Maintain a Thriving Mind Through Life's Messy Moments | Dr. Julie Smith

Do you ever feel like life is throwing curveballs at you and you're just not sure how to handle it?

Struggle isn't in the word no. The struggle is in the feeling that comes with saying that, and often it's a sense of guilt.

In this episode, we will learn how to find that inner grounding when everything feels out of your control.

It doesn't say anything about who you are as a person or your worth, but it's a part of your learning experience.

We'll be sharing the tools you need to shift your mindset to deal with things like self-criticism, decision-making paralysis, and setting healthy boundaries that don't involve toxic positivity.

My stress and my emotional experience is influenced by the memory of being faced with my own mortality.

When you say yes to somebody, make sure you're not saying no to yourself. But so many people have trouble saying no in a healthy way.

But if you don't hold boundaries, it's really distinct from being a nice person.

Welcome back, Kwik Brains. I am your host and your brain coach, Jim Kwik. When life gets messy, most of us struggle to be the voice that we need to hear. The moment that storm hits, the last thing you need to hear is how you could have been better prepared. And today, we'll discover how to navigate some of life's most tricky moments and return to a place of Calmness, of strength, of positivity when you're in the thick of it. Our guest today is Dr. Julie Smith. I'm so excited for this conversation. It's a long time happening. I enjoy following her on social media. She is a clinical psychologist, author, and content creator. She has devoted her career to learning everything possible about adult mental health and the intricacies of the human mind. Dr. Julie's first book, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before, sold over a million copies and has been rated number 6 in the biggest nonfiction books of the 2020s. And today we'll be discussing her newly released book, Open When. And if you're watching this on YouTube, which I highly suggest you do, or put the extended version, I'm holding a copy of the book right here. Welcome to the show, Dr. Julie.

Thank you so much for having me, Jim. Like you said, it's It's been a long time coming, hasn't it? I've been looking forward to this one for sure.

Thanks for taking the time. Why don't we start here? Open When is a fascinating concept. Could you share with us what inspired you to write this particular book and how you envision it impacting our audience's mental health and their resilience?

Sure. So when I first started sharing videos on social media, it was really about sharing the educational aspect of therapy. So a lot of people think that you go to therapy and you just talk. And that's true to a degree, but you also learn a lot about how your mind works, how you can impact on your own mood or your relationships and different skills. And I found that a lot of people who came along for therapy didn't need long-term therapy. Once they had the educational parts, they were so just raring to go. They were kind of saying things to me like, you know, that's where the title of the first book came from. Why has nobody told me this before? You know, this isn't rocket science, but when I take it seriously and I put it into my daily life, it's making a big difference. And so, that first book was a sort of insights from therapy, the skills that you can practice and hone so that when things happen in life as they do, you're more equipped to deal with it in the best way possible. And what I found was some of the feedback that really struck me from the first book was people saying, oh, I found it really, really helpful. so helpful that I carry it with me everywhere I go just in case I have a crisis moment. And that was a really lovely compliment, but at the same time, I just couldn't help think, oh, I didn't really write it for those moments. You know, those aren't the things that I would say to someone when they're in the eye of the storm, struggling to work out, you know, which way is through. And so, I felt like that needed a much more kind of direct approach focused on this moment and thinking about, you know, where to focus your attention next, that sort of thing. And so, that's where the idea of Open When was born because a lovely follower had sent me these little Open When letters. I didn't know that was a thing people did for each other, but you send them lots of little envelopes and each one is a different, you know, open when you feel sad or open when you're having a bad day, this kind of thing. And they had little quotes inside and that was a kind of really cute idea. And I thought, that's what a book needs to be about, where whatever scenario you're in that is sort of a kind of universal human experience, you need to be able to dip into that chapter, go there, and get a bit of a pep talk from a psychologist. Or, you know, I find that when you're in those moments and you're trying to work out which way is up, it's so valuable to have someone in your life who just seems to say the right thing at the right time.

Hmm.

And they either activate you or they bring you to a level of calm, or they redirect your attention to the place that is going to lead you through and out the other side. And sometimes it's just a slight shift in that attention. But even the people that have someone like that in their lives, they're not there all the time. So, you know, I always encourage people to reach out to human beings as a first choice. But if that person's not there or you don't have that person in your life at the moment, then books are a good second best, I think.

