Humble the Poet: Transform Your Relationship With Anxiety (6 Strategies for Overthinkers | On Purpose with Jay Shetty

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Don't say I'm anxious.

Say, I feel anxious because.

And that allows you to be a human, having an emotion and trying your best to figure out why.

Sharing your anxious feelings in a way that you don't identify with them.

That invites connection.

And now we can talk about it.

And once we start revealing it, that's really the first step to healing.

The number one health and wellness podcast. J Shetty.

J Shetty. The one, the only, J Shetty.

Hey everyone welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to listen, learn and grow.

Today's guest is on for his third time, came on in season one.

I'm always super grateful to my friends who showed up when we were this tiny little podcast trying to figure out our way and when they come back with new exciting information, reflections, revelations.

I can't wait to have them back on the show.

Today's guest is none other than Humble the Poet, an artist, rapper, spoken word artist, international best -selling author, and former elementary school teacher, if you didn't know.

Known for his tattoos, beard, head wrap, and infectious smile, he captivates audiences with thought -provoking ideas that challenge conventional wisdom.

Humble's dynamic live performances have taken him to major festivals all across the world.

And he's been featured in The New York Times, BuzzFeed, Vogue, Rolling Stone, and HuffPost. Humble is the author of Unlearned, Things No One Else Can Teach Us, and here to talk about his latest book which I want you to grab right now, it's called Unanxious, 50 Simple Truths to Help Overthinkers Feel Less Stress and More Calm.

If your goal this year is to manage and navigate anxiety better, this is the book for you.

It's called Unanxious.

We'll put the link in the comments.

Welcome back to On Purpose.

And of course, my dear, dear friend, one of the realest guys I know, someone that I slouch around when he's here and my full self, cause we do this offline anyway, Humble the poet.

Humble, it's great to have you back, man.

Humble It's great to be here.

Thank you so much. That was an awesome intro.

student Dude, it's just, it's so fun when like, you know, I've really been thinking about that first season so much lately.

And it's because there's so many guests who've kind of come back.

So, we just had Dr. Daniel Eamon on.

and it's been his fifth time he's been on in six years which is insane.

Khloe Kardashian just came back on for the second time and she was one of those first people that really helped us grow.

And so it's just like people who believed in the show when it was finding its way and you were one of them.

So I'm very grateful to you.

I appreciate you having me back then.

It's always been amazing.

You're the best. All right, I want to dive in because this book, you dropped so many bars in this book that I was like the only way to do the book justice and for people to realize it's worth picking up is me to read stuff from the book.

And right in the introduction, you say something and I think it just sets the tone for the rest of the book, you say anxiety isn't something that needs curing.

Why was that important for people to know right at the beginning?

I think when I started this journey, it was really about meeting people where they're at and I think now that mental health is, mental health awareness has really become normalized, it may have gone a little bit too far with people identifying with certain things that they're struggling with.

And it's like anxiety is not a problem, it's not a disease, it's not dandruff, it's not a condition that we have to deal with, it's a signal, it's here to help us.

And what we need to do is reevaluate our relationship with it.

Right now where we're at is we medicate, avoid, and distract.

And all of those are understandable coping mechanisms, They help us in the moment.

They help us feel better.

But none of that in the long term is going to help us become better.

And what it is, is we just have to pay attention to what anxiety and anxious feelings are trying to tell us.

And the big thing with that is changing our relationship in a way that makes us not think like, oh, because I'm having anxious feelings, I must be weak.

Something's wrong with me.

Nobody else is dealing with this.

You're like, no, you are absolutely normal for having anxious feelings.

And to start, that's the first idea we have to understand, and treating ourselves with grace, that this is completely normal.

And then once we get there, we can start this journey going from managing it in helpful ways, and then also growing from it.

We don't wanna just keep soothing anxiety.

We wanna gain strength through paying attention and understanding what it's trying to tell us.

One of the things me and you talk about a lot when we're having our offline conversations is this difference in the idea of East and West. So the Western ideology is I had anxiety, I don't have it anymore.

So everything's painted as this before and after.

And we know that the East, which we both take inspiration from, is more cyclical, where it's like, well, wait a minute, anxiety isn't going to go away, it's going to keep showing up in my life in different ways.

Now, if anxiety shows up in the same way, it's because I'm not learning, I'm not strengthening, I'm not hearing the signal as you just called it.

And it's going to show up in different ways because even if I hear the signal of anxiety here, anxiety is going to show up in another way over here.

And so I love that you really make it clear off the bat that this isn't about solving a problem, right?

It's not about getting rid of it.

Yeah, what I'm promising in the book is I'm not promising to cure anxiety, I'm promising to cure the despair around anxiety.

And the despair is when we feel hopeless because we don't think we have options.

So this book is full of options to better understand anxiety and to go from managing to striving and growing and becoming stronger from it.

and because we feel hopeless, that's where we stop.

And a lot of the tension that we carry comes from resisting these emotions.

It's not the emotions themselves.

Anxious feelings aren't harming us.

Resisting and avoiding these anxious feelings are what's actually doing the damage.

Oh, I love that. I love that.

I think it resonates so strongly with me because I've been thinking a lot about how when you're anxious about something you feel like you only have two options.

So it's like I either overcome this and my life's going to be better or I'm stuck with this for the rest of my life and my life's over.

We kind of get these two extreme options.

And the fact that you're saying well wait, wait a minute, there's a third option, there's a fourth and there's 50 in here.

That's actually what we all want to feel.

I remember when I was anxious about the fact that I hated my job, my career wasn't really going where I wanted it to go but then I was anxious about leaving.

I realized the problem was my anxiety was all based on the fact I had limited options.

I felt like I either stay somewhere I hate or I leave and then I'm lost because I don't know what's going to come.

And as soon as I started updating my LinkedIn resume and I saw other job offers coming in and there were other options, I was like, oh, it's not as bad anymore.

But nothing really changed apart from the fact that I could see a few steps further.

What have you found is the best way to open up your mind to more options when you're in a position where you feel imprisoned and trapped by your thinking?

So I love the idea that curiosity is courage in disguise and what we realize is is often when we have this kind of dualistic thinking, this is good, this is bad, this will help, this will hurt, that's us limiting our scope, as you said, and that's us being judgmental and the only antidote to that is to be curious, is to ask more questions, to explore the gray between the black and white and as we start doing that, more options arise and we also start to realize often the fear that I'm dealing with is related to a story that I've told myself that I can only do this, or I've gone so far.

I've climbed this mountain.

And now people would see it of failure if I have to climb all the way back down to find a new mountain.

So I realized is keeping our mind open, keeping our hearts open requires curiosity.

And that really is what courage is.

And often we think this is a light switch. We think, you know, either I'm confident or I'm not confident I'm going to fix this or I'm not.

And it's like, really?

No, it's a dimmer. And it's not simply a failing on our part.

If we start to feel like this, we live in a society that really encourages us to, okay, well this is difficult, let's rearrange our lives to avoid it.

You know, a personal story, for example, this book was inspired through one of our conversations when I was reaching out to you to come on the podcast to the last book.

And I explained that I feel a lot of anxiety around asking for help.

And you said many beautiful words to me to help soothe that, But I didn't address the fear of rejection I had, I didn't address any of that, and then I caught myself saying, well, you know what?

Maybe this will be the last book and I'll never have to ask for a favor again.

That is not healing.

That is me rearranging my life so I don't have to face the thing that is giving me anxious feelings.

And there's no growth in that.

That is me temporarily managing it because I'm going to have to ask for help.

And what we have to realize is these challenges are an invitation for growth.

Our triggers are an invitation for growth.

There's an opportunity here, for us to not only deal with them in a healthy way, but then also to grow through them, because all of our growth happens outside of our comfort.

