0:00

Good afternoon everyone, it's Dr. Nagar again.

0:03

Our next episode of

0:05

Psychology Unplugged. Thank you

0:07

again to all of our followers here

0:10

in the United States and

0:12

internationally. I appreciate all the

0:14

comments and the feedback and

0:17

the opportunity to consult

0:19

with you guys and to

0:22

help and educate and

0:24

demystify and send a message of hope

0:27

which I truly believe in and have

0:29

seen in being

0:31

involved in this field which is a privileged

0:34

opportunity to have

0:36

individuals tell their

0:39

stories and the stories often

0:41

are filled with pain,

0:46

with hurt, with confusion, with

0:49

disbelief and

0:52

it really

0:55

is a privilege to be able to do

0:58

what I do for a living and I am

1:00

grateful for this opportunity. Today

1:03

I wanted to focus on

1:06

staying on the realm of

1:08

existential type of thinking. There

1:13

are terms like metacognition which

1:15

is essentially thinking

1:17

about thinking and

1:19

if we all step back and look at

1:24

do any of us do this? I'd

1:27

say a vast majority of

1:29

people don't. We

1:34

think in a very automatic, fast-paced

1:37

way and I've mentioned this before

1:39

there is no such thing as

1:41

the unconscious. Everything

1:44

is conscious and everything is more automatic

1:46

and I wanted to kind of focus

1:49

on how we

1:56

compartmentalize our thinking into

1:58

a path. past, present,

2:02

and future-oriented

2:04

landscape. I've

2:12

alluded to this stuff in the

2:14

past, but I want to try

2:16

to connect it all together, because

2:18

thinking is really the most crucial

2:20

part in treating

2:23

a vast majority

2:25

of psychiatric conditions,

2:27

depression, anxiety, bipolarity,

2:31

even behavioral problems. There are

2:33

some disorders where thinking does

2:36

require certain medications,

2:39

such as schizophrenia

2:41

or any of these psychotic disorders,

2:43

but thinking is something that is

2:48

really unique. What

2:51

separates us from every other

2:53

species is our free will.

2:57

What we choose to do with that,

2:59

and there's an incredible power in that,

3:02

in doing work in cognitive

3:05

behavioral therapy, the focus is

3:07

on cognition, our ability to

3:09

think. It's

3:13

amazing when you can

3:15

help somebody realize that

3:18

those thought patterns that are plaguing

3:20

you or have plagued you, you

3:23

have control over that, and we

3:25

can restructure them to something that

3:27

is more adaptive, where you start

3:29

to see yourself, the other people,

3:31

the world in general, differently

3:35

and through lenses that are not covered

3:38

in muck and mire. But

3:43

I include myself in

3:45

this as well, that

3:48

when you

3:51

think about thinking, it's almost like

3:53

pulling that movie reel apart and

3:55

looking at things frame by frame.

