May 4, 2022 • 50 mins
Jen talks to therapist and author of "Toxic Positivity", Whitney Goodman. They talk about how positive thinking and believing that you can manifest things can bring a sense of control which causes more anxiety in people eventually and that the opposite of "positive thinking" is not "negative thinking."
For more information on Whitney Goodman - to get her book or follow her on social media go to her website: https://sitwithwhit.com
For more information on Jen Kirkman, the host of Anxiety Bites, please go here: https://jenkirkman.bio.link
and to get the takeaways for this episode please visit: http://www.jenkirkman.com/anxietybitespodcast
To send an email to the show write to anxietybitesweekly at gmail dot com
Anxiety Bites is distributed by the iHeartPodcast Network and co-produced by Dylan Fagan and JJ Posway.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is the Anxiety Bites podcast and I am your host,
Jen Kirkman. Welcome to another episode of Anxiety Bites. I
am your host Jen Kirkman. Today we were talking about
toxic positivity. Now you might be thinking, I love to
think positively. It's really helped me and I do a
(00:29):
vision board and I like to have hope. And we're
not saying don't do that. We're talking about toxic positivity.
So my guest today is the author of the book
Toxic Positivity, Keeping it Real in a world obsessed with
positive thinking, Whitney Goodman. As it says on her website,
(00:50):
every day we're bombarded with pressure to be positive from
good vibes. Only in life is good memes to endless
advice to look on the right side. We're constantly told
that the key to happiness is silencing negativity wherever it
crops up in ourselves and in others. Even when faced
with illness, laws, breakups, and other challenges, there's little space
(01:11):
for talking about our real feelings and processing them so
that we can feel better and move forward. But if
all of this positivity is the answer, why are so
many of us anxious, depressed, and burned out? That is
why she's a guest today on Anxiety Bites, because once again,
there is thinking positive and then there's subjecting yourself to
(01:36):
toxic positivity, where you feel an internalized pressure, whether it
comes from people in your life or just subtle messages
you get from culture, even Instagram accounts you might scroll,
or even just comparing your insides with other people's outsides,
and you think, I just have to think positive, and
you know this is all within my control. I can
manifest this. All of that kind of pressure. It's like
(01:59):
swallowing a poison pill on the inside, and it will
eventually make you anxious, depressed, and burned out. So there's
a way to look at your life where you make plans,
you hope for the best, and you prepare for the
fact that it may not work out the way you
wanted to. And that doesn't mean you did something wrong
(02:19):
or you've accidentally attracted negativity. It just means you're a
human living life in a world that's very random, and
we can only control things so much. I know that
the number one thing anxious people want is control. And again,
we do have a lot of control, mostly over the
fact that we can control how we react to the
(02:40):
fact that we don't have a lot of control, and
so we can take a more flow with it kind
of vibe um or we can take a kind of
let's deny everything terrible vibe, keep it positive. I know
I don't have control over the world, but let me
just put up my landers. And again, you may want
(03:02):
to rethink that. So if you're one of those people,
maybe check this episode out. If you're someone that is
thinking I knew it, I knew it, I knew this
friend that never really listens to what I'm saying and
just tells me everything happens for a reason, or I
knew it, I knew something was weird about that. I
feel so gross every time I get advice like that.
It just doesn't feel right. I feel like I'm not
(03:23):
being heard. Then this is the episode for you, because
it is backed by science and psychology that really doesn't
help us. So instead of hearing me go on and on,
we'll get right to my interview with Whitney Goodman. So
obviously Whitney Goodman is the author of that book we
just talked about. You can go to her website called
(03:45):
sit with wit dot com and I will link to
it in the show notes Whitney is a therapist, author,
and mother who is transforming the way we speak about
mental health and she believes that when we understand how
to make how to a make how to our emotions
work for us, anything is possible. She also has a
great Instagram account that we also talk about on the show. Um,
(04:11):
you know, there's a lot of Instagram therapists out there,
but I really enjoy Whitney's account because she again kind
of takes apart the tropes and the memes that, you know,
say we can manifest things and that's what we should
be doing. And so her instagram is at sit with
W W, H, I, T and M. One of my
(04:35):
favorite quotes that she says is life isn't meant to
be one endless self improvement project. You don't have to
pursue health and self improvement seven. You're allowed to watch
movies and TV with no educational component. You're allowed to
do nothing. You're allowed to sleep, You're allowed to eat
food just because it tastes good. You're allowed to read
something fun, you're allowed to move your body for enjoyment,
(04:57):
and you're even allowed to scroll on social media. So
check out her instagram page if you want to learn
more about not getting stuck in the self improvement spiral.
Of course, to all that after you listen to this episode,
what would be a toxically positive way for us to
(05:19):
start this episode? What would you have put you on
the spot? What would I say to you if I
were going to be uh full of toxic positivity? Oh gosh,
maybe something like you're here today because everything happens for
a reason. You know, everything that led up to this
(05:39):
moment is is why we're here together, and you are
here for a reason. That reason is is that you
said yes to my request to be on the show.
That is true. So yeah, your book and I'm holding
it up even though this is an audio podcast toxic positivity,
keeping it real in a world obsessed with being happy.
By you, Whitney Goodman, I wanted to start right out. Um.
(06:03):
You say in the book that the reason people are
so attracted to positive thinking, which I know is different
than toxic positivity, is that it gives us the illusion
of hope and control. And you know that's all that
anxious people want really is a sense of control. And
so take us through what is toxic positivity as opposed
(06:26):
to having a positive thought, like you know what, I
feel good this morning today is gonna be great. I
assume what I just said as a positive thought, that's
not toxic. Absolutely. So toxic positivity really hinges on the timing,
the audience, and the topic that's being discussed. So something
could be quite positive in one situation and and kind
(06:47):
of go into toxic territory in another. And what toxic
positivity is is really this like overarching pressure, this demand
to be happy, positive seeking that out all the time,
no matter what the circumstances. And I find that it
becomes toxic in these moments where people are really struggling
(07:09):
and having a hard time and someone is using positivity
as a way to help them cope with that. Right,
And and a lot of times it's imposed on us,
you're saying to by someone who's giving us advice. A
lot of times possible, for sure, I think it's imposed
on us from other people. We impose it on ourselves.
(07:29):
And it's also just like this cultural force, especially in
the United States, that we experience, you know, the right
to the pursuit of happiness and all of that. Yes,
so you're staying um in your book that positivity gives
us the illusion of hope and control. And I found
the word hope really interesting. I get that it gives
us a sense of control or the illusion of control,
(07:52):
which is again, as an anxious person, I was in
search of that my whole life, and honest to God,
for me, things didn't get better until I accepted I
don't have control, and I kind of found the almost
relaxation and that. But hope, now, am I am? I am?
I not understanding what you mean by hope because is
(08:14):
hope and illusion or you know, is what's wrong with hope?
And I know you're not saying anything's wrong with it,
but I'm being the Devil's ad becase. Yeah, no, I
hear you. I think that there's nothing wrong with hope.
It's when we're telling people that that's the only feeling,
that's the only thing they can think about, is that
(08:35):
they need to have hope. They need to have a
positive outlook, especially when things are just kind of shitty,
you know, like if somebody has just passed away. You know,
I've heard people you know, lost a child something like that,
and you're saying, like, well, you just have to hope
that it's going to get better. Or that something positive
is going to come along. And yes, hope is powerful
(08:57):
and it's good, but I think we use that sometimes
to really pull people out of situations that they might
need to grieve or or be in for a moment.
So it sounds like, I mean, as with anything with
anxiety and mental health, we kind of have to lean
into how we're feeling instead of trying to cover it up. Now,
covering it up worked, awesome, Let's cover up our feelings.
(09:21):
Let's move on, let's have a great life. But I'm
assuming that when we cover things up and being overly
positive as a way to just kind of skirt how
we're feeling how someone else is feeling, it will come
back to bite us in the ass, right, like what
actually happens in our psyche, in our body, in our
(09:42):
nervous system. You know. Let's say let's give the example
of what you you know, you're talking the book about,
you know, people getting fired and it's like your fun employed,
you know, would be like a toxic positivity framing. So
let's just say someone's going through something it subjectively hard,
it's not uh, it's not an emotional experience they're having
(10:02):
where they're like afraid to be on a plane. That's
totally not crashing, but they really lost their job, they
are getting a divorce, they whatever. And first of all,
when other people tell you to be positive, it is
so dismissive. It's almost like they can't handle feelings and
so they want to be comfortable, so they're putting this
(10:23):
crap on you. But let's take it back to the
person doing it to themselves. If they have almost this
neurosis about like if I'm negative, I'll attract negative energy.
So I gotta stay positive about this unemployment. What will
eventually happen in weeks, months, years if people never uh
(10:44):
sit with how they're feeling and instead try to cover
it up with positivity. Yeah, the research is pretty clear
on this that when we suppress our emotions, we try
to stuff them down, they end up just intensifying, getting worse,
and maybe coming out in other ways. So I see
a lot of people who think they're really doing fine.
(11:05):
They're like, oh, I don't have a lot of negative feelings,
I'm okay. But their sleep is disrupted, um, their relationships
are strained, they're eating habits are kind of wonky, They're
maybe using substances excessively doing a lot of these behaviors
that relate to near our sides, Like you're trying to
suppress or control something that might be bothering you. And
(11:27):
the longer we do that, the more likely that you're
going to see things like anxiety, depression, um, those types
of symptoms kind of show up. So by trying to
push something away, you're effectively sort of ensuring that it's
going to come out, and then it's going to come
out works than it was, probably right, and so when
(11:51):
it comes out worse later, it's not even like the
feeling you have later isn't even associated probably with the
original thing. So now you've got two problems, is right? Yeah,
And I think that's why when people come to therapy
a lot of the times they present a problem that
isn't really the problem, and so you're working with a
therapist and saying like, Okay, how can we connect this
(12:11):
back to maybe this original thing that you're not seeing
how it's tied together. Sometimes we're just talking about symptoms.