Now, in your book, you say that no learning can take place while you're busy trying to grapple with your your worthiness as a human being. I'm curious, how do you recommend we go from that kind of self-criticism that brings you down to the kind that gives you energy to get back up after setbacks?

Yeah, I think it's interesting because when we deal with sort of high self-criticism in a therapeutic environment, I found that a lot of people wanted to hold on to it. Even when they knew it was making them miserable, they believed that it was the driver, the main driver for their success. And that without it, that if they were kinder to themselves or more constructive, that they would lose that drive and that sort of anxiety that gets them up and out and trying really hard. And that's not really true. So while people can feel driven by that, it then sort of increases your risk of feeling anxious a lot of the time or getting depressed. Rest or leading to sort of perfectionism-type ways of doing things that feels like protection from those shame feelings, but really isn't. And so, the idea of a more self-compassionate approach, I think people confuse it with indulgence. So they think that, okay, if I'm being nice to myself, that means I'm letting myself off the hook. I'm not being accountable. I'm not being disciplined. And it's really not about that. It's really— I like to talk people through this idea of, you imagine, you know, well, I thought of this other example earlier, which was more sort of the worst teacher you ever had and how they used to speak to you and how they used to make you feel.

Hmm.

You could spend some time kind of thinking about that and analyzing that. And then you could think about, well, who was the best teacher you ever had? And how did they speak to you and how did they make you feel? And I'm kind of placing a bet on this, that I'm betting that the best teacher didn't sound like that highly self-critical voice that you have in your head. It's more of something that probably sounds something like the way that a coach would speak to an elite athlete. So, it's someone who has your best interests at heart, Thinks you have great potential and wants you to get there. When you experience setback or failure, they let you know and remind you that it doesn't say anything about who you are as a person or your worth, but it's a part of your learning experience. So it's not who you become, it's something you experience. And someone who says the right things to sort of haul you back up onto your feet again when you fall. And so, often I'll talk to people about this kind of— so rather than this clear set of instructions, it's much more, I think, more helpful to have a kind of a feel for it. You know, this idea in your head of that really encouraging coach that you just want to try again for. And, you know, the Miss Trunchbull-style worst teacher that you ever had that made you want to ditch out of school.

Mm-hmm.

And from that, you get the feel. So it's less about the exact words and much more about knowing how powerful those words are and how they make you feel so that you can choose them carefully based on what makes you feel that you can get back up again when you're stumbling.

What about— and I love that because people have their own friends in mind— the power of having boundaries. There's this whole idea that when you say yes to somebody, make sure you're not saying no to yourself. many people have trouble saying no in a healthy way, especially if that person who's listening is more of a naturally agreeable person. How would you recommend, or how do we know when to push for what we want and when to override our feelings for others?

Yeah, I mean, it's a tricky one, isn't it? Because often there is that sort of agreeable nature that will sort of make you more inclined to sort of behave in that way and compromise and things like that. But I think it's also reinforced by this idea that people-pleasing is kind of being nice. But if you don't hold boundaries, it's really distinct from being a nice person. And in some ways, to be the best person you can be, you need to have boundaries and assertiveness skills. You need to be able to advocate for yourself, and you need to be able to advocate for other people too who can't necessarily. So a lot of what happens in therapy is the teaching of assertiveness skills and that ability to say no. But a big portion of that learning is not just the techniques for maybe the broken record technique or something, or different things that you can actually say. But a big portion of that is actually looking at feelings. And often the struggle isn't in the word no. The struggle is in the feeling that comes with saying that. And often it's a sense of guilt, right? And maybe that's a template that started early in life because you were taught to put everybody else's needs first, or just do exactly what your caregivers wanted you to do, which made sense at the time, right? That was a highly adaptive thing to do at the time. But now you're an adult, and you're not completely dependent on the various relationships that you have with people.

Mhm.