And that's a really interesting thing where I've realized something, okay, I can feel better by avoiding asking for help or I can be better by leaning into this and being okay with that.

It's powerful when you paint that picture because I'm sitting there going, I'm trying to think about all the times I've avoided things that I didn't want to do.

And I remember at one point I just avoided working out.

Like, I love playing sports, but I just didn't want to work out.

I didn't enjoy it. I come up with loads of excuses.

I arranged my life in a way that I didn't have to do it.

And as I grew older and you realize the value of getting stronger and taking care of your body not just aesthetically, but for the purpose of health, like to actually live a healthy life, a strong life, you start going, well, wait a minute actually it was only doing the and turning up when I didn't want to, that has left me feeling better and stronger, as opposed to when I was running away from it, I was just getting weaker and weaker.

And that's exactly how we should look at mental health.

I think right now we're looking at mental health like it's this very fragile crystal that we have to protect from the world, and like, oh, I'm gonna avoid this person to protect my mental health.

No, our mental health is a tool.

It's a muscle. It's what allows us to deal with struggle.

Struggle isn't the enemy, struggle is the vehicle that makes us more resilient, That makes us more emotionally strong.

That makes us more self -aware.

Every time we have a negative experience and we get triggered, we're giving ourselves data.

That data is a gift for our self -awareness so we can better understand who we are.

And it's just like you said, if you want to help me move a couch, working out at the gym and voluntarily lifting heavy things will prepare you for that.

It's the same thing with our mental health.

We have to voluntarily put ourselves in uncomfortable situations.

We have to challenge ourselves on purpose, So when challenges find us, we're more resilient.

We're more confident.

We'll feel more safe to deal with that stuff.

Yeah. And this isn't about making your life harder.

It's being able to make your life harder in a controlled choice -based environment.

Like, it's not like just like, you're not just creating drama in your life.

That's not the point.

Definitely not drama.

But I think the name of the podcast On Purpose, when you discover your purpose, even if you devote 15 minutes to like digging in and picking up as much weight with that purpose as possible.

That's going to energize you to a level that most of us never experience until we figure out that thing that matters.

So it's really not about adding drama to our lives, but it's really about carrying as much weight as we can to see how strong we can be.

We can only get stronger through struggle.

And if we voluntarily put ourselves in stressful situations, and it could be even like, think video games.

We're not going to buy a video game if it's easy.

We want there to be a challenge.

We want to fall on our face, get back up and try again.

And it's the same thing with life.

It's this is how our batteries get charged.

It comes through choosing to do hard things voluntarily, on purpose, and that can be anything.

For some people it could be a specific art.

It could be drawing, it could be working out, it could be jujitsu.

It could be any type of challenge.

And this is going to charge our batteries so much more than a two week vacation lying on the beach doing absolutely nothing.

And it builds more confidence, right?

Because when you're doing difficult things, I always say to people, someone asked me the other day, they said, Jay, how do I feel confident before I do this?

And I said, I never feel confident before I do something.

I feel prepared, I feel organized, and I feel practiced.

I feel confident after I conquer it.

So when I'm about to give a talk, I don't feel confident before I give a talk, but I know I've practiced, I know I've prepared, and I know I'm organized.

Now I give the talk, and then I feel confident because I built a new muscle, built a new skill, whatever it may have been.

And so this idea that I need to feel confident before I do something, I need to not feel anxiety before I do something is actually quite unnatural.

How do we get comfortable with discomfort?

How do we get comfortable with uncertainty when we're wired to want things to feel good and be comfortable?

I think it's recognizing that, A, we're wired for a world that we don't live in anymore.

So we are getting way too much stimuli, we're comparing ourselves to way too many people, we know way too many people, we're really wired to be in much smaller communities.

And bringing up this concept of confidence I think is really important because it goes back to that idea that it's not a light switch. I like the thing about reading.

We didn't not know how to read and then one day know how to read.

We started by learning the alphabet, learning the sounds, two little words, three little words, four little words, until we could all read big complex novels.

That was like a 14, 15 year journey You know, we may not have realized that was happening because it was in school, it was fun, we may not have had a choice, we had to go anyways, but as adults, the thing is, all of our growth came from doing the struggling with a book when you were reading it.

Now as we became adults, we avoid all these things that are struggling, and it's really reevaluating our relationship with difficult things and challenges.

And it's absolutely correct, both motivation and confidence, they don't come before action.

You can't wait till you're motivated to do something.

doing something will make you motivated.

Doing something will make you confident.

And this also brings up a really important idea that as we have this conversation, this is really gonna hit people logically.

Like, oh that makes so much sense.

That makes so much sense.

But for the body to really believe this, you can't make sense to the body.

You have to practice this.

You know, if I asked you to stand up and fall backwards and I say, I'll catch you.

Your brain might be like, I trust him.

Your body is still gonna be a little bit nervous.

Let's say I catch you.

And then, I'm like, let's do it again.

you'd be a little less nervous, but you're still gonna have some nerve.

We might have to do it 15 times for your body to completely trust the process.

We have to practice.

Practice makes progress, and we have to get out of this binary of like, I can't do it or I'm perfect at it, I can't do it or I've mastered it.

We have to just continually be on a journey and celebrate the progress that comes from that, and that progress is what builds our confidence and slowly turn up that dial because that's the only way it's gonna happen.

You say anxiety overestimates the threat and underestimates our ability to deal with it.

Absolutely. What did you mean by that?

So I heard a really interesting quote, which was anxiety is when your intelligence grows quicker than your courage.

Okay, yeah yeah. And often times when we're younger, we accomplish amazing things that we don't know we're supposed to be afraid of it.

We don't even know we're supposed to be afraid of playing on the street or what have you.

What the stresses are, you may have accomplished something where the odds were against you, but you didn't know the odds.

So you didn't feel that anxiety.

So when our intelligence grows, now all of a sudden our imagination is being used to invent threats, right?

To detect threats, things that may or may not happen and then that holds us back from actually acting.

Cause it triggers our amygdala.

We have a little tiny part of our brain the size of an almond called the amygdala and the book I call it our survival brain and it's like a very under trained but loving bodyguard that wants to protect you from everything but it's definition of danger is uncertain, unrecognizable, unfamiliar, uncomfortable.

And these we know aren't things that are actually dangerous.

Struggle isn't danger, challenge isn't danger, but when we come across that, we're gonna speak ourselves out of it.

So it's really important to understand this kind of idea that we need to feel the fear and do it anyway.

The resilience doesn't feel good when you're being resilient.

When you have to be resilient, when you have to be strong, it's not gonna be a great feeling.

and that's okay. Building resilience, voluntarily doing difficult things may not be a good feeling, but that's okay.

Because we're not here to live a life without suffering.

We're here to see our own potential and see how much we can endure.

And again, it's not about putting yourselves in uncomfortable and dangerous situations.

It's about realizing that life is chaotic.

Life is random. Most of it is out of our control.

Let's stop tensing ourselves by trying to hold on to everything.

Let the chips fall where they may and trust ourselves that we can handle whatever is coming our way.

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I remember for years I'd given talks about how failure is a stepping stone to success and how like you got to feel the fear and do it anyway.

And then I remember when I went through some real stuff and I was like, oh.

And at the same time, I remember that I'd been through, like you just said real stuff when I was younger And I never gave myself credit for it because I just assume that that's what life was.

I didn't realize how much hardship I'd been through in my early years because to me it was just normal.

And I think that's true for a lot of people.

And then there's the other side of it where it's like, I may talk about these ideas.

I may hear them, but then life's going to throw a challenge at me where I actually have to apply what I've learned.

And you say something in the book where you say home is where the anxiety starts.

I think a lot of us feel that.

