“I think the worst!” How to manage anxiety and intrusive thoughts

0:01Hello, a massive welcome to Happy Place with me, Fern Cotton. Now look, I'll be honest with you, as I always am. I'd had a pretty good run of not feeling that anxious for a while there. But the last month, I'd say, my anxiety has been kicking in again. So I thought we would do an episode today all about anxiety. I feel the tingles in my neck and I feel the anxiety creeping in. I start panicking and then I spiral. I would never wish OCD, depression or anxiety on anyone. My adult just goes offline and then it's just my little child self like, help me, help me. But in a weird way, I think my capacity to feel that kind of darkness also allows me to appreciate the sunlight.

0:41With anxiety, loads of people, you find a different way to manage it, and it can only be managed. It will always come back and go away and come back and go away. To get them like in a supermarket queue, I would always get claustrophobic and feel trapped and often have to abandon my trolley. It got really bad and I got through it. That'll probably come again and again and again and again in different skins for my life. A bit of a light bulb went off because now when I noticed where the people pleasing was showing up, I was able to go, oh, I'm anxious about something. So like I said, my anxiety has increased massively in the last month.

1:14And obviously anxiety comes in different flavours. So how my anxiety looks will be very different to yours. But this month, little bits of OCD have been creeping back in, lock checking obsessively, hob checking obsessively. all that kind of jazz all the usual stuff which is I find it boring now because it's just like oh I can't bother to do this again but I know the score I know what I've got to do and it was actually really interesting listening back to the little bits of episodes that you're going to hear today because in all of them I talk about how I'm actually in quite a good place no panic attacks for a while and that actually remains I haven't had a panic attack touch wood because I was having them in big, big bouts back in the day.

1:58But there's also lots of chat about how this stuff isn't linear, as I am demonstrating in my life currently. We're never going to be fully cured of all of our anxious thoughts. We maybe just have to learn our own ways of coping a little bit better each time shit hits the fan, which it will. But anxiety to you might mean hypervigilance. It might mean feeling very low and edgy. It might mean hiding away. It might just be a low hum in the background. It comes in all different flavours. So I wanted us to be able to hear from loads of people who all experience anxiety in their own ways, in the hope that if you are going through a rough patch, you know you're not the only one.

2:37Perrie Edwards brings her therapist to work with her, and she actually brought her therapist to the recording of this episode. Will Poulter's taking a personalised approach to his OCD, and Julian Clary reckons age and perspective have calmed his anxiety. Then chats with Vogue Williams about medication and catastrophizing, Youngblood about learning to like yourself and the brilliant Natalie Lu about how to recognise what's beneath the anxious thoughts. Right, let's do it. Here's the show.

3:29so you've got this therapist who is seemingly really working out for you brilliant that you've got her with you when you need her because you shouldn't be having to deal with anxiety and suffering unnecessarily so so talk to me about this anxiety where where's that come from what was the catalyst for that it's it's random but it started a good few years ago when me and the girls were in vegas so something happened and i just started experiencing like panic attacks out of nowhere and it was really scary and i thought i was dying at the time like i thought i was having a heart attack and then i went to the hospital and they were like what drugs have you taken and i was like nothing i haven't taken anything i'm a really good girl i'm clean i don't even drink alcohol hardly but something's happening to my heart like I'm gonna die and I was having a panic attack and then I flew home and from that point on they just kept occurring like all the time and I didn't know what was happening I thought I was literally going insane like I even asked my mom if she was going to put me in a mental institute at one point because it was so bad and I couldn't make sense of it all in my head but I think now it's almost like I'm at the stage where instead of trying to avoid the anxiety which I do like as soon as I feel the tingles in my neck and I feel the anxiety creeping in I start panicking and then I spiral whereas instead I'm trying to learn to like be with the feelings and be like okay why do I feel like this it's obviously something internal is trying to tell me it's protecting me from something whatever it is but in this moment like I'm safe and it's fine but it's hard to rationalize that because my adult just goes offline and then it's just my little child self like help me help me what is happening so I think like I said to my therapist I said look I love our sessions but it's really hard for me to take all of the stuff you're teaching me and use it in everyday life so when the panic occurs I'm not thinking oh what what what do I have to do I'm just like help me like I just go off on one so now she's obviously coming with me to work to put it into action more so like great yeah because I just think if I'm not facing it head on I'm avoiding it I avoid it I don't leave the house unless I have to I avoid any situation where I might be in front of my anxiety and I just can't bear it I hate it so much so what might trigger it I mean I'm listening to you speak I totally get this like I've been there and I yeah what I'd like to say I guess to you is I've so been there to the point where I stopped doing TV, stopped doing radio.

