5 Tips from Mental Health Pros

Sandy Kovach [00:00:04]:

Mental health has always been a big focus for us on Imagine Yourself, and we've had some pretty great guests, psychologists, psychotherapists, counselors. And in this episode, we've put together 5 tips from some of those professionals, including on how to fight negative self talk, the power of positive thoughts, recognizing anxiety, specific things to do to battle anxiety, and finally, fighting loneliness in ourselves and others. Hey. It's Sandy Kovach on behalf of Lanee and I. Welcome to imagine yourself, where we help you imagine your next chapter of life with grace, gratitude, courage, and faith. We're opening up with one of our most popular guests. We'll hear from her as well on anxiety. But right now, psychotherapist Blaine Lawson talks about fighting negative self talk.

Blaine Lawson [00:00:57]:

Negative self talk is a really difficult thing to just stop doing. This is something that's constant in your head. My goal with folks in therapy is never to get them to not experience the negative self talk. I mean, it's kind of my goal, but it's not my initial goal. The goal is really to change your relationship with your thoughts. Because if I tell you don't think about an elephant, in order to do that, you have to think about an elephant. Right? To not to try to not think about it. And negative self talk is the same way.

Blaine Lawson [00:01:26]:

If I tell you not to do it, you're just gonna notice probably that you do it more or when you're doing it. Yes. And so what we try to do is change your relationship with your thoughts. What that means is Lanee of us operate on the assumption that our thoughts are these accurate reflections of ourselves and that they're true. And that's not necessarily the case. We actually have no evidential proof of that, that our thoughts are actually true in the larger sense. That goes for positive and negative thoughts. But we experience them so intimately and so personally that we assume that they're true.

Blaine Lawson [00:02:00]:

And so this idea that if I'm having the thought that I'm worthless, it's because I am worthless. And that's not the case. And so what I work on in therapy is trying to change to shift that relationship. What if your thought isn't true or not true? What if it's just something that you're experiencing? I help clients to start to visualize this differently. So one of the common things that we use is what I like to call leaves on a stream. If you will indulge me for a moment. So if you close your eyes and you imagine that you're looking at a stream, the stream is moving along nicely, and surrounding the stream are these beautiful trees. And so you're watching the stream, and as you're watching, some of the leaves are going to fall down into the stream.

Blaine Lawson [00:02:48]:

The leaves will do different things. So some of the leaves will start at one end of the stream and quickly float to the other end. Some might get stuck and spin in circles. Your thoughts are the same. So if you think of your brain as the stream, the thoughts are the leaves that fall down, and they do different things. Some come quickly and are fleeting and pass right by. Others get stuck, and we can't seem to get rid of them. Yes.

Blaine Lawson [00:03:10]:

And if you experience your thoughts or think about experiencing your thoughts in the same way, it's much easier to say, as opposed to saying, Lanee, stop thinking that you are worthless. It's much easier to say, when you're having that thought, experience, like, I'm having this thought that I'm worthless. It puts a little distance between you and the thought, and it gives you the space to decide the validity of the thought and also what to do with that thought. Once you have a little distance, you can push it a little farther away from yourself.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:39]:

I even love the fact that it just makes me think of it as a thought, not who I am, because I think that might have been my issue.

Sandy Kovach [00:03:49]:

You were owning it. Right.

Lanée Blaise [00:03:51]:

As truth and as who I am versus this was a thought. This was the type of day that I had that led to the thought, and that's okay. Because I was trying to tell myself, stop thinking that. And you're telling me to let it just flow on down through the stream.

Blaine Lawson [00:04:11]:

Or even notice that it's getting stuck. Because once you just put that little bit of distance, you're able to think about the thought differently because you can actually investigate. So if you're saying, I'm having the thought that I'm worthless today. Having that distance, then you can say, well, why am I having that thought right now? Why today? What happened today that makes me feel this? And it can be something that just happened, which often is the case, or it can be something that's kind of been brewing for a while. And so then having that insight as to where this thought may have come from can also be useful in sort of investigating it and pulling it apart as some people will want to do to see what's underneath this thought. Where does it come from? When we have that distance, our thoughts don't have as much power over us because they're not necessarily who we are. It's just something we're experiencing. And it's the same thing with feelings.

