In this episode, Dermot Whelan, comedian and radio presenter Dermot Whelan talks shares his story of anxiety, how he burned himself out to the point of arriving at a comedy festival (where he was due to perform) in an ambulance. After reaching this crescendo, Dermot eventually found meditation, and though it was somewhat underwhelming, he noticed a much calmer version of himself begin to emerge. Now he is a meditation teacher and has learned many techniques to dissolve anxiety, which he shares h...
Apr 19, 2021•52 min•Season 5Ep. 13
For this episode I am joined by the wonderful Alyson Stoner. A super successful child star, Alyson appeared to have it all going on: she was the featured dancer (as a little girl) in the Missy Elliot Work It video. She was on several Disney projects, Cheaper by the Dozen franchise, the Step Up franchise and so much more. But with such a high pressure environment that was sent against the backdrop of a chaotic and turbulent home life, things were not as wonderful as they may have seemed. Alyson c...
Apr 12, 2021•50 min•Season 5Ep. 12
For this episode I am talking about the power of journalling - with an old school pen and paper - for anxiety management. How can it help? How can we ensure it's not something else to feel pressure with? How can we make sure it's proactively helping us to own our anxiety? I take you on a guided tour of my new journal - Own It: The Anxiety Journal based on my number 1 International bestseller Owning It (on which this podcast is also based!), which is available to purchase here . https://own-it-jo...
Apr 05, 2021•27 min•Season 5Ep. 11
For this episode I am flying solo to talk about toxic positivity. What is it? Why do we do it? How can we avoid it? Buy Naked: Ten Truths To Change Your Life now, widely available online. Order yourself (or for a friend) a copy of my new book, Everything I Wish I'd Known About Anxiety: A Roadmap out of the Overwhelm and Back to Yourself here Follow me on Instagram @CarolineForan and @OwningItPodcas t, on Tik Tok here Subscribe to my weekly Substack here (not always anxiety related, often parenti...
Mar 29, 2021•26 min•Season 5Ep. 10
For this episode my guest is the incredible cognitive neuroscientist and author Dr Caroline Leaf. We talk about anxiety and how important it is as a messaging system and how we should not want to live a life without any anxiety at all. In her new book, Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, she talks through the 5 steps of neurocycling - which is a term I had never heard before - and how it will help with phases of considerable stress, anxiety and depression. We use my own experience as an example (I got...
Mar 22, 2021•51 min•Season 5Ep. 9
For this episode I am joined by Gareth Mullins, head chef and self described perfectionist and high achiever at Dublin's 5 star hotel The Marker. Gareth reached out to me a few years ago to say he was struggling, he didn't understand why and he didn't want to admit that he was having a hard time with anxiety. He went to the doctor, who suggested medication, which he didn't want to take because to him that meant admitting defeat or weakness. Here we talk about the stigma that unfortunately still ...
Mar 15, 2021•47 min•Season 5Ep. 8
Fiona Brennan is a hypnotherapist and two-time author of bestselling wellbeing books. Her latest book, The Self Love Habit, is what we discuss here, in relation to anxiety of course. How can self love really impact our anxiety? What is the divided self she speaks of? How do we engage with our inner critic: the driving force of our anxiety for the most part and what can we do each day to bring more self-compassion into our routine?Fiona's book is out now. You can buy it here . And you can buy my ...
Mar 08, 2021•47 min•Season 5Ep. 7
For this episode I am joined by Greg O'Shea, Rugby Sevens star here in Ireland who shot to fame across the UK and Ireland after appearing on Love Island. A reality TV series where everyone wants a piece of you, and as soon as you do something that doesn't please the masses, you're down over 700,000 instagram followers. Is it possible to keep self worth and such a measurable metric of success separate? How do you cope with the opinions of the world coming at you? Greg talks death threats, remembe...
Mar 01, 2021•41 min•Season 5Ep. 6
Ethan Kross, neuroscientist, psychologist and Professor at the University of Michigan joins me on Owning It to talk about his new book - CHATTER - and how we can better understand and then harness the voice in our head that leads us to all sorts of maladaptive issues, namely anxiety. We talk through some seriously effective tools such as 'temporal distancing' which give a useful structure to concepts we've already explored in Owning It, or things you may already practise yourself but aren't even...
Feb 22, 2021•47 min•Season 5Ep. 5
For this episode I am joined by the brilliant writer Stefanie Preissner for what I would say is my most radically honest and open conversation on this series to date. Stefanie and I talk about therapy, smart ways of finding the right person for you and knowing whether or not it's working for you, we talk about Stefanie's own anxiety, the fact that she is currently in the midst of not feeling so wonderful (and so often we only talk about bad times once we've come out the other side of them), we t...
