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when you block emotion out, what you can end up doing is blocking them all out.
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So, I'll often have people who get to therapy after years of doing that, and and they feel numb.
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And they not only have they managed to block out all these negative emotions, so life is less painful in that way, it's almost become more painful because they've also blocked out their ability to feel joy or pleasure or love.
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And they start to question, "Gosh, do I love my partner?"
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Everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
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Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn, and grow.
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Now, today's guest is someone that I've been following on social media for nearly the past couple of years now, and I have loved her content.
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The way she presents ideas that are hard to understand in simple ways through incredible props and demonstrations.
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I'm blown away by her ability to communicate difficult ideas with ease, simplicity, and practicality.
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I'm talking about the one and only Dr.
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Julie Smith, who's a clinical psychologist with over a decade of professional experience, having previously worked in the NHS with veterans and the MOD in addiction and crisis centers, and now in private practice.
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She's also an online educator and social media star, sharing bite-size mental health and motivational videos online with a combined following of more than 3 and 1/2 million.
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In November 2019, Julie launched her TikTok account to make her services and education about mental health more accessible.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr.
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Julie's audience on TikTok grew astronomically as young people related to the videos she was making about mental health and her advice to use.
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Now, I am so excited because in In of me I have her first amazing book that's out called Why has nobody told me this before?
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Everyday tools for life's ups and downs.
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I want you to go out and grab a copy.
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It's already a number one Sunday Times bestseller, a bestselling book.
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Please, please, please go out and grab a copy of this. Dr.
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Julie Smith, welcome to the show.
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Thank you for being here.
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Oh, thank you for having me. It's absolute pleasure.
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I've been really looking forward to it. I know.
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We've been trying to make this happen for some time. Let's dive straight in.
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I want to understand what you saw as the greatest challenge of people that you were working with.
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When you looked at the root challenges of patients you worked with, clients you worked with, people you saw, people you spoke to, what are some of the biggest challenges that you think people are dealing with right now?
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When you look at the root, not the symptoms, not the not the leaves, but the root of the problem, the root of the tree.
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You know, the that root of the problem can be different for everybody, but certainly what motivated me to begin all of this kind of stuff and step out of the therapy room a little bit, um, was this sort of common theme of people coming along to therapy and and expecting me to do something to them.
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So, that So, therapy was some sort of treatment that would be done to them because they felt at the mercy of how they felt.
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And and a lot of people didn't have the education uh, about how their own mind works and how their own body works to to feel empowered by, um, the idea that you can influence how you feel.
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That you don't have to be completely at the mercy of it.
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There are things you can do to help yourself.
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And and often once people had that information, that was a real game changer because suddenly hang on a minute, there are some tools I can learn that could help.
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And and it doesn't have to be rocket science.
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It doesn't have to all be out of my hands.
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It's not something the doctor's going to do to me.
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It's not this kind of spooky, you know, sort of magical thing that I can't do myself.
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Um so, I think that really sort of fired me up that there was a lot of information and education that is often um provided in within certain therapies anyway, um that just is life-changing for people because it enables them to to take their health into their own hands a bit more and not feel that that they're at the mercy of it. Yeah, absolutely. I love that.
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I mean, that was such a great piece of insight because I think we all secretly hope that there's going to be someone out there who comes and solves all our problems, right?
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Whether it's a therapist or whether it's a partner or whether it's a friend or whether it's a mentor or a coach or whoever it may be, I think we all secretly hope that there's someone out there who's just going to magically turn up and be our fairy godmother and sprinkle their magic dust and all of a sudden our life's going to look different.
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And what you're kind of saying, which is the inconvenient painful truth, is that well, actually or actually it's a fortunate thing, it's a beautiful thing, is that actually it's all within your own control.
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You have the ability to make choices and habits and practices that can define that.
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Why do you think it is that we are looking to outsource our well-being or outsource our journey?
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Why is it that we're trying to say, "Fix me" or "Solve me"?
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Where does that come from?
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me"? Where does that come from? I think it comes from sometimes not knowing, not knowing that there are things you can do um that that help and and that I think there's a sort of culture around um needing to to to buy something to that is going to to fit, you know, it's
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good marketing, I think, you know, that lots of companies are based on making you feel like there's something wrong with you and they can fix it if you buy this product off them and and but also mixed in with the fact that there isn't enough education around uh how your mind works and how you can manage your own health. We get a little
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We get a little bit of that around physical health, but nothing really in terms of mental health.
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And I kind of felt like, you know, all these people once they were having the some of these little bits of education that were really making this difference day to day, I was kind of thinking, "Why why do people have to pay to come and see someone like me to find that out?"
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Because, you know, that's not obviously some people come for a full therapy, which, you know, is brilliant and helps lots of people.
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But there were a lot of people that were coming along and once they had the education, they were ready to go. They That was enough.
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And and so I I kind of wanted to make that more available. Absolutely.
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So, for those of you who don't have the book in front of you yet, I know you will after this podcast, uh Dr.
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Julie's talks about everything from moods to motivation to emotional pain to grief to self-doubt to fear to stress to meaning.
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Uh all beautiful themes and topics and we're going to dive into a few of my favorites uh from when I received her book over the holidays, I really wanted to talk about mood and I want to dive in with you now.
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I think mood and a low mood have become such common experiences now and the idea that we have certain days where we feel good and there are certain days where we just feel bad and unmotivated and we don't want to get out of bed and we don't feel like doing anything.