4:00

It's a metaphor that I use a

4:02

lot in the work that I do

4:04

with individuals with borderline personality, but again,

4:06

this is something that would be applicable

4:09

in doing cognitive behavioral

4:12

therapy for the vast majority of the

4:14

psychiatric conditions. But

4:17

I think all of

4:19

us, we have a predilection to

4:22

relegate our cognitions and our thinking

4:24

to the past and

4:27

into the future. We

4:33

don't do a very good

4:35

job, myself included, of

4:38

living in the present. Now

4:40

the past is an interesting

4:42

thing. It's

4:48

something that we cannot deny,

4:50

we cannot alter, and we

4:52

cannot return to. And

4:59

the past is of itself, or

5:01

the summation

5:03

of experiences are good,

5:05

could be bad, could

5:09

be painful, could be euphoric,

5:11

could be surprising. But

5:15

the past and those memories that

5:17

we have, they

5:20

do remain in

5:22

the ether of time. And

5:28

I think the beauty of

5:33

conceptualizing that as being

5:35

relegated to existing

5:39

in that time and space is there

5:41

is nothing if we just focus more

5:43

on the painful things that have

5:48

happened to us, like myself, the loss of

5:50

my mother, the loss of my father. Any

5:55

individual experiences that you guys

5:59

have witnessed. or been exposed

6:04

to, I think

6:07

there is a natural desire to

6:09

want to figure out why. There

6:12

is, I think, a natural desire to

6:15

want to get answers,

6:17

especially when transgressions have

6:21

been perpetrated on us by other

6:23

people. And

6:25

we want to know why those

6:28

individuals did or didn't do certain

6:30

things. But if

6:32

you look at it and step

6:34

back at one of those

6:37

photo reels, it really is

6:39

an exercise in futility. Because

6:45

we're not going to get those answers. We're

6:48

not going

6:50

to get the answers

6:53

that I think we've contrived in

6:55

our head to explain why

6:58

things have happened to us. And

7:02

I've worked with enough people who

7:04

really are fixated

7:09

almost to a point where they can't get out

7:11

of their own way because why did this person

7:13

leave me? Why did this person break up with

7:16

me? Why

7:20

did this person abuse me? Why did

7:23

this person abandon me? Why

7:25

did this person say these

7:27

things to me? And those are all relevant

7:29

questions. But why I say to

7:31

people, if you got the answer, does

7:34

that mean your problems will go away? Absolutely

7:38

not. And I think another fundamental

7:40

thing is the fictions that we

7:42

create in our mind about the

7:44

answers to the things that

7:46

we want answers to that we've created. If

7:49

somebody doesn't give us those answers in the

7:52

way that we have constructed them in our

7:54

own minds, we're not going

7:56

to believe them. Or we're

7:58

going to think that they're just telling

8:00

us what we want to hear. And

8:03

I think it

8:05

also, the past has this other kind of thing. I

8:10

was gonna maybe do an episode on

8:12

this, but I'm gonna jump into this,

8:14

this woulda, coulda, shoulda mindset. And

8:17

that is, again,

8:20

another exercise in futility, woulda,

8:22

coulda, shoulda thinking. We

8:26

all do it, but I think

8:28

if you look at it, woulda,

8:30

coulda, shoulda. We're

8:32

basically that what we're doing is engaging

8:34

in one of the irrational beliefs of

8:36

we're fortune telling. How do we

8:38

know that if I would have chosen this, I would have

8:41

been happier? How do I know if I

8:43

would have done this, or if I could

8:45

have done this, that the outcome would

8:47

have been beneficial to my life and the

8:49

present and the future? So

8:51

again, it's definitely prevalent

8:55

in psychotherapy. It's

8:57

nothing wrong, I think, to question. And

9:01

essentially, I recommend to the patient I work with

9:04

is pay attention

9:06

to your motivation. Pay

9:08

paying attention to why you do things,

9:10

independent of whether or not you're doing

9:12

things that may be destructive to yourself

9:14

or to others. Initially,

9:16

at the start of treatment, that is

9:18

not something that you're gonna easily be

9:20

able to focus, but the power of

9:22

thinking is that we are in control

9:24

of our thoughts. That's an

9:27

amazing power that we have and the

9:29

free will that God

9:31

has blessed us with, I think

9:33

is an incredible gift that we

9:36

all, myself included, take for granted.

9:39

But if you are someone who

9:41

does a woulda, coulda, shoulda thinking,

9:43

that could lead to a victim

9:45

mentality. That could lead to self-sabotage.

9:47

That could lead to blaming. And

9:52

I talked about locus of control, it

9:54

could lead to a highly externalized locus

9:57

of control where we start to examine.

10:00

ourselves from any responsibility that we have

10:02

in the,

10:04

you know, the path of life and the

10:07

choices that we make. And do

10:09

we make mistakes? Absolutely. And falling

10:11

down is an accident. Staying down

10:13

is a choice. And

10:16

the goal of thinking is

10:18

not to make excuses, you

10:20

make adjustments. And we get caught up in

10:22

these fears. To go back to the episode I

10:24

did on the rational beliefs, not to go through

10:27

those again. But, you know, we get caught up

10:29

in, yeah, that

10:31

why. What if I would have done this?

10:33

Should I have done that? Could

10:36

I have done that? And get caught up in our

10:38

own thinking. And what does that serve? It is an

10:41

exercise in utilities. If you step back and look at

10:43

it, it's like, yeah, how

10:45

does that help me in any way?

10:48

What if I ordered, like, what

10:50

if I ordered sushi? Would I

10:52

have had a better meal than

10:54

the steak I ordered? I mean, why

10:57

do we engage in that? I

11:00

think sometimes it stems possibly from the numerous,

11:03

depending where you are in the world, the

11:05

numerous opportunities we have in front of us

11:07

in terms of the choices that we make.

11:11

But it can also be

11:13

that mindset of what it could have,

11:15

think what it could have, should have

11:18

thinking can be incredibly paralyzing. And

11:21

really could help us to just maintain

11:23

stuck and in a

11:25

place almost to get that

11:28

self-loathing. And again,

11:30

really does serve no purpose.

11:34

And then, you know, so that's

11:36

that whole part of the past

11:38

and the one of the episodes

11:41

on the wake of the boat metaphor. You

11:44

know, once the wake

11:46

is created, there's nothing that we

11:48

can do to create, have any

11:50

impact on where we're going. And

11:52

that is, again, an incredibly powerful

11:54

mindset. Yeah, I can do things.