We felt the anxiety of our parents, we felt the anxiety of our siblings, we felt the anxiety of the extended family, and we kind of just ingested all of it.

And then it's only decades later that you kind of even realize that you might be sitting at a dinner table at a holiday dinner at your parent's house or you're sitting around with your family and you go, wait a minute, everyone here is carrying anxiety and you can actually see it, but then you realize you've kept onto it for decades, what do you do when you feel like you've been carrying the baggage of anxiety that you picked up when you were a kid and you haven't unpacked for 20 years?

I think the first thing is be super super nice to yourself.

Imagine eight -year -old you is dealing with these complex adults, with their emotions, and they grew up at a time where emotional intelligence and being able to communicate an emotion wasn't a thing, so your coping mechanisms and your survival mechanisms, Your mental health tried its best to adapt the best it could with your limited eight -year -old, nine -year -old brain.

And then those coping mechanisms became habits.

And then as adults, we continued those coping mechanisms even though we have access to more helpful ones.

And instead of looking back and being like, well, I am a product of all this trauma or I made all these poor choices and now I'm stuck in this habit loop.

Just be like, look, my mental health has always been on my team.

It's always been helping me.

Now we just need to upgrade it.

With family, I do view them as the ultimate boss in this world of anxiety, because it's like, they can push our buttons because they installed the buttons, right?

Yeah, I love that part.

And there's that, and I always think in my household where like I have a lot, I get along with my family great.

Just stepping into my childhood home brings up anxious feelings.

Oh, I can relate. It reminds you of versions of yourself that you don't want to remember.

And I think the idea that really helped me realize this was like, if you learn the lesson, you won't be afraid of the test. So, I think what ended up happening is when we have these feelings, again, these are signals.

It's like the smoke detector going off.

Instead of pulling out the battery, ripping the smoke detector off the ceiling, putting a piece of tape over the light, let's look for the smoke.

So, when we're at home and these anxious feelings are coming up, this is an opportunity for us to start exploring and figuring out what it is.

And it's as simple as feeling the feelings.

And maybe in the moment it may not be the best time for you, so do whatever you do to soothe.

You know if you got to go and look at your phone, please do what you got to do.

Look at your phone.

If you got to go distract yourself, if you got to medicate, you got to go have a cigarette, whatever you normally do, cool.

But the next day when you're well rested, you've had a glass of water, you're hydrated, you know you haven't read a bad text message or bad email yet you're in a good place, voluntarily go back into that.

Maybe pull out a journal and be like, What is it about my family situation that's there?

And now you're in a good place to peel back these layers and voluntarily lean into a trigger.

And once we lean into it that's the way it's actually going to heal.

And then once it heals, we'll have room for something new to come.

It's never gonna be I've healed and I live happily ever after.

We don't live this linear life.

It's a cycle and as you said, you thought you could handle stuff until something new came.

That's not a feeling on your part.

That's the next level for you to build that strength.

And then as you come out of that, which I've definitely seen you have, and you've come out much more wise, much more strong, much more compassionate, much more kind to yourself and other people, now something new may come, a new curve ball may come.

And as you continue practicing your swing, you'll be able to handle that as well.

And that's what I believe our mental health should be, should be this confidence that hey, it will be hard, but I'm not afraid of hard. Having a hard day does not mean I've experienced trauma.

Having a person that is difficult to be with doesn't instantly make them toxic.

You know, we've got to this point where mental health awareness has increased but we may have swung the pendulum a little too far where now we've created identities out of these things.

Let's not create an identity.

It's okay, things are going to be challenging and let's train and trust ourselves to handle it.

And that's only gonna come through practice.

So in England, I remember when I was at school we'd have fire drills, right?

And even here, you have a fire drill and it's like that fire drill may or may never come, Like, the real thing may or may never come, but you're prepared.

And now you know that even in the face of a fire drill, you know what to do.

You know what the exit is, you know what to take, what not to take.

You know where to line up outside school, whatever it may be.

And I think that's what it is for life.

It's almost like you can't fire drill everything because that's where anxiety comes from, too.

Because you're like, I'm going to prepare for everything possibly bad that could happen.

And that could be an unlimited list. but at the same time, it's having the confidence that I've built the skills to know I can deal with certain things.

And by the way, there will be curve balls that I don't have a clue with.

I want to go back to what you said about family.

What do you do when the family that, as you said, installed the buttons, when they pushed them, what do you do?

I think immediately in terms of managing them, before we worry about going through it, the magic word is going to be boundaries.

And I think what's important is we define boundaries in a way that matters.

Boundaries is teaching people how to be with you.

And your boundaries can be universal.

For example, I can have a boundary.

Listen, if you were going to remind me of my age and that I haven't gotten married and had any kids yet and that I'm not living out my purpose in life, then obviously, I'm not going to call this much mom.

But if anybody else does that, it's going to be the exact same thing.

It's teaching people to say, listen, this is how I expect to be treated.

I am not telling you what to do, but if I'm not treated this way, I probably won't be around here.

And this is what my...

I'm setting a standard and I'm really teaching you how to be around me.

And I think boundaries at the end of the day is saying, I care about you so much that I wanna improve our dynamic.

And I think that's a really important thing when it comes to family, because that's the hardest place to set up boundaries because everybody's so used to it.

And I'll be completely honest, when somebody has hit me with boundaries, it was uncomfortable for me.

You're still used to things being a certain way, sudden change for anybody is not gonna be comfortable.

And we have to approach this with a lot of grace.

Grace for ourselves and grace for other people.

So I think boundaries is generally the first place.

And then also having context and just being like, look, they really did try their best. When I worked with a therapist, they were always reminding me, listen, your parents were in survival mode.

They may not have been the most emotionally nurturing, but they were trying to put food on the table.

They were trying to make sure you were good, you were safe.

and they're like, that's what they were doing.

That's all the tools that they had.

And I think it's really important because what I realized, especially in the last year is the kinder and more gracious I am to myself, the kinder and more gracious I can be to other people and vice versa.

The more I put an effort to be more understanding and kinder to other people, the more effort I can put to be kinder and more gracious to myself.

And that's removing judgment which takes us back to courage through curiosity.

And that's the thing, that even when you set boundaries, that person's still going to break your boundary.

If you set the boundary, which I'm just going to use yours as an example, if you talk to me about getting married and having kids and all this traditional way of living, I'm going to talk to you less, you may find that even when you make an effort to talk to that person, they still bring it up.

You may find whenever they get an opportunity, they message you about it.

So they're going to do that anyway.

I think the challenge people have is they feel guilty for not loving their family, not being seen as a good person.

Maybe they even feel guilty for not delivering on the promise that they have, or the expectation that their parents have. And then that guilt and shame, which you call like anxieties, BFFs.

It's really weird because you're like now going, you're breaking your boundary to make yourself feel better for how you take care of that person or because you just love them.

But now you're breaking it, but then they upset you again.

So it gets really messy.

Like how do we really define it in a way that we go, yes, that makes sense.

Now I know why I'm gonna keep it that way.

Absolutely, I think it's not even guilt.

I think I've realized over time it's people pleasing.

It's abandoning ourselves for somebody else.

I think true guilt is when we abandon who we are based on our own values.

You know, let's say you were having a bad day and you spoke to somebody that you cared about in a way that you don't normally do." And then a little bit of time goes by, you're like, I really wish I didn't do that.

And that's guilt. To me, that's authentic.

That's a great difference.

That's betraying who you authentically are.

Now the idea of like, oh, well, I'm speaking to Jay and he keeps bringing up these things I don't wanna talk about, but I really don't wanna let him down and I don't wanna make him upset because he doesn't hear from me anymore.

That's me trying to absorb your pain.