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How do we How should we be be approaching those days or those weeks that start to feel like we're stuck, we're not moving, nothing's happening in our life?
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How should we approach that feeling and emotion?
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Well, I think it starts with understanding that it's a normal part of being human being.
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Um and I think that's often something that holds us all back is, you know, there's this sort of um I don't know if it was something that's been sort of pushed by, you know, social media or anything like that, but it's definitely online is this idea that um that somehow our default is one of happiness and contentment and anything outside of that means you're getting something wrong.
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Uh which is just absolute rubbish, you know, that um human beings are built to fluctuate and and emotions come and go.
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The the pleasant ones come and go and the unpleasant ones come and go as a part of that experience and that's a normal.
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And you know, if you if you wake up and and your mood isn't as you want it to be, uh that can be caused by so many different things, you know, you might have not slept well, you might be dehydrated, you might um be dealing with something normal like grief or it could be anything.
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Um but if you wake up in that mood and then respond to that mood by telling yourself that you're failing at life because you're not as happy as everybody else or you know, look at that woman down the road who's always energetic and always enthusiastic and she must never
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get a terrible mood like this and what am I getting wrong and and we get into that narrative that that pulls us further down that spiral rather than allowing us to kind of acknowledge this feeling is here, allow it to be present and allow yourself to also then question what what could be causing this. So, So, what are my needs?
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Are there any needs that are unmet and can I meet those that could help?
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Um and you know, it sometimes it is just a matter of of doing what you can to to meet those needs if if you can identify any and then allowing that to to calm naturally. Yeah, I know.
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I I like the idea of meeting your needs because I I think what's really interesting about what you just said is that so many of us are almost judging ourselves or critiquing ourselves for running out of energy.
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And it's almost like looking at your phone on 3% and hating your phone for being on 3% battery life.
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And it's like, well, no, a phone is either going to be 100 or 90 or 80 or 70 and it's going to get to three or it's going to get to one if you don't recharge it.
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And it's the same thing with us.
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Like you're saying that as humans our emotions fluctuate, our moods fluctuate.
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We're either at 100% or we're at 3% but we can't start hating ourselves at 3%. We can't start judging.
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We have to go, "Okay, I need to stop and recharge.
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I need to stop and take a moment."
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And that's where your question of, "Okay, what are my unmet needs?"
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It's almost like, "Okay, well, what do I need to do to charge me?"
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That feels like the right way to think about that.
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I think one of the biggest challenges, Dr.
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Julie, you've probably seen is that people try and avoid low moods.
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We're trying to avoid feeling bad.
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We're trying to avoid feelings.
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What happens when you try to avoid an emotion or when you try to avoid feeling?
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What actually happens to us? Yeah.
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Well, it can get quite extreme, you know, if we we have these kind of blocking behaviors.
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So, if a if a feeling is aversive in some way, whatever it might be, if we if we as soon as we start to feel it or even see signs of it that it might be approaching, we we put in those blocking behaviors.
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And so, I don't know, you might find yourself with your head in the fridge looking for something to to eat or you might find yourself, you know, on Netflix just watching program after program or or drinking or whatever that blocking behavior is for that person or maybe staying really busy at work.
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Um, and trying to convince yourself, you know, that you've got all this energy or whatever.
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Um, but when you do that, when you when you block emotion out what you can end up doing is blocking them all out.
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So, I'll often have people who get to therapy after years of doing that and and they feel numb.
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And they not only have they managed to block out all these negative emotions, so life is less painful in that way, it's almost become more painful because they've also blocked out their ability to feel joy or pleasure or love.
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And they start to question, "Gosh, do I love my partner?
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Um you know, I'm not interested in all the things that I used to find pleasurable.
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And and there's this kind of numbness."
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And people emotion that I mean, there's this sort of, you know, emotions have this bad rap, don't they, where um they're apparently this kind of irrational mess that you need to stay away from in order to be a highly functioning individual, um rather than it being a a part of how we work.
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And so, you know, by by pushing all of those away and trying to stay away from them with the idea that we'll somehow be kind of logical beings, actually being devoid of emotion uh strips away your life in terms of your sense of meaning or your enjoyment from life.
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And so, that idea that, you know, if you block one emotion well enough, you'll also block a lot of others, and then and then you can really start to struggle.
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Um so, a lot of what we do in therapy is, you know, changing our relationship with emotion is is looking at how can we allow emotional experience to come and go and not only accept it, but also welcome it.
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You know, how could you allow fear or low mood or sadness to be there and let it be welcomed in the present moment.
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I mean, that's just a bizarre um kind of state of affairs, right?
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How you know, we've never been taught to do that.
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Um you're taught to kind of brush it off and and pretend it's not happening and make it go away.
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Um and so, it's a it's a kind of new experience.
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And And honestly, you'll know a lot about this yourself with, you know, using uh sort of mindfulness to be able to practice sitting there and allowing experiences to come and go. Yeah, no.
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I I think the biggest thing I took away from what you shared yesterday is this idea of blocking behaviors that seem like very normal behaviors and they seem very easy and accessible and they feel like they make sense.
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They look normal because a lot of people do them and then when you really break it down and you go, "Oh, yeah.
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Wow, that's a blocking behavior.
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I'm actually trying to just numb myself from feeling things."
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And I love what you said where you're like, "Well, actually if you numb yourself from feeling something, you potentially could numb yourself from feeling anything, like everything, a lot of other positive emotions as well."
