Why Do So Many People Have Anxiety? How to Finally Feel Better.

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0:28Anxiety is as addictive as coke. The thing about you as a therapist is I feel like you always just know what we need. Can you talk us through what kind of mess society is in terms of anxiety levels? There is an addictive component to anxiety because it comes with a promise of safety. I think there's a worry where they think, who am I without anxiety? These are the behaviours that are getting in the way of your life. There's a lot of false promises out there. I think actually no one's coming to save you. But if somebody is still in an addiction to anxiety, what do they do? I think the first thing is...

1:01I'd had a general anxiety all my life. I was an anxious parent. My hands were so tightly wrapped around the steering wheel of life. How do you feel about the anxiety now? Oh, God, sorry. There's so much not knowing in our lives. I think a lot of people are very frightened, so you have to. Wow. This is about you taking responsibility for your life and making the decision that you're not going to abandon the little person within you that's frightened. This is exactly what I could have done with when I was anxious. You've just literally nailed it. I'm so excited today to be talking to Owen O 'Kane because, weirdly, we met online because I loved lots of his posts and then, you know, I was recommending his books to everybody and we became friends online and we've always liked each other's posts.

1:51I've even given him a quote for the front of his new book. I respect him so much. So I'm so excited because we've never actually met. I would love it if you could subscribe and give it a little like, please. I just quickly want to say congratulations on publication day. Yes. Today. Addicted to anxiety, yep. Ta-da! I've had this for a bit. Hilariously, I've turned over. I didn't have a highlight pad. See, that terrifies me because I am looking at all of the bookmark. And you're thinking, what do you think? Why have I turned that over? I like, do you know... Like a proper journalist. Well, no, the thing for me is these are turned over for personal use, not that I want to talk to you about.

2:34These are turned over for pages. They're not your questions. No, these are turned over for me. Oh, I'm going to go back and I'm going to read that again. OK, there's lots of things I'd like to say about this book. There's a lot, isn't there? First of all, the type, the font size. Thank you. It's good, isn't it? Yes. Yeah, I mean, they did a brilliant job. they did a really brilliant job that was one one goal of what the font size yeah I'm so grateful it's so easy to read they were they were all of it actually the kind of design of the cover and stuff you know I think they had a really good flavor of me the publisher and they knew what the book was about the brief is clear and I said I don't want this to be airy-fairy I don't want it to be fluffy I don't want it to be typical self-help I just want this to be really clear cut.

