S4E11: Tending to Your Mental Health with Jamie Zuckerman

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Sy Wakeman. Welcome to another episode of the No Ego Podcast. As you know, this season I am bringing you all of the people I rely on to stay content and balanced and Feeling all my feelings, but not trusting all my feelings in today's world. And my next guest, I haven't met in person. I just started following her on Instagram. Loving, loving, loving everything she put out there. And I'm so excited to bring her to all of you. A little bit of an intro, as I'm working with so many of you this year. I am finding that some of us didn't get taught in school, or we missed a chapter on the human existence and living with your own mind and understanding how your mind works. I hear people tell me they're totally burnt out, as if that's like a predetermined condition from a set of circumstances. And I instead ask— invite them to look at the state of their own boundaries. I hear people talking about exhaustion and anxiety and I've worked with so many high-functioning codependents. It all is coming back to our own brain health, our own mental health. And that's why I more than ever have been following some of the incredible people out there talking about mental health. So my next guest, or my current guest, is Dr. Jamie Zuckerman. And she's a licensed clinical psychologist, private practice outside Philadelphia, works a lot with anxiety and toxic relationships. And, but my favorite part is she's really into CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as acceptance and commitment therapy. You've heard me talk about those. And so without— she's uber qualified and amazing, but I wanna get her on. Jamie, welcome.

Hi, thank you so much for having me.

It has been the IG kind of a joint Admirations for so long, and I have so many things to pick your brain about. First of all, like, what's your kind of go-to overview of what you've seen in the past year and a half? Has this exacerbated or just revealed the state of our mental health overall?

So I saw 2 things, one that surprised me and one that I anticipated would happen. One of the things that surprised me was my patients that had anxiety going into the pandemic. So generalized anxiety, social anxiety, panic disorder, they actually— and PTSD, they actually had less anxiety during the pandemic. I'm making a very generalized statement, but majority of them had less anxiety. And I had spoken to colleagues and they had noticed the same thing. during the pandemic because there was a mandated avoidance of people, of work, of responsibilities that we always had on us. And now we had this real reason not to. And a lot of the issues that had come up before in the past now were things that people didn't have to deal with. So their anxiety finally had a place to kind of fall on, whereas before it was these illogical, irrational thinking. and, you know, kind of these uncomfortable emotions that didn't really have anywhere to go.

That is so interesting.

Yeah. When we were in lockdown and then when we were out of lockdown, but now there was all these restrictions, they were doing much better. The people that did not have anxiety going into the pandemic, they were the patients that I was getting most frequently that had things like anxiety and depression and things that they had never experienced before, or at least didn't allow themselves to experience before. And now that their routine had been flipped on its head and they didn't have structure, things just came kind of whooshing in. And so they had a lot of anxiety and depression because They really didn't know what to do with themselves. And all the strategies they had used, the maladaptive strategies, the healthy strategies, were no longer available to them.

That's so interesting. As the lockdown first happened, of course, I'm an introvert too. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I love this. I could actually get— I wrote a whole book. I could get creative work done. But I said to my son, I'm like, gosh, I wake up just kind of free-floating, anxious, like feeling feeling unsettled at times. And he won't mind me saying this, he's had anxiety, um, for a long time. He's like, welcome to my world on a daily basis. So I got more compassionate. But do you think it also is those that have worked with their anxiety, had some coping tools, and the rest of us just covered it with busyness? I know we're making sweeping generalizations, but I think people really discovered what was underneath their busyness.

I do. I do very much so. The people that are very high achieving, that are constantly either moving, going, thinking, doing, we're forced to slow down.

Yeah.

And when people who are very high functioning anxiety, high functioning depression, when they slow down, that's when things can get really bad for them because they've been avoiding it for so long. So yes, I 100% agree with you. I think that These things started coming to the surface. And because many of them have never been in treatment, they had no strategies. None.

Yeah.

So I definitely, yeah, I definitely saw that.

And I don't want to be without empathy or compassion, but for many times when people were struggling with experiencing this for the first time, there was a small part of me that was happy for them in that I'm like, welcome to the human race. So you'll have a lot of compassion for other humans. But also what I I've learned in my own work, on my own mental health and my own challenges, have been such good life skills. I'm kind of glad I crashed in my 20s because I had so many life skills to, you know, move forward throughout my 30s and 40s with. Um, so there's some goodness in that. But when it comes to anxiety, you know, a lot of people want to fix it. They want to like— Mm-hmm. And, and you teach a bit of a different strategy. It's not about like Getting rid of it or fixing it.

