This is How to Be a Better Human.
I'm your host, Chris Duffy, making an intro for the podcast, but there are these deep dark circles under my eyes and also there's so much work to do and, speaking of work to do, there's always more work to do and there's also always more laundry and always more cleaning and always more groceries and always more bills to pay.
There's so much stress and it all just keeps coming.
You know, all of us have stress in our lives And some of us handle it in healthy ways and others of us maybe in less than healthy ways.
So I think that I know that I need to and I bet a lot of you also need to talk to today's guest, Dr Jenny Tate.
She is a licensed clinician with a doctorate in clinical psychology and she is the author of the new book Stress Resets.
How to Soothe Your Mind and Body in Minutes.
Now, soothing my mind and body in minutes, that sounds pretty dang good.
I would love that.
The stressors are not going to go away.
They're always going to be there.
But maybe I and maybe we can learn some strategies to deal with them.
So let's find out how to do it.
To get us started, here is Jenny reading a passage from her book.
Let's take an example that unfolded in my house.
One morning, when my husband Adam was tired and rushing not a good combination he dropped a full carton of milk on the kitchen floor.
Fuming.
He cleaned it up rather aggressively and cut his hand on the cake plate at the bottom of our refrigerator.
Unfortunately, we didn't have any bandages in the house.
So, feeling even more frustrated, he jumped in the car for a drugstore run.
Agitated and replaying his horrible morning on the way home from the drugstore.
He then got into a minor car accident.
You can't make this stuff up.
Of course, I have plenty of examples of how I've exacerbated an already stressful situation years ago, exhausted and newly back to work after the recent birth of my second child began gnawing endlessly on my fingernail, to the point where I found myself in the emergency room with an antibiotic-resistant infection that required minor surgery.
If I had only paused, observed my stress-fueled urges, taken a few deep breaths and tried one of the stress resets in this book, I'd have spared myself hours in the emergency room and multiple follow-up visits with an infectious disease specialist.
I'm pretty sure you have examples of your own.
I have many examples of my own and we are going to talk about them.
But first, we're going to take a short break.
We'll be right back.
Today we're talking about how to handle stress with Dr. Jenny Tates.
Hi, I'm Dr. Jenny Tates.
I'm a clinical psychologist and I'm passionate about spreading hope to a wide audience.
So I often write about my favorite practices and my most recent book is called Stress Resets.
Jenny, thank you so much for being here.
And I want to start with probably the most basic question, which is, what is a stress reset?
A stress reset is something you can do quickly, literally within minutes, that can change the course of how stress affects you.
One of the most unfortunate parts of being human is that we have a knack for taking something minorly stressful like imagine, like almost like a little stain.
And we have a knack for like trying to fix it in a way that just makes it so much worse than it initially was.
And so a stress reset kind of gives you this opportunity to keep it contained and maybe even make it palatable.
So what is actually stress then in the first place?
Stress is these moments when we feel totally overwhelmed.
It's like this mismatch between our bandwidth and what we're facing.
It's when you kind of think it's too much.
I just can't.
So one thing that I really love about your book is that you talk about places where we can look at stress with our mind, but you also look at stress in our body.
So can you talk a little bit about stress as it plays out in both of those realms?
You know it's interesting, when we're feeling kind of overwhelmed, we end up getting into a stress cycle.
We start thinking thoughts that are catastrophic or negative.
We say we experience stress in our minds like This is terrible.
This is the worst thing that could possibly be.
If there's something that's ambiguous and we're not sure what it is, our minds kind of default to expecting the worst or imagining things are going to be terrible.
And then we experience stress in our body, obviously thinking thoughts like, let's say you, your boss puts a meeting on your calendar.
It's very easy to start to think like, I'm going to be laid off.
And then obviously that's going to do a number to your body.
Maybe you're going to start to feel really tense, short of breath.
Then the third piece that I think is really interesting is then we often do things that make things that much worse.
So if your boss put a meeting on the calendar, you're all tense.
Maybe you decide like, I can't focus.
I'm just going to like procrastinate for like the next four hours until the meeting happens.
And then you've put yourself into this whole tornado.
