March 24, 2020 • 30 mins
This is Amy’s ‘5th Thing’ (a bonus episode) where she answers your questions every Tuesday! ‘4 Things With Amy Brown’ comes out every Thursday, but on Tuesdays Amy answers questions you’ve emailed in. On today’s episode Amy and therapist Kathryn Defatta {@threecordstherapy} address all your questions about the COVID-19 pandemic: how to keep from getting depressed while social distancing, maintaining a healthy relationship with food during a time of high stress, creating boundaries during quarantine and how to balance news consumption and our mental health.
To check out more information on Kathryn Defatta and Three Cords Therapy CLICK HERE!
(Episode 127)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Okay, Happy Tuesday, everybody. It's Q and A day. And
I do have a guest sometimes chased as Q and
A with me, maybe my sister, maybe Mary, maybe my
husband Been or sometimes it's just me. But today I
have Katherine Defata here with me. And if you're like, wait,
that sounds familiar, well, if you listen to Thursdays Four
Things episode, which was actually just one thing this last week,
(00:26):
Catherine was on there as an expert, coming on to
talk with me and Lisa, who is at the Well
Necessities on Instagram UM as part of our new series
that we're launching in April. Right here on four Things
with Amy Brown. Every Saturday UM, an episode will load
up and it's going to be called Outweigh, and we're
(00:46):
just talking about the gray area of disordered eating and
you know, whether you've struggled with UM, restricting, binging, purging,
all the different things we cover it. We have personal
stories from real people just like you, and then we
have experts that were brought on. Well. Catherine was one
(01:06):
of the experts and our session with her call it
a session because it ended up very being very therapeutic
UM since she's a therapist and she specializes in eating disorders.
We decided to upload our talk with her as a
four Things episode as a one thing just to give
(01:27):
you a sneak peek of what the series is going
to be like. Um, so that was super special, So
thank you Catherine for rew pard of that. And then
with you know the Corona virus, you know, COVID nineteen
whatever you're calling it, um craziness. I thought I would
have her come on and do the Q and A
(01:48):
episode with me today and answer some of your questions
I put up on Instagram the other day, like what
would you like to hear um? Or what would you
like to have answered during this time for I'm a therapist,
and so I'm we're doing four questions, but it's questions
like we got multiple of and kind of formed a question.
So it's not like, oh, this question is from you
(02:10):
know Cindy. Uh, it's kind of an overall this was
a theme of what people wanted to know. And then
I'm also going to have Catherine on on Thursday doing
all four things with me and we're going to cover
you know, uh, awareness, like you need to be aware
that this is real and it's happening. Kind of what
to do with that. We're going to cover self care
(02:32):
like you haven't never done it before, definitions, new definitions
of what that is, the difference between self care and
self maintenance. Um. The third thing we'll get into on
Thursday is missing family and friends, because that's that's hard
for a lot of us right now. And then the
fourth thing will be productivity, like how to stay productive
during this time. So if you're like, oh, man, I
(02:53):
wish in this Q and A they would have covered
some of that stuff, well, don't worry. We do got
you covered, and we'll get into it and more of
a long, low, longer form than today's Q and A
on Thursday, So make sure you're ready for that. But
I guess for now we'll get into um some of
the questions that were sent in for today's Q and A. UM,
(03:15):
so Catherine, something that people were sending in was how
do I keep from getting depressed? Or what if I
already deal with depression? And now I'll here I am
and I select an isolation, so like what can we
what can we do with that? So something that is
really cool and maybe not so well known, is the
fact that movement is just as helpful and effective at
(03:39):
treating depression as medication is. Now you might be saying, well,
I can't leave my house, so that's not helpful. You
can still move, um, in which we talked a lot
about in the episode that we um that Thursday. UM.
And so yeah, I would encourage you guys to like
find ways to keep moving, Like it doesn't have to
(04:00):
be traditional, but find a way to keep moving. I
think that's the most recent research I saw was that
I think, like around fifteen minutes a day of walking
is just as effective as medication if you do it
consistently well, walking it's not that crazy. And so think
about what are things that I can do in my house, um,
that will get me moving and activate some of those
(04:22):
brain features. But whenever people not that this is the
same thing because it's depression. But whenever I think of
chemicals our body releases and working out, I think of
legally blocks and el woods. Just like, yeah, what, happy
people just don't kill people. He was working out and
working about releases endorphins and endorphins make you happy, and
happy people don't kill people. Right, So there you go.
(04:46):
But I don't think also to your saying like if
you legit clinically have being diagnosed with X Y Z
and P perscribed X Y and Z, and you need
to stay on that medication, then stay on your may don't.
I'm not a doctor. This is this is not for
like I don't. I don't. I wasn't taking these questions
as like, I'm clinically in depression right now. What can
(05:06):
I do? I think the overall consensus of what I
was getting from some of the questions where this is
a very depressing time and now I'm isolated to my house.
How do I prevent from falling into some sort of depression? Yes,
so like exaggerated sadness, even like a heavy sadness maybe
what you're UM you're talking about and so yeah, the
(05:29):
movement part is huge. The other part is UM creating
spaces that feel good for you. So windows, like if
you're working from home, like work by a window, don't
really really, really really really attempt to resist UM closing
your blackout curtains and staying in your room for hours
and hours and hours. I love blackout curtains at night.
(05:52):
I mean time people come over to my house, every
curtain is closed and they're like, what what is wrong
with you? And I'm like, I hate day life. I
like being outside, but in my house. I don't know
what it is. I that might be something I need
to work through because it's something that gives me a
weird feeling of like, also, I really don't like sports
(06:13):
on with windows open, like sports and the daytime. I
really want to dive into what for me, it's a thing.
And my husband even knows, like he'll be like, I've
really gotten over it a lot, but in the beginning
of our marriage it was hard because I was like,
just no sports during the daytime with windows and I
(06:34):
don't know if it has to do with my dad
and childhood and when you know, he used to watch
sports during the day and I would be trying to
talk to him and he would be ignoring me. Yeah. Um,
that's what I've my husband through some years. And because
he's like what is this, Because he's like, this is
weird and it's really affecting, you know, Saturday football. I
(06:58):
will say, in my like ten years seven, I don't
know how long of seeing people, nobody's come to me
with that specific issues and so thick and it's an
issue and it's real, like feel something that not make
it so yeah, I need a problem. We're going to
work on the current curtains. So Amy, I'm gonna check
in on you tomorrow and see if your curtains are open. Um.