6:01I'm still not doing TV. I don't feel like that's something I necessarily want to leap back into at this point. Right. But I've gotten myself to a place maybe over the last seven years where I'm not having panic attacks. Okay. I probably had one in the last six months, maybe more. Wow. And I was having them all day, every day. Right. And my anxiety has gone from being sky high to really not present in my everyday life. And how did you get there? Therapy. Yeah. And having someone to really validate what I'd been through, what I felt because of the things I'd been through, the self-beliefs that I'd built up, and to really go, oh, no, I understand why you would feel this way.

6:51And just to have one person say that to me was so powerful. I feel so lucky that I have a therapist so lucky because it's just not the case for so many people out there and I have found it personally, find the right person life changing so you're in the thick of it now and I had people say this to me when I was in the thick of it like this isn't forever because I thought oh my life's this is it I will have to always watch my triggers and see where I'm at Kind of walk on eggshells. Walk on eggshells and stop myself doing so many things. And I still do have things that I won't do. And I'd like to get to, like, sleep's a real big one for me.

7:34I'm very anxious about sleep still. So that's still got to be tweaked. But I am so far from where I was. Right. And that is absolutely possible for you with all of the hard work you're putting in place, which is so liberating. I feel so much better now. Yeah, it's great. but I feel like my anxiety like I know it sounds awful but I feel like my anxiety and my panic had to get worse before it could get better yeah and I don't know why because obviously I've had this anxiety for years and I've suffered from panic attacks and my fear is like the fear of being on my own and having a panic attack and maybe dying and no one being there to help me so that's why I've like associated me being on my own with that so there's always people around me I always have family around me friends around me um security with me like it's it's a thing but I think that's because a lot of things have happened in my life as well that's brought me to this if that makes sense so I think yeah having a therapy has helped me massively and I've never put the the physical things that I'm learning with her into practice I've always just sat in a room and spoke about my feelings I've gone back to my childhood and gone over traumas and I'm like how is this helping me get forward that's what I struggled with I've tried so many therapists I've seen so many doctors I've tried literally everything like there's nothing out there I haven't tried but what I do with my therapist now I just feel like it's the one thing that works for me because I'm having to step out my comfort zone and feel the anxiety which is what I've been putting off for years I'm like I don't want to feel it just sign me out I'm off yeah literally get it away from me whereas now I'm like okay I'm I'm feeling it I'm feeling tingly I'm starting to go a bit numb but it's fine and then I'll do like my tapping and I'll tell myself like in this moment I'm safe and like I love a bit of rishi chocolate don't get me wrong it's lovely

9:24and I just think all these things I'm doing with her and like lifestyle changes and changing my diet and changing my outlook on things and like that there's just so much I can't even fit it into one podcast but there's so much I've learned from her and I'm so like appreciative of it it's one of those is the mental health condition that's still sort of joked about you know oh you're neat and tidy you've got it's not quite that guys um yeah and it's really important that we talk about all the different shades of of how it can manifest it's not you know it might be turning on and off light switches it might be having to touch everything in a room and you know all sorts but it might also jump onto the worst case scenario and play that image in your head a hell of a lot and it's horrible has that ever crossed over into your work has it ever impacted you being on set or doing something you really want to do?

