180: Navigating Anxiety and Depression During COVID-19 with Rhonda Britten

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, fat loss expert turned high performance coach. When odds are stacked against us, how do we shift and create everything from nothing? How do we level up when we aren't feeling it yet or we've had a big setback? On this podcast, I'll be talking to some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on this planet who at their worst learned how to achieve success greater than they ever dreamed possible. Leveling up and creating everything from nothing. Rhonda Britton was the middle child of three girls and the target of her dad's physical and emotional abuse. At the age of just 14, she was the sole witness to her father shooting and killing her mom and then himself. Her and her sisters raised themselves after that. No parent figures. From 14 on, no adults that cared about their well being, Rhonda took on beliefs that she was not worthy of much. After attempting to take her own life three times, she finally surrendered and started to feel it all. And she started at that point to put meaning to all of that pain. You see, it was that pain that turned into purpose because Rhonda figured out a method to shift her out of depression and anxiety. Today, Rhonda Britton is an Emmy award winner. Repeat Oprah. Guess has changed countless lives and she has been in over 600 episodes of reality television. She is the author of four bestsellers, including the seminal work Fearless Living and is the founder of the Fearless Living Institute, home of the Ivy League of coaching training. And she's named America's favorite life coach. I asked Rhonda to join in today on leveling up to share her story, her journey and her method to help us navigate through the anxiety and depression many of us are feeling today with the coronavirus. Today I have a special guest I'm excited to talk to, Rhonda Britton, who she says she solves your biggest problem. That really piqued my curiosity. Now here's the thing about Rhonda. She is the first life coach to have ever been on tv. She's got four best selling books. She has the Ivy League of life coach training, which is a rigorous coaching program. She's got an Emmy award and then this one really got me. She's been twice on Oprah, My mentor, my idol. So that was really cool. And I was so excited to talk to Rhonda today because right now, especially in these times, navigating what's going on in the world, coronavirus, everybody is in this anxiety mode, this depression mode. And I thought, ok, I am not an expert with anxiety But I am an expert having it. So I thought, I have got to find some experts that really know how to navigate this and have them talk us through. So, Rhonda, thank you so much for being here with me today.

Oh, my pleasure, Natalie. I am so excited to support you, to support your crew. I just can't. I can't wait. Because we can get through this.

Yes, we can. We can. And you've got so many incredible credentials, but I know that's not always who you were. And I was reading your story, and I was really, really mesmerized by it. Can you take us back to who you were before all this, like, as a kid? Because you went through some pretty significant life experiences early on.

Yeah, I sure did. I sure did. So I think what you're referring to is the worst day of my life. I like to name it that. Right? We all. If somebody asks us, what's the worst day of your life? I bet most people can come up with their worst day. So I'm going to tell you my worst. I was 14 years old, and my parents were in the middle of a divorce, and it was Father's Day. My father was taking us out to Sunday brunch, is coming over and taking us out, which is a big deal. I grew up in a little tiny town in upper Michigan. So three adults, two kids, that's a lot of money back then. So it was a big deal. My mom made me a brand new dress. You know, hey. So my sisters are in our little one bathroom fighting it out. Me and my mom are getting ready for my dad to show up, and he comes in, knocks on the door, walks in, says, let's go, let's go, let's go. Because that's what dads do. And so me and my mom start walking out with my dad. My sister's still in the bathroom fighting it out. And as we start going outside, my dad looks at me and says, I gotta get my coat from the car. So as we're walking out, he opens his trunk, and instead of grabbing a coat, he grabbed a gun. And he starts screaming at my mother, you made me do this. You made me do this. And I start screaming, what are you doing, dad? Stop. What are you doing? And he fires. And I. I mean, I'm just frozen, right? I'm just frozen. And my father cocks the gun again. He looks at me, and I absolutely believe I'm next, 100%. And he looks at me. I look at him. He blinks, I blink. And then my mother, who already Has a bullet inside of her, looks up literally with her last breath, screams, no, don't. And my father, realizing she's alive, still takes that bullet intended for me and shoots my mother a second time. That second bullet went through my mother's abdomen and out her back and landed in the car horn. And for the next 20 minutes, all I heard was, and then my father runs right next to me, cocks the gun again and puts the gun to his head and fires. So I am the sole witness to my father murdering my mother and committing suicide in front of me. Yeah, when I'm 14. 14? Yep. Now, I don't know how other people, other 14 year olds would have dealt with that, but this is how I did, Natalie. I basically took away any right for happiness. You know, you don't get to be happy when you are the sole witness of your mother being murdered and you did nothing about it. You just don't get to be happy. Just forget that. And so that day, I basically split into two. You know, the part of me that was a straight A student, you know, I got everything together. I'm fine. Well, that's what I play. Acted for a good, you know, 15, 20 years. It's like, no, I'm fine, I'm fine. No, I'm fine, I'm fine. And, you know, kept doing good in school and pretended I have no problems and totally said I forgave my parents, totally forgave my dad, you know, but inside, inside, Natalie, you know, going to bed at night and just being able to kind of make it through the day, I just absolutely believed it was my fault. I was riddled with guilt, riddled with shame. I was my father's daughter. So I have blood, his blood, through my veins. So am I capable of killing? I mean, I was so afraid of myself and I was just overwhelmed with the feeling of that feeling of not feeling good enough. And just there must be something seriously wrong with me.

I would just try to imagine I have a daughter who's almost 13. Just the. Just how you could even process what it just happened, like, and then trying to process it and then not even having your parents to process it with. I just, I can't even imagine what that was feeling like. Like, just.

It was devastating.

How were you processing? I know what you said you decided and what she started believing. But how. Who were you talking to? Who is helping you navigate that?

Well, that's an additional sad story because my relatives basically disappeared. You know, I grew up in Upper Michigan and people don't deal with feelings and so my relatives, nobody came over with potluck. Nobody came over and helped us pay our bills. Nobody came over. So my sisters and I, my older sister was just. Had turned 18. I was 14, my little sister was 13. And basically the three of us had jobs. I was waitressing at 14. My sister got a job at a grocery store. My little sister Linda, at 13, she babysat. And all of us just, we lived in that house for another two years.

