Navigating the "What-Ifs": Managing Anxiety in Children and Adults through Emotional Awareness

I had this sort of challenge that I was having with one of my kids and it led me to creating this what-if thought conversation with them , and I wanted to share this with you because perhaps this is a conversation that you need to have with your child , or perhaps this is a conversation that you need to have with yourself , because sometimes we have those moments

where we need to remind ourselves about what's going on in our brain and mental health and our worries and our sadness and our emotions . So that's part of everything I'm going to talk about today . First , i'd like to thank the Tenenbaum Open Science Institute for supporting the curious neuron podcast and sponsoring it .

I am so grateful that I've stayed true to the science with what I'm doing here with curious neuron after leaving research myself , i was doing a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University and that I created curious neuron that is science-backed and evidence-based enough for an institution to support me . So their support means everything to me .

I'm also extremely grateful for you listening to this podcast . I love getting emails from you at info at curiousneuroncom and those of you who leave reviews and rate the podcast on Spotify or Apple podcasts . You send me emails to let me know and send me these beautiful messages .

So thank you , because you know part of what I do with curious neuron are these like ups and downs , just like any other person . You know one of my friends . She'll talk to me about like her job and she'll love it for a couple weeks and then want to leave and quit the next couple of weeks . I go through the same things .

I go through the same emotions with what I'm doing . Overall , obviously , i love what I'm doing , but sometimes it gets difficult . I think for me , the most difficult thing is that I'm always creating .

I'm always creating content for Instagram , for the blog post , for the podcast , thinking of how to get more people to interact , thinking of content for the one-degree to app that I'm the co-founder of , and I think I become mentally exhausted from creating and thinking because it never ends . I'm always thinking when I'm not working .

I'm thinking during the day , i'm thinking in the shower , i'm thinking when I'm going to bed , and I had a lot of insomnia , a past , you know , a few months ago , because of that . So it's hard for me to stop thinking . So that's , those are . Those are my struggles .

But you know , i wanted to talk about anxiety today because one of my kids was starting to show some signs of worrying about little things and I didn't know how to address this because my child was still young five years old , you know , is young . How do you teach them about worry or anxiety ? I don't want my kids to have the struggles that I have .

So I've never been diagnosed with anxiety , but it is clear that I have a lot of the signs and symptoms and I , you know , i wear an Apple watch now and I watch my heart rate , you know , shoot up sometimes when I'm thinking about something , anticipating something in the future and and I'm least , i'm able to monitor it now and I try to be more aware of

that . And when it comes to kids , we have to find ways to make it more relatable and understandable , obviously , for them that it's age-appropriate and we don't want them to worry too much . But worrying is is natural and I that's exactly what I wanted to approach with my kids .

So here's what happened I sat down with all three of my kids and spoke to them about what if thoughts . I related I I brought it up by mentioning my own what if thoughts . So sometimes I have what if thoughts around . You know , what if we do this , whatever it is , at the park , and my child gets hurt ?

or what if I try this or take a risk with something with , let's say , cures , neuron or Wonder Grade , and I fail ? what if , i know , i don't know do something , get up in front of everybody and I fall ? so I started off with little things that were that they could understand . And you know , when I give presentations , what if I make a mistake ?

so I wanted to show them that what if thoughts are normal , because they are . We all have these what if thoughts , whether you're an adult or a child . However , what I wanted to highlight is that it's really helpful to put the what if thoughts out there to get them out of our heads .

So , for a young child , i told my kids that could look like telling mommy or daddy or somebody that you're with about your what if thought as an adult or as we get bigger . This could look like putting your what if thought on paper , grabbing a pen and paper and writing it down .

And those of you who have been following me for a while know that I started journaling more as a habit in January . I journal a few times a week . I can't get into the habit of every day , even though I want to . Every single day that I journal it's a better day for me .

My thoughts are being put on paper and I'm thinking through , you know , successes that I've had or negative thoughts that are stuck in my head and I can get them out on paper . I anything that's like taking brain space . I put it out there on paper .

Gratitude as you know , i record an entire episode around gratitude and how that helped me see the little things in my everyday . So I noticed , just by journaling , i'm happier and feel more , you know , satisfied by little things that happen , rather than like waiting for the next big thing . So for me , journaling has helped .

Now going back to the what if thought , if I am having what if thoughts , especially around work and my businesses , i have been putting them on paper and it's made such a big difference because sometimes , or very often actually , when you're putting these what if thoughts to paper , pen and paper , or you're saying them to somebody , you realize that it doesn't matter

or that it's impossible , right ? So what if I don't know ? what if I give a presentation in front of 30 people and I trip and I fall and I look like a fool , right ? So we have these what if thoughts for social anxiety . Well , what are the odds of that happening ? Can I make sure there aren't any wires around me ?