It seems like something like toxic positivity really can throw
a wrench in anyone's development, like, let alone their progress,
like if they haven't even ever had a need to
go to therapy. This seems like you do enough of
(12:33):
this for a few years and you're really slowing down
like any development that you could have. Yeah, you're really
inhibiting your ability to learn how to solve problems, um,
to work through things, to create different types of solutions.
And that's what we see a lot with the research
on positive thinking is that when people say this is
(12:55):
all gonna work out, I don't need to worry about it,
they're not engaging in any type of iCal thinking of
like what could go wrong? What problems could I run into,
What skills do I need to have? Um that it
can leave you feeling really inapt in a lot of
situations and wondering why they didn't work out. That's really
(13:15):
interesting that people are unlearning. Well, they're not even unlearning,
they're not learning a life skill. So you could actually
probably reach some success, right like with positive thinking. I
don't know if it's that you actually managed you know
that a person actually managed to make it happen, or
it's just a coincidence. But let's just say someone only
(13:36):
does the positive thinking, they don't feel their feelings, they
don't learn to solve problems. Now, they've become the CEO
or the celebrity whatever. UM is this why I see
a lot of successful people who are kind of like
helpless babies, Do you know what I mean? Yeah, you
know you're making me think of I've been watching all
the shows about like that We Work Guy and Elizabeth
(13:59):
Holmes of Sarah Nose, and like, when you watch these shows,
you kind of see that positive attitude that borders on
delusion in some of these five powered people, right, And
so that can get you so far, but when things
start to fall apart around you, if you're stuck in
this space of like it's all going to work out,
it's meant to be, and you can't look at the
(14:21):
problem and say we have buyers to put out here.
That's where the anxious person who is able to call
it out and say we gotta do something about this
is probably going to be more successful. Yeah. I was
just thinking about UM. You know, people with like fifty
five assistants and like, you know, you read all these
(14:42):
I followed this account on Instagram which speaking of toxic,
but I can't get enough of it. It's it's like
a gossip account, and I've been reading recently about UM
these assistants who you know, work for celebrities, and the
things they have to do, like run to the person's
house at three am because they don't know how to
(15:03):
use their freezer, you know, things like like I'm not
blaming it on tongues of positivity, but I do think
there's a correlation between It takes a lot to achieve
a certain amount of like material success, and I think
a lot of times the roads people take, um do
kind of block them from learning a lot of life
skills at the very least, let's say that. And then
(15:23):
the anxiety of like I don't know how to use
my freezer. It's three am, Um, you're calling someone and
making them get out of bed to do it. Like,
I just find that like so interesting for people out
there listening who think, like, you know, this is the
way to get everything you want, um, And it's like maybe,
(15:44):
but maybe there's a price with that. And it sounds
like what you're saying is that you kind of don't
develop really yeah. Yeah, and some people just get lucky
at the end of the day, you know. And so yeah,
you talked about the notion of like that some people say,
change your thoughts to change your life. And that's very attractive, right, because,
as you said, it taps into our biggest fear, which
(16:05):
is uncertainty. So what do you tell what do you
do with that? Like, what do you do with with
patients who are struggling with uncertainty and they really want
something like a oh, if I just change my thoughts,
my life will change. Solution, Like, how do you wrangle
that under law ants? Yeah, so people are very drawn
(16:26):
to that, and I think we have to normalize and
de pathologize the human condition. I tell people really that
uncertainty is actually quite normal. I find what my clients
are talking about a lot is that like I'm the
only one that feels this way. Other people are so
sure they know what they want. And that comparison, I
(16:46):
think is what drives people into this place of like
I have to change this about myself. And of course,
as you know, as someone who talks about anxiety and
it's lived with it, like, there's a level of uncertainty
that becomes debilitating and in facitating, and that's not what
I think we should be normalizing. But I think there's
this middle road where uncertainty can actually give us a
(17:09):
lot of gifts of like trying to figure out what's
important to us, what we want, what we don't want,
and if we don't have that, we miss out on
so much data um and and so many life skills
that I try to teach people how we can use
uncertainty to our advantage and also normalize it, you know,
(17:33):
within limits. Right. So if I'm sitting here while I
am in a phase of uncertainty in my life, I
um live on both coasts. I don't know I'll be
able to do that next year. I write for Living
for television. But it's not like you work at a
bank for forty years and they give you a watch
and you retire. It's like, what show do I work
on next year? Will anyone hire me? You know? There's
(17:54):
so many factors, and I'm always in a state of uncertainty,
and so I have to kind of be like, Okay, well,
the certainty is that there is uncertainty, but I have
this resume, this pedigree, this whatever, and I'll figure something out.
But whenever I've tried to force it and be like,
(18:16):
you know what, this is how my career has to go,
I've been wrong, and like, honestly, better things have happened
than I could have imagined, and so like, if I
got everything I wanted, my life might actually be smaller
than it is today, you know. Um. And it was
because of the uncertainty, like the pandemic, the I mean,
I'm still going on, but like the first six months
of lockdown and no vaccine, and I was sitting at
(18:39):
home working, but I was thinking, I, I don't know what.
I've had enough time to sit home and think what
do I want in the next phase of my life,
you know. And that's where I came up with the
idea for this podcast. I probably wouldn't have thought to
do that if I didn't massive six months of complete
uncertainty about you know, the world, not just me, but
(19:01):
you know the world. And it's not an attractive thing
to offer someone, right if I were to mentor someone
and say, well, it all came together for me during
a global pandemic and nobody Nobody's like, oh cool, let
me um, you know, hope that that happens. And so
is there a way to make it attractive to people
to like calm down with the needing to figure it out?
(19:23):
Like how can we not just normalize it but make
it seem like, hey, it's kind of cool to be
into not knowing. I mean, I think you kind of
just did that. And I want to point out for
anyone listening, like what you just did, because I think
it was the opposite of toxic positivity and like so
well aligned of like saying, my career is really uncertain,
(19:44):
my life has been really uncertain. This is what's like
hard about it and validating that and then saying and
I know I have my resume to fall back on.
I know I have this pedigree, I know I have
this thing, and I have created something in moments of
uncertainty in the past that has worked out even better
for me. And I think the way you just talked
(20:05):
about how both can exist is actually really like liberating
to me at least, Like that's where I feel freedom
is like, Okay, can invalidate what's hard and what's going
on now and also believe in the potential that things
could get better and even be great. We'll be right back.
(20:31):
In your book, you talk about the law of attraction
and and you ask like, can you really manifest anything? Um,
And you talk about what the law of attraction promises,
which is that if you feel negative emotions, you attract negativity.
If you cultivate positive emotions, things are drawn to you.
And you say, is we just kind of discussed not
(20:53):
everything that comes your ways because you attracted it, And
you say, you know, the world can be cruel and random,
and and I'm assuming on the upside the world can
be awesome in random. But you know, it's like I'm
joking a little bit, but like you are going up
against like a huge societal thing that has been kind
of I'm not gonna say shoved down our throats, but
(21:15):
I will say ever present, ever since really Oprah started
validating speaking of validating this thing. And maybe Oprah understands
what she's saying, but when you kind of put it
out there and in the hands of inexperienced people, I
think she set off this like shock wave of people
(21:35):
thinking they could manifest things and then if they don't,
right then here comes to shame sparrows. So take us
through what the problem is with law of attraction or
that kind of thinking. Yeah, with any of these things,
law of attraction, manifestation, all this stuff that fits in
bad umbrella. I really think that when it's used in
a positive way to say, like I attracted these good
(21:58):
things to me. I put this out in the world,
so I got it back. That's a very positive thing
if you're using it in that regard. The problem comes
up when the world is cruel and random, and I
see so many people who have gone through the unthinkable
in life who then kind of come to this conclusion
through that rhetoric of like, I attracted this illness, this trauma,
(22:24):
this abuse to me because of something that I did.
And I've gotten in really spirited conversations with a lot
of people about this that there are people who really
do believe that you attracted it in another life. Um,
then your mother thought about it while she was pregnant
with you, and that's why it came to you. And
(22:46):
I find that belief to just not really serve anyone.
I've seen it bring people people into a place where
they're constantly on edge about their thoughts, about what they're thinking,
about what they're attracting to themselves, and it gets into
this dynamic where we're very much like blaming the victim,
(23:07):
the person that we should be supporting and helping through something.
We're saying like, well, you did this to yourself, and
you should think a little bit more positive next time,
or change your phones. We're inviting shame to come in
right where we're shaming ourselves for not having done it right.
And I really am so happy to always talk about
(23:28):
shame as this kind of like hidden nugget of what
keeps us anxious and panicking. And it really seems like
in the weirdest way, it's comfortable in a weird way
for people, Like even blaming ourselves can sometimes feel comfortable
because it still feels like in a negative way. If
I blame myself, that's like a negative hope, like okay,
(23:50):
well next time, I'll not do it right. Right. I
think what you're alluding to is like it gives you
some control. Actually, it gives you a reason. And that's
what a lot of people are looking for, is like
I got sick because I did this. I, you know,
have panic attacks because I can't be like everybody else
and everyone's better than me. And the human brain really
(24:13):
likes certainty, likes knowing, and so we create narratives and stories,
even if they're bad or they're punishing us, they still
feel better than this, Like I wonder why this happened,
and I don't know why it happened that feels scary
to us, but we know that things are so multi factorial.