And the crazy thing Chris, is that I've had so many clients that have had like this exact thing happen to them.
And like, it's kind of hilarious.
Like some of the reasons for meetings could be like, the way you're parking in the company's lot.
Like it could be something that's so not like, I'm sorry, we're relaying off your team.
It's nothing to do with like the fact that you were late to a meeting.
It's something that like is kind of humorous.
I so relate to that feeling of like you have a panicked idea of what this thing is going to be and then you waste the whole day because you can't stop fixating on it.
And then it turns out that it was like Hey, by the way, I'm having a one on one call with everyone just to talk about like we want to make sure everyone gets their favorite snacks.
So what's your favorite snack?
And you're like, well, that's good and not bad.
And also, so why did this have to be a meeting?
But I was freaking out for hours.
Totally.
And even in our personal lives with like a text like, hey, can we talk?
It's like.
I wanted to try to put something fun on the calendar versus like you're a terrible friend and we need to.
Like end our friendship.
I love to just like call unexpectedly.
And a lot of people are like, do not do this to me.
Yeah.
Like this is always reads as an emergency.
And I'm like, I was driving for 20 minutes.
I thought I would see how you're doing.
Yeah.
So sweet.
No.
And so I talk about resetting stress at all those like, at all those three junctures in our minds, in our bodies and in our behaviors.
And you could do this in the moment, but you could also do this preemptively.
Like it's really hard in those moments to quickly think differently than how you normally think, or to be able to recalibrate your body or be intentional about your behaviors.
But there are things we could do ahead of stressful moments that are like preventative medicine.
You talk in the book about like a stress reset versus a mental buffer.
So can you walk us through what the difference between those two is and when we would apply one versus the other?
Yeah, a stress reset is in those moments, in that moment where you get that email or you get a surprise call from Chris.
Like that is when you maybe need to reset right then and there.
But a buffer or things that we want to do.
It's almost like saving money for an unexpected cost that you suddenly need new tires or something.
You want to be saving money in the bank.
So it's really hard.
A lot of people expect that all of a sudden, they're going to be able to do something difficult like not be judgmental, and like a really hard moment if they haven't built up like the practice of being less judgmental or kinder to themselves.
And so i think we need to be realistic, like i don't want to be.
I don't want anyone to think like you know, i tried this, it didn't work.
You might need to be trying this at other times.
To like, if you want to really run fast during like a you know, scary event on the street, you need to like have some ability to run fast period.
Well, one thing that is just is just funny is um, you and i are both so clearly in los angeles in that, like several of our things have been like a parking related stress or your driving stress, so the car related stress is running on the street yeah um, but then you also have um, I'm sure you get this all the time, but you have like such a naturally like calming voice and demeanor.
I see why you are like a clinician who can help people deal with stress.
Do you think that you always had that or think you've gotten more like that because of your clinical practice?
Chris, I love that you're mentioning this, because this is one of the things that has irked me so much.
People online like accuse me of having like an artificial therapy voice and I'm like I am literally the worst actor.
Like if you wanted to hire people for like a show, like I couldn't do it.
I think maybe part of it is, like, LA, maybe part of it is my personality, but...
But yeah, this is me in and out.
My friends would tell you that this is me.
Oh, I mean it in such a good way.
Not as a critique at all.
Yeah.
No, no, no.
But I just want to clear the air.
I'm like, why?
When I do a podcast interview, do people say that I sound fake?
I'm like, oh, my gosh, talk to me like tomorrow.
Call me spontaneously when you're driving.
I think a lot of people, maybe clients or people that might be watching this.
Had the sense that, like somehow, like I don't experience stress, or because I exude calm like I am, you know, there's some sort of Teflon around me and stress doesn't penetrate.
But like I feel I totally understand stress.
I get stressed.
I feel stressed.
I just really try to practice every single thing I prescribe like all the time.
What are the main sources of stress for you?
You know, in my clinical practice, I feel so honored and lucky to do what I do.
But one of my specialties is working with people that struggle with chronic suicidality.
And so I am often on like kind of on call, like I want to be helpful to people.
