The Mel Robbins PodcastThe TRUTH About ANXIETY And How To HEAL IT! | The Mel Robbins Podcast
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,067 words- 0:00 – 3:00
Intro
- MRMel Robbins
(ticking clock) (upbeat music) Dr. Kennedy in the house, people. So let's go back to the basics, anxiety 101.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
All anxiety is separation anxiety.
- MRMel Robbins
What does that mean?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
The reason why you're anxious in the first place is because you block love. So when you say, "I love you-"
- MRMel Robbins
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
The reason why you're anxious is because you block love?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
For yourself, yes.
- MRMel Robbins
What? I th- I just had a huge breakthrough here.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Good.
- MRMel Robbins
Holy shit, Russ. (upbeat music) Hey, it's Mel, and welcome to The Mel Robbins Podcast. Okay, so today's episode is freaking fire. And speaking of fire, I gotta throw some amazing celebratory fire in your direction. I gotta say thank you. Thank you so much for listening, for sharing these episodes, for being as excited as I am about this thing. I started this because I just wanted to connect with you on a deeper level, and I wanted to be able for us to inspire and empower each other to create better lives. And baby, (laughs) we are doing it. Um, I also want to say thank you for being a force for good. I love the fact that you're already pouring in topic and guest suggestions. Please keep them coming, because we are going to create this thing together. We are looking at the DMs, we're looking at the stuff that you're leaving on the forums on the website. This is something we are building together, and it is just incredible, so thank you, thank you, thank you. Okay, so today's episode, hello, game changer. This is fire, people. So what are we talking about? Um, anxiety. Yep, we gotta talk about anxiety. My mission with this episode of The Mel Robbins Podcast is to profoundly, fundamentally change the way you think about and approach anxiety. By the end of this episode, you will be empowered to do way more than just survive your anxiety or try to cope with it, okay? In just a few minutes, you are going to meet an incredible expert on the topic. His name is Dr. Russ Kennedy. He's a medical doctor. He has a degree in neuroscience. And in my opinion, he has written the book on anxiety. And so he's gonna come on and we're gonna talk all about the topic. We're gonna change the way that you think about it, that you approach it, and more importantly, Dr. Kennedy says you can heal your anxiety once and for all. Yeah, sure, you're gonna have moments where anxiety rise up, and, you know, you're gonna have stressful situations, but in terms of the ongoing overwhelm, nervousness, on edge feeling, he's gonna teach you how to heal that. His work is life-changing, and it has made a huge difference in my life, and I cannot wait for you to meet him in a few minutes. Now, the interesting thing about anxiety is that I am considered one of the world's leading experts on anxiety.
- 3:00 – 12:45
My history with anxiety: “I’m a life tested expert on anxiety”
- MRMel Robbins
And I'm what you call a life-tested expert, because my expertise has been earned the hard way, the painful way, and that is by living through and struggling with anxiety for almost 45 years. The truth is, when I really think about my past, I don't ever remember a time when I wasn't nervous, or feeling on edge, or anxious, or somewhere other than the room that I was currently standing in. I think if you can come out of the womb as a baby having a panic attack, that was Mel Robbins. And that panic that I was, I think, hardwired with in my nervous system, it only grew as I got older. In fact, you know how you go to those little camps when you're little, like with the Y or, you know, maybe you go to Girl Scout camp? I was so homesick at every single camp my parents tried to send me to, I would be sent home. In fact, there is this really infamous story about me, uh, in sixth grade. So in sixth grade at North Muskegon Elementary School, there's this huge crescendo at the end of the year, and the entire sixth grade takes over the Boy Scout and Girl Scout camp that's like 10 miles away, and everybody goes to camp for five days and four nights. And it is supposed to be the most amazing thing that happens during elementary school. Everybody talks about going to sixth grade camp. Here's the thing about Mel. I was so riddled with anxiety and panic while I was there that I called my parents every single day and begged for them to come and get me. I was so out of control that the counselors actually acquiesced and said I could go home. Now, I want you to stop and think about that. Do you know how anxious you have to be to get trained counselors to basically go, "This kid is out of control. We can't handle this. Y- we gotta get her outta h- get her parents to come pick her up. Like, I, I, d- I can't deal with this." And so I got what my anxiety wanted. I got to leave, and as I was packing up my cabin, my friends came in and they're like, "Where are you going, Mel? Tonight's the big scavenger hunt. It's the last night. Why are you leaving?" I lied to them and said, "Oh, my grandmother's had a heart attack, so my parents are coming. We gotta go. We gotta go see her." Yep, that was sixth grade Mel, full of anxiety. And it only got worse as I got older. In fact, before every track meet or tennis match that I had to play as a varsity athlete, I had such a nervous stomach. That was the term that was used back in the early '80s. "She has a nervous stomach." Well, you know how I dealt with my nervous stomach? I would stand behind, like, a bush next to the tennis courts, and I would have this blue bottle packed in my backpack. It was a blue bottle of Mylanta. This is an antacid medicine that old people drink for, for reflux. I would chug that stuff. It got so bad that my parents would start buying that stuff by the case. It was disgusting and chalky, but I chugged it anyway.Honestly, I can't believe I'm admitting this to you right now. (laughs) And here's the thing, it only got worse. I mean, little elementary school anxiety Mel turned into high school anxiety Mel, and then of course I was college train wreck anxiety Mel. I don't even wanna admit half the things I did in college when I was anxious, like jumping from one relationship to another or waking up every single morning with, uh, hangxiety full of regrets about the night before. You know, when I stop and think about... oh my God. I feel like I need Mylanta right now. My stomach is starting to be like, "Woah." And I laugh about it, but honestly at the time, it's sad. Like, I- I just didn't enjoy college. I don't even like to go to college reunions 'cause I did not like the person that I was back then