You have this new sense of agency and the ability to choose certain things, but what comes with that is the responsibility then To advocate yourself and hold healthy boundaries. So when we're in that kind of process, what I'm saying is that the feeling that comes with saying no is often an echo of the past. And so if you had the audacity to say no to your own mother or something as a child, and then you might be punished for that, you would feel guilty, right? Or you would feel frightened or whatever those feelings were at the time. And that association doesn't necessarily just disappear just because you turned 18 and started having more adult relationships with people. That will still be there, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to then act in line with that feeling. So that feeling might not be appropriate or proportionate to the situation today. And so a lot of the work that I would do in helping people to kind of start saying no when they need to and things like that is about not expecting that guilt feeling to disappear before you're willing to hold the boundary, but being willing to have that feeling and take it with you. And we even talk about this idea of kind of popping it in your bag and carrying it with you when you're doing something that is— because as a kid, that might have been doing something naughty or whatever. But as an adult, it might be that you're preserving your own wellbeing in some way, or creating a boundary that says, I can support you this much, and then at that point, I can't do it after that. Or there's certain things I can do, certain things I can't do for you. Or whatever the situation is, there are lots of scenarios where you hold a boundary because it's a healthy thing to do that helps you to sustain a positive relationship with someone. So yeah, there's a lot of practice in being able to deal with the discomfort of it. And to do that, I think you have to start small. So you start with the situations that feel a bit more lighthearted, a bit easier to do. I had someone who was practicing doing it at work with leaving on time and anticipating that other people's responses would be judgment or rage or irritation, but it felt like something that was manageable because it could be changed the next day if it led to terrible outcomes. And actually, the responses that people have are often not quite what we anticipate, or a fraction of what we anticipate, because the fear that is that echo of the past kind of magnifies it for us in the moment until we get that evidence that it's not quite as we had imagined it would be.

Somebody messaged us asking this question around feelings and facts is, how can we tell when our feelings are actual facts? I don't know if that question makes sense to you. Yeah.

I mean, it's an interesting question, isn't it? Because it suggests that feelings can be facts. And I would say while they can reflect fact, they are never fact. Because, so an emotion is one aspect of your experience. So it's the way that your brain communicates to you its best guess about what is going on in the situation. And it takes its clues from what's going on inside your body, be it your heart rate or your blood pressure or various things. and from what's going on outside that it seeks through all of your senses. But there are only clues, right? We don't have access to all the information at any one time.

Yeah.

Your heart might be racing because you had 3 coffees this morning, but your brain doesn't necessarily compute that first off. It just has to respond. Okay, the heart rate's going, what's up? And so, before you know it, you are thinking of worst-case scenarios and you're worrying about things and you're kind of getting yourself very anxious. And it was triggered by this one thing. So, you know, an emotion is that sort of communication, if you like, between you and your brain. And because it's influenced, the feeling is influenced by so many of these factors, you know, the biological, also past experience, right? Because it will fill in gaps with similar situations or situations when you have felt like this before. It will bring those up for you and your current stress level and what's happening around you. And beliefs and thoughts and all of that. So, because it's influenced by so many things, it can't necessarily be factual all of the time. It's a best guess. And so, when we accept emotion as the idea of a best guess, that means that sometimes, and maybe quite often, it will be a fair reflection of what's going on, but not always. It won't always be warranted, and it won't always be proportionate to what's going on either. So, I don't know, let's say— so I had an experience last summer with an early-stage breast cancer, and I had this kind of short period of time. I had surgery and everything is fine now, touch wood. But let's say that now I was experiencing huge amounts of health anxiety and catastrophizing thoughts about death or what might happen. That would make sense given the context of the past experience because it's fairly recent, right? So, my stress and my emotional experience is influenced by the memory of being faced with my own mortality. And so, we can't stop that from happening, but it's our job to say, Okay, is this warranted in this situation? And is it proportionate to this situation? Recognizing that it's influenced by that thing back there. And when we do that, we can sort of take the power out of emotional experience.

Mm-hmm.

Because if we see it as fact and the only possible perspective, then it's going to impact on everything we do, everything we say, every choice we make or don't make. You know, And so it's really sort of fairly simple to take the power out of it. We just give it some distance. You just put something at arm's length simply by seeing it in that way. Okay, I'm having this emotion. I feel intense fear or something, and I'm just going to notice that and notice how anxious I'm feeling about X, Y, and Z and all the thoughts that are coming with it. And just by using that language, I notice I'm having the experience of I've already put it at arm's length and said that that's one possible perspective. And from there, then you get to acknowledge that there are other perspectives to take, and then you can kind of start to explore those. So that's a sort of very long-winded way of saying that emotion isn't fact, it's a clue. It's a best guess about what the facts might be.

