Ep. 11; Anxiety Special with Dr. Russell Kennedy & Ania Hammer

ANXIETY SPECIAL! After watching Inside Out 2 and my own personal experience with anxiety, I decided we should dedicate a complete episode to anxiety. First up is Dr. Russell Kennedy, he's a physician and neuroscience expert who healed his own anxiety and is now helping others do the same. He shares the "alarm" people often have in their bodies & how it starts in childhood. He also walks Morgan through the steps to heal such alarms. Then Morgan's friend Ania Hammer joins and the two talk through their own anxieties and mental health struggles.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Take personal listen Lorga.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Fuels Man For all of you awesome people who stay
listening each week, thank you for being here. I hope
you're taking away some great lessons and maybe even some laughs.
This week has a big focus on mental health and
in particular, anxiety. I recently watched Inside Out too, so
this is the perfect episode following that movie whose main
character is anxiety. First, I'm going to bring on doctor

(00:37):
Russell Kennedy, known as anxiety MD on social media. He's
a physician who healed his own anxiety through non traditional
treatments and now he's helping others do the same thing. Then,
I'm bringing on a fellow media friend of mine. Her
name is Anya Hammer, and much like me, she aims
to use her platform to talk about mental health and
share not only good days, but bad days too. So
I really hope you guys liked this episode. Let's get

(00:59):
into it. It super exciting right now because I'm joined
by doctor Russell Kennedy, otherwise known as the anxiety MD
on social media. He's a physician, neuroscience expert, among many
other things. How are you doing today? I'm great, Morgan,

(01:21):
how are you I'm doing good? And I'm really excited
to really talk to you about anxiety, because man, I
think anxiety has a little bit of people out there
who don't understand it quite as well as they should.
We're kind of going to start here like bare bones.
What is anxiety.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Anxiety in your mind is really a state of alarm
in your body, physiological survival based alarm that you probably
had since you were a child. Probably what happened to
you when you were younger was you experienced kind of
a trauma that was too much for you to bear
and that your little mind couldn't handle it, so it
stuffed it down into your body. Is the state of alarm,
and that state of alarm is what the brain reads

(02:02):
in this process called a teroception, and teroception is when
the mind is reading the body and it reads that
old trauma that's still sitting there even though you might
not be aware of it, and then that alarm, that
old alarm, the old traumas drive the worries of your mind,
and then you believe that the worries of your mind
are the cause of the problem when they're not. They're
basically the byproduct of this old negative energy that's been

(02:24):
stored in your body, probably since you were a child.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Oh wow, yeah, so okay, getting to kind of core
wounds then I know that's something that you work with.
How do those core wounds then impact our anxiety over
the course of time. I think that's kind of what
you're talking about here, Like that energy that's stored in
your body as a kid, which would be a core
wound starting very young.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
These traumas stick in our bodies, especially if you're born sensitive.
I see most of my people that deal with anxiety
were sensitive children and they're just sensitive adults. And we
don't quite get our needs met when we're young. We
may have decent parents, but we may just be really
really sensitive. We just need more love than most people.

(03:05):
So if you don't get that feeling of being validated
and loved and connected to the way that you want it,
you developed this sort of reactionary alarm in your system,
this survival based alarm in your system that I call
background alarm because it sits in the background of your life,
and it sits in the background of your awareness and
you're not really aware of it. And what most people

(03:27):
do is they go to a therapist and they try
and talk their way out of a feeling problem, and
it doesn't work that way. So you really need to
find this alarm that's sitting in your body. In me,
it's in my solar plexus. And I can talk a
little bit about that. Then sometimes you know, as a
medical doctor and a neuroscientist, I talk about this alarm
in your body, it sounds so woo woo, you know,
it sounds so ethereal I want to have a seizure

(03:48):
because it's so weird compared to how I was trained
as an MD. So, but it's the only thing that
helped my anxiety. I horrible anxiety for forty years, and
the only thing that really made a difference was only
finding out that this alarm in my system, in my body,
in me, it's in my solar plexus, is actually the
driving force of the anxiety in my mind. The worries,

(04:10):
the warnings, the what ifs, the worst case scenarios, and
those three ws warnings what if worst case scenarios aggravate
the background alarm, so you get in this anxiety alarm
loop where you can't get out of it. And that's
I think the reason why most people don't get better
from therapy is they don't realize that anxiety is not
one issue, it's two. It's the anxious thoughts of your mind. Absolutely,

(04:31):
they play a role, for sure, but it's mostly this
alarm in your body. And unless you find that these
two things are linking together and treat them separately and
separate them from each other, you're always going to be
stuck in that loop.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
So we know that talking about things is really good
for this mental aspect. But if somebody would want to
work on fixing that alarm, how do they go about
doing that?

Speaker 3 (04:54):
So first of all, you find it in your body.
So what I will tell people is that when you're
really worried, when you're really anxious about something. And I
had a patient I talked about this in the book
whose father died when she was ten in an industrial accident.
He went out to work one summer morning and then
didn't come back. So her husband today, she's always looking

(05:15):
around the house to see if he's packed at the
suitcase for a quick exit or leave, you know, So
she'll get into this thing where she convinces herself that
her husband is leaving her. Now, her husband's a really
good guy and is just is flabbergasted by this whole thing.
So when I tell her, like whenever you start searching
the house for a suitcase or whenever you start getting

(05:36):
paranoid that he's going to leave you, it's like, this
is not This is not you today, this is you
when you were ten years old and you're trying to reconcile.
You're trying to make sense of that whole situation. So
it's really realizing, Okay, this is actually a feeling. Like
I get her to say, where do you get this feeling?
Like it's in your body somewhere, and she says, well,

(05:58):
it's this pressure. It's kind of like an hour glass
around my heart, Like it squeezes around my heart and
then it opens up below, like she described this real
hourglass thing where the middle of the hourglass was squeezing
her heart, and she said it fell hollow and black
and alone. And I really get people to look into
their bodies when they're anxious, because the anxiety that the
worries will never end, like they will just keep going

(06:20):
and going and going and going. But if you find
this place of alarm in your body, a lot of
people it's in the midline between your chin and your
pubic bone and just when you get anxious, and I
don't even like that word. I like the word alarm
better than anxious. But even when you get anxious or alarmed,
start searching your body for this energy rather than getting
stuck in the endless machinations of your mind, because you're

(06:41