That's me thinking, because a lot of us do that in childhood.

We absorb other people's pain because we don't believe in their resilience either.

They're like, well, I can handle it.

I'll handle their pain.

I don't want to make my mom upset.

I can handle her pain.

I'm robbing you of the resilience that's going to come from you dealing with that challenge.

And I'm betraying myself increasing my own anxious feelings.

And so I think what we really need to do, and I have a quote in the book, you can't guilt a caterpillar into becoming a butterfly.

You know, we can't speed any of this up.

So I really think sometimes when we use this word guilt, it really goes around us romanticizing some of these things.

But really what it is, It's people pleasing.

It's wanting people to like us at the expense of us ever actually experiencing any real love.

Establishing boundaries and then honoring your own boundaries that's being your best friend.

That's protecting yourself to a level.

And as I said, this is just the beginning to manage it.

At the end of the day, the secret here isn't to avoid these people.

It's to open a dialogue, open more vulnerability build the connection, figure out where they're coming from and strengthen the relationship accordingly.

If not, we don't wanna get to this point where anybody who presents any type of struggle or challenge for us, we just continually cut them off from our lives.

And this is just us rearranging our life to make it easier.

No, we gotta lean into the challenges but just immediately the boundaries gotta be the first step.

That's a great redefinition.

Like that understanding, I don't think I've ever heard anyone say that before about that difference between authentic guilt and people pleasing, because you're so right, that resonated completely.

that idea that if I was rude to someone I would think about that the whole day because I'd be upset because I know that's not who I am is very different to like, oh I wanna make sure that that person likes me again, and that I hope that they yeah it's such a great redefinition.

And one of the biggest places, we feel it at home as you say, but we also feel it with our friends.

And you talk about how anxious friends equals anxious you.

The challenge today is a lot of our friends are anxious.

If we get rid of all of our anxious friends, we may not have any friends left. So what do we do?

Because I feel like also all of our friends have different anxieties.

Someone's anxious about their career, someone's anxious about their relationship, someone anxious about their appearance, someone's anxious about this.

How do you deal with an anxious friend?

When we start talking about the specifics of like, um, I have anxious feelings around my job, anxious feelings around my appearance.

What we're still saying is, you know, anxiety around things out of our control, anxious feelings about things that remind us of previous danger, anxious feelings about things that feel unfamiliar, and I think these become the headings that we can connect on.

If I'm vulnerable with you when I share a vulnerable story, I'm generally gonna be nervous about it because I'm afraid that you're going to judge me and I'm sure your listeners have been in that situation, but the vast majority of the time that we're vulnerable with somebody, we're inviting them to be vulnerable with us.

In the book I talk about this idea of my friend in Berlin inviting me to a spa.

And I was excited to go to this spa and I'd hurt my shoulder dragging a broken suitcase.

And we're on the way to the spa and he goes, I love how open -minded you are.

And I was like, why are you thanking me for being open -minded?

And then I realized he mixed up the word spa with sauna and we are going to an all nude sauna.

And I'm about to see, and this is the longest friendship I've ever had.

I've been his friend since we were three.

So I'm about to see him naked and a whole bunch of other people naked in Berlin.

And I realized I wasn't afraid of being naked.

I was afraid of being judged.

And afraid of standing out, afraid of not understanding a custom or how this was going to work.

I'm in a different continent.

And the first thing that helped was admitting to him.

Cause he had just propped me up saying, you're so open -minded.

I love that you're willing to do this.

I didn't wanna let him down.

My people -pleasing started to come up, but I'm like, look, now that you've clarified what this is, and this is not just a candlelight massage, I'm very nervous.

And his response was, I'm nervous too.

And we strengthened the connection.

And it wasn't the easiest experience, but we got through it.

And it was a funny story.

And you gotta realize, everything that makes us interesting is a challenge that we made ourselves go through.

And I think the first step, again, and I'm always gonna say this is the first step, It's not the absolute solution.

It's going to be sharing your anxious feelings in a way that you don't identify with them.

I'm encouraging people, and I got this from Mel Robbins, don't say, I'm anxious.

Say, I feel anxious because.

And that allows you to be a human, having an emotion and trying your best to figure out why.

I feel anxious because I'm about to be naked in front of you and a whole bunch of other people in this country.

And I don't know if people are gonna judge me or what have you.

And I think that invites connection.

And if you get, and someone else would be like, I feel anxious because I don't know if I have job security, and now we can talk about it.

And once we start revealing it, that's really the first step to healing.

You know, Jay -Z said it, he goes, you can't heal what you don't reveal.

And we all know there's a value to this because every single person has felt super stressed in their brain about how much things they have to do.

And then they write down a to -do list and it's like three things and they're like, why did that feel so heavy in my brain?

It's just getting it out is important, and we are, again, in a society that structures a lot of individualism, a lot of isolation, we need community.

It's not, as I said, it's not about cutting off your friends who feel anxious.

Everybody feels anxious, and we probably shouldn't label them as our anxious friends, however, if they decide to cling on to the identity, and they're more interested in proving how hard life is, versus looking at it as an opportunity to improve from it, then that definitely is friendship worth reevaluating.

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Explain how this friend did not know the difference between his spa and his nude sauna.

I believe it was. This friend sounds very, you know what, it's, yeah.

He, I honestly believe he had lived in Germany for eight years at that point.

born and raised in Canada, across the street from me.

He's of Jamaican descent and he had gotten married and they both moved to Berlin together and I guess maybe eight years of him not speaking English every day.

But it was most definitely...

I remember it vividly.

I'd taken one of my parents' suitcases back then because this is when I just started traveling and you know, my parents bought like six pieces for like 30 bucks, don't buy cheap luggage, there's a reason.

And the wheel broke off and I was in London And I was dragging it up the stairs from the tube.

And I had pulled a muscle in my shoulder and I was so excited for a massage.

And he said, I remember, he was like, yeah, we're going to go to the spa, it's going to be great.

It was definitely him not speaking enough English for eight years.

And it ended up becoming a situation where, you know, now it's a great story, but all the emotions were there and it didn't get easier the moment I was there.

The longer I stayed there, the more my body was able to trust. OK, this is the thing.

Again, and this is the big thing.

Our brains will understand this immediately.

Our bodies have to catch up, and the way to reinforce it with our bodies is through practice.

We have to practice this.

We can't just hear an inspirational quote once and be like, all right, I figured it out.

We have to practice.

So you're encouraging everyone goes to a new spot.

Definitely. Yeah, go to a new spot.

But definitely yeah, do the things where you're like, I can't do this.

When you voluntarily do something that you think I can't do.

It's the same as sitting in the cold, which you did.

I mean... Sitting in the cold, definitely one of those things.

and even that, what I've realized too is like, you know, got to go to Poland, got to train in the cold, you know, at the invite of Louis House, and the irony of that was like, you know, sittin' with Mike Posner in the ice for 10 minutes, freestyle rapping, feeling like I'm the most resilient person ever.

Fast forward six months ago, I am in a sauna with Louis, and we're just chatting.

He goes, you wanna take a dip in the pool?

So, this is October in LA, and I went in the pool and I couldn't stay in for 10 seconds.

Because I didn't keep practicing.

Nothing. There's a value to the practice, but if you don't keep practicing, and in terms of having self -compassion, that's okay.

I used to be able to sit on the ice for 10 minutes.

Now I can't take a cold shower for three seconds, but I can get back there through practice.

My dial just went back the other way and I think that's really important.

We have seasons. Seasons where we can be more resilient and build more resilience and then we have seasons where it's like, no, I'm just in survival mode.

I can just do the bare minimum.

And I think that's absolutely okay.

I agree. Yeah. We create so much extra tension with these expectations we have of ourselves and it doesn't help.