Yeah, it almost feels like it's a signal. You know, that to be able to teach us something, or maybe like if I feel fear that I need to prepare, or— I'm curious, do you ever struggle with the fear of making the wrong decision or choice? Or what recommendation would you have for someone listening who wants to navigate the fear of making a wrong choice? Or is there such a thing as a wrong choice? Do you have too much to read but too little time? Are your shelves full of books that you haven't read yet and become shelf help, not self-help? And that's why I created the Kwik Reading Course. 15 minutes a day, 21 days will absolutely transform your life. Just go to kwikbrain.com/reading, use the code PODCAST15, and you'll get instant access.

Yeah, I think this was a really important one for me to include in the book, really, because I feel like, you know, the details change in every situation, but the general theme is the same, right? That we all want to make the best decisions for ourselves and take the right path. And it's all sort of implicit with us, this idea that there is a right path and that you'll know when you're on it because you won't have any regrets. or there won't be any costs to what you're doing, no losses. And it's just not true. Whatever path you take and whatever choices you make, there will be costs and things that you might look back and say, oh, I wonder if that would have been good. So, there will be regrets, but it's choosing— as you sort of set your goals for the future, it's choosing the regrets that you know you can live with. So I don't know, one example, a friend of mine from school, as soon as she left school pretty much, went off traveling around the world and pretty much hasn't stopped traveling since that time. She travels alone. She never really stays in one place for more than 6 months to a year at a time, and then moves on and lives this kind of very nomadic lifestyle. And I live very close to where I grew up as a child. I went to university in the UK and started a family here, built a relationship, all of those things. And so, when you look at those 2 kind of life choices, which one is right? How do you know whether I made the right choice, whether I would be better off doing her thing, or whether she would be better off doing mine? And there There isn't a correct choice there. It's that there will be benefits to her lifestyle, and there will be benefits to mine, and each of them will be different. And there's a cost to each, right? She hasn't got all of the incredible sort of aspects of life that I enjoy— having children and a marriage. And equally, I haven't seen all of the world, which would be fascinating. But the key there is that I am, and hopefully she is too, I am living by what matters most to me. So I'm really clear on my value set.

Mm-hmm.

And something about having children suddenly makes it kind of okay not to be flying around the world and seeing all the corners of it just yet. That you know, being a decent parent suddenly trumps everything for me, and that's what matters most. So I think as long as you're following your values, and they're really simple— I think I include it in both books actually, because it's something that I just use all the time for myself. So every few months, I'll do these really simple values exercises that just indicate when you've kind of been pulled off course from what matters most to you.

Mm-hmm.

So that you can pull things back in line. And it's really simple. You can just get a piece of paper if you're doing it on your own, and you split it up into the different areas of your life. Maybe, I don't know, parenting, marriage, friendships, health, lifelong learning, creativity, exercise, all these different things. And you could put them all in different kind of squares. And in each square, you then put down maybe just a few words or a sentence about what matters most to you about that area of your life. And that's not what you want to happen to you, it's who you want to be in that area. So how you want to show up for those people or that part of you, or how you want to be in good times and bad there, and what you want to represent. So it might just be a few words. And you can rate that just simply kind of out of 10, how important it is to you. So 10 out of 10 being the most, 0 not at all. you can rate it again, but this time, how much I feel I'm living in line with those values in the last couple of weeks. So, what you get then is this kind of grid with all these numbers, and it's just an indication of where to focus your attention. Because if you've got an area of your life that seems to matter most to you, so it's 10 out of 10 important, but you've rated it as a 2 out of 10 in how you're living in line with it at the moment, then that's just a sort of a sign, isn't it, to say, look over here for a minute because you've left this one behind. And it's not a source of self-criticism because life does that, right? So you can't fill all of those all of the time.

Right.

