You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. Hey, I am so happy to be here with you again. Thank you, thank you, Thank you for choosing to come here to the I Choose Me podcast to spend some time with me. And you know what, I also just want to take a second to thank everybody who has helped me get to do this with you, all the team at iHeart and my life crew, but mostly you. You are the reason I get to do this with you. You are the reason I want to do this with you.
I mean it, me wanting and choosing to do a podcast came from you. It's because of the connections that I felt from all of you, the support you've always given me, the people I meet, the comments I see and hear. You guys lift me up every time I hear from you, and it makes me want to give you more and do more with you because at the end of the day, you know what, I like you. More importantly, I am like you. We are all the same.
We are all just working it out, finding our way, figuring out this amazing life thing, and we're all dealing with the same things, the same hurdles, the same challenges. On some level, if you think my life looks a certain way on the GRAM or the talk or the whatever, and that I'm not dealing with the same shit that you are, you are mistaken. You may not see that,
but I promise you it is absolutely true. And the sooner we can all recognize that and give in to the notion that it's not just me and my story and my problems. It's we, our stories, our problems, the better off we're going to be. So let's get comfortable enough with each other in this new I Choose Me community to grow together, because that's what it's all. We are here to love and to connect and to grow. Remember, if you're not growing, you're slowing, and I don't want
to slow. I don't know about you. So if you're like that, if you're like me, which I already know you are because you're here with me listening to this podcast, let's do this together. It's a lot more fun to do life together.
Okay.
So now I want to introduce you all to a very special someone in my life, Adele House, who will be gracing us with her wisdom and insights as a licensed therapist, our free therapist here at I Choose Me I've known Adele for thirty years. This year actually marks our thirty year friends of versary. She is the best person I know. We can literally ask her anything like this, Adele, Jenny Adele, what the fuck is wrong with me? How many times if I asked you that question?
You're a human being?
Oh that little thing?
Yeah, you always forget that part. We were just.
Talking on the phone, remember a couple of days ago. Do you remember way back when? Yeah, we were just talking about all the stress and all the things. But I feel like you my whole life, you've known me. I've been stressed out.
Yeah, but there's a real reason for that. Right. I was thinking about this too, and I was thinking about So I met you thirty years ago, right, you were twenty one years old. I just want to set the stage a little.
Bit that I walked the stage.
Okay, I walked into your life. You were twenty one and I was twenty six. You were on a huge hit show, nine of two on Oher. You were you were already a homeowner, Like at twenty six, I couldn't even fathom being a homeowner. Right, you were internationally faan Right, So you were working a job that you had to show up to every day and memorize your lines and look good. At twenty one, you had a boyfriend living with you or fiance. He might have been a fiance by then.
Yeah, they always are.
Yeah he was. He was the sweetest guy. But he you had the weight of the world on your shoulders. He had no weight on his shoulders. He was living fancy free. He wasn't really helping you or supporting you in any way. He was just cute and sweet, and he played the drums. We got a need. You had about seventeen animals. I think you also had a ranch.
But wait, wait, let's explain to our friends. You came into my life initially as my very first assistant ever. Yes, and at twenty one I had an assistant, which I don't even understand.
Well, this is exactly why I think you must have been so stressed out that Randy had a great thought, why don't we get you an assistant? And he found me luckily, Thank God for our lives and our paths. And I think I walked into your life and it was huge, and you were at that point already adulting so hard. At twenty one, you were two years out of being a teenager, think about your kids, do you know what I mean.
Lola is twenty one right now.
Yeah, so think if she had the responsibility that you had at her age right now.
Oh, I wouldn't want that for her right right.
So here, I am a little bit older and maybe had a little more life experience, not much, and I think I was somebody who just was standing in front of you saying, how can I help? How can I ease your stress? How can give me stuff? Give me stuff to do, or let's do it together. You always like to do stuff together, which I always thought was so cute. Instead of just giving me stuff, you would be like, well, I've got a list for us for the day. But I think it was the first time
everybody wanted something from you at that time. I mean I remember going through piles of paper where there were just requests for you to I mean, it's still your life, but even more I think than like show up at this thing, or sign this thing or donate this. And I think about it now and the kind of responsibilities you had, and you were also helping people and helping family members. Of course you were stressed out. So there's what I really want to say to you is there's
nothing wrong with you. You've had a huge life and you've had to be an adult very fast.
