Ich allem, was nicht wissenschaftlich bewiesen ist, sehr skeptisch gegenüber. Weswegen der Weg zu diesem Buch sehr lange war. (Ich kämpfe bereits mein halbes Leben mit diesen Problemen)

When you say, “I’m going to work out the big meeting,” that scope gets a little smaller. Now we’re talking about a point in answering questions. That point is even more focused. You have to move that aperture because otherwise, you get too fatigued. Finding a way to move there relaxed so that I had the energy to execute. Once I’d run around the court, I would start to tell myself, “This is my area in space. I feel comfortable here. I belong here.” I would take a little ownership of that space. To this point, I want to go through C, D, E, and such. I did something interesting and I would love to know if you think it’s true. When we’re on our phones, we’re typically hunched forward. Physiologically, it puts us in a fight or flight posture. I always thought that on top of whatever we’re being blitzed by what’s happening on our phone, the mere posture alone, we’re having an anxious physiological response. I thought that that was interesting. The shoulders are coming forward. Tell me what you think. If you were in nature and your head is down and you’re forward, you’re vulnerable. The second separation is between our adult and child selves. The adult might avoid the child self's pain, creating a trust issue. I have a good friend who said, “Everyone gets their time in the barrel,” the chamber. Sometimes you’re there longer than you want to be. I knew this was one of those moments. This wasn’t something that we were going to just solve the conversation or wrap up. This was going to be a process of healing for everybody. I LOVED creating visualizations and having conversations with my inner child. It helped me detach in a creative and magical way from incredibly paralyzing thoughts. With an inner child ally, it becomes easy to see that the negative thoughts cannot possibly be true. They can't apply to an innocent child, and we ARE our innocent inner child. Now, every time a negative thought threatens me, I call up my inner child and we dismantle the thoughts together through visualizations and self-compassion.

Atmana Experience

I got to tell you a story. One time, a different daughter came home and dropped a big bomb on my husband and me. It’s one of the ones where you hope you never have to hear these kinds of things. “This happened and I’m feeling this.” We were completely clueless. I had no idea. I went upstairs after a bit because I knew it was going to take some time. If anxiety has been a part of your life, I think that reading this book will be helpful. Because I have read so many mental health books, especially ones that touch on anxiety, I cannot say that I found anything groundbreaking in this book, but I did find solace in Russ Kennedy's personal shares. Interestingly, this was also something that I sometimes resented or envied for reasons I cannot write in this review. He decided that he was going to move out to Victoria, British Columbia one day. He got on the road, hitchhiked out here, and then sent for us, my mother and my brother. My life as a child was chaotic. My father was loving, caring, and present when he was present, but the problem was when he would go into a deep depression or a manic stage or lose touch with reality, as a child, you look at your dad like, “This is the be-all and end-all. This is the guy that’s going to pave the way for me.”

Typically, I put it into fear and anxiety. If you’re out on the street and you see some dark figure coming out of you, that’s fear that’s happening at the moment, that’s happening right now. Anxiety is when you’re in a bedroom on your 23rd-floor apartment and you’re like, “I hope I don’t run into a dark figure on the street tomorrow.” We have to see anxiety and worry for what it is.

Anxiety Rx

Having done all that, the "alarm" still would find its way through to terrorize me, and I believed the cruel, negative thought loops to such a point that I wanted to die.

Tune out of the fiction mind and into reality: physical sensations. Hand on your heart, set the intention to protect your inner child. She is safe now. She can rest. Reassure that child from a touch sensation from say, essential oils, some breathing, or anything that starts to calm that autonomic nervous system with the intention that you’re connecting to yourself. You’re connecting to that younger wounded part of yourself because that’s constructive, that you can learn from, that you can do something. If every time I heard suicide, I freak out and had to wait for two hours until my body calmed down, I wouldn’t be in a good state. My guest today is Dr. Russell Kennedy. Dr. Kennedy’s new book is out now, Anxiety Rx: A new prescription for anxiety relief from the Doctor who created it. If you’re in the middle of a fight with your partner and you think, “That book I read said that I should take three deep breaths,” you’re probably going to say, “Screw it. I’m going to take three deep breaths. I’m going after this person.” Our emotional brain is taken over at that point. It’s learning how to practice this feeling state that you can recreate over and over again. That can be your grounded platform because a lot of us with trauma didn’t have that grounded state when we were younger. We rely on our thoughts to save us. Way to start it. You just put me in a good mood. Thank you. First of all, I am so sorry about the last time but now we have it double-covered. Your podcast threw us over the edge. We’ll get started. I’m excited to talk about this. It’s funny, I relistened your book and I was like, “I’m excited to talk about this again.” What’s the temperature where you are, Dr. Kennedy?Russell Kennedy – When you find your alarm in your system, give it some touch because that’s really how we’re wired as human beings, to respond to touch. I’ve dealt with anxiety since I was a teenager. My father was schizophrenic and bipolar, and the chaos and pain of his illness created tremendous alarm in my system. My mother did her best to love and take care of my brother and me, but she had her own issue with chronic anxiety. I often say my mother was neurotic and my father was psychotic, so my psyche didn’t stand much of a chance! No exaggeration when I say that my takeaway from this interview today is so revolutionary, it’s forever changed the way I think about my anxiety and my relationship to it. Healing begins with self-awareness. Recognizing self-judgment, self-abandonment, self-blame, and self-shame patterns is the first step toward transformation. Empower yourself by establishing a compassionate connection with your inner child. You have the power to change your narrative. Anxiety is not a feeling because I want to tease it out to the point where we get to know what we’re dealing with. When we tease it out, we can break the cycle, the anxiety, and the alarm cycle, on each other. The point is to understand that anxiety is not a feeling. Anxiety is just anxious thoughts. I often tell this story, if I have two teenagers in my office, say they’re 15, and I go in and say, “Angela, you might be pregnant,” Angela’s going to freak out. If I go in and I say, “Mike, you might be pregnant,” he’s just going to laugh.

You can start making things better by stopping what’s making it worse. What’s making it worse is your brain, your compulsive need to explain the feeling. Sensation without explanation. Allow the feeling. If it’s overwhelming, get someone to help you process this feeling. Until you acclimatize, get used to that feeling, allow it to be there, and embrace it, anxiety is always going to hold you hostage. Dr. Kennedy’s podcast episodes that are very helpful: Do You Allow Yourself To Receive? + Find Your AlarmYou said something in the book that I want to remind people, “Anxiety is not a feeling, it’s not real, it’s not a coping mechanism, and it’s not a weakness.” That’s not to say to people who have anxiety that that’s not real. That’s not what we’re saying because I respect and appreciate if people are having an experience. It isn’t a coping mechanism. My little time in India gave me a sense that everyone has their path. Some people get cancer, some people get ALS, and some people live a life that’s comfortable and calm. I saw a lot of people because as a doctor, I talk to them at the end of their lives. It’s like, “Everything went well for me.” “I wish that I got divorced.” “I wish that something bad happened.” I say, “That was your path. Your path was to have a comfortable life.” When we were abused or abandoned by our caregivers, we still looked up to them. We could not blame them so we figured we must be to blame. We turned on ourselves as unlovable. Anxiety Rx is unlike any book on anxiety and a must-read for anyone who suffers with chronic worry.” (Nicole LePera, PhD) Trying to heal negative thoughts with more thoughts is like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.