Episode 347: Managing And Overcoming Depression

Hello everyone! Happy Winey Blues Wednesday!

Welcome to Winey Blues Wednesday!

How is everybody doing? How is your day going? How is your week going?

All that stuff.

All that stuff. I have gone nonstop for days. Maybe tomorrow can be a little slower. Maybe. I think there's more stuff tomorrow that I haven't told you about.

Fabulous! So I love surprises.

We are almost finished with the May Madness.

Oh yes, the end of May, but then we go through the June Jungle.

Going into the June Jungle, it's jumping in June, and my kids cannot wait to be done with school. We are counting down. Are you counting down in your house? How is May going for you, ending for you? Tell us how you're doing, and We're going to talk about a serious topic and hopefully be helpful tonight. That's the goal.

Yeah, I'm gonna help some people.

The goal is always to be helpful, and this was a topic request from a wonderful person who hopefully knows a little bit more about being wonderful by the time I'm done with this. But this is dedicated to a wonderful person and we are going to give some tips and some support and some advice, and we're going to see what you all think about it. So we would love to hear from you and hear what you find helpful and what other topic requests you would like. But today's topic is managing and overcoming depression. Depression is so prevalent and so So many people are struggling with it. And I think the first thing to say is that if you struggle with depression, I hope that you know that you are not alone and that there are a lot of people struggling.

I believe numbers are at an all-time high, at least in the United States. Well, post-COVID.

I am astounded. I was just at a dinner and a PTA dinner and I talked to so many women And every single day, you know, I have the privilege of talking to a lot of women, and I'm always floored by what people are dealing with underneath that we don't know about, because a lot of us are walking around with a smile. And I think you only post your highlight video on Facebook. So we're going to talk about social media, which can make you depressed, which can make you depressed. But I want to tell you that I am— oh, I am floored on a regular basis when I talk to people and catch up with people what I have missed along the way, what they haven't told me, what they've been dealing with, what they are trying to overcome. And, you know, nobody's life is perfect. And I think that the levels of depression are different in every single person. They're not the same. And I think that we don't want to label sad— we don't want to label sadness depression. My dog is— Tanner, enough. I love you enough. My God. So we don't want to label sadness as depression. We want to be very careful with the title depression because I don't want you to label yourself without necessarily being diagnosed, only because I think you make it heavier for yourself when you use that word.

Your words define your reality. So the words that you use will inform how you feel. So for example, eliminate the word depression from your vocabulary, then you can't be depressed anymore. There are— Tony Robbins had taught me that there are tribes and Aboriginal tribes like in South America that we in the English language have 5,000 words for negative emotions. They have like 3.

Wow.

They don't have depression, they don't have anxiety because they don't have a concept for it.

Interesting. So we're talking about it a lot in, in the United States, right? So I just want to tell you that it's— it says online that it's a persistent feeling of emptiness, hopelessness, sadness, and a lack of interest in activities you once enjoyed. It can affect every aspect of your life, from your energy levels to your ability to connect with your loved ones to your sleep patterns. So it's much more pervasive and much more persistent than just having a bad day. And if you're suffering with depression, I'm sure you already know that. So I want to start with what I call the secret to success, the secret sauce. I want to start with my favorite tip, and we're gonna get into a lot of things that are proven to help. This isn't just stuff that Rebecca just came up with. This is stuff that is proven to help with depression.

You have decades of experience as a therapist and social worker.

Well, so, you know, I've done research, I've done classes, I've And I think that the key to so much success in our life is our thoughts. And you, if you know me, if you follow me, I hope that you get so tired of hearing me say it that it sinks in. And I feel like repetition is like the mother of skill. I was just like, you're literally finishing my sentences. So I love when we're on the same page. So I did a ton of classes on cognitive behavioral therapy, trainings, classes, I taught classes. It is the key to your success, so please hear me and humor me and try this. If you think I'm full of crap, just humor me. I got to interview an expert yesterday. We were on Facebook Live. Fire. We were thinking the exact same thoughts. She buys into this. She loves talking about thoughts, and I love that she used the, um, you've heard this before, you've said this before, that your mind is your servant, not your master.

It's a wonderful servant, terrible master. It's designed to keep you alive evolutionary and avoid danger. It's not designed to make you happy.