And so most of my patients are able to reach me between sessions.
So I
I choose to work with, you know kind of like the psychological version of kind of the ER, professionally.
And then I have three little kids who are amazing.
But there's also a lot of.
You know, my son, like two nights ago, was like at nine o'clock after I asked him like consistently since five o'clock, realized that he had like a major homework assignment that was like involved me taking pictures of him and like this whole thing.
I'm like, dude, like we've talked for four hours.
Like what's due tomorrow?
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
And it's a minor stress and that's a pleasurable stress.
But you know, that's in the moment after you've been going since like 6am.
It's like what's happening now.
I have to do like homework with a eight-year-old at 9 pm, which is not his prime time.
Um yeah, so yeah, the normal stressors and and also like again, like i'm human, like you know, things you know affect me the same way that affect everyone else.
Even just in the way that you framed it, right?
You were like, I have this really serious job where often it is like a life or death thing.
And I think anyone would argue like that is so stressful.
Of course, it makes sense that you're stressed.
And then you said, like, I also like have my kid and he's wonderful.
But then I'm stressed about like the having the homework and that's a good thing.
But one of the things that I do a lot, and I think a lot of people do, is we sometimes have this like emotional judgment around the things that we feel stressed on.
Like, oh, but this is like a gift, like getting to spend time with my kid.
I shouldn't also feel stressed about that.
And you talk in the book about how, like layering that emotion on top of like this isn't worthy of stress, or this I shouldn't be angry about this thing, or it's not.
I'm not allowed to feel jealous, or whatever.
The emotion is can sometimes be uh,
Maybe like the main driver of the stress around.
The thing is that, like we don't allow ourselves to feel the way we feel,
So I just would love to talk about that, since I think it came up there and it is such a natural and universal thing.
Yeah.
I mean technically, we all have what's referred to as primary emotions, like the first thing that we feel.
And then we can easily create secondary emotions.
So I could feel anxious that like, you know, on a small level that like my kid has some project due and I was supposed to email it to his teacher and like I'm not up to date on the school emails and he totally forgot.
So I could feel like a little small level of anxiety.
And then I could start to judge like, what's wrong with me?
Why am I feeling anxious now?
And then I have like anxiety on top of anxiety which, for some people in a different situation, could lead to panic.
If like someone's heart's racing and they're like, this is so weird.
Like that could, you know, lead to like more anxiety or it could lead to different emotions.
It could lead to something totally different.
Like oh my gosh, I'm so embarrassed.
Why do I feel stressed by this?
So it could be like anxiety, more anxiety, shame.
Then maybe there's guilt of like why do I feel this way?
This is like, it's embarrassing with him.
It's bad for me.
And so it could lead to this whole spiral.
That's a very silly example.
But I think in human life it's like Someone was just telling me that you know they were listening to a song that was really sad in front of a child and they felt embarrassed by emoting.
And it's like you felt sad and now you feel embarrassed.
Now you feel worried about what that did to that person.
But it's like we're human.
And so it's again like the stress thing.
We could either keep it small or we could create this whole web of emotions, layer on top of layer, and the first feeling that we have is helpful and productive, like the first feeling is like let's get this done, let's go for like, good enough, this is not going to be perfect, we're just going to do this like how fast can you like do the things, versus like unproductive, which is like shame or more anxiety.
It could lead to like not being in a position that you could actually do the thing.
And so I think a huge thing that we can all do when we start to feel stressed, instead of getting into catastrophic thoughts or instead of like berating yourself, is like normalizing the normal, like just being a good friend to yourself.
It's so simple, but so something we don't do for ourselves, but we do easily for others.
Of course, you feel this way.
Given this, of course you feel this.
And it's just like a quick reframe versus like, what the hell is wrong with me?
It's like, this makes total sense.
And that immediately could probably take stress down a notch.
And that's why we like, enjoy talking to like the friends that are empathic and validating.
And when we don't like call people that you know, say like you're overreacting and don't worry, what's wrong with you?
I loved how in your book you ground it in your practice and like what school of thought you are.
And one of them that I wasn't as familiar with was DBT.