3:24Yes. And they said, okay, leave it with us. And they come back and I just said straight away, oh my God, that's it. And so, because the other thing that I love is I love a list. Oh, there's plenty. There's so much to get at. Yeah. And a list is easy to look at. You think, okay, the few pages beforehand are going to be explaining something. And then at the end, there's like a sum up. Bit of a summary. Yes. But often that's what you have to do with people in therapy often like you might have the bigger issues of the big conceptual stuff and you're you're always kind of covering the content but then you're always going back and you're like triple checking okay did you get that do you want me to just go over that again i just want to be sure that you're with me in this so i'm always kind of that's how i work i'm always kind of recapping and making sure that i'm not moving too quickly and someone's alongside me rather than jumping ahead so when i sat down to write that book i really thought about okay here's the premise so I thought to myself what was you know if I were writing a book about anxiety what would I want it to be and the immediate thought was I would want it to be the book that I could have done with in my 20s yes so that was my starting point for the book and I thought there's a lot of stuff out there that is quite generic or it's quite wooly or it's kind of the false promises really you know heal your anxiety in a day and all of this stuff it's just like well that's not going to happen and in my early 20s i wouldn't even have called it anxiety i would have just called it feeling a bit off and i remember not being able to make head or tail of it it didn't make sense to me i didn't really quite know what to do with it and i remember thinking okay i want to write a book where this is really clear yes this is what's going on this is why it might be going on so that it didn't matter what your background is you would open it and you would get from beginning to end and think okay that's really clear cut it's not academic it's not and you know and I know the academics slag me off and say oh you didn't give enough theory or you didn't put all of that stuff but it was never meant to be that so I've laid it out deliberately where it's not even about I guess I'm in the mindset of the reader who might be at home feeling stuck or feeling like I can't go out the door or I can't go to work or I'm just feeling horrible so I kind of wrote the book thinking okay I want it to be for that person where they can go to you and it will be clear and they can bookmark it I mean hilarious like I've literally turned over a thousand pages and I love the fact that before we were going to talk you're like oh my god like you've turned over so many pages I was like don't worry it's not questions it's for me it's so I can go back and find the bits that were pertinent for me that's amazing though because you know you know that means everything because when you write a book and and people want to go back or it's made them stop or it's made them think i mean that's why we do that's why we do it ultimately isn't it i mean you want to have impact you want to reach people so if it's done that then i've done my job well it's often something where i'll read i'll read something you've said and i'll think i must remember that but i know what i'm like and i'll carry on reading and I'll forget and it won't just be what you've said it'll be the way in which you've said it the order of your words and I think wow that is the best way I've heard that described ever so I think I want to go back and remember that um so I turn over the page so it ends up looking absolutely crazy but anyway uh the other thing that I find so different about you as a therapist is you are so happy to talk about your own experiences i think you have to i mean i think it's one thing being a therapist and then it's another thing being a therapist and using platforms like podcasts books talks tv radio all that sort of stuff and i think you know we're often asking people to share their lives or a story and all of that stuff and i think you can't really personally i can't show up pretending i'm an expert well i am an expert in what i do i've trained for years yeah but i don't want to just you know show up as the expert or the guru i kind of think you have to show up with your humanity because i have a belief that whoever you are as a therapist if you don't build a relationship with somebody you're screwed it doesn't matter what they learn it doesn't matter what technique you teach them the person you're working with needs to know they're in front of another human being yes who gets struggle and I think well my life was very imperfect I did have struggle so kind of unapologetically I thought well why would I push that down or hide that because it almost kind of it's kind of hypocritical not to and I thought I'm not really a shame I mean I spent a lot of time feeling shame when I was younger like massive shame this is what I love about this book because anxiety is bathed in shame isn't it you know I thought well if I'm going to do this work and I'm going to be brave enough to put it out there then I'm not going to operate from shame I'm going to operate from openness honesty integrity and I've had people say oh is that a bit much do you want people to know that um people are coming all of that stuff people level that at me all the time yeah is it too much I'm like what's too much yeah I mean is it it's got to be a it's got to be a personal thing that hasn't it I'm okay with it um but you might not be okay with telling your thing but it's okay with me i think in therapy it's always about the client so if you and i were in therapy together it will be you know it's about you if every now and then i think i'm going to share this because i think it's important and it might create a moment of connection or normally something i'll do it so therapeutically it's always always always about the client but i think when it's kind of more generic generic yeah i think I think I've got no problem, particularly in the book.

9:08I mean, can you imagine me trying to do this book? Oh, no. Without talking about the fact that I grew up anxious. My entire early years were anxiety filled and I didn't have language to describe it. And then I worked out what it was and then I had to navigate my way through it. And then as I got older and I learned a lot more about anxiety, then I was able to add that on top and think, God, not only do I know what it's like, but I now understand the theory. by end it was kind of putting it all together so um yeah and I think you have had I mean this book in itself and I'm going to talk about this in a minute but this idea of an addiction to anxiety is quite a new concept but I think only it's only because you've gone through it that you would be able to grasp that I think it's very I've experienced anxiety for the first time ever about like two months ago, six weeks ago.

10:04And it was, that's not true, actually. I'm lying. I was an anxious parent, I think, looking back now, having read this book. And also I was a control freak and control is anxiety. It's the opposite of anxiety. My hands were so tightly wrapped around the steering wheel of life. I was so scared and I've been forced to let go. And I have let go. And I feel fucking great. Yeah, so this has literally been a revelation to me. So thank you. And I'm actually, it's really, really interesting. I'll tell you a funny story, actually. I can't say too much about it, but someone told me not to do this book. somebody told me to not talk about the menopause there you go it's exactly the same thing touch me I mean touch me I was told you know because I that's very interesting what because of the shame side of the anxiety there was just a bit you know there was a conversation about I don't think you should do that and I don't think it'll do well and I don't think anyone will be interested in buying that can I just quickly say something because it's day of publication and I'm going to blow your trumpet not a euphemism because your book came out today and it's gone straight in at number two and you've only done one interview.

11:28You did an interview this morning. After that interview, you went in at number two. High five. And I think that is in part... Because they told you not to do it. And I think actually when somebody tells me not to do something, it wasn't like in a defiant way. I think when I feel I'm right about something, And I've got, I'm quite good at listening. If something intuitively feels right to me. Oh, and you talk about energy in this book. I want to talk to you about that a little bit later. Because you say, look, I'm not going to talk about it too much because that's not what this book is about. But knowing inside you, your intuition, it's always right.