11:57

I can choose other things. I

11:59

can choose. to do something about it.

12:02

And not doing something is also making

12:04

a choice. And I'm

12:06

a little frustrated

12:08

with people who complain and do nothing

12:11

about it. So

12:13

that's just my perspective. I mean, we

12:15

have a right to complain, but what

12:18

are you going to do about it?

12:20

And don't worry about the end result. Worry

12:23

about taking steps forward. And

12:26

this is where our, again, our focus

12:30

on the past is very much

12:32

a part of our daily lives

12:34

and our focus on the future.

12:37

You know, it's Sunday. How many

12:39

patients do I have this week? How many valves

12:41

are we going to get done? Who's in the

12:44

call? What's this? And there's something, you know, I

12:46

don't know if I mentioned

12:48

this or not, you know, construct of like kind of

12:50

term like memories of the future. And, you

12:52

know, we mourn the things that we

12:56

think we have lost. Are we boring the

12:58

things that have

13:02

may or may not have happened in our

13:05

lives and whether the

13:07

regrets or result of

13:09

bad choices or drains

13:12

not pursued that we can

13:15

also mourn memories of the

13:17

future. Take

13:20

a relationship. Then you imagine that you were going

13:22

to marry this person and you were going to

13:24

live in this house and then in this town

13:26

and then this neighborhood and drive this car and

13:29

go on vacation to these places and

13:31

see yourself growing older. And we

13:33

create this fiction in our mind. And

13:36

if that doesn't turn out, we

13:38

people, we mourn that. We

13:41

mourn a loss that hasn't even happened. We

13:43

mourn a loss that we've created. And I'm

13:45

not talking about fiction. I'm not saying psychosis.

13:48

I'm just saying we create and,

13:52

you know, this is not about like manifesting

13:54

your destiny. This is about, you know,

13:57

living, you know, very future oriented.

14:00

And sometimes, you know,

14:05

God gives us the grace for today. We

14:07

don't have it for tomorrow yet. And this

14:09

is something that I have to

14:11

continually work on. And I

14:13

talk about mindfulness and I talk about being present.

14:16

And it is difficult for me. And I think

14:18

it's difficult for a lot of us to slow

14:20

down because, you know, do you want to talk

14:22

like, oh, you know, you can't wait for the

14:24

new Seinfeld movie to come out. That's

14:27

future oriented. And I'm waiting for

14:29

that. I can't wait to see Springsteen again. That's

14:31

future oriented. And,

14:33

you know, there's a whole range of emotions that

14:35

could come with that. But

14:37

you know, living in the present,

14:39

I don't really have a specific

14:41

answer for it. I just know

14:43

that there's something that is necessary

14:45

and that is crucial and

14:48

to be mindful. And I've

14:50

been trying myself, you know,

14:53

to slow my thought processes down. I

14:55

have a lot of passion and I'm

14:57

very extroverted. And

14:59

I just my mind is filled with tons of

15:01

ideas. And you know, they're filled with

15:03

tons of ideas that are all future oriented. So

15:06

I guess this is the paradox. Is

15:10

it better to think about the past or is it better to think

15:12

about the future? I don't know. I

15:15

think the past is important if there's

15:17

things that we could use to that

15:19

may have been destructive or unhealthy and

15:21

make corrections. Yes, that is that. That

15:23

I think is a

15:26

central part of how

15:28

to effectively utilize the past. And

15:31

I don't think it's necessarily bad to

15:33

think about the future. You

15:36

know, and I'm not talking like living like a

15:39

gypsy. It's like nomads is hey, whatever happens and

15:41

have no plan. I mean, I

15:43

guess there are people that do that. But

15:45

living future, I think we should.

15:48

It behooves us to have

15:50

some sense of planning, you

15:53

know, saving, you know,

15:56

whether that's education or thinking about a

15:58

career or thinking about marriage. Those

16:00

are fine, but I think

16:03

when we create these memories and

16:05

we look back, and this is

16:08

how the woulda, coulda,

16:10

shoulda, thinking, these are all intertwined

16:12

and again, all about thinking and

16:14

all about metacognition and living in

16:17

the present. I

16:19

noticed a huge change in my own stress

16:21

level. I mentioned this in

16:23

one of the podcasts recently that Julia

16:26

brought this up and it sticks

16:28

with me and was really transformative. I

16:30

was like, oh my God, I have so many vowels

16:32

I have to write. I

16:35

got all these people to see this week. She's like, no,

16:39

no, you get to the righty vowels. And

16:42

I was like, wow. So

16:45

you see that even when you're in this field, you

16:48

don't always see things from the, you

16:52

know, like just because we have these degrees doesn't mean

16:55

we have all, you know, all

16:58

that wisdom that we can always apply to ourselves,

17:00

but that was really transformative

17:02

and, you know, my level of

17:04

gratitude and, you know, and these

17:06

are things that, you know, on

17:08

the episodes that I do that are

17:10

not necessarily disorder focused,

17:13

living for a place of gratitude has really

17:16

helped me in shaping

17:18

just the way I approach things.