as my anxiety was just raging out of control. Well, when I got to law school, thankfully, the anxiety got so unbearable that I got medical help and I was finally diagnosed with anxiety. And this would have been in the early 90s, and so anxiety was not a word that people threw around casually back then. I mean, anxiety meant there was something terribly wrong with you. People didn't talk about it. If you went to therapy, you were a freak. And so thankfully for me though, this diagnosis, it was a godsend because I finally had a word and a doctor validating what I had been struggling with for my entire life for 20 years. He prescribed Zoloft. It was a complete game-changer for me. It's almost like that medication acted like a ladder. You see, the anxiety and all the mental spiraling that it caused, that spiraling put me in a very deep hole mentally, physically, and spiritually, and that Zoloft was like a little ladder that allowed me, rung by rung, to start to climb out of that hole and do the work that you need to do to start to take control of your life. So, I took Zoloft for 20 years. In fact, the only time I didn't take Zoloft was when our first daughter, Sawyer, she's now 23 years old. So when she was born, I had been off Zoloft, uh, I had to taper off of it 'cause we didn't know if you could, like, breastfeed or whatever on that medication. They know now it's safe to breastfeed with it. But when she was born, I had such severe postpartum depression, the really scary kind where you couldn't be left alone because the doctors were afraid you were gonna hurt yourself or you're gonna hurt your baby. It was a terrifying eight-week experience in my life. And so I'm telling you, between the 45 years of dealing with my own anxiety and, on top of it, Chris and I having kids that have had anxiety that at times were so severe that they slept on the floor of our bedroom, I just always thought, "Okay, I have anxiety. That's the way that it is. It's just the way that I'm wired. I hate it. I hate having anxiety, but I just have to learn to live with it." I was wrong. You do not have to hate anxiety and you do not have to just learn to live with it. You can learn how to understand it and you can learn simple things that will help you take control of it and change how you respond to moments of uncertainty and moments of stress. And so in my early 40s, the anxiety got so crippling again because there were a lot of things going on in our life that were triggering it, that every single morning the alarm would go off and I would lay in bed for an hour and I would just stare at the ceiling. And the anxiety, it's almost like it felt like a gravity blanket pinning me to that bed. And as I would lay in that bed and think about all my problems, time would tick by, the kids would miss the bus. I became a person I didn't even recognize. But I want to just tell you that I know what it's like when anxiety is ruining or running your life, because when anxiety was at its worst for me, I created this thing called the Five Second Rule, and it was out of sheer desperation and fear that I created this thing. What is it? It's a brain hack. And if you ever feel overwhelmed by anxious thoughts or anxious feelings, just count backwards, five, four, three, two, one, and you can interrupt those thoughts and feelings and then physically move. And ever since I invented this thing, I've been teaching the Five Second Rule on stages around the world and it has changed the lives of millions of people. Now, here's one of the things I want to distinguish before we bring Dr. Kennedy on in just a second. A lot of the tools that I am known for and that I teach and the things that I've been researching that help with anxiety, that help with mindset, that help with mental health, I call these tools a neck-up approach because they attack your mindset. They focus on your thoughts. They help you change the patterns of thought in your mind and the default thinking and the self-criticism and the worry and the procrastination and the perfectionism that can take hold. On today's episode though, we're gonna go in a different direction. We're gonna talk about a whole body of tools that you need that I would classify as a neck-down approach to anxiety. We are going to focus on the body. We're going to focus on your nervous system. We're going to focus on thinking about anxiety as something happening in your body first, because the fact is that if you only attack from the neck up with talk therapy or using my tools, yeah, it's gonna help. Yes, they are an essential part of the toolkit that you need for coping, and yes, it will make a huge difference, but what Dr. Kennedy is going to explain to you today is game-changer because he's gonna teach you that you can actually heal your anxiety.But you have to attack it from the neck down. You have to stop running away from the anxiety and address what's going on in your body, and that's exactly what we're gonna talk about today, and we're also gonna talk about how the heck do you do this. This is gonna be packed with takeaways, because I'm going
- 12:45 – 15:50
Meet Dr. Russell Kennedy
- MRMel Robbins
to just make sure that it is. So Dr. Kennedy, he is the best-selling author of the book Anxiety Rx. His work is changing the lives of people around the world. He is helping people heal their anxiety in his clinical practice. And you're gonna wanna bookmark this episode, because you're gonna learn so many takeaways that you're gonna absolutely wanna come back to this again and again, and you definitely are gonna wanna share this with your friends and family. In fact, you'll be trying his tools as you listen to this episode. He has a degree in neuroscience, he's a medical doctor, and perhaps most importantly, like me and maybe you, he's struggled with anxiety for decades. But using what you're about to learn in this episode, he has cured himself. So let's get him on the line. Hey.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Hey, Mel Robbins, my God.
- MRMel Robbins
How are you?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Good. Good.
- MRMel Robbins
Awesome. Is this thing going, guys? We're good with the recording? Okay, awesome. I am so excited. My favorite episodes are ones where I feel like I'm getting a personal therapy session-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
...that the world can listen in on, so. (laughs)
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay. How deep do you want to go?
- MRMel Robbins
Well, I have a feeling that we are gonna have you back over and over and over again.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
And so I want to focus our conversation today on, um, just kind of some anxiety 101.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
Because one of the things that I was so excited to, um, be able to talk to you about is the difference between a neck-up thinking approach-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure.