So you have all these thoughts. You have like 60,000 thoughts a day. I didn't look it up, but it's like— it's like your number is actually pretty close. It's It's like tons of thoughts, and some of the thoughts are really good thoughts. They teach me how to cross the street and remind me to look both ways and, you know, remind me what time it is and that I need to cook dinner. Like, lots of really helpful thoughts all day. Some of my thoughts are not so helpful. So what I have found online to be a really catchy way for us to learn is the 3 C's, because I want to make it simple for people. I don't want to make it complicated. And the 3 C's: catch and identify your thoughts, check your thoughts— are they accurate— change your thoughts. So 3 C's: catch, check, change.

That's check, change. I can remember.

It's easy to remember. I like that the 3 C's are easy to remember. So as you're having 60,000 thoughts a day, I want you to start to become aware of your thoughts. And part of how we can do that— what I need to work on, what Seth is so much better at— is I need to meditate. Even if I meditate for 5 minutes a day, it helps me start to gain more control over my mind. And then I can identify, I can become more aware of what I'm thinking all day, because you have a lot of automatic thoughts that you don't even realize you're having, and you're just letting them go and you're believing them. And you're not checking that.

You told me those were called ANTs. Yes, automatic negative thoughts. Yes, we don't want to believe our brain.

Well, we, we are not our brain. That's what Laura and I were talking about. You're gonna love the Laura Conley podcast when it comes in July. But, um, we were talking about how we're not our brain. We are— I'm Rebecca. My brain is a piece of me, and I need to be in charge of my brain. And as my brain is thinking, okay, so I'm gonna talk about food because food is a— is something that I've been working on for the last— however many— I would say 20 years or more, but probably much more than 20 years. But the last 4 months I've been very focused on training my brain to think differently about food. So, so I have a thought, and the thought could be, um, you are a terrible person because you just had a french fry. You are terrible. You're screwing up again. You're ruining it. Just throw in the towel. You suck. Okay, so those are thoughts that a lot of people can relate to, and I just picked food because it's something that I relate to. I need to, you know, become aware of myself doing that, and then I need to check in with myself. Are my thoughts— we're going to ask ourselves two questions: are my thoughts useful? Are they helpful? No, my thoughts are tearing me down and making me feel terrible about myself. So I'm gonna say, okay, this is not a useful thought, so it's gonna go in the garbage. And I'm gonna work on changing my thought. Now my thoughts need to be much more compassionate and kind to myself. So, Rebecca, you had a french fry. Like, a french fry is not a big deal. Move on with your day. What is something healthy that you can eat? Oh, I want a carrot. I want an apple. I'm gonna go make a healthy choice next time, and I am not gonna let my brain beat me up that I just had some french fries. So do you see how I changed that? Now the old me would have totally believed myself. You suck, you're screwing up again, you're eating french fries, you're terrible, you know you can't do this. This is all thoughts, right? So the new me, I'm becoming a new person. I am— I cannot believe the difference in me this year. This has been a great year of brain growth for me. Because I will tell you what I've been doing. And, and Laura yesterday gave it a label. I decided I wanted to treat myself like I was my own best friend, and I decided I wanted to be my own best friend because I was sick and tired of being so nice to my friends and being so mean to myself.

Yes, right. That is awesome that you had that epiphany. I have told you To be nicer to yourself.

Well, so I'll tell you what Laura said yesterday when I interviewed her. She said she puts her thoughts through the BFF test.

Would my best friend tell me that?

Would I tell this to my best friend?

Even better.

Would I tell this to my child? Would I tell my child that my child is terrible because she just ate a french fry? God, I would never. I would never say that. I, I don't think I would ever tell my child that they were terrible in a million years. But I have told myself that. So the, the bottom line is, is the secret to changing your anxiety, your depression, your food choices, whatever you're struggling with, is spending the day with yourself, becoming aware of what thoughts you are having in those 60,000 thoughts a day. Okay, so I might have 40,000 decent thoughts and 20,000 negative thoughts, and I want to get rid of— now mind you, I don't want you to attempt to be perfect. I'm not trying to get 60,000 positive thoughts. I'm just trying to be nicer, kinder, more compassionate. And when I screw up and when I beat myself up, I'm not going to say, oh, see, you can't even change your thoughts, you suck. No, I'm gonna let it go and say, okay, you had a negative thought. Can you tell yourself something more positive? Can you tell yourself something more helpful, more useful? If I am telling myself, you suck at so many things, you are just a loser who can't do it, you know you can't, so why are you even trying? Is that what you would tell your mom, your son, your best friend? Would you talk like that to them? Because I certainly wouldn't. I mean, what are some negative thoughts that you tell yourself? Oh boy. I mean, is there anything that you're comfortable sharing?