Yeah, adulting not a lot of fun.
Yeah, especially at twenty one, right, It's like it's not It wasn't a natural time to be thrown into major adulting. And the other thing is you were so close to your mom when you were young, and I think you turned to her a lot and she would advise or guide. But there was a point you were also at twenty one when you were differentiating from your mom and you needed space and you needed to be making your own decisions,
and so you weren't turning to her as much. And I think for us it was kind of perfect because I think I came into your life at the right time where you had a new confidante and you had someone that you could like just ask advice from.
So when did I come to you with this feeling that I was experiencing, this feeling of spinning, this feeling of the beginning I think of anxiety for me.
Yeah, that's such a great question, I think. I mean it was fast. We bonded pretty quickly, and I think it's because neither of us are that interested in small talk, and I think we started talking. We just started going for it right away. And I remember it was within a couple of months. And I used to carry a pager when I first started. It was beeper yeah, beeverer. Wow, Oh my god, sorry to age us. Okay, you called me late at night like, wait, I beep you. I
think so or it was a landline. But you called me at like ten o'clock at night and you were crying and you said, I'm really freaking out. I'm really stressed out. My head is spinning and spinning and I'm overthinking and I'm hearing like a ringing sound. And I was like, oh, she's so anxious, she is so stressed out. Now, I didn't have any experience at this I wasn't a therapist then, right.
You didn't have any therapy school or training or anything yet.
No, but I had been to my own therapy. I'd been. I started therapy at nineteen. I was twenty six at this time. So I immediately remembered a tool that So I can't take credit for this tool, but I was given a tool for similar things for you know, stress, anxiety, fear, and so I do you remember what I did?
Yes, no, I remember this vividly, and I don't remember that much. So this is a very important time for me because this was the first time in my life so that anybody ever gave me like a tangible, usable skill, like a tool that I could use in my life on my own to get me through something that I was experiencing. And in this case, it was that spinning feeling, that anxious feeling, and at that time it was more just like a spinning, spinning, spinning and like what like
a spinning top kind of feeling. That's how kind of my anxiety started to manifest in my body. And you said, okay, I want you to just lay down on the couch, and I remember I had a similar couch to the one I'm sitting on right now, and you said, close your eyes. You say it, go ahead. I like it better when you say it.
Well, I'm just listening to you saying, I'm like, god, the confidence I had it's twenty six to like just walk you through an intervention basically, But yeah, it was close your eyes. I want you to picture a stop sign, right, And this is an intervention when you can't even grab
onto a thought, when you are just spinning. You think about a stop sign and you picture it, and you picture the color of it, you picture the red of it, you picture the eight sides of it, and you go down every side, the octagonal shape of it, and the line, the white line that frames it out. And you spend time with the S, and then you spend time with the T and the oh, and then you picture the P and you think about the word and just spend
time with the stop sign. And what happens for you when you do that.
I just feel so much calmer. I just did it while you're explaining it. Oh, it feels it really does for me. That is one trick that just resonated. And I have used that since then.
Amazing. And you told me that the other day and I had no idea you were still using it now.
I still use it. I give it to my daughters to use.
Oh. I love that.
Yeah, And it works. It works every time.
It's an immediate intervention and it's free too, So it's a great tool for your listener. Right, any fear, any anxiety, any feeling out of control? Right.
I think so often when one person is spinning in this anxiety world and they're in a relationship with someone or in a partnership with someone, the other person doesn't know how to help them. They don't understand really sometimes, but you're trying to make them understand like what you're experiencing. And I think for me at that young age, that
was my experience of it. I didn't really have anybody but you and I. I wasn't going to therapy then, and you were just like sort of like my guiding force, you know, my guiding light of how to come back to myself in all that chaos. What happens though, like in when you're in a relationship and one person is having anxiety about something and they don't know what it is or where it's coming from. How do you handle that in a partnership?