(24:35):
And that's like the problem with a lot of the
research on this stuff is that you can't look at
a person who got well from cancer or something and say, oh,
it was just their mindset. It's very, very difficult to
just pull out that one piece and say nothing else
influence that. Like the opposite of tongues of positivity is
(24:56):
not negativity, right, Yes, you know you you have a
chapter in your book about making positive affirmations work for you.
You know, um, like you're not denying the power of
positive language and loving yourself. And I love that you
talk about the notion that everyone else says, oh, you know,
you just love yourself, and how you had a therapist
you would make you say that in the mirror. Yes, sorry,
(25:22):
go ahead, Oh no, I was just wanted to hear
more about that about you know, obviously, yes, we should
love ourselves. So how do we, uh, if someone is
attracted to something like the law of attraction, how do
we allow them to do their version of positive thinking
that's not destructive? And how what's the work around for
(25:42):
something where you're screaming into the mirror. I love myself
and it doesn't feel right, like that's not going to
make you love yourself. I think the key piece here
is that it shouldn't feel dismissive, invalidating, or untrue for you.
So I was really shocked by the research on positive affirmations,
just because it's something that I have always been told
(26:05):
to use as a therapist. When I started reading the data,
I was like, Wow, this really doesn't work for people
with low self esteem. So it's so fascinating. Yeah. So
what we find, or what they have found in the
very few studies exist on this, is that people with
low self esteem, when they say these things to themselves,
it actually can bring up feelings of shame. Like we
(26:26):
talked about, is like I know this isn't true. There's
cognitive dissonance between like what I think is true about
myself and what I'm saying to myself, and so they
ultimately end up rejecting it um or almost looking for
reasons to reject it, which puts you back in that
negative spiral. So what I've discovered, just anecdotally through working
(26:48):
with clients is that if you can make the affirmations
more believable, more possible, and more dynamic that makes them
work better. So instead of saying I love myself, you
would say, I am trying to love myself. I am
working on loving myself. I would like to love myself,
(27:10):
or even breaking it down in like I show myself
love by drinking water. I show myself love by going
to bed at night. I'm really trying to back up
these affirmations with action because the other thing I see
a lot is like I told myself I love myself
ten times today, but everything else I did was in
(27:30):
direct conflict with that. You know, I negatively to myself.
I didn't eat, I didn't sleep, I didn't go outside.
So that's not the actions of somebody that loves themselves.
And that also creates a big gap between the affirmation
and what you're actually doing. Right, Like, we can't think
ourselves into these actions. We must have to take them,
(27:54):
which will build a self esteem. Right and then right
and and and I love that idea. I did affirmations
for anxiety and panic, and I did what I call
true affirmations that they may not be positive, but you know,
when you're panicking and you're telling yourself you're going to die,
I would say nobody's done from a panic attack. You've
been here before. Yeah, this sucks, but you'll get through it.
(28:17):
These aren't lies, you know. That's that's perfect. It's validating
and solid evidence. So you you prefer a tool that
you call whoop w O O P. What is what
is whoop? So? Whoop is a tool that was developed
by another psychologist that wrote the book um Rethinking positive thinking,
(28:39):
And in this tool, you're really looking at like what
is your ideal wish? Um, what do you want the
outcome to be? What obstacles could possibly get in your way?
And this is very different from positive thinking in the
sense that you're actually looking out for problems that could
come up, but you're also thinking about like what's my
(29:02):
ideal outcome? What are the possibilities? What do I want
to happen? So you can have this sort of like
vision board esque thing that also includes having, um, you know,
a problem solving session and thinking like, wow, that might
be hard for me to achieve without doing X, Y
and C. I love that because you know anyone listening
(29:25):
who might be like, God, I guess life is just
cruel and random and we should just let it happen.
And it's like no one is saying that it's okay
to make a plan, it's okay to you know, think
about what you want and all of that. It's it's
like learning how to make a plan and not beating
(29:45):
yourself up when it doesn't go quite the way you
think for sure, for sure, And I think that's one
of the very positive aspects of manifestation, positive thinking, all
of this is that identification of this is what I want,
this is what I imagine for myself, this is what
I can visualize for me, but also bringing in that
(30:06):
realistic piece of life. We may not all be able
to all achieve everything we want, and that's okay. Everyone
has different skill sets and abilities and really trying to
lean into what that is for you. We'll continue the
interview on the flip side of a quick message from
(30:27):
our sponsors. Do you think that this positive thinking toxic
positivity phenomenon is somehow tied in with like kind of
the American Uh, you know, being such a privilege and
wealthy country, Like we have too much choice in that
(30:50):
sense that like we're not just in survival mode all
the time, so um, we're always trying to manifest great
things and uh, then we get on ourselves when when
they don't come true. And I guess what I'm trying
to say is like, I know a lot of mental
health issues like low key depression and anxiety are from
(31:15):
kind of a modern life where we have so many
choices and we're told to choose things that make us happy,
and in a weird way, it if life were simpler,
we may not have all of these issues. Yeah, I
think you're onto something there, and I feel like it
has a lot to do with, you know, the American dream,
the pursuit of happiness, all these auctions. I talk about
(31:39):
happiness scripts in the book, which is something that's like
these prescribed methods of achieving happiness in our world that
I think a lot of people are afraid to step
outside of the lines, Like maybe I don't want to
get married, maybe I don't want to have kids, maybe
I don't want to have this type of career, but
we're told like, no, if you do this, you'll be happy.
So there's a there's a certain pressure there for sure.
(32:03):
And I know you said, you know, towards the end
of your book, what about opting out of the quest
for happiness, you know, looking at a value driven life,
versus happiness, So what is the what is the difference?
I mean, obviously, if we live a value driven life
and it's working out, will probably end up feeling happiness
is a byproduct, right, absolutely, So the difference is that
(32:25):
in a happiness driven life, I find that people are
so focused on feeling constant happiness that they may be
cut people out of their life, don't choose experiences that
disrupt that, et cetera. With the value driven life, you're
living in life with your values, and that means living
in life is what's important to you. And when you
do that, you discover that those things are probably going
(32:48):
to bring you happiness and joy and fulfillment, but they
also might be painful and difficult, and part I I
compare this a lot to parenting that I know for
me is a huge wake up called like, okay, it
sexs me happy, but it's also really really hard. And
when you're told that something is only going to make
(33:10):
you happy, I think it can be really confusing for
people when it's a mixture of emotions. Do you think
that there's something to that? People? I feel that the
only one and I get it. You don't know that
until you find out that other people feel this way.
But isn't it hard when you do find out you're
not the only one? In a weird way that like
(33:32):
it would almost be easier if you were the only one,
because it would opt you out of having to do
anything about it would mean like you're such a rare
case that like we're still working on the solution. But
once you find out everyone goes through something, it can
be hard to be like, oh, well, I guess I
have to get to work on changing that. You know,
it can be hard. It is it is. It's so
interesting in therapy that I find that people don't want
(33:55):
to be alone, but they also want to be very unique.
And so it's like, is weird like conundrum of being
a human being. I don't know how you do it
because I would go crazy. They get have the patients,
I'd be like, you know, the person that came in
before you said the same exact thing. You know what,
(34:15):
I'm gonna go get her. She's still in the waiting room.
I would be fired immediately, and you know, I have
my license taken away. But um, but you talk about
the need to feel difficult emotions, right, and so we've
talked earlier about like if you don't feel them, um,
it can come up later. But then you talk about
some patients of yours that you've talked to. I mean,
(34:36):
easier said than done, right, Like, oh great, I'll skip
the positive thinking and I'll get to feeling my emotions.
But how do you do that? I mean one of
your patients was like, I'm fine, and you could see
in her face that she wasn't. And maybe she's not
connecting to a feeling. So how do you um teach
people too? There's a whole chapter in your book about
(34:57):
process and emotion. The first step my thing is really
just getting people in touch with their physical bodies. I
think a lot of people are only in their heads
with their thoughts, and so trying to figure out, like
what do certain emotions feel like when they manifest for
me physically? How can I label them? How can I
make them known to me? And once you know what
(35:17):
you're feeling, you can give it a name. It's much
easier to figure out what do I need to do
about this? What do I have access to and move
yourself through that feeling process. I thought this was so interesting.
I mean, I guess I didn't really know this. I
never thought about it. But in your book, I'm going
to read your own book to you, you define an
(35:39):
emotion versus a feeling, and I honestly, I think if
you had just asked me, is there a difference, I'd
say no, um. And emotion is a physiological experience like
rapid heartbeat or difficulty breathing, that gives you information about
the world. It's a complex reaction pattern that is determined
by the significance of the event. A feeling is your
conscious awareness of the emotion itself. That's mind blowing. Yeah. Yeah,
(36:05):
So feelings are the things we experience in our heads
more and emotions in our bodies. Yeah, feelings are more
of like the conscious awareness of like giving it a label.
So for you, anxiety might be like uh, sweaty poems,
racing heartbeat, your stomach. As I've said, you're like, oh,
this is anxiety. You're giving it a name, You're making
it known to you as a feeling. Other people might
(36:27):
identify that as something else, like oh, I I feel
excited or I feel scared, or there are so many
different ways to label and interpret the ways that emotions
come up in the body. I'm such a geek about
this kind of stuff that it makes me so happy.