You shouldn't have to deal with this. You should be further along by now. Why haven't you figured this out yet? How come this keeps— how come you keep doing this?

Well, so that is interesting because the pattern with Seth— that is really good that you're aware of that, because what I see the pattern with Seth is, is that he's very impatient. And I shouldn't label you that, but I see it in multiple areas of his life. And I should know that he's being impatient with himself.

Yes.

And that if you were more patient with yourself, if you were more kind and compassionate with yourself, you would probably be much further. Because I think that tearing, tearing ourselves down is just bringing us back 10 steps, right?

Yeah.

So like Being impatient with myself, like, you, you have lost weight how many times? Why are you doing this again? And why haven't you gotten this right yet? And what's wrong?

I've had that one.

What's wrong with you? Like, none of those thoughts are helpful. What's helpful to me is, you are doing such a great job. I am so proud of you. You're making healthy choices every day. You're making such good progress. Progress. I think you have figured this out. I think that you're doing, you're doing this for life this time, and it's going to be different this time. And I think that if we can master our mind and our thoughts, we can have whatever we want. Our days can look however we want. So if I'm saying my days suck, I have no life, I have no plans, I have no friends, that is the reality that I'm going to create for myself. If I say to myself, I'm gonna make some plans for myself, who do I want to see, and who, who is a friend that I'm missing that I want some plans with? I'm gonna reach out to them, and if they're busy, I'll find somebody else. And I'm not gonna call myself names, and I'm not gonna tell myself that I have no plans. I'm going to— if I I am being hard on myself about something, I'm gonna work on that thing. So if I am being hard on myself about my weight, I'm gonna work on that. I can have success in work and family and friends, but if I am still beating myself up about my weight, then I need to focus on what is bringing me down. If I'm allowing this to bring me down, then it's time to change it and focus on and change my thoughts and change my behaviors. You look like you want to say something.

What if you're not the source of those negative thoughts? Like, what if other people are dumping garbage in your brains?

Okay, so let's move to surround yourself with positive people and loved ones as one of my tips. And I say that because Seth and I have so many conversations about this. There are people that I'm around who bring me down and make me— maybe I allow them to let me think more negatively, maybe I don't like what they say to me, maybe I don't like what they say to Seth, whatever it is, there are people in my life who I allow to bring me down. There are people in my life who I'm around who I just left— I was sitting next to some fabulous women tonight, like women who have similar beliefs and values to me, and talking about PTA as a whole and stuff we've done and doing it for the kids and catching up with people, and I felt lit. I felt alive and sunny, and I was smiling and happy, and I left with a smile on my face. And I was like, look at that, you were just surrounded by wonderful women who you respect, and that was good. Now, there are women that I'm around that I leave feeling drained and miserable. So pay attention to what people are saying to you, who's bringing you down, Who is lifting you up? Make more— make plans, spend more time with people who make you feel good about yourself.

You are the average, right, of the 5 people you spend the most time with. So you want to hang out with eagles or, I don't know, rats?

Well, and it also— I will tell you that when you're feeling depressed, I know this from talking to depressed people, You want to withdraw. Yeah, and be by yourself. And what you're doing is perpetuating the feelings of depression because you're hiding and you're by yourself and you're alone and you're sad with your thoughts. Versus what I would prefer for you to do is to get uncomfortable and to make some plans and to push yourself. So like, I've had friends who I have had to push to to get out of the house because I knew they needed to. And you might not have a friend or a family member pushing you to get out of your house. So I would suggest either finding someone like that and telling them what you need them to do and how you need them to help you, or to really work on doing that for yourself. And I know that when I get upset about something, I don't always talk to people about it. I bottle it up. I mean, I have Seth who I tell most things to, but there have been times where I have been upset about something and I've bottled it up for days and he doesn't know that I've bottled it up.