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And so, by weakening your ability to feel pain, you actually weaken your ability to feel joy.
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And and that idea is really fascinating because that as a block is a block that we all know we don't want in our life.
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Um that that's, you know, I I've loved that you've given me that reflection today because I I I didn't necessarily connect the two in that way.
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When when you talk a lot about motivation in the second chapter and I'm glad that you touched on motivation because I know and I'm sure you get this too.
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I get so many DMs on a daily basis or messages saying like, "I'm not motivated. What do I do?
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How do I find motivation?
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I I don't feel any motivation today."
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And one of the sections in your book that I loved is called how do you make yourself do something when you don't feel like it.
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And it's really funny because someone asked me recently, they said, "Jay, what do you think's the greatest skill you can have as a human?"
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And I really thought about that.
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I was like, "What is the greatest skill that you could have as a human?"
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And the idea that came to my head was the greatest skill you can have as a human is being able to do something that's good for you even when you don't feel like it because that is the crux of life.
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Like the amount of days that I wake up and actually want to go to the gym are very, very few.
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But do I feel amazing after going to the gym? Yes.
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I have meditation has been a part of my life for a long time. So it's changed.
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I have a healthy relationship with meditation.
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But there are still days when I don't want to meditate or I'm too tired or exhausted or I'm too I'm I'm too bored to go to sleep early and so I'd rather think that maybe if I stay up a bit late, I'll be more entertained.
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And so I find that things that are good for me feel hard in the beginning, but feel great afterwards.
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And things that are bad for me feel easy in the beginning, but they're really bad for me afterwards.
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Talk to us a bit about how do we get good at doing things when we don't feel like it because I am completely with you.
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I I think that's like an undefeatable skill that we all need. Yeah, absolutely.
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And and I agree with what you're saying there.
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You know, it's the that that sort of motivation feeling, that sort of elevated energy, inspired feeling that you get is the feeling you get as you walk out the gym, not as you walk in generally.
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And and it's it's after action and effort.
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You then think, you know, I I I never sort of feel like going to the gym either.
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Like but when I when I come back from the gym, I think, I should do this every day. This is great.
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And and I think it starts with recognizing that pattern, doesn't it?
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Recognizing I know I'm not going to always feel like it.
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Because not because I'm Again, it's not about failure.
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It's not about, you know, I think a lot of um stuff online teaches people, you know, you you've just got to be motivated every day.
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And if you're not, then what are you doing?
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And and actually humans don't work that way.
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Motivation, you have to treat it like any other emotion.
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Some days it will be there, some days it won't.
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So you can't rely on it to be there to help you reach your goals.
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So you know, if you've got goals that you've set around your own values and what's really important to you, um you have to then find a way of of being able to keep that consistent even when you don't feel like it.
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So, you can't make the decision to act only based on do I feel like a bit like cleaning your teeth, right?
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So, you clean your teeth every day.
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You never consider whether you really want to or not.
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It's just something that you do because you consider yourself a uh someone who looks after their dental hygiene, right?
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And it's um you know, it's So, it's just part of your day. It's non-negotiable.
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And and and you can kind of work with it a little bit like that.
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But when you see emotion as something that can come and go, um you can then acknowledge that you can tap into other reasons for doing the thing that you want to do.
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So, I don't feel like going to the gym today, but I've set myself a goal to increase my fitness because it's important to me that I am fit and I'm healthy for my children as they grow up.
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I want to be able to play with them and and live a long life to be with them for as long as possible and those sorts of things.
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So, you're tapping into your value system and being absolutely clear on why you're doing that thing.
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Um and even if it's gosh, you know, even if it's I have to go to this job that I hate, it might be because you're going to put food on the table at the end of the week for your children or you're going to keep a roof over your family's head.
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And you know, you can tap those sorts of values even if it's something that um is in you know, something that you would you know, benefit from sort of personally or in terms of your kind of health or well-being.
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Um you know, life can be really tough in that way, but you can tap into well, why is it that I'm doing this really really hard thing that I'm hating?
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Oh, it's because actually, yeah, I'm the breadwinner and and it's important to me to to look after my family and stuff like that.
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So, you can kind of tap into the values and but also we um something that's taught in a a therapy called dialectical behavior therapy, DBT, um is often taught to people who feel overwhelmed with emotion and then um respond to that emotion in a sort of high-risk or unhealthy way.
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And so, um what you're what you teach people is is a skill that they call sort of opposite action.
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So, and you use mindfulness to to help people recognize that difference between having an urge to do something and then acting on it.
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So, you know, you're you're The trouble is it you know, your different aspects of your experience are all experienced at once.
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So, it's like I think it's like weaves in a basket.
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You have you have your thoughts and you have your emotions, you have your physical state, you have your urges to do or not do something, but you don't experience them as separate.
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You know, you don't describe it in your head.
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You you experience this whole thing in one.
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And so, you're often acting based on urges and there's no gap in between.
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And so, you kind of use um you know, a mindfulness um practice to help just widen that gap so that you can experience an urge.
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And in the book I talk about just a silly game that I used to play with my sisters growing up where we would hold Polo Mints in our mouths and it was a competition see who could not crunch the mint because it's just you you just can't do it.
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It's um it's impossible, right?
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And um and it and I didn't realize at the time, but what we were doing there was practicing acting opposite to an urge.
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Um you know, you have this urge to crunch down on the mint, but you learn that actually I can experience that urge and not act.