And so lastly on this topic before I want to
(36:50):
talk about your Instagram career too, but you talk about
not forcing gratitude, and you know, I'm actually a big
fan of gratitude journals. My listeners have heard me go
on and on about this, but I will tell you
the reason I like them is because I don't feel
anything when I'm writing in my gratitude journal. So I
try to It's just a part, just a way to
(37:11):
get connected to my umself in the morning, and I
handwrite it just that I don't like immediately start checking
email or make coffee. You know, I will just write
ten things I'm grateful for and I don't have to
feel it. I'm not sitting there like singing on a
mountaintop and feeling spiritual. But it's just very concrete things,
you know, friendships, I don't know. I just looked in
(37:34):
the mirror and hey, I look pretty good. You know.
I like that I accept myself today or whatever. And
then I now have this notebook of proof of things
that are kind of awesome in my life. And so
when my ruminations are going or I want to beat
myself up, I just can't look at what I wrote.
You know, no one else wrote. It's not bullshit, And
so I like it as like I'm keeping a record, um,
(37:56):
but you're talking about in your book that you know. Again,
here comes the shame. It's like we shame ourselves into
thinking we have to feel gratitude all the time. Yeah.
I think gratitude can drift into like toxic positivity territory
when we are using it to shame ourselves or as punishment.
(38:17):
It sounds like what you're doing is like a very
calculated positive decision to sit down and reflect on those things. Now,
if you were crying about something I'm really upset and
someone was like, you need to be grateful, you should
go sit down and write in your gratitude journal, that
would probably be a really different experience, um than your
(38:38):
morning ritual that you've developed. And that's the fine line there,
I think where it's all about. It's it's a great tool,
but not all tools fit in every situation, and you
have to be careful not to tell people that are
going through a hard time. You're like, well, they're starving
kids here, or at least it's not that like gratitude
(39:03):
using shame to adduce gratitude is not effective. And by
the way, like if we are these people that live
in a wealthy country and have a pretty good life,
like we're in a position to help others and and
shaming ourselves is really not going to help anybody, and
so you know it doesn't Yeah, it doesn't solve any
(39:25):
problems at all. But I do think that, you know,
there's a fine line, right like, there is something to
be said for perspective, which is which is um, you know,
there's someone going through a hard time, and then there
can be someone who is like an anxious person who's
caught in like negative loopy thinking where they're like literally
believing that everything is so hard for them when it's
(39:47):
really not. But again, I don't think like gratitude is
the solve for that, right right I. Perspective is extremely powerful.
I just think it's again about the timing and also
thinking about like how can I organically a lot like
you were doing, Notice what's good in my life? So
if I'm going through a hard time, I can say, like,
(40:07):
this has been really hard, and I'm so glad I
have support of my friends to get through this, and
I'm so glad that I had a meal dropped off
for me tonight, Like there are ways to validate what
you're going through and recognize that something is is good. Lastly,
the word I meant to mention earlier was compassion. That
(40:29):
that seems to be your um you know, like for you,
like the the opposite of toxic positivity sounds like it's
really like compassion for yourself because there there isn't a
lot of compassion for yourself in you all of this
positive thinking. You know, yeah, I think compassion for yourself,
(40:50):
accepting what is and I'm having hope for the future
are like the powerful combo that we all could benefit from.
And self compassion is like a really good brick on
the road to loving yourself, right, It's like you can
start there at least exactly. And so along this talk
(41:11):
of positivity is you know, we see it every day
on social media. We see all kinds of horrible things
on social media, but there are so many people that
whether it is they are some kind of influencer or
even just someone who's posting a lot of memes or whatever,
you know, social media can be a really hard place
to not go into that like comparing and despairing or
(41:34):
not get sucked into wanting to be like these people
and do positive thinking. But you have a great um
social media presence, like you're known as Instagram's favorite therapist,
right and you have sit with wit and so how
has social media been, for lack of a better word,
a positive thing for you? Yeah? So you know, I've
(41:58):
really crafted my social media and way that I'm only
following people now that I like to follow, and if
someone's making me feel really bad about my life, I
don't follow them. I'm trying to rework my relationship with
social media now because the algorithm is always changing. They're
always wanting you to do something different. Um that I
(42:19):
feel like, I love the community that I've built there.
I love being able to interact with people, but I
also have to watch myself with how much a time
I spend dedicated to that space, or even comparing myself
to other therapists, other people that are doing I'm like, oh,
she's launching this, she has that, and it can I
(42:40):
can fall into that same trap. It must be so
hard because therapy is to be such a literally private practice,
and now you can have a social media presence and
you can be this kind of circuit therapist for people
before they get help, or just to get a different
perspective even if they aren't therapy. And it must be
hard to not fall into ut um trap of like
(43:01):
comparing yourself to others and like trying to push that
angle of your career um which didn't really exist ten
years ago, you know, like you didn't get into it
for Instagram, you know, no, no, And and there's definitely
like people who think that therapists shouldn't be doing that.
There's people who think it's good. It's it's so complicated,
(43:23):
it's I am grateful for it. I hope you had
fun listening to my conversation with Whitney Goodman. And here
are the takeaways from our conversation. And again you can
find these on my website Jen Kirkman dot com and
then click anxiety Bites again. The link will be in
(43:45):
the show notes. So toxic positivity is an overarching pressure,
a demand to be happy and positive and seeking that
out all of the time, no matter the circumstances. Toxic
positivity can imposed on us from other people, or we
can impose it on ourselves. And sometimes it's just a
cultural force. When we tell people that the only feeling
(44:08):
they can have during a tough time like the death
of a loved one is hope, and that they need
to have a positive outlook. Sometimes we're just using hope
to try to pull others out of situations that they
might actually need to stay in and grieve first. When
we suppress our emotions with positive thinking, they can end
up intensifying and coming out in other ways. People who
say they don't have negative feelings may still have strained relationships,
(44:30):
disrupted sleep, wonky eating habits, or substance abuse, again, all
signs that they're not processing and feeling their emotions. If
you're trying to suppress or control something that's bothering you
with positive thinking, eventually you will see things like anxiety
or depression symptoms show up. Turning only to positive thinking
(44:51):
can inhibit one's ability to learn how to solve problems
and create different types of solutions. The research on positive
thinking is that when people insist that things will all
work out, they're not engaging in any type of critical
thinking of what could go wrong, what problems could develop,
what skills do I need to have. It can leave
(45:11):
someone feeling inept in situations and wondering why things didn't
work out. Anxious people who are able to call out
problems and want to do something about it may be
more successful at handling things than someone who only practices
positive thinking, which can only take you so far until
things start to fall apart. Whitney Goodman wants us to
(45:35):
normalize and deep pathologize the human condition and let people
know that uncertainty is normal. There's a middle road of
uncertainty that can give us gifts of trying to figure
out what's important to us, what we want, what we
don't want. In not accepting uncertainty, we miss out on
data and learning life skills, and we can use uncertainty
(45:58):
to our advantage and normalize it within limits. Instead of
pushing toxic positivity on others. We can validate what's hard
for us and for others, and also believe in the
potential that things could get better and even be great.
The problem with relying too heavily on the law of
attraction is when the world is cruel and random, it
(46:21):
can cause people who have gone through difficult things to
conclude that they attracted their illness or their trauma because
of something they did. The law of attraction can venture
into toxic positivity when people are constantly on edge about
their thoughts and what they're attracting to themselves. The notion
of manifesting can be toxic when there's a dynamic of
(46:42):
blaming the victim. The person we should be supporting and
helping through something is instead hearing that they did this
to themselves and they should be more positive next time.
The human brain really like certainty, and so we create
narratives where even if the narratives are bad or punishing us,
we still feel bad or because we feel like we
know why something happened. Research shows that positive affirmations don't
(47:06):
actually work well for people with low self esteem. Being
told to say things like I love myself can bring
up feelings of shame, and this person will end up
looking for reasons to reject the notion or get caught
in a negative spiral. Whinney works with clients on more
believable and dynamic affirmations. Instead of saying I love myself,
she would suggest affirming something like I am trying to
(47:29):
love myself, or I am working on loving myself, or
even something more specific like I show myself love by
drinking water or I show myself love by going to
bed at night. When people with low self esteem are
told to affirm I love myself many times a day,
what they're doing maybe in direct conflict with that, like
(47:49):
not eating well, not sleeping, not going outside. Those aren't
the actions of someone who loves themselves. There are, of course,
positive aspects of manifesting, such as the identification of knowing
what you want, learning to imagine something for yourself and
being able to visualize it, but also bring in that
realistic piece of accepting that we may not all be
(48:10):
able to achieve everything we want and that's okay. Looking
at trying to create a value driven life versus a
happiness driven life is one way out of the trap
of toxic positivity. Choosing a value driven life, you're living
in line with what's important to you instead of avoiding
experiences that disrupt in order to stay quote happy, and
(48:34):
living a value driven life will most likely bring you
to things that provide joy and fulfillment. As a therapist,
witness sees a weird conundrum of being human, and that
is that people don't want to feel alone in their problems,
but they also want to be very unique. An emotion
is a physiological complex reaction pattern that is determined by
(48:57):
the significance of the event. Feeling is your conscious awareness
of the emotion itself. And the opposite of toxic positivity
isn't negative thinking, but instead having compassion for yourself, accepting
what is, and having hope for the future. Again, if
you would give this podcast a five star review, a
(49:19):
positive but not toxically positive review on iTunes and Spotify,
that will help other people find the podcast, which helps
me maybe do another season of this show. So the
more people that listen, the better the chances of that,
and you help that all in your hands, so please
go write a five star review. You can even just
give it five stars and write love it something simple.