17:20

Like I, you know, I grocery

17:22

shop on Sundays and just, you know, God, thank

17:24

you for allowing us to be able to afford

17:26

nice groceries and gratitude.

17:29

And to me, I think that's

17:32

the best way that I can suggest

17:38

to be more present minded. Again,

17:40

Julie in the background, but you

17:42

know, stepping back, I'm

17:44

grateful that we have running water and

17:48

it's a different mindset that

17:50

I think can pull us out. Again, that wasn't

17:52

planned, but it just, it's a perfect mindset. And

17:55

then I actually went there like, God, I'm just

17:57

grateful that I have a

17:59

wife. I'm grateful that. she's healthy, they're grateful

18:01

that she's was getting water

18:03

and that to me I guess

18:05

I'm realizing as I'm talking that that's

18:07

present-minded and it's

18:09

I guess maybe just noticing the things

18:12

like that that we have not

18:15

the things that that we don't have and

18:17

we tend to lament. What

18:21

are you standing here? Oh

18:24

gee, I'll be there.

18:26

Yeah, I am. Hi

18:28

everyone. I'm listening,

18:31

I'm in the background as usual

18:33

but I almost want to

18:35

say you're a siler. If

18:39

you can stay in the present moment now just

18:41

something that just came up for me. I

18:44

have I struggle with that I think every

18:46

human being does unless you're

18:48

Gandhi or some you know

18:51

very spiritual Buddhist type

18:53

person. I

18:55

think of it as a game of

18:58

like tug-of-war. I remember in gym class there was

19:00

always the there was a flag in the middle

19:02

of the rope and there was tug-of-war. I like

19:04

to think of being in there now

19:06

is that the flag in the

19:08

middle of the rope you get one

19:11

you've got the past pulling in

19:13

one direction you get the future pulling in another

19:15

direction and it is perpetual it doesn't stop. If

19:18

we allow it to continue

19:20

which we do it's our nature to do it

19:22

depending on what kind of society you live in

19:26

in the United States is very easy

19:28

to worry and

19:30

obsess about tomorrow. We

19:33

have been conditioned to be

19:35

this way. You know this has a lot

19:38

to do with I mean I'm just putting

19:40

something out there in particular is universities. Kids

19:44

getting into university well when I was going to school

19:47

you know 3.0 was like a

19:49

3.0 that was the highest you could highest

19:51

GPA you could get and

19:55

yeah we're like were we supposed to

19:57

like do extracurricular activities yeah within

19:59

reason. Now, and over

20:01

the past few decades, it's

20:03

been the change in all of that, the

20:06

expectation has been astronomical in terms of 3.0

20:09

is not even 3.0, it's not even a thing. It's

20:12

not the new norm. It's like

20:14

changing the norm. So

20:18

the norm is now higher and if

20:21

you want, so again,

20:23

the pressure, the expectation,

20:25

now we have

20:27

social media, we're comparing to, and

20:29

I've talked about this before, I

20:32

am so grateful to have

20:34

been raised in

20:37

the late 80s, through

20:39

the 80s. So it's basically, I'm not a boomer, I'm

20:42

a Gen X,

20:45

I guess, I don't know, I don't really pay

20:47

attention. But we played outside, I'm not going to

20:49

get into it. I said this, I think last

20:52

episode, two episodes ago, we

20:54

played, we rode around on our bikes,

20:56

we weren't on phones, we didn't even have

20:58

phones. Call

21:00

waiting, that was the big deal, and then

21:02

call ID. So

21:07

moving forward with the boat

21:09

metaphor, I feel like it's

21:11

important as we use it a lot in our treatment,

21:14

I use it a lot in treatment. We

21:16

get it from Dr.

21:19

Wayne Dyer, late Dr. Wayne Dyer, who's

21:21

fantastic. I highly recommend

21:23

you to download Excuse is

21:26

Be Gone, which is an excellent, I

21:29

think, cognitive behavioral approach, giving historical

21:34

context, literary context,

21:36

scientific context, and

21:40

kind of pulls everything all together with the

21:42

great people who have come before us who

21:44

have really been very

21:46

well rounded, and very in

21:50

touch, and grounded, and

21:52

very, I

21:56

think pivotal people in our history. He

22:00

talks about if you change the way you look at

22:02

things, the things you look at change. And

22:05

if you look at something like

22:08

your job and

22:10

you hate your job, there are

22:12

some people that just hate their job.