(07:21):
And then with that, do find something that you enjoy, Like,
find something that you can do that you enjoy, whether
it is like I really like breakfast, so I'm gonna
cook breakfast, or like I really like listening to this song,
so I'm gonna listen to this song. But be proactive
in doing little little things that actually will make a
big difference. Um. Does that make sense? Yeah? No, I
(07:43):
like that. Um, so it's like, what are you doing
to be proactive preventative stuff? And so also, if you
are seeing a therapist right now, keep seeing your therapists,
like they can still see you. You can do your
virtual session and yeah it might feel different, but it's
all about kind of your attitude of how you go
in it. And um, you guys can't even talk about
(08:04):
that of like this feels weird, How is this going
to be helpful? But if that's something that you're doing
right now and you do struggle with depression and sadness, um,
I would really urge you to not cancel the session
because it's going to be online. Okay. Another question that
I got a multiple questions about how to do with
(08:25):
food and eating and stress eating during this time, um,
and even from some of it since you're part of
our Outweigh series and you know, there's a lot of
people that are in eating just sort of recovery, and
but they've had all this stuff in their life that's
been help help them stay on course, and suddenly they're
confined to their home with not a lot, so much
(08:48):
uncertainty and stress and food right there in the pantry
and back and forth. And it's like, at some point
that might have been somebody's like, oh dream, but then
now that it has to happen, it's like whoa. It's scary,
especially because people are hoarding food and like that, yes,
because you have to buy. Yeah, that's another good point.
I haven't even some people have stocked up. Hopefully we've
(09:10):
been reasonable a lout that. I know some people have
gone overboard, but that could just be everybody's personality is different.
But we also, I mean, I'm trying to be rational
with my shopping of like if there's you know, five
things left, I don't need to take off I can
take one and leave one for somebody else, and hopefully
(09:31):
that person will just take one, and then five different
people will get the five that are left. Like, we
really need to look out for each other. I think
that this is now more than ever. You have to
be looking out for people, even as simple as a
jar of something like like we're all in this together,
all in this together. Which that's another thing. Actually to
Dale post online and I wasn't even a big high
school musical person, but like a week ago or maybe
(09:53):
longer by the time you're listening to this, she posted
that high school musical dance and then like one of
the other people from high school musical did it and
they did a side by side and it's like we're
all ever, you know, And now it's it's all in
my head anytime I think that because we are we
have to look out for each other. We can't hoard everything.
(10:14):
You don't need to buy all the toilet paper. You
need to check on your neighbors, you need to check
on the elderly, you need to check on those that
don't maybe don't have anybody else and see how can
we be a helper in this situation? Um And sometimes
being a helper may just be well check on the
helpers to Okay, check on the help That's that's important too.
(10:35):
But back to the food being totally like you have
more of it maybe in your house, and then you've
got you know, more time in your house with the food.
So more people are scared and more feelings, So people
are scared of of what that are we going to emerge?
Like Bobby even said on the show, on the Bobby
Bones Show the other day, He's like, there's you know
(10:55):
how there's the Freshman fifteen. There's something going around now
that like we're gonna emerge from this that the Quarantine fifteen. Yes,
and there's a lot of and again they're meant to
be like in fun of like how can we find
a little bit of joy in this horrible, crazy time?
But yeah, those those kind of memes actually can be
pretty triggering because that is some people's biggest fear um.
(11:16):
And so what I would encourage people to do is
this is what I would say to them even if
we weren't in this situation of like when you're going
and you notice yourself stress eating, Okay, it all comes
back to awareness. If you are walking towards the fridge
and you're standing in front of the fridge and you're
just like eating random stuff. I want you to ask yourself, like,
what am I feeling right now? Um? Like what emotion
(11:37):
is coming up? What am I feeling? Because your emotions
and your feelings are actually really important things that leads
you to what you actually need. And so if you
are standing there and you're eating whatever, it would be
like you're deep into a bag of cheetos and you're like,
I'm not even hungry, and then you ask yourself, what's
going on? Okay, I'm feeling fear, Okay, what do I need?
(11:59):
You don't need cheetos. You might need to call your
friends so they can calm you down. Like it could
be a million things. But I would encourage anybody who
is struggling with over eating. We can call stress eating.
Whatever makes sense to you. Check in with yourself, figure
out what you're feeling so we can figure out what
you actually need. If you want to learn more about feelings,
(12:19):
you can listen to my podcast. Oh yeah, can I
say that now? So? I have a podcast called You
Need Therapy, and we did a whole um episode on
feelings and talking about each one specifically what happens when
you allow yourself to feel it and what happens when
you can try to hide from it, and so it
might be really helpful if you're like I don't know
how to feel feelings. We go through some of that,
(12:40):
and so yeah, I would encourage you to listen to
that and then check in with yourself when you are eating, um,
over eating. Okay, that's good because I mean and I
know that it's so much more than that. But it's
just a Q and A. But I think you're giving
resources or like sending people two things you've recorded before
could be helpful. So yes, never hold back on any
of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah, plus people have
(13:02):
a lot of extra time to listen upon that all
of the time. So uh, what about for people that
maybe need to create boundaries with somebody, because some people
are quarantined a loan, Some people are quarantined with in
relationships where they normally have their freedom of their everyday
life where I go do this, you go do that,
(13:23):
and then suddenly, um, their their different personalities are stuck
in the same house and one person might be needier
than the other. So it's like there needs to be
boundaries created even though you can't leave the house. Yes,
So this is a great question for just life in general.
One thing that I try to stress to people is
(13:44):
we train other people how to treat us, and so
what we allow people are going to continue to do.
And so if we don't allow certain things, people aren't
going to keep continuing to ask for it. And so
one way we can quote rain people how to treat
us is with this really simple sentence, UM that helps
(14:06):
you express yourself. So we're going to go through it together. Um,
I kind of want to think of a we can
I kind of want to use your dog as an example,
but my dogs up here. So okay, how it goes
is when you blank, I feel blank, the story I
create around that, or the judgment I make is blank.