So the 18 year old basically became the mother figure. Really like the parent in a way.

Yeah, well, yeah, except. And everything I'm going to say to you right now, I've said to her. So, yeah, I love you, Cindy, but you know, Cindy was. She drank during high school, smoked during high school, you know, so she was not like the role mother, you know, role, role model. Right. So, you know, she would tell me something to do and I'd be like, let's see. And I would say this to her and it's horrible to say. And I've, I've asked for forgiveness from her and she's, you know, we're close, but back then, you know, I'm 14, I'm like a straight A student and perfect. And my older sister is, you know, wild and crazy and I'm literally like going, I think I can parent myself better. So anything she said to me, I was like, yeah, no, I'm not doing anything you do. And I had my own apartment by the time I was 16. My little sister had it in her own apartment by the time she was 16. So we were out of the house as fast as we could be because there was nobody there to take care of us. Nobody came to save us, nobody came to help with us. So we were literally on our own. So after that, I just kind of put my head down and just tried to persevere, just tried to make my way and pretend everything was okay. And. And it got to me. Obviously you can't stuff your feelings, you can't stuff your murder suicide, and you can't do that for too long. So when I hit college and nobody in college knew my story, I went to a different school in college. Right.

Rhonda, before you talk about college, I want to know that. I don't mean to interrupt you, but I want to. Did you have any adult figures in your life helping you through that at this time?

One time, my mother's best friend, Sharon, who I love to death, love to pieces, we were literally like, had no money and she bought some. Like, she used her credit card. So if we were in dire straits. We would call Sharon up and say, sharon, we are in dire straits. And she would help us. So I would say that Sharon was the figure. She lived four hours away from us, five hours away from us. So she wasn't in our daily life, but she. But if we were back against the wall, Sharon would make sure that we were.

Did what was going on with that. I mean, and I know this was a little bit different than today, but, like, I'm surprising me. The state didn't care. It's like, where was. Where were the grownups and the adults in this? Like, I'm thinking they just watch these three kids lose their parents in a tragic way. And, like, it just baffles my mind that it's like no one took ownership to step up and help.

No, I think because my sister was 18, you know, legally an adult, I think basically that let them off the hook. And, you know, there was no victims of Crime act back then. There was no. It wasn't like it is today. You know, when I ever watch, you know, a news story and they say after a tragedy and they say the kids are doing fine, I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, the kids are not doing fine. No, they're pretending they're fine, but trust me, they're not doing fine. And one of these days, you know, it's gon. It's gonna be bad because that was me, you know, I'm fine. I mean, I remember I said. I said, somebody asked me, you know, you know, how do you forgive your parents? I go, oh, I forgave my father that same day. And they're like, what? I go, well, I thought I did. You know, I thought I did forgive him that day. Of course, it took me a lot longer to actually forgive him, but I told myself to forgive. I knew the right answers, right? I knew the right answers. You should forgive. Okay, I'll forgive. You know, you just got to be a helper and. And not think about yourself. Okay? So I'll just do that. So I just cut my own heart out of my body and just laid it on the shelf.

But at 14, you're still a child yourself, so just so much.

But, you know, as your daughter probably would tell you, you know, when you're 14, you actually think you're an adult, right? Like, you think you're old. I mean, I look at 14 year olds today, and I go, oh, my God. Like, I can't believe I do. I go, I can't believe nobody came, because it's like What? But, you know, when you're 14 yourself, you know, you think, oh, I. I'm fine, you know.

Yeah. And was there a funerals? Was there?

Did you.

Were you the one planning that?

Yep, there were funerals and I sang at both of them. I was a singer, so I sang at both my parents funerals. And I sang I honestly love you at my mother's funeral. And when I said the words I love you, because part of that song is, you know, you say the words I love you. When I said I love you, the whole congregation just lost it. And when we buried my mother, my grandmother, well, they started putting my mother's coffin in the ground. I basically jumped on the coffin. I jumped on the coffin and I went down with it. And my grandmother, who's like, who was like 5ft 1, you know, 250 pounds, you know, with a cane, picked me up single handedly and put me back on the ground and looked at me and said, well, we'll have none of that. We're never speaking of this again. And that's kind of cool.

Yeah, like, that's what you. That was the modeling you had.

That was the modeling. So, yes, you can jump on your mom's coffin because obviously you're 14, devastated. But then, you know, you got to shut up and never talk about this again.

Like, shake off, shake it off and move on, even though you're only 14 and you just watch this tragedy happen. So no therapy, no therapist to help you, coaches to help, you know, counseling around this, or did you have any of that?

I had some. I had some therapy right away. We had a high school counselor and her husband had like, the little therapy place in town. So. So I went there for a few, I think maybe, maybe a couple months. Not my sisters, but just me, because I was the one that was having the most time. They were more shut off where I was. You know, I'd been the witness, right. I was the one that witnessed it. So I remember, I still have it, by the way. I remember in therapy, you know, him trying to get me to see anything positive about myself. And I still have the list today. So he goes, well, what's, you know, what is good about you, Rhonda? And I was like, nothing. I let my mom die. You know, and he's, well, there's got to be something. And I. And I remember I said things like, I guess I'm an okay basketball player. You know, I try to be nice to people, you know, and he wrote this whole list, and I still have it today. In my side drawer. Because even then, I. I had a very difficult time seeing what was good about me. Even though I was a straight A state student, even though I, you know, ran the church youth group organization right at that time, after that happened, you know, all the good that I had done was nice, but didn't make me a good person anymore. Right now, it's like I didn't have a. I didn't have a right to. I didn't have a right to be happy.

Okay, so you go to college and then. Sorry, that's where I interrupted you before.