Yeah.

So if I let it out and pick someone like Seth to talk to about it, getting it off my chest and getting it out of my body always makes me feel so much better. So I hope that you have someone to talk to. I hope that you can choose someone valuable to talk to. And there is no shame ever in finding yourself a good therapist. And what I mean by good therapist is that not every therapist is good, and not every therapist is a good fit for you. So I always tell people, try them on. Do they fit? Do they fit for you? Because not every therapist fits for me. We've talked about this. Yeah, right. I talk, I talk to therapists every single week. I get to talk to probably 300 therapists so far, and I don't want 300 of them to give me therapy. There are some that I have thought about calling about specific issues and have done.

Yeah, I remember.

So try them on and Talk to shop. You gotta shop. You gotta talk to friends, family members, therapists. You've got to get it out of your system and not store it up and make yourself feel worse. So let's talk about self-care and hobbies because Seth is really good at this. I love learning from other people, and when you see happy people, when you see people that you're like, I want a life like theirs. Pay attention to what they're doing, because I don't think my husband has ever told me that he was bored. I don't think he's ever told me— I don't think you ever told me you were feeling sad or depressed or bored. I don't think I've ever heard those three words out of your mouth.

That is probably true.

So I pay— I can't experience it, so I pay attention to him.

Success leaves clues.

So, so find the clues.

Find someone who's got what you want, ask them how they did it, do the same thing, you'll get the same results.

Okay, model success. So I'm happy. Okay, so I'm saying something different, so we're gonna do that too. So I'm saying pay attention and observe what people that you want to be like are doing. Yes, you're saying ask them.

Yeah.

So Rebecca, I notice that you are a really happy person. I've gotten this before.

Yeah, that's very true.

You're happy and you smile all the time. Like, tell me about that. How do I get like that? How do I get more happy? How do I smile more? Like, why are you so happy?

And that should be the example. Like, that should be the norm, not the, wow, that's different, I want that.

Yeah, so I think that's our natural state as human beings. Okay, so what I was feeling a little bit resentful for about Seth is what I was really jealous of. So if you're feeling resentful, if you're like, oh, that—

you gotta tell people about—

you're getting there. If you're finding yourself feeling resentful of someone, analyze it. Why are you feeling resentful? Are they going on more vacations than you? Do they have a bigger house than you? What is it that you're after? Because that'll help you to go after some goals that you want in your life. So why was I feeling a little bit resentful? Because I have changed. I'm talking about the old me, the old me who had little kids, who thought that I had to exist for my kids, and I thought that I had to take care of them from the moment I woke up till the moment I went to bed. I did not carve time out for myself, and I would see him on the couch reading a book. I would see him, like, I'm just throwing out examples, playing the piano, learning the guitar, going to Krav Maga classes, martial arts. Yeah, I would see him doing stuff for himself and I would feel resentful and angry, like, why does he think he can do this? Like, this is not fair. Well, guess who was doing it right and guess who was doing it wrong? I started to realize through the years that Seth was right and I was wrong, and Seth was a better person because he was taking care of himself. He was filling his cup. He was giving himself joy. He loves a new hobby. He loves something to learn. He loves playing music. He loves going to his martial arts class. You love a good book, like you love listening— he listens to trainings all the time. He's always got something in his ear that he's listening to, and I was like, What the hell? And then I was like, okay, sit with this and think about this. You need this for yourself. You need more of this for yourself. You're just feeling jealous. You're feeling jealous because you don't have this stuff in your life. So fill your life with joy and stuff that is gonna fill you up. If you go to work from 9 to 5, I hope that you're finding joy in your work. I hope that you're getting something out of it. I'm talking about after work. You get home from work, or it's the weekends, I hope that you have hobbies and stuff that you do for self-care that you find makes you feel better after you do it. When I read a good book, I feel great. When I get my nails done, I feel great. Like, I have stuff that I love to do for myself, and I have discovered it, and I'm discovering more stuff, and I'm allowing this for myself, and it's making me a happier person. So if you're just going through the day, grudging through the day, doing chores that you don't like, doing work that you don't like, you're gonna be miserable. I want to challenge you to not only give yourself hobbies and self-care and joy in your day with stuff that you enjoy, I'm going to challenge you to look at everything in your day differently.