(14:27):
This is what I need. And so what you're doing
is you're creating a boundary. And I always also say
a boundary without a consequence is just a suggestion. So
if we're just asking, like i'd really like you to, like,
let's say, like every morning, like we live together, and
every morning you came in my room and you jumped
on my bed at and I was like, Amy, I
would really like, if you would stop doing that, but
(14:49):
like it gave you so much joy to come in
my room every single day, angel in my bead, my
feelings would be heard, but you would just continue to
do it. But then what hold on? I'm already thinking
of how I feel like if it gave me joy
to do that, But then you're like, I need so
you tell me that, and then I'm supposed to just
be like, my my feelings are gonna be hurt. Well,
that's not what I was going Sorry, but I hear you.
(15:13):
I know. Let me give you a better way. Do
you say it? Just better where it doesn't hurt their feelings? Right?
Because obviously I think the message the questions I was
getting for you is like people are nervous and scared
too now that they're in these situations with their partner
or their spouse or their roommates or whomever, and they're
constantly around each other. Is how do they create the
boundaries without saying something that's going to hurt their feelings? Right?
(15:35):
So we call this something. You call this a carefrontation
instead of a confrontation. Okay, you don't have to call
it that, but that's so, this is how I would
say that and tell me how this what this brings
up in you? Two of um amy. When you came
in my room this morning and jumped on my bed, you,
I felt really scared because I didn't know what was happening. Um.
(15:58):
The story that I made up is that something was
breaking into our house. Um. And so I'm going to
ask you that tomorrow. If you want to jump on
my bed, you text me and ask me first. Um.
And if you can't do that, and then that's where
you would put in a consequence. Um. So does that
feel different? Yeah, but then give me an example of
putting in a consequence. So, so that for that one,
(16:23):
because I'm making this up. If you can't, so now
you're making me feel like I need to take care
of your feelings, which is also something I teach you
them not to do. Don't don't need The consequence would
be like if you can't do that, I'm gonna start
locking my door. Oh dang, Okay, you know what I mean.
But all the all snap jumping, it's fine, Okay, I
didn't realized this was serious. Like that's that's yeah, this
(16:46):
is me. I'm actively now, Okay, I'll no longer come
and jump on your bed, like that's what I didn't
realize you didn't like that so much. So that's just
that's a good point because a lot of times people
were like, I didn't know. You didn't I thought that
you thought it was funny, Like, oh, I didn't know,
Thank you so much for telling me. So, if you're
like a husband, let's say that he is like wants
(17:10):
to be attached at the hip with you and like
during this corn yeah, and like you're like, I feel
really a lot of fear when you're always around me
because it makes me feel like you're micromanagement or like
maybe I'm doing something wrong or whatever the story is
for you, he might say like, oh my gosh, I
didn't know that. I thought that, like you wanted to
be close to me because it made me feel safe.
And so you're also like bringing up this like the
(17:33):
judgment part of the story, which we all have different stories,
so it's actually can be really helpful. And then you
say to the husband, so if you don't get away
from me, I'm not gonna have sex with you. It's like, yeah,
I would do whatever you want. He's like, I'm gonna
be over here. But it's like I mean that would
(17:57):
be a great example of like, yeah, he wants to
do that. Yeah, in all reality, that was a joke
because you should never probably use um, I don't know.
I'm not a therapist, but you probably shouldn't use I
wouldn't suggest that sex as a any sort of a
incentive to do something right. Yeah, probably that will be
(18:22):
the next episode of Fourthings, Okay, Um, well, yeah, and man,
I feel like there's probably a lot of Yeah. And
it may not be a spouse, it might be a
roommate or a sibling or a whole family. They're just
(18:44):
not used to be mom you know, yes, your mom
or your kid, and suddenly now you are confined to
the house with them. So I would say communication is
so key, and then using the SAXT sense, say again,
when you blank, I feel blank, the story I make slash,
(19:05):
the judgment I have is blank, what I need is blank.
And again you can yeah, you can say that in
like a non therapist e way. I use that all
the time in my life and people don't know that
I'm like doing that, if that makes sense. Yeah. The finesse, well,
I think we have to get get the finesse or
(19:25):
practice the finesse. I feel like a lot of people
are right probably like right now, okay, like Catherine said
to Hi, husband, can you come here real quickly? So
what I am feeling is blank? Oh I mean sorry,
I would have just say that, okay, um, all right,
And then the fourth question will be the last question
of the day, is like how do we balance or
(19:49):
know what's healthy for us when it comes to news consumption,
Like because obviously we want to be informed of what's
happening with coronavirus, but when it how do we find
that balance? Yeah, because I think there's a big difference
in like ignoring reality and being sucked into whatever it
is you're being sucked into, um, whether it's like warrior
(20:09):
panic um. And so I would suggest, like limit the
amount of time you're watching TV, like if you're watching
the news specifically, so if it's if you've just find
yourself glued to it all day, turn it off and
watch it for thirty minutes in the morning, or like
read one news article about what's going on a day,
or if social media is being challenging for you, like
(20:33):
limit that as well. There are features where you can
like lock certain like you can look at your your
own phone, but there are features that you can lock
yourself out of certain apps for um, certain times a day,
and so um practice turning your phone off and going
and doing something and just make sure that you're not
spending your day trying to figure out what's happening in
(20:55):
the world because you're not going to be able to
change it. Yeah, by yourself. It's eventually you can make
small differences. But um, yeah, that's like you have to
give yourself those boundaries and whatever that looks like for you.
You may can handle an hour of the news, but
if it really is a rooming, maybe you take us
straight up. Maybe you haven't gone a day without reading
(21:16):
an article watching the news. It's not going to hurt
you to step away from Twitter and Instagram or the
news for a full twenty four hours. It's just not
at this point you can handle that. And again, going
back to your feelings, why do you feel like you
need to watch this all day long? What are you
trying to find in um managing that way? What do
(21:38):
you really need? Do you really need to be watching
the news? Or again, do you need to call a friend?
You can also use that boundary sentence towards yourself, like Catherine,
when you go on Instagram for three hours a day, Um,
I feel terrified. The story that I make is that
the world's gonna end. I'm gonna need you, like you
can do that for you. Set a boundary. I call
that an internal boundary. Set it with yourself. Hmm. I
(22:01):
like that. Okay, Well, thank you for answering some of
the the most asked type questions, um that we received.