10:11Yeah you know what actually that's one of the things I'm quite grateful of is that I think as I've taken better care of myself off set and in between jobs I think my work has gotten easier like I think it's made life in general a little bit easier not easy but easier and I think I've been able to sort of practice a little bit more emotional regulation and control because you know the intrusive thoughts often used to come right when the pressure was highest at work or I knew for example really really difficult scene you know we have to get it in one take and my intrusive thoughts would be you're terrible you can't do this you're atrocious it's the end of your career after this take you're the worst actor ever you know whatever it was and that would obviously get to me and and now as I've learned a few different coping mechanisms and I think through therapy and medication too I've just got a little bit uh just a little bit more of a handle on it let's not say that I don't still have you know really difficult days um but yeah the intrusive thoughts often used to rise up at the you know the just at the moment when you don't want them and that is quite often when they present themselves it's the pits I've so been there like I'm floating out of my body guys and I'm about to do live tv thing and I'm not even in my skin anymore I'm up in the corner of the room over there it's always the worst worst moment has it ever got to the point where you thought I can't do this anymore I can't do acting anymore um thankfully not and it sounds so odd I mean I would never wish OCD depression or anxiety on anyone but in a weird way I think my capacity to go to those depths or or feel that kind of darkness also allows me to appreciate the sunlight and, you know, the lighter moments and, you know, feel things in an antithetical way where I'm, you know, happier for it too.

12:14It's really odd. And, you know, I think maybe that's just a coping mechanism in itself, right? A choice, a way of identifying a silver lining in it. But I'm oddly thankful for my mental health conditions because it's allowed me to appreciate the moments where I am more happy or more content or just more stable. Yeah, I think when you, you know, it's a funny thing, isn't it? Because I think I used to obsess about reading stories about people that certainly had depression or anxiety and go, oh, and they're not in it now. How did they get to the bit where they're not in it and cling on to that like it was some sort of a scent rather than it being a big wiggly line, which we all know it is.

12:53Big wiggly line. Big bowl of pasta. Yeah, exactly. There's like peaks and troughs and there's bits which are really awful. And then you have moments where you're feeling really great again. And that's amazing and to be celebrated. But I think that's the interesting thing is I used to think that you just would crawl out of it. And then you're just like happy forever and everything's great. But actually, if you can learn to lean into those bits where you're not feeling anxious. At the moment, I don't have any anxiety at the moment. It's maybe a combination of, you know, doing therapy, which you feel very lucky to do.

13:21and a few other things going on. And that's not to say there's zero, but it's a damn sight better than I was, say, seven years ago where I was just having panic attacks all day long. I think when you can really appreciate those moments where it's not around and trust that, you know, you're in it now and it might last for a while. It's so lovely to have that appreciation for just normal, level-headed, feeling balanced, grounded life. I totally get what you're saying. And also I totally understand what you're saying about, you know, having that access for these characters to evolve and to be brought to life, which makes you bloody great actors because you believe it, you see it and, you know, bring it to a character.

14:04Yeah, a little bit. And, you know, rather like every actor's sort of process is different. Like everyone's sort of mental health experience is different. I think one of the things that constantly gets overlooked in the subject of physical and mental health, and the two need to be spoken about as being more intertwined, because I believe they are more intertwined than we maybe talk about. one of the reasons I think it's kind of interesting when we talk about dieting or training regimes in the context of physical health, there is this kind of one size fits all attitude. And that's really interesting because everyone's digestive system and, you know, microbiome and, you know, their family history, family history, genetic, you know, all of that body type, all that stuff is so wildly unique that the idea that sort of one size fits all, it just doesn't make sense to me.

14:59And the same is true when we talk about mental health. I think look no further than a complicated organ for your brain. It's like everyone's neurochemistry is so unique and different. And it's also fascinating to me that I think neuroscientists, and this is some real back of a napkin math here, but neuroscientists sort of openly say that they kind of only really understand 30 % of the brain. it's a little bit like being a geographer and being like well yeah we understand the the green bits but the blue stuff we're still trying to work out like the 70 percent of the world like the the sea we don't know what's going on there but we can tell you what's going on with the green like that's what's going on with our brains and so the idea that the same meditation practice or the same medication or the same form of therapy or the same self-care regime is going to yield the same results for everybody is just untrue.

15:50So there is an element of trial and error and there is a real degree of sort of finding what works for you. And so bringing it back to the acting conversation, I know that to be true of acting because I know it to be true of my experience with my own mental health. And it's such a intimate relationship with psychology acting. I think that's why I love it. And it's a study of human beings and it's a study of the human condition and psychological development. And so for me, I can't really approach it all that differently. And I think I'd be lost if I didn't draw on my own personal experiences. And it's fascinating to see different people's approaches.