Yeah, I think that's so important and it's so misunderstood, especially among couples, because most people, when they're in a couple ship or they love somebody, when they know they're partner suffering, they want to fix it, right, Yeah, But that's rarely do we want our partner but actually.
Right, Oh, I don't want you to fix it. I just want you to listen to me.
Yes, right, So it's our job to kind of actually let them know that. So I think anybody who doesn't have any of this training, which we never really learned this stuff, you know, with a partner, you just want to say, you have to have the awareness first, right that you are spinning. I feel it in my body. I am so strung out right now. I can't even grab onto a thought. I'm just letting you know where I'm at. I don't need you to do anything. I
don't need you to fix it. I just need you to know and maybe be gentle on me or ask me what I need once in a while, because you don't even know it at any moment what you need, and.
You don't know also who else is sitting right next to you having experiencing anxiety, right. I feel like so many people nowadays are experiencing anxiety with just the state of the world and everything that's happening and moving at lightning speed all the time, yes, and the immense pressures that we put on ourselves to be something we see on social media or how we think we're supposed to be for others. I know I've spent a great deal
of my time worrying about that. I still worry about that sometimes, And then I have to just like get myself under control, like you know, bring myself back to my base and mind myself that it doesn't really matter.
Yeah, and that's your wisdom as you age, right, because I think you have a little bit of distance now and a little bit more understanding. And you're watching your daughters go through it, so you have that it's externalized for you. Right. So you're watching your three beautiful daughters going through it and going like, oh my god, that's what I do too. I don't want to do that anymore. How can I model for them how to do it differently?
Yeah, well I've tried. But let me ask you this, is it something that I've given to my daughters. Is it is anxiety like something you pass down in your family? Is it a genetic thing or is it of an environmental developed You.
Asked the best questions. I love this like everything. It's a little of both. Right, they're going to see it, they're going to feel it. They're going to feel your anxiety. They're going to take on your anxiety. And there's no way you can't do it. So you didn't do anything wrong, right. We all screw our kids up, you know, I mean that's just part of the part of being a parent. That's in the definition of being a parent.
I said to them, I say to them all the time, so when are you going to be in therapy over me because of me? They're like, I already am.
But I also think that I believe it's a great question if it's genetic. But boy, anxiety runs in my family. I see it. So I don't know if it's just that we all absorbed it from generations past, or if it's like physiology and physically, you know, we feel certain cues that give us anxiety.
This wasn't even a conversation not that long ago, Like people weren't openly talking about suffering from anxiety or anxiety disorder or depression. So I remember when Carson Daily started talking about his mental health challenges, and things just sort of opened up after that point, like everybody started talking
about it. Yeah, And it's incredible now because the stigma has been taken away from talking about it suffering from it, And I think that's that's just a huge like opening for everybody to start getting a handle on it and start helping themselves.
Yeah, it's all really normalized now in a way, which when it wasn't. I mean, we lived We've lived in Los Angeles for the last thirty to forty years, and everybody talks about going to therapy, so we were around it a little bit, you know. I mean that's kind of a stereotype, but it's also quite true.
But everybody, but everybody in LA everybody goes.
And New York. But the other thing is, I think, you know you were saying earlier, we live in this really unique time right now, between social media, between the pandemic, between the last ten years of sort of our you know, the political landscape and how stressful it's been, and so every people we're all going through the same things kind of at the same time, especially when the pandemic hit, like it was the first time when I was doing therapy, you know, I walked out of my office that March
thirteenth or whatever, went online and started seeing everybody on video on telehealth, and suddenly, for the first time in almost twenty years of doing therapy, I was going through the same thing my clients were going through at the exact same time. And I think because it was a worldwide pandemic, it allowed us to really start talking about what we're going through our feelings, our fears, and I
love it. I'm so thrilled to see, especially people with the platform, you know, people known people are talking about mental health now and normalizing it because guess what, we all have mental health issues. There's not a single family, there's not a single person walking. It's you know, they say one in four people struggle with mental illness. Well, we all struggle with mental health issues. So it's it's universal.