Yep. No, not at all. I go to college and nobody knows my story, so I basically go wild. So the whole time in high school, I'm trying to pretend I'm okay. Everybody knows my story. I'm in a little tiny town, so, you know, kids aren't allowed to play with me. You know, relatives ignore us, so I pretend I'm fine. And so now I go to college, nobody knows my story, and I basically lose it. And so I start drinking. I become an alcoholic. I tried to kill myself three times, got three DUIs. And I remember that third suicide attempt. I. When I woke up from that and I was still alive, I said, well, Rhonda, you're not very good at killing yourself when you.

I always am intrigued by that. I hear that a lot. Like, I tried to. How do you. How does someone try to kill them? So I don't mean to be. I'm just trying to understand. Is that. Is that like. Like you tried to drink something, take something?

I took pills. I took pills. Yeah. And I mean, I tried to take a lot of pills. I thought I took a lot of pills. Right. And every time I, you know, I did, I called somebody and said, I took. I just took 200 Tylenol. You know, I just. And I'm kind of calling to say goodbye. Right.

Okay.

So every time, you know, I had an intervention, somebody found me. You know, something happened where an ambulance came or they drove me to the hospital. And so back then, you know, they just basically pump your stomach and let you go. And the third suicide attempt, though, they did put me in a psychiatric ward for four days to evaluate me to see if I was crazy. I wasn't crazy, so they let me out.

No, you had, like, super child trauma that no one helped you with. My gosh. Yeah.

So they're like, no, you're not crazy. You just have a lot of trauma and you have a lot of grief and you're in a lot of pain. So I Go to my little apartment. I was living by myself at the time in my little studio apartment. And I realized, you know, I'm not dying. I'm not dying. So I better figure out a new way to live because what I've been doing isn't working. Now, mind you, during those years of those suicide attempts and DUI's I was trying to go to, I was going to therapy off and on. I was doing workshops, I was reading books. I read my first self help book when I was 12. So, I mean, I was a self help junkie all during high school and college. So it wasn't that I wasn't trying to help myself. All those years I was, I was reading books, I was going to workshops. I was doing everything. Inner child work, energy work. You name it, I've done it before.

It was a thing. It sounds like.

Oh yeah. I mean, just like I was one of the first life coaches in the world. I was doing all this before way it was cool. And so I was doing all of that for myself. And it would, it would help me, like, it would relieve me for a while, but it didn't take away the feeling that there was something wrong with me. So it, it kind of helped me navigate the world a little bit better. Like, okay, I looked better, maybe I sounded better.

Yeah.

You know, and I had some tools to kind of manage myself a little bit better. But nothing took away the feeling that there's something seriously wrong with me. That, you know, I actually became afraid of myself. Afraid of my feelings, afraid of my anger. Because, you know, again, I have my father's blood, so what am I capable of? Like, I remember thinking, like, I don't know what I'm capable of.

Like, God, I can understand that because you're like, my, my own blood did this atrocious act. Like, am I capable of that?

Yeah, yeah, I was. I was actually, you know, a little. I was afraid of myself. And so out of desperation after that third suicide attempt, Natalie, I basically remember sitting in my. I remember this so vividly. I remember sitting on the floor with my back against my door, saying to myself, you have got to figure out another way. There has got to be another way. And so I decided that I said to myself, well, I'm going to start. I have to start over. So I basically said to myself, well, what do they do in kindergarten? Oh, well, they have a calendar and they have gold stars. So I went out, got a calendar and gold stars. This is the first exercise I ever did for myself. And I gave myself a Gold star for anything I did that was good. And, Natalie, I still have this calendar today in my office now. And, like, I had things on that, like, I gave myself gold stars for things, like, got angry and didn't break anything. You know, felt rejected but, you know, didn't scream. You know, I mean. I mean, I'm talking any little tiny thing. And at the end of the 30 days, I had a calendar filled with stars. And that moment, Natalie, gave me hope. It was like, okay, I'm worth saving. I am a good person. Because I was looking for, am I worth saving? Am I good? Here I am alive.

Mm.

I'm alive after three times. So, okay, so am I worth saving? And from that moment on, Natalie, I just started making up exercises for myself that, you know, I didn't think about you. I didn't think about anybody but me. I was just trying to save my own life. And then that actually became, years later, the foundation of fearless living, what I teach today. So, you know, I know, you know, having the right knowledge, right? Like, I took the classes. I read the books. I had the knowledge. You know, it's not like I didn't know the right thing to do, but I couldn't get over that feeling that there was something wrong with me, that I'm not good enough. No matter how many classes I went to, no matter how many books I read, no matter how many sessions I went to. So when I started making up these exercises for myself, that feeling went away. I do not have it.

That's incredible. So is this. I'm assuming this is kind of where you base your whole everything now that you have exercises.

Yep. Yep. Everything that I teach right now is very, you know, practical.

Okay.

Takes neuroscience and my experience, because my experience was actually. It aligns with neuroscience, but, of course, I wasn't thinking about back then. Right. I was just trying to change my life. But now that you overlay neuroscience over the work that I do with people, it's completely.

I'm so intrigued, because I also believe Rhonda, although not everyone, has had the tragedy that you went through, which you went through a legit, real tragedy as a child. I believe everybody, on some level, has things that they. That created childhood trauma. Like, I. I watched my daughter, who has, like, the most privileged life ever, who still feels like she's got, you know, she's got this drama that she shares. And I think that. I think people just. They need to process drama. Like, they need to believe that they have drama of some sort, whether it's real or not. Like, so it's like something that happens to her life. Like, she takes it as drama, as serious as somebody that has something that actually happens. It's almost like. So I think, like, we make up these stories. Yours was a real story. But I also think we take stories that happen as a child and we make them into something. So I believe everyone has stuff they need to process. And I also believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, that how we handle things like today, what's going on in our world, which I want to get in and talk to you about in a minute, is all based on how we learn to process as a child.