Correct. So, you know, one of the things that you said that really resonated with me is that, you know, you were glad that you crashed in your 20s so that you had these skills to manage things in your 30s and your 40s. And, you know, we had mentioned this before we came on, that, that it's such a shame that it takes somebody crashing to develop these life skills. These life skills should be Part of our education system from from very early on, there is really no reason why it could not be and why it shouldn't be. It it's it's it's it's I think it's this the stigma of mental health. It's just so pervasive. You don't realize where it where it lives, and this is this is one of those areas. This kind of just. Ignoring it altogether until somebody crashes.

It is. It is. And I, when I was working as a counselor and all day long I taught people how their mind works and how, you know, the world works so they would quit getting played by their ego and they'd quit arguing with reality. And, and I thought, oh, I'll become a leader and people already know this stuff. And to your point, they don't. So if we don't teach it in school, my fantasy is that we should teach it in the onboarding process um, at work, you know, in, in wellbeing, because I just— there's such basic things. The pandemic has really revealed to us so much. And one of that is like, what is your relationship, not just with your own mental health, but like brain health? Yeah. Getting the mental health out of it. Like if somebody had asthma, we wouldn't have any shame about them treating their lungs. But when our brain's misfiring, you know, or has a health issue, it's like something is wrong with that. So yeah.

And I think one of the reasons why, well, there's 2 things. I think people don't understand the neurochemistry that's involved with anxiety and depression. And sometimes I take that approach with people who have a difficult time identifying emotions and, you know, and kind of sitting with that. The other aspect of it is, you know, in our society, we are taught to Take a pill and fix it. Make it better. Get over it. Get past it. Don't feel it. Don't this. Don't that. And that's not how you treat anxiety and depression. In fact, that that makes it worse. This ongoing avoidance of our internal discomfort is what sets us up for for failure because then we engage in behaviors that try to push it away. And you know, we we can't. Push it away. We can learn to sit with it so that it's not as scary and so that we see that we're capable of still performing at a high level and simultaneously feeling anxious, because then that anxiety will start to subside. But this constant avoidance that we've been taught really sets us up. And this is why when patients come into my office and, you know, I always ask them what their goal is, I'd say 90% of them say to be happy. And then I have to go into why happiness should not be a goal. You can't have a goal that's a mood state. It's fluid. You need to have, you know, measurable, objective things that you can check off. Yes, I did this. No, I did not. And then the more of those non-anxious, non-depressed behaviors you have, the more likely you're going to feel happy more often. But people's goals are People's goals are wrong.

Yeah, they are.

That's one of the bigger problems.

Which is so insightful on your part. You know, my book coming out is called Life's Messy, Live Happy. But the living happy part is that you will live in contentment if you are deploying, you know, habits and some dedications, one of which is the ability to have many things be true at once. Like, a bad day doesn't make a bad life.

Correct.

You know, um, the ability to experience joy while grieving. And, and we're just so unpracticed, um, at that. And, and

I love that— unpracticed.

We're unpracticed. And

that's great.

And I myself had to relearn how to feel feelings but not trust them. Like, I have a great, um, person in my life, and I would go to her and I'm like, I just can't figure my way out of this. And she goes, perfect, you're at the point where you should just sit and grieve. Correct.

Exactly.

And she's like, go cry for an hour, call me back. And I'm like, dang it. But the ability— even Eckhart Tolle talks about getting into the present moment by breathing, and just feelings have a right to live. And we're really unpracticed at feeling those feelings, which is the odd thing for depression and anxiety, where it's like, you know, self-compassion, make friends with that, acknowledge that's just— some days are like that, and that you can do brave things anyway. And Um, yeah, I think I love your approach up to that. Any concrete kind of suggestions for people that notice, you know, they're feeling somewhat down or, or anxious? Rather than— I think what happens is we make it like a medical affliction, which we treat it with a pharmaceutical, when it's just part of human existence. Like, there's all—

Exactly. It's a human condition.

Yeah, the human condition, no matter how Well, seemingly we're all doing— every one of us is going to have a sense of loneliness somewhere in there just by, you know, feeling separate from life. Like, and I think we don't normalize that enough.