16:33It is, because I guess, you know, you don't want to dig around in tricky parts of your own psyche for your job and be left in that state, surely, to go home feeling slightly re-traumatised or like you've taken yourself to a place of deep depression because your character needed it. Do you have anything that then gets you back to, and I'm going home now and I'm going to cook a meal and go to bed like I would normally? Yeah, you know, being around like friends and family and reconnecting with people I really love and care about is huge. I think that that's probably a mistake I made previously, whereby post a job, I sort of went straight back into chasing the next thing.

17:13Or I don't know, I would sometimes just not be as sociable as I ought to have been. And I sort of almost forced myself into contact with people post jobs, because I know how restorative it is. so I do that now it's it's it's you know company um and I'm really lucky that I have you know great people in my life with whom I kind of uh can talk openly about mental health as well should anything kind of arise I mean I talk about it very regularly would you on set because I think especially of anxiety if you if you're feeling certainly panic the worst thing you can do is just internalize that and not say anything and be in your head going oh my god I'm gonna panic attack and no one knows and do I look normal and you're just everything is just wildly out of control in your head but actually as soon as you said I've had it before and I've said someone working with I feel like I'm about to have a panic attack so I'm just gonna step to one side for a minute and then it goes because you've said it the worst thing is when it's breeding and percolating in secrecy in your own mind would you would you feel comfy to do that on set to say I'm just feeling a bit off here guys I need a minute yeah it's really interesting isn't it because just returning to that idea of the distinction between physical and mental health and there is of course some distinction but like I say they're not really spoken about as being as intertwined as I believe they are if you were physically ill or you had broken your leg you know saying that explaining that you wouldn't feel nearly as much you know discomfort or you know self-doubt as you do if you say that mentally you're you're struggling with something and I think that I don't have really any issue when when it comes down to you know struggling with my mental health and saying as much and in my experience in recent years I've seen an increasing level of kind of empathy for that and less and less sort of call it friction around you know that being a problem or someone sort of making allowances or compensations around you know not being in a great place mentally I've been really really actually sort of encouraged by how much empathy there has been within the industry around around you know mental health struggles and and recognizing mental health as I think we we ought to with the same level of respect as we have for physical wealth.

19:37A bit of nerves, a bit of adrenaline sharpens the brain. I used to like 20 odd years ago and it's very addictive if you start having self-doubt and panic attacks. So how is it just time and experience that has stopped you from having that moment of panic? Like you said there it's addictive, the nature of anxiety would you say is addictive that you get into a habit, it's like a habitual process that you have to go through before you set foot on stage back in the day? It's not just on stage. When I was getting a lot of those, you'd get them like in a queue, a supermarket queue. I would always get claustrophobic and feel trapped and often have to abandon my trolley.

20:17So then any kind of queue situation would bring it on. I think your brain just kind of clicks in. So yeah, that was a long period of that. So I just talked myself through it in the end. Yeah, I mean, I used to get them all the time. this was maybe about six seven years ago one of my big things was driving on the motorway I just totally stopped doing it there was no way I could do a motorway journey if I was driving I could just about pull off the a-road onto it and then it would instantly hit me and I'd have to quickly pull over or get off and then I just was so scared of it for about five years I just didn't do it at all and maybe I did a bit of therapy that helped but I think maybe you do have a period where you grow out of it and you're just your brain you know stops that trigger stops working so frequently and potently because it feels so overwhelming in the moment that you feel like you've got no control over it at all it's pretty debilitating it's horrible and i have had them driving as well and i had a thing where i thought all the cars were going backwards oh yeah i've had that yeah it's dangerous as well because you know and i had used to have them on the a40 you know that that flyover bit where you often there's a queue of traffic and you stop right at the top and you look down at the edge where road that would be a point yeah as well funny isn't it it is so funny but it can be um I mean I was going to say a nuisance it's more than that I you know I stopped doing certain jobs because I couldn't do it and I hadn't I stopped doing live radio that was just a massive trigger I haven't actually forced myself to start that one again maybe I will in the future but I was having huge panic attacks the night before for hours on end.