Blaine Lawson [00:05:01]:

For example, if you are feeling really upset or emotional in the moment about something, and you can say, I'm experiencing a lot of anxiety right now. I'm experiencing a lot of anger. Like, I am super upset right now. You can take a step back from it within yourself and say, okay. Why am I so upset? What is it about that just happened that makes me feel so full of rage? When we create those little pieces of distance, we're able to more accurately assess the situation as opposed to being stuck in it.

Sandy Kovach [00:05:31]:

And then also probably thinking about, well, I'm not worthless and thinking about it logically. And now once you've decided where it came from, then you have to like toss it out. Right?

Blaine Lawson [00:05:42]:

Yeah. Or you can give yourself some space and be gentle with yourself about it. I think it's a really useful way. It's hard for us to throw out these thoughts. I love I would love it if we could, but I think most folks are very attached to these thoughts. That's why they continue. That's why when we have the negative self talk, it's quite often the same running things. It's not usually new material.

Blaine Lawson [00:06:03]:

You get the same stuff every day. Every time you mess up, it's the same sentiments and thoughts that are being shared in your internal dialogue. And so it's really hard for us to just let go of those, but I think what we can do is start to experience them differently when we have a handle on the fact that I'm experiencing this thought. It doesn't have to be true. And you can even find ways to counter argue with yourself. Here's some evidence that I have from my own life that it's actually not true. And that would be very powerful too.

Lanée Blaise [00:06:32]:

I like that the most too because just like you said, it's a go to. When I hit the rock bottom, I go to that same broken record with the same words. So maybe I can also come back at it with the same line of speech that combats that and says it's not true.

Sandy Kovach [00:06:51]:

Yes. And we're gonna hear more about that. The flip side, the power of positive thoughts, and this one is from doctor Jennifer Goebel. We just call her doctor j, affectionately. She is a former psychotherapist and now a columnist and author. And in your book, doctor j, you talk about patients who have some pretty serious things going on. I think it was Carmen, and I should mention you changed all the names of the people in your book to protect their identity. But she had so much going on, health issue after health issue, and yet she managed to keep a pretty decent attitude.

Dr. Jennifer Gobel [00:07:29]:

She would come in. She was on every kind of medicine that you could imagine, and it interfered from her driving and really walking right and being able to even hardly stay awake during the day. And she was allergic to her house. Allergic to her house? Woah. Yeah. The dust and whatever's in our home, so she had to keep a really sterile environment, which she wasn't able to clean herself. She had to get some help in. But, anyway, she just came in with this smile, and she was amazing.

Dr. Jennifer Gobel [00:07:54]:

And she did all of that in her thoughts. She counted her blessings every morning. She didn't dwell on her illnesses. She didn't dwell on her financial situations because of her illnesses. She just was glad to wake up in the morning and glad to see her husband and glad that she had some friends, and that's what she thought about.

Lanée Blaise [00:08:11]:

Wow. So she was a success story depending on which angle you wanna look at. Right?

Dr. Jennifer Gobel [00:08:17]:

Yeah. In every way because of how she thought about her situation. Her situation was dire, but she made the best of it. Before I go on, I wanna say that I love your podcast, and I love the name of your podcast because it's called Imagine Yourself. And where does imagination start? Your thoughts Oh,

Sandy Kovach [00:08:36]:

this is a total tie in. Right?

Dr. Jennifer Gobel [00:08:39]:

But that is true.

Lanée Blaise [00:08:40]:

That's what that was our goal when we started it was to help people change the way their life was gonna turn out by changing the way that they think about their life. Questions and possibilities that they hadn't opened up for themselves initially.

Dr. Jennifer Gobel [00:08:55]:

If we can't imagine it, which is our thought I'm not saying that doesn't ever happen if you don't imagine it. Obviously, things happen that we don't even think about, but it sure improves our odds if we start out in our thoughts with an imagination that we can become or that we can do or that we can feel. I'm a very cognitive behavioral therapist, and so that's the belief system is that everything starts in our thoughts, and then it goes to our feelings. And from our feelings, it goes to our behavior. You know, if you're sitting on the couch and you've got yoga class and you don't wanna go, your feet hitting the floor is not the first thing that happens.