Am I wearing flat shoes instead of heels ? What am I doing to kind of minimize that ? what if thought ? number one So what I told my kids is that when you have a what if thought , if you can't draw about it , if you can't write about it , you tell somebody , whether it's your sister , your brother , your mom , your dad , somebody near you .

Tell them about those what if thoughts , because once you get it out of your brain , you can have a discussion around it . So , what if there's a monster sleeping under my bed ? What if ? if you say that to your sister , your sister might say , well , we have drawers under our bed and monsters don't exist .

Or you might say , well , what if the witch from the movie Hansel and Gretel that we watched ? what if she's in my closet ? If you say it out loud ? then that person might say , well , let's go check the closet . If she's not there in the daylight and then night falls she is . Or we check when it's nighttime as well .

She will not be there when we turn off the light . We can start having these conversations around whether or not that what if thought makes sense and finding solutions so that we don't have the result of the what if right , like what if I fall ? Sure , then we're flat shoes , whatever it is .

And I explained to my kids that When we don't get those , that one single what if thought out of our brains and we don't share it with somebody or we don't write it down so that we can think about it and rationalize about it , that what if thought is like a snowball . That what if thought becomes two ? what if thoughts becomes three ?

what if thoughts four , five , six , bigger ? what if thoughts more complicated ? what if thoughts more ? for my kids I was using the word like scarier they become much scarier . What if thoughts ?

So that is why it's important that the second you have a what if thought , you share it with somebody and that way it's out of your brain and then you're thinking about it . You're talking about it because when you don't , it's so easy for that what if thought to become so big and so complicated , and then it scares you even more .

So this is the conversation that I had with my three kids and then , as you know , when it comes to emotional intelligence and emotion regulation skills , we need to model it . So I started sharing very small what if thoughts with my kids . We were bike riding and my three-year-old is super fast , brave , no fears , which scares me .

That triggers my what if thoughts . So as we were bike riding , i said out loud , as my three-year-old started , you know , riding his bike really fast and he takes corners and I'm always afraid that he falls . I picture his head hitting the corner because I'm afraid he gets hurt .

So I said to my older kids my three , my five and seven year-old I'm having a what if thought right now . They said really , i'm like , yeah , i'm having a what if thought right now . They said what's your what if thought ? I said , well , what if your brother bike rides so fast and then he tips and then he falls and he hurts his head ?

and then my five-year-old said but he's wearing his helmet . Won't the helmet protect his head so he won't smash his face and bleed and get hurt and cut himself . I was like huh , huh , yes , that's right . And he helped me think through my what if thought . Two days after that happened , i had modeled my own what if thought once or twice more .

My five-year-old I was washing the dishes and he was in the backyard and he knocked . He opened the patio door and said mom , i had a what if thought . I was like really , what was your what if thought ? He's like I climbed up the they call it a treehouse , but it's not . It's like those play sets , like a swing set with a slide . He's like .

I climbed and when I got to the top I said what if I fall ? and and and then I got scared . So I came down to tell you . I said well , is it really really high ? He's like not that high . So I'm like so your fear was , or your what if thought was around climbing the steps . He's like yeah . I said have you ever fallen from those steps ?

He's like yeah , i've lost my balance . I said what happened ? He's like I just fell on my feet because it's not that high . So I said you have your answer . So what if you do fall while climbing the three or four steps that you have ? you'll just either fall in your bum but it's not very high or you'll fall back on your feet because you haven't .

You know you're standing up and there's just like a foot between you and the floor , so it's not that bad . So what if you fall ? The answer is you won't get hurt . And his eyes and his smile , just like they lit up his face , it just it was so big and so like a moment . It was a moment .

It was a clear , clear moment of him realizing that these what if thoughts happen , but talking about it makes so much sense .

This was three weeks ago and he will bring up a one of thought about once a week and we talk it through and he's brought it up to his sister and he's brought it up to me and I've noticed a huge difference in how he's approaching certain situations . And guess what ? He was afraid to be alone in his room .

He hasn't brought up his what if thought , but he's doing it now . He's going into his room getting some things .

There are days where he asks that I come with him , but he is able to do it now in less than three weeks , or three , about three weeks , let's say , and he did it on his own and I think he's talking himself through his what if thoughts and he's able to say it out loud and do it on his own .