21:54I wouldn't sleep a wink. I'd be okay just about on air. I'd get through it but I would be exhausted, the amount of adrenaline pumping through my body and I just didn't want to feel that level of fear for that sustained period of time. Do you think it affected or impacted your work at the time you were having them? Yeah, it wasn't good, you know. But there is that thing of forcing yourself which I'm kind of quite up for that. Are you? Yeah, and I was wondering if after you did your radio show, did you not feel better because you thought, well, I've got through, I've done it? Well, I mean, to a degree, yes, but then the next night would be exactly the same again and I just couldn't keep doing it.

22:36I think if I did it now, it might be different and I would feel that sense of accomplishment and, okay, I'm past that period, but I just haven't forced myself into it. Maybe I need to be a little bit more, I don't know, forced about the whole situation. I think what happened, you just one day forgot to have a panic attack. I was in a queue. I think if you distract yourself, if I was thinking about something else rather than, oh, I'm in a queue, I'm in a queue, it's going to start. And I came out of the supermarket and I thought, oh, I forgot to have a panic attack. So I don't know. Someone will know, won't they, the psychology of all that.

23:11But it does pass. And as we know, as you get older, you get happier and you sort of care less about things. Yeah, I've heard you say this in interviews before that you definitely feel that. The older you get, the happier you feel. Apart from perhaps that, you know, your brain's creating new neural pathways. You're moving on from these periods that are triggering and tricky. What else do you think has led you to that conclusion that you feel happier today? I think it's the realisation that things aren't that important. You know, being, if I die a death on stage, that might have been what I was worried about.

23:48Well, the worst thing that can happen is that no one laughs and you get booed off. And so what? You know, it's not the most terrible thing in the great scheme of things, is it? Maybe I've reasoned with myself like that. But as you get older, I don't know, everything's just a bit calm and you've done certain things that you wanted to tick off and so and everything's a bonus really when you get to my age. I guess you know I totally get that feeling of you know you've bombed on stage or something at work didn't go how you thought it would go or you humiliate yourself in front of people. I've certainly had moments of that in my young years where it's been such a huge deal disproportionate to the actual event happening but you know and I'm in my 40s but I certainly feel like that is driving me a lot less today.

24:42If something goes wrong at work, I probably can reason with myself like, oh, it was just a bad day and get over it. But I think when you are younger, it just feels huge. It does. And it's sort of vanity, really, that you are so important, you know, that this matters. So it all passes. Yeah. And maybe also, I guess, because you've had so much more life experience, you've been through stuff that's properly awful and shit and you have a better gauge of that is worth worrying about and that not so much maybe. Yeah, I think that happens and you know that you'll survive. All right, let's get back to the show.

25:20Here's Vogue Williams, Youngblood and Natalie Lu. You've been really open over the years about anxiety and panic attacks. Where are you at with that at the moment? I'm actually, this week is a good week. The last two weeks weren't good weeks. and I think what I do is that's why I'm not going to drink for a while because that really gets it for me and I feel like if I train like people think I'm insane because I love when I go on holidays I don't want to go on holidays drink loads not train just eat rubbish and go home feeling crap so I'll always go away and I'll train and people think that's kind of weird but I just it makes me feel like it kind of regulates me it makes me feel better it's really good for anxiety I find, but I do have, I have medication as well.

26:03If I'm having a really bad time with it, I'll take medication and there's no problem with that either. God no. No, I love having a little backup of it, especially if I'm hungover as well. Yeah, if like, all the pills. I mean, why struggle if you're having a terrible time? Again, I think it's all personal choice. There should be no judgment around any of this stuff. I took antidepressants for a while and if you're in a bad way, you gotta do what you gotta do. I feel like with anxiety, you can, loads of people, you find a different way to manage it. And it can only be managed. It will always come back and go away and come back and go away.

26:37And for me, I wanted to do therapy, which I do kind of irregularly now. But I was struggling to sleep properly. And then if I wasn't sleeping, I was more anxious the next day. So I couldn't really get to the point where I was able to do even therapy because I'd just be going around like this the whole time, clenching my fists and just being anxious. So then I got what they're called beta blockers off my doctor. So that kind of allowed me to calm down a little bit and then to be able to actually think about what was making me so anxious and then to try and deal with it through that way. But I wouldn't say it gets that bad all the time.