Well, well, yes, absolutely. So if you don't know how to process, first of all, if you don't know how to. If you don't understand how fear works. Right. If you don't actually understand and nobody, you know, you can read a neuroscience book, you can have somebody say, feel the fear and do it anyway, or false evidence appearing real. And those cliches are true. I'm not saying they're not true. But if you don't, those are only as helpful as you understand neuroscience and that you understand yourself and how you process fear, and more importantly, not only how you process fear, but that you move through it to the other side. Right?

Yeah.

So that's the key for me. It's like what I discovered and what I learned to do for myself out of desperation. Shockingly. And it still shocks me to this day that it actually follows neuroscience perfectly. Because neuroscience now says that yes, you can change your thoughts, yes, you can change your behaviors, yes, you can change your feelings, but that actually isn't how you truly change your life. Those are great tools, but the only way to truly change your life, you know, from the foundation up, is by changing your filtering system. So, you know, if I look at this pandemic, if I look at this, you know, what we're going through right now through the lens of fear, which is how most people naturally would. Of course, you're naturally going to do that. Sure. Naturally going to feel uncertain, you're naturally feeling chaotic. You're naturally. There's so much volatility. There's so much information and misinformation. Right. So it's natural that you are going to have fear around this. And I, and I actually say that right now. Most people deny they have fear. They don't. They don't say I'm scared or I'm afraid. They, they just, they feel anxious, they feel depressed, they feel overwhelmed, they get perfectionistic, become A perfectionist. They procrastinate all those things. Well, those are all fear responses. Those are all symptoms of fear. So right now I actually say, wow, this is a really awesome time. Because you see your fear now, you can't hide from it anymore.

Yeah.

There's no denying it. So now is actually the time to master this sucker, because I want you to friend it, transcend it, and know how to make it work for you.

Because you friend it, transcend it, and learn how to make it work for you. So, okay, so I want to unpack this a little bit. So right now as we're recording this, the world is in panic mode. I mean, really, this is like the first time I can remember since 911 that it was really like. I remember a huge setback in 2007, 2008, 2009 before that, the sniper attack. And I lived in that neighborhood when that was happening in 9 11. But this is a whole other level right now. What I'm witnessing, what we're witnessing going on in the world and what I'm witnessing, and I'm an empath. I really feel like I feel everything. My audience, my clients, my family. I witnessed this paralyzing time where people.

Literally don't know what.

They're frozen. They're frozen. And when I'm trying to unpack the emotion around that, what people say, like what you just said is they're saying either anxious or depressed. That's what they're like. I'm anxious either. Anxiety was off the roots on the polls that I did. And then depression. And I love that you're saying that this is all fear. So I want to unpack that because I don't know how to guide people right now, myself included. I find myself spinning with that.

Yes. So I would love to give. So let's talk about fear a little bit, and then we'll give you an exercise so that we can get some relief right away. The thing that we don't understand, that we think that we really don't know and that we don't know how to apply to our life is that lovely neuroscience. And so let me just tell you just really quickly about the brain. The brain doesn't know the difference between something imagined or something real. Doesn't know the difference. And this next part is also super important, that people don't know or don't know how to. How it applies to their life. But the brain, the neurobiology of us, doesn't know also the difference between a physical fear and an emotional fear. So, you know, we can actually admit our physical fears. I'm afraid of snakes, right? Oh, I'm afraid of, you know, I'm afraid of heights. Like we, like we can say that and we're not ashamed of it, but we actually don't. And we don't have a understanding of what our emotional fears are. And what I mean by emotional fears is fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of loss. Right. Fear of identity. Right. Fear of. Fear of loneliness. Right. So all of these fears actually are in our lives every single day. And we just kind of overcompensate, pretend they're not there, deny them, but they're impacting us every day. And you can see it by the choices we make, by the thoughts we have, by the feelings we have, by the actions we take. Those are the out picturing of these fears.

So what's interesting, I just had a light bulb moment as you were saying that because you said fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of loneliness are these underlying things that we all. And right now, like, that's making sense for what you're saying, because that is the root of what everyone is really thinking. Because I think, you know, all the small businesses, they're in the back of their mind, it's failure. They're thinking, did I fail? The loss, like loss of comfort and what we know, like being stuck and then that loneliness, I mean, obviously huge when we were isolated. So that's really. I never connected that dot until you just pointed that out. So we're thinking that's anxiety or depression, but it is that.

Yeah, exactly. So we. It's easier for us to say I'm anxious. You know, that's the level. Because it's kind of like overwhelming or overwhelmed or procrastinating all those things. We can admit that, like, oh, I'm procrastinating. Well, of course I am. But we don't really have a relationship to the fear of loss. We don't have a relationship to the fear of loneliness. We don't have a relationship to. To the fear of failure. Right. We kind of just put that aside and go, no, don't think about it. And we actually believe not thinking about it is a strategy to help us move beyond it. And that actually is untrue. Right. You know, because those feelings, those fears actually then decide our perceptions of the world. They actually decide what we see. So I like to say, let me get. I think I have another pair of glasses here. So, you know, right now, let's just say that the world is looking through the fear of failure. Excuse me, the fear glasses. When I'm looking through the fear glasses and this is happening, I am anxious, I'm overwhelmed, I'm like, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh my God. What's going to happen? What's going to happen? It's uncertain, it's chaotic, it's volatility, it's ambiguity. Right? Now if I put my freedom glasses on, we'll just do a little thing. Put my freedom glasses on. The same things are happening, the exact same things are happening. But I see it through a different lens. You know, I'm not afraid to look at worst case scenarios here. When I'm in my fear glasses, I can't look at worst case scenarios because then I think it's going to come true, right? It's like I have my. Oh, I can't think that because then I'm going to manifest it and then those horrible things are going to happen. So I'll deny it. I'll pretend it's not happening. Where? Here. I have the courage to look at worst case scenarios. I have the. I have the fortitude to know that this is actually a huge opportunity. Or I can look through it like, oh, my God. I have time that I didn't have before. Oh, my gosh, I'm going to get closer to my children. Oh, my gosh. This is a time for me to restructure my business, right? So this lens, you see opportunity, possibility, you see the innocence, you see how, right. You see your connection to the world here. It's like people are the enemy, right? People are the enemy. They're taking the masks. They're, you know, they're not being generous, right? But here I can be generous, right? I can be generous. Here I've got a hoard.