So I hope that everybody that's listening today and thank you for listening, and I'm so excited to be here, just you know, starts to normalize it. Be gentle on themselves, to be gentle on others, ask for help.
You know, I did that with you so many times. I remember when my anxiety started to kick in to
the next level. And this was a point in my life when it was kind of towards the end of my marriage with Peter Who and I remember feeling like there was an elephant, literally a ginormous, big, bad elephants sitting right on my chest and I could wait, this is terrible, But every time he would come around me, I would have that feeling and I would literally my breath would become shallow, and I would just and then I would start to focus on the feeling of like
what is this, what is this feeling I'm feeling in my chest? And why am I having a heart attack? Like what is going on? And then it would go away, and then he would come back and I feel it again. And so I started to develop this pattern of like whenever a situation was around me that felt bigger than I could handle, in that moment, my body would start to react in that physical manifestation, that physical feeling in my chest. Have you heard that a lot?
Oh? Yeah? I mean that is the physical manifestation of stress, fear, anxiety. And that's why we don't want to ignore that. You know, like sometimes maybe some episode, if we talk about listening to your gut or following your gut, that's part of your body talking to you. Right. It's knocking from the inside out, and it's saying like you need to listen to me. Something's going on here.
It's saying hello, yeah.
Saying hello, please listen to me. Don't be afraid of me, right, And what we so often do is shut it out and quiet it with a number of things, right, drugs, alcohol, ice cream, TV for me, that's my escape.
Right, But isn't that okay? Yes, yes, I mean not the drug point alcohol part.
Even drugs and alcohol. I mean I'm not talking about illicit drugs, right, but like legal drugs or medicine to help with you know, your neurotransmitters if you're depressed whatever.
Of course you're talking like modern day medicine. I was talking about elicit drugs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just like numbing it. Yes, I'm also a fan of numbing to a degree, right, I'm I'm very much about like being gentle on yourself and listening to your body and taking care of yourself. And I think numbing out to TV is fine as long as you're not doing it for you know, six days
in a row, ten days in a row. Then you start to kind of get concerned about like, okay, as this person depressed and we probably need to get them moving their body and kind of addressing what's going on. But yeah, of course we need all those things, but they can't be the only go to either, right, you can't go I don't want to hear. I don't want to talk to you, elephant. I don't want this elephant on my chest. I'm going to just drink.
That's not that's yeah. I think that's what started to happen for me was I didn't know how to stop that feeling, and so I did turn to certain drugs to help me numb out, help me check out, help me deal with it. Yeah, and we were You and I've always been super super close, but there have been times that I've been like, I cannot call her again with this problem.
I never said to you you can't call me. No, you never never set that boundary. You know I'm here, but I know you kind of tried to curb your your adele needs. I like hearing about the times you reached you needed me. I remember, I remember sitting in your Remember you're off your primary suite on Info Local Lake, in that little like makeup room off the bedroom, and I knew you and Peter were in trouble. I'd known for a while. I mean, you guys had both let me in and you said to me, I'm so scared.
I'm so scared. I don't know what to do. And I said, turn towards your marriage and do everything you can to try to save it. And you're like, I don't know how, and I said, you've got to give it everything you've got, and he's trying. And you said to me, and this maybe two intimate to share, and you'll say if it is. But you said, it's too painful to open my heart and close it every time he comes and goes, because he was working so much
at that time. And I remember, it's kind of making me choke up right now, like it broke my heart because you have so much love to give, and there was love there, you know, like I went through that whole eighteen year partnership with you, guys. I was there the weekend basically got you guys, met and fell in love.
Right, you have been through everything with me. This is insane.
I was there when you told Dan you wanted a divorce and fell into my arms.
Wait, you were there when you planned that first wedding.
I did plan your first wedding.
Yeah, And then you were there when I got my first divorce.
Uh huh. I was there when you and Peter fall in love. Loved Peter. We had so much fun and I really saw it. I really got it, and of course really saw it and really got the dave of it all too, which we'll talk about because you know how much I love my Davy. But yeah, yeah, and so it was. It was it was heartbreaking and it was devastating, and you know, I know you tried. I know you did what you could, and I know Peter tried to.