27:09I think when you go through big life disturbances really is probably when it gets the worst. So what would you say sort of triggers it on a every kind of week basis if there's stuff that's bothering you? What triggers it? I could catastrophize anything. like I booked flights to Turkey the other day and like the flights didn't go through so then I decided it was a really bad omen and then I was really anxious that like I shouldn't be going to Turkey because there was a reason they didn't go through and just like if my mind is anxious I'll catastrophize absolutely anything and think the worst is going to happen with anything and you you kind of can't stop it so I just after a while I realized how ridiculous it is and then it's only after you've kind of come through it or if you're having a panic attack and like Spencer my husband when he doesn't get anxiety.

27:56So like when he first saw me having a panic attack, he was like, what have I married? And then the next day you're kind of like, sorry about that. Because it's so, it just consumes you and you can't get out of it. And you're just in a panic basically. And you can't stop it until it kind of runs its course and you exhaust yourself in a way. Yeah, spirals. I mean, those, I mean, for me, it could be like intrusive thoughts almost. You believe like, this is a fact. this awful thing is going to happen and you can't get out of that cycle of believing it and i think even in the moment you can intellectually tell yourself i know what this is like this is an intrusive thought it's not real or i'm totally catastrophizing but it doesn't stop the manifestation of the panic bit you just have to like you say go through it go with it yeah kind of write it out i think that like i know that anxiety almost feels like a newer thing but like i remember back in Ireland it'd be like oh her nerves are at her like that's what they used to say about like any anyone I remember my parents friends and stuff like that somebody who would have just had anxiety but it was called your nerves are at you and I think that now life is full for everybody we're all trying to do a million things and go a million miles an hour and be the best at everything that we're doing and actually it's causing more stress and more anxiety and you just kind of have to be a bit nicer to yourself and I think that's why trying to look after yourself in certain kind of ways, trying to like be healthy in certain kinds of ways, it's just helpful for how fast paced our lives are now.

29:27Are you good at being nice to yourself? Yeah, kind of. I feel like I'm always on the move. I think the juggle with parenting and working, you always have that guilt. No matter what you're doing, if you're doing more of one and more of the other, like even yesterday, my son was like, why do you have to go to work? And I just said, I've been with you all day. Yeah. and I had to go do a podcast for an hour, but you kind of, you'll just always have that guilt and that causes anxiety as well because you're just like, I wish that you could just stay with them and do stuff all the time, but that's not good for them either.

30:02They need to be going out and doing their own stuff. See, right? Yeah. And they are fine. I think that's the other worry we have. It's like, they're not fine unless I'm with them 24-7. They're fine. I felt like that my whole life. I felt like every interaction I've ever had, I've got to kind of like, be like yo I'm not mental I'm just like myself you know I mean and kind of by the end of five minute conversation 40 minute conversation an hour every tv show every interview everything ever I'm all just like please like me you know what I mean which is also so refreshing to admit and I feel the same you know I've no one likes being disliked I think people often will go I I don't give a shit.

30:44I don't care if people don't like me. I care deeply. I can't think of anything more uncomfortable than someone giving me shit or abuse about how much they dislike me. Because it does make you question yourself and your choices, who you are. Why am I getting it wrong? Why am I unlikable? It's a horrible feeling. So I think it's really awesome that you've admitted that. Yeah, it's so bizarre. just like kind of i think last year especially i was in a pretty dark place with it all i feel like kind of every day like i think because i'm so myself people have a problem with it and i think i was saying the other day when you read shit in real time i think that's what's the darkest thing about our world and our generation i think like it really got on top of me the fact that like i almost became addicted to it i almost became addicted to finding hateful things about myself because it was like i don't know it was almost like a form of self-sabotage or like a form of like darkness that was like yeah like my anxiety it was kind of fulfilling my anxiety in my head it was going like yep you are that you are that you are that that kind of voice that says like you're fake you're a cunt you're all your imposter syndrome all that like you're not good enough you know what I mean like every little dark thought like things about my body things about my voice things about my personality I was almost addicted to kind of finding those because it was like fueling or fulfilling that dark side of my brain which was pretty weird and then I kind of really just for the first time said I needed to stop because we've been doing Youngbloods for like five years and kind of really assess what what I wanted to do at the start of this year and I think like it was it was like the best thing ever because I kind of really realized that I wasn't made of glass really important to have that time to like look inward and really like protect yourself and kind of surrounding myself by I think people that were like really important in my life and started seeing my family more and started kind of realizing that like i got myself here you know i'm saying i think you kind of when you're in a world when you forget that shit and you kind of forget that like for some reason people like me and people like the way i am and people like it when i'm unfiltered and people like it when i think it gives them energy to to be like that and i think i realized that at the start of this year so like i don't give a fuck because I give a fuck.