I think this is amazing, what you're sharing. What I want to know is literally right before we recorded this, I just did a Facebook live and I was sharing this, a similar idea. I used the glasses. But even as I was saying, and I'm like, but how do I get people to do it? Because it makes logical sense. Like I'm just gonna look through a different lens or I'm gonna, you know, approach it with gratitude. Or that like we, like, how many times have people said, I wish I had more time and now you've been gifted all this time, you know, but how do we. Logically it makes sense, but how do we actually do it?

Yeah, I think that's a great question. So I'm going to do a. I'm just going to give a couple of things. Because again, I want to just preface this all by saying, you know, most people that are listening to us right now know the right answer. Oh, I should be grateful. Oh, I should look at opportunities. Oh, so again, we logically know the right evolved answer, right? So, but what we want to do is we want to take that thinking and actually put it into ourselves and actually live it. And that is the difficult part. Because people, because they think it, they think that they will automatically behave that way, right? So it's like, oh, I know the right thing. I should be looking at, you know, opportunities. And then you don't look at opportunities. And then you beat yourself up and put yourself.

Yeah, it puts you back into failure. That same thing that we were at before. Like, I did it wrong.

Right now I just want to tell every single person that thinking is overrated. Again, not that we don't want to use our brain, but fear is so prevalent, and fear is so on patrol right now. Fear just has our back. And also, the brain is actually using fear to keep us safe. So I want to say that because fear has one job and one job only, and that's to keep us safe. And the way neuroscience is now informing us, the new neuroscience that's just coming out in the last few years, is that before we used to think the amygdala was the fear center. Well, actually, the amygdala is the novelty center. It is not the fear center. How the brain now works, they know, is that the brain is holistic. It uses the whole brain. And we are energy machines is all. We're energy machines. So we're trying to conserve our energy. And that's fear's job, by the way, is conserving energy. So when we have a problem like a global pandemic, what our brain and our neurobiology does is look at the past, because we're looking at a template for the past to save us energy to see, oh, what can I use to help me solve the current problem? Well, most of us haven't gone through a global pandemic, right? Most of us haven't gone to this extent. So there is no template for the past. There is nothing to use. And oh, by the way, that's why people repeat the same problem over and over again, because they're not creating a new template. They're not using the wheel of Freedom, as I call it, to create a new reality. They continue unconsciously to look back there because that's how we're automatically going to respond if we don't make choice. So I'm going to go look at my template and then I bring it in the present, and I want and pray for a new reality in the future. But that's not how that goes down. So we actually have to make choices. We actually have to take our power back and make choices that are right for us, that are true for us. Which means that we have to actually discover who we are. We actually have to do the work and have the awareness, build our awareness so that we can catch fear in the moment and make a different choice.

So let me ask you this. Okay, so I'm hearing you, and I agree with the let's do the work. But how is that. Is that the interruption now? Like, right now, those listening that are in this right now, they're in this fear. You say we have to do the work. That's like you're saying, like, literally stop and do the work right now, or are there hacks to get them back to this?

I think right now, if the entire planet who is anxiety, depression, worry, concern, blame, shame, everything looked at the foundation of their life. Because right now, you know, again, we don't. We normally don't even have an awareness of our fear. Right now, everybody's aware of their fear. So let's look at fear for what it is, and let's look at the cracks in our foundation. So we've created this life that we hope that we can build off of. We hope that we can sustain it. And now the foundation of our life has a whole bunch of cracks in it that's not working anymore. Because if it was working, we wouldn't necessarily feel the level of uncertainty, level of anxiety, level of depression. Right. So the cracks in our foundation, we got to look at them and start patching them up, but more importantly, to start building new awareness of how we want to live our life moving forward. So do I think that this is the greatest time in my lifetime to face our collective fears and our individual fears? Yes. Is it hard work? Sure, it can be. But right now, we can start that awareness. We can start doing one exercise at a time. We can start doing little things at a time to start bringing us back into our own power, into our own center, ground us in what could be possible anew so that we can not only create a new reality in this moment, but we can actually build off it and create a future that is even more aligned with who we're meant to be.

I love that.

Right, right. Like, we have to create that. Like, the foundation is cracking and it's like, well, you can either look at the foundation cracking or you can go, okay, got it. Foundation cracking. I thought I was more solid than this. Huh. I guess I'm not. Huh? Well, what do I want moving forward and be able to put your, you know, kind of like, oh, this is what I should do. It's like, no, let's put that aside and let's really talk about how fear works and really give you some exercises to really start shifting your mindset so that you can actually start saying, goodbye, fear.

So I want to get it, I want to get into some of these exercises, exercises so we can give some people some action items. But this is something that also just came up for me. Reptile brain. I think most of us are walking around in the Reptile Brain right now, right? Like, we're literally. It just hit me like that's what we're doing. We're, we're information panic freeze. Like, literally we're just freezing. We're not doing anything else. We're freezing. And I, it's, I am watching it happen to leaders. I'm watching it happen to people. I never thought that would happen to.