Can I change your word choice? Yeah, I would get rid of the word miserable. Okay, you said if you're doing this, this, and this, you're gonna be miserable. Okay, that's an intense negative word. Let's say you'll be a wee bit perturbed.

Well, I'm talking to depressed people.

Yes, but if you change the words, you'll be less depressed.

Well, so Seth is saying that— what Seth and I talk about a lot is our word choices. Seth is a word obsessor.

There, it's a new diagnosis, honey. I have Seth Green and I'm a word obsessor.

So, so what I'm supposed to learn being with Seth, what I'm still learning, is to be very careful about my word choices because I make word choices. I grew up in a family where you said things and then you got over it.

And there was no importance placed on words.

Words weren't as important to me growing up as they are now because Seth is so— not only does he really take what I say so seriously, but he remembers everything that I say because he has a really good memory. So I have to be more careful. And what I like about this is he's, he's making me more careful about the word choices that I'm choosing to communicate with myself and others, and not with him. So instead of saying, you know, we've talked about so many examples, Seth and I, but instead of saying this totally sucks, I'm so pissed off, what we would prefer for all of us to choose to say is something less intense, like this is a little bit upsetting, you know, I'm a little upset with the situation, something less intense. Would you like to give an example?

Sure, can we— had one yesterday where you said that I ruined something, and ruined means it's over, and you and I both know the thing that we were talking about isn't over and you're gonna go do it anyway, so there was no point to using the dramatic word ruined except to make it more intense.

I was feeling very dramatic.

Yeah, thank you for acknowledging that now, but if you had just said, I'm annoyed, this has decreased temporarily my joy from this thing, That's different than ruined.

Okay, and, and I want you— I want to tell you what he texted back, which was hysterical. And was, uh, it wasn't meant to be a pattern interrupt, but pattern interrupts are great to ease the tension and stress. And he's like, you sound like Lily. And I was like, oh my God, my daughter is me! Because, because I was like, you ruined it! And Lily says that, like Oh, Mom, you've ruined it. Forget it.

Forget it. You can't do my hair now.

Forget it.

You ruined it.

I don't want a braid anymore. You ruined it. Forget it. And we move on. So anyways, um, ruined was a very intense word choice. I could have used like something like, I'm a little annoyed right now. Just give me some time to cool off and then we'll talk about this.

Yeah.

Okay, establish a routine. Routine is so good for us. It is proven to make people happier and feel better and more successful. And as someone who has resisted routine for a very long time, I realized yesterday, um, so Saturday, Sunday, Monday I slept in. I was really tired and slept a lot, like later than I normally do.

Pressure.

Felt like I needed like catch-up time. And yesterday I got up super early, got up, did a million things, and felt really good and productive and felt different. And I was like, okay, routine, I see you, I see you, routine, and you're working for me.

So discipline lies your salvation.

In discipline— discipline fixes so many things. So I see, I, I'm living the benefits of a routine. I do better with a routine. We all do. So establish a routine. You probably have one.

Um, or is it a negative routine?

Well, establish a routine and embrace the routine.

Well, some people have negative routines that make them feel bad.

Okay, so what's a negative routine?

Uh, let's see, I getting up in the morning, having your triple mocha schmocha from Starbucks filled with sugar and fat, listening and watching the news and getting depressed by all the scary things they talk about on the news, and then all the drug ads that they pay— that pays for the scary news.

You're really good at this.

Uh, thank you. Uh, then, um, while you're driving to wherever you're going, I'm thinking about how terrible the traffic is and how you don't want to go to where you're going and how you hate this stuff. Like, if you have this pattern of negative thoughts, you run the same record every single time. The loop keeps going going around and around and just feel worse every time.

Well, and you train your brain to feel bad, to feel bad and think the same negative things every day. So I'm going to make a suggestion that I do that has been so helpful for me, and I think you do the same thing. I start my day and I end my day with gratitude. I sandwich my day in gratitude, and I feel like it kicks my day off in such a good momentum. And so I start my day with thinking about things that I'm thankful for, and I don't write it down, but you could have a gratitude journal that you start and finish your day with. It's a huge suggestion that's all over the place when you read about depression and anxiety.