And then, like I said, Catherine's going to be on
this Thursday for all four things, UM, and she'll probably
be back again for stuff who knows. I feel like
(22:24):
we all need a lot of like wisdom and guidance
during this time. But just take care of yourself and yeah,
go ahead. UM. I just want to say on the
like the last, I mean, with all of them, but
offer yourself in all of these areas grace, because you're
not crazy for wanting to know what's going on in
(22:45):
the world, and so honor yourself too of like, there's
not something wrong with you because you feel anxious. You
feel anxious because you're scared, probably because you care about
your life in the world, and so I just want
to offer that with any of the questions we just answered, yeah,
thank you for them, and um, Catherine's instagram is at
three Chords Therapy if you want to follow her and
(23:09):
then say your podcast one more time, it's just you
need therapy, Like why why you need therapy? You need
we all need therapy. Um, so yeah, do that. Check
out her podcast because this Q and A is over.
So now you have your like what am I going
(23:30):
to listen to next? Well, boom, we just gave you something.
And then also, yeah, find how you can be a
helper this week and helpers look very different. Help like
being a helper literally could be smiling if you see
someone across the street on a walk when you're on
a walk, a smile in a wave and a simple
(23:50):
how are you? Even if you don't know the person,
you could have that could be the one interaction they
have today. Think about it if they left their house
to go on a walk and they hadn't seen a
human in a day, and all they would like is
for someone to smile and say hi to them. Maybe
that's you. Um. It could be you know, checking on
(24:10):
the people in your neighborhood that might need help. It
could be sending a text to someone to let him
know you're thinking of them. Um, what it could be
sending groceries to someone that's elderly that you know, you
know needs it. Bobby's girlfriend, Caitlin, she met this older
woman at Target that was there by herself. Um, clearly
someone we would be concerned if they got Corona. She
(24:32):
didn't know anybody even. Somehow Caitlin struck up a conversation
with her and she said, Hey, here's my phone number.
If you need anything during this, you let me know.
And she kind of left and was like, well, I'll
probably never hear from her. And like five days later,
that elderly woman sent her a text and was like, Hi,
I'm the woman you met at Target. I have no
idea if you were serious about what you said, but
i really need some things from the store and I'm
(24:53):
scared to go. So if that offer still stands, I
would love to take you upon it. And Caitlin was like, yeah,
I'm healthy, twentysomething year old, like I can go to
the store for her and drop it off at her
place so she doesn't have to compromise her health by
going out to the store. Help her. That's a and
that's a big deal. And I know this woman and
she literally thought she would never hear from her again.
(25:14):
But guess what, that woman texted and needed help. So
you never know who is going to need help during
this time. How can you support friends that have lost
income or jobs? How can you support companies, small businesses,
um or even you know large for that matters having
they're having to lay people off, but buying gift cards,
(25:36):
which is floating alone, like you buy it now, you
can use it later. Um. You know what A lot
of that I've seen a lot of restaurants are doing
is selling like one fifty first tap room is in
um the nations, but they're selling like um, boxes of
groceries because nobody's going, they can't have their restaurant open,
but they have all this food and so you can
(25:57):
still like buy that's helping those all the people that
still work there that can't work. That's giving them a job. Still,
Like I need groceries, I might as well buy them
from this restaurant who already has them. That makes sense.
That's really cool that they did that right. Look for opportunities, yes,
to help people out, and a lot of people are
posting on Instagram ways to help, So that is a
way where social media can have its negative sides, but
(26:20):
it can it's so positive as well, especially during crazy
times like this. UM, just when it comes to connecting
with people. And I will say, with our Empowered Women's line,
we've decided to shift that. We know where it's going.
And Home Street Home is working with UM four different
(26:41):
families who were left homeless by the tornado. And I'm
going to read to you what UM Home Street Home
has h They have a donation thing going on right now.
But and listen, Mary didn't even know if the Shot
Forward was going to be able to ship stuff out.
Are the printers closed around in California? There on shelter
(27:02):
in place, so but you can mail stuff. So now
she thinks that she can keep the warehouse open to
ship things that we already have made. So once they're
sold out, they're gone. We're not gonna be printing anything new. UM.
But these the shirts that st to share a design
that say Empowered Women, Empower women with a little heart
in the middle, are going to go towards helping these
(27:23):
women that were left homeless by the tornado and then
left jobless because they work in the restaurant industry and
the restaurants they were working at shutdown because of COVID um.
But it says here from Home Street Home. Your donation
will go to help support four families with children ranging
in ages from six months to seventeen years old, who
became homeless having been displaced by the tornado and now
(27:44):
cannot work because of the COVID nineteen pandemic. Our aim
is to keep them housed and and their needs provided
rent utilities, food, hygiene, phones, gas, et cetera, until they
can go back to work and get on their feet.
All money donated to this fund will go direct to
their support. All money directly. Thank you and God bless.
Now the goal is a lot. I'm just gonna tell
(28:08):
you that, like saying the number, but it doesn't matter,
like it's like covering all of their essential living expenses
and so you can donate. No dollar amount is too small, really,
if it's just a dollar, Like if everybody were to
give a dollar of money, it could go a lot.
But if this isn't your thing, like find something you
(28:29):
can donate to. If you don't know where your money
is gonna be coming from and you don't have any
money to give, maybe you can still post about things
that are important on social media and share them. So
that's your contribution. We talk about that a lot is
like there's never any pressure to buy anything, but you
can support by posting, which is words are free and
(28:50):
sharing is free. So again, no dollar amount is too
small and for us, like our way of helping is
you can actually get a shirt or a hoodie or
whatever and it can go towards that. So you can
go to Radio Amay dot com to access anything like
from the shop Forward or Pimp and Joy. That's just
(29:11):
an easy way to get there. Um. But the I'll
tell you if you want to text to donate, like literally,
if you just want to do a dollar, it's l
u V. You text that to l u V to
four four three to one. So that's how you can
text to donate for Home Street Homes, a little mission
(29:34):
here which they are already working with all the homeless
in the community anyway, and on top of that, they
have taken this on as a project as a passion
because gosh, Steven's just so amazing at taking care of
people and loving people, and so that's where we're focusing
our efforts um as empowered women, and we're going to
(29:55):
empower those women right now that need our help. So
thank you all so much for listening to today's episode. Again,
find how you can be in help or whatever that
looks like for you, and I'll see you on Thursday.