I sometimes think because I have had such a rollercoaster emotional journey since gosh, since I was twelve years old, Like I I've never been a person that's just even keeled, steady, bright and bubbly all the time positive. You know, I don't have I don't walk around with like rainbows and unicorns lying out of my ass, you know, like people expect you to be that way. Me everyone like people, I.
Have rainbows and unicorns flying out my ass sometimes.
Yeah, I've just saying like I felt like something was wrong with me all these years, early on being pegged with like my nickname from my sisters, which was puddles because I cried a lot, and then moving into you know, relationships that weren't that stable feeling or safe feeling, yeah, and writing that emotional roller coaster and that marriage and divorce and marriage and divorce and death and sick kids. Like I feel like I've been through so many ups
and downs as we all have. But I do sometimes think, wait, why is something wrong with me that I'm that emotion I call it emotion full instead of emotional.
I like that. It's so interesting because you know, again, I know you so well, and I've known you for thirty years, and I don't see you That's not how I would qualify you. I mean, yes, you have through a lot, and I think you have made choices over the years that didn't reflect I. Here's maybe why we've stayed together all these years too. I see you differently, a little bit differently than you see yourself. Yes, I think you have had a lot of challenges in your life.
You were I'm not diagnosing you, but you were a parentified child. You had a dad who was sick most of his life, so you had to worry on your shoulders starting at a very young age. And so the puddles thing. You know, you have some depression, but so do I.
We've talked about that, Yeah, I've talked about that. Like I remember my dad would say, do you want to go to dairy queen? Are you feeling blue? And I remember telling you about that and you said I'm blue.
Too, Like we're just blue beyond.
Yeah, we're just blue. We're blue people like.
I'm not like yellow, right, but you described me as like rainbows unicorns. But I have like a chronic low grade depression. I have my whole life since I can remember. It, maybe manifest or looks a little bit different for each of us.
It looks different on you because you know how to deal with it. I've learned how to deal with it.
Well. I lean into it. I don't fight against.
It, right, I've learned to do accept it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but for a long time that okay, we're getting to something here. Yes, for a long time you didn't accept it. And the question you asked yourself is what is wrong with me? Right?
Why am I this way?
And it's why I said you're a human being, because you're human. We all have something. The other thing I would say about you, Jen that a lot of what we talk about is the way that you think about things. And I think we should do a whole episode on this is the is being aware of our thoughts, right, because our thoughts affect the way we feel, and the way we feel affects our behaviors and our choices. Right, that's our big thing is choices here, right.
Okay, So it starts as a thought yes in your mind, yes, always, and you're the only one that's hearing that thought, only one hopefully, And then what happens?
And then that thought creates a feeling? Think about it if you're at think about this for a second. If you're at Trader Joe's and you are at the register and the person who's checking you out is sort of unkind or cold, you could have a couple different thoughts. You could be like, oh god, what a jerk. They're being so rude to me. Right, how do you feel when you.
Have that thought? Mad?
Exactly? Okay. What if you are standing there and that same guy as being a jerk or whatever, and you think, oh, he must be having a hard day. What do you feel empathy? Oh my god? It starts with a thought, right. This is what cognitive therapy is based on. It's like ABC. It's like a linear thing. Our thoughts affect our feelings, and then if we feel mad, we're gonna like throw our money at them right at the register.
Right, So your thoughts become your feelings, and your feelings become your behaviors or your actions.
Yeah, or your choices, right voices. Yeah, and that's kind of where you and I in our long friendship. I'm always talking to you sort of regularly, saying like, well, like, tell me what you're thinking, and your thinking is stinking. Sometimes you're stinking thinking sometimes.
Ooh, that's a good one.
I didn't make it up. It's a twelve step platitude. I can't take credit. But you you have black and white thoughts. You have hard thoughts, and those thoughts set you up to feel, have very strong feelings, right, and then those strong feelings drive you towards a certain action or behavior.
I want to touch on one thing. Lorraine, my producer, wants to understand. She's curious as to why I would feel like I had an elephant sitting on my chest whenever Peter would come around.
