“So after my husband passed away, it was just down to me. I had a mortgage to pay. I was a therapist. So I was like, well, I don't really wanna move right now. What am I gonna do? Well, I started a jewelry company. I knew nothing about jewelry. I knew nothing about websites. But, like, I did it in my spare time even though I was grieving just a little chunk at a time and ended up building this jewelry company that started making more money than I did at my therapy job.”
Charge your phone outside the bedroom for better sleep
“When the study was over, eighty percent of people said, I feel so much better, and I sleep so much better. I'm gonna keep this going voluntarily. But just not having the phone in bed with you, then you don't scroll before you fall asleep. You don't then wake up and you start scrolling makes a big difference in our mental health. So I think we really have to be proactive about those boundaries that we set for ourselves.”
Schedule fifteen minutes a day to worry on purpose
“If somebody's ruminating a lot, I would schedule time to worry. You set aside fifteen minutes a day to worry about that thing. And then when you worry outside of that time, you just tell yourself, it's not time to worry about that yet. I'll worry about it later. Research will show that you can then train your brain to contain it to just fifteen minutes a day. And when people do this in my therapy office, they will look like the weight of the world has literally been lifted off their shoulders after about two weeks.”
Flip the script when one fearful thought hijacks your decision
“If I get an email from my boss that says let's meet tomorrow, my first reaction might be, I'm gonna get fired. But then if I have that thought, I could then spend the next twenty four hours just in complete anxiety imagining myself being fired. Or I could say, well, what's the opposite? Flip the script. Well, maybe I'm getting a promotion. Probably not. Probably the truth is somewhere in the middle.”
“A boundary reset is just about backing up and saying, you know, I've made some mistakes, and you might have to go to the person and say, you know, I had said, like, I wasn't gonna work after seven. Lately, I've been answering emails all the time. I'm gonna back that up. Like, here's what I'm gonna do. And have that conversation. Get really clear with yourself.”
“I would schedule time to worry. You set aside fifteen minutes a day to worry about that thing. And when you, like, expose yourself, but you give yourself a time limit where you say, okay, classic exposure therapy. Worrying's not bad. I just can't do it all the time. And I'll do this with my therapy clients. And the goal is you put it in your calendar, same time, same place.”
Sleeping without your phone dramatically lowers anxiety
“There's a study where they asked people, like, would you ever not sleep with your phone next to your head? And almost everybody was like, no way. I'd be so anxious because what if somebody calls at two in the morning and there's an emergency? Well, as part of this study, they agreed to try it. They just left their phone in the kitchen while they slept. When the study was over, eighty percent of people said, I feel so much better and I sleep so much better.”
“You don't have to be ready. Like, if you waited until you felt ready, I don't think you'll ever do it. Instead, you just take the action. So I'd say for anybody who's thinking about making some kind of a big change is to just trust you'll figure it out as you go. There will never be a time where you have all the answers, where you can encounter the things that you're going to face, the challenges that are gonna come up.”
Excitement can be a dangerous emotion, not just a positive one
“Even the ones we typically think are positive, people will be like, oh, excitement. That's a positive emotion. Well, it's not. If I came to you with this incredible get rich quick scheme and you get so excited that you fall prey for it, excitement was not your friend in that moment. And so it's about knowing that or, like, sadness. It's not fun to be sad, but sometimes you have to be sad to really honor something that you've lost.”
“I think it boils down to sometimes just asking yourself, do I need to solve the problem or solve how I feel about the problem? And to gather some evidence. So, for example, you have a stack of bills on the table. Well, it's gonna be really anxiety provoking to open them up the envelopes. Right? So I'd rather go watch Netflix for an hour. And when I watch Netflix, my anxiety goes down.”
“You don't have to be ready. Like, if you waited until you felt ready, I don't think you'll ever do it. Instead, you just take the action. And in my case, I'm married to a man whose bedroom was decorated in a sailboat theme when he was four. So he, like, always wanted to live on a sailboat. Correct. So this was his dream. It wasn't mine. Like, I knew nothing about being on a boat.”
“It boils down to sometimes just asking yourself, do I need to solve the problem or solve how I feel about the problem? So, for example, you have a stack of bills on the table. Well, it's gonna be really anxiety provoking to open up the envelopes. So I'd rather go watch Netflix for an hour. And when I watch Netflix, my anxiety goes down. So if I'm not careful, I suddenly think problem solved. But the problem's still there.”
Audit your calendar and bank account against your values
“If somebody were to look at my calendar, would that really reflect my values? If somebody looked through my banking account, would you be able to tell what I value in life? And for a lot of us, the answer is no. That I spend so much time doing these things that I don't love, or I end up spending a lot of money on things that I didn't really need, but maybe I just got sucked into it.”
“A boundary reset is just about backing up and saying, you know, I've made some mistakes. Maybe you decided, I'm not gonna loan anybody money. But then your cousin had a crisis and you happen to be in the same room when they needed $20, so you loaned them $20. And before you know it, they're asking you for money, and you're like, I had this rule, but then I broke my own rule. So now how do I say no?”
“Mental strength's about the way you think, the way you feel, and the way you behave. So we knew a lot of our thoughts aren't true. My brain will tell me all the time, like, you can't do that or you're gonna embarrass yourself. But I don't have to believe that. I can say, alright. Sure. Maybe I will embarrass myself, but that's okay. Or maybe I'm gonna fail, but I'll be okay if I do.”
Perform a life audit to align spending with values
“If somebody were to look at my calendar, would that really reflect my values? If somebody looked through my banking account, would you be able to tell what I value in life? And for a lot of us, the answer is no. That I spend so much time doing these things that I don't love, or I end up spending a lot of money on things that I didn't really need, but maybe I just got sucked into it.”