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And I can even do the opposite to that.
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You know, you can So, you get this moment to choose and and you know, you'll be an expert on this yourself, but that you know, mindfulness helps to open up that that gap that allows you to then choose whether you're going to go with an urge or go opposite to it.
21:11
You know, so if you wake up and the urge is to pull the duvet over and switch your phone off and shut the world out for the day, uh you get this choice.
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Okay, do I go with this and or do I act opposite to it?
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And And often you have to make that decision pretty quick um to kind of you know, really kind of make the most of the moment.
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Um but it's it's a great thing, you know, you can use things like that sort of the mints uh crunching competitions to to just kind of practice being aware of that and and in kind of light-hearted ways so that you're more skilled at doing it when you most need it.
21:45
Yeah, thank you for sharing those two two massive insights.
21:47
The first one was you talking about how we shouldn't rely on motivation.
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I I thought that was such a great way of phrasing it that we're reliant on motivation and we can't be reliant on any feeling because we've we're going to feel different every day.
22:04
And the problem is we're trying to create the same feelings every day.
22:07
And you're spot on that when I think about my life, I don't feel the same today recording this episode with you as I felt the same recording my last episode with the other guest. I feel different.
22:19
And so I can't rely on how I feel, I have to rely on why I'm here and why I'm doing this and why I'm trying to serve my community and why On Purpose listeners want me to show up at my best and I want to show up for them and and that's what's driving me, not not how I'm feeling right now.
22:38
And so almost being driven by something else.
22:42
And then coming to what you just said is that difference between the urge and the ability to take that space and time to respond.
22:53
And in the spiritual texts, when we studied that about the mind, the three words were thinking, feeling, and willing.
22:59
So it being like the diff the the the gap between thinking and willing, like from having the thought to actually doing it, you you have that gap that can that you can adjust and edit and change.
23:10
And and you're so right that we almost need to create that gap in areas of our life where we're not trying to practice if that makes sense.
23:21
So, what I'm trying to say there and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, Dr.
23:24
Julie, is that if you're trying to wake up early in the morning, don't practice trying to create this gap between the urge and pulling the duvet over in that moment, practice it outside of the moment so that then you can bring it into that area.
23:39
Whereas, if you practice in that area, chances are your default action's going to come across. Does that make sense?
23:45
And how could you build that conditioning in another area of your life? Yeah, absolutely.
23:50
I would say practice with things that feel easy and manageable just to just create some repetition in doing that.
23:57
And actually, you know, nobody will be starting from scratch, either.
24:01
You know, there will be times when you use that skill, but you just haven't recognized that you've used it.
24:07
And sometimes I think becoming aware of when you use it and it's successful, um helps you to to feel more positive about the fact that you can do it.
24:15
So, um I don't know, yeah, I've got young children, so, you know, sleep deprivation is, you know, torture and you know, the the you know, your baby will wake up for the sixth time in a night and you've got to be up at 6:00 for work and and you hear them cry and you think, "I just cannot get out of bed one more time."
24:36
And so, your body is telling you no, "I can't do this" in a very powerful way, but you do it.
24:44
And and you do it because you have a set of values about the kind of parent you want to be.
24:48
And, you know, and so, you know, in those instances, for example, you will be doing things or it doesn't even have to be at night. It could be anything.
24:57
You know, you might not feel like making another sandwich, or um you know, buying another load of ice creams, or whatever it is of your family, but you you do things because you maybe have a set of values around that, or something's important to you about that.
25:13
And And so, it's really useful, I think, to kind of sit and think about the times when you already do that to success, um so that you can really tap into that and recognize that therefore it is possible to translate it.
25:27
And like you say, practice in a in a way that is enjoyable and manageable, and you know, even with the the polo thing, or um you know, kind of mindful eating and stuff like that, you know, where you kind of pause and and experience uh food before you allow yourself to then um you forward need it, for example, or just kind of lighthearted things that feel easy.
25:48
Because like you say, the first time you do it, it probably won't go well, and then you think, "Oh, this doesn't work."
25:55
Move on, and then you're stuck in the same cycle. Yeah, I I love that.
25:57
Have you actually done them video Have you done a video on the mints experiment?
26:01
I I think it's such a great one.
26:03
That makes No, no, it hasn't.
26:04
Yeah, it would be it would it'd be good to see you do it with your sisters again.
26:08
That'd be That'd be amazing. Yeah. I I I love that one.
26:11
I think I think it's uh it's Or maybe you can come and collaborate on When you come to the UK, we'll do it together. do.
26:17
Yeah, you can we can do the test together. I love that.
26:20
One of One of the other things, Dr.
26:21
Julie, actually, this just came to mind while you were talking that you spoke about was that we just feel this rush of everything at the same time.
26:27
Can you help my community today and audience today to understand the difference between thoughts, feelings, and emotions?
26:35
Because we feel them all, or we experience them all is a better word.
26:40
We experience them all at the same time, and like you said, we don't label them effectively.
26:44
We don't even know the difference, and we use the words interchangeably today, and that's probably not healthy, either because then when we are articulate I think language is just so important and the way we articulate how we feel or an emotion if it's incorrect in the sense of how it works as a system we're already setting ourselves up for more difficulty.
27:07
So could you just break down for us the three and how to know the difference when we experience them? Sure.
27:14
So certainly I would say some people can tap into more easily one over the other.
27:20
So some people will always be able to identify what they think but can't sort of label feelings or something like that.