It's pretty much impossible. It's all about that toing and froing and the balancing act, right? So, you know, while my idea of being present as a parent is super, super important, then inevitably when some big project at work happens or releasing a book or something and there's lots going on, I'll notice I'm being pulled away. And that if I sit down and do that exercise, I know that the score will be kind of lower on the home side. And I know that I'll want to correct that, get closer to that side. And And so, it's just an indication to kind of shift. And I think it's a real, especially for working parents, I think it's a real sort of fallacy, this idea that balance is some sort of sweet spot that you find and then stay there and everything's perfect. It's much more, I don't know, if you're on a sort of balancing beam or something like that, the balancing is this constant toing and froing that as you notice you're going too far one way, you shift.

Yeah.

And then you go the other way, and then you shift and come the other way. So, and I feel like life is a bit like that. And you can do that as long as you stay aware of where you're being pulled from. Because a lot of people come to therapy and they don't really know what the problem is. They just know that everything's kind of out of sorts. They're not happy with it. Everything feels pointless. And a lot of those things become much clearer when people do a simple values exercise like that, because they see that Things that really matter to them are not being addressed or not being looked at enough because something else has pulled them away.

It's interesting. Years ago, I changed the language from balance because balance was a stressful term for me. I mean, even if you look it up in the dictionary, it means equal weight. And it's not like I wanted to have equal weight of time at work with how much time I'm at the gym or something like that. I changed it to the word harmony because I just, I was at a concert and I just, this symphony where it's just not every person contributes an equal weight of time, but it just comes together and they, you know, create this art. And then it was just, yeah, it just brought a little magic for me personally. This book, which I highly recommend people get, is full of these letters. And I was wondering if there was one letter in particular from the book that you find that most of your readers resonate with? And why do you think it strikes such a chord? I mean, I recommend people read, you know, each of them, especially because, you know, when you're ready, I feel like the teacher appears.

Yeah, I think, and it's the kind of book as well where you don't have to read it cover to cover. You can sort of leave it on the table and then, you know, dip into the chapter that most fits what you're going through at that time. So you can really do, you know, 10, 20 minutes of reading that chapter and then come away again. And so it's there for when you need it really. In terms of the chapter that most resonates, it's probably early days to know that for sure with other people. But certainly for me, a special chapter is the chapter that says, When Fear Shows Up. And I spoke about my cancer diagnosis in the summer.

Yeah.

So I got diagnosed, it was about a week or two just before I was about to hand the book in, hand the manuscript in for Open When. And so I was at that stage where I was reading through, editing myself, sort of polishing up ready for the editor. And so I got this diagnosis, everything's flipped upside down, and I think, you know, I just need to finish this off and get it gone so that I can focus on what's I really wanted to get it just sort of off my shoulders really so that I could focus on what I needed to focus on. And I just happened to be reading through that chapter on fear and I thought, oh, well, this isn't quite what I need actually. I felt like I was so scared that I needed a much firmer approach and it was a bit genteel for me. And so I pressed delete and I rewrote it there and then for myself.

Wow.

There's a real, I mean, the actual sort of awareness and knowledge of fear is still the same, of course. But the language that I use is really, I would say, much more powerful than it had been before. So, there's stuff there around not wanting to be the prey, wanting to be the predator. So, there's this moment when you get diagnosed and you don't find out everything at once. You find out in stages.

Yeah.

So, in that first kind of week or two, you know it's bad, but you don't know how bad, and you don't know what's going to happen, or you don't know what the treatment plan is, and you don't know—

Mm-hmm.

And there's all this uncertainty, and you feel like a rabbit in headlights. And I didn't want to feel like it was happening to me. I wanted to feel on the front foot. And I love the idea of that difference between how prey feels, where they're just kind of dodging the threats to how a predator feels, where they kind of lock onto something, and there's almost this energy and drive towards this thing, and there's action towards it. And so, I kind of turned it on its head, and I thought, well, this thing isn't coming for me, I'm coming for it.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm going to take action towards that. And so, the chapter really reflects that sort of— it really sort of pushes me into that mindset of— and actually, a quote that I found at the time. I actually put it at the front of the book because I hadn't had another space for it, but I wanted to include it. So anyone who's got a copy of the book, have a look at the quote at the front. And it's really about getting active in your own survival, in your own rescue.

Mm-hmm.