Sandy Kovach [00:09:27]:

The first

Dr. Jennifer Gobel [00:09:28]:

thing that happens is that you gotta have something in your head that says, this is valuable. I feel better when it's over. I'm gonna do it. I'm committed. Whatever goes on in your head is what really initiates your feet hitting the floor, and it all happens in nanoseconds. But it's important to remember where it starts because when we go to solve a problem or we go to analyze what's happening around us, we know where to start.

Sandy Kovach [00:09:50]:

So it's not like I just don't feel like going. It's my thoughts start those feelings.

Dr. Jennifer Gobel [00:09:55]:

And if you can believe that and remember that, just think how helpful that is.

Lanée Blaise [00:09:58]:

Because like you said, it gets you motivated. It gets you started. It gets you going because you're not gonna get there if you don't mentally get there first.

Sandy Kovach [00:10:08]:

That's right.

Dr. Jennifer Gobel [00:10:08]:

And it's the same, you

Dr. Jennifer Gobel [00:10:09]:

know, with anything. You talked about the different parts of my book, the common things that people come to therapy for. In every one of those categories, the power of thought is really prevalent. If you're having trouble with parenting or your relationships are awry and they're not going where you want them to be, I always use this this little equation. It's called e plus r equals o. And, usually, the event is something that we can't do anything about. I mean, it's over. E.

Dr. Jennifer Gobel [00:10:34]:

The event's done. Yeah. So it's constant. The e doesn't change. K. And the r is the response, and the o is the outcome. So the only thing you can really control is the r and the o because if you use your thoughts to control your reaction to the event, then your outcome is what really matters, whether you're happy or sad or it's your reaction to the event that keeps you moving in the direction that you want versus getting stuck.

Sandy Kovach [00:10:59]:

Now speaking of getting stuck, one thing that keeps us from changing a lot of times is anxiety, and we're gonna address that. When we talked to counselor Kelly Center, she told us one of the first things we need to do and what a lot of people have trouble with is recognizing anxiety for what it is.

Kelli Center [00:11:17]:

When talking about anxiety, I think it's so important to be able to first recognize what you're experiencing. We say buzzwords like anxiety and depression. We use it so often now, which is great. It's great that we're talking about our mental health and our mental wellness. But I think it's also important to be able to identify when you are experiencing that. So that's something that I always work with people is being able to identify when you are experiencing anxiety. So I ask my clients, how do you know it's anxiety? Tell me what you feel in your body. Because there's such a disconnect between our mind and our body because we're moving so fast.

Lanée Blaise [00:11:52]:

Do you think sometimes people even try to say that they're fine? Because the word fine Oh, yeah. How it is it? Is a weird word. Fine. Do you have do you feel that you sometimes have to dig a little deeper to even get like you said, when they're feeling it in their body and maybe trying to overcome it, how do you get them to recognize the problem and then be able to work with it?

Kelli Center [00:12:14]:

Yeah. You know, we have our automated responses. Yeah. So, you know, it brings a lot of my personality, I say, are you really? But are you really fine? And, usually, that's when I get the no. I'm not. So sometimes to help people connect it, I ask them to tell me how this anxiety or what they're feeling is affecting them in various areas of their life. Tell me how it's impacting you at home, at work, in your personal relationships with your kids. You see your, sleep and all of that, and that helps to connect the dots too.

Kelli Center [00:12:43]:

But monitor you know, pay attention to your what you're thinking. That's gonna really tell you. If you feel anxiety rising up, I'm immediately gonna ask you, what are you thinking about? Because that's where it comes from. When when our mouths are cold, our brains are running a mile a minute. And a lot of times, we're going over these worst case scenarios, and it dredges up fear and anxiety.

Sandy Kovach [00:13:02]:

So there are different things that work for addressing anxiety. We're gonna go back now to psychotherapist Blaine Lawson. This is actually from a different episode, coping with constant change, where she talks about one tactic called mindful walking.