Thank you, Catherine, You're welcome.
Okay, Happy Tuesday, everybody. It's Q and A day. And
I do have a guest sometimes chased as Q and
A with me, maybe my sister, maybe Mary, maybe my
husband Been or sometimes it's just me. But today I
have Katherine Defata here with me. And if you're like, wait,
that sounds familiar, well, if you listen to Thursdays Four
Things episode, which was actually just one thing this last week,
(00:26):
Catherine was on there as an expert, coming on to
talk with me and Lisa, who is at the Well
Necessities on Instagram UM as part of our new series
that we're launching in April. Right here on four Things
with Amy Brown. Every Saturday UM, an episode will load
up and it's going to be called Outweigh, and we're
(00:46):
just talking about the gray area of disordered eating and
you know, whether you've struggled with UM, restricting, binging, purging,
all the different things we cover it. We have personal
stories from real people just like you, and then we
have experts that were brought on. Well. Catherine was one
(01:06):
of the experts and our session with her call it
a session because it ended up very being very therapeutic
UM since she's a therapist and she specializes in eating disorders.
We decided to upload our talk with her as a
four Things episode as a one thing just to give
(01:27):
you a sneak peek of what the series is going
to be like. Um, so that was super special, So
thank you Catherine for rew pard of that. And then
with you know the Corona virus, you know, COVID nineteen
whatever you're calling it, um craziness. I thought I would
have her come on and do the Q and A
(01:48):
episode with me today and answer some of your questions
I put up on Instagram the other day, like what
would you like to hear um? Or what would you
like to have answered during this time for I'm a therapist,
and so I'm we're doing four questions, but it's questions
like we got multiple of and kind of formed a question.
So it's not like, oh, this question is from you
(02:10):
know Cindy. Uh, it's kind of an overall this was
a theme of what people wanted to know. And then
I'm also going to have Catherine on on Thursday doing
all four things with me and we're going to cover
you know, uh, awareness, like you need to be aware
that this is real and it's happening. Kind of what
to do with that. We're going to cover self care
(02:32):
like you haven't never done it before, definitions, new definitions
of what that is, the difference between self care and
self maintenance. Um. The third thing we'll get into on
Thursday is missing family and friends, because that's that's hard
for a lot of us right now. And then the
fourth thing will be productivity, like how to stay productive
during this time. So if you're like, oh, man, I
(02:53):
wish in this Q and A they would have covered
some of that stuff, well, don't worry. We do got
you covered, and we'll get into it and more of
a long, low, longer form than today's Q and A
on Thursday, So make sure you're ready for that. But
I guess for now we'll get into um some of
the questions that were sent in for today's Q and A. UM,
(03:15):
so Catherine, something that people were sending in was how
do I keep from getting depressed? Or what if I
already deal with depression? And now I'll here I am
and I select an isolation, so like what can we
what can we do with that? So something that is
really cool and maybe not so well known, is the
fact that movement is just as helpful and effective at
(03:39):
treating depression as medication is. Now you might be saying, well,
I can't leave my house, so that's not helpful. You
can still move, um, in which we talked a lot
about in the episode that we um that Thursday. UM.
And so yeah, I would encourage you guys to like
find ways to keep moving, Like it doesn't have to
(04:00):
be traditional, but find a way to keep moving. I
think that's the most recent research I saw was that
I think, like around fifteen minutes a day of walking
is just as effective as medication if you do it
consistently well, walking it's not that crazy. And so think
about what are things that I can do in my house, um,
that will get me moving and activate some of those
(04:22):
brain features. But whenever people not that this is the
same thing because it's depression. But whenever I think of
chemicals our body releases and working out, I think of
legally blocks and el woods. Just like, yeah, what, happy
people just don't kill people. He was working out and
working about releases endorphins and endorphins make you happy, and
happy people don't kill people. Right, So there you go.
(04:46):
But I don't think also to your saying like if
you legit clinically have being diagnosed with X Y Z
and P perscribed X Y and Z, and you need
to stay on that medication, then stay on your may don't.
I'm not a doctor. This is this is not for
like I don't. I don't. I wasn't taking these questions
as like, I'm clinically in depression right now. What can
(05:06):
I do? I think the overall consensus of what I
was getting from some of the questions where this is
a very depressing time and now I'm isolated to my house.
How do I prevent from falling into some sort of depression? Yes,
so like exaggerated sadness, even like a heavy sadness maybe
what you're UM you're talking about and so yeah, the
(05:29):
movement part is huge. The other part is UM creating
spaces that feel good for you. So windows, like if
you're working from home, like work by a window, don't
really really, really really really attempt to resist UM closing
your blackout curtains and staying in your room for hours
and hours and hours. I love blackout curtains at night.
(05:52):
I mean time people come over to my house, every
curtain is closed and they're like, what what is wrong
with you? And I'm like, I hate day life. I
like being outside, but in my house. I don't know
what it is. I that might be something I need
to work through because it's something that gives me a
weird feeling of like, also, I really don't like sports
(06:13):
on with windows open, like sports and the daytime. I
really want to dive into what for me, it's a thing.
And my husband even knows, like he'll be like, I've
really gotten over it a lot, but in the beginning
of our marriage it was hard because I was like,
just no sports during the daytime with windows and I
(06:34):
don't know if it has to do with my dad
and childhood and when you know, he used to watch
sports during the day and I would be trying to
talk to him and he would be ignoring me. Yeah. Um,
that's what I've my husband through some years. And because
he's like what is this, Because he's like, this is
weird and it's really affecting, you know, Saturday football. I
(06:58):
will say, in my like ten years seven, I don't
know how long of seeing people, nobody's come to me
with that specific issues and so thick and it's an
issue and it's real, like feel something that not make
it so yeah, I need a problem. We're going to
work on the current curtains. So Amy, I'm gonna check
in on you tomorrow and see if your curtains are open. Um.