And I just like to talk about it because it feels like it's at the heart of a lot of what we've already talked about and what we will continue to talk about.
So can you tell us what does DBT stand for and what does it mean?
Sure.
DBT stands for dialectical behavior therapy, and it is a treatment that was developed by Dr Marsha Linehan, who is an incredible pioneer.
And just very interestingly she came out later in her career in an article in The New York Times sharing that a lot of the treatment that she developed was the treatment that she wished she had when she really struggled with psychiatric crises.
And it's really incredibly moving.
She actually had been hospitalized repeatedly for her own mental health challenges and treated in really inhumane ways and prescribed tons of medications that like, really did more harm than good.
And not that there's anything wrong with medications, but the medications she was prescribed were really not working for her.
And literally the unit that she was hospitalized on like ultimately became a DBT unit where she came out and told her story, which is really powerful.
And so DBT is a treatment that combines Zen Buddhist principles with cognitive behavioral therapy.
And so it teaches.
It's called dialectical because it's kind of seems like a dialectic or an apparent contradiction.
It teaches 100% change alongside 100% acceptance.
So I wholeheartedly accept this moment and I also wholeheartedly will change, and acceptance also kind of paves the way for change.
And when you learn DBT, there's four specific tools that you learn.
So a lot of people maybe think therapy is like you go you share your problems, you do a lot of the work, your therapist listens, takes some notes and maybe summarizes some things.
But DBT is almost like a class where your therapist teaches you a specific curriculum that includes four modules mindfulness, how to be present in the moment Without judgment and in a way that allows for more joy.
Interpersonal effectiveness.
How to assert yourself.
Ask for what you want.
Maintain relationships.
Be skillful in maintaining your objective, self-respect and your relationships.
Emotion regulation how to manage your emotions.
So they're kind of more on a dimmer system rather than an on-off switch.
And distress tolerance. how to cope with crises without making them worse.
And DBT is a gold standard treatment for people that struggle with things like suicidality and self-harm.
Substance use, a lot of co-occurring problems.
But I think the DBT skills are amazing.
And so one of my goals in writing Stress Resets is to disseminate these to the masses, because every DBT therapist I know, Myself included, feels like this is so cool.
We won like the career lottery.
I have all these like cool tools at my disposal.
I could use them in my life.
I could teach them to friends.
But like, why not use them preventatively or to enhance quality of life?
Like they don't need to just be used for crises or when you're at your lowest point.
Just to read a quote from the book you say, if you're wondering what the heck dialectical means, the term refers to the concept that ideas that seem in opposition can both be true.
A key dialectic in DBT is that you can simultaneously accept what you're facing and change your life.
And one of the things that I think comes up a lot for me when I think about stress is this idea of like in my control versus outside of my control.
Let me give you even the most extreme example, right?
Like you live in a repressive authoritarian regime.
The idea that like, the solution to your problem is I just have to like, think about things differently.
That's not true.
And yet.
Right.
Right.
Right.
I feel like that's one of the big dialectics that obviously I'm picking the most extreme version of.
Absolutely.
So think about, like talk to me about how we can think about stress in some of these ones where it is like very external.
It's not just like how I'm perceiving things like you get in a car accident.
That's clearly an external event.
But how does the internal process also matter in that external event?
Yeah, I mean, so again, like you can get into a car accident and think like, this is terrible.
I'm never going to drive again.
I've had patients that live in places like LA where you need to drive.
And it's like this thing happened to me and game over.
I will never drive myself.
I will be taking an Uber.
I will not drive on the freeway.
I'm just going to take roads.
But we have to, you know, learn to drive. this thing happened.
It was really awful.
It was unexpected.
It makes total sense that I feel anxious and stressed.
And I'm going to choose like what would I do if I wholeheartedly approach this with like a beginner's mind, or like this was my first time doing this thing?
And obviously, I'm going to be cautious.
I'm going to be careful.
And I'm I'm going to totally accept any additional stress in my body as I approach this.
But to continue,
What would you say to someone who feels like because they look at the news and they look at the outside world and they see horrible things happening and they see other people suffering that their own suffering is unworthy because it's not big enough?