22:15

If you're lucky, I think you love what

22:17

you do. And that's sad because I

22:19

think I wish that more people love what they did.

22:22

But it really is all an attitude. If

22:25

it really comes down to happiness as a

22:27

choice or acceptance as a choice, it's how do you

22:29

make of it? It's just like what Kors said about

22:32

the eval. Listen, I do the same exact

22:34

thing. I have to do this. Oh, God,

22:36

I got to do this. Oh, really? No,

22:38

you get to do this. This

22:41

is an honor and a privilege. This

22:43

is something like, gosh,

22:46

the bigger the blessing, the bigger the burden. I

22:53

don't want to get into the nitty gritty personal

22:55

stuff, but I have that tug of

22:57

war in my mind. It's very, very

23:00

hard. And it's like exercising

23:02

muscles that you're not used

23:04

to using. And

23:07

in the scripture, and I'm not going to quote scripture,

23:09

and I'm certainly not a Bible thumper

23:11

or whatever you call it. I'm a spiritual

23:14

person. I believe in God, but I do

23:16

not quote scripture. But

23:18

it does say throughout the Bible, all

23:21

is well. When

23:24

I was doing my DBT training and

23:27

my CBT training, when I

23:29

was in my last master's

23:31

program before becoming a prescriber,

23:35

I had the most incredible experience,

23:37

a learning experience in

23:39

terms of using myself as an instrument

23:41

of peace through this program that I

23:43

went through. And it really helped

23:45

me evolve as a human being, but it also taught me

23:47

a lot about what I was thinking

23:49

about and what was important to me. And

23:52

then subsequently winding up,

23:55

working on being in the moment, it

23:57

kind of led me into a Buddhist bent in

23:59

my life. and where I really kind

24:01

of focused on Buddhism, Taoism and all

24:03

that. But if

24:07

you really wanna be in the moment, we're

24:11

in a moment. And if you

24:13

look at it from a spiritual context or

24:15

a Buddhist context, that this is really just

24:18

a dream that we're living. And if you

24:20

look at it from an Einstein perspective or

24:23

Dr. Robert Planck, we're living

24:25

in an environment which is

24:27

all particles. And

24:29

we're spiritual beings having a

24:32

temporary physical experience. But if

24:35

we really want to be in the

24:37

moment, I

24:39

think that coming back

24:41

to right here, right now I'm

24:43

okay. That

24:45

was one of the groups that I used to run when I was

24:48

working as a group leader and

24:50

facilitating on an inpatient unit and

24:52

partial day program. Right

24:55

here, right now, are you okay? Well,

24:58

yeah, right here, right now I'm okay. Well,

25:01

you might not be, but it's

25:03

really kind of a way to kind of re, like

25:05

reign yourself in and say right here, right now. Cause

25:07

really all we have is right now. And what I

25:09

just said was then. And

25:12

I haven't said anything yet, but now, I

25:14

haven't said anything. So if you can kind of,

25:16

I mean, Chorus set it up

25:18

perfectly and I'm just kind of adding like a

25:21

kind of an addendum. So

25:23

the boat metaphor I revisit a lot of times,

25:25

it's almost like reading that book. It's so simple. It's

25:27

almost like reading that book that if you read it,

25:30

you love it, but then you put it away, but

25:32

then you take it out a few years later and

25:34

then you get more

25:36

out of it. Like it hits you different.

25:39

It's kind of like the TS Eliot poem.

25:44

It's kind of like, at

25:47

the end of all of our, the meaning of life is at

25:49

the end of all of our travels is to arrive from

25:52

where we started and know the place for the first time.

25:54

This is sort of what life is like.

25:57

So in my

25:59

opinion, boat metaphor

26:01

hits me because how

26:04

often do we have to stop and pinch

26:07

ourselves and shake ourselves out of living in

26:09

the past? Because the boat we're driving, you

26:11

could be sitting on the boat and not moving.

26:14

Okay, we have that. We have moments where we're

26:16

idle. We have moments where we're catching our breath.

26:18

And we have moments when we're in

26:20

survival mode. And let me tell you,

26:23

I've been in survival mode for years.

26:25

I know what that's like. And I

26:27

know how it works. And it does

26:29

work until you come off of survival

26:31

mode. That's a huge and very difficult

26:33

transition to make. You

26:35

know, and that's a whole different episode, which

26:37

we could talk about further. But when

26:40

you're driving the boat, you're

26:42

looking forward. And the only thing

26:45

that's behind you is the wake. So

26:48

the question is, is can a

26:50

wake drive a boat? And

26:52

the answer is no. So I, I

26:57

myself admit 100%. I

27:00

do get caught up in the past. I

27:02

do have to remind myself and reground myself.