So being a part of that, not waiting for it to happen, getting to work and doing that thing. You can't change the fact that fear is here, but it's your responsibility now to cultivate the courage to use that fear fear to get you through and activate, you know, to do the things that you need to do. And I did. Every time I read the chapter, I then started making phone calls and booking second opinion appointments or finding surgeons or whatever it was. And I'm so glad that I rewrote it that day, even though I probably gave myself a bit too much work to do on a deadline. It helped me. So that's a kind of a personal chapter I think that will always be a bit special to me.

What a perfect way to end this episode. Dr. Jill, I want to thank you for taking your time and thank you for sharing your talent with our community. To end this episode, I ask this question. At a core, our show really is about learning. And I'm just out of curiosity, is there one thing that you are personally learning about or studying that lights you up, that has you particularly excited?

Yeah, well, I can see the new book that I got recently, actually. Let me bring it over for you. It's called Talking with a Map.

Mm-hmm.

It's about cognitive analytic therapy. So I talk about cognitive analytic therapy a fair bit in my work, and it's a really lovely approach that is fascinating. It's about how the relationships you have in your early life set a template, so they are then reflected in your adult relationships. But because it's no longer a child-parent relationship, it's an adult-to-adult relationship, it causes disruptions and blocks. And you end up— when people say, I'm doing the same thing over and over again, and I don't know why, and I just can't stop doing it, and it causes arguments, or it causes problems in our relationship. And it's just this beautiful way of mapping out what happens.

Wow.

And the details change each time, but the theme and the cycle stays the same. And it's a way of beginning to break those cycles. So cat therapy itself is really about relationships, but this guy has taken the sort of analytical approach to that and applied it to sort of everyday conversations. Yeah, I've just started, but yeah.

So wait, so looking to the future then, because now you just opened up a whole other part of what I was thinking, but Um, how do you see the concepts in Open When evolving with advancements and understanding, um, in, in brain science, psychology? Uh, where do you, where do you see the future? Um, do you have a, do you have, uh, do you anticipate or curious about, uh, how these concepts will evolve?

Yeah, it's, it's interesting, isn't it? Because you kind of don't know what you don't know until you know it. And, and I never imagined, you know, when I, even when I wrote the first book, I didn't have any idea or concept of what has now become Open When, and it really came about from discovering a problem or a shortcoming of it. And so, I'm almost really excited to find out the limitations of it because then that leads you to the next avenue, doesn't it? And maybe this kind of stuff, you know, the cognitive analytic therapy that I'm so interested in will sort of lead me off in a different direction in a way that that book doesn't quite, you know, but who knows what that will be yet? I don't know.

And I'm sure you're gonna get just loads of more stories, you know, than that feedback and that those joy stories that will also point out certain things that we just, you know, there's a serendipity, right? When we put the information out there, content, and, you know, when it engages in these systems of people and, you know, what people are going through. Where could people stay in touch with you? Speaking of that, go deeper in your work or stay connected, maybe social media. Where can people go?

Instagram or YouTube. I'm just— my handle is just Dr. Julie. So, Yeah, both of those are a great way. Both books are available wherever you get your books in England or America or whatever, lots of languages available. So on my Instagram, actually, there's a link in my bio which takes you to all the different places where you can buy them.

Oh, perfect. And as always, everyone, we'll put those links in the show notes also as well, which I know many of you go to. So that's at jimkwik.com/notes. Dr. Julie, I want to thank you. Everyone go get their copy of Open When. And I always recommend people get 2 or 3 copies, one for yourself and then one or two to gift. I mean, those are my best friends, always, always gift me books and they know about that.

Yeah. And that's really the idea of this whole thing was the idea of having a book that I could send the kids off with when they leave home. You know, that sort of when I can't be there to give you a little bit of a pep talk, then, you know, something you could dip into and that sort of thing. So yeah.

Um, everyone, thank you for listening. As always, you could find more ways, uh, to fuel your, your mind's potential on our YouTube channel. Join, uh, 1.8 million subscribers there where we also post the extended versions. If you're listening to this on audio, we keep it to 20 minutes, uh, but you'll get another 15 minutes of this conversation. I highly recommend you go to YouTube and, uh, make sure you subscribe and leave a comment. I speech read every single one. Um, and so let me know what you think. Um, this is your brain coach, Jim Kwik. Until next time, be limitless.