27:27
Or some people will be really tapped into how they feel physically and their physical state but won't necessarily recognize thoughts and that's normal and that's okay.
27:34
In terms of thoughts I often talk to people about it's that you know the description the narrative that's going on in your head the way you talk to yourself in your head or the the different sort of words that pop into your head or images even.
27:49
So it's that kind of you know how you talk to yourself in your head whereas emotions are feelings and sensations that you have and and then you kind of we often separate that from sort of physical sensation in therapy.
27:59
So we'll talk about your physical state.
28:02
So you know where you feel things in your body and how your body feels at at certain times and then behavior being I often split behavior into urge and action for reasons that we've been just talking about to get people to recognize that you might have an urge to do something but you might not do it.
28:21
And so you know you know actions are what we do or don't do at any given point.
28:24
But you might be able to elaborate on those yourself actually.
28:28
I mean how would you kind of describe emotions?
28:30
Yeah I know the difference that I've at least understood and and by the way I I love what you said.
28:41
The way I've heard it being explained is that feelings are our experiences of emotions.
28:45
So, emotions are something that is chemically, biologically, physically happening.
28:58
And then how we feel about what is happening is our feeling.
28:59
So, for example, if my body is uh feeling exhausted, if my body is tired, and the emotional experience would be, you know, low energy, the emotion the emotional experience would be uh fatigue, etc.
29:16
We know what's happening with the chemicals in that space.
29:18
Then my feeling is, "Oh my god, I'm so exhausted. I'm shattered. I'm destroyed.
29:25
I'm" And that's a feeling.
29:25
That's a story that I'm adding to that.
29:27
And now, as you said, the thought is the narrative, which I love that way of describing thoughts.
29:33
My narrative is now, "Oh, I should have taken better care of myself.
29:38
I should have slept earlier. I should have done this.
29:40
I I could have done that.
29:42
I'm such an idiot because I Right, right, right.
29:44
That's That's that thought narrative.
29:46
So, that's how it actually connects from from how I've understood it.
29:51
Uh and it's made sense to me because I think a lot of stuff is happening biologically and chemically that we're then adding an emotional feeling and layer to that isn't helping because we get stuck in our head with something that's actually quite physical, if that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely.
30:09
And and often I get that when a really common question I get is, "You know, what's the difference between stress and anxiety?"
30:15
And often the answer that I I give for that is often around They're actually part of the same physical reaction.
30:21
You know, you have this one threat response, and and you only have that one threat response.
30:28
So, the what your body is doing is essentially the same, but we conceptualize it differently.
30:32
So, you know, you And I also often talk about this idea of um stress being Let's say you you allocate yourself, you know, 10 minutes to go off and go to the post office and post a parcel and you get there and there's this huge queue and and you're stood there, you know, tapping your foot thinking, "Oh, no, I'm going to be late for my meeting.
30:54
I only allocated 10 minutes for this."
30:56
And and and that kind of pounding heart and you know, the sweaty palms and that increase in the level of your alertness is your stress response that's enabling you to sort of increase your alertness so you can re-prioritize if you need to so that your brain can start problem-solving and working out, "Do we ditch this and and get to the meeting? Is that more important? Or do we do this?
31:17
And or how can we, you know, skip the queue or something?"
31:22
And um so you kind of that would be stress.
31:24
We would conceptualize that threat response as stress.
31:28
But if it was anxiety, then it's more likely to be based around um so something like fear.
31:33
So uh some sort of um uh threat physical threat to your safety, for example, or a psychological threat, let's say uh it might turn into anxiety if you were really worried about um this, you know, maybe it's not a meeting, maybe it's a big conference and walking in late would mean you would feel humiliated or and that would be a psychological threat, right?
31:54
And so uh you might feel anxious and so it's it's still that same threat response kicking off, but you're conceptualizing it slightly differently. Yeah. Yeah.
32:07
And when I was researching for the book actually, um I found some some great research around um sort of emotion vocabulary and granularity, so the ability to feel something and give it a label and it really doesn't matter what that label is.
32:23
It doesn't matter if it matches everybody else's.
32:24
It helps if it matches everybody else's, but it doesn't have to.
32:28
The more labels you have for different feelings that you have uh the the better your outcomes in terms of how you are then able to deal with it, because you're you're just giving your brain a little label that says, "Okay, I recognize this.
32:41
I know what to expect from this." Exactly.
32:42
I I love that, and I'm so glad that you brought that up, because I think that diagnosing something is what makes it easier to deal with.
32:50
If you If you don't give something a label, you're now dealing with uncertainty again, and I think with a lot of anxiety and stress, we have repetitive thoughts and repetitive feelings.
33:01
It not It's not necessarily a new thing.
33:03
It A lot of the time, it's the same thing being triggered by a particular event, a particular person, a particular place, and therefore being able to label it, as you said, allows you to feel a bit of comfort with it.
33:15
Like, I know that anytime I go on stage, I will always feel a sense of nervousness.
33:20
Like, I will always feel nerves, no matter how many times I've spoken on stages to tens of thousands of people, whatever it is. I always do.
33:26
And as I got more used to that, I just started to realize that's what happens when I care.
33:33
And I was like, that's what happens when I care.
33:35
That's what happens when I really am genuinely present with that feeling of this is important. This is meaningful.
33:42
And when I sit into that, and I breathe that way, and I have my breathing practice that I do, and my mindfulness practice, it it happens every time, but I already know it's going to happen, and so now I'm not surprised, and it's not something new.