12:08Yeah, and it was right. And I, you know, I've got much better at listening to that. It was kind of like, you can say no, and that's absolutely fine. You're entitled to say no, but I'm not going to listen. I think that's what I first fell in love with you for. Yeah. Because I could see that in you. Yeah. And also that you always know, I feel like you always just know what we need. I mean, anxiety, obviously, you know, it's a word that's been banging around for ages, but you talk in this book a little bit about we are in the age of anxiety. I mean, this generation anxious. Can you talk us through kind of what society, what kind of mess society is in terms of anxiety levels?

12:50I mean, where do you even start? I mean, I think it's across the board. I don't think it's like particularly young people or teenagers or mums. I think, you know, you look at every subset of the population and you find anxious people. I think we're frightened. I think a lot of people are very frightened in general. And I think there's a number of things. You know, I think the world is a scary place And there's a lot of difficult things happening. But what I think is interesting, I don't think it's any, you know, if you think about the world at war in the 30s and 40s and how terrifying that must have been.

13:27But has social media meant that the world, because it's just as dangerous a place as it was back then. Actually, it's probably safer than it was back then, but we feel it's more dangerous. Why is that? I think because we've evolved a little bit more. I think we've evolved in our language, our understanding, our ability to reflect, the ability to have conversations. So now things are much more like back back in the day, like even back in my day, you just didn't talk about depression or anxiety or mood or even addictions. Things just weren't talked about. So things were buried and put onto the carpet.

14:02And there was very much a mentality of just kind of get on with it and plow through. Whereas I think actually now that really has started to evolve. So, of course, the more aware people become, you know, they then suddenly start to think, oh, God, it doesn't feel quite right. So things then do feel a bit more threatening. And not only the external world, but I think people are starting to become more aware of their internal workings. Now, there's a double-edged sword here. I think there's a danger that people over pathologize themselves. Because I think, you know, when I hear people say, oh, I'm an anxiety sufferer and I say, no, you're not.

14:35You experience anxiety. so I'm not interested in playing people with diagnostic labels or I don't believe in the word disorders I don't think anyone is disordered I think we need to remove that anxiety disorders, depressive disorders I think human beings fluctuate sometimes their mood can drop sometimes their anxiety can increase and sometimes we're in between and other things can happen around that but I think it's part of the human condition to fluctuate and I think we've got to get much better at saying okay rather than see yourself as an anxiety sufferer or I'm anxious no no no you experience anxiety and you're experiencing a very healthy normal human mechanism but sometimes that part of you the scared part of you works way harder than it needs to and I think it's a much more helpful way to think about anxiety and I do believe you know and look I know the addiction community some people are going to you know have a go and say oh it's not an addiction I never I disagree well as a former addict yeah I can give you a little bit of an insight into that I disagree with that I think that addiction would be very easy to get addicted to I can I can when you were talking about that in here I was like no no I must talk to you about that and say because addiction has its benefits of course it does of course it does and I mean I anxiety has its benefits that's what I was trying to say so anxiety is helpful yeah for me low level anxiety cortisol has um that i've kind of had all my life with my mum being an alcoholic ready for anything oh my god are you gonna streak are you gonna get drunk are you gonna arrest someone my mum used to citizens arrest people all the time like it was like all the time i was ready for anything bring that to work amazing i'm so alert and on it and full of energy and like people pleaser yeah wants to do the right thing i was like i like this feeling so it's that weird high that you can get from anxiety yeah and it's a lot you talk about that yeah and you've described that brilliantly there because every every addict i've ever met or work with in my entire career will have a love hate relationship with their addiction so there'll be part of it is like oh fucking hell i know i shouldn't be doing this and i don't want to do it but i'm going to still do it and you'll find exactly the same thing with anxiety because they won't like the feelings that come with anxiety but then when you try and take it away from them in therapy they will resist you they will fight you they will fucking bring you down because they don't want to let go of it and there's that there's i don't know if you remember from the book but there's this brilliant moment and this book was born quite a few years ago before i even started to write it so i was running a group in the nhs and this was for like 16 people chronic anxiety they'd been everywhere all sorts of treatment and the psychiatrist I was working with at the time knew I had an interest in trauma and anxiety and he said why don't you set up a group these are people that these are people that some services have given up on they've been everywhere why don't you set up a group and see what you can do with them so he kind of gave me a free reign to work with them and I said okay let's do it so anyway I set up this group and about eight weeks into the treatment I noticed that they were all starting to improve every one of them things were later in the room there's a lot more banter they were coming in they were sharing stories you could see there was a real sense of freedom starting to move into their lives so me being the you know responsible therapist at the time I thought okay I'm going to feed back to them that I think you know I really noticed a good improvement so I say to him look we you know eight weeks into the program brilliant to see everyone looks and feels and sounds a lot later than they were and the minute I said it it was like fucking hell like you wouldn't have heard a pin drop it was just like deadly silence and I thought I said what what's the silence about and this one guy who was a recovering addict brilliant guy I remember him saying fucking hell he said he said I thought giving up coke was hard he said giving this up's hard as well and then they all laughed he said this is as you know this is as addictive as coke and then when we started to explore it a bit more they were all able to acknowledge that the thought the moment i named recovery meant that they were moving moving away from the anxiety and that became frightening yes so the letting go of anxiety became a real concern and they all got what he said But not only did they get it, I got it.