I could not agree more. Uh, we are not willing to sit with our discomfort. You know, first we have to become aware of it, then we have to be willing to approach it rather than constantly try to to avoid it. And I think one of the concrete strategies that I like to give people, and there's various versions of this, but would be to, when they start to have anxiety or just anxious thoughts or feelings or anything that's uncomfortable for them, is to objectify it, which means notice it, acknowledge that it's there, and then engage in some sort of decentering strategy to be able to look at it rather than it being kind of all mushed in with you and there's no separation. So it's not like you're getting rid of it. It's still right there, but the way you're carrying it has shifted. So I have a ton of examples on this on my Instagram, but just to give a quick one now, a metaphor that I like to use Is if you think of a chessboard and the pieces on the board, the pieces on the board are all your emotions and your thoughts that you're having, and they're just sliding all over the place and they're constantly moving, battling each other. But you're the board. And so you're the kind of stable force. You're the consistency throughout all of it. You are not the pieces. You're separate from the pieces, even though the pieces keep moving around. They're kind of outside of you, and you stay consistent. So it helps people to take those uncomfortable thoughts and feelings they don't want to have and allow themselves to just experience them by looking at them, rather than pushing them away or judging them or, or, you know, trying to debate them back and forth. Which is why I don't like doing the pros and cons of things, because all that does— Yeah. is keep a person in their head back and forth like a ping pong match. And at the end of the day, that yeah, but is going to always come back up.

It does. And people try and make a decision like, should I stay? Should I go? And it's externally focused and it's situational because then you have a good weekend and it's like, stay. It's like a better question is, are you fulfilled and what's your soulmate and how can you— I love that technique of finding perspective. And, um, you know, I talk to people a lot about stop believing your own thinking. You're the observer. Um, you know, just pay attention to what thoughts are going by, and then you get this cool thing where you can question them and, you know, find that that's not always true. It's sometimes true. Mm-hmm. And, you know, just adding those layers of perspective, I think, is, is really important. And again, I— we won't have time to go into all these, but I mean, Google like CBT and DBT. There's hundreds of great exercises that will come up for any of you to just be better users of your own mind and your own ability. But I love that to know that you're not the chess pieces, you're the board and the pieces are always moving. And some will resort in wins for the white, and some will result in wins for the Black pieces. Yeah. And, you know, there's always a new game to be started. So, you know, as one of the issues I think that happens for people not being very good at just experiencing their own kind of current state is we as friends and colleagues aren't very good at holding space for others, you know, to just be with others rather than fixing others or being like, Some cliché positive quote or— Oh,

we know. I love them.

Exactly. It's like, for me, I teach a lot of leaders how to hold space, not for venting, but for people having genuine experiences, but not having to fix it. And in order to do that, we have to really manage our own discomfort.

Yes.

And so I know you talk a lot. I laughed out loud on some of your stuff on positive Toxic positivity, because when I teach, a lot of people are like, "Oh, it's just positive thinking." I'm like, "Not at all." Right. It is actually realizing what you thought happened never did. That's a whole different piece of questioning your thinking. But talk towards that: how when I am suffering, people are you know say the dumbest things to me.

So I think it's a couple things. I think one, it's uncomfortable for people to see someone else uncomfortable. So when they try to fix it. It's not really the primary goal. Not that they don't want to help you, they do, but it's really about they need to get rid of their own discomfort.

It's not about you at that point. They're not helping. It's self-serving.

That's right. And it's not because they're horrible, terrible, selfish people. It's just, it's kind of, we've been taught this for so long to not be uncomfortable. So that's what we go with. And so it makes us feel better. The other two is that oftentimes people feel helpless. They don't know what to do. They don't know how to do it because again, we've never been taught this properly. So they'll say things like, you know, if somebody's having a bad day, well, you know, at least you have your health or, you know, at least you have two kids at home that are healthy. Um, you know, think positive, you know, just send positive thoughts out to the universe. Don't, you know, don't think bad things. You have so much going for you. And while all of that may be true at some point, the problem with that is it's invalidating to the very real emotions that they are having.

Yeah.

And

almost shaming, almost shaming. Shame on you. You don't appreciate your kids enough. I don't have any kids. Like, yeah.

Correct. Correct. That's exactly right. And, you know, it becomes— what happens is it just enables and facilitates that stigma even more, that how they're feeling right now isn't okay because it's not happy, or it isn't okay because it's not excitement, you know? So it makes the person feel like they shouldn't feel this way, and that couldn't be further from the truth. There's a difference between feeling an emotion, allowing yourself to feel an emotion, and then ruminating with it. The rumination comes because there's nowhere to put the very normal emotions, because people, like you said, don't know how to hold space for that.

Yeah, it's what I'm teaching a lot of leaders. And quite frankly, you had such great ideas, but just the acknowledging, like, gosh, that's tough. I, I see you really struggling with that. And if you do want to be positive, the positivity is, I have so much confidence in you.

