion is on this. As you're explaining that I'm thinking to myself, I never do that. I don't think with the worst case scenario. That's just not how I do it. Instead, if I'm facing something scary or I have something with anxiety, I look back to my past, to challenging moments in my past, and I use those examples. You know, let's use the example. I brought up the TEDx talk. I was petrified of nothing. I put so much pressure on myself. My heart was racing. I was having anxiety and I lived through it. Like, I'll look back on those that's just one small example of different times in my life where I did face anxiety, fear, and I got through it. And I used that in my mind as, like, that mental springboard that, oh, I got through all those things and they were fine. This is gonna be fine, too. Is that the wrong way to approach it?

No, it's not wrong. I love it. I think it's great. And the truth is, most of the time, things do work out pretty, pretty well, I would say. But not always. Sometimes it just. Things don't work out the way you want them to, and it's hard. You know, maybe it's because I've been working in acute psychiatric settings for two decades, and, like, I.

Maybe it's tough.

You know, it's very hard for me to go into an acute psych unit, to have somebody who literally lost everything. I mean, they've. Through trauma, through financial disaster, through, you know, war. I mean, we've had refugees come to our hospital, and no, they'll be fine. Like, look back at how things were when you were a kid and I'm sure you'll bounce back from this. Like, sometimes they might not. And that's hard. But anxiety calls us to, yes, to think about the positive, and yes, to think about what could be. And yes, to remain hopeful while also accepting that some things are just really hard and challenging. And in the long run, you know, one thing I'll tell you about Israel, which is amazing. It's an amazing statistic that you're not going to believe. I was over there over the summer and I did some research with some colleagues. Levels of anxiety there, the number of people and the degree of anxiety is actually a quarter of what it is in the United States. Would you believe that?

I would. Because it's so highly religious.

Oh, that's funny. It could be. That could be. That could be a factor. It's funny. I thought it was because of the adversity and that people actually are more accepting of challenges here. It's like, you know, one kind of thing goes off and we're like, oh.

No, it's the end of the world. That's so true. As our world has developed and we have technology, we have all these amazing needs met every day. When your Uber eats, delivery is running late, you're getting pissed off at someone and cursing in your mind about, what is this knucklehead doing taking so long? And you have to stop yourself and say, oh, my God, how am I even complaining about these first world problems? So, yeah, I think that is a Very fair point where people have it much more challenging, that's more of a norm for them and they can handle more hardship.

Yeah, the socioeconomics of anxiety is very interesting. Individuals with in middle income countries and lower income countries have half and a quarter of the amount of anxiety that we do here in high income countries in the United States. Pretty amazing.

So that means the challenges just make you stronger and make you do make.

Stronger if you face them. And what's interesting about our society, we have the opportunities to do amazing things like, you know, connect with people around the country in a minute and you know, medical care notwithstanding, social issues that of course are very, you know, ubiquitous and important and have to be addressed. Important national, social and economic issues and inequalities that we obviously have to relate to and deal with. But notwithstanding that, by comparison to the rest of the world, you know, diphtheria and we're far more advanced in almost every corner of the United States. So that being the case, I think it actually gives us a susceptibility to behavioral and emotional distress.

So the thing that pops into my mind is that we need to spend more time serving others that do not have things as well as we do so we can be reminded. Like that exercise that you did with the group going out to see all the different struggles that people have so that we can re acclimate ourselves when we are distanced from it.

It's a great tool. It's a very important tool. Get out of ourselves and try to develop those relationships. There's also a lot of loneliness in the United States. Despite the fact that people are often not alone, but they are lonely. It's hard to admit our anxieties and our vulnerabilities and the fact that we need other people in our very individualistic society. I don't think we do a good job with that. More collectivist societies, including in the Middle east, tend to do a better job. So that's definitely another factor.

How are people lonely if they're not alone?