19:16And I remember thinking there is an addictive component to anxiety because it comes with a promise of safety. Yes. It's going to protect you. So even though it might feel uncomfortable in the body, in the mind, the emotional states, the behaviors, actually, if the alluring promise in the background is I'm going to make sure that nothing happens to you. I'm going to make sure that you don't get rejected. I'm going to make sure that you don't feel people really struggle to let that go. I also think there's a worry with people where they think, who am I without anxiety? That has been a core part of my personality.

19:53Shall I tell you something brilliant? This literally happened a few weeks ago. So I'm working with someone at the moment, chronic anxiety for a long time, again, starting to improve, doing really good. And this person came into therapy recently. She just sat there and I said, how are you doing really good? I said, amazing. So anyway, we're just kind of catching up. And then she said, I had this really weird moment the other day that I'm a bit concerned about. I said, what happened? And she said, I woke up and she said, for the first time in about four years, I didn't have a knot in my stomach.

20:27And I said, wow. I said, that's a big moment. She said, yeah, it was for about five seconds. And I said, and then what happened? And then she said, then I started to worry about where the knot had gone. Wow. And what would happen if I, what happens without this knot? Yes. How will I manage? And what if I miss something? Or what if I, I'm not as on guard? and I just kind of like the examples can come from everywhere but it's it's just another example of the attachment and the dependence and you know this is the thing about this book look I'm under no illusions you know I think it's a clear book to read but there are moments when it's uncomfortable because it's like no one's coming to save you there is no chanta you know you know you're not going to manifest your way out of anxiety there is no kind of you know one day mantra and suddenly it's all gone this is about you taking responsibility for your life but more importantly it's also about you going to part of you the scared part of you and making the decision that you're not going to abandon that part of you anymore and that's bloody hard because most people do abandon parts of self and I think a lot of people I've never in my entire career met an anxious person who has come to me they sit down they talk about all the symptoms and I say to them how do you feel about the anxiety i've never once in my career heard anyone say that they feel aligned or positive or any affinity with their anxiety it's the opposite i think it's toxic i hate it i don't want it i don't want this to be happening so they have a really negative almost hate-based relationship with the part of them and that in itself has said but this is a scared part of you it's a little person a little boy little girl you know the little person within you that's frightened and every single day you abandon that part of self by pushing it down you ever thought that the word anxiety has been demonized in some way like if you were to call it worry worry sounds more compassionate or softer or kinder because we were talking about shame earlier that you were told not to write this book that in some way you're revealing something or you shouldn't be or shouldn't be talking about it too much that anxiety is still that emotional so bathed in shame that we're embarrassed to say i think people know what it means i think there's a there's a double edged sword it's been i think some people are using it out of context i hear people describing anxiety and you think actually that's not anxiety it's not clinical anxiety then at the other side of the coin you you do have people who don't want to acknowledge particularly with men right this real thing about you know to acknowledge being anxious you know females are generally better better yeah i think to be fair right across the board with the mental health conversation females are much better at kind of acknowledging some of their own vulnerabilities and struggles and actually bringing it to the table and saying And I could do with a bit of help and support.