27:05

And it's a daily practice. It's probably a

27:07

practice I do several times a day where

27:10

I'm like, okay, we're like, okay,

27:12

I'm good. Because we

27:14

can get very tripped up in our past. You

27:17

know, we can we can some people are

27:19

victims of things that have happened to them

27:21

in the past. So they know very well

27:23

what anxiety is. And anxiety

27:26

is normal. And

27:28

it's self preservation. It's what

27:30

we are biologically designed to

27:32

have is anxiety to protect

27:34

ourselves from danger. However,

27:37

if someone has had an anxiety,

27:39

a horrible experience, and it

27:41

led to anxiety, they know anxiety, anxiety, they're

27:43

familiar with it. If people have panic disorder,

27:45

they know, oh, geez, I know I can

27:47

have a panic attack when I'm on the

27:50

highway. Oh, God. So anxiety

27:52

about anxiety. So it's like you

27:54

have, I think you said

27:56

it earlier, something about thinking

27:59

about Thinking metacognition. Yeah, so

28:01

it is metacognition because that's

28:03

energy right? So if

28:06

your anxiety about your anxiety I

28:10

Have I struggled with insomnia. I've shared this

28:12

with you. I'm more of an anxious person

28:14

than a depressed person I

28:16

you know completely I'm a mother. I

28:18

mean when your mom, you

28:21

know anxiety is just part of you know

28:23

the repertoire However,

28:26

I've struggled with insomnia

28:30

on and off through the past 20 years and I

28:34

Know what brain spiders are. I one of my

28:36

clients back in the day called them

28:38

brain spiders I never I never shook it. I

28:41

thought was brilliant and I know what

28:43

it's like to tell this thing

28:45

in my brain No,

28:48

I'm not going here. I now

28:50

have Been able

28:53

to like kind of reconfigure how

28:55

I think about things um When

28:58

I send love to it It

29:01

disappears if it's a practice

29:03

of like, okay. This is not okay. This is not

29:05

real or This is

29:07

very anxiety provoking. This is something that could

29:09

happen This something hasn't happened yet

29:11

or did happen. I don't want to happen again. I

29:14

send love to it I send love to

29:16

it and that gets me out of my

29:18

head and into my heart. I Also

29:20

pray I ask how God

29:23

for help with this I hand it over,

29:25

you know, and I and I love the

29:27

serenity prayer for that reason, you know God

29:29

give me serenity to accept the

29:32

things I cannot change the courage to

29:34

change the things that I can and The

29:36

wisdom to know the difference is probably one

29:38

of the most important things to remember as

29:40

a human being But being in

29:43

the now is all about if you want to

29:45

use your five senses Six

29:47

cents is body Movement

29:50

they've added that to the list Which

29:53

I always you know advise not yoga position

29:55

so you don't have to go to yoga

29:57

class You can just do yoga positions. You

29:59

can roll on your back to

30:02

ease your central nervous system from

30:04

anxiety. But if

30:06

you think about this, and I use this with

30:08

my clients a lot, like

30:11

a bin, you know the moving bins, I

30:14

order a lot of them so I can move

30:16

things around and organize in the basement.

30:19

So these clear bins, fill

30:22

it with, think about each sense of

30:26

sight, smell, taste, sound,

30:31

touch, and then movement. Think

30:36

about these different categories

30:38

and anything and everything in those

30:41

categories that comfort you. Like

30:43

for example, I like

30:45

the smell of jasmine. So

30:47

I have this serum that I use that makes me

30:50

that I love that smells so good

30:52

but it grounds me, just smelling it.

30:54

Lavender is another one that grounds me.

30:56

I don't love the smell of lavender

30:58

but it's a very grounding anti-anxiety medication,

31:01

kind of holistic that has

31:03

been around for centuries. Rosemary

31:05

is the same way. There's

31:08

so many other organics. I'm not going to go there but

31:12

sight. So what can I look

31:14

at? What can

31:16

I hear? The best thing to do

31:19

is combine the sensory things,

31:21

right? So I would say if I

31:23

want to feel good, I'm going to

31:25

go outside and I'm going to go for a

31:27

walk and I'm going to smell fresh mown grass.

31:30

I'm going to be in the sun. I'm going to

31:32

be hearing birds and I'm going to

31:34

be walking on the ground which is very grounding.