So hence the reason why I needed to share this with you guys immediately , because I think that it's something that we can do as parents with our kids , that we can bring it down to a level that they understand , so that , when they have these what if thoughts and they are worried or fearful of something , they can have the tools to work through these emotions ,

something that we or I'll speak for myself never had . Growing up , and my would-have thoughts got really , really big and really complicated . And after having kids , i had would-have thoughts every two seconds And that baby that I had in my arms , i was just so scared of something happening to her .

She was my first child and I'm still scared for anything to happen to any of my kids , and I think that's a normal feeling and anxiety that we will always have .

As parents , we want our kids to be okay , but the what-if thoughts that I was having after giving birth to my first really kept me home and kept me from doing anything that I could have been doing with her , and that is why it's important for us to get it out there .

So , like I said , this was a script and an activity that you can do with your kids , but I think it's a reminder for us that we have a lot of what-if thoughts And if you are a parent and you are listening to this and realizing that you have lots of those , you know lots of those thoughts and that they snowballed into something that is stopping you from

functioning . Because , remember , when it comes to mental health , this is what I had learned during my PhD And this is what I use as a guide Mental we all struggle with sadness and worry and anxiety and all our emotions . We all have these emotions and sometimes they're very big , even obsessive , compulsive thoughts . We have them .

But when you know , it becomes an issue . Mental health becomes a more significant issue when it's impacting our daily functioning in some sort of way .

So if I think back to having a baby the first time and not leaving anywhere , not wanting to be without her , and still to this day , i struggle with some parts of that , i know that that was impacting my functioning and I should have , in retrospect , have seen a therapist for postpartum anxiety .

I'm sure I had it , even as somebody who studied anxiety and study . No , sorry , i didn't study anxiety , i studied schizophrenia . I studied mental health . But part of schizophrenia there's anxiety sometimes it's tied into it and depression sometimes it's tied into it . So I had an understanding of all of these .

It didn't matter , because when I was in it myself I didn't see it . That's why you need to kind of gain the emotional awareness of what you're experiencing , the more we can journal even . You know , i was talking to a friend the other day and she said I don't like writing , it's just , it's long .

I don't like my writing , i can't reread it , i don't have time to do that . I said then grab your phone and talk to it , record yourself , do something every single day , whether it's a minute , five minutes , whatever time you can allocate to it but give yourself some time to think things through your actions , your thoughts , your behaviors .

Another part of what I journal about is can I have done something differently , whether this wasn't a conversation in the way that I behaved in something that I did with my kids .

I try to think things through that are taking that brain space And once I get it out , so you can do this by writing about it , you can do this by talking to yourself , even just the way that I'm set up right now for the podcast . I have recordings on my computer where it's just me talking to myself .

I know it sounds weird , but it's helped me think things through , even when it comes to business . I had a meeting this week and I had set up this whole presentation where I was kind of like pitching something for the app And once I said it out loud I was like , oh no , i hate this idea And I went back . I went back and said you know what ?

I don't know , there's something that I'm just not connecting with . I thought it was a good idea . But now that I say it out loud , there's a few things I wanna change and I wanna stop the meeting now and redo this because I'm not happy with what it is .

And I mean I had put thought into what I was presenting and just when I said it out loud to other people , i was like no , you know what , this doesn't work . So anyways , all this to say the power of getting it out of your head . If there's one thing you could change this week , start getting it out of your head .

Say it to yourself , you know , by recording yourself on your phone , take a video , write it down in point form and full sentences , whatever works for you , but get it out And then , if you've noticed your child worrying about certain things , start the conversation with them about what if thoughts . That is all I have to share with you , my friends , today .

Thank you for being part of this curious neuron community . Share this episode with a friend who might worry a lot or has a child who might worry a lot . Let's , you know , get the conversation going . Share that you worry a lot too .

Sometimes we need to hear that other people are going through the same thing that we are , and it's so satisfying to know that we're not alone and we are not abnormal or weird . Right , like some people will say .

We are all different and we experience emotions differently And we just need somebody to say , hey , i'm going through the same thing you are , and if you are going through anxiety and lots of worry in your life , please know that you are not alone . I have been through it .

I am going through it in a certain extent right now , certain different ways than it was before , when I had a child , but it's something I still struggle with And I know that this anxiety will be my friend for life , bffs , but I will learn how to navigate it or I have been learning how to navigate it very differently , as I'm getting older and my kids are

getting older , so you are not alone . Thank you for listening and I will see you next week . Have a beautiful and wonderful week . Bye .