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27:40It just was like, oh, this is everyday stuff. Everyone knows that everyone worries. Okay, let's focus on that. And people know that sometimes your mood can fluctuate a bit. That doesn't feel as clinical. It doesn't feel like it's as judgmental or shaming in any way, shape or form. So it's kind of almost like a collusion of like, so we were almost colluding with them to get people to come for treatment. Whereas I thought when I'd done the book and I said, no, we're at a point now where people know what anxiety means. and people can pick up a book and they can hide the cover. Well, I mean, I think Addicted to Anxiety, I'd like to thank, I'm on the cover there with the force for good little endorsement.

28:21Well, thank you so much. It's a real pleasure. We've had, I mean, the endorsements have been incredible. I'm not surprised actually for you. I'm really pleased about that. but I think I mean I've got lists of people that I'm sending this to because I well I think it's a very very easy to access and easy to use and easy to understand book which I this is what I love about it um but we've talked a bit about how you got here and how the book started but can we just touch on like this addiction aspect of it and obviously I know that when um well I've only had this experience once of I know that I grew up as an anxious parent and I know that I was running on cortisol I don't know what you would call that high alert yeah all the time like hyper vigilance hyper vigilance like yeah which I feel has disappeared um since my operation which is weird it might come back yeah but for me it's actually made me feel like like yeah you can breathe yeah it's so odd my are you enjoying it i am learning to cope with it because um i often feel like where's that yeah looking i was always like that i'm it's like i'm really being wired isn't it like literally hardwired i'm trying to explain that someone's very difficult yeah i'm trying to reprogram my whole life around not but one incredible thing though because you could reframe it in a way and think actually there might be moments where this state is incredibly useful for you yeah i'm actually within that because i think often we associate success achievement getting stuff done i think we often associate that with being wired well that's and ready for action where actually it could be that there's real power in this state I mean obviously you're a therapist and you're brilliant and I know but you've just literally nailed it like for me I feel like I've done great uh so far being living with this thing but now you talk about your subconscious I keep hearing things that my subconscious is telling me or guiding me or I couldn't hear it before but you you've kind of turned the volume down and you've created space so it's allowing stuff to to come up

31:02um but how if somebody is still in an addiction what what do they do I mean I think that in the context to this book which is you know which is about anxiety which i do believe is a massive massive issue as i've said earlier i mean i think the first thing is like any addiction it's the acknowledgement yes that okay this is problematic you know i can have a rule of thumb it's really hard but if i mean it's hard for me i mean christ and sometimes even if i've been like brutally honest with myself i can still get moments where anxiety will move in like a tidal wave sometimes unexpectedly now here's an example i mean this is hilarious this is i mean my friend like one of my friends has really taken the piss yesterday in fact about this so i'm involved in this massive project at the minute um which i can't really say too much about but you know it'll be announced soon and wait is it exciting it's really exciting for you yeah for us yeah it's a big yeah oh i'm great it's really exciting and you can't talk about it's tv stuff and it's big but i can't really say much but anyway it was big for me and I had really pushed myself out of my comfort zone and the book clashed with this thing at the same time so basically I was doing clinical work and loads of other stuff and I had this big project that I've been working on and then book release come and you're doing all the press interviews and all yes so I was really aware of my own threat mechanisms going through the roof just almost in the background they were just kind of like oh my god exposure exposure exposure now for somebody who's primarily hardwired to stay off radar yes little gay kid don't want to get spotted don't want to get seen play it down don't let anyone notice who you are here i am as a middle-aged man now in this situation thinking what the actual fuck yeah how have i ended up in this it's almost like talk about life playing tricks and you know call it whatever you want but the universe ironically placing your positions you I would never have willingly, genuinely have chosen where I am.

33:07Even though it's brilliant and it's a real privilege and I love what I'm doing. It's kind of almost like, it's almost like I've been, you know, it's almost like I've gone the other direction. It's probably the stuff I probably could have been doing when I was a young kid. If I wasn't living in an environment of fear, I probably would have been way more creative. I play piano and stuff. But if you hadn't been in the environment of fear, then... Then I wouldn't do my job. You wouldn't be here now. And I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. So it all just, it's weird how it all evolved. So none of it's a mistake.