At night, I write my 3 wins for that day, and then I write the 3 wins that I want for the next day. When I wake up, I write the 3 wins I want for that day.

I love that. So when I go to bed at night I always want to end the day with thinking about all the things that I'm thankful and grateful for, and I end with that and a prayer to put myself— like, to calm myself, to bring myself ease. And that's awesome.

And if you write out those gratitude things physically, it'll work even better.

Yeah. So I think that what, what Seth is—

even write them in your notebook and your digital Kindle there with your digital pen.

I got a Kindle for Mother's Day. And it's the Scribe one and it's got a pen. So I have to watch videos and learn how to use it because I don't know how to use it. So if you have a Scribe Kindle, give me some tips, but I'm gonna go watch some YouTube videos and I can start writing my gratitude. But I don't know if it saves or anything.

Okay, you'll notice the note I wrote you in there is still in there.

Okay, so I'm gonna learn how to use my Scribe and I'm gonna learn it I'm going to use it for my gratitude journal.

I love it.

Okay, so we talked about gratitude, we talked about routine. Let's talk about two things that I think that you and I are doing a really good job with. There's stuff that we need to work on, and there's stuff that we're in a good— we're going in a good direction, and that is exercise and nutrition.

Okay.

Okay, so getting ourselves to move and eat better physically makes you less depressed. It actually is proven. Go read about it. It's all over the place. Think about what you're putting in your mouth, because if you're putting sugar in your mouth— I have crashed from sugar, and I have felt anxious and depressed and wondered what was going on with me, and then just realized I had eaten a bunch of sugar. Duh, right? But we don't always realize that what we're eating is making us feel bad, right? Or, or the fact that we've been sitting all day. I mean, if you sit all day, please get up and take a break and go for a walk.

Get up and move every hour.

So do you physically go out of the building and take a walk?

Depends on the day. Sometimes I don't make myself have enough time for do a walk, but I will do jumping jacks or burpees or something in my office.

So one of the things that I love to do is incorporate walks in nature in my day. And I'm getting the walk and I'm getting the nature. So those are two things to lift my mood. So if I have been sitting too long, I like to just go around the block. Now I work at home, so that's easy for me, and I don't have days— well, most of my days don't look like Seth's, right? Okay, so exercise and nutrition are huge. We talked about mindfulness, limiting social media. Me? Okay, I'm going to defend myself right now. I was on social media today only for work, only for work. I posted a bunch of stuff and posted my blog, posted in my group.

Look at anything.

I didn't have time.

That's awesome.

I didn't have time.

There you go.

I did social media today, but it was all work related.

Awesome.

Okay, so he's just making fun of me. That's not the point. Um, I do like to scroll TikTok, and he does see me get lost in TikTok, but now they know that I love books and nails, and I'm just lost in TikTok.

It does— TikTok does have the smartest algorithm of all the social media.

Oh my gosh. Okay, so why, why do we need to limit social media? Because what I'm finding that people are doing is that they're comparing themselves to other people and they think that the highlight reel that I'm posting— I'm not posting that I was pissed at my husband last night. I'm not getting on Facebook and saying my husband is annoying me and I'm mad at him. I am not.

You might get more views if you do that. We should try that. You can throw me under the bus, I'm all right.

I'm just saying I am not posting when I'm pissed off. I want to put positive stuff out to the universe. So if I want to put positive stuff out to the universe, then I'm gonna purposely post positive things. So I'm trying to bring—

wonder if you did that how many messages I would get of people going, what did you do to Rebecca?

So, so you need to try.

I'll piss you off again, I'm sure.

Please don't. Please don't. So My point is that you interrupted my thought process.

Limit your exposure to social media so you don't compare yourself to other people.

Oh, the highlight— the highlight reel. I was talking about the highlight reel. I am posting my highlight reel. I am showing you my daughter's dance recital. I am showing you Max's football game. I am showing you my husband presenting at Mastermind. I am showing you Um, what's something about me? I'm showing you my latest podcast. Like, I am not posting all the crap going on.