- MRMel Robbins
...to anxiety, versus a neck-down body approach to anxiety.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
And I, um, want to focus our conversation on truly getting people to have a wake-up call about the way that they think about what anxiety is and isn't, about what's going on in your body when you have anxiety, and almost, like, getting somebody to go, "Holy shit. Like, I gotta completely upend how I've been thinking and attacking this." Does that make sense?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah, that's what I'm good at. (laughs)
- MRMel Robbins
I, I know you are. So I've been following you for a while, and every time you post something, I go, "Oh my God. Oh my God. Yes, yes, yes, yes." And so first of all, thank you, thank you, thank you, Dr. Kennedy. I know you prefer to be called Russ, but I just gotta say, dude, you gotta, you g- you're an MD and you have a degree in neuroscience, and like me, you struggled with anxiety for 30 years.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Whoo.
- MRMel Robbins
And so I could not be more excited to, uh, basically get a personal therapy session with you.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure. Happy to do it.
- MRMel Robbins
(laughs) Okay.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Happy to do it, Mel.
- MRMel Robbins
So the first thing that I would love to ask you is, when a patient comes to you, and I, I, how do you describe what anxiety is?
- 15:50 – 21:00
What is anxiety, really?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Well, usually they come to me with anxiety already, so, you know, I'll, I'll go into, you know, "What are you feeling? What's going on? What happens to you?" And usually, almost universally, they'll describe a thinking process. "My husband's driving me nuts. I can't drive. I can't go past this. I can't go into grocery stores. I can't go on the bus." And usually what I'll say is, "You know, that's all in your head. Like, that's all the story that your left hemisphere, your analytical left hemisphere, is making up. Now, what do you feel in your body, in your physiology, when you say you feel anxiety?" And when I, the first, almost the first thing I can get people to do is say, "I'm gonna change the word 'anxiety' to 'alarm,'" because words have consciousness to them. Anxiety doesn't have a lot of consciousness to it. A lot of people don't even understand what anxiety is.
- MRMel Robbins
Uh, well, I agree, and I feel-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Or-
- MRMel Robbins
... like it's thrown around all the time.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
And we think that anxiety is like a nervous stomach and a lot of worry in your head about what's gonna happen, and I love that you're saying that we want to start talking about the alarm that goes off in your body, and before we even talk about what that means, one other thing that I would love for you to address is, what are ways in which anxiety expresses itself? And I'm gonna give you an example.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure.
- MRMel Robbins
So, so I'm your classic textbook type A hypervigilant-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure.
- MRMel Robbins
...always worried-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
...anxiety type. Uh, panic attacks, shortness of breath, you know, I, you can, you can literally feel the, the, the alarm vibrating through my skin.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
But our daughter, who is 23, when she's feeling anxious or the alarm is going off in her body, she doesn't emit worry or tension. She emits frustration and anger.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure.
- MRMel Robbins
So what are the various ways in which anxiety gets expressed in people? Because I think there's a lot of people that, quote, "struggle with anxiety," but that don't realize that it's anxiety that they're struggling with.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah. Well, um, I think what happens, what you're describing with Sawyer, is that, is that her autonomic nervous system kind of goes into a sympathetic, you know, fight or flight response, and for her, the only acceptable response inside of her is frustration or anger, because that's, that's how it gets expressed.
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Now, other people will shut down. They'll go into freeze, right? So sympathetic nervous system is fight, flight, and freeze, and fawn too, but freeze mostly.... in that particular situation. So some people will go into this, like, withdrawal, they'll stop moving, their eye contact disappears, they, their body stops kind of moving in a, in a fluid kind of way. And it's really people display anxiety or alarm, as I should say, using my own little terminology, in very different ways, and I think it's really becoming aware of it, because I have many people that send me me- messages saying, "I didn't even know I had anxiety until I read your book." It's like, "Well, I don't know if I'm doing you any favors there, but..."
- MRMel Robbins
(laughs)
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
You know, it, it really is, it really does manifest because when I was 20, I didn't know what anxiety was. I just knew that I had this impending doom, this sense of impending doom, and I didn't even know what it was, and I don't think a lot of people do.
- MRMel Robbins
I agree with you. So let's go back to the basics.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
Anxiety 101.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
When you say we're gonna now talk about anxiety as an alarm system in your body, and what, describe the alarm system to me.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay. So there's a structure in our brains called the amygdala. And the amygdala's often called the fear center of the brain. Mm, it's, it's an okay, you know, description, but it's, it's not the best. But basically, the amygdala is involved in just about every fear reaction that we have. So the amygdala will recognize something in your external environment or your internal environment, AKA worries, that alarms it. So the amygdala has a superhighway down to the brain stem which controls your body. So your blood pressure increases, your heart rate increases, your respiration increases. Everything seems to go along with that, so we get this physiological change motivated mostly by the amygdala but other, other factors in the brain as well, and that brings us into this state of alarm. And then what the left hemisphere does is it goes, "We're alarmed. What do we have to be alarmed about?" And then you start stacking, and I've heard you say this. I think it was in, in The 5 Second Rule about, "I gotta get up. You know, this looks, this, this is bad, that's bad, one knee or boobs is bigger." (laughs) You know?
- MRMel Robbins
Yup.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
All this kind of stuff. That's what I call stacking. So as soon as your body feels this sense of alarm, your left hemisphere has to do something with it, so it has to make up worries and thoughts that are completely consistent with that painful sense of alarm in your system. So we start stacking up these worries, and of course, that just creates more alarm, which creates more worries, which creates more alarm, and we get caught in this alarm/anxiety cycle. So what's-
- MRMel Robbins
So let me see if I can unpack this, okay?