Especially when you lock in a new habit, then when it breaks, you're just beating yourself up about not having that habit.

Absolutely. So I've been working out consistently this year, probably four or five times a week.

And I feel great. And then last week I was on the road and I genuinely just couldn't work out.

I was in a different city every day.

I was barely in the hotel.

I would have been having to work out like 10 p .m. or something.

And I prioritized my sleep over my workout.

And there was a part of me that was just beating myself up going, oh man, you just missed four days.

You didn't work out.

Like, oh man, you know, you haven't got the discipline, whatever it is.

That doesn't make you want to get back on it.

That just makes you feel worse.

Whereas then I gave myself grace by the end of it, and I was like look, you know what?

I needed some time off.

I also slept really well.

I also didn't get sick because I wasn't pushing myself.

And by the way, I'm really excited to get back to working out this week when I'm home.

Because I've had a bit of a break, and my body needed it while I was traveling.

And all of a sudden you're refreshed, and so there's so much truth in the fact that guilt blocks growth.

You don't guilt yourself into becoming better.

It doesn't work that way.

You encourage yourself, like you got to talk to yourself.

I think they've done studies where they looked at how teachers talk to students and used to be a teacher.

Teachers who just told their students that they weren't smart, they didn't figure it out.

That never made a student better.

Student who believed that their teacher believed in them made a huge difference to their result and their psychology.

absolutely the big lesson that we were taught when speaking with children was address the behavior not the student so if a student was doing something that they shouldn't be doing you'd be like hey that choice I'm not a fan of that choice can we can we can we crumple up that choice and throw it in the garbage you you're a great person but I can't see how great you are when you make that choice yes and I realize that when we speak to ourselves we're still speaking to a little eight -year -old inside of us there's an inner child there that needs to be spoken with love and grace.

And it's not coddling, it's actually realizing that we have to be our own best friend, we have to be our own biggest advocate.

And view it through the lens of is it helpful?

Are we, is it really helpful?

Especially for folks who are like self employed or trying to do things, is it helpful to continually guilt yourself to do stuff?

Do you get better results that way?

Is it taking you where you wanna go?

Or can we have the conversation of like hey, okay, you know what, we're making a lot of progress working out, you know, you were seeing great things happen and now all of a sudden, you got to go on tour.

And now it may be eating room service and it may be sleeping in different time zones.

And that's okay, that's what this requires.

And then we'll get back to the other stuff and that's totally good.

And for me, it's always like, hey, maybe one more game of FIFA before we start.

And then for me, the big one was like, hey, let's go back on our history.

You've been humble, the poet, self -employed for about 15 years now.

Have you ever played too many video games and messed up?

Did you ever mess up a deadline?

Did you ever mess up an opportunity because you play too many video games?

No, let's trust us, let's trust ourselves.

Go back into your own history and let that be the support and to speak to these words.

A lot of these voices are not ours, they sound like us.

They were both written by other people.

These criticisms were somebody else and they just sounded like they're our voice and we give them value.

We don't have to believe everything we think because those thoughts are often there just to keep us in stasis.

Like, well, we're gonna try to scare you, guilt you to stay where you are because if you try something new, we consider something new dangerous.

And it's not. It leads nicely onto the next thing I wanted to pick out which, you said, don't should all over yourself.

So I should be more productive, I should be happier, I should have this figured out by now, I should work out five days a week, even when I'm traveling, I should never make mistakes, I should be in a relationship by now.

I think we have so many shoulds, and a should, as you clearly say, doesn't create a shift. None of us do more when we think we should do something.

And you know what, don't you feel this way, that we all know what we need to do?

Like, even when I'm given a keynote, when I'm recording a podcast, in my head I'm thinking, everyone already knows what they need to do, most people.

Unless you're something specific, like, I'm trying to figure out how to build a business, I may not know.

It's like most of us know what we need to change in our life, like we're actually quite aware of it.

What is the block from I know to I am, and in the middle, it's like the should is what ruins it almost. We keep saying I should work out four times a week because we know we should, but then why is the should the block?

I think the should is the language of perfectionism.

And it's the idea that everything needs to be perfect because we're afraid.

And one thing that we do to try to counter this fear is have control.

So should becomes the language of perfectionism, Perfectionism gives us this illusion of control.

But the reality is perfectionism isn't about making things better.

It's about finding flaws easier.

So we what we started to do is constantly look for flaws.

And that way that keeps us from having to do stuff.

So a lot of this, the same way I'm saying curiosity is courage in disguise.

A lot of this is fear in disguise.

What we're really just addressing is the fact that we're scared.

And here's the thing, it's okay to be scared.

And what I would encourage anyone to look at is Like maybe the step you tryin' to take is just too big.

And maybe we gotta break it down into something a little bit more manageable into baby steps.

And if those baby steps feel too big, let's do micro baby steps.

Then let's do micro baby tiptoes.

Let's keep going smaller and smaller until that next step feels manageable.

Because the only thing we have to do is know what that next step is and try it.

And I think this goes back to having grace for ourselves.

And this is why we overthink.

Again, it goes back to this idea that we're so afraid that we're gonna trick ourselves to think that we're solving a problem by constantly running it on a treadmill and going through a loop.

And now we're just inventing new problems to solve them and all of that results in nothing.

When it comes to anxious feelings, you can't think your way out of them.

You have to act your way out of them.

There is something brilliant about Nike saying, just do it.

It really is, just do it.

It really is feel the fear and do it anyways.

And again, these are catchy lines that we've heard a million times, our body isn't going to immediately accept them.

We have to start small and practice that every day.

You know, for five minutes I am just going to just do it.

I do Jiu -Jitsu and it was really interesting because this actually helped, and probably because I was in a physical situation, I'm rolling with somebody who has many more years ahead of me and we're rolling and in the middle of the roll he goes, you're thinking too much. It's okay.

We all make mistakes.

And instantly it was like, okay, stop strategizing.

Just trust whatever I'm doing Knowing that I don't have a chance against this guy regardless, but what he was he was addressing was the pauses and the avoidance that I was doing in real time and now when I'm Sending a text message sending an email making a request. I keep hearing his voice.

He's like stop thinking so much We all are going to make mistakes the fear is the mistake I might use I might say the wrong thing if I asked Jay for this favor Let me reread it, and proofread at 45 times Let me run it through Chad JPT let me do all of these things and it's like what we're just doing is ruminating to avoid the discomfort and what we're really saying is This is hard. I don't want to do it and that's okay This is hard. I don't want to do it That is a normal human feeling but we have to go through that in order for us to grow We'll start by being kind to ourselves like it is hard

Let's take a break, but let's address it and sometimes it might be like hey We'll do it first thing in the morning when we're the most fresh that concept swallow the Frog We'll do that now." Or it could be like, hey, maybe this is too big of a step.

Maybe today, step one is this.

And that really, and it is a reflection that it'll go back to the people that were around.

If we're around people that we can share this stuff with and they speak to us with that same level of grace, which is like, no, like you did a lot today.

It really matters. And I remember this in the beginning of my career, I came up with Lilly Singh, you know, who we both know.

And as you know, one of the hardest workers I've ever seen.

100%. 100%. And it really signaled to me how hard I needed to work.

And it was always this idea that if I wasn't working hard enough, she may think less of me.

And then fast forward during the pandemic.

I remember this having a call and she's like, look, like your only job right now, is like stay healthy and stay in a good place.

Don't try to be productive.

We've been signaled that we need to be productive all the time.

We there's honor in suffering.

There's honor in burning out.

It's a badge of honor.

And it's like, it's not a badge of honor.

It's a warning sign that we're abandoning ourselves by doing too much, especially in a society that we live in where the word enough doesn't exist when it comes to our productivity.