Feb 15, 2021•58 min•Season 5Ep. 4
For this episode I am joined by Ali Ryan, CEO and founder of popular website GOSS.ie. Ali kindly shares her story with me, after having experienced public shaming following a sexual encounter with a former partner that she had assumed was private but found out it had been recorded and then shared without her consent. The anxiety that ensued was crippling for this woman who now bravely opens up about something that to this day is incredibly difficult for her. We also talk generally about public s...
Feb 08, 2021•53 min•Season 5Ep. 3
My new book NAKED is out now. You can buy it here . We have all experienced stress and anxiety around our work life. During the pandemic, perhaps more than ever. Maybe you were let go. Maybe you had big plans that were put on hold. Maybe outside of the pandemic you're looking for a change but anxious to take a leap of faith. Maybe you've been offered something that sounds exciting but you're afraid you'll regret the move. Maybe your work anxiety stems from a job you're in and that you like, but ...
Feb 01, 2021•57 min•Season 5Ep. 2
Welcome back to season 5! For this episode I want to introduce you to my brand new. book - NAKED: Ten Truths To Change Your Life. It's what I've been working on since wrapping up the last season. It's all about the power of vulnerability as a tool to create a calmer life. In it I explore ten sometimes uncomfortable truths about our thoughts feelings and behaviours that cause us stress and discomfort and set about finding an alternative path. For this introductory episode, I wanted to share some ...
Jan 25, 2021•30 min•Season 5Ep. 1
This is a special one off episode I have done with the HSE to highlight the importance of consent as well as discuss the specifics and language around consent as for some people, knowing what to say or do can cause some anxiety. I will be back with season 5 in January! Order yourself (or for a friend) a copy of my new book, Everything I Wish I'd Known About Anxiety: A Roadmap out of the Overwhelm and Back to Yourself here Follow me on Instagram @CarolineForan and @OwningItPodcas t, on Tik Tok he...
Oct 22, 2020•13 min
In this episode I take some time to answer your anxiety questions that you have sent into me recently. I cover everything from postpartum anxiety to the fear that we'll never get rid of our anxiety and lots more. I hope you find it helpful. Thanks for listening and supporting the series via the Supporter feature on Acast and/or by buying any of my books. Order yourself (or for a friend) a copy of my new book, Everything I Wish I'd Known About Anxiety: A Roadmap out of the Overwhelm and Back to Y...
Oct 12, 2020•37 min•Season 4Ep. 15
For this episode - one of my last of the season - I am joined by the beautiful Daniella Moyles who shares her anxiety story with me. Apologies for the sound quality on this - the internet connection was very dodgy while we tried to speak on Zoom! I've known Daniella for a good few years now and when I first met her, I would have been completely shocked to be told she struggled with anxiety, but that just goes to show you that anxiety is something that anyone can experience. She seemed to have it...
Oct 05, 2020•41 min•Season 4Ep. 14
For this episode I am joined by my lovely mammy Aideen to talk about what it was like for her to see me, her daughter, go through a very tough time with anxiety and help listeners when it comes to articulating their anxiety to their parents if they find that their parents don't understand. This is also a great episode to ask a family member to listen to in order to support you. She talks about what she learned about mental health, anxiety and how things have changed since her generation when anx...
Sep 28, 2020•58 min•Season 4Ep. 13
In this episode of Owning It I am joined by Dr Malie Coyne who is an incredible clinical psychologist. She is the author of Love In Love Out, which is a compassion based approach to parenting your anxious child. Whether or not you have kids it's incredibly helpful to understand how anxiety manifests in children; it helped me to understand my own childhood anxiety in terms of learning about the development of a young brain, particularly how we learn to store long term memory and our fear response...
Sep 21, 2020•48 min•Season 4Ep. 12
In this episode, I am joined by Alison Curtis, national broadcaster with Today FM here in Dublin, Ireland. Alison is Canadian but we consider her one of our own. She has a very interesting story about her experience of health related anxiety that stems back to events she remembers when she was just 7 years old. She very openly shares her struggles and how this anxiety has affected her throughout her life, losing both of her parents to illness and now as a mother to 9-year-old Joan, how she navig...
Sep 14, 2020•27 min•Season 4Ep. 11
Chloe Brotheridge is the host of The Calmer You podcast which I was a guest on earlier this year. She is also the author of the bestselling book The Anxiety Solution. Here she shares with me her anxiety story, her coping mechanisms, what she does to manage it these days, how she got into hypnotherapy and why that might be helpful for dealing with anxiety and her approach to social anxiety. We also talk a lot about compassion as a weapon against anxiety. Chloe's book is widely available online. P...