It doesn't matter.
I think that that is a really common example of self-invalidation.
Both things are true.
Your pain... And again, this is so interesting.
It's like the things that people tell us would make us enraged, but then we tell them to ourselves on repeat.
I've seen so many young adults whose parents are like, you have nothing to be upset about.
Look at all the problems and look at how good you have it.
And they're like want to throw a book at their parents but throw the phone at their parents, you know, but it's like when we tell it to ourselves all the time.
I mean, i think both things are true, like i have every reason to be upset and also there's really big problems in the world and and it could also be helpful to to be able to learn.
One of the things i talk about is also observing and describing your emotions, like i could say, you know, this thing that happened to me on a zero to five scale, is a two, and being, you know, in a war zone right now would understandably be like a five plus, like on a you know, five being the highest.
And so they're both things.
You know, we don't want to minimize our experience, but we also want to have some perspective.
We could all use some perspective and we're going to get even more of it.
But first.
We are going to experience some podcast ads.
What can people actually do?
Like, OK, here's an actual practice that you can do.
And here's your book is genuinely just full of practices.
Yes.
One of them is you talk about how you had a patient who you.
Describe to her the difference between framing something as I need to calm down versus I need to get excited, and how the exact same moment could be a calm down or get excited moment, depending on how you looked at it.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Sure.
There's research that finds that there's so much about emotion regulation is about appraisal.
Like when we're excited.
If you think about a time that you're really revved up even maybe exercising or something like it could be joyful to have your heart rate up and to feel even like you know, if you're laughing really hard, maybe your face is flushed.
And.
But oftentimes, if we are in a different situation, the same physical sensations, we interpret the same physical sensations negatively.
And so Telling ourselves we need to calm down, especially if we're revved up, isn't helpful.
But kind of channeling that into like this matters to me, I care about this.
My body stress response is helpful, can be really empowering.
And there's actually a lot of work on Adopting like a synergistic mindset around stress.
So this combination of believing that, like stress is adaptive, like stress is the price of a meaningful life.
If you had no stress, you would probably be apathetic and have nothing going on in your life.
And also that your body stress response is helpful, like Literally even.
There's a famous article that I like about turning your knots into bows like literally seeing like knots in your stomach.
It's like bows, like before you're going into the GRE, like this is a side that I'm doing.
Well, my stomach is, like you know, revving up my body to perform.
Like this is not like, oh my gosh, like I'm going to fail because my stomach is growling.
No, this is like a sign that you're going to do well.
If you can reframe stress more positively, especially when it's in line with what matters to you and you can accept wholeheartedly your body's stress response, the combination of doing those two things and interventions that teach those two practices in like 30 minutes can actually correlate with reducing cortisol, reducing mental health challenges and also narrow achievement gaps.
Like this is like a 30-minute intervention, like four years later can correlate with first generation college students actually graduating college, and so this isn't just like a nice kind of reframe.
It translates into again that behavioral piece of Choosing behaviors and also changing the way you see yourself in the way and the course of your life.
Like these
The goal of resetting stress is not to just feel better in this moment.
It's to live the life that you want to live.
You know that that idea of appraisal and reappraisal.
You talked about how, even though this is such an important skill and one that can really transform it, it also is a really challenging skill.
And you say, just to read from the book, on page nine, you say one of the challenges of reappraisal is applying it to different situations.
While participants in studies can actively rethink their stress responses in specific situations like taking a test or giving a talk, they're not necessarily able to do the same when it comes to navigating a difficult relationship or worrying about a health issue.
And then you talk about how that is actually like a transfer problem.
I find that so much in my own life.
Like I am so, you know, people get really stressed about public speaking.
I love to speak public.
And some of that is just natural inclination.
But some of it is like as I'm about to go out on stage, I like jump up and down.
I move my body.
I'm like, great, great, great, great, great.
And I'm like, then it turns into I'm not stressed.
I'm excited.
But then people are often surprised to find out, like if I'm going into a room like they had like a meet and greet at the preschool for my, my son.
And when I like walked into this meet and greet, which is just like a very friendly, low stakes thing, I'm not expected to do anything.