(49:41):
Send me an email Anxiety Bites Weekly at gmail dot
com if you would like to submit your tips and
tricks for your anxiety disorder, if you have any questions
or just want to make a general comment about any episode,
and as well, you can find everything you need to
know about Whitney Goodman in the show notes. Thanks again
(50:01):
for listening, and remember Anxiety Bites, but You're in control.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows,
This is the Anxiety Bites podcast and I am your host,
Jen Kirkman. Welcome to another episode of Anxiety Bites. I
am your host Jen Kirkman. Today we were talking about
toxic positivity. Now you might be thinking, I love to
think positively. It's really helped me and I do a
(00:29):
vision board and I like to have hope. And we're
not saying don't do that. We're talking about toxic positivity.
So my guest today is the author of the book
Toxic Positivity, Keeping it Real in a world obsessed with
positive thinking, Whitney Goodman. As it says on her website,
(00:50):
every day we're bombarded with pressure to be positive from
good vibes. Only in life is good memes to endless
advice to look on the right side. We're constantly told
that the key to happiness is silencing negativity wherever it
crops up in ourselves and in others. Even when faced
with illness, laws, breakups, and other challenges, there's little space
(01:11):
for talking about our real feelings and processing them so
that we can feel better and move forward. But if
all of this positivity is the answer, why are so
many of us anxious, depressed, and burned out? That is
why she's a guest today on Anxiety Bites, because once again,
there is thinking positive and then there's subjecting yourself to
(01:36):
toxic positivity, where you feel an internalized pressure, whether it
comes from people in your life or just subtle messages
you get from culture, even Instagram accounts you might scroll,
or even just comparing your insides with other people's outsides,
and you think, I just have to think positive, and
you know this is all within my control. I can
manifest this. All of that kind of pressure. It's like
(01:59):
swallowing a poison pill on the inside, and it will
eventually make you anxious, depressed, and burned out. So there's
a way to look at your life where you make plans,
you hope for the best, and you prepare for the
fact that it may not work out the way you
wanted to. And that doesn't mean you did something wrong
(02:19):
or you've accidentally attracted negativity. It just means you're a
human living life in a world that's very random, and
we can only control things so much. I know that
the number one thing anxious people want is control. And again,
we do have a lot of control, mostly over the
fact that we can control how we react to the
(02:40):
fact that we don't have a lot of control, and
so we can take a more flow with it kind
of vibe um or we can take a kind of
let's deny everything terrible vibe, keep it positive. I know
I don't have control over the world, but let me
just put up my landers. And again, you may want
(03:02):
to rethink that. So if you're one of those people,
maybe check this episode out. If you're someone that is
thinking I knew it, I knew it, I knew this
friend that never really listens to what I'm saying and
just tells me everything happens for a reason, or I
knew it, I knew something was weird about that. I
feel so gross every time I get advice like that.
It just doesn't feel right. I feel like I'm not
(03:23):
being heard. Then this is the episode for you, because
it is backed by science and psychology that really doesn't
help us. So instead of hearing me go on and on,
we'll get right to my interview with Whitney Goodman. So
obviously Whitney Goodman is the author of that book we
just talked about. You can go to her website called
(03:45):
sit with wit dot com and I will link to
it in the show notes Whitney is a therapist, author,
and mother who is transforming the way we speak about
mental health and she believes that when we understand how
to make how to a make how to our emotions
work for us, anything is possible. She also has a
great Instagram account that we also talk about on the show. Um,
(04:11):
you know, there's a lot of Instagram therapists out there,
but I really enjoy Whitney's account because she again kind
of takes apart the tropes and the memes that, you know,
say we can manifest things and that's what we should
be doing. And so her instagram is at sit with
W W, H, I, T and M. One of my
(04:35):
favorite quotes that she says is life isn't meant to
be one endless self improvement project. You don't have to
pursue health and self improvement seven. You're allowed to watch
movies and TV with no educational component. You're allowed to
do nothing. You're allowed to sleep, You're allowed to eat
food just because it tastes good. You're allowed to read
something fun, you're allowed to move your body for enjoyment,
(04:57):
and you're even allowed to scroll on social media. So
check out her instagram page if you want to learn
more about not getting stuck in the self improvement spiral.
Of course, to all that after you listen to this episode,
what would be a toxically positive way for us to
(05:19):
start this episode? What would you have put you on
the spot? What would I say to you if I
were going to be uh full of toxic positivity? Oh gosh,
maybe something like you're here today because everything happens for
a reason. You know, everything that led up to this
(05:39):
moment is is why we're here together, and you are
here for a reason. That reason is is that you
said yes to my request to be on the show.
That is true. So yeah, your book and I'm holding
it up even though this is an audio podcast toxic positivity,
keeping it real in a world obsessed with being happy.
By you, Whitney Goodman, I wanted to start right out. Um.
(06:03):
You say in the book that the reason people are
so attracted to positive thinking, which I know is different
than toxic positivity, is that it gives us the illusion
of hope and control. And you know that's all that
anxious people want really is a sense of control. And
so take us through what is toxic positivity as opposed
(06:26):
to having a positive thought, like you know what, I
feel good this morning today is gonna be great. I
assume what I just said as a positive thought, that's
not toxic. Absolutely. So toxic positivity really hinges on the timing,
the audience, and the topic that's being discussed. So something
could be quite positive in one situation and and kind
(06:47):
of go into toxic territory in another. And what toxic
positivity is is really this like overarching pressure, this demand
to be happy, positive seeking that out all the time,
no matter what the circumstances. And I find that it
becomes toxic in these moments where people are really struggling
(07:09):
and having a hard time and someone is using positivity
as a way to help them cope with that. Right,
And and a lot of times it's imposed on us,
you're saying to by someone who's giving us advice. A
lot of times possible, for sure, I think it's imposed
on us from other people. We impose it on ourselves.
(07:29):
And it's also just like this cultural force, especially in
the United States, that we experience, you know, the right
to the pursuit of happiness and all of that. Yes,
so you're staying um in your book that positivity gives
us the illusion of hope and control. And I found
the word hope really interesting. I get that it gives
us a sense of control or the illusion of control,
(07:52):
which is again, as an anxious person, I was in
search of that my whole life, and honest to God,
for me, things didn't get better until I accepted I
don't have control, and I kind of found the almost
relaxation and that. But hope, now, am I am? I am?
I not understanding what you mean by hope because is
(08:14):
hope and illusion or you know, is what's wrong with hope?
And I know you're not saying anything's wrong with it,
but I'm being the Devil's ad becase. Yeah, no, I
hear you. I think that there's nothing wrong with hope.
It's when we're telling people that that's the only feeling,
that's the only thing they can think about, is that
(08:35):
they need to have hope. They need to have a
positive outlook, especially when things are just kind of shitty,
you know, like if somebody has just passed away. You know,
I've heard people you know, lost a child something like that,
and you're saying, like, well, you just have to hope
that it's going to get better. Or that something positive
is going to come along. And yes, hope is powerful
(08:57):
and it's good, but I think we use that sometimes
to really pull people out of situations that they might
need to grieve or or be in for a moment.
So it sounds like, I mean, as with anything with
anxiety and mental health, we kind of have to lean
into how we're feeling instead of trying to cover it up. Now,
covering it up worked, awesome, Let's cover up our feelings.
(09:21):
Let's move on, let's have a great life. But I'm
assuming that when we cover things up and being overly
positive as a way to just kind of skirt how
we're feeling how someone else is feeling, it will come
back to bite us in the ass, right, like what
actually happens in our psyche, in our body, in our
(09:42):
nervous system. You know. Let's say let's give the example
of what you you know, you're talking the book about,
you know, people getting fired and it's like your fun employed,
you know, would be like a toxic positivity framing. So
let's just say someone's going through something it subjectively hard,
it's not uh, it's not an emotional experience they're having
(10:02):
where they're like afraid to be on a plane. That's
totally not crashing, but they really lost their job, they
are getting a divorce, they whatever. And first of all,
when other people tell you to be positive, it is
so dismissive. It's almost like they can't handle feelings and
so they want to be comfortable, so they're putting this
(10:23):
crap on you. But let's take it back to the
person doing it to themselves. If they have almost this
neurosis about like if I'm negative, I'll attract negative energy.
So I gotta stay positive about this unemployment. What will
eventually happen in weeks, months, years if people never uh
(10:44):
sit with how they're feeling and instead try to cover
it up with positivity. Yeah, the research is pretty clear
on this that when we suppress our emotions, we try
to stuff them down, they end up just intensifying, getting worse,
and maybe coming out in other ways. So I see
a lot of people who think they're really doing fine.
(11:05):
They're like, oh, I don't have a lot of negative feelings,
I'm okay. But their sleep is disrupted, um, their relationships
are strained, they're eating habits are kind of wonky, They're
maybe using substances excessively doing a lot of these behaviors
that relate to near our sides, Like you're trying to
suppress or control something that might be bothering you. And
(11:27):
the longer we do that, the more likely that you're
going to see things like anxiety, depression, um, those types
of symptoms kind of show up. So by trying to
push something away, you're effectively sort of ensuring that it's
going to come out, and then it's going to come
out works than it was, probably right, and so when
(11:51):
it comes out worse later, it's not even like the
feeling you have later isn't even associated probably with the
original thing. So now you've got two problems, is right? Yeah,
And I think that's why when people come to therapy
a lot of the times they present a problem that
isn't really the problem, and so you're working with a
therapist and saying like, Okay, how can we connect this
(12:11):
back to maybe this original thing that you're not seeing
how it's tied together. Sometimes we're just talking about symptoms.