So it's really important to surround yourself around people who are doing the same work can have the same language, even if you're the first person to start these conversations.

When you're kinder to someone else, it will encourage them to be kinder to you as well.

Yeah, and I think it's hard because I'll give an example.

Like I landed at Sunday.

I would have gotten to bed by like 1 a .m. and I knew I had a workout at 8 a .m. in the morning scheduled.

And everything about me was like I've been on the road, I'm tired, I've been working.

It's all work. I had 4 keynotes in 4 days, podcasts.

But what was really interesting is that I'm at a place in my life where I've actually realized that waking up and working out actually sets me up to have more energy throughout the day.

So now I'm fully convinced.

Now, if this was literally three or four years ago, I would have said, no, I need to have grace on myself.

I'm going to let myself lie in.

I'm not going to workout.

Maybe I won't even work out for two, three days because I deserve a break.

The thing is that actually didn't make me stronger or more resilient.

It actually made me more sluggish.

It actually slowed me down.

So sometimes grace is actually choosing something that's good for you, even if it doesn't feel good.

And like I said, it's not coddling.

It's like, hey, you don't, you don't want to go to the gym today.

You don't want to work out with the trainer.

Let's just go for five minutes and if you don't like it, you can go home.

And then once you get in, you know, it's going to continue.

Yeah. And I'm, I'm definitely like that where it's, you know, I'm, I'm doing all the mental gymnastics like, oh, I ate and it's only been 43 minutes.

I can't go to - I might throw up on somebody.

I can't. You're making all these excuses.

And then the graceful voice is like, hey, just show up, try it out for a couple of minutes.

if you don't feel good, sit against the wall.

We see people doing it all the time, and the truth is, and then I go back to my history, you have always not wanted to go.

You have never regretted going.

Yes, exactly. Even when I've gotten hurt, I didn't regret going.

And I think that's the really important thing when it comes to this grace, we're not coddling ourselves.

We're being our best friend and we're encouraging ourselves to do it.

And you're absolutely right.

And this is how I would like us to view mental health the same way.

Let's train it. Let's constantly pick things that are different.

The same way you're lifting a heavy weight to tear your muscles and then have them heal to grow bigger, let's continually put ourselves in challenging situations, whether it's a cold shower, whether it's holding a yoga pose, whether it's doing calf raises until you start feeling the burn, any type of movement, any type of challenge where your mind is like, I can't do anymore, like, hey let's just try to stay in a little bit longer.

Let's do these things because this will help build resilience.

And it's one of the things in addition to creating connection in addition to practicing that we do.

And we realize like, I don't want to do it, totally understand that you don't want to do it, but try it and see how you feel afterwards.

Cause just like working out, the harder the workout, the easier the day.

And let's apply that to our mental health.

Let's treat our mental health like a muscle, the more we work it early, the easier the rest of the day will be.

I've always been saying that there's like, there's two types of people.

One, needs to do the easy thing first, to build confidence and get to the hard challenge.

And there's other people that need to do the hard thing first, they need to throw themselves into the deep end in order to build confidence.

And it's really important to know which one you are.

Because some people, if you are someone who needs to do the hard thing first, and you keep trying to build up confidence through small things, you'll actually never, ever get to the hard thing, or you'll feel like you'll take on a challenge that isn't big enough.

And if you're someone who's like, Oh my God, I need baby steps.

And now your friend over here is lifting 10 times as much as you are.

And now you're pushing yourself.

You won't do it either.

And that's why it's such an individual journey.

But I find so much anxiety is around timelines.

It's all around comparison.

And I was thinking about this, when you're at school, the one thing you don't have anxiety about as much is people being ahead of you.

or people having figured something out.

Because everyone goes from seventh grade to eighth grade to ninth grade.

All of a sudden, when you graduate, now, someone's getting promoted first, and someone's getting promoted last. Someone's getting engaged first, and someone's getting engaged last. Someone got the beautiful new apartment, and someone is still living with their parents.

All of a sudden, now, there's this timeline effect, where I'm now anxious, because I'm not 30 and married and making six figures and whatever it may be, building a family.

How do you deal with that existential anxiety?

Because this anxiety is more than the anxiety of just, I'm anxious about talking to these people, I'm anxious about this friend.

This is like this existential anxiety that sometimes we just don't even want to think about, but it's in the back of our mind, crap, I'm 30 and I'm not married.

I'm 40 and I don't have kids, right?

Yeah. Sometimes life can seem challenging and overcoming problems can seem impossible.

But when you focus on your problems, it can keep you from seeing the good in your life.

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I think the first thing, most definitely, and I love that you talked about school and how that was our world, the classroom or maybe the size of the school was our world.

And that made a lot of sense for maybe, you know, up until the last 20 years, social media has expanded our world where now we are endlessly being exposed to people who are living lives completely different from us.

And now we're comparing ourselves to that.

And so when we hear the cliched line, comparison is the thief of joy, we're constantly stealing our joy by spending time on social media and comparing ourselves to people.

And we're not even comparing ourselves to a real thing.

We're comparing our behind the scenes to this highlight reel of what we put on social media.

So the first thing I would say is reduce the amount of exposure you have to compare yourself to other people.

I would definitely make efforts to reduce my social media consumption.

That would make a huge thing.

I think also, the more we commit to understanding who we are, the more we start to realize that we need to design and develop a life for ourselves.

I think currently we're just trying to deal with life.

And I think as we commit to a mental health journey and voluntarily doing challenging things, we start to develop life, we start to understand what matters to us.

For you, for me, as we go through these different challenges we're like, wait, this is the shoe that fits me, this is the one that doesn't.

Oh, I can afford a fancy sports car, but I realize that really isn't for me, But I definitely want to make sure I have a great hot tub.

Or I want to definitely make sure I have, you know, I have a friend who just sold a company and I was like what are you gonna do?

He goes, I'm going to get my mom a personal trainer so she can open a jar until she's 90.

And it's like, this is someone who knows his priorities.

That's the first spend with the money.

And that only comes through self awareness.

Self awareness comes through paying attention to yourself and collecting information.

That's going to come to when we have these anxious feelings, these are revealing things.

Triggers are a roadmap.

They're telling us where the work can be done.

So we have to abandon these ideas that like, trigger warning, I have to avoid my triggers.

Oh, I have to constantly be in a safe space.

That's just us rearranging life to never gain.

And we're denying ourselves that self -awareness.

So I really think self -awareness is going to be the first thing.

So now and again it's not gonna make it all go away.

I still get jealous when I see people on social media.

I think the other thing we have to realize is Envy helps us understand what authentically matters to us.

Let's say for example, I watch, you know, I watch your show regularly, you got a couple of guests on, then all of a sudden a certain guest comes on and let's say Rick Rubin comes on, I'm like, oh, I am so jealous.

I wish I was in the room with Jay.

I wish I knew this was happening.

I wish I could have called Jay.

I wish I could have stood in the corner when I had that.

What that is doing is, that's not a bad thing to experience.

That's teaching me that, okay, something that Rick says matters to me.

So I should go deeper into that because it teaches me what's important versus if you have another guest on who am I?

Oh, that's cool, but I'm not really excited about that so, I think there's something there that I think is really important and I think the other thing that's really important is realizing are we Trying to catch up or are we trying to improve are we trying to keep up with other people?

I Think very often and going back to our families it really often isn't too we're not doing things to keep our make our family happy We're doing things to keep them off our back Right?

And I think there's definitely this when it comes to like, you know, being out here going events, dressing up.

All of this is like, are we doing this to even stand out at the party?

Or are we doing this to make sure we don't feel irrelevant.

That we're falling behind.

And I think paying attention to that will challenge us to go back to what are our unique values?

What are the things that we actually care about?