Oh, this is a great question. We can be very lonely if we don't open up about how we really feel to the people in our lives. When I am struggling and I can speak to my wife about it, that's what brings us closer together. Not the fact that we are sitting and having dinner together and I'm in my own head and she's in her own head, that doesn't help. That's not. We might not be alone, but we are lonely when that happens. And thank God it doesn't happen. Often. But when we're able to really connect about what's truly going on, what's going on for her, what's going on for me, what's going on for the kids, when we're able to spill our guts and actually hold each other and accept each other, that's the opposite of loneliness. That's really togetherness and connection anxiety. Tease us up for that in a huge way. It's one of the best things that you can have in a relationship as long as you're with a partner who can hold you and can be with you.

Well, I don't understand what you mean by that.

Well, I'll tell you this, like, as a guy and as someone who works pretty hard, a large practice and an academic program, it was challenging for me to be able to acknowledge, like, I really struggle sometimes.

Most men have that same challenge.

Thanks. I know I'm not alone in this one. Yeah. I think I had a lot of factors against me. And I'll tell you, it was a huge learning curve for me to be able to just go to my wife and say, hey, I'm really having a hard time. Here's what's going on right now. You know, she's going to think I'm, you know, I'm a failure. She's going to get nervous. It's going to make her, you know, all this racket in my head. And at some point I'm like, no, I'm going to lean into this anxiety and see what it does for the relationship. Let's see. Is the best thing. I'm never turning back. Never turning back.

So you see in that situation, the anxiety as a check engine light. I think that's how I've heard you frame it before to say, lean into this more instead of back away from it.

Yeah. Sometimes the check engine light is back off a little bit. In this case, it's lean right into it. And, you know, and it deepened in my personal life. It deepened my connection, emotional, intimate connection with my wife. And I've seen this with my patients in hundreds of cases where people learn to really open up and to lean on the people in their lives, and they learn in turn to be there for them. And that's mutual. That can be mutually reinforcing. That's really what connection is about. The antithesis of loneliness.

Yeah. That's beautiful. I love that you just explained that we were talking a little earlier about control and. Or lack of control and how that brings about anxiety, which I totally resonate with. I want everything to be predictable. I want to know what the outcome is. Like a lot of people and I know that you said we'd rather have an inaccurate forecast or political poll than no information at all. Is that factually based, that we'd really rather have bad info than no info at all? And is that easing our anxiety?

You tell me. Have you ever checked the weather and found out that it was wrong?

Every day. Every day.

But you check the weather. So, like, I do it too. Like, why do we do that? By the time the last election, you know, no matter which side you're on, everyone was checking on a daily basis. Like, what does Google say? What does Google say? It's not changing people. And if it changed, it doesn't even matter. Like, let's understand your predictions mean nothing. And we prefer to, like, pretend to know what's going to happen next than to just acknowledge, like, you know what? This is not in my hands. And that's okay.

So it goes back to, from what I'm hearing, just this sense of acceptance, accepting that we don't know and accepting that it's okay not to know.

It is okay not to know. It's a very human thing not to know. And I think throughout almost all of human history, people have really been okay with not knowing because there wasn't even the possibility of knowing. Today we've got these electronic appendages that give us access to all sorts of unfettered information all the time. So we think that, you know, we have, you know, God's dictionary in our pocket. Like, it's not. This is fallible. We're fallible with all these tools. We still don't know anything. I shouldn't say anything. But we're still extremely limited in what we can really know and control. At the end of the day, like, I work pretty hard, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying throw your hands up, doesn't matter. No, I'm not doing that. Like, let's do it today. Let's work as hard as we can. Let's try to push up the mountain. But don't do it out of a place of anxiety. Do it because you want to express your individuality or because you've got a mission to do in the world, or like, at the of the day, you can't force it. You just can't force it.