I was like my heart was pounding and I was so nervous to be like I have to meet these parents and talk to them and have to make a good impression and you know I want to have a good relationship.
It just didn't transfer for me in that way.
So I'm curious, like, how do you transfer from one to another?
Yeah, Chris, I mean, can I ask what you thought when you walked into the preschool?
Like you said, you kind of just alluded to some like I have to make a good impression and Yeah, it felt like well, I'm like what I do now is setting the tone for the next several years.
And it's not just me.
It's like, how are people going to see my wife?
How are people going to see my kid?
Will we get to have play dates?
Like, you know, I put a lot of stakes on it that I probably were not actually there.
And what would be like a more helpful way to approach the situation?
Well, I think probably the way that I actually approach, like if I was giving a talk to 100 people, you know, like walking into a room or a thousand people whatever,
I always say, like, whatever.
Worst case scenario, they don't have fun.
They'll never think of this again.
If it's good, they'll remember it.
If it's bad, they'll forget it.
No, and if you could dial up the positivity or the gratitude or the opportunity to savor even.
I'm thinking of like, I'm about to walk into a room with people that are kids the same age.
It's rare, as an adult, to be able to meet so many people that live in the same area that are going through a similar stage of life.
This is an opportunity to maybe connect with some people that are in a shared experience and a shared geographical area.
But if we could think about it in a way that's useful and adaptive and then I think automatically, like just doing that would change your body's stress response, would change like the kind of social anxiety like in your body and like tension and maybe shortness of breath.
But if not, even just if you are feeling like that in your body, despite thinking more neutrally or effectively about the situation or positively about the situation, you could still like this is okay.
This is normal.
I care.
You know sometimes, sometimes going into a social situation, I similarly like experience like, oh my gosh, like my heart is going faster.
Yeah, I haven't seen some of these people in ages and I I want to make a good impression and this belongs.
I mean, it's interesting, like you know, for someone running the marathon.
It's like there's some expectation of pain to be expected and acceptance of that and celebrating that is part of the process and part of the feat of like mind over matter, and i think we need to kind of bring some of that like it makes total sense.
If you're, if your body's doing something, how can you normalize the normal and not make the normal into pathological in a way that just creates this tornado of like your body and mind feeling like they're waging war against you?
If I know I'm about to talk to a bunch of people, one thing that I do is I don't just like stand still and then walk out on stage.
Instead, I like I'm literally like jumping up and down backstage.
I'm like skipping.
I'm like fake punching the air.
I'm just like moving my body and shaking my arms out and legs out.
And I do all that just because it's like.
It feels like well, if my heart is racing and I'm jumping in these ways, that's how it's supposed to be.
If I'm just standing still and my heart is racing, then it feels like that's nervous energy.
It's not positive energy.
Yeah.
And that's one of the things.
There's a specific set of skills called TIP Temperature, Intense Exercise Skills pace, breathing and progressive muscle relaxation.
If you are feeling totally overwhelmed and like you need to like do something different with your body, like intense exercise and that doesn't mean going to like a gym class that could literally be doing jumping jacks or burpees, and if you could attribute that like it makes total sense that my heart is doing this because I am Vigorously exercising, and then that also like quiets your mind.
You can't be like thinking your worst case scenario thoughts while you're doing a squat jump that automatically, like creates a different attribution and changes your body chemistry.
You also talked about the power of cold water, which I thought was really interesting.
Just like having a bowl of ice water and putting your hand or your face into it can be one of these ways of just kind of like, quickly resetting your body.
Exactly.
So that is part of the tip skill.
So again, the T is temperature.
And so there's a specific practice where, if you like, the human body has this amazing feature that if your body is submerged, if your face specifically, is submerged in cold water and you're holding your breath, you automatically like, lower your heart rate and your blood flow is redirected from non-essential to essential organs.
And so if you're feeling totally overwhelmed and something really horrible happened to you today, or you're really feeling unable to like kind of turn off rumination or thought spiraling,
If you took like a salad bowl full of ice water, set a timer on your phone for 30 seconds, held your breath, stuck your face in the ice water.