And the more we discover that, the more we can share that with people and for me that also brings me into the thoughts of the gap between fitting in and belonging.

We create so much stress trying to fit in and we have to wear masks to fit in and that is definitely going to feed anxious feelings.

Instead if we have a better understanding of who we are, if we're constantly exploring this universe inside of us, we know who we are and we can find people that we feel comfortable being around where we belong.

There's a quote in the book that I say, everybody is a social butterfly and maybe you're just in the wrong garden.

And I think that's really important versus the self identifying of, I'm socially anxious.

It's like, or you're just in a room with the wrong people.

That's so good. If you really enjoy Dungeons and Dragons, go in a room full of people who play that game.

All of a sudden there won't be as much social anxiety as you may feel if you're in a room full of people who work in finance or full of Hollywood stars.

And I think that's a really important thing, is go where you belong, focus on where you authentically belong.

And that requires a depth, because it may not just be like, oh, well, I'm South Asian, I should be around South Asians.

It's like, no, but who am I?

I enjoy art, I should be around more folks who love art.

I enjoy MMA, I should be around more folks who love MMA.

I enjoy playing certain video games, I should be around people who play those games.

The deeper you understand yourself, the more you can share.

And it's really important, because we want to be seen, We want to be heard. But the only way we can authentically be seen and heard is if we show people who we authentically are.

And you can't be yourself if you don't know yourself.

I loved, I mean that is such a big one because I hear that so often.

And I think you're so right.

Most people are going to events that they don't even want to go to.

They're hanging around people that they don't want to hang around.

And then we're wondering why we're socially anxious.

And we also say that person's an introvert or they feel like an introvert And someone who knows them goes, they're not an introvert, they're really loud around their people.

That person is wild around their people.

It's just right now they're not around their people.

And you have this beautiful quote in here, you say, the only way people can accept the real you is if you show them the real you.

And I think that's what it is, is that sometimes we don't even know the people that are around us because if that's not their vibe, if that's not their crew of people, they're never showing the real them.

and I know that for me, even in a crowd full of people, I'll try and find the person who wants to have a deep spiritual conversation.

The amount of time me and you and Jeremy, our good friends, end up together at parties, right?

So when we're at a party, and I know Humble and Jeremy are gonna be there, I know we're gonna find a little corner to have a conversation, a discussion, a debate, a thought problem, like that's what's gonna happen and that's why I don't feel out of place at the party.

But if you expected me to just kind of have two second conversations with lots of people and just hang around that that's not my that's not how I like to spend my time.

And I've got to look for I can still be at a big party and look for my community.

And I think again, it goes back to what you're saying is knowing yourself where people just go on.

I just don't like big parties.

It's like no, no, no. But there's a way in every space in every world.

It's kind of like people who have judgments about New York or LA or London or whatever Like we can have these broad strokes judgments.

And it's like no, you can create what you want here.

It does exist. It just depends on if it exists in the way you want to create it and how it works for you.

But, let's not sit around here and go, it's not possible in this place.

Cause that's like saying, one day you're going to get to the point where you go, no one's my type on planet earth.

And it's like, that's not a healthy mindset to have. Absolutely.

And it goes back to the idea of judging again.

We start to judge, which is a language of fear.

and we start to limit, we're like, oh no, I've met three people at this party, this isn't my crowd.

And also, for folks listening who are thinking, well, what about, you know, I'm at work or I have to wear a certain mask to survive those places?

I completely understand and the best way to counter that is when you're done with that, go to a place you belong.

We all have to be in places and we all have to play the game to fit in sometimes, it's not, you know, we have to survive and that might be part of the game.

But then to counteract that, to avoid burning out by doing that, go ahead and be in a situation where you belong.

Be with your people, be with your tribe.

And again, it still starts internally by figuring out who you authentically are.

Well said. There's one quote that I picked out here, just because I loved it.

You said, our broken heart is an open heart.

And that said so much to me because I felt that if my heart's ever been broken, it's only led me to more compassion, more context.

But I wanted to hear what, why you were inspired to write our broken heart is an open heart.

I think for me specifically, it's this idea that when the idea in your head doesn't match the idea in front of you, like our expectations of life, don't match the reality.

That's kind of when we, what we define as unhappiness.

And I think that's an opportunity to, a, on a lower vibration, feel sorry for ourselves and reaffirm that life is so challenging, life is so difficult.

but there's also an opportunity to grow.

You know, once we let go of that idea, I'm like, well there's something to grow from here.

So when our heart is broken, when everything that we thought was is no longer the case, whether it's a broken relationship, whether it's losing something you care about, losing an identity, losing money, whatever it may be, there's an opportunity to grow in there.

It's almost like a broken heart is an open mind.

Like that idea that now I can actually allow for life.

It's like now you're, oh, now we're paying attention.

All of a sudden things aren't moving according to plan and now we're actually focused and we're present and we're paying attention to things and there's a lot of opportunity there.

Versus just assuming everything was going to be on autopilot.

This idea of the happily ever after, these linear ideas, it's like no, we're gonna continually be in these cycles and anticipate things happening.

And everybody listening knows how transformative that first heartbreak was, whatever it may be.

and how much resilience can come from the moment it happens like, I can't be here anymore.

I can't deal with this.

And then as time goes by, we start building resilience from it.

And then all of a sudden, we are a much more rounded three dimensional version of ourselves because of it.

These hard times that form us and formulate us as people.

And this is why it's the idea of like, look, obviously I don't wanna have super heavy days every single day, but I gotta be able to trust myself to deal with them, or at least try my best to deal with them.

And at the very least, not sabotage myself by not sleeping enough, not eating the right food, not drinking enough water, not hanging out with people that give me energy.

And I think that there's something important there.

So I always look at it, especially as my life has progressed, where it's like, the things that are breaking my heart right now are absolutely out of control.

The people that I care about who have health issues, there's nothing I can do.

I catch myself avoiding messages, getting updates on some of these folks, because it just breaks my heart to think about.

And it's like, this is me avoiding, because it's so overwhelming.

But I speak to myself with grace and say, look, it's overwhelming, let's get you back to where you got to get to.

Let's feel better. And then we're going to lean into this.

We have to lean into this, because there's going to be some growth that's come from it.

The fact that this impacts you so much, it's a sign that you care.

And that's beautiful, because we need to care about more things in this life.

I think the anxiety around aging and death for ourselves and the people we love is without a doubt the anxiety we avoid the most. Right, the anxiety of, oh my God, I'm getting older.

Oh my God, someone in my life is unwell, diseased.

God, someone just died.

Like there's such an anxiety around that.

What have you found to be helpful at that time as you're going through it?

What would you wish you would have been told?

Or what do you wish people would hear in order to help soothe that anxiety?

There was something beautiful I heard from a scientist on Instagram and I don't remember her name.

She said, you know, life is not beginning and ending.

Life began once. You know, and we're all a part of it.

We don't have a life.

We are life. We're a drop in this ocean.

And I think there's something really beautiful about that, which is, you know, this is, depending on your beliefs, This can be a vacation from not existing.

And we can choose this existence to be whatever we want it to be.

And I think for me, it's been realizing, and actually have a tattoo on my chest inverted so I can read in the mirror.

So that any moment you're dust. And it was inspired by a friend who had said it, but another friend, and I specifically remember where I was when he said, he goes, our problems are only real because we forget we're going to die.

And when we think about all of these things, We're zooming in so much into our lives, but it's like, we've heard the cliché, will this matter in five years, 10 years?

Will it matter in 90 years?

Will it matter in 200 years?

Are any of us making it out of this alive?

And I think there's something really beautiful about that where it's like, we can only enjoy a movie because we know what's gonna end.