I mean, getting tons of hearts for that.

Um, Lily is— I want to tear my hair out because Lily is in a mood. I'm not posting that. People have stuff all day long that they're not posting. They're only posting their highlight reel Do not compare yourself to their highlight reel. I just told you that I'm catching up with women this week and cannot believe what people are going through. So I am telling you, they didn't post it on Facebook. I had to find it out in person what they've been going through. So let's stop comparing ourselves to stupid social media.

There you go.

It's not the truth.

Amen.

Right? I'm sorry, did I go on a social media rant?

You might have, but it was impressive.

Because it upsets me, because I hear people say things and I'm like, seriously, you're getting upset about social media? There you go. Hopefully I made a dent with someone.

You made a point.

Okay, celebrate your small wins and make achievable goals. So like, we want to set ourselves up for success. So, and, and I'm using this because it relates to me. And if you have something that you want me to relate to and write about, I will take your thing. I am just using weight because it's my thing that I'm focused on. So I am not going to say to myself, you have to lose 50 pounds. How am I going to feel when I get on the scale and I've lost 2 pounds if I'm focused on 50?

There you go.

How am I going to feel? Is that— is that 50 attainable in this next week? Is, is when it— when is 50 pounds achievable? 5 months? So I'm not gonna feel good for 5 months. So I need to make— I need to celebrate the pound, and I need to give myself a healthy food choice.

Celebrate every single time you put something good in your mouth.

100%, yes. So I am celebrating myself every day, and I am waking up and being like How help— these are the questions I'm asking myself. How healthy can I eat today?

Oh, I like the challenge to yourself. That's good.

I am challenging myself every day to, to, I think, win. I think I'm trying to win.

Well, you are a competitive person, so that will help.

Oh my God, is that why it's working?

You're playing a game with yourself and you'd like to win.

Oh my God, that's So I do feel like I am challenging myself big time every day and trying to do better each day and trying to, to celebrate when I do something right and to be kind to myself when I do something that is not aligned with my mission. So we went to Swish LA. Seth and I discussed it. Seth was very Seth has learned a lot in 20 years. Seth and I could definitely be weight loss coaches. I think between—

I was gonna say, I don't have the— I haven't had to lose weight. I haven't lost— tried to lose weight in 30 years, but I have the psychology down.

I think that you've learned a lot from—

relate to me, but—

well, nobody wants a skinny weight loss coach.

Well, don't start a weight loss coaching business after you hit your goal, honey.

Oh my God, Tina says one day and one pound at a time.

It's the little things.

Oh my gosh, 100%. So we went to Swiss Chalet. I love Swiss Chalet. And I said to Seth— now don't throw me under the bus here—

no bus.

I said, how do I go to Swiss Chalet and not have french fries? And Seth said, just have a couple of mine, which is the solution to a lot of things. So I'm not saying to myself, you can't have a french fry, and I'm not saying to myself, you're a horrible person because you had a couple of his french fries. I am being kind and compassionate to myself. I don't need to be perfect.

And you didn't order your own order and eat all of them.

Okay, so yay me.

Yes, that was very— you asked what the calorie difference was between— no, I looked on the menu, looked on the menu and said, oh my God, the fries are 500 calories and the baked potato was like 150. Holy crap, I guess I got— I'm gonna get the baked potato. Like, that was— I was very proud of you. I forgot to tell you.

Well, thank you for celebrating my small, my small—

you saved yourself like 400 calories.

So the point is that we're never going to be perfect. We're going to have negative thoughts. You're going to say— so the negative thought that I have is I will say, you're so dumb. I don't say you're a loser. I say— I don't say—

I have heard you tell yourself that.

I don't say you're so depressed, or you're so terrible, or you never have any plans. Like, I'm just trying to think of negative thoughts. What I say to myself is, you're so dumb. That's something that I've caught myself saying because I don't seem to understand— well, I do. I have started to learn that I'm going to make mistakes, but I make a mistake and then the automatic thought was 'You're so dumb.' And I've heard my daughters say it.

Yep, I heard one of them say the other day, 'You—' Yes, they got it from me.