(07:21):
And then with that, do find something that you enjoy, Like,
find something that you can do that you enjoy, whether
it is like I really like breakfast, so I'm gonna
cook breakfast, or like I really like listening to this song,
so I'm gonna listen to this song. But be proactive
in doing little little things that actually will make a
big difference. Um. Does that make sense? Yeah? No, I
(07:43):
like that. Um, so it's like, what are you doing
to be proactive preventative stuff? And so also, if you
are seeing a therapist right now, keep seeing your therapists,
like they can still see you. You can do your
virtual session and yeah it might feel different, but it's
all about kind of your attitude of how you go
in it. And um, you guys can't even talk about
(08:04):
that of like this feels weird, How is this going
to be helpful? But if that's something that you're doing
right now and you do struggle with depression and sadness, um,
I would really urge you to not cancel the session
because it's going to be online. Okay. Another question that
I got a multiple questions about how to do with
(08:25):
food and eating and stress eating during this time, um,
and even from some of it since you're part of
our Outweigh series and you know, there's a lot of
people that are in eating just sort of recovery, and
but they've had all this stuff in their life that's
been help help them stay on course, and suddenly they're
confined to their home with not a lot, so much
(08:48):
uncertainty and stress and food right there in the pantry
and back and forth. And it's like, at some point
that might have been somebody's like, oh dream, but then
now that it has to happen, it's like whoa. It's scary,
especially because people are hoarding food and like that, yes,
because you have to buy. Yeah, that's another good point.
I haven't even some people have stocked up. Hopefully we've
(09:10):
been reasonable a lout that. I know some people have
gone overboard, but that could just be everybody's personality is different.
But we also, I mean, I'm trying to be rational
with my shopping of like if there's you know, five
things left, I don't need to take off I can
take one and leave one for somebody else, and hopefully
(09:31):
that person will just take one, and then five different
people will get the five that are left. Like, we
really need to look out for each other. I think
that this is now more than ever. You have to
be looking out for people, even as simple as a
jar of something like like we're all in this together,
all in this together. Which that's another thing. Actually to
Dale post online and I wasn't even a big high
school musical person, but like a week ago or maybe
(09:53):
longer by the time you're listening to this, she posted
that high school musical dance and then like one of
the other people from high school musical did it and
they did a side by side and it's like we're
all ever, you know, And now it's it's all in
my head anytime I think that because we are we
have to look out for each other. We can't hoard everything.
(10:14):
You don't need to buy all the toilet paper. You
need to check on your neighbors, you need to check
on the elderly, you need to check on those that
don't maybe don't have anybody else and see how can
we be a helper in this situation? Um And sometimes
being a helper may just be well check on the
helpers to Okay, check on the help That's that's important too.
(10:35):
But back to the food being totally like you have
more of it maybe in your house, and then you've
got you know, more time in your house with the food.
So more people are scared and more feelings, So people
are scared of of what that are we going to emerge?
Like Bobby even said on the show, on the Bobby
Bones Show the other day, He's like, there's you know
(10:55):
how there's the Freshman fifteen. There's something going around now
that like we're gonna emerge from this that the Quarantine fifteen. Yes,
and there's a lot of and again they're meant to
be like in fun of like how can we find
a little bit of joy in this horrible, crazy time?
But yeah, those those kind of memes actually can be
pretty triggering because that is some people's biggest fear um.
(11:16):
And so what I would encourage people to do is
this is what I would say to them even if
we weren't in this situation of like when you're going
and you notice yourself stress eating, Okay, it all comes
back to awareness. If you are walking towards the fridge
and you're standing in front of the fridge and you're
just like eating random stuff. I want you to ask yourself, like,
what am I feeling right now? Um? Like what emotion
(11:37):
is coming up? What am I feeling? Because your emotions
and your feelings are actually really important things that leads
you to what you actually need. And so if you
are standing there and you're eating whatever, it would be
like you're deep into a bag of cheetos and you're like,
I'm not even hungry, and then you ask yourself, what's
going on? Okay, I'm feeling fear, Okay, what do I need?
(11:59):
You don't need cheetos. You might need to call your
friends so they can calm you down. Like it could
be a million things. But I would encourage anybody who
is struggling with over eating. We can call stress eating.
Whatever makes sense to you. Check in with yourself, figure
out what you're feeling so we can figure out what
you actually need. If you want to learn more about feelings,
(12:19):
you can listen to my podcast. Oh yeah, can I
say that now? So? I have a podcast called You
Need Therapy, and we did a whole um episode on
feelings and talking about each one specifically what happens when
you allow yourself to feel it and what happens when
you can try to hide from it, and so it
might be really helpful if you're like I don't know
how to feel feelings. We go through some of that,
(12:40):
and so yeah, I would encourage you to listen to
that and then check in with yourself when you are eating, um,
over eating. Okay, that's good because I mean and I
know that it's so much more than that. But it's
just a Q and A. But I think you're giving
resources or like sending people two things you've recorded before
could be helpful. So yes, never hold back on any
of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah, plus people have
(13:02):
a lot of extra time to listen upon that all
of the time. So uh, what about for people that
maybe need to create boundaries with somebody, because some people
are quarantined a loan, Some people are quarantined with in
relationships where they normally have their freedom of their everyday
life where I go do this, you go do that,
(13:23):
and then suddenly, um, their their different personalities are stuck
in the same house and one person might be needier
than the other. So it's like there needs to be
boundaries created even though you can't leave the house. Yes,
So this is a great question for just life in general.
One thing that I try to stress to people is
(13:44):
we train other people how to treat us, and so
what we allow people are going to continue to do.
And so if we don't allow certain things, people aren't
going to keep continuing to ask for it. And so
one way we can quote rain people how to treat
us is with this really simple sentence, UM that helps
(14:06):
you express yourself. So we're going to go through it together. Um,
I kind of want to think of a we can
I kind of want to use your dog as an example,
but my dogs up here. So okay, how it goes
is when you blank, I feel blank, the story I
create around that, or the judgment I make is blank.