If you were wearing an Apple watch, your heart rate would come down.
It's like a control alt delete feature that we all have.
I should also just say a disclaimer that If you have cardiac issues, this does change your heart rate pretty quickly.
So it's not advisable if you do have a heart condition.
But it's also a larger theme that in a matter of seconds or minutes, we can change things.
We can totally, if you literally don't want to do that even just having the mindset of i could feel better quickly, like a lot of times, right in the thick of how we're feeling, we assume i will feel this way forever and it's going to get worse.
It's like actually i could feel different in seconds in my body and in my mind and things are constantly changing.
Another example that i wanted to talk about is um.
You talk about as one of these mind buffers, something that you can do regularly that can help you build your endurance and your stamina in the kind of mental sense around stress is you talk about untangling yourself from your negative core beliefs.
I think this is such an interesting idea that, like who we are versus who we believe ourselves to be, and that you could actually untangle those two things.
So I would love to know more about what the difference between who we are and who we believe ourselves to be is, and how we can identify that difference.
There's so many ways that we see ourselves in the world and other people that might have nothing to do with our reality.
And so Past.
Painful experiences can create some sort of narrative in your mind of like I'm not good enough or I'm unlovable.
Or if people really knew me, they wouldn't care about me.
And maybe we have beliefs about other people, of like people just want something from me, or beliefs about the future of like things won't work out.
It's really, really hard to let facts penetrate if we hold on to these ways.
We see the world through these specific glasses.
It's helpful to think about your life and how did you come to see yourself.
How did you come to see other people?
How did you come to see kind of your future and see like what are my core beliefs and how do they make sense?
And so a lot of people that I see that have been like, let's say bullied, feel like there's something kind of wrong with them, or they're not lovable or they're not cool.
And maybe that leads to behaviors like avoiding sex, initiating relationships or reaching out to people or putting themselves out there wholeheartedly and just kind of like doing what they think is like you know what they're supposed to do.
And so taking a step back and thinking about like, what are my beliefs?
What behaviors would I do to kind of transcend them?
And what would I do if I didn't believe these things?
Maybe I would just wear what I wanted to wear and do what I wanted to do and not feel like I needed to fix.
And so I think it's helpful to think about what are the ways I see myself, and are they not helpful and are they not relevant in this moment?
And that also leads to a lot of self-compassion.
It was really hard at a pivotal age to have had a negative experience.
How can I...
Give myself the freedom of changing that now.
I think I have for years had like a strong belief about myself that I am physically not capable of doing things.
And I don't mean like I can't move or I can't take care of myself, but like.
When it comes to like fixing something, or when it comes to like being involved in like a sport or athletic like.
I just have had this belief that, like I'm not able to do those things, that that's other people are good at that and I'm not.
And if I try and do it, it will mess things up.
And it has led me to then be like, I can't hang on. piece of art in my house.
I can't put a nail in the wall.
That's something I have to either get help with, or I have to hire someone, or I just like if I do it, it'll cause this whole problem.
And it's like if someone asks, like, do you want to come play on like a pickup basketball game?
I'd be like, of course not.
Like, why would you even ask me that?
That does not sound fun.
I don't like that.
And so it's OK for me to not like that.
But then some of it is like The ability to attempt a small home repair or to go swimming and think of myself as a swimmer.
It's challenging those beliefs.
And then when I do it, I'm like, oh, but actually I do enjoy this.
Or, oh, that actually wasn't as hard as I thought.
Or even if I mess it up, it's not a big deal to mess it up.
And now there's three or five or even 12 little holes in the wall, but they're all covered up by the painting by the time it's hung up.
So who cares?
I think it just speaks to like our minds tell us these things and then they really affect us, the scope of our lives and what we choose to do.
And who knows, like maybe you would actually enjoy pickup basketball, but our minds kind of create these narratives and then we let our behaviors like follow.
And what if we choose our behaviors and like, expand our minds?
I'll give you a more vulnerable one, which you know I don't.