- 21:00 – 25:00
Key Concept: Anxiety starts in your body, not in your thoughts
- MRMel Robbins
think this is a huge wake-up call for people to learn this, that anxiety does not start typically with your thoughts.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Totally.
- MRMel Robbins
Anxiety starts with a physical response to some kind of situation that then triggers a physiological reaction in your body designed to agitate you and designed as an alarm to get you to suddenly pay attention, because your body is physically trying to get you to basically wake up from, from whatever you're doing and pay attention to some sort of threat or some sort of change or some sort of something. And the second thing that happens when your hea- when that physical thing happens is then your mind goes, "Holy cow. What am I, what, what, what is around me right now that I need to pay attention to or be worried about?" Is the, am I getting this right? So it begins in the body-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
... as an alarm system, and then the thoughts climb on.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
I think that that, that's w-, that's an explanation that's very simple and, and, and it, very accurate, I think, is that we have this thing that I describe in my book called background alarm, which is basically kind of old unresolved emotional issues that are stuck in your body. You know, my colleague Gabor Mate talks about this too, emotions being stuck in the body, which is a construct. You can't separate the mind from the body, of course, but it's a construct, and it helps people. It really helps them understand that, "Hey, this is actually starting from my body," and because we're so versed at speaking in words and communicating to e- to ourselves and to each other with words, we don't get into the feeling. So if I ask you, "Hey, Mel, uh, what does it feel like when you, when you bite into an apple?" It's like, "Well, I don't know. I mean..." W- so, so I say, "What does it taste like?" "Well, it's sweet," or, "It's sour, it's crunchy." It's like we're so good at describing things in words, but if I, "How do you feel when you bite into that apple?" that's a brand new landscape. Like, we're not used to feeling. We're in a society that values, that worships the mind, and very, very rarely actually says, "Hey, get into your body. Feel your body." And a lot of us don't want to feel our body 'cause that's where the fricking pain is, right?
- MRMel Robbins
That's right.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
So we retreat into our heads because it's an escape from this old alarm that's been trapped in your body probably since childhood.
- MRMel Robbins
So you say that all anxiety has the exact same beginning. I was surp- I was really, this really surprised me that, that anxiety is all triggered by the same thing.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yes, that-
- MRMel Robbins
All anxiety comes from the, eh, eh, singular source. What is that?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Separation. All anxiety is separation anxiety. It's-
- MRMel Robbins
What does that mean?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Well, if you drill it down, it's, it's separation typically from yourself, but it starts with separation from your parents on some level. If you feel separate from your parents, the people that are supposed to love you, care, see you, hear you, and love you, if you feel separate from them, it creates this alarm in our system. And then when we get this alarm in our system, our brain has to do something about that. So what we tend to do as children is first of all blame ourselves. We can't blame our parents for what's going on in our childhood environment, so we blame ourselves, and then we start taking JABS at ourselves, what I call JABS, which is basically judgment, abandonment, blame, and shame. This is what we do to ourselves. This is the, the birth of the inner critic.So-
- MRMel Robbins
Can you give me an example? So-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
... so I find, and one of the things I'm, I'm, I wanna do with this show is to take, like, a lot of the stuff that sounds intellectual-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure.
- MRMel Robbins
... and make it really digestible and understandable. So when you say separate, you're separate from your parents, can you give us a few scenarios that, you know, aren't all horrific abuse-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure.
- MRMel Robbins
... situations-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure.
- 25:00 – 27:00
Key Concept: Parental mismatch
- MRMel Robbins
... that, that anybody can identify with, when you say separate from your parents?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah. Th- so there's something as simple as a parental mismatch, you know?
- MRMel Robbins
What does that mean?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Well, it's kind of a term... I don't know if I heard it or I made it up, but it's basically I, I see a lot of... Most of my patients, clients, whatever you want to call them, are female, and a lot of them have issues with their mom. So it's, they felt separate. They, they felt this mismatch from their mother. They felt like, you know, "We're not connected. I love my mother. She loves me, but, you know, I like Bach and she likes, you know, punk rock." You know, w- and, and just in different parts of our lives, they're very different. And that parental mismatch, I think it might be a Nicole LePera term actually, this parental mismatch causes a tremendous amount of alarm in a child's system because you want to belong to a parent. You really want to feel like you're connected to your parent. And if you don't have that internal sense of attachment, it's very alarming to our system, and that alarm gets lodged in our body, and then that's what usually mediates the worries as we get older. It also mediates that thing I call JABS, which is judgment, abandonment, blame, and shame. We do that to ourselves. So when we're listening to our own thing, it's like, "Okay, how am I judging myself here?" You wake up in the morning, as you say, in, in High 5 Habit, you wake up in the morning-
- MRMel Robbins
(laughs)
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
... with anxiety or alarm, as I like to call it, and then you start thinking. You start stacking all these negative scenarios on top of yourself to make sense of it, when really what you should do, and, and take... This is out of your book, is, "I'm feeling anxious. 54321 into my body. Into my body. Find a place in my body, find a place in my breath, find a place that feels safe in my body." And some people don't feel safe in their body, and we do something with that first, but really breath. Everybody's pretty much safe in their breath. Go, "54321 into my body, out of my head." 'Cause what that does is it gives a sense of control. It ta- it takes energy away from those rumination- ruminating thoughts, and it puts it where it belongs, because maybe that alarm is your younger self that's asking
- 27:00 – 45:45
Key Concept: Anxiety is an alarm in your body
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
for your attention. And as a medical doctor, a neuroscientist, I kind of want to have a seizure sometimes when I talk about the ethereal nature of this. But really, from a practical sense, when you're anxious, find the alarm in your body-
- MRMel Robbins
Okay, so what-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
... becau-
- MRMel Robbins
How do you do that? So let's-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
So let's just take a scenario right now. Let's just say-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
Um, and, you know, it could be anything.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure.