33:37I really do believe that wholeheartedly. Nothing that we experience is a mistake. Nothing. That doesn't mean that it feels good or that it's been a comfortable period. But I do believe that we can all salvage stuff along the way. And I think if we get victimized and we believe this is wrong, it's not fair, it shouldn't be happening, that shouldn't have happened, then we do then kind of go into these lower energy states. whereas actually you think okay what if this is part of my growth what if this is part of greatness what if this is something that evolves and i can transcend then you're working with it in a very very different way and i think i learned that without even having that language i think i learned that very early on that i found a way through adversity so the other day all of this was kicking off and suddenly i had a really bad day i think it was about a week ago and i thought I feel really anxious and I thought the irony I'm feeling really anxious and I'm fucking bringing out an anxiety book next week and then I noticed my imposter moving in and my critic and all of these mechanisms that we all have thinking oh my god and my friend was like properly taking the piss about this I love friends like that by the way she said do you know what you need to do and I said to her why don't you read your own book do you know what I did I did I read it because I thought they're my words and they're words that I want to impart and I believe in every syllable in the book and I did, I re-read the book and I read it really quickly and I thought Which bit spoke to you particularly?

35:10The fact that there was very totally, totally, totally understandable that in a period where things were elevated and there was a lot going on that my natural threat mechanisms would raise up because these protector parts of me will come out and that's exactly what should happen so actually there's nothing abnormal about this state at the moment and it was just that moment the clarity of thinking of course it also is like give yourself a hug for taking care of yourself like it's just like well done you you're looking after yourself you've got your best interests at heart and if i were working with a client and they had a big project on they had a book coming out and they were just you know a bit off you know and they were feeling a bit anxious and i'd say well i get it it's a big deal you're out there and you're speaking to a lot of people in interviews and back to, you know what it's like.

35:57You're on the go. Of course, you're going to be a bit stressed and a bit more anxious than normal. That's a totally, totally normal reaction. But my own kind of perfectionist and my own critic come out, which was fascinating when you watch that part of you coming out thinking, no, no, no, you shouldn't be experiencing that. But, you know, you learn to get to know all of these parts of yourself. But it's funny, like they will all sometimes come up and you kind of learn. But this is where the whole power, I think, in when you get to know who you are and how you operate the real powers and this is why i think it's great when you were saying about slowing down and you know noticing that you don't need to feel as wired or vigilant anymore well when we step out of that then you create space to almost begin to watch yourself so you become the observer rather than get entrenched and all of this here and you can start keeping an eye on how you're operating in the world and kind of thinking all right, I need to bring this down a few notches.

36:51Do you think that's partially getting older? I mean, I think it depends. Sometimes I meet younger people who have got a lot of insight. I think it just depends on what life teaches you at any given time. I mean, I don't know about you, but I sometimes, you know, you think you're together, don't you? Like at all stages of your life, you think, oh, I've got it worked out now. I've got the mortgage and the dog and the partner and the car and all of that. and then you sort of look back and you think I didn't really know I didn't really know anything back then at the time it feels like you've got it all worked out and I kind of feel like I almost can look back every five years and think God I really thought I was quite sore at and stuff I'll tell you the one thing and I don't like using the word spiritual but I mean I do think I kind of worked against spirituality for a long time it started off very Irish, very Catholic good boy, altar boy I went into a monastery.

37:47I mean, I went the whole nine yards with it. And then I thought, I'm not going that route. And then just kind of reclaim more of my humanity, I guess, for then my adult life. And I've arrived at this really, really funny point now where it kind of almost feels like I've moved into a kind of more... Actually, there's sometimes real value in that. There's real value in stillness and quiet. I wonder whether that's an age thing too, because so many of my friends from sort of, I would say, 40s, mid-40s onwards, everything slightly changes. We are more in tune with ourselves. We listen. I loved you talking to yourself.

38:29You know the answers to all the big questions. That's such a spiritual concept. Yeah. I think it's about learning to... It's really about learning to listen. like properly listen and and start trusting yourself a lot more yeah and that very often i think does mean that you go off track and that you upset people and that you piss them off because i think people get used to if you're a people pleaser and i think we probably both are at various levels or have been at various points in our life and you know and we do what we do and you know your your career is very different to mine but we're with people all of the time yeah Yeah, but we're interacting the whole time.