Yes.

And your ability to do hard things. You're amazing. I mean, I think people don't understand it, but if you want to add anything positive, the positivity is, you know, to express to that person that you believe in them, that they're, you know, going through a tough time and you see and hear them, but, you know, things are— there are some bigger things. Pauline Boss too, I loved her technique. And then she wrote about ambiguous grief, and she said before you like say anything positive, go further. Ask like, what meaning does that have for you? Like, I watch people, they're like, yeah, I'm going through a divorce. And like, well, you know, that's awesome, you have your freedom. I'm like, before you assume that was a positive thing, like, ask more. But what techniques do you recommend? I've used a lot of yours.

I think when you're in these situations, I think the best thing to do is first and foremost, and, you know, and you wouldn't know this too, that social support is one of the biggest predictors of emotional well-being. And so in those situations, one of the best things to do is just simply let somebody know you're there. Mm-hmm. Whether they choose to take you up on that, you know, is kind of irrelevant for the beginning of it. Just to let them know you're there. I'm here. I always like to say, you don't need to return my text. You don't need to return my call. Just know I'm here. Because then it takes the pressure off of the person of having to get in touch with them, because you don't want to add anything to their plate that isn't moving in the direction that they need to go, which is kind of, you know, getting themselves functional again. So just letting somebody know that you're there for them. Identifying, just like you said, that what they're going through must be so difficult for them and so challenging for them, because that validates how they feel. It doesn't put the shame on them. It doesn't put the guilt on them, and it doesn't give them this kind of irrational mood goal that that they'll never achieve if they just go after this blanket statement of happiness. But things like Um, you know, going out of the house to get the mail. I mean, that, that could be a huge deal for somebody. Yeah. So it's more about letting them know you're there, not putting any more pressure on them to get in touch with you, not making them feel like they have to talk about it or they have to stay in touch with you, um, and validating their feelings. You know, you don't always have to have an answer, and sometimes it's best not to, because if you always have an answer for how they're feeling, it comes off as not genuine. Sometimes it's, it's, it's totally acceptable and appropriate and helpful to just say, I, I can't, I can't imagine how that feels.

Yeah. And resist the urge to go, I went through that 10 years ago. And, you know, um, and I think that's so, so important. And to do that, You have to have done that for your own self a lot. I think you learn that by doing it for yourself. Like, just the other day, I just had one of those days and I'm like, why am I teary-eyed? Why am I this? You know, like, I should go for a walk. I should. And then I just was like, or I could just be sad today and not know why. Um, but I think if you can do it for yourself, then you can do it for other people as well. And with discernment, after you hold space, if you're a leader out there, there is a time to say, you know, this has been going on for a while. You know, have you been able to come up with a plan on how you could, you know, meet this goal in the midst of what's happening in your life? Like, you can— you know, I always say love people up first and then call them up. Right. And as leaders, sometimes we do have to call people up and say, is this a time, you know, that I can help you connect with some services, or I can, you know, arrange for, you know, some leave time, or how can I help? And I think a lot of times that's the best solution for me, is I'll just say, if I could do one thing right now that, um, would, would prove to you my support of you, what would that be? And I'm often surprised. Like, one person who had lost a son was like, my kitchen's a mess, will you come do my dishes? Mm-hmm. And I was so honored she asked that. I didn't even see her. She was in her room. I said, leave the front door open. I'm stopping by. I scrubbed her whole kitchen, left her a love note, and left. And she told me a year later that was like the kindest, you know, um, thing she experienced.

Yes.

So not that I'm so great, like I've been taught that by like people of you. So resist the urge to just be over, um, positive. You know what I think is happening for us high-functioning codependents is I've often said that I want the first 4 weeks of onboarding from any company to be a codependency treatment. like the olden days where we'd bring people in for like 30 days and they would write, you know, I enabled by my, and I interfered in the life of, and good old-fashioned community groups. But I think the pandemic, for a lot of us that were high-functioning codependents and we barely had it all together, I think between all of the exacerbated, amplified discussions on like racial inequities and the pandemic. And I think we met our match as high-functioning codependents, and we just couldn't keep that much control in the world. But are you seeing a lot of leaders that are like rewarded for just being codependent?

I think I kind of agree with you that I— the high-functioning— because I see a lot of high-functioning professionals and And I actually think that the— exactly what you said, the pandemic kind of just— I like how you said that we're kind of barely holding it together, but present as they are. The pandemic kind of pulled that last straw.

Yeah, I think it did.