- MRMel Robbins
It could be that you are sitting in the pickup line at school and you see somebody that you have beef with, and you start to feel like this wave hit you-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure.
- MRMel Robbins
... because you don't want to talk to that person or that person makes you nervous.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Right.
- MRMel Robbins
Situation we can all relate to.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Totally.
- MRMel Robbins
In that moment, sitting in the front seat of your car, and you feel the alarm go off, how do you locate the damn thing? 'Cause it's everywhere at this point.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah. Well, sometimes it's everywhere. I mean, it feels like it's everywhere, I think. And as I was saying earlier, we're so used to communicating with ourselves in words, we don't really think to look at the alarm in our body, right? So what I would say is, as you look at this person that kind of triggers you a little bit, you know, feel your butt in the, in the car seat, you know. Relax your shoulders, relax your jaw. You know, if you're not driving, like, close your eyes for a second. Just take a breath in and p- and, like, a nice slow breath out and go, "Where in my physiology do I sense this?" You know, imagine this person. It's like, "Okay, well, I feel this sort of, you know, kind of ache in, in my upper chest and it's... You know, maybe it's the size of an apple or whatever, and it feels like it's a pressure. It feels like it's ra- radiating-
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
... up to my neck." That's your alarm. So put your hand over your alarm. Like in The High 5 Habit, high five your heart. High five that part of your alarm, because we're jumping right into it. I believe that that is your younger self asking for your attention, and typically what we do is we push it away. We go into our heads, right?
- MRMel Robbins
Right.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
So go into your body. Feel it. See if you can put your hand over that area of-
- MRMel Robbins
But what if I don't want to? What if I'm literally like, "I don't like this feeling"?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yep.
- MRMel Robbins
So, you know, I- I'm, I'm sitting here listening to you, and-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
... and I w- and I really love your work because you are trying to get us all to go to the source of what's triggering mental health issues, which is stored experiences-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Alarm. Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
... and the alarm in your body and your inability to tolerate or understand what's happening when it goes off, and so I have recently had this experience where I'm waking up and I get these waves of anxiety, and what's interesting is that this is not new for me. I mean, I've struggled with anxiety for 30 years, but we have just recently had a number of huge changes in our life, and I now live in a different state in a very small town, and when I wake up in the morning in the middle of all this change, my alarm is not on the nightstand next to me. It begins in my ankles, and it's like a hot lava wave that goes from my ankles, up my legs, all the way up my stomach, and then it solidifies in my chest. And as soon as I feel this wave, my immediate thought is not, "Oh, I want to feel the alarm." It's, "Fuck. Why am I feeling this? I don't want to feel dread." And then I d- and then I feel like I just want to hide from it or, like, try to fall asleep, and I know-... that it's just my body reacting to all this change. Like, it's some sort of stored experience that is coming up, and I've been working so hard on not freaking out when I feel it-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Right.
- MRMel Robbins
... but turning toward it. And as a medical doctor and a ner- and a neuroscientist, and somebody who, who has struggled with anxiety for 30 years, why is turning toward this alarm the answer in that moment? Like, what would happen? Like, tell me what happens when you turn toward it and you put your hands on your chest or you go, "Oh, thank you. You're just trying to protect me 'cause you're scared to death that you now live in Vermont and you have no friends, and, uh, you're very far away from your kids, and you're gonna live alone here on this mountain and be even more lonely." Like, I could throw this whole, like, catastrophizing-
- 45:45 – 50:15
Key Concept: The feeling of anxiety starts before the thought
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
where the mistake is, is that we believe the thoughts originate before the feeling. And I'm saying-
- MRMel Robbins
Well, you know-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
... the feeling starts before the thought.
- MRMel Robbins
The feeling starts before the thought because th- e- every one of us knows a kid that can work themselves up into a panic attack because they think they're gonna throw up.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure.
- MRMel Robbins
And what I now realize, after years of having kids with anxiety and reading so many books about this subject that I should have a PhD, and being in years of therapy myself, is that if a ch- like, let's take my son. So our son, Oakley, when he was little, he was constantly picked on at school, so of course he felt nervous in the morning before he had to head into school.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure.
- MRMel Robbins
Plus the kid had dyslexia and ADHD, all of which was not diagnosed, so he's heading into a full day in a classroom where he physiologically, neurologically is incapable of doing what is going to be asked of him, and so his body, before entering that situation, sounds an alarm.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Totally.
- MRMel Robbins
And when the alarm sounds and the physiological changes happen, guess what physiological feeling he has? His stomach starts to rumble because as the physiology of the alarm changes and the chemistry in his digestive tract changes, he starts getting butterflies that feel like pterodactyls. And then all of a sudden, instead of just giving himself a hug and going, "It's gonna be okay, today's gonna be an okay day, I can face this," instead of reassuring himself, he goes into his head and says, "Oh my God, my stomach, I think I'm gonna puke. I can't go to school. Holy..." (babbles) And he ramps himself... We were dealing with panic attacks with this kid where he would literally bang his head on the kitchen island, "I don't wanna go to school," crying. He would force himself to thr- he would get so worked up, he would actually throw up. I mean, it was horrible. And I now can see that all of the interventions that were being done with this kid with therapists, which were all about, "Just change the channel upstairs."