Blaine Lawson [00:13:17]:

So anxiety, for lack of a a more technical definition, tends to be when we're worrying about something that's already happened or worrying about the future. And so in any case, we're not in the moment. We're not right where we are. We're thinking about what happens next or worrying about something that happened in the past. And it's very disruptive for us psychologically and even physiologically. So what you're described as mindful walking, and it's actually something that I tend to recommend to a lot of clients, especially those that struggle with meditation. People think, oh, I should meditate, so I should sit quietly and focus on my breath, which is a very difficult thing to do. That's why we call it a practice.

Blaine Lawson [00:13:54]:

You have to practice it before you feel successful. A lot of times when especially when we're very agitated and anxious to begin with, sitting quietly with our thoughts makes us even more anxious because all those thoughts sort of bombard us. You can also meditate while moving, and people tend to find that very gratifying because they're focusing on their body, they're focusing on their senses. And so a mindful walk, we recommend that people walk, in areas that they know well, and they just continually check-in with your senses. What do I see right now? What do I hear? What smells? Don't do that if you're, like, on public transportation. But but, of course, how do my feet feel in my shoes? How does the ground feel? Do I feel the wind? All these different types of things. And when you get stuck, you just cycle to the next sense. Like, what do I see again? What colors? Flowers.

Blaine Lawson [00:14:41]:

And so what this does for your body on a physiological level is it lowers everything. Your autonomic response comes down. So it calms you down physically. And also on a fun side note, my clients always come back and say, even though they're walking in a place they've been literally 1,000 of times, that they noticed, I didn't realize that my neighbor had planted flowers or that their door is red or all these things about our surroundings that we take for granted because we have so much going on in our heads as we're walking through our daily lives. That to take a moment and actually take in what's going on around us can be really lovely. They'll notice birds and find cute coffee shops that they've walked past a hundred times, like, all different types of things.

Sandy Kovach [00:15:20]:

Mindful walking, one of the great tactics that Blaine talked about. Definitely recommend going back to that episode or any of these episodes that we are playing clips from. We'll have them all listed out for you in the show notes and on the website too. We do have one more, though, before we wrap, and that is from Matt Lawson. He counsels people for a number of things, but one of the things he's noticed that is a big problem these days is loneliness. And we wanna look at it from the perspective of the folks who are lonely and from the perspective of people who may have others around them who are suffering from loneliness and don't necessarily even know it.

Matt Lawson [00:16:01]:

If we think of loneliness or the feeling of loneliness as a cue, like hunger. If you're hungry, you should probably eat something.

Lanée Blaise [00:16:09]:

Mhmm. Yeah. It's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just an indicator. Yeah.

Matt Lawson [00:16:13]:

Exactly. Yeah. You can be hungry and actually need to eat. You can feel tired. That means it's time to go to bed. If you're feeling lonely, this is a cue just like anything else. This is something that we've developed as human beings.

Matt Lawson [00:16:26]:

That is kind of saying, hey, you need to check yourself. Maybe there's some connections that you need to revisit in your life with other people. Maybe there's somebody that you need to reach out to that you haven't reached out to in a while. If we look at this more as a cue in our lives to be like, okay, this is me needing to check that because we are social beings.

Matt Lawson [00:16:45]:

The most introverted individual needs deep connection in their lives. Even though they like their alone time, we are social beings and we do actually need connection. We need relationships to strive.

Sandy Kovach [00:16:58]:

Connection seems to be the word of the day. It seems to define really what we need as opposed to do we need to be around people or not be around 2 people. It's just the need to connect in some way. Correct.

Lanée Blaise [00:17:10]:

How do we develop those? Because I'm wondering if sometimes it's a situation where people have a fear or intimidation of stepping forward to try to find their place and find people and activities or that person where they could connect. Even like you said someone who's married, perhaps the one of the spouse needs someone in their own little circle to be able to connect with because you can't have everything rely on your husband or or wife. What about those people who have trouble taking that first step?

Matt Lawson [00:17:42]:

This is where we can kind of take a broader look at the social scope around what loneliness is in our society and within groups of people and really start to push change. The trappings of social media is this idea that we're connecting to others, right? We have thousands of friends supposedly on these networks that we connect with. In reality, we need depth connection.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:07]:

Depth connection is a good way to put it.