I really think that it was a turning point in that there was so little control that we had over so many Factors that the normal strategies that a high-functioning codependent person would use were no longer applicable.

That's a great way to put it. That's a great way to put it. You know, for me, um, in the beginning of the pandemic, I had a lot of New York physicians and nurses that got hit first in our country, and theirs was true, like, I've never seen this before, this is really scary. And then After that were just a lot of people who just— the illusion of control had fallen away in their lives. Um, and, you know, I was kind of glad about the falling apart of— for some people.

Mm-hmm.

Other people who just were working hard on basic survival in so many ways, you know, got knocked completely out of the race, um, that need our care. But, um, Yeah, it's so, so, um, interesting.

And

I know you talk a lot too about, um, the, the ways that some of us are high functioning in one part of our lives and then, um, really have ways that, you know, we tolerate or put up with either toxic relationships in our family of origins or in our partnerships. And, um, that was another thing. A lot of women that I talked to who I think escaped a little bit through work, um, that they had settled a little bit at home, were now forced to be working from home and, um, really came eye to eye with their reality rather than their fantasy. Um, divorce rates, I think, increased by like 10% during the pandemic. Um, and I know the people I, um, am with, like, I think that the ability to achieve at work, especially for women was an outlet for them to not insist on some of the same standards in their personal relationships. Is that a trend you saw anecdotally, at least?

Yeah, anecdotally for sure. So I, when this first happened, one of the things I said was, you know, people were saying, oh, there's gonna be COVID babies and, you know, all this stuff. And I said, no, this is not a snow day.

Yeah.

This is not like a welcomed, um, you know, spring break. This is different. This is, this is not a welcomed break and there's not gonna be COVID babies. There's gonna be COVID divorces. It's exactly what I said. And I, I have seen couple people that I've seen for a while that have relationship difficulties. They absolutely 100% came to the surface. Especially with high-functioning women, because they used that identity as a way to not deal with what's going on at home. They were busy. They were in their office. They were always doing work. They were always on calls. And while it wasn't that they were doing more than they needed to, that it's more of that they are in positions where that is what they have to do. Mm-hmm. So they can't not do it. But at the same time, when this— when their identity now was kind of off-kilter because they didn't have the same responsibilities during COVID let's say, because people weren't working or things weren't moving like they were, not only did they now have to be home in difficult relationships, but they also didn't know who they were when they are not doing things. They, you know, we— again, it's not one day, it's not a snow day. This was a year. So I, I— yeah, I absolutely, um, I absolutely saw that without question.

It's interesting. And I know we need to wrap up. I think, you know, one of the things, and it's part of what many people talk about in codependency, is where we are really good at seeing potential rather than reality. And I think we all got lots of doses of reality. So, um, I know that we need to stop this particular time together, but I'm so looking forward to more discussions. I wanted to introduce you to my audience because you simply have to get out there and follow her. So on Instagram, it's Dr.Z_Psychologist. You'll find her out there. It's Jamie Zuckerman. And, um, you have a great podcast that you just started. I'm loving it. How can people find your podcast and find you?

Sure. So the podcast, there's a, there's a link on my Instagram, my website. Also, there's a link on the front page, drjamiezuckerman.com. And the podcast is It's Me, Dr. Z with JB. And it's kind of an interesting take on, on, you know, kind of the standard psychologist podcast because it's kind of my view on very common everyday issues that men and women go through. And then JB is somebody that has experienced anxiety, depression throughout his life. So we kind of give both perspectives and bring things to light that, you know, maybe wouldn't come up if it was just a psychologist speaking or just somebody who had gone through this. So it's interesting, it's fun, it's sarcastic, it's funny. Um, I— yeah, you can download it on any— anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Perfect. And I am loving it. And I know that my listeners who— what they love about me is I'm able to take some of the theoretical and help them practical. And I share a lot of my own stuff. You guys are gonna love it. So I so appreciate you coming on. And I hope that people tune in and I always end with some self-reflection. So, you know, listeners, what I want for your self-reflection is just take a quick minute and find out where you're a poser right now, where you are pretending to be fine, and identify where you're not fine and do something courageous like feel the feelings or actually share with another human being. Or see what some of the painful patterns have been in your life. If things are happening more than once, The common denominator is you, and it is a great approach to engage in some therapy or therapy-like activities. So your self-reflection is to get honest about where you're pretending. And, and I will let it go at that. We will put the links as we go out with this podcast. And I really hope people become as much of a raving fan of your work as I am. And to be continued.

Thank you so much for having me.

You are so welcome. This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Sy Wakeman.