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Right. Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
And then he would turn to them and say, "But sometimes when I change the channel, it takes me to a channel I don't wanna watch. So what if I change the channel of my thoughts and I get another bad thought?" Like, even he was reacting against it, but nobody taught us that what the kid needed was a hug, validation, reassurance in that moment physically to get the alarm to quiet.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah. Yeah. You nailed it. So, you know, I think that's, that's part of it is that especially with kids, especially with children, you know, it's so important that they feel you, that they feel seen, heard, and loved. Touch is such a valuable thing with kids. It's just so amazing. My wife, Cynthia, is a somatic trauma therapist. She deals mostly with people that have pre-verbal trauma, before the age of seven years old, so they don't have a story about it, right? And so-
- MRMel Robbins
Wow. How do they know they have trauma before the age of seven?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Because they feel it in their body.... because they feel alarmed every day, and they don't know why, because they haven't encoded it to a point where they can... See, the amygdala never forgets. The amygdala encodes everything, birth trauma, everything. It encodes everything. But we don't have the retrieval mechanism to pull it back up, so we think we have no childhood memories, which is a bit of a semantic thing because we do have childhood memories. We just (laughs) can't retrieve them. That's the problem. And there's a whole reason for that that I put on Instagram about how the hippocampus gets paralyzed, but I don't wanna get too much into that. But basically, with Oakley, like, it, it's, it's getting him into his body, into a safe place. So you practice with him, you know, putting your... And this is what I do with... I know he's older now, but, but this is what I do with parents is I, I get... Put your hand on your child's heart, then put your other hand on their back about the same level as your, as your-
- MRMel Robbins
Hmm.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
... front hand, and just sit there with them, and just allow their nervous system to regulate, and just allow them to feel it, and create this safe place in your body 'cause this is the next place that I'd like to go with this little interview that we're doing-
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
... is finding a s- Like, people say, "Well, I don't wanna go to my body." It's like, "I understand that." So how can we do that?
- 50:15 – 1:03:20
Tool: Find a safe place to go in your body
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Well, we find a place in our body that's either, uh, safe. You know, with me, it's my, kind of breath around my nose 'cause I used to do a lot of meditation. Um, and then what we do is we feel the alarm, and then we go into this safe place, and then we go back into the alarm.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay, so hold on. Let's, let's walk through this. So you're-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yep.
- MRMel Robbins
... you just reached up. And for those of you listening, we put uncut episodes of our podcast in long form up on our YouTube channel, youtube.com/melrobbins. You'll be able to watch him do this. But he just put his hands kind of, uh, right kind of, like, if you wore a pair of glasses, you'd put your hands kind of under where your glasses are along your cheeks. And so when you said the way that you could practice this, so here's a takeaway for how you could practice this. You just got what I would call the love sandwich, hands on the heart, hands on the back.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure.
- MRMel Robbins
And just hold somebody-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
... when they are s- having an alarm go off in their body until you can feel them slowly start to have the alarm turn off and the clinical word being their nervous system starts to regulate again. They're in their body. They're in their safe space. But you also talked about this second tool where you locate a safe place in your body, and for you, it was sort of right here alongside-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
... your nose. I was trying to think of another one other than the heart. Like, there have been times where I've, like, kinda tucked my hands under my armpits. It's almost-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Right.
- MRMel Robbins
... like a mini hug.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
Almost like... Uh, I don't know what it is, uh, that, like, I, I suppose that it's... Or, like, I could put my arms... I could give myself a hug kinda thing.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
But so you could pick anywhere in your body, your stomach for some people, like, deep breathing. What are some other places that patients of yours have selected in the past to give people an idea?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Oh, it's all over. It's all... Uh, uh, but basically, I get them, "Where's, where's a safe place in your body?" And a lot of them will say, "I don't feel safe." And then I'll say, "Well, where's a neutral place?" It's like, "Well, my right knee feels like there, there's no feeling in my right knee." It's like, "Okay, let's go into this pain of your heart, you know, from this recent breakup that you've gone through. Now, let's, let's go and just bring our attention into that right knee, and then go back into this..." I'm doing this quite a bit faster than I normally do.
- MRMel Robbins
But when you, when you say bring your attention to your right knee-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
... if I'm doing this exercise with you, does that mean that I've got kinda my eyes closed, and I'm mentally working my way down to my knee?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
So you're mentally kinda locating your attention at your knee. Okay, got it.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah, 'cause that feels either safe or neutral, right?
- MRMel Robbins
Yeah.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
So what we're doing is we're basically training your unconscious mind that this pain that you're feeling in your heart is not all of you, because what'll happen is-
- MRMel Robbins
Ooh.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
... the amygdala has no sense of time. So when you get triggered, you will go back. You will turn into that 11-year-old. And then basically, what we need to do is train your amygdala, like, "No, I'm not back there. I'm not 11 years old anymore. I'm actually my age that I am now." You go into that, you know, right knee that's neutral, or if there's, for me, I go into the sinuses, right? So when I get an alarm, I wake up with an alarm every day, right? But I don't give it that much credibility anymore, and then I go into this place in my sinuses where it's like-
- MRMel Robbins
Do you actually touch it, or do you just feel it?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
I touch it. Yeah, I touch it, and I can do it a little bit now. I might get a little zoney when I do this, but basically... And what I do is I can, I can locate the alarm in my solar plexus. I talk about this in the book.
- MRMel Robbins
Where are the solar plexus?
- 1:03:20 – 1:07:50
Key Concept: Connection to addiction
- MRMel Robbins
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
... and addiction.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay. So basically, we need, we need something to help us through this an- this i- this alarm. Okay?