(14:27):
This is what I need. And so what you're doing
is you're creating a boundary. And I always also say
a boundary without a consequence is just a suggestion. So
if we're just asking, like i'd really like you to, like,
let's say, like every morning, like we live together, and
every morning you came in my room and you jumped
on my bed at and I was like, Amy, I
would really like, if you would stop doing that, but
(14:49):
like it gave you so much joy to come in
my room every single day, angel in my bead, my
feelings would be heard, but you would just continue to
do it. But then what hold on? I'm already thinking
of how I feel like if it gave me joy
to do that, But then you're like, I need so
you tell me that, and then I'm supposed to just
be like, my my feelings are gonna be hurt. Well,
that's not what I was going Sorry, but I hear you.
(15:13):
I know. Let me give you a better way. Do
you say it? Just better where it doesn't hurt their feelings? Right?
Because obviously I think the message the questions I was
getting for you is like people are nervous and scared
too now that they're in these situations with their partner
or their spouse or their roommates or whomever, and they're
constantly around each other. Is how do they create the
boundaries without saying something that's going to hurt their feelings? Right?
(15:35):
So we call this something. You call this a carefrontation
instead of a confrontation. Okay, you don't have to call
it that, but that's so, this is how I would
say that and tell me how this what this brings
up in you? Two of um amy. When you came
in my room this morning and jumped on my bed, you,
I felt really scared because I didn't know what was happening. Um.
(15:58):
The story that I made up is that something was
breaking into our house. Um. And so I'm going to
ask you that tomorrow. If you want to jump on
my bed, you text me and ask me first. Um.
And if you can't do that, and then that's where
you would put in a consequence. Um. So does that
feel different? Yeah, but then give me an example of
putting in a consequence. So, so that for that one,
(16:23):
because I'm making this up. If you can't, so now
you're making me feel like I need to take care
of your feelings, which is also something I teach you
them not to do. Don't don't need The consequence would
be like if you can't do that, I'm gonna start
locking my door. Oh dang, Okay, you know what I mean.
But all the all snap jumping, it's fine, Okay, I
didn't realized this was serious. Like that's that's yeah, this
(16:46):
is me. I'm actively now, Okay, I'll no longer come
and jump on your bed, like that's what I didn't
realize you didn't like that so much. So that's just
that's a good point because a lot of times people
were like, I didn't know. You didn't I thought that
you thought it was funny, Like, oh, I didn't know,
Thank you so much for telling me. So, if you're
like a husband, let's say that he is like wants
(17:10):
to be attached at the hip with you and like
during this corn yeah, and like you're like, I feel
really a lot of fear when you're always around me
because it makes me feel like you're micromanagement or like
maybe I'm doing something wrong or whatever the story is
for you, he might say like, oh my gosh, I
didn't know that. I thought that, like you wanted to
be close to me because it made me feel safe.
And so you're also like bringing up this like the
(17:33):
judgment part of the story, which we all have different stories,
so it's actually can be really helpful. And then you
say to the husband, so if you don't get away
from me, I'm not gonna have sex with you. It's like, yeah,
I would do whatever you want. He's like, I'm gonna
be over here. But it's like I mean that would
(17:57):
be a great example of like, yeah, he wants to
do that. Yeah, in all reality, that was a joke
because you should never probably use um, I don't know.
I'm not a therapist, but you probably shouldn't use I
wouldn't suggest that sex as a any sort of a
incentive to do something right. Yeah, probably that will be
(18:22):
the next episode of Fourthings, Okay, Um, well, yeah, and man,
I feel like there's probably a lot of Yeah. And
it may not be a spouse, it might be a
roommate or a sibling or a whole family. They're just
(18:44):
not used to be mom you know, yes, your mom
or your kid, and suddenly now you are confined to
the house with them. So I would say communication is
so key, and then using the SAXT sense, say again,
when you blank, I feel blank, the story I make slash,
(19:05):
the judgment I have is blank, what I need is blank.
And again you can yeah, you can say that in
like a non therapist e way. I use that all
the time in my life and people don't know that
I'm like doing that, if that makes sense. Yeah. The finesse, well,
I think we have to get get the finesse or
(19:25):
practice the finesse. I feel like a lot of people
are right probably like right now, okay, like Catherine said
to Hi, husband, can you come here real quickly? So
what I am feeling is blank? Oh I mean sorry,
I would have just say that, okay, um, all right,
And then the fourth question will be the last question
of the day, is like how do we balance or
(19:49):
know what's healthy for us when it comes to news consumption,
Like because obviously we want to be informed of what's
happening with coronavirus, but when it how do we find
that balance? Yeah, because I think there's a big difference
in like ignoring reality and being sucked into whatever it
is you're being sucked into, um, whether it's like warrior
(20:09):
panic um. And so I would suggest, like limit the
amount of time you're watching TV, like if you're watching
the news specifically, so if it's if you've just find
yourself glued to it all day, turn it off and
watch it for thirty minutes in the morning, or like
read one news article about what's going on a day,
or if social media is being challenging for you, like
(20:33):
limit that as well. There are features where you can
like lock certain like you can look at your your
own phone, but there are features that you can lock
yourself out of certain apps for um, certain times a day,
and so um practice turning your phone off and going
and doing something and just make sure that you're not
spending your day trying to figure out what's happening in
(20:55):
the world because you're not going to be able to
change it. Yeah, by yourself. It's eventually you can make
small differences. But um, yeah, that's like you have to
give yourself those boundaries and whatever that looks like for you.
You may can handle an hour of the news, but
if it really is a rooming, maybe you take us
straight up. Maybe you haven't gone a day without reading
(21:16):
an article watching the news. It's not going to hurt
you to step away from Twitter and Instagram or the
news for a full twenty four hours. It's just not
at this point you can handle that. And again, going
back to your feelings, why do you feel like you
need to watch this all day long? What are you
trying to find in um managing that way? What do
(21:38):
you really need? Do you really need to be watching
the news? Or again, do you need to call a friend?
You can also use that boundary sentence towards yourself, like Catherine,
when you go on Instagram for three hours a day, Um,
I feel terrified. The story that I make is that
the world's gonna end. I'm gonna need you, like you
can do that for you. Set a boundary. I call
that an internal boundary. Set it with yourself. Hmm. I
(22:01):
like that. Okay, Well, thank you for answering some of
the the most asked type questions, um that we received.