I'm aware of it. Awareness is the first step, right? You gotta get past denial. So what I'm gonna tell you is I still say it to myself, but I'm much more aware and I change it quickly. So as I do this program that I'm doing with myself, with my brain, The thought won't come at some point. Yes, I'm gonna— I'm gonna notice in time that I'm not calling myself dumb anymore. That'd be awesome, right? Okay, you are very smart. We did gratitude. Service to others is last. So what my mother taught me at a very young age, and this has stayed with me forever— some of the things she taught me has stayed with me forever, that when we get outside of ourselves, we feel so much better. Secret to living is giving. Oh, I like that, Seth. I'm gonna remember that line. Tony. Oh, that's Tony. Okay, I didn't know that. I never heard him say that, but that's a good line. So when we're focused on ourselves, our needs, our wants, all day long, what we don't have What—

how do I feel?

What do I want? What isn't going well? My day sucks. If I'm focused on myself and just myself all day, every day, that doesn't serve me. We're going to change our thoughts. We're going to work on having better days. But when we give to others, when we help people— if you're at work and you're helping other people, doesn't that make you feel good? Doesn't that give you those feel-good chemicals in your brain?

Endorphins, oxytocin, all that stuff.

I love helping people. Dopamine. I have told people that helping people is selfish because it makes me so happy and feel so good about myself.

Good drug. Yes, it's legal and addicting in the best way.

So not only does it get us outside of ourselves and gives us the feel-good chemicals that we need in our brain, it also gives us a community and social connections. So what I said to my husband last night when I was explaining PTA to him a little bit I don't have a workplace as of today. It's virtual. I, I meet wonderful women every week, but I'm not hanging out with them every day. I mean, if I called, if I reached out to any of them, they would talk to me, but that's like my—

not my normal network. Starbucks together.

Yeah, like I can't call up Laura from yesterday who's in Colorado and say, Laura, let's go to Starbucks, let's go meet. Yes. So what I was explaining to Seth, because he doesn't quite fully understand. You and I have different viewpoints in this department, right? So, so PTA is volunteer work and service to others and connections with other women and a community.

Yes, it fulfills many needs for you, including socialization.

So, so people say to me, oh my gosh, thank you so much for planning that event. Thank you for all you do. Right, we want to give to others and we want to serve, but we're also getting stuff out of it. I'm getting connections, community, oxytocin, all that good stuff, right? So if you're feeling depressed, if you're feeling down and you're struggling to get out, I mean, what, what is something that you would want to do volunteer work for? If you're like, you know, my son, you love cats, and Max would probably love volunteering at Perfect Rescue with all the cats because he loves cats. If you're like me, you love babies, and I'm like, hmm, maybe I need to go volunteer in the newborn wing over there across the street at the hospital. That'd be very dangerous for you.

I don't want any more babies.

I just want I just want to hold them. All right, well, we'll negotiate that. So think about what service would bring you joy and what community you would like to join, because I guarantee you that's a positive step to help dig you out of depression, for sure. So that was a lot.

Yes, that was a lot. Thank you for staying with us. We went way over our normal time.

I felt like this such an important topic, and I didn't want to stop at 30 minutes because it had been 30 minutes. But we do have to go tell our children good night.

Some of them may already be asleep.

Um, we went late. Thank you for— thank you for listening. Thank you for joining us.

Share this, please. I think people need it.

We want to tell you that this topic is so important, and we would so appreciate it if you would share it with someone who you think needs it. And I would love to hear from you. Tell me if anything, what was helpful? What was the most helpful? What is something that you're going to take away from this? I would love to hear from you. I would love to do more on this topic. Keep sending topic requests because the topic requests tend to be the best ones. And I want to tell you that this Friday on the podcast is the wonderful Christina Fletcher, and Christina helps us become more spiritually aware more centered. You're gonna love her. I loved her. And Christina, if you watch this, I still want to set up— I have to set up a time. She's one of those people I want to set up a time with. I want to become more spiritually aware. And what else? What else do we want to share?

Uh, listen to the podcast, uh, like, share, rate, review, subscribe. All of Rebecca's social media has a Linktree with all the links that we whinyblues.com, including the newsletter. Thank you for watching Whiny Blues Wednesday.

Thank you, Tina. Thanks for joining. Thanks everyone. Have a great week.