It seems like something like toxic positivity really can throw
a wrench in anyone's development, like, let alone their progress,
like if they haven't even ever had a need to
go to therapy. This seems like you do enough of
(12:33):
this for a few years and you're really slowing down
like any development that you could have. Yeah, you're really
inhibiting your ability to learn how to solve problems, um,
to work through things, to create different types of solutions.
And that's what we see a lot with the research
on positive thinking is that when people say this is
(12:55):
all gonna work out, I don't need to worry about it,
they're not engaging in any type of iCal thinking of
like what could go wrong? What problems could I run into,
What skills do I need to have? Um that it
can leave you feeling really inapt in a lot of
situations and wondering why they didn't work out. That's really
(13:15):
interesting that people are unlearning. Well, they're not even unlearning,
they're not learning a life skill. So you could actually
probably reach some success, right like with positive thinking. I
don't know if it's that you actually managed you know
that a person actually managed to make it happen, or
it's just a coincidence. But let's just say someone only
(13:36):
does the positive thinking, they don't feel their feelings, they
don't learn to solve problems. Now, they've become the CEO
or the celebrity whatever. UM is this why I see
a lot of successful people who are kind of like
helpless babies, Do you know what I mean? Yeah, you
know you're making me think of I've been watching all
the shows about like that We Work Guy and Elizabeth
(13:59):
Holmes of Sarah Nose, and like, when you watch these shows,
you kind of see that positive attitude that borders on
delusion in some of these five powered people, right, And
so that can get you so far, but when things
start to fall apart around you, if you're stuck in
this space of like it's all going to work out,
it's meant to be, and you can't look at the
(14:21):
problem and say we have buyers to put out here.
That's where the anxious person who is able to call
it out and say we gotta do something about this
is probably going to be more successful. Yeah. I was
just thinking about UM. You know, people with like fifty
five assistants and like, you know, you read all these
(14:42):
I followed this account on Instagram which speaking of toxic,
but I can't get enough of it. It's it's like
a gossip account, and I've been reading recently about UM
these assistants who you know, work for celebrities, and the
things they have to do, like run to the person's
house at three am because they don't know how to
(15:03):
use their freezer, you know, things like like I'm not
blaming it on tongues of positivity, but I do think
there's a correlation between It takes a lot to achieve
a certain amount of like material success, and I think
a lot of times the roads people take, um do
kind of block them from learning a lot of life
skills at the very least, let's say that. And then
(15:23):
the anxiety of like I don't know how to use
my freezer. It's three am, Um, you're calling someone and
making them get out of bed to do it. Like,
I just find that like so interesting for people out
there listening who think, like, you know, this is the
way to get everything you want, um, And it's like maybe,
(15:44):
but maybe there's a price with that. And it sounds
like what you're saying is that you kind of don't
develop really yeah. Yeah, and some people just get lucky
at the end of the day, you know. And so yeah,
you talked about the notion of like that some people say,
change your thoughts to change your life. And that's very attractive, right, because,
as you said, it taps into our biggest fear, which
(16:05):
is uncertainty. So what do you tell what do you
do with that? Like, what do you do with with
patients who are struggling with uncertainty and they really want
something like a oh, if I just change my thoughts,
my life will change. Solution, Like, how do you wrangle
that under law ants? Yeah, so people are very drawn
(16:26):
to that, and I think we have to normalize and
de pathologize the human condition. I tell people really that
uncertainty is actually quite normal. I find what my clients
are talking about a lot is that like I'm the
only one that feels this way. Other people are so
sure they know what they want. And that comparison, I
(16:46):
think is what drives people into this place of like
I have to change this about myself. And of course,
as you know, as someone who talks about anxiety and
it's lived with it, like, there's a level of uncertainty
that becomes debilitating and in facitating, and that's not what
I think we should be normalizing. But I think there's
this middle road where uncertainty can actually give us a
(17:09):
lot of gifts of like trying to figure out what's
important to us, what we want, what we don't want,
and if we don't have that, we miss out on
so much data um and and so many life skills
that I try to teach people how we can use
uncertainty to our advantage and also normalize it, you know,
(17:33):
within limits. Right. So if I'm sitting here while I
am in a phase of uncertainty in my life, I
um live on both coasts. I don't know I'll be
able to do that next year. I write for Living
for television. But it's not like you work at a
bank for forty years and they give you a watch
and you retire. It's like, what show do I work
on next year? Will anyone hire me? You know? There's
(17:54):
so many factors, and I'm always in a state of uncertainty,
and so I have to kind of be like, Okay, well,
the certainty is that there is uncertainty, but I have
this resume, this pedigree, this whatever, and I'll figure something out.
But whenever I've tried to force it and be like,
(18:16):
you know what, this is how my career has to go,
I've been wrong, and like, honestly, better things have happened
than I could have imagined, and so like, if I
got everything I wanted, my life might actually be smaller
than it is today, you know. Um. And it was
because of the uncertainty, like the pandemic, the I mean,
I'm still going on, but like the first six months
of lockdown and no vaccine, and I was sitting at
(18:39):
home working, but I was thinking, I, I don't know what.
I've had enough time to sit home and think what
do I want in the next phase of my life,
you know. And that's where I came up with the
idea for this podcast. I probably wouldn't have thought to
do that if I didn't massive six months of complete
uncertainty about you know, the world, not just me, but
(19:01):
you know the world. And it's not an attractive thing
to offer someone, right if I were to mentor someone
and say, well, it all came together for me during
a global pandemic and nobody Nobody's like, oh cool, let
me um, you know, hope that that happens. And so
is there a way to make it attractive to people
to like calm down with the needing to figure it out?
(19:23):
Like how can we not just normalize it but make
it seem like, hey, it's kind of cool to be
into not knowing. I mean, I think you kind of
just did that. And I want to point out for
anyone listening, like what you just did, because I think
it was the opposite of toxic positivity and like so
well aligned of like saying, my career is really uncertain,
(19:44):
my life has been really uncertain. This is what's like
hard about it and validating that and then saying and
I know I have my resume to fall back on.
I know I have this pedigree, I know I have
this thing, and I have created something in moments of
uncertainty in the past that has worked out even better
for me. And I think the way you just talked
(20:05):
about how both can exist is actually really like liberating
to me at least, Like that's where I feel freedom
is like, Okay, can invalidate what's hard and what's going
on now and also believe in the potential that things
could get better and even be great. We'll be right back.
(20:31):
In your book, you talk about the law of attraction
and and you ask like, can you really manifest anything? Um,
And you talk about what the law of attraction promises,
which is that if you feel negative emotions, you attract negativity.
If you cultivate positive emotions, things are drawn to you.
And you say, is we just kind of discussed not
(20:53):
everything that comes your ways because you attracted it, And
you say, you know, the world can be cruel and random,
and and I'm assuming on the upside the world can
be awesome in random. But you know, it's like I'm
joking a little bit, but like you are going up
against like a huge societal thing that has been kind
of I'm not gonna say shoved down our throats, but
(21:15):
I will say ever present, ever since really Oprah started
validating speaking of validating this thing. And maybe Oprah understands
what she's saying, but when you kind of put it
out there and in the hands of inexperienced people, I
think she set off this like shock wave of people
(21:35):
thinking they could manifest things and then if they don't,
right then here comes to shame sparrows. So take us
through what the problem is with law of attraction or
that kind of thinking. Yeah, with any of these things,
law of attraction, manifestation, all this stuff that fits in
bad umbrella. I really think that when it's used in
a positive way to say, like I attracted these good
(21:58):
things to me. I put this out in the world,
so I got it back. That's a very positive thing
if you're using it in that regard. The problem comes
up when the world is cruel and random, and I
see so many people who have gone through the unthinkable
in life who then kind of come to this conclusion
through that rhetoric of like, I attracted this illness, this trauma,
(22:24):
this abuse to me because of something that I did.
And I've gotten in really spirited conversations with a lot
of people about this that there are people who really
do believe that you attracted it in another life. Um,
then your mother thought about it while she was pregnant
with you, and that's why it came to you. And
(22:46):
I find that belief to just not really serve anyone.
I've seen it bring people people into a place where
they're constantly on edge about their thoughts, about what they're thinking,
about what they're attracting to themselves, and it gets into
this dynamic where we're very much like blaming the victim,
(23:07):
the person that we should be supporting and helping through something.
We're saying like, well, you did this to yourself, and
you should think a little bit more positive next time,
or change your phones. We're inviting shame to come in
right where we're shaming ourselves for not having done it right.
And I really am so happy to always talk about
(23:28):
shame as this kind of like hidden nugget of what
keeps us anxious and panicking. And it really seems like
in the weirdest way, it's comfortable in a weird way
for people, Like even blaming ourselves can sometimes feel comfortable
because it still feels like in a negative way. If
I blame myself, that's like a negative hope, like okay,
(23:50):
well next time, I'll not do it right. Right. I
think what you're alluding to is like it gives you
some control. Actually, it gives you a reason. And that's
what a lot of people are looking for, is like
I got sick because I did this. I, you know,
have panic attacks because I can't be like everybody else
and everyone's better than me. And the human brain really
(24:13):
likes certainty, likes knowing, and so we create narratives and stories,
even if they're bad or they're punishing us, they still
feel better than this, Like I wonder why this happened,
and I don't know why it happened that feels scary
to us, but we know that things are so multi factorial.