33:53
Whereas, like you said, if you don't label that, I label it as care.
33:58
If you don't label that with a word, now it's like, "Oh, no, this is happening all over again, and I don't know what to do with it, and I don't know why it's happening."
34:05
Uh so, I I think that's a really great insight.
34:08
One of One of the things you go into this book, which I thought was really beautiful and really important, is grief and loss.
34:15
And of course, so many people have lost so many people in the last couple of years.
34:20
Uh I lost two really deep people in my life, and not to COVID-19, but I couldn't see them because I couldn't travel back.
34:27
So, I lost one of my spiritual mentors, who I've spoken about on the podcast before, to stage four brain cancer, and he passed away after many years of of suffering with that.
34:37
And then I lost one of my closest friends who who I lived as a monk with.
34:41
He was still a monk, and he passed away to cancer, as well, and I couldn't go back and see him because I couldn't travel back to the to the UK, where where they were in hospital.
34:52
And so, grief is something that I think is one of the hardest things to talk about.
34:58
I even often get messages from people saying, "Well, what do you say to your friend when they've just lost someone?"
35:06
Uh you know, what what do you say? Like, what do you text?
35:07
Like, okay, you can text your condolences and your love, but then like, what do you say?
35:10
What, as a therapist, what is the healthiest thing to do when your friend has lost someone?
35:17
How how should you talk to them?
35:17
What is something that is useful, comforting, and helpful at that time?
35:22
I think a lot of people struggle with that. Yeah.
35:23
I I've I've done some videos on this, actually, cuz it's a really common question, and and I feel like, you know, for everybody who's struggling with grief or something else, there are this circle of people around them who really care and are then struggling with the idea of getting it wrong and saying the wrong thing, and and I think a lot of people worry so much about saying the wrong thing that they don't say anything at all.
35:50
And certainly, I've done that before myself, and you know, that I think we have to maybe get away from the idea of having specific things that we must say or must not say, and instead expressing being okay with expressing how we feel.
36:07
So, you know, if something feels like a shock, you know, say that, label it, and and if you're worried about what to say or what not to say, say that, too, you know?
36:18
I wow, I'm you know, I'm feel so sad for you. This is awful.
36:24
I I really want to be there for you, um but I have no idea how or what to say.
36:28
Um, and then, you know, if you go with how you feel in terms you probably want to know how they're doing.
36:33
And so, ask those questions and and maybe make those you know, if you want that person to feel able to open up, maybe ask open questions, you know, that aren't going to, um, open questions are questions that invite an answer that's longer than a yes or no answer.
36:50
So, you know, if you ask it, "Are you okay?"
36:51
Someone will go, "Yeah, fine."
36:53
Um, but if you ask, "How are you doing?"
36:56
then someone is invited to kind of talk at length and things like that.
36:58
So, if you're wanting to start a conversation about that sort of thing, then those are great ways to do that.
37:04
But really, I would, you know, you can kind of turn yourself up with, "What's the right thing to say?
37:10
What's What's meaningful or profound or going to change how they feel?"
37:14
And essentially, you're not going to change how they feel.
37:17
What you can add to the mix is letting them know you care for them and that their distress matters to you.
37:27
And that you you want to get it right.
37:29
So, you know, it's okay to ask someone, "How can I support you through this? What do you need?"
37:33
Um, because often those people will have an idea about what they need.
37:36
Um, and and often it's just checking in, isn't it?
37:39
And knowing someone's there to support you.
37:41
I mean, what are helpful things that people have said to you?
37:44
You know what was really interesting is that I I don't think I I don't think a lot of people did say anything to me.
37:50
Um, and and not that I I needed them to.
37:53
I I'm a I'm an interesting person with certain things.
37:57
Like, I find when I go through pain or stress or anxiety, I like sorting it out myself.
38:01
So, I'm not much of a I'm not much of a talker when it comes to certain things apart from if I'm working with a coach or a therapist or or or someone who who I trust is helping me make sense of something.
38:13
Um, and so, but I but I I agree I mean, I agree with everything you just said.
38:16
I I think that the biggest thing that I think you said is the problem is when we speak to someone in pain, whether they're in grief, whether they've just broken up, whether they've been through a divorce, or whether they're experiencing anxiety, the biggest problem is we're trying to say something that we hope will change how they feel.
38:41
Which is not going to happen.
38:41
It's too much pressure on you.
38:45
It's too much pressure on them.
38:47
It's just not going to happen.
38:49
And I remember when I first started coaching, and I'm sure you feel the same as a therapist, and I don't want to speak for you, but I know that I used to carry that pressure around that I had to say something profound in every meeting, and that every connection you have with someone you have to drop these pearls of wisdom that are going to solve their life and be like this opening magical doorway.
39:10
And you just realize that now you're not even listening to them because you're working so hard to come up with this false piece of insight that's going to help someone, and that actually if you just sat and listened, and like you said, asked open questions, and were just present, that's what that person needed more than ever.
39:30
And I think I'm segueing a little bit, but even in our romantic relationship, in our friendships, the problem is we're always trying to say things that we hope will change how people feel.
39:40
And the truth is we don't have that power.
39:43
And trying to have that power creates so much pressure and burden on you that you feel so weighed down by it, that like you said, you don't say anything, or you try and say something, and then you're upset that it didn't change how they feel.