33:22You know what I'm saying? You know what the consequences are for you to take that on board. Yeah. Because you've been there. And it didn't kill me. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I got, that's what I'm saying. It was like, it got really bad and I got through it. And I'll probably do, that'll probably come again and again and again and again and different skins for my life. But I got through it. So I was like, oh, you know what I'm saying? So it's kind of like, it's such a mental shift because I'm like 27 next. So I'm kind of like going through that period of my life and I'm really changed. I can feel myself changing and I don't know where I'm going to arrive at.

33:59So I'm like in this free fall at the minute. And I think with me, I always like and I always got to know where the door is. You know what I'm saying? Like, and at the minute I don't. So it's a bit of a trip. 27 is a big one. Yeah, that's crazy. 27 is a big one because 30 is there. You can kind of touch it. 100%. But also there's this whole Saturn returns thing. Oh, yeah, all that thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, I mean, anecdotally, I think we can say is a thing. Yeah. There's a big shift between 27 to 30 where your world gets turned upside down in good and bad ways, but you start to figure out a little bit more of who you are and where you want to go.

34:37I think what really matters in life, really. You know what I mean? I think, like, yeah, it's been a trip, but it's also, like, it's also amazing and kind of, like, really looking inwards for the first time. in myself in my business in my life in my career and everything I think like really stopping to try and appease everyone else because their their opinion of you is going to change or not change based on something that you can't control based on how well they feel yeah exactly 100 % you can't control anything in terms of something else you can only control what you're doing and I think like at the start of this year I really looked at myself and looked at everyone I was like let's let's just really do things inwardly and that like allowed me to like finish a book and start a festival and make an album that i want to make you know what i'm saying without any opinion i really just put down the doors and was like right yeah no one's getting in except from you lot you get you get a pass everyone else don't get in because it was just like it was either i was just gonna derail yeah like gonna go completely off and i'm so happy at the last minute that i went now this is wrong stop it's too noisy out there but it's so important when we understand and this is for anyone in the public eye or not that everything feels extremely noisy outside whether it's friends family or in your case people you'll you haven't met or you might never meet that want to desperately tell you their opinion of you the only way we can deal with that is to go inwards and look at why does that hurt like what and we don't have to give it any extra weight even we don't have to say oh because i am a piece of shit we can go but why why do i have that insecurity or why do i feel that level of pain that's all we can do but it that takes a lot of work it's a lot harder than just sitting there and going everything's awful everyone hates me it's so much more hard work and effort to go in and look inside and see what's going on just and realizing that fundamentally like the power to allow something to affect you is yours and that is something that i really learned if anyone can throw anything your way and you can either internalize it and let it affect you or you can literally i think if you look inward and you kind of work on yourself and you kind of i don't know heal your insides a little bit and and make it squishy that's what i say like make it squishy inside and like really just kind of like look at that as deeply as you can then anyone can almost say anything to you and you won't swallow it because it's like it's a waste of time and it's a waste of your energy i think when you figure out that the power to internalize something is only yours then it's like oh that's crazy you can say anything to me, but I'm like, I either, yeah, I know, and I've been told this forever, so whatever.