Well, this is the thing. So we have something in Fearless living called the Wheel of Fear and the Wheel of Freedom. So, yes, you can call it the Reptile Brain. You can call it monkey chatter, you know, you can call it whatever you want. What we believe in, fearless living. What I believed in, what saved me is, yes, I knew about the reptile Brain, but it actually, that information didn't help me change my life, right? It was just information. Right? So what I did is I created for me and it happens to work for hundreds of thousands of people a method so that you know your individual reptile brain, right? The Wheel of Fear is your individual reptile brain. Because how you process fear, Natalie, is different than the way I process fear. What you do when you're afraid is different than what I do when I'm afraid. So I can't compare how you behave in fear to my behavior in fear. I have to know what I do and how I work so that I one can identify it the minute it happens. And then what? We have something called the Wheel of Freedom that we move people onto their Wheel of Freedom so that they can access who they really are and start taking action in alignment with that. So again, that's the filtering system, right? I'm going to take off the Wheel of Fear filtering system, that reptile brain, and I'm going to go, hey, reptile brain, thanks for helping me out in times of crisis. But, you know, I got to take my power back. So I'm going to put the wheel of freedom, you know, choice, power, empowerment. I'm going to put these glasses on and see my life and make choices from here. But that shift, Natalie, that shift from going from I'm being automatic to making a choice is where the, the slowdown has to happen, where the awareness has to happen and where we have to take our power back. Because it's easy, easy to stay here and feel righteous and feel right and feel, well, of course I should be like, you know, of course, of course, of course. So you kind of get stuck in here and then you.

Right, yeah, I was stuck there for two weeks. Today's the first day I think I'm not fully stuck there. Like I. And I was aware of all this. I saw myself being, I'm like, this is reptile brain. This, all of it. And I'm today taking action and, and I feel empowered. But how do we speed this up? Like the person listening that is super stuck. What do we do first?

Right, I'm going to give you an exercise right now. Start shifting people immediately. It's called control and no control.

Okay.

Like right now, in our, in our world, it's out of control, right? We don't know when the pandemic is going to be over. We don't know if it's ever going to be over. We don't know how. How are we going to deal with loneliness. What are we, you know, like all the things, like we are out of control and we're looking at the things out of our control, right? We're reading newspaper articles about what's out of control. We're reading the, you know, we're watching.

The news, Facebook news feed. My gosh, like I did that a few days. I got lost down that tunnel. No, do not do.

Right, so what I want you to do is take a piece of paper and put a line down the middle, Natalie. And on the left hand side I want you to write the word control. And on the right hand side I want you to write no control. Ok. So I want you to start thinking about, well, what do you have control over? Oh, I have control over what I eat. I have control over whether I sleep. I have control over how much I drink during the day. I have control over whether I or schedule a podcast interview. Right. Like you have control over. You have control of what you wear. You have control whether you take a shower or not. You have control over whether you exercise, you have control whether you Take a walk. Like, you have control whether you connect with your family members with control, whether you have a Facebook, a FaceTime meeting with a friend. Right? Like, you have control over all those things. Now, what don't you have control over? Oh, you don't have a control over when this is ending. You don't have a control over if the restaurant's gonna stay open, your favorite restaurant's gonna be open, right? So we don't have control over that. So you take the control list and the no control list, and let's look at the control list. Now, this is the key. Natalie, I want you to write down a score of 1 to 10 how well you're doing that.

Okay.

Because most people are like, well, yes, I can name all the things I control, but how does that help me? Well, it's because you're actually not telling yourself the truth about what you can do differently. So if I'm in control of my sleep, rate myself on a scale of one to ten, I'm a four. Great. Okay. So can you start taking back more of your control and start going, you know what? I can improve my sleep. So your focus shifts from out of control to control. And now your opportunity is, I'm going to start moving those scores up to start taking my power back. Because when you start taking care of the business you can take care of. You start feeling better. You start feeling better.

So let me start. I want to say, try. Understand. So control and no control. So we're going to start. The first step is being aware of that. So a paper line down the middle. What can you control? Control, like, everything like. And that goes with gratitude, too, I would imagine. So acknowledgement, listening to what you're. Who you're talking to, what you're eating that you're taking a shower, and then what you can't control. And then you said, rate each thing.

Rate each thing you're in control of and how well you're doing it, on a scale of 1 to 10. Because normally, what I discover, and I've been using this exercise, you know, with clients for years, and what I notice is when they're feeling out of control, they're not actually taking care of what they are in control of. They've kind of put that aside and only are focused on what they're not in control of. So when you put your focus back on where your power lies, you start relaxing, the stress decreases, you start feeling empowered. You start building your confidence back. Now there's more certainty, right? There's more certainty. There's More clarity. There's more assurance. So we want to start owning, okay, I'm in control of this. And again, don't, you know, don't get overwhelmed by the whole list. Just pick one to three things to start off with. One to three things to start building up. What are the first thing you can do? Okay, can you work on your sleep? Can you work on drinking water? Can you make sure that you have a vegetable every day? You know, can you make sure that you connect to one person that loves you? I love this every day.

It's so funny because, I mean, I consider myself somebody who pretty much does live in the right mindset, and I fell into this, so. And I. And I didn't do your exercise, which I wish I had that exercise because I love this idea. But what I caught myself doing was, like, I was literally living in the uncontrolled. Like, I had all this time gifted to me all of a sudden. And instead of even doing my normal routine, I was now wasting three hours on, like, Facebook newsfeed, Like, and then wondering why I'm depressed.

Like, what? Hello?

I didn't even do anything that I normally do.

Right. But that's. But that's normal, because we're trying to find relief.

But, like, we're going to be able to solve anything with that.

No, we're not going to solve anything, but what we're trying to do is we're trying to find some semblance. We're trying to find some answer. We're trying to find. Find, like, when's it going to end? Are we going to see a newsfeed about when it's going to end? Right, so we're trying. The reptile brain, like you say, what I call the wheel of fear, is trying to go, okay, let's see how much fears in the future. Let's see how much fear we have. Right? So it's not a bad thing that you did it. It's just part of your process. And now you can take your power back. Right? So if you're listening to Natalie and I right now, it's like, okay, you get to make a choice. You get to stay in automatic pilot, which is then going to watch. You watch Facebook lives and. Excuse me, the, you know, Facebook watch and the news every single minute. And again, knowing the news is not a bad thing. It's what you do with the news. Right?

Yeah.

To take your power back and do no control and no control and then rate yourself and really tell yourself about the truth. Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm in Control of all these things, but I've been ignoring every single one of them. Self care. Screw that. You know, I'm going to watch three more hours of, you know, abc.