39:10And, you know, we like to talk to people and we're interacting the whole time. But I often think that people then develop expectations. People are happy with you, I think, when you're fulfilling their needs. Yes. And you're playing your old traditional role. But then the minute you stop doing that because you think, actually, that isn't right for me anymore and it was never right. You sort of then, you can see who isn't able to cope with that or they don't adjust very well to it. and I think then I think the older we get and the more you know the more we evolve as people in life if we start to lose people or they start to drop off or relationship changes I don't see that as unhealthy no I think it has to I mean I feel like we everybody changes a little bit as life goes on because of life experiences that we have and I think um I like to think that I've been myself a lot of the time but I have had this kind of urge as well this year the end of last year this year of kind of I want to be me like authentically me and that might not be like exactly yeah who I was last year and the other the interesting thing about that is what you just said about and I might I might upset people sometimes and I won't I would never

40:38upset somebody on purpose I wouldn't I would never kind of go out of my way to upset somebody but if I don't want to do something I can just say no yeah it's like it's like I've never heard that and there is a great expression you know every time you do like every time you just go along with things for the sake of a are you saying yes when you want to say no and you're rocking i mean i used to go i used to meet people for dinner that i genuinely didn't even want to see but i didn't want to upset them or let them down and stuff but you know you have to think that when you do that time yeah but you end up abandoning yourself yes yes you know that is the bottom line yes when you do that so i think you get to that point you think i'm not really prepared to do that anymore because i did a fair bit of that when i was younger and i think the book talks about that a lot as well it does yeah just you know just you know you don't abandon self you You know, I think that has to be key for everyone because that's the one relationship that we are stuck with.

41:35And one other thing that you touch on, which I really love in the book, which we mentioned very quickly earlier, was energy. And I know that in the book you go, I'm not going to talk about this too much here because this book isn't about energy. But I feel like that's a real tangible thing I can feel at the moment. Can you just talk me through what you mean by energy? Look, I mean, we're all energetic. beings like they i don't want to get too scientific there's science there's science behind it but you even know sometimes you know when you meet somebody i don't know if you get this something but sometimes you meet somebody and you just like within a millisecond you pick up on their energy totally you you're there with them and you you can't even you may not even be able to put words on it but you just get an energy about them you get a sense of them and you know where they're operating from and sometimes that can feel really inviting and warm and safe and you kind of instantly think oh god I really like being around this person and then you can meet somebody and you can feel the opposite because their energy is operating at a very very different level so we're intuitively picking up on that all of the time with each other and I think when it comes to anxiety I mean energy states and even emotional states they they need a rite of passage so there has to be a beginning middle and end yes so it's a natural flow state for all of us you know whether it's emotional states or energy states and that natural flow is that we we literally have to get out of our own way yes to allow these states to allow it but come back to that whole thing about control is most of us do the opposite so what we do is we jump in and we try and control we try and control the emotional states and we try and control the energy states either to be the version of us that we think is going to be most accepted or to please people or to do what we think is the right thing so what we end up doing the whole time is we just end up interfering with natural energy states yes because we're literally getting in the way and one of the big things as a therapist like the biggest part of my job is i would say if i were to simplify being a therapist what you're doing with most people is thinking you fucking need to get out of the way yes i need you to get out of the way and the way you're thinking and the way you're dealing with the emotions the behaviors that are getting in the way of your life so it sounds the weirdest thing in the world but you're taking the individual out of the way so that they can clear the obstructions.

43:55Doesn't sound weird to me at all. Yeah, that's what, when I'm working with someone, like I, every person that comes into a room, like I would say, I haven't measured this, but I'm confident it's about 99%. Every client I work with will come in and they will sit down in front of me and they will say it's all shit and feeling awful and the usual stuff, it'd be life. And they will give me concrete, valid reasons why it is their childhood their background their job their money blah blah blah their career and they will talk about all this stuff i have never ever in my career have someone sit down in front of me at the beginning and say i'm in a really shit place because of how i'm managing my life never so you never really get that ownership or responsibility so most people project everything outwards and of course you can't do anything about what's out there you can't the only thing you can do something is the internal stuff is i mean it's a brilliant expression the way it is in i haven't heard that yes i love that i do and i think it's a brilliant yeah it's a brilliant way of thinking about it all because we're all doing it we're trying to control you know not anxiety you know anxiety by definition is an intolerance of uncertainty so you know if you think of it broadly, we're all struggling with the fact that we don't know.