39:57
So, that to me has been the biggest takeaway from from what you just said, and hopefully I've I've just illuminated some of my thoughts on that.
40:06
Yeah, I think and it's interesting actually how how things work in therapy.
40:10
You know, someone might go to therapy for the first time and imagine that they're going to take this feeling in and the therapist will say something that will make it go away.
40:19
Um and actually what you do as a therapist is sit with them in it and you you know, you kind of if someone's let's say someone's in a hole, um I think Brené Brown did this um example really well when she did a sort of example of the difference between sympathy and empathy and you know, instead of kind of standing looking down in the hole and saying, "Wow, that looks terrible."
40:45
In therapy particularly, what we do is get down in the hole with them and say, "Yes, this is this is really tough.
40:52
How are we going to work on this together?
40:54
And you know, what's next?
40:54
And so you know, that there's this real I think when someone is grieving it's okay to just be with them through your pain like that through their pain.
41:07
So there is no way that you can remove that pain.
41:09
There's no way that you can bring the person back or make it disappear or fix it.
41:14
But you underestimate the power of simply walking alongside someone through it and allowing them to just feel heard and cared for.
41:22
Nobody really wants to be told what to do. They want to feel heard.
41:26
They want to feel that they matter and that how they feel matters and that in itself has such a profound impact over time.
41:35
Um but you know, building that kind of trusting relationship with someone is huge.
41:38
So yeah, take away those expectations to be some kind of you know, healer or you know, fixer-upper and and just work on being a really good friend to someone.
41:48
I want to segue a little bit Dr.
41:52
Julie with what we were talking about, the idea of relationships and romantic relationships and love and breakups because a lot of the emotions we feel, a lot of the feelings we experience are based on our relationships around love.
42:09
And so whether it's the feeling of losing love, never getting love, never finding love, not being lovable, not being enough, not knowing how to love.
42:20
Like, there is a lot of anxiety and stress around that, as you're well aware, and as, you know, in our work we come across a lot.
42:27
When when you look at that, when you look at the feeling of I am trying to find someone to solve the void I have within myself.
42:41
Or the idea that if I find someone, then I'll be complete.
42:44
If I find someone, then I'll be whole.
42:50
That How do you work with some And I know that it's case by case, and of course I'm giving a broad question, but with that How do you work with someone who you notice that that is a trait that they have?
43:02
Like, how do you work with that kind of an individual who has that kind of a trait?
43:05
Well, I I guess you you work with someone based on um the idea that if they haven't met that person yet, that you can't guarantee they're going to come along.
43:16
So, you have to start taking responsibility for your happiness.
43:21
And And while actually, you know, getting in relationships can be really helpful for people's well-being.
43:28
And you know, that the changes that And the development that you go through by being in a relationship can be wonderful and really healing in many ways, but you don't ever want to put the responsibility for your own healing or your own happiness in that other person's hands.
43:44
So, I would say, you know, in working with someone um who was maybe kind of uh dealing with that idea that they were sort of waiting for someone to come along in order for them to then be happy, um it would really be about looking at growing your life as it is now, and making that more meaningful for you, more purposeful, based on your own values and and really looking at that relationship with the self.
44:14
So, looking at how, you know, if someone sort of feels unloved, for example, um how are they treating themselves?
44:21
You know, what are they are they not being caring and loving to themselves or treating themselves well?
44:28
And and so, a lot of therapy would be looking so, you know, reflecting on that relationship.
44:33
And there's a lovely uh therapy called cognitive analytic therapy. It's CAT for short.
44:38
And that looks at how um the the relationship the early relationships you have in life, so with parents and siblings, can then be reflected in our relationships that we have as adults.
44:50
So, you might have um been in a slight, you know, no family situation is perfect.
44:53
So, there will have been situations that weren't ideal at some point.
44:57
And as a child, you would have worked out how to get through those and how to survive them psychologically with certain safety behaviors, for example.
45:05
Um let's say a parent was sort of inconsistent with love, you might have learned to be a real people pleaser to make sure that you you made sure they felt okay so that you could feel acceptable.
45:16
And then you get into relationships as an adult and that habit of being that people pleaser continues, perhaps, but then causes you to do that to your own detriment.
45:26
So, maybe you're working so hard on being astute to everybody else's feelings and making sure that everybody else is happy that actually it's making you ill because you're not looking after yourself, for example.
45:36
So, and and those therapies can be really helpful in looking at where did this cycle come from?
45:40
You know, and if it's something about looking for somebody out there so that you can finally be happy, then you can really break that down to what where's that coming from?
45:50
And and how can I fix that cycle in a different way so that I'm not dependent on this um this person coming along and fixing it. Yeah, that's so great.
45:59
So often we're fixing the wrong wrong end of the cycle, right?
46:02
We're just trying to solve the the the current feeling, the emotion, the situational problem right now.
46:07
And you're like, "Well, actually, let's look at where the cycle started and how that mindset got formed and how that behavior got formed and how that desire for validation got formed."
46:17
And actually, if we solve that, then we can we can see this completely differently.
46:22
And that I mean, to me, that's that's really where it all has to go.
46:26
I I've seen so many bad habits in myself that I picked up years ago in my childhood and beliefs and bad habits.
46:35
And that now you're like living them through as an adult.
46:38
And you look at yourself and you go, "Oh, wow, like I just thought this was normal, but it's it's not and it's not healthy.
46:44
And so, how can I work on that now?"