And then, like I said, Catherine's going to be on
this Thursday for all four things, UM, and she'll probably
be back again for stuff who knows. I feel like
(22:24):
we all need a lot of like wisdom and guidance
during this time. But just take care of yourself and yeah,
go ahead. UM. I just want to say on the
like the last, I mean, with all of them, but
offer yourself in all of these areas grace, because you're
not crazy for wanting to know what's going on in
(22:45):
the world, and so honor yourself too of like, there's
not something wrong with you because you feel anxious. You
feel anxious because you're scared, probably because you care about
your life in the world, and so I just want
to offer that with any of the questions we just answered, yeah,
thank you for them, and um, Catherine's instagram is at
three Chords Therapy if you want to follow her and
(23:09):
then say your podcast one more time, it's just you
need therapy, Like why why you need therapy? You need
we all need therapy. Um, so yeah, do that. Check
out her podcast because this Q and A is over.
So now you have your like what am I going
(23:30):
to listen to next? Well, boom, we just gave you something.
And then also, yeah, find how you can be a
helper this week and helpers look very different. Help like
being a helper literally could be smiling if you see
someone across the street on a walk when you're on
a walk, a smile in a wave and a simple
(23:50):
how are you? Even if you don't know the person,
you could have that could be the one interaction they
have today. Think about it if they left their house
to go on a walk and they hadn't seen a
human in a day, and all they would like is
for someone to smile and say hi to them. Maybe
that's you. Um. It could be you know, checking on
(24:10):
the people in your neighborhood that might need help. It
could be sending a text to someone to let him
know you're thinking of them. Um, what it could be
sending groceries to someone that's elderly that you know, you
know needs it. Bobby's girlfriend, Caitlin, she met this older
woman at Target that was there by herself. Um, clearly
someone we would be concerned if they got Corona. She
(24:32):
didn't know anybody even. Somehow Caitlin struck up a conversation
with her and she said, Hey, here's my phone number.
If you need anything during this, you let me know.
And she kind of left and was like, well, I'll
probably never hear from her. And like five days later,
that elderly woman sent her a text and was like, Hi,
I'm the woman you met at Target. I have no
idea if you were serious about what you said, but
i really need some things from the store and I'm
(24:53):
scared to go. So if that offer still stands, I
would love to take you upon it. And Caitlin was like, yeah,
I'm healthy, twentysomething year old, like I can go to
the store for her and drop it off at her
place so she doesn't have to compromise her health by
going out to the store. Help her. That's a and
that's a big deal. And I know this woman and
she literally thought she would never hear from her again.
(25:14):
But guess what, that woman texted and needed help. So
you never know who is going to need help during
this time. How can you support friends that have lost
income or jobs? How can you support companies, small businesses,
um or even you know large for that matters having
they're having to lay people off, but buying gift cards,
(25:36):
which is floating alone, like you buy it now, you
can use it later. Um. You know what A lot
of that I've seen a lot of restaurants are doing
is selling like one fifty first tap room is in
um the nations, but they're selling like um, boxes of
groceries because nobody's going, they can't have their restaurant open,
but they have all this food and so you can
(25:57):
still like buy that's helping those all the people that
still work there that can't work. That's giving them a job. Still,
Like I need groceries, I might as well buy them
from this restaurant who already has them. That makes sense.
That's really cool that they did that right. Look for opportunities, yes,
to help people out, and a lot of people are
posting on Instagram ways to help, So that is a
way where social media can have its negative sides, but
(26:20):
it can it's so positive as well, especially during crazy
times like this. UM, just when it comes to connecting
with people. And I will say, with our Empowered Women's line,
we've decided to shift that. We know where it's going.
And Home Street Home is working with UM four different
(26:41):
families who were left homeless by the tornado. And I'm
going to read to you what UM Home Street Home
has h They have a donation thing going on right now.
But and listen, Mary didn't even know if the Shot
Forward was going to be able to ship stuff out.
Are the printers closed around in California? There on shelter
(27:02):
in place, so but you can mail stuff. So now
she thinks that she can keep the warehouse open to
ship things that we already have made. So once they're
sold out, they're gone. We're not gonna be printing anything new. UM.
But these the shirts that st to share a design
that say Empowered Women, Empower women with a little heart
in the middle, are going to go towards helping these
(27:23):
women that were left homeless by the tornado and then
left jobless because they work in the restaurant industry and
the restaurants they were working at shutdown because of COVID um.
But it says here from Home Street Home. Your donation
will go to help support four families with children ranging
in ages from six months to seventeen years old, who
became homeless having been displaced by the tornado and now
(27:44):
cannot work because of the COVID nineteen pandemic. Our aim
is to keep them housed and and their needs provided
rent utilities, food, hygiene, phones, gas, et cetera, until they
can go back to work and get on their feet.
All money donated to this fund will go direct to
their support. All money directly. Thank you and God bless.
Now the goal is a lot. I'm just gonna tell
(28:08):
you that, like saying the number, but it doesn't matter,
like it's like covering all of their essential living expenses
and so you can donate. No dollar amount is too small, really,
if it's just a dollar, Like if everybody were to
give a dollar of money, it could go a lot.
But if this isn't your thing, like find something you
(28:29):
can donate to. If you don't know where your money
is gonna be coming from and you don't have any
money to give, maybe you can still post about things
that are important on social media and share them. So
that's your contribution. We talk about that a lot is
like there's never any pressure to buy anything, but you
can support by posting, which is words are free and
(28:50):
sharing is free. So again, no dollar amount is too
small and for us, like our way of helping is
you can actually get a shirt or a hoodie or
whatever and it can go towards that. So you can
go to Radio Amay dot com to access anything like
from the shop Forward or Pimp and Joy. That's just
(29:11):
an easy way to get there. Um. But the I'll
tell you if you want to text to donate, like literally,
if you just want to do a dollar, it's l
u V. You text that to l u V to
four four three to one. So that's how you can
text to donate for Home Street Homes, a little mission
(29:34):
here which they are already working with all the homeless
in the community anyway, and on top of that, they
have taken this on as a project as a passion
because gosh, Steven's just so amazing at taking care of
people and loving people, and so that's where we're focusing
our efforts um as empowered women, and we're going to
(29:55):
empower those women right now that need our help. So
thank you all so much for listening to today's episode. Again,
find how you can be in help or whatever that
looks like for you, and I'll see you on Thursday.
Thank you, Catherine, You're welcome.
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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