- MRMel Robbins
Wait a minute. I think I just got it. Hold on.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay, good. Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
Let me a- let me see if this is the answer. You ready?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Go.
- MRMel Robbins
Is addiction typically somebody's coping mechanism for the alarm? So for example, you reach for alcohol because it drowns out the alarm. You reach for porn or drugs or stress or whatever because it-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Or work or achievement. Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
Got it. Okay. I got it. So if somebody is struggling with addictive behavior, whether it is alcohol or cigarettes or vaping or it is any of that stuff, you are more than likely not addressing the root issue, which is the anxiety and alarm that's continuing to go off in the background.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah. And on top of that-
- MRMel Robbins
Wow.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
... basically the ego is very powerful. It doesn't want to let you go back into that. So the only way that you can feel love, connection, whatever, is alcohol, is codeine, is cocaine, whatever you're addicted to. So-
- MRMel Robbins
So wait.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
But you feel the connection to the alcohol or the codeine. That's what you're saying. Like, like so, so this is why I get confused with ego-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
... 'cause I'm like, "I don't give a shit about the ego."
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure.
- MRMel Robbins
Let's talk... Like the, the alarm and then what makes sense to me is that addiction mutes the alarm.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Totally.
- MRMel Robbins
And that the... you become bonded and connected to... For me, it was stress. For my husband, it was a daily weed habit.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
You know, like for what that... And, and that addiction is what's muting the alarm.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
This is really cool.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
So where does mindset come in? Because, you know, you, you... there is so much out there about mindset and mental wellness. And, and it's interesting because this conversation with you makes me desperate for a different word than mental health-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Sure.
- 1:07:50 – 1:12:15
Tool: Regulate your body first
- MRMel Robbins
That was a wake-up call for me right there. You were just dropping fricking knowledge, Russ. Okay, hold on. I'm gonna state this again. I, I, I... And now I have menopause brain, and so I've just forgotten what I said. You said something like, your bod- if you regulate your body-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
... it will regulate your mind. But if you-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
It's much more effective-
- MRMel Robbins
... regulate your mind right, it'll s- you, you say it 'cause you're, you're the one who said it.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah, it's much more effective to regulate your body first, which will automatically regulate your mind, than to try and regulate your mind to, to regulate your body. 'Cause your, your mind lies to you all the time. Your body never can.
- MRMel Robbins
Is this why exercising is such an effective thing to do-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Partly.
- MRMel Robbins
... when it comes to anxiety and focus?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Partly, but there is, there's something beyond, uh, exercise. There's, there's something within the somatosensory cortex, the, or the part of the brain that controls our, our movement and our sensation. When we activate that, we start getting into the sense of the body and out of the, the rumination of the mind. So that's one of the-
- MRMel Robbins
And so by activating that, is that what you're saying? You can activate that part by doing the exercises you've already talked about, in terms of locating where the alarm is and then finding a neutral part in-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
... your body, breathing into it? ?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
You know, just, that's why yoga is so, that's why yoga is so effective, because it brings you into your body. You know, anxiety at it, at its root, is really a mind-body disconnect, right? We go up into our heads, and we stay in our heads 'cause we don't wanna go down in our body 'cause that's where, that's where the pain is. So we don't wanna go into Feeling Town down in our body. We only wanna stay up in our thoughts, and that's another addiction. So we get addicted to worry, and, and that's, and that's why it, it's so hard to treat anxiety just by trying to fix thoughts, because we're addicted to thinking already. We don't need (laughs) any more thinking. We need a lot more feeling, but we don't wanna feel because that's where the fricking pain is.
- MRMel Robbins
Wow. So I've gotten a couple huge things-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
... from this. Um, that first of all, all anxiety results from a separation-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Of some kind.
- MRMel Robbins
... anxiety that ha- some kind of separation experience or feeling separate from other in childhood.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay. And self.
- MRMel Robbins
And self. But what you just said too was really interesting, which is our response to that alarm or that feeling of being separate from self, or separate from others, or attacked by others, or whatever, is that we actually do separate from ourselves. Anxiety and the alarm system, the way that most of us respond to it is to separate from our bodies, go up in our heads, and the way to quiet the alarm and ultimately turn it off is to come back and join in with yourself and come back to where the alarm is sounding off in your body, and then find a neutral or safe space in your body where you can draw your attention and breathe into back and forth, and back and forth. And that when you quiet the alarm and when you go toward it and soothe your own body, that is the step that you need to take if you want to heal this, and that the thinking is part of the toolkit. Like, what would you recommend as a, as, as some sentence that we could say? If we're trying the tools, we go into our body. We're soothing ourselves. Is there something that people could say or repeat to themselves that you find is effective with the more neck-down approach?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Absolutely. So-
- MRMel Robbins
What, what do you say?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Basically this. "Am I safe in this moment? Am I safe in this moment? I know I've got a presentation to do on Friday. I know I've got a big tax bill. I don't know how I'm gonna pay for it. My mom is sick. But am I safe in this moment?"
- MRMel Robbins
Why a question? 'Cause I like saying, "I am safe. I-"
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
You could do it both.
- MRMel Robbins
"... am okay."
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
You could do it both ways. I find that people with anxiety, though... This is the thing about saying "I love you" in the mirror, is that people don't allow that in. The reason why you're anxious in the first place is because you block
- 1:12:15 – 1:20:30
Key Concept: The reason you’re anxious is because you block love from yourself
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
love. So when you say, "I love you-"
- MRMel Robbins
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
The reason why you're anxious is because you block love?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Or yourself, yes.