45:13There are things that we don't know. You've been through a massive life event where there was a period of not knowing. Yeah, your life was turned upside down. So you've just come out of a period and still working through a period. I'm sure it was like, oh, my God, there's so much not knowing in our lives. And most people find that really, really hard to tolerate. So there's a real clue for me in the word that the intolerance is a big thing. so the more tolerant we can become then I think the more not only the calmer and the more steadier do we feel but I think these energy states then align much more where it's like okay can I just be okay with not knowing yesterday for example I knew the book was coming out today and you're feeling that pre angsty jitter and I kind of said can I be okay with not knowing where this is going to go and I was okay can I just hand over I don't know I have no control there is no predictability just can I let this go and be okay with the fact the work's done I've shown up I'll continue to show up but outside of that I need to get out of the way yeah you know literally this has got nothing to do with me now I need to just do the bits that I need to do but I need to get out of the way so you know it's that's a great place to be you know I think when you get out of your own way I've never thought of it like that I've got a really good visual in my head now of that just of the way like the way is a road for me yeah and i'm big and i'm in the middle of it and i've got to kind of stand to one side it's a hard thing to admit it's hard isn't it because most people don't want to acknowledge that because you know if you are willing to acknowledge that then you're left with the choice shit if i'm in if i'm the one that's creating a lot of the challenges and a lot of creating a lot of the obstruction that also means that I have to do something about this.

47:03Yes. And also, if I don't, I'm the only one I can blame. Yeah. It's a double-edged sword in some ways, but I mean, but then the freedom. But I was just going to say, the freedom that comes with that is ridiculous. Absolutely. It's life-changing. Because then you can't stand back and think, okay, this is not, you know. And I guess really, just thinking as you were saying that actually, I guess really, even though I wouldn't have put it in these words at the time, And I guess really that's what I was learning. I think in my palliative care days, I was learning that these people were adjusting and coping and managing because they were getting out of the way.

47:39Yes. They were getting out of their own way. I thought I hadn't formulated that before just to my head to them thinking that's exactly what was that was, I guess, the information and the lessons I was getting back then. And that's why they were able to just cope, manage and find peace. Wow. you know um and i wouldn't have thought about it like that but now as i'm speaking it out loud i'm thinking shit that's exactly that's that that's what happens you know so things can be a lot simpler i think and i'd you know this is a this is what i love about this book i hope isn't i mean i i think um it's practical it's helpful it's got big font i'm still loving you for that um but it's it is a pick it up put it down it is a it's a turn over the page or get a highlighter yeah yeah a lot of people have said that actually and i think because people who struggle with anxiety sometimes it can we in this book i love it when you talk about a relapse with an addiction you know you can have a relapse but it's how do you get through the relapse you can get through a relapse fine but it's nice to pick up put down pick up put down um yeah i've i mean i'm gonna just thank you really thank you for all the books that you've done thank you I've loved this child, it's been cool, I really thoroughly enjoyed it, thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and for all the good that you do, you know it's a beautiful thing to have someone in the world and I know like you're slightly out of your comfort zone sometimes with you know the online stuff or the talks that you do but I'm really pleased you're doing it not just for me but for everybody that gets to experience you.

49:20I just see it as, you know, I see it as work. It's just work. And it's still my job. It's like, you know, you have a job to do as a broadcaster and journalist centre and your work plays out in different ways. I mean, I think, you know, if there's a power greater than this here, they've got a very great sense of humour because I'm fucking way out of my comfort zone a lot of the time. At the end, I was going back to work on the 15th of January and I'd been in bed for two and a half months on and off you know I'd gone for a couple of walks a day then gone back to bed or seen Fred's but I'd been housebound and I could feel work looming but I was terrified and I really didn't want to go back and I was like I'm not ready I can't do it all of these voices like your voice um imposter syndrome I can't do it anymore what happens if I I can't remember the script.

50:14I'm not going to be able to. And my partner's going, this is the last step. This is what you need. You will feel better when you go back to work. The fury I had towards him, who I adore, every time he wore it up, I'd be like, you don't understand. It made me understand people. when somebody just says because this is not what this book's about it's about being a bit more compassionate and understanding but at the same time being practical about it but and I thought oh I used to be of the school because I'd never experienced anxiety acutely like that I'd had a general anxiety all my life but I'd never understood what it was like to feel frightened leave your home or to walk on your own or to go out to social.

51:10I know loads of people who are frightened in crowded areas. I've never had that. I've never really worried in that kind of way. And I was always a bit, you've just got to go and do it. It's quite harsh that, you know, now having experienced how I felt. It's quite a different way of looking at it. But then I think it changes everything then, doesn't it? because when you've walked a walk in some way and you think actually no, I mean, taking a step out the door might be enormous. It felt like that to me. Although I have to say at the end of the first day that I went back to work and I sat in my car.