Matt Lawson [00:18:08]:

Yes. It's interesting because we've actually seen declines in social groups, like civic groups, religious groups, groups that we typically have relied on to connect with others in. And I think that's something that really needs to be revisited and looked at in our society, in our cities. These are great places for people to really connect with others.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:28]:

But they're feeling like they don't have to connect in real life because they're connecting

Matt Lawson [00:18:33]:

Right.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:33]:

On Instagram or Snapchat or Facebook, whatever.

Matt Lawson [00:18:37]:

Yeah. And it's actually kind of sowing these seeds of chronic loneliness when they rely too much on these social networks.

Sandy Kovach [00:18:44]:

Things are harder for people. We might be okay with liking somebody's Facebook post or commenting even if we don't really know them that well. Mhmm. But coming up to somebody in real life, all of a sudden, we're vulnerable. And especially, like you say, young people who grew up with this, they are not just out of practice, but maybe just don't really know how to approach it

Matt Lawson [00:19:07]:

at all. That's definitely something that we're seeing a lot of too. A lot of younger individuals coming up don't even have that baseline for what it means to really develop actual face to face social groups. In those respects, it might mean, like, that parent stepping in and actually, like, teaching and showing what it looks like to develop, making sure that that teen or that young adult is with you when you go to these social places.

Lanée Blaise [00:19:31]:

I like that idea of modeling behavior for others that are not used to it and for using the people not using, but having the people that you already care about in your life and making deeper connections with that base is a good way to start. Because I think I have a bit of a take on your personal story, Matt, as far as I feel like you started off as a personal trainer for fitness purposes and then transitioned. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Matt Lawson [00:20:01]:

Yeah. I had my own little personal training business here in Chicago, and what I was starting to see was a lot of people coming in using their personal training sessions as their therapy sessions. So Yeah. We you know, and then people would joke, like, personal trainers are modern day

Lanée Blaise [00:20:19]:

Bartenders. But Or bartender. Yeah.

Matt Lawson [00:20:21]:

Are still modern day hairdressers. Bartenders that do the same thing. But that was a big part of for a lot of people is to have this private, safe place where they could talk about these things.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:33]:

What can we do if we see that there is someone calling out, almost like that Aesop's fable with the little lonely shepherd boy who cried wolf because he just wanted some attention, and he just wanted some interaction and a little something. But what do you do when you find someone who you can tell they're you see them going within, but you

Matt Lawson [00:20:52]:

Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:20:52]:

Believe that they really want to kind of blossom out? Or if you're that person who is kind of calling out for help for loneliness.

Matt Lawson [00:21:00]:

There's a couple of things here. As I said before, I think when it comes to loneliness and supporting people, this is the responsibility of our society as a whole. We do need more people that are willing to have those conversations, not being afraid to just say, hey, or not be afraid just to say, how are you doing?

Sandy Kovach [00:21:17]:

Can we do something as simple as ask them to go to Lanee? Or how do we approach that without feeling like we're, you know, intruding? Yeah.

Matt Lawson [00:21:25]:

Taking that step to be like, hey. What's up? You know? Let's go grab some lunch together. Or, hey. Did you feel like going for a walk together? Like, just something, like, kinda give them that space and allow it to be on their terms. Like, doesn't necessarily have to be something where you're badgering them. Just kinda keep an eye on on the people around you. And I think that's something that we haven't forgotten how to do, but maybe it's a little bit out of practice with our society.

Sandy Kovach [00:21:47]:

Because we're so busy, and we're so looking at our phones.

Matt Lawson [00:21:50]:

Yes. We have

Sandy Kovach [00:21:50]:

social media, I guess.

Matt Lawson [00:21:52]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:21:53]:

Or even distrusting. Yeah.

Sandy Kovach [00:21:55]:

Well, that's another thing. I mean, there's so many scams out there, like people emailing you and calling you and Stranger danger too. And stranger danger. There's a lot of stuff that you actually legit do need to worry about. It might make us a little over paranoid sometimes. And as parents, it makes us a little overprotective sometimes.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:14]:

That's true.

Matt Lawson [00:22:15]:

And absolutely. And, you know, I I wouldn't want anybody to put themselves in a situation where they are in Lanee. But that person that's maybe a secondary connection from your church or some Lanee that you go to on a regular basis that you just notice or maybe you just wanna get to know. There's nothing wrong with doing something like that within a certain scope of safety, within a certain scope of your protection first.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:40]:

We won't even have to go back to the olden days where if some The olden days. Olden days

Matt Lawson [00:22:45]:

where it's some Like eighties.