Totally, totally. Like, we've forgotten everything that we've known for our whole life. Sudden we're just, like, crazy. Oh, my gosh. Okay, this is brilliant. I love just. Even the awareness around the list, I think is going to be huge for people. Okay, give me a few more things. And I don't need. You don't have to give me your whole method, but give me a few more things. This is really helpful.

Okay, good, good, good. Well, I want to talk a little bit about gratitudes and acknowledgements just so we can do some basics. But I want to. I want people to get the power from gratitude. So, you know, we all know, like, count your blessings, be grateful. And those are all nice and wonderful. But if you think about it, how I use gratitude is I actually want you to use gratitudes to reframe from fear to freedom. I want you to use that most effectively. So I have gratitudes. It's called how I ask you to do it. Is today I'm grateful for. And this is the power of the gratitudes. I want you to be very specific and I want you to frame it in the positive. So it's not, today I'm grateful for having my health. Okay, that's nice. Again, not a bad thing to be grateful for. Okay, but you're not really getting a visceral experience. You know, how we change our life is having a visceral, a cellular experience. You know, you can't solve the problem as we know at the same level that it has, like, the same level of the problem. So the only way to truly change ourselves is to actually have a visceral experience. So it goes to our head, our heart, our body, and our spirit. And visceral is the answer to that. So again, today I'm grateful for my health. That's awesome. But do you feel turned on? Do you feel passionate? Do you feel like every cell in your body is vibrating? Not so much. So instead you say, today I'm grateful for the privilege of being able to take a deep breath and being able to feel my lungs expand and to be one with the world again, whatever yours is. But just like, tell yourself, say that again.

I want to make sure I'm capturing this. I'm like, I want to understand. Okay, so instead of saying, I'm health, I'm grateful for my health.

That's a general thing. And again, Not a bad thing to say, but it doesn't have the power of being specific. But when you are specific and you frame it in the positive, you literally feel it in every cell of your being. That's a visceral experience. And how I transform my clients and students is having them have visceral experiences so they literally create a cellular memory of something new. Right? We want a cellular memory. We want to imprint ourselves with something new so we don't keep on looking in the past for that same way of doing things. So today I'm grateful for instead of health, which again, is nice in general, instead, it's like, today I'm grateful for that I can take a deep breath and feel it all the way to my bottom, my lungs, and feel my shoulders release and just feel the air and the breath through my body and know that my heart is alive and I'm well again. Whatever is true for you. Right. So today I'm grateful for knowing that my eyes work so I can see my beautiful child playing in the backyard free and clear. Right. Like for going into the grocery store and seeing a young person help an elder, Elder person deliver their groceries. Right. Like. Like, be specific. The more specific, the more your body goes, yes, yes. Right. And then it creates. It implants a memory.

It's giving me a thought about. So I was walking yesterday with my husband at the lake. We're very fortunate to live in an area where we have a lake. We were social distancing from everyone, but we were walking at the lake and everyone we ran into, six feet apart, nobody said, isn't this amazing? We live in this beautiful place. Isn't this incredible that we get this lake view? Every single person we ran into, it was like, about the virus. It was like. It was like fierce. And gosh, as you're saying this, I'm like, how amazing would that have been? And if that's the approach that we had taken, and then that was contagious. Like, if it was like, wow, what a beautiful day. Isn't it incredible to be feeling the sunshine right now or being looking at this lake and feeling it like just that little tweak would make a big difference.

Absolutely. And so yesterday when I took my walk, and I'll do it again today, every single person I meet. So I have just a personal philosophy that I say hi to every single person I ever, ever run into.

Okay.

I love that because I do believe that this casual connections, these moments of high to a complete stranger actually fills us up a little bit. It makes us feel Less lonely, Right. So what I do at this walk right now, yesterday, every single person I ran into, I said, stay safe, stay healthy, stay safe, stay healthy. I'm thinking of you, right? Like, stay safe, stay healthy. So I'm literally affirming for them, stay safe, stay healthy. So we don't want to. We want to have those moment by moment, impersonal kind of stranger connection because it fills us up. So people that. When they say to me, natalie, oh, I don't like small talk, I go, oh, you're missing it. Small talk is actually how we fill part of ourselves up. Yeah.

I'm not. I'm one of those people that would have said that. So you got me thinking.

Yeah. Yeah. So. So just FYI, these stranger connections are actually, again, making us feel less lonely, more connected to the world. And that's what we need right now. We need casual stranger, you know, connections. Yeah, we're seeing. You know.

You know, you also have me thinking about how everyone's saying, stuck at home, but really it's safe at home. Like, we're like, how blessed are we to be able to be at home? There's people safe, you know, fighting for their life at the hospital right now.

Yeah. I mean, I think to myself, like, wow, I. My home is clean, right? The coronavirus doesn't live here. I just got back from Australia two weeks ago, so I've been quarantined for 14 days because I was coming in from out of the country. I didn't know if I'd been infected. Well, Yesterday was day 14, so I know shoe, right? I don't have coronavirus. And now my quest is like, I've got to keep healthy. So, you know, I do all the things, like I am conscious and care instead of conscious complaining like, I've got to wipe down my groceries. It's then, so it's like, oh, my God, I get to wipe down my groceries, right? I get groceries because there are people right now that do not have food and do not have the money for food. And again, it's not about comparing and be like, those poor people, but it's about you going, oh, my gosh, the fact that I am fortunate, the fact that I have. I mean, I think about my, you know, myself being 14 years old or if this would have happened when I was 14 or 18 or, you know, I am sure I would be dead right now. Right? So just being awake and again, doing that specific gratitude. Not general, but really specific. So you literally feel it. It's like it changes your being. It Changes your energy. Right. Today I'm grateful for my health again. Nice. But today I'm grateful for the deep breath that I can take and that I can walk around my house and touch the doorknob. Touch. Right. I can touch everything. And I know I'm safe. Right.

Yeah.

I just.