37:41And it almost does become that sticks and stones, mate. I think we find it very easy to be caring and compassionate and empathetic to others. But I always say that, you know, compassion, empathy, they're full circle gigs. How are you able to give out this stuff to everyone else, but you're not giving it to yourself? You're leaving yourself out of that. And if you're doing that, that's not really empathy and it's not really compassion yeah why why are we like that I find myself doing that all the time you know someone could tell me the thing they deem the worst thing about themselves and I would have zero judgment if you know it's like a great friend of mine I would give him a big hug and say oh my god you know you mustn't worry about this or whatever with my own things I'm nowhere close to having that level of compassion with myself and I know it and I still feel like I'm unable to exercise it how do we start tapping into that self-compassion because I do think I can see with my own people pleasing tendencies or times when I've said yes I mean no it's all rooted in this in believing that I'm a bad person or you know all these other hang-ups that I have about myself or things in the past that I just cannot find that compassion to apply to that situation how are we cultivating that so something that really helps in my understanding of people pleasing is recognizing that people pleasing is a response to anxiety.

39:00Right. So we're anxious about something. It's often out of our awareness, but when we reflect back, we go, oh my gosh, I was anxious that I was going to be judged. I was anxious that I wasn't going to get the thing I was looking for out of this. I was anxious that there was going to be conflict or criticism or something. So it's a response to anxiety. and then what we try to do is soothe the anxiety with the people pleasing and of course just more anxiety comes back yeah so it's like a response to anxiety and an anxiety management tool that then creates even more anxiety so in recognizing this I was like oh a bit of a light bulb went off because now when I notice where the people pleasing was showing up I was able to go oh I'm anxious about something and that started to halt me in my tracks around certain things I was doing the other thing then that I've also found really helps is that people pleasing is like creating a debt and expecting other people to pay it off and when people realize this they go uh-oh because it's like we don't realize that we have a hidden agenda for people pleasing we we don't like to think of ourselves that way but it's like we're trying to get or avoid something with the people pleasing and it creates debts between us and the people around us.

40:17And if what we really want is, you know, that love, that intimacy and all those things, why are we trying to villainize people all the time by acting as if, oh my God, if I turn around and say, no, the most terrible things are going to happen. So these things started to make me go, okay, I can pause for a moment, check in. What am I doing here? Why am I doing this? And each time I was noticing, oh, there's anxiety driving this. I've got a bit of a dodgy intention here. That allowed that bit of compassion to start coming through. It felt like, oh, I'm getting into a more truthful relationship with myself.

40:53And, you know, I say we have these people-pleaser feelings, anxiety, resentment, guilt, irritation, frustration, feeling low, helpless, powerless, overloaded, overwhelmed. Those feelings tell us that we said yes to something that for all intents and purposes is a good thing, but we've done it for the wrong reasons. So find the why, because this is where you can really have a gateway into that compassion and empathy. But sometimes actually we're perfectly fine doing the thing. It's not even a dodgy thing. It's just the approach. Like me, I go and do something. I have the best of intentions. I'm excited about it.

41:32Put my people pleasing, perfectionist mitts all over that thing. and I take the fun out of it. I'd have to notice where I'm pushing and striving. And so if we can be compassionately curious about how our people pleasing shows up for us and notice, oh, like for me, it's that pushing, striving energy. And sometimes, yeah, it's that resentment because I am pissed off after I realize, oh, I forced myself to go and do this thing and I'll not even get what I want out of this thing. And it's like, whoa, resentment's in the room. Hold up, Natalie, go check yourself. and this has forced me into a more compassionate place because you know what I don't go around judging people for when they figure out that they've done something for the wrong reasons I don't judge people when they when they make mistakes I don't judge people for having various different reasons for why they're afraid of saying no because the only reason we don't say no is because of emotional baggage so once we understand this it's like oh okay well something about my past inhibits me from doing that but now that I know that's there what might present day me want what does future me even want out of this oh god that stuff that natalie talks about around people pleasing and it sort of covering some sort of deeper anxiety i mean when i heard that the first time around it hit me between the eyes not stop thinking about it well listen like will said it's so important to just say it in the moment if you're feeling overwhelmed or panicked don't let it fester so if you ever want an outlet for how you're feeling please come and chat on instagram We're always there at Happy Place Official.

43:05There's always so much support for each other in the comments, as well as hopefully some helpful tips as well. It's a very gorgeous space. OK, massive thanks to everyone you heard from today. There'll be links in the show notes if you want to listen to the full episodes, which I urge you to do. To the producer, Anushka Tate at Happy Place Studios, thank you, thank you, thank you. And to you, you are the best.

43:33Thank you.