(24:35):
And that's like the problem with a lot of the
research on this stuff is that you can't look at
a person who got well from cancer or something and say, oh,
it was just their mindset. It's very, very difficult to
just pull out that one piece and say nothing else
influence that. Like the opposite of tongues of positivity is
(24:56):
not negativity, right, Yes, you know you you have a
chapter in your book about making positive affirmations work for you.
You know, um, like you're not denying the power of
positive language and loving yourself. And I love that you
talk about the notion that everyone else says, oh, you know,
you just love yourself, and how you had a therapist
you would make you say that in the mirror. Yes, sorry,
(25:22):
go ahead, Oh no, I was just wanted to hear
more about that about you know, obviously, yes, we should
love ourselves. So how do we, uh, if someone is
attracted to something like the law of attraction, how do
we allow them to do their version of positive thinking
that's not destructive? And how what's the work around for
(25:42):
something where you're screaming into the mirror. I love myself
and it doesn't feel right, like that's not going to
make you love yourself. I think the key piece here
is that it shouldn't feel dismissive, invalidating, or untrue for you.
So I was really shocked by the research on positive affirmations,
just because it's something that I have always been told
(26:05):
to use as a therapist. When I started reading the data,
I was like, Wow, this really doesn't work for people
with low self esteem. So it's so fascinating. Yeah. So
what we find, or what they have found in the
very few studies exist on this, is that people with
low self esteem, when they say these things to themselves,
it actually can bring up feelings of shame. Like we
(26:26):
talked about, is like I know this isn't true. There's
cognitive dissonance between like what I think is true about
myself and what I'm saying to myself, and so they
ultimately end up rejecting it um or almost looking for
reasons to reject it, which puts you back in that
negative spiral. So what I've discovered, just anecdotally through working
(26:48):
with clients is that if you can make the affirmations
more believable, more possible, and more dynamic that makes them
work better. So instead of saying I love myself, you
would say, I am trying to love myself. I am
working on loving myself. I would like to love myself,
(27:10):
or even breaking it down in like I show myself
love by drinking water. I show myself love by going
to bed at night. I'm really trying to back up
these affirmations with action because the other thing I see
a lot is like I told myself I love myself
ten times today, but everything else I did was in
(27:30):
direct conflict with that. You know, I negatively to myself.
I didn't eat, I didn't sleep, I didn't go outside.
So that's not the actions of somebody that loves themselves.
And that also creates a big gap between the affirmation
and what you're actually doing. Right, Like, we can't think
ourselves into these actions. We must have to take them,
(27:54):
which will build a self esteem. Right and then right
and and and I love that idea. I did affirmations
for anxiety and panic, and I did what I call
true affirmations that they may not be positive, but you know,
when you're panicking and you're telling yourself you're going to die,
I would say nobody's done from a panic attack. You've
been here before. Yeah, this sucks, but you'll get through it.
(28:17):
These aren't lies, you know. That's that's perfect. It's validating
and solid evidence. So you you prefer a tool that
you call whoop w O O P. What is what
is whoop? So? Whoop is a tool that was developed
by another psychologist that wrote the book um Rethinking positive thinking,
(28:39):
And in this tool, you're really looking at like what
is your ideal wish? Um, what do you want the
outcome to be? What obstacles could possibly get in your way?
And this is very different from positive thinking in the
sense that you're actually looking out for problems that could
come up, but you're also thinking about like what's my
(29:02):
ideal outcome? What are the possibilities? What do I want
to happen? So you can have this sort of like
vision board esque thing that also includes having, um, you know,
a problem solving session and thinking like, wow, that might
be hard for me to achieve without doing X, Y
and C. I love that because you know anyone listening
(29:25):
who might be like, God, I guess life is just
cruel and random and we should just let it happen.
And it's like no one is saying that it's okay
to make a plan, it's okay to you know, think
about what you want and all of that. It's it's
like learning how to make a plan and not beating
(29:45):
yourself up when it doesn't go quite the way you
think for sure, for sure, And I think that's one
of the very positive aspects of manifestation, positive thinking, all
of this is that identification of this is what I want,
this is what I imagine for myself, this is what
I can visualize for me, but also bringing in that
(30:06):
realistic piece of life. We may not all be able
to all achieve everything we want, and that's okay. Everyone
has different skill sets and abilities and really trying to
lean into what that is for you. We'll continue the
interview on the flip side of a quick message from
(30:27):
our sponsors. Do you think that this positive thinking toxic
positivity phenomenon is somehow tied in with like kind of
the American Uh, you know, being such a privilege and
wealthy country, Like we have too much choice in that
(30:50):
sense that like we're not just in survival mode all
the time, so um, we're always trying to manifest great
things and uh, then we get on ourselves when when
they don't come true. And I guess what I'm trying
to say is like, I know a lot of mental
health issues like low key depression and anxiety are from
(31:15):
kind of a modern life where we have so many
choices and we're told to choose things that make us happy,
and in a weird way, it if life were simpler,
we may not have all of these issues. Yeah, I
think you're onto something there, and I feel like it
has a lot to do with, you know, the American dream,
the pursuit of happiness, all these auctions. I talk about
(31:39):
happiness scripts in the book, which is something that's like
these prescribed methods of achieving happiness in our world that
I think a lot of people are afraid to step
outside of the lines, Like maybe I don't want to
get married, maybe I don't want to have kids, maybe
I don't want to have this type of career, but
we're told like, no, if you do this, you'll be happy.
So there's a there's a certain pressure there for sure.
(32:03):
And I know you said, you know, towards the end
of your book, what about opting out of the quest
for happiness, you know, looking at a value driven life,
versus happiness, So what is the what is the difference?
I mean, obviously, if we live a value driven life
and it's working out, will probably end up feeling happiness
is a byproduct, right, absolutely, So the difference is that
(32:25):
in a happiness driven life, I find that people are
so focused on feeling constant happiness that they may be
cut people out of their life, don't choose experiences that
disrupt that, et cetera. With the value driven life, you're
living in life with your values, and that means living
in life is what's important to you. And when you
do that, you discover that those things are probably going
(32:48):
to bring you happiness and joy and fulfillment, but they
also might be painful and difficult, and part I I
compare this a lot to parenting that I know for
me is a huge wake up called like, okay, it
sexs me happy, but it's also really really hard. And
when you're told that something is only going to make
(33:10):
you happy, I think it can be really confusing for
people when it's a mixture of emotions. Do you think
that there's something to that? People? I feel that the
only one and I get it. You don't know that
until you find out that other people feel this way.
But isn't it hard when you do find out you're
not the only one? In a weird way that like
(33:32):
it would almost be easier if you were the only one,
because it would opt you out of having to do
anything about it would mean like you're such a rare
case that like we're still working on the solution. But
once you find out everyone goes through something, it can
be hard to be like, oh, well, I guess I
have to get to work on changing that. You know,
it can be hard. It is it is. It's so
interesting in therapy that I find that people don't want
(33:55):
to be alone, but they also want to be very unique.
And so it's like, is weird like conundrum of being
a human being. I don't know how you do it
because I would go crazy. They get have the patients,
I'd be like, you know, the person that came in
before you said the same exact thing. You know what,
(34:15):
I'm gonna go get her. She's still in the waiting room.
I would be fired immediately, and you know, I have
my license taken away. But um, but you talk about
the need to feel difficult emotions, right, and so we've
talked earlier about like if you don't feel them, um,
it can come up later. But then you talk about
some patients of yours that you've talked to. I mean,
(34:36):
easier said than done, right, Like, oh great, I'll skip
the positive thinking and I'll get to feeling my emotions.
But how do you do that? I mean one of
your patients was like, I'm fine, and you could see
in her face that she wasn't. And maybe she's not
connecting to a feeling. So how do you um teach
people too? There's a whole chapter in your book about
(34:57):
process and emotion. The first step my thing is really
just getting people in touch with their physical bodies. I
think a lot of people are only in their heads
with their thoughts, and so trying to figure out, like
what do certain emotions feel like when they manifest for
me physically? How can I label them? How can I
make them known to me? And once you know what
(35:17):
you're feeling, you can give it a name. It's much
easier to figure out what do I need to do
about this? What do I have access to and move
yourself through that feeling process. I thought this was so interesting.
I mean, I guess I didn't really know this. I
never thought about it. But in your book, I'm going
to read your own book to you, you define an
(35:39):
emotion versus a feeling, and I honestly, I think if
you had just asked me, is there a difference, I'd
say no, um. And emotion is a physiological experience like
rapid heartbeat or difficulty breathing, that gives you information about
the world. It's a complex reaction pattern that is determined
by the significance of the event. A feeling is your
conscious awareness of the emotion itself. That's mind blowing. Yeah. Yeah,
(36:05):
So feelings are the things we experience in our heads
more and emotions in our bodies. Yeah, feelings are more
of like the conscious awareness of like giving it a label.
So for you, anxiety might be like uh, sweaty poems,
racing heartbeat, your stomach. As I've said, you're like, oh,
this is anxiety. You're giving it a name, You're making
it known to you as a feeling. Other people might
(36:27):
identify that as something else, like oh, I I feel
excited or I feel scared, or there are so many
different ways to label and interpret the ways that emotions
come up in the body. I'm such a geek about
this kind of stuff that it makes me so happy.
And so lastly on this topic before I want to
(36:50):
talk about your Instagram career too, but you talk about
not forcing gratitude, and you know, I'm actually a big
fan of gratitude journals. My listeners have heard me go
on and on about this, but I will tell you
the reason I like them is because I don't feel
anything when I'm writing in my gratitude journal. So I
try to It's just a part, just a way to
(37:11):
get connected to my umself in the morning, and I
handwrite it just that I don't like immediately start checking
email or make coffee. You know, I will just write
ten things I'm grateful for and I don't have to
feel it. I'm not sitting there like singing on a
mountaintop and feeling spiritual. But it's just very concrete things,
you know, friendships, I don't know. I just looked in
(37:34):
the mirror and hey, I look pretty good. You know.