I'm noticing, too, how refreshing it is talking to you right now. So, like, and I want. I hope people are picking up on this. Like, hearing somebody talk about the gratitude and have this energy, it just feels light and happy and fun again. And that's been missing a lot because people are really focused on the doomsday.

Well, they're scared, you know, and again, it's natural to feel scared right now. It's. It's human to be scared. So on one hand, we have this thing called human reality that it's like, well, yeah, it's a scary world right now, but then we have our own personal power. We have our own choice, right? And so we want to put our personal choice and our empowerment and make. Totally decide how we want to move through this over human reality and make new choices. So, like, right now, this is the time to kind of, like I said, sweep fear, like, see those cracks and go, oh, no, I'm fixing this now because not only do I want to thrive through this crisis, through this global pandemic, but when it gets better, I want to have a high. Bounce back. Like, I want to bounce high, right? Like, I want to. I want to be at the forefront of change. I want to be at the forefront of, you know, making a difference. I want to be at the forefront. And if I don't do it now, there's no forefront. There's no. There's no Right. No rebound later. Right?

Gosh, Rhonda, this is so good. Okay, give us one more, and then I won't.

I'll. Okay, I'm going to give you one called acknowledgement. So remember, gratitudes are all about someone or something out there. Acknowledgments in the world of fearless living are all about you.

Okay?

So we have to start building our confidence back. So just like the control, and no control takes our power back. Acknowledgments give us our confidence back. And so what are acknowledgements? Acknowledgments are similar to gratitude. Today I acknowledge myself for, you know, today I'm grateful for. Is about someone else out. Be specific. Be positive. Today I acknowledge myself for Be specific and positive. Right? So say something for you. Now I have an exercise called stretch Risk or die that I'D be happy to give to your listeners so that they have all the worksheets. Yeah. So today I acknowledge myself for. So what could you acknowledge yourself for? Right. What can you. Oh, today I acknowledge myself again, go back to that control list and. No control list. Like, today I acknowledge myself for getting into bed and reading a book that brings me, you know, happiness rather than watching tv. Right. Like I put. Today I acknowledge myself for putting the TV away and reading a book, you know, reading my favorite book. Today I acknowledge myself for ordering something online, you know, ordering a delivery service and tipping a little extra, even though maybe I'm feeling anxious. Right. Like I'm going to tip a little extra so that I feel that abundance mentality, regardless of, you know, the scarcity that I'm fighting. Right. So today. So today what I did is. Or yesterday I did it, I put a basket out on my front doorstep and have food in there, water in there, soda in there, hand sanitizer, by the way, I have hand sanitizer. I've got gloves and I put it in there. So any delivery I have or anybody that walks by my house can take whatever they need.

I love that.

I just want. I don't want anyone to starve right now. And I know there's people starving now, they may not be walking by my house, but I can impact change in my neighborhood. Right? Beautiful. But today I acknowledge myself for what have I done to shift my mindset, to take back my power, to own my life better, to make a difference in my own home, in my own mind, in my own heart and in my neighborhood?

This is so powerful. And you know, what I love about these things is they are so simple. But the way that you are explaining them, everyone can do these and everyone can shift doing them. I mean, these are not complicated things. These are like. And they all make logical sense. And I mean, I just feel better even just talking to you about them. It's changed my energy right now. It's really helpful.

Yeah. So that's what, you know, so that's the thing that I, When I was going through my pain and suffering for 20 years and having nightmares every night that my father was chasing me, you know, I would read a book and it would say, love yourself. And I'd be like, well, if you don't love yourself, how do you actually do that? Right.

Yeah.

Like, if you don't know how to leave panic behind, how do you actually leave panic behind? So, you know, again, false evidence appearing real. That's nice. But that did not help me Feel the fear and do it anyway. It did not help me. I needed practical step by step. Well, how do you love yourself if you don't know how to love yourself? Don't tell me to love myself. That's not helpful. Don't tell me how to get through this panic. Actually show me how to get through this panic. And that's what I'm devoted to. I'm devoted to. I get it. You know the right things. As we started this conversation, Natalie, you know the right things to do, but if you don't do them, there's a reason for that.

Totally.

How really to do it. And you don't know how to move from fear to freedom. So that's what I specialize in, the small, tiny steps. And if you do these acknowledgments, gratitude, the way that I'm sharing, Natalie, you will literally start seeing a different world.

I'm going to do all of them. I love it. Rhonda, where can people find more? Because I know they're interested. Like, where do you want them to start? Where should I know? You've got books, you've got. Where do people go?

Yeah. So a couple things. One is for sure, go over to my Facebook page, Rhonda Britton. I'm doing a Facebook Live every single day. So it's R H O n D A B R I T T E N. Rhonda Britton. Facebook page. Great. I'm doing a Facebook live every day. And in there you're going to see that I have a special group for right now. It's called Fearless U. It's a Facebook group.

What is it called? Fearless what?

Fearless U. Y O U. It's a Facebook group. But again, just go over to Fearless Living Facebook page, Rhonda Britton and you'll. You'll see everything there. And then of course, I'd love to give all the templates and worksheets and that they can find at fearlessliving.org fearlessliving.org risk R I S K fearlessliving.org risk and in there is a stretchers can die exercise that we haven't had time to go over, but it gives you an exercise and helps you understand why you get frozen, why you get stopped when you have your to do list and your control list and why you don't do it. So I break it down and then more importantly, I give you templates and worksheets so you can start moving through.

I'm downloading that stat and I highly suggest everybody else does that too. Thank you. So much. Rhonda. This was incredible.

Thank you Natalie. What a joy it has been. Thank you so much for supporting your tribe. Thank you so much for making a difference in the world. I'm so grateful for you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for leveling up with us today. Please share this episode if you found it helpful so others can join in. And don't forget to hit that subscribe so you don't miss out on future shows. And if you would leave me a five star review. I appreciate those so much. I read all of them and it's how I know that I'm giving you information that you find valuable and come interact with me over on Instagram at Natalie Jill Fit. I read all the direct messages and comments over there. Make it a great day. Creating everything from nothing.