46:47
And And actually tracing it back gives you a sense of separation from it as well, because you go, "Oh, this isn't me. This isn't mine.
46:57
This isn't This isn't who I am.
46:57
This is something I picked up along the way."
47:01
And that distance is really helpful to say, "This isn't me.
47:04
This is not This is not all about me."
47:06
Uh doesn't mean you're blaming it on someone else, but you are saying that let me distance from this so I can actually so I can actually deal with it and work through it.
47:14
Uh when you wrote this book and you titled it beautifully, Why Hasn't Anybody Told Me This Before?
47:23
Uh where do you think mental health and well-being going over the next few years?
47:29
You know, when I think about things like Web 3, the metaverse, uh when I think about obviously social media is continuing to grow.
47:37
When I look at even people like yourself, who've, you know, obviously been able to communicate these ideas so phenomenally well through TikTok.
47:48
You know, we we both know that social media can be an amazing tool to reach out to people, to connect with people, to serve people, to help with people.
47:57
Uh but when you see people navigating their mental health and well-being moving forward, what do you think are sustainable daily practices that we need to implement in order to live in a world that is technologically accelerated and advanced and isn't turning around?
48:12
It's going to sound really boring, but um, a bit of self-awareness, which can come through things like journaling, something quite simple like journaling experience that allows you to stop and reflect on experience.
48:29
And, you know, that's a a smaller scale of of a a little bit of what happens in therapy.
48:33
And And you know, we're talking about those cycles then, and the way you become able to tackle a cy- cycle that you're stuck in is by first becoming aware of it.
48:43
You know, if you if you're not aware of what the problem is, how do you even begin to think about solutions?
48:47
And And so, you know, even with this kind of fast-paced world and everything's online and and our attention is being kind of stolen from us left, right, and center, the ability to step back and focus on you and your life for a moment is really a victory.
49:05
And And so, I'm a I'm a sort of big um, advocate for sort of journaling and things like that.
49:12
And even before I sort of did any clinical training, I I look back on when I was sort of growing up, any time that I was struggling with different emotions that I couldn't make sense of or a situation that was kind of troubling me, my I'm I'm like you, I'm not a big kind of talker or I'm I'm very introvert and I spend time alone.
49:29
My thing would be write it down.
49:32
And if you write for long enough, you can begin to sort of make more sense of a situation.
49:41
And that's really what we do in therapy when we're talking about those cycles.
49:43
We literally map them out.
49:43
So, we write out what happens then, what happens next, what happens next, and then it comes back around.
49:49
So, you you literally get yourself a a map in front of you and by doing that you get this separation.
49:56
So you know in the age of kind of social media growing or or all the problems that might come with that you're only able to tackle that and make conscious choices about what you want for your life if you are able to step back and consider the problem first.
50:10
Yeah, I am I'm totally with you on that and that that feels and resonates so deeply.
50:16
Um for everyone who's been listening or watching today, we've just dived into some of my favorite chapters, but as I said before, there's chapters on motivation, emotional pain, grief, self-doubt, fear, stress, and a meaningful life.
50:30
Uh and what I love about the book is that every section has a beautiful summary with things to think about, things to reflect on.
50:40
Um there's, you know, like this whole section here which breaks down certain introspection and reflection questions. So uh Dr.
50:48
Julie, I'm so grateful we got to spend this time together.
50:49
Highly recommend everyone goes out and gets a copy of Why Hasn't Anybody Told Me This Before, Everyday Tools for Life's Ups and Downs.
50:56
I can't wait uh to meet you and connect with you in person and we're going to do our mints challenge or something similar.
51:02
Uh but uh thank you for sharing this with us.
51:05
We end every episode of On Purpose with a final five.
51:10
These are the fast five uh where you have to answer every question in one word or one sentence maximum. So Dr.
51:16
Julie Smith, are you ready? Okay. Okay.
51:18
Question number one is what is the best advice you've ever received?
51:25
Uh to enjoy myself alongside anxiety.
51:29
What is the worst advice you've ever received? To calm down.
51:34
How would you describe your current purpose?
51:36
Touching people's lives in a in a positive way with the skills that I have. Beautiful.
51:42
Uh question number four, what's something you used to value that you don't anymore?
51:47
Probably say material things.
51:47
I'm not sure I ever really valued material things, but um we'll go with that one. Okay, great.
51:53
And fifth and final question, if you could create one habit that everyone in the world had to follow and do every day, what would that habit be? Journaling. Nice. Beautiful. Everyone, Dr.
52:03
Julie Smith, uh if you're listening or watching this episode, make sure that you tag us both on Instagram, on TikTok, on Twitter, on Facebook, so that we can see the nuggets of wisdom and all of that which you learned from this episode.
52:17
I want to see all the takeaways.
52:19
I want to see what you've What's resonated with you? What stuck with you? What you're applying? What you're practicing? Uh Dr.
52:24
Julie Smith, I'm so grateful for your time and energy.
52:27
Thank you for doing this at a 7:00 p. m.
52:29
on a Friday night in England.
52:32
And I'm so happy that we got to connect finally.
52:34
All the best with everything. Congrats on everything.
52:36
And I really do look forward to meeting you. Thank you so much.
52:40
And likewise, I'm really grateful for for the chance to chat with you.
52:44
It's been really, really lovely.
52:44
If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here.
52:50
I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book Think Like a Monk from thinklikeamonkbook. com.
52:59
Check below in the description to make sure you order today.