Lanée Blaise [00:22:47]:

Eighties. Woo. Yes. Madonna time, thriller, and you actually just say, hey. My nephew just moved to the area. Could you just kind of look out for him or show him around the city a little bit? Just I know you are safe, and I know my nephew is safe. And it doesn't have to be for dating purposes, but it can just be, like, show them around a little bit, start them off.

Matt Lawson [00:23:13]:

I've had, like, alumni reach out to me before and just be like, hey. I'm moving to Chicago. Can you recommend any good restaurants? And then it goes to, hey. Do you mind grabbing some coffee with me sometime? And it is. I think people have kind of forgotten this very subtle art of just connecting with others. And it is an art, and I think a lot of people don't feel adequate. And this is kind of going back to some of the work that I do with people is breaking through some of these cognitive barriers that they have about who they are and what they have to give to other people, it doesn't always have to be what you can do for somebody else or what they can do for you. It can just be like, hey.

Matt Lawson [00:23:48]:

We're both people.

Sandy Kovach [00:23:50]:

We're both people.

Matt Lawson [00:23:51]:

We're both here. Let's just connect.

Lanée Blaise [00:23:53]:

It doesn't have to have an ulterior motive or anything like that. And people, I think, are often way more receptive and kind and receptive and kind and open to that than you think because you might be intimidated again and say, oh, I don't wanna reach out to that alumni person because they'll probably just brush me off. But first of all, if they do brush you off, oh, well, then they weren't for you. But many times people are way more open and willing to help and open a door than you think.

Matt Lawson [00:24:19]:

Yeah. We used to do an exposure. I used to work for this eating disorder group and we used to do an exposure with people. Exposures are things that you put a person through that oftentimes a fear or something that they have a problem with. And you kind of help them through it in a controlled environment, give them a safety net to fall back on. So an exposure that we used to do with people is we used to take them out to Chicago and just go up to a stranger and ask them for directions. I I do

Lanée Blaise [00:24:48]:

check me.

Sandy Kovach [00:24:49]:

And they were like, Google Maps. No. I'm just kidding.

Matt Lawson [00:24:54]:

Right? Like, if you have a phone, you don't

Lanée Blaise [00:24:56]:

have a phone. Maybe they were from the eighties and they pulled up the map.

Sandy Kovach [00:25:01]:

Those big paper maps. Yeah.

Lanée Blaise [00:25:02]:

One of those? Yeah. They open that

Matt Lawson [00:25:04]:

up for

Lanée Blaise [00:25:04]:

you. Yeah.

Sandy Kovach [00:25:05]:

Sorry. We I mean, we know this is serious,

Matt Lawson [00:25:07]:

but but, yeah, they have this fear of, like, getting their heads bitten off if they even talk to somebody. So being able to get them to go through a stranger and be like, hey. How do you get to the store? Or I'm new to Chicago. How do you get here? And getting them to see, like, actually, that wasn't so bad. Mhmm. And that can lead to, hey, I'm new in town. What do you recommend? That I do, that I see, that I go experience. And once people start to feel like actually people aren't that bad and they welcome connection and it's very rare that they're going to do something mean to you.

Matt Lawson [00:25:41]:

Once people start to get comfortable with that, it's amazing how it can snowball into their confidence coming up and their ability to wanna connect to others coming up.

Sandy Kovach [00:25:50]:

Some great encouragement for Matt for us to reach out to folks who are lonely or may have other issues. And so whether it's you or someone you love or just recognizing that people might be going through something, we hope you found this episode helpful. And, of course, nothing replaces getting professional help for yourself. And while we'll have links for all of these episodes in the show notes and on our website, we'll provide some other links as well in case you wanna search out a therapist or someone for yourself. Thanks so much for sharing some time with us on the Imagine Yourself podcast. If you have a moment, go on over and give us a rating or a review. It really helps other people to discover us, and we hope you'll drop us a note on our website or hook up with us on social media. All the links that imagine yourself podcast.com.