I like that I accept myself today or whatever. And
then I now have this notebook of proof of things
that are kind of awesome in my life. And so
when my ruminations are going or I want to beat
myself up, I just can't look at what I wrote.
You know, no one else wrote. It's not bullshit, And
so I like it as like I'm keeping a record, um,
(37:56):
but you're talking about in your book that you know. Again,
here comes the shame. It's like we shame ourselves into
thinking we have to feel gratitude all the time. Yeah.
I think gratitude can drift into like toxic positivity territory
when we are using it to shame ourselves or as punishment.
(38:17):
It sounds like what you're doing is like a very
calculated positive decision to sit down and reflect on those things. Now,
if you were crying about something I'm really upset and
someone was like, you need to be grateful, you should
go sit down and write in your gratitude journal, that
would probably be a really different experience, um than your
(38:38):
morning ritual that you've developed. And that's the fine line there,
I think where it's all about. It's it's a great tool,
but not all tools fit in every situation, and you
have to be careful not to tell people that are
going through a hard time. You're like, well, they're starving
kids here, or at least it's not that like gratitude
(39:03):
using shame to adduce gratitude is not effective. And by
the way, like if we are these people that live
in a wealthy country and have a pretty good life,
like we're in a position to help others and and
shaming ourselves is really not going to help anybody, and
so you know it doesn't Yeah, it doesn't solve any
(39:25):
problems at all. But I do think that, you know,
there's a fine line, right like, there is something to
be said for perspective, which is which is um, you know,
there's someone going through a hard time, and then there
can be someone who is like an anxious person who's
caught in like negative loopy thinking where they're like literally
believing that everything is so hard for them when it's
(39:47):
really not. But again, I don't think like gratitude is
the solve for that, right right I. Perspective is extremely powerful.
I just think it's again about the timing and also
thinking about like how can I organically a lot like
you were doing, Notice what's good in my life? So
if I'm going through a hard time, I can say, like,
(40:07):
this has been really hard, and I'm so glad I
have support of my friends to get through this, and
I'm so glad that I had a meal dropped off
for me tonight, Like there are ways to validate what
you're going through and recognize that something is is good. Lastly,
the word I meant to mention earlier was compassion. That
(40:29):
that seems to be your um you know, like for you,
like the the opposite of toxic positivity sounds like it's
really like compassion for yourself because there there isn't a
lot of compassion for yourself in you all of this
positive thinking. You know, yeah, I think compassion for yourself,
(40:50):
accepting what is and I'm having hope for the future
are like the powerful combo that we all could benefit from.
And self compassion is like a really good brick on
the road to loving yourself, right, It's like you can
start there at least exactly. And so along this talk
(41:11):
of positivity is you know, we see it every day
on social media. We see all kinds of horrible things
on social media, but there are so many people that
whether it is they are some kind of influencer or
even just someone who's posting a lot of memes or whatever,
you know, social media can be a really hard place
to not go into that like comparing and despairing or
(41:34):
not get sucked into wanting to be like these people
and do positive thinking. But you have a great um
social media presence, like you're known as Instagram's favorite therapist,
right and you have sit with wit and so how
has social media been, for lack of a better word,
a positive thing for you? Yeah? So you know, I've
(41:58):
really crafted my social media and way that I'm only
following people now that I like to follow, and if
someone's making me feel really bad about my life, I
don't follow them. I'm trying to rework my relationship with
social media now because the algorithm is always changing. They're
always wanting you to do something different. Um that I
(42:19):
feel like, I love the community that I've built there.
I love being able to interact with people, but I
also have to watch myself with how much a time
I spend dedicated to that space, or even comparing myself
to other therapists, other people that are doing I'm like, oh,
she's launching this, she has that, and it can I
(42:40):
can fall into that same trap. It must be so
hard because therapy is to be such a literally private practice,
and now you can have a social media presence and
you can be this kind of circuit therapist for people
before they get help, or just to get a different
perspective even if they aren't therapy. And it must be
hard to not fall into ut um trap of like
(43:01):
comparing yourself to others and like trying to push that
angle of your career um which didn't really exist ten
years ago, you know, like you didn't get into it
for Instagram, you know, no, no, And and there's definitely
like people who think that therapists shouldn't be doing that.
There's people who think it's good. It's it's so complicated,
(43:23):
it's I am grateful for it. I hope you had
fun listening to my conversation with Whitney Goodman. And here
are the takeaways from our conversation. And again you can
find these on my website Jen Kirkman dot com and
then click anxiety Bites again. The link will be in
(43:45):
the show notes. So toxic positivity is an overarching pressure,
a demand to be happy and positive and seeking that
out all of the time, no matter the circumstances. Toxic
positivity can imposed on us from other people, or we
can impose it on ourselves. And sometimes it's just a
cultural force. When we tell people that the only feeling
(44:08):
they can have during a tough time like the death
of a loved one is hope, and that they need
to have a positive outlook. Sometimes we're just using hope
to try to pull others out of situations that they
might actually need to stay in and grieve first. When
we suppress our emotions with positive thinking, they can end
up intensifying and coming out in other ways. People who
say they don't have negative feelings may still have strained relationships,
(44:30):
disrupted sleep, wonky eating habits, or substance abuse, again, all
signs that they're not processing and feeling their emotions. If
you're trying to suppress or control something that's bothering you
with positive thinking, eventually you will see things like anxiety
or depression symptoms show up. Turning only to positive thinking
(44:51):
can inhibit one's ability to learn how to solve problems
and create different types of solutions. The research on positive
thinking is that when people insist that things will all
work out, they're not engaging in any type of critical
thinking of what could go wrong, what problems could develop,
what skills do I need to have. It can leave
(45:11):
someone feeling inept in situations and wondering why things didn't
work out. Anxious people who are able to call out
problems and want to do something about it may be
more successful at handling things than someone who only practices
positive thinking, which can only take you so far until
things start to fall apart. Whitney Goodman wants us to
(45:35):
normalize and deep pathologize the human condition and let people
know that uncertainty is normal. There's a middle road of
uncertainty that can give us gifts of trying to figure
out what's important to us, what we want, what we
don't want. In not accepting uncertainty, we miss out on
data and learning life skills, and we can use uncertainty
(45:58):
to our advantage and normalize it within limits. Instead of
pushing toxic positivity on others. We can validate what's hard
for us and for others, and also believe in the
potential that things could get better and even be great.
The problem with relying too heavily on the law of
attraction is when the world is cruel and random, it
(46:21):
can cause people who have gone through difficult things to
conclude that they attracted their illness or their trauma because
of something they did. The law of attraction can venture
into toxic positivity when people are constantly on edge about
their thoughts and what they're attracting to themselves. The notion
of manifesting can be toxic when there's a dynamic of
(46:42):
blaming the victim. The person we should be supporting and
helping through something is instead hearing that they did this
to themselves and they should be more positive next time.
The human brain really like certainty, and so we create
narratives where even if the narratives are bad or punishing us,
we still feel bad or because we feel like we
know why something happened. Research shows that positive affirmations don't
(47:06):
actually work well for people with low self esteem. Being
told to say things like I love myself can bring
up feelings of shame, and this person will end up
looking for reasons to reject the notion or get caught
in a negative spiral. Whinney works with clients on more
believable and dynamic affirmations. Instead of saying I love myself,
she would suggest affirming something like I am trying to
(47:29):
love myself, or I am working on loving myself, or
even something more specific like I show myself love by
drinking water or I show myself love by going to
bed at night. When people with low self esteem are
told to affirm I love myself many times a day,
what they're doing maybe in direct conflict with that, like
(47:49):
not eating well, not sleeping, not going outside. Those aren't
the actions of someone who loves themselves. There are, of course,
positive aspects of manifesting, such as the identification of knowing
what you want, learning to imagine something for yourself and
being able to visualize it, but also bring in that
realistic piece of accepting that we may not all be
(48:10):
able to achieve everything we want and that's okay. Looking
at trying to create a value driven life versus a
happiness driven life is one way out of the trap
of toxic positivity. Choosing a value driven life, you're living
in line with what's important to you instead of avoiding
experiences that disrupt in order to stay quote happy, and
(48:34):
living a value driven life will most likely bring you
to things that provide joy and fulfillment. As a therapist,
witness sees a weird conundrum of being human, and that
is that people don't want to feel alone in their problems,
but they also want to be very unique. An emotion
is a physiological complex reaction pattern that is determined by
(48:57):
the significance of the event. Feeling is your conscious awareness
of the emotion itself. And the opposite of toxic positivity
isn't negative thinking, but instead having compassion for yourself, accepting
what is, and having hope for the future. Again, if
you would give this podcast a five star review, a
(49:19):
positive but not toxically positive review on iTunes and Spotify,
that will help other people find the podcast, which helps
me maybe do another season of this show. So the
more people that listen, the better the chances of that,
and you help that all in your hands, so please
go write a five star review. You can even just
give it five stars and write love it something simple.
(49:41):
Send me an email Anxiety Bites Weekly at gmail dot
com if you would like to submit your tips and
tricks for your anxiety disorder, if you have any questions
or just want to make a general comment about any episode,
and as well, you can find everything you need to
know about Whitney Goodman in the show notes. Thanks again
(50:01):
for listening, and remember Anxiety Bites, but You're in control.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i
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