Sep 07, 2020•36 min•Season 4Ep. 7
For this episode I am joined by one of my heroes: Dr Kristin Neff . She is so ridiculously qualified there just isn't enough room in the podcast notes to fill you in on why she's the business but we do discuss her background at the beginning of this episode. Her main topic is self-compassion and when I first came across her TED Talk, it was an instant game changer for me. Here she talks me through the science of self-compassion, how to bring more of it into our life, what we get wrong about it, ...
Aug 31, 2020•46 min•Season 4Ep. 6
This week my guest is the wonderful Angela Scanlon, tv presenter, broadcast journalist, woman with the most stunning red hair you've ever seen, and she also hosts her own brilliant podcast called Thanks a million which is all about thankfulness and gratitude and she has some epic guests on there. On this series though, the topic of conversation is Angela's experience of anxiety and I just related to her story so much. The feeling of being at odds between how we present ourselves to the world and...
Aug 24, 2020•45 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Something I have yet to really dive into is the anxiety surrounding a break up, which is something so many of us, if not all of us, will probably experience at some point in our lives. Maybe it's a split from your first love, or maybe, as is the case for my guest, journalist and author Liadan Hynes, it's a separation from your husband or partner with whom you share children or someone with whom you've built a life that you expected to see continue forever. It's a very tangible anxiety: that real...
Aug 17, 2020•47 min•Season 4Ep. 7
Hello dear listener and welcome to this expert led episode of owning it the anxiety podcast with your host, author Caroline Foran. This time we are delving into our endocrine system. What role do our hormones play when it comes to anxiety? What's the job of our pituitary gland - what even is that - and why is this so important if we want to bring down our anxious symptoms? Long story short, your hormones are EVERYTHING. And we so often overlook them or are completely unaware of how powerful they...
Aug 10, 2020•45 min•Season 4Ep. 6
At this point in the season, I want to explore anxiety in the gay community: particularly the anxiety surrounding coming out to family and friends, feeling 'othered' at school growing up gay. For this episode I am joined by Celebrity Masterchef winner 2020, LGBTQ+ activist, bestselling author and broadcaster Riyadh Khalaf who shares his experience with me from childhood right through to present times. We talk about the anxiety of feeling at odds with how you think you 'should' be. The fear of re...
Aug 03, 2020•1 hr 9 min•Season 4Ep. 8
For this episode I am so excited to be joined by a guest that i have so long wanted to feature on this series. Her name is Dr Kelly McGonigal. Her Ted Talk has inspired so much of what I do and has informed so much of my mentality and approach towards managing anxiety. In this episode we talk about exercise for anxiety and let me tell you, having recently published a new book about the neuroscience of exercise called The Joy of Movement, her insights are mind blowing. I did not realise half of t...
Jul 27, 2020•41 min•Season 4Ep. 4
I was so excited to get some time with Ella Mills of Deliciously Ella fame to chat about anxiety. We spoke over ZOOM as with most of season, it was recorded during lockdown when social distancing was key so unfortunately it'll never be as good quality as it would have been in studio. Ella is incredibly open in sharing her story of how her career came to be and how, when faced with all of this success, she began to experience crippling anxiety. She is a champion of owning one's vulnerability whic...
Jul 20, 2020•43 min•Season 4Ep. 3
For this expert led episode my guest is Dr Harry Barry. He has written ten books to help us manage our mental health and his latest is called Emotional Healing and it's widely available now. We have a really enlightening conversation about the difference between mental illness and emotional distress, the latter of which is what most of us are actually dealing with. Understanding the nature of emotional distress is so important and takes an awful lot of the fear away from anxiety. We also go into...
Jul 13, 2020•42 min•Season 4Ep. 2
To kick off this new series, of which there will be 15 episodes that mix world class experts on anxiety in with everyday people's anxiety stories, I am joined by the incredible Brian Pennie. I don't need to give him much of an intro because his story of overcoming adversity speaks for itself. Brian is a recovered addict, he's the author of the phenomenal memoir Bonus Time and he's now undertaking a PHD, spending his time educating people on psychology and neuroscience. At the root of all of what...
Jul 06, 2020•49 min•Season 4Ep. 1
This is the last episode of season 3 before season 4 launches in just a few short weeks. The topic? Just as we had to adapt into lockdown and deal with all of the anxiety that brought fore, so too will it take a little bit of time to adapt back to whatever our new normal will be. There might be some social anxiety, our bodies have been conditioned to be hyper vigilant to protect us from the virus so it could feel unnerving to be back in close proximity to others and in general we've all gotten u...
Jun 15, 2020•12 min•Season 3Ep. 10