I have less of an explanation as to like where it comes from or what it is, but it I think that I sometimes have this feeling that the thing that makes me and not even sometimes, I think often or maybe always have this feeling that like, the thing that makes me good or would make other people think that I'm good, is like a collection of evidence that I'm putting together.
And that if I don't have a strong enough uh Pile of evidence that I'm good, that like it could be cross examined away and that actually they would find out the truth that like I'm not a good person or I'm not worthy.
You know, it's like I if I'm able to say well, I did this and I did this favor for this person and I was kind in this way.
And like, look, judge, here's all the evidence.
Like, surely I'm a good person, but it's not some sort of core internal thing.
Yeah, no, I really relate to that.
I was thinking about what my example would be.
And it's like I my parents got divorced when I was young and my mom got remarried and my stepdad was kind of like a cliche stepdad of like calling me an idiot when I was seven years old.
And I think I adopted this idea that I'm like not smart enough or I'm not good enough.
You know, I think we both collected the external validation around good enough.
But like what if I just see that the thought that I'm an idiot or I'm not smart enough is just mental event from this childhood experience?
And that is an understandable thing to hold on to, but I don't need to be fixing it in the way of external achievement after external achievement.
And those things aren't satisfying because they don't change the core belief unless you understand the core belief.
And what would you do if you didn't believe that to be true?
Maybe take a break from the good enough external pursuits or validations.
It ties at something else that you you've talked about in your work, which is like sometimes, if we act as though the thing is true, even if we don't believe it, that that can lead that thing to become true.
And so like, for example, right like you are really depressed and you are feeling horrible and you don't have any energy.
Sometimes the thing that could actually help is to just be like well, what would you do today if you weren't depressed and you did have energy?
And then to force yourself to do some version of that is like, even though you're like, the last thing I want to do is call up a friend and go see a movie.
If you force yourself to do that, you may find afterwards huh, I actually feel less bad than I did before.
Exactly.
And just to tie one thread with the core beliefs, I think everyone has these.
And I don't want you to think that like, There's something wrong with you if you do.
Like I was at a professional conference.
That was pretty experiential and we all had to wear name tags.
And instead of it saying like Chris or Jenny, it said, I'm a terrible person.
If people really knew me, they wouldn't like me.
Wow.
Intense name tags.
Yeah.
And these people are amazing.
And so I just think to normalize like this is part of the human condition and this doesn't require years of therapy too.
Unpack or transcend.
And then in terms of, like the thing that you're saying about changing the way you behave, this is so powerful.
I mean there's a treatment called behavioral activation.
That is literally giving someone a schedule of a few things that might give you pleasure.
Like oftentimes people have to relearn pleasure if they're really depressed.
Like The pleasure that they once experienced might not be the same amount when they initially go back to a few things that might give you pleasure and things that might give you a sense of accomplishment or mastery something that's difficult but possible.
And if you do it you would feel like you know a challenge was accomplished and then you could keep growing.
Doing a few things each day for pleasure and mastery over several weeks actually works as well as antidepressants for moderate depression.
It's literally behavioral activation is a proven treatment that works as well as medications.
No side effects, getting a planner and being willing to do the things.
And also when you're doing the things, be totally present.
Don't be thinking like I'm the worst at home repairs when you're doing your first one, or thinking like no one likes me in a, you know, a social situation or something.
And a lot of people think like, I'm going to wait till I feel better to do better.
But you could be waiting forever.
And you could be feeling, put yourself in a position where it's so much harder.
And so I think, even thinking about today like what are some things you would do if you were living the way you wanted to feel and letting the behavior kind of start from the outside in
Dr. Jenny Tate, it was such a pleasure to talk to you.
You are really incredible.
And I am so grateful you made the time.
Thank you so much for being on the show.
Thank you, Chris.
And I feel the same about you.
And I'm really honored to be here.
That is it for today's episode of How to Be a Better Human.
Thank you so much to our guest, Dr. Jenny Tates.
You can find out more about her book Stress Resets and all of her other work on her website drjennytatescom.
You can find out more about me at chrisduffycomedy.com.
I have information about my new book Humor Me how laughing more can make you present creative, connected and happy, as well as my live show dates and all my other projects up there.
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