Yeah. I love that. I'd like to know too.
Oh I'm supposed to answer it. That was a question for you, damn it.
I can't answer it.
Well, here's what I know. That feeling had nothing to do with Peter. I've had everything to do with me and my thoughts in that moment.
But that's your growth, right. You didn't know it ten years ago.
No, I didn't. I would just sit there and be like, what the fuck is happening? Like, why do I feel anxious? This is my husband, this is my family, I'm happy, look at all that I have. Why am I feeling this anxiety? And I would often, you know, share that and be sort of met with like, yeah, I don't know, I don't know why you have that. Everything's great, so must be your problem, and.
That it was, but it wasn't very loving. Right.
It was right, but it made it worse because I felt so alone in it.
Okay, good, So what did you What would you have wanted to hear from him in that moment?
Well, now I would have wanted to hear I'm sorry, babe. I hear you, and I'm here for you if you want to talk about it. If you do you need a hug, yeah, because for me, a lot of times when I'm feeling spinny or I'm feeling anxious, I need a hug. I need a hug from one certain person and that is usually my husband. And Dave gets that about me. He's learned that a hug will just regulate me and just bring me back down to earth.
I'm not a hugger, Yeah, you're not.
I don't go around hugging people.
Right, yeah, now, but it's so beautiful and I love
that Dave knows that about you. And who knows whether you sort of trained him up and let him know or if he kind of figured it out, but you and you even said it like regulates me, it grounds me, so you need It's funny because you know, when I think about talking about stress and everything, one of you know, one of the tips I was going to share today was just like physical grounding, either you know, through a partner or a person or a family member or getting outside, right,
hugging a tree. I know that sounds.
Okay, hugging a tree.
Okay, but you would be surprised, how really.
I love this idea. But I'm just I'm playing Devil's advocate.
Right please always because people, oh.
Like, I'm gonna go hug a tree.
Okay, you'd be surprised. You would be surprised. How I wouldn't.
I love hugging trees.
Okay, I can see you doing it later today. I'll send you a picture us about it.
Okay, So ground yourself, hug a tree, put your feet in the earth, on the earth.
Yeah, take a walk, right, I mean if we're talking about obviously, like the stop sign is a very accessible, immediate free tool. It's an intervention. Another my favorite, actually have a couple favorites. My very immediate favorite is breathing exercises because my physical manifestation of stress is muscle tension. And I'm kind of a fight flight and freeze. I'm a freezer, so everything in me just freezes, and so a deep breath opens up everything and it just slows.
Can you just go back for a second and down. You said you're a fight flight freezer.
So in any kind of situation when we're feeling stress or tension, there's usually three responses, fight.
Flight or free when you do all three.
No, I'm a freezer. You're a freezer bunny like a bunny.
Like a deer in the headlights kind of thing.
Yep, that's a that's a yeah, that's a freezer too.
Yeah.
M So what do you think?
Okay, let me think, Oh, well, that doesn't take me long to answer that one.
I think I know it is.
I've been all things though. Honestly, I used to be a freezer because I was I didn't know what was happening with all the emotions that I was feeling and I didn't know which way to turn or what to do.
So I would just overwhelm and I.
Would just shut up, and I would let other people make the calls and I would just go with whatever anybody said.
I remember those years.
I've been a flighter because it's just easier.
Honestly, problems or eyes.
See, you wouldn't want to be you. But I think I would say my general state of being is a fighter, because well, when I'm in aries and I have these horns, but two because I this sounds so stupid, but I'm a seeker, like I want to figure it all out, like I want to know what's going on. I want to figure it out. I want to fix it, and I want to move forward, and I want to do a lot of growing along the way.
But that's the positive version of a fighter. You're fighting for something, right, You're fighting for yourself, You're fighting for the relationship. You're fighting for your kid's future and their well being. That makes sense.
I used to spend a lot of time fighting, yeah, for the wrong reasons.
Right, But you took your fighter into a more evolved place.
Thank God. It's exhausting being a fighter and it gives you wrinkles.
So that the intervention or the tip I was going to share is breathing, which there is one particular one called the four seven eight method to this one tell us. So you basically breathe in for seconds.