What just came up for me is, and I hear what you're saying, my whole life I've been like the ultra overworker. You know, I outwork everybody. And the grind, the grind, the grind but now, later in life, I'm trying to marry acceptance and peace and giving myself space and letting go and letting God to that point. My son was sick in the last week, and it was not great timing. I had a million things going on. Work was so intense, so many big meetings. So I knew. I'm like, okay, this is one of my chances to put this acceptance into practice and to say, right now this is an opportunity for me to focus on my child, to be grateful I have a healthy child, to know he's going to get through this, to care for him, and to let go instead of trying to strangle. How can I make all these things work? And I'll tell you, I am a work in progress, but it definitely allowed me to still sleep at night so that I felt better the next day. In the past, I'd be up all night stressing out, trying to make up the work. And it certainly is a work in progress, but finding that acceptance and trying to keep coming back to it, no matter how much of a new routine that can be, is definitely worth it, I'm finding.

I love that story. That's a great anecdote. And I'll even add that thriving is different than flourishing. Thriving is from a Nordic root, Scandinavian root meaning to clutch or to grab on. And flourishing, it's a Latin root which means actually being successful. You are thriving this week, even with a sick kid at home. By the way, I hope he's doing okay.

He is. He's doing much better today. Thank you.

Good. Glad to hear. Because taking the opportunity to work on yourself, to be more accepting, to power things down while continuing to march forward, I just love that. So that is thriving with anxiety.

Yeah, but I like the word flourishing better than thriving, now that you explain what it means.

Yeah, I guess we all want to flourish, but, you know, sometimes it doesn't work out that way, but we can still thrive. And thriving has occurred in moments. Flourishing is more of a global thing. We'd all love to flourish, but again, sometimes it just doesn't work out that way. Thriving, though, is something you can have irrespective of where you're holding, because we can always clutch. We can always grab onto those moments of growth and create moments of connection within an otherwise tumultuous period of time.

So, so true. So, David, who did you write this book for?

Well, myself, apparently. This week I've been using it much more than I ever have. So I'm really glad that my own copy has arrived this week to my office. This book is really for anyone, anyone who's had anxiety, which means all humans. You know, I think people across the spectrum can use it. If people have distress or severe distress, that is requires clinical intervention. This is not a substitute for that, but I think it could be used alongside therapy or even if people are in severe distress and need something more than that. It is certainly for the worried. Well, for individuals who are functioning but anxious. And I think maybe most of all it's for people who live with someone who is anxious to start to understand better what people with anxiety are going through in order to sort of see that it is a real challenge. Yes, there are opportunities and yes, we have to take them, but there is a real aspect to anxiety here, which is hard. It is hard. You know, honestly, the book as a. I think a broad base and I guess we'll see what readers have to say.

Oh my gosh, the timing is so good. For thriving with anxiety. 9 tools to make your anxiety work for you David where can everyone get the book and where can they find you?

Thanks so much. Book is available wherever books are sold. You know, Amazon and Audible and Barnes and Noble, of course. My website is probably the best place. D H R O S M A R I n d h rosemarin.com and I'd love to hear from people who read the book. You know, there's a comments forum on my website. I love hearing from folks how it's impacting their lives and also, of course, areas for further development. I am very much a work in progress and I'd love to use my own opportunities to grow.

Tell me, did you narrate the audible?

No, I didn't. They asked me to and I don't know.

You said too much anxiety.

No, it wasn't anxiety. It was too much on my plate. Also, I hadn't done it before. Did you do yours?

I have two books and I did both. I love doing it.

Wow. Well, if I do another book, maybe I'll ask you.

That's a big ask, but maybe worthwhile if it's going to be about anxiety and overcoming it. David, thank you so much for the work you're doing. Everyone. The book Thriving with Anxiety, go check it out. Now. Everybody's got anxiety. Everybody wants to find better ways to be accepting of it and work through it. Thank you so much for writing this book and thank you for all that you're doing to make the world a better place.

Thanks for having me.

From the great chat until next week, keep creating your confidence. You know I will be. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're gonna hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably something will happen. No one succeeds alone.

You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.

Come on this journey with me.