- MRMel Robbins
What?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
You're separated from yourself. That's exactly what it comes down to. That's what anxiety or alarm really is. It's a separation. And this is what I do. This is my little... We didn't get into my little intuitive thing here, but-
- MRMel Robbins
We're going to in a minute. Hold on.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Okay.
- MRMel Robbins
We're, we're gonna... We saved the best for last, but hold on. I got... Okay, keep talking about the fact that when you have this alarm going off-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
... you are blocking... Like, just say it again. I, I, I, I, like-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Well, I-
- MRMel Robbins
... I'm processing-
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
... well, let's-
- MRMel Robbins
... hyperprocessing now. I'm just like, "Oh my God, I think I got it. I think I got it. I think I got it," that literally your alarm is asking for love and reassurance.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Absolutely.
- MRMel Robbins
And when you go into your head, you block yourself from receiving it.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yes, and you block it how?
- MRMel Robbins
When you go into your body, and you breathe into the alarm and soothe yourself, you are actually giving yourself love.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yes.
- MRMel Robbins
Holy shit.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
And a lot of people with anxiety just, they're, they're uncomfortable with love in the first place. I'll give you a very quick example from my own life. So my dad, before I was 10 years old, was this wonderful guy. Like he was so, uh, you know, connected to me and nurturing. Taught me how to hit a ball, play chess, all this kind of stuff. Very, very connected to him, and I loved him greatly. And then as I got to be a young teen and his schizophrenia got worse and worse and worse, and it became suicidal and a bunch of other things, I withdrew from him because to see him in, in, in horrible depression was just too painful for me. So I blocked my love for him because it was just too painful to feel it. And that, you can't block love from a parent without blocking love, on some level, to everyone. So there's a reason why I've been married three times. So, so this is one of the things. So when you find the blocks that you have to loving yourself, this is how you heal, and this is basically my little intuitive gift is I can tell people where their blocks are to loving themselves, and then when you remove those blocks, the anxiety, the alarm just kind of fades away. So this is, this is really c- going at the root cause protocol as opposed to just trying to make you think better.
- MRMel Robbins
Wow. So how do you help people find that place where they've blocked love?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Well, I go through their body. You know? Like what I believe, the short version of what I believe happens to you is, as a child, you experience an overwhelming stress. It's too much for your conscious mind to handle so you stuff it down. Freud would call it repression. You stuff it into the unconscious. And the body keeps the score, just like Bessel van der Kolk says. So because the body is a representation of the unconscious mind and the unconscious mind is w- where these old, you know, damaging programs are stored, they'll show up in the body. So I will find in your body where you feel that alarm and reverse engineer it to get into the same room with those unconscious programs, and then I can change them.
- MRMel Robbins
Wow. That's pretty cool. I think, um, my biggest takeaway, and I keep saying this because clearly every 10 minutes I have a life-changing takeaway from this conversation. But my biggest takeaway is the connection between the alarm that goes off and the love that you're not allowing yourself to receive.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Totally.
- MRMel Robbins
And that it's beautiful to think that loving yourself is the way you cure anxiety, and what a beautiful thing. And I, it reminds me of something, um, pretty amazing that my son Oakley shared with me. Um, I said to him the other day, I was like, "Dude, you know, one of the things I love about you is that you, more than almost anybody I have ever met, are just so comfortable with yourself. Like you really seem to like yourself." And now, you know, I should preface this by saying that, you know, this is a kid that really struggled. Three different schools before he was done with eighth grade, severe dyslexia, got so severely bullied at a camp that we had to pull him out of it, and the director wrote a long letter apologizing for everything. Like it was ... This kid has been through the ringer.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Mm-hmm.
- MRMel Robbins
And he said to me, "Well, mom," he said, "I realized just..." And he said, "This happened during quarantine. During quarantine, when I got to hang out with you and dad and, you know, my two older sisters, all four people who love me, I just started to realize, just because other people pick on me or hate me doesn't mean I have to hate myself. Like I could actually just like myself. Like I could really just allow myself to love myself." And I gotta be honest with you, from that moment, I, I can really almost pinpoint that during the pandemic, like this kid's chronic anxiety was gone. He developed this very positive attitude, and it all began from this insight around, hey, if the world is not giving me the acceptance and the love that we all are seeking, maybe I can just give it to myself.
- 1:20:30 – 1:21:44
Tool: The physiological sigh
- MRMel Robbins
or with our... Do you want us to close our eyes? Do you want us to...
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
You can do the high five your heart if you want.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay, which is putting your heart right in the center of your chest. Take a deep breath. I'm safe.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
If you find...
- MRMel Robbins
I'm safe.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Yeah.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay. What else could you do?
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
If you find your alarm, if you know where your alarm is, if, you know, track the alarm. When you feel anxious, go into your body and say, "Where am I feeling this? Is this in my belly? Is this in my chest? Is it in my sh- in my throat?" Put your hand over the place where you feel your alarm.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
Breathe into that.
- MRMel Robbins
Okay.
- RKDr. Russell Kennedy
There is a little thing too, uh, that I've kind of taken from Andrew Huberman about, uh, the physiological sigh. Physiological sigh is something that, that humans do, and animals do it too, to calm themselves and it's usually, uh, two qu- or one quick sniff through your nose (sniffs) and then another one (sniffs) and then a long slow breath out through your mouth. Now, with my anxiety people, I modify that. So basically this is th- this is the process that I do when I get into alarm, is I take three breaths through my nose really quickly. (sniffs) At the top, I hold it for about three to five seconds, which shows me that I'm in actually control of my breath. My breath isn't controlling me. Then I, I close my teeth and I breathe out through my teeth and make a hissing sound, like sss.
Episode duration: 1:31:48
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