31:38

So that smell, that sight, that sound,

31:41

I walk on the beach. Not everybody is

31:43

near a beach. I'm not on the beach. I have to drive

31:45

to the beach but nevertheless, I

31:48

can walk anywhere and

31:50

you can see the trees. It reminds

31:52

you that there's more to you

31:54

than you and

31:57

oceans are very famous for that. You look at an

31:59

ocean. you're like, whoa, okay, I'm, you

32:01

know, this is, and here's me, but

32:06

I find that those things can help us stay in the

32:08

now. And I think that that's coming

32:10

back full circle is really about

32:12

how, how am I right now,

32:15

how to get back to right here, right

32:17

now, I'm okay. Right

32:19

here, right now, I'm okay. So

32:21

if it brings you back, so what I did, and

32:23

I don't know if I've shared this before, I used

32:26

to work on an inpatient unit. And

32:28

it was a very chronic inpatient

32:30

unit. And I

32:32

was dealing with a lot of people who

32:34

are really struggling very much with groundedness,

32:38

to say the least. So

32:40

I ran this group. And what I did was I,

32:43

I used a lot of like physical tactical,

32:45

you know, like you do like the squash

32:47

ball and all that stuff. But

32:50

what I found was, if I used candy,

32:52

so there, and I know it's not good

32:55

for you, but I think in a pinch,

32:58

there's the sour candies like the

33:00

sour spray. I we

33:03

actually practice that on the unit.

33:06

Those are the adults. And it was great, because

33:08

it jolts you into the now, if

33:11

you spray and you your salivary

33:13

glands are like, it jolts

33:15

you into a present moment. So

33:17

your mind, the mind is so complex that it

33:19

can go, it drifts like a cloud.

33:21

But really, when you're when the body

33:24

is still here. So that

33:26

was one thing. Another thing that we

33:29

used, and I use this

33:31

on the adolescent units were the elastic bands

33:33

around the wrist. And then every

33:35

time that you feel, you know, stressed out, flicking

33:38

the rest, pulling the elastic and letting

33:40

it go hitting the wrist on the

33:42

pressure, pressure point can sometimes

33:45

regroup and bring you back into the now

33:48

ice on your ice

33:51

cold water on your pressure points. That's

33:53

another one cold shower, hot shower doesn't

33:55

really matter. But again,

33:57

like doing aromatherapy in the shower. So you

34:00

you get this sense of the smell,

34:04

just the whole vibe of everything kind of bringing

34:06

you or calming you down. The

34:10

other was the mindfulness, DBT,

34:13

bent on this, which is one

34:15

of the modalities of DBT, is

34:18

one of the last modalities of DBT of

34:21

several, is mindfulness. And

34:23

mindfulness is what we're talking about. Mindfulness is just about

34:26

being in the now. So there

34:28

are a bunch of exercises, I won't get into all of them,

34:30

but one I like is

34:32

taking face cloths, putting

34:35

them underwater, spraying

34:37

them with lavender, scrunching

34:39

them up, put them in a little plastic

34:41

bag, and keep them in

34:43

the freezer so that when you're having a really hard

34:45

time and you want to ground yourself, you're

34:48

getting a physical experience. So you pull

34:50

it out of the freezer, you take the towel

34:52

out of the bag, and then you start pulling

34:54

the towel. And the towel

34:56

becomes, it defrosts.

35:00

And at the same time, you're getting

35:02

the aroma of lavender. And

35:05

the aroma of lavender is clinically

35:07

studied to improve that it decreases

35:09

anxiety. You've probably seen that all

35:11

over the place already. And

35:13

again, that's old school, that's old

35:16

wives' tales, that's centuries years

35:18

old. Another

35:20

one is taking an orange, like

35:23

an orange you can eat, not like a,

35:25

I don't know what kind of orange, just

35:27

regular orange, naval orange, and

35:29

put it in the freezer, let it freeze so

35:33

that if you're having a really hard

35:35

time, you

35:38

can take the orange out, and if you

35:40

know it's going to be a rough one,

35:42

you hold the orange, the freezing coldness

35:44

will bring you into the here and the now.

35:48

And eventually you can peel it, which

35:50

is touch, then you smell the aroma

35:52

of it, then you can eat it.

35:55

And that's a prolonged kind of

35:57

coping mechanism that can kind of,

35:59

which is, Which really does work with a lot of folks.

36:02

I've had a tremendous amount of feedback about

36:04

that and the towels. Again, and

36:06

the towels, just to bring you back one thing

36:08

I forgot. And

36:12

then you just put it on your face. Like you can

36:14

just... So there's touch, there's smell, there's...

36:18

If you can hit a lot of points, bottom

36:21

line is they're just

36:24

tangible examples of what can

36:27

actually help in the moment that I've

36:29

used with my clients and I've used

36:31

personally. Yoga

36:33

is an excellent... I haven't done yoga since the pandemic.