You know, if it was going on forever, if it was one of those TV shows that go on forever, we may not appreciate it as much. It's the finite of it, and I think that has to do with life as well.

In the book, I make a lot of jokes, and one of the big jokes is the secret pill to get rid of anxiety, I make up a joke about it.

But at the end, I'm like the actual magic pill is remember you're going to die.

When you're in these moments that just feel completely overwhelming, if you can remember not just with your brain, but with your body, that you are going to die.

And we have so many examples of that in history with people who have experienced near -death experiences and that have thrived because they realized I'm here for a deeper purpose.

I'm here for a bigger purpose.

I survived, you know, 50 Cent survived nine shots and all of a sudden thrived in his career.

It's like, that's the worst it can get.

Me not existing, so let's go.

It's not no longer fear of embarrassment, fear of rejection, fear of not being seen.

Because some of these are the things that we just forget, we're living creatures that won't be here forever.

And I think reminding yourself of that is really important.

And there's a Buddhist and Eastern philosophy around make it your goal to remember your mortality five times a day and watch the quality of your life improve.

Allow that, make that part of the mantra.

Make that part of the daily affirmations that I won't be here forever.

Take the year that you know like, in the year 2235, neither of us will be here.

OK, let's remember that when we're worried about sending a text message and not getting a reply or when we're worried about putting ourselves out there and potentially getting rejected or when we're worried about anything else.

And I think that's really important.

This isn't to minimize anybody's problems. It's to minimize the unnecessary stress that we may come with that.

And then we can realize that this stress isn't holding us back.

This stress can actually stretch us to reveal our potential of who we can actually be.

Pressure builds diamonds.

We can really become something beautiful and massive from this when we no longer view challenges as an attack on our existence, but instead an opportunity for us to grow, for us to thrive, for us to increase our capacity to not only be amazing to ourselves but being amazed to other people.

And there's a reason why stoicism has momento mori.

There's a reason why Buddhism has the statement you shared.

There's a reason why these wisdom traditions will remind us of that impermanence and insignificance to some degree, and again, I love what you said, it's not in a negative way, it's not in a morbid way, it's actually to free yourself of the pressure and stress you put on yourself.

Absolutely, and I think that even now, like we have these concepts of like legacy, you know what I mean?

Like there's also the stretch of like, oh I want to be alive after I'm not alive.

And it's like, these are stories that we're being told that we think are important.

And I remember seeing an interview with Alex Ramosey where he spoke about like, when's the last time you thought about the Queen of England?

You know, she was really popular and then she passed away and we're not thinking about her on the day.

We don't need to have legacy, you know, let's enjoy what we have while we have it.

The only thing we have is the present.

Especially when we speak about Eastern philosophy, especially for people listening here, it really is us having to unlearn a lot of the stories that we were told, we were told these linear stories.

Do this, do this, do this, get over this hump, and then everything will be smooth sailing.

It will be happily ever after, you can ride off into the sunset, everything will be great.

And it's like, no, there's always a day after, happily ever after.

And instead of wishing for an easier life, let's work towards being able to hold more weight because the weight's going to keep coming.

And just as you're working out, 15 years from now, the amount of effort you put working out will have to increase just for you to maintain where you're at.

So it's the same thing with our mental health.

Right now, our avoiding, our distracting, our medicating is us maintaining and by all means maintain.

But at some point we wanna get to the point where we're actually growing from it.

And that's going to require us leaning into things being more difficult, having more difficult conversations, acknowledging difficult realities like our death.

Humble the Poet, the book is called Un -Anxious 50 Simple Truths To Help Overthinkers Feel Less Stress and More Calm.

As always I love your books Humble because the way you divide up these 50 lessons is so beautiful and it's so easy to digest, easy to understand.

There's highlighted statements, there's quotes, Each section of the 50 is like, you know, two, three pages.

Thank you for always making complex, big, difficult topics, simple, easy, and accessible for everyone to understand.

Congratulations. Thank you, man.

I just wanna thank you.

This is also a moment of like closing the loop for me because it's, you know, you gave me a beautiful blurb on the book, but it was because I was brainstorming the ideas to you over dinner and you were having authentic reactions to them.

And it was like this journey for the last two and a half years writing this book, there's also just these moments of you coming to visit in New York, us having a meal, us having fun.

Playing a lot of FIFA, and just for the record, I want everyone to know Jay is the most frustrating person to play FIFA with because whenever you score on him, he'll congratulate you.

He'll be like, great job, that was an awesome goal.

He'll still beat you, but he'll do that.

So, it's like you can't even like talk crap to him.

It's so frustrating to like, So you play somebody who beats you but doesn't hold space for crap talk.

Instead, he'll just like, oh, let's watch the replay of the goal you got me.

That was so good. And then he'll score five more goals on me.

And it's extremely frustrating.

And, but one thing that you said the last time we played is I had music playing, I had the volume down.

And then you're like, this feels different.

If we turn the music off and we put the volume on the game you're like, oh I like this.

This gives you the right type of anxiety.

What I realized is while writing this book I just have all these milestones of having all these different hangouts with you and running these ideas with you.

And then I feel like today, having this conversation with you, having the book in your hand right now, it's this full circle moment, which kind of closes the loop.

And I think it's that journey.

It really is that journey that matters less than, oh, I have a book out now and I have to worry about how the book does.

It's like, no, I got to have so much fun doing this with some of my favorite people.

And you definitely are one of those people.

so I deeply appreciate you for being endlessly supportive of this and all my projects man.

No man, it was fun, it was, the best thing is hearing about your friends working on stuff and working on it with them and you do the same for me and just, I think that is the joy of it, and you are right, that is the best part about it.

And the fact that now people can dive into it, it's beautiful and yeah, I wrote on the front cover, three pages in, you'll feel a thousand pounds lighter and I really feel that way, it's just made so simple, it's made so easy and digestible and I think that's what we all need right now.

The world's complex enough.

You talk about that in the book.

Family life it's all complex enough.

We don't need growth to be complex. Yes, especially now with change.

Just please remember the change isn't the enemy.

Us resisting this change is what's going to give us more anxious feelings.

The change is going to happen regardless.

Change is a promise.

It's a constant. Wherever you are in the world we're all experiencing a lot of change.

and that's okay. And if it gets overwhelming, that's also okay.

But please the more we resist, the tighter we hold against it, the more that we're just doing damage to ourselves.

It's not going to be helpful.

So let's embrace the change that's happening.

Be curious about the change because that's where our courage can be.

Well said and grab a copy of the book, Unanxious, it's available right now.

Make sure you follow Humble across social media.

If you don't already, and Humble, I hope you come back many, many more times to have more of these conversations and I can't wait to hang this weekend and chat more as well my friend.

So thank you, brother, thank you so much. I'm super proud of you and really grateful for what you're doing in the world and excited for people to read this.

Thank you, man. Thank you, brother.

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[Redefining Anxiety: A Path to Growth and Resilience with Humble the Poet]-[Humble the Poet: Transform Your Relationship With Anxiety (6 Strategies for Overthinkers]

📋 Summary

Redefining Anxiety: Moving from Management to Growth

Anxiety as a Signal, Not a Failure

The Power of Curiosity and Options

Moving Beyond 'Shoulds' and Guilt

Practical Strategies for Resilience

Embracing Mortality

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[Redefining Anxiety: A Path to Growth and Resilience with Humble the Poet]-[Humble the Poet: Transform Your Relationship With Anxiety (6 Strategies for Overthinkers]

📋 Summary

Redefining Anxiety: Moving from Management to Growth

Anxiety as a Signal, Not a Failure

The Power of Curiosity and Options

Moving Beyond 'Shoulds' and Guilt

Practical Strategies for Resilience

Embracing Mortality

Deep Learning with ListenLeap

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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