Okay, So how am I supposed to count on my head?
I'm doing this for breath all right, Breathe in for four seconds, and when you get to the top of the four seconds, hold it for seven.
Seven.
Yeah, you can do it. Okay, let me try a good months and then slowly breathe out for eight counts. That is the.
Yeah, feel a little dizzy with like nothingness like I feel, you know that feeling of like just I feel like an empty What is this body?
A vessel?
A vessel?
Yeah? So imagine doing that five times.
Right, or I might pass out.
Well, the other thing is I noticed you you breathe very shallowly. Okay, so try to not just from up here in the chest, but try to use your diaphragm tap into your actor training.
Oh that's hard.
Hold on, okay, So breathe in four counts, hold it for seven, and slowly breathe out for eight and release the tension in your body.
I love that one.
You look like angel, I'm at peace. Yeah, we don't do that for her ourselves on a daily basis. Isn't that crazy?
No, we breathe all day long, but we're not paying we're not paying attention, and we're not like getting the benefits of what a good deep breath can get you. I've often thought, Okay, this is just my theory because I've helped a couple of people in my life stop smoking. Now, I've often thought like, when people smoke, yeah, it's about the tobacco, it's about the nicotine, but it's also about taking a moment and taking a deep breath and you breathe it in and you hold it that awful smoke,
and then you breathe it out. And then people are like, ah.
Yes, it's deep breathing. Right, it's a milliment for yourself. You're taking your break for yourself. You're deep breathing. Absolutely, and I think that some people who quit smoking even start practicing deep breathing.
It's really magical. Yeah, And it's it's nothing. You don't have to go anywhere to get it. You don't need an app, right, you don't have to pay anything. It's just comes with the body.
It's immediate, and it's free. And here's how I got better at it, because again, all the things that I do I'm not perfect at. I forget them still, you know, I teach these things and I forget to do them sometimes. But what happens is again, awareness is so important. Right, So if you start to ask yourself, why am I, like for the Jenny version of it, when one of your awareness pieces could be when you save yourself, why am I right? Why am I this? Why am I that?
Why am I so stressed out? Why am I so angry? Why am I so whatever? That's the beginning of your awareness for you of like, oh, that's a queue. I'm in a stress state. I just need to do some four seven eight breathing. I need to take twenty seconds and do it. It's free, it's immediate, it is effective. It reduces stress everything we're talking about. It increases your mood, it, you know, lowers your blood pressure, all the things, all the things.
I am so lucky that you are my best friend.
I'm lucky too.
You would never be my actual therapist all these years, Ohted.
We as therapists can't see people we know as you might imagine we wouldn't be particularly objective or unbiased. It makes sense, it really does. It was called a dual relationship, right to sort of see people that are your friends or your family. Or it just doesn't work way too it's a quagmar way, too many pitfalls. But as I've always said to you, you get it for free anytime. I always answer your call.
You guys, I highly recommend finding yourself. If a best friend that's a therapist, you get therapy for free, while I'm a science ah thanks for my sessh.
Yeah, I love it. I love spending time with you. I love talking it out and breaking it down, and I know we'll do more of it.
I love you, bye bye, I love you, bye bye. I really needed that. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. And I love sharing my tips and tricks and adele's with you. So this week,
let's do that. Let's try those out. If you're feeling overwhelmed, or you're stressed the f out over one thing or another, if you're experiencing anxiety like I described, like that elephant on your chest, I want you to remember that stop sign trick I've used it for so many years and I highly recommend it, or the four seven eight breathing that she told us about you. Guys, if you want real change in your life, you have to take action.
You have to choose yourself. And while you're at it, I want you to go on over to that mirror, look into your eyes, and take a minute with yourself. Even if you don't like what you see at this very moment, I want you to replace that negative automatic reaction with a kinder, more gentle thought. Instead of saying ugh, say okay, I see you. Just give that a try.
I promise you, when you start to replace those old, ingrained negative thoughts with loving thoughts, we will start seeing and feeling that empathy with ourselves and everyone around us. I love you. I'll be right here next week. I hope you will too,