36:35

I'm full of it. But I

36:38

remember when I did yoga and

36:40

getting into those really difficult positions

36:42

is very metaphorical for life. And

36:45

what if you go into a gentle yoga practice,

36:47

you could do it right on YouTube. You

36:50

don't have to join an expensive gym or

36:52

a yoga center because it

36:55

can be expensive. I know that. But

36:57

you can do very low impact, very,

37:00

very calm yoga.

37:03

But you're moving and then when you

37:05

get into these difficult positions, you

37:08

breathe through them, you sit with them,

37:10

you tolerate them. That is life. It's

37:13

like breathing, breathing, getting oxygen to

37:15

that difficult stretching of

37:18

the muscles and the next

37:20

time... So that the next time you do

37:22

it, it hurts less so

37:24

that you're able to do more. And

37:27

so that's why the body and the

37:29

yoga metaphor is excellent for stress

37:31

relief because it's clinically

37:33

proven to decrease stress. Again,

37:37

I could go on and on, but I overheard the

37:39

thing. I wasn't planning on speaking today, but I

37:41

felt inspired to. Thank you

37:43

so much for all of your follows. Thank

37:46

you for listening to my stories or

37:49

watching my stories on Instagram.

37:51

I appreciate it. God bless you and

37:53

we'll talk to you next week. And

37:55

please, please, please call. Give us

37:57

feedback. Call us if you need. or

38:00

if you want a consult or if you want to

38:03

just share your story with us. Well,

38:10

thank you. So

38:14

metacognition, thinking,

38:17

you know, Julie did an episode

38:19

before on all those different grounding

38:22

techniques so they can go back

38:24

and learn in

38:26

more depth with those. But

38:29

I guess it's

38:32

more problematic from my perspective when

38:35

we find ourselves focused

38:37

on the past, focused

38:40

heavily on the future. And it

38:42

is a work

38:45

that I engage myself to stay

38:48

present minded. But I

38:50

don't think you can be

38:52

present minded without being future

38:54

minded. Um, because,

38:56

you know, we have schedules

38:59

and we have maybe

39:02

a phone call we need to return. We did we

39:04

put the data in our calendars. I'm

39:06

simply, you know, look

39:09

coming from the perspective of living

39:11

again from a place of gratitude, um, coming

39:16

from a place of gratitude and paying

39:19

attention to where our mind is

39:22

and the power that we do have

39:25

to control our thoughts. Even if

39:27

there is pain, you

39:30

can get yourself out of it.

39:32

And it, you know, therapy is

39:34

such an important, especially cognitive therapy

39:37

is such a valuable

39:39

tool because it really does

39:41

change the way you we

39:44

view things. Um, it's

39:47

all about perspective. But I think it

39:49

was asking yourself when you find yourself

39:51

when you find yourself stressed, ask

39:54

yourself, where am I? Am I back there?

39:56

Am I out there? Or am I here?

39:58

And It

40:01

takes time, it takes work, but

40:03

the whole concept of neuroplasticity and

40:05

the brain's ability to grow new

40:07

neural connections, it's amazing.

40:11

It's amazing what our minds are capable

40:13

of, both in the

40:15

positive sense and in

40:17

the destructive sense. So I know

40:20

we covered a lot of

40:22

different topics, but these are things that

40:24

I think are universal that we all

40:27

experience, and

40:29

slowing ourselves down and paying

40:32

attention to our motivations are

40:34

crucial because we can't

40:36

change something until we first become aware

40:38

of it and to notice things. And

40:41

like I said,

40:43

we have grace for today and

40:46

tomorrow's got its own challenges and

40:48

blessings and we will confront them

40:51

with the abilities that we have.

40:54

And I

40:56

don't know, it's just

40:58

something that I really wanted to touch on

41:00

because I know you

41:02

guys like a lot of the esoteric

41:06

and philosophical ones, but

41:08

you never without hope,

41:12

mental health is a viable field.

41:15

It has tremendous success rates,

41:21

but it takes work.

41:23

This stuff doesn't happen overnight, but

41:26

I just thought it was relevant to

41:29

dedicate a specific episode to

41:32

the past, present, and future of

41:34

metacognition because this is

41:36

something that we all experience.

41:38

And thanks

41:40

for all of your support and for following

41:42

us and

41:45

for your

41:47

comments. And I'm looking forward to meeting a lot

41:49

of you guys who are coming from faraway places.

41:53

But until next time, feel free to reach

41:55

out, 617-750-9411 East Coast Aynertine. of

42:00

the United States. You can email

42:02

me directly

42:05

at psychologyunplugged.com. You could follow, get

42:07

a hold of me through psychology

42:09

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42:11

on Facebook at psychology

42:14

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42:16

underscore unplugged underscore. So

42:21

until next time, take care of yourselves, take

42:23

care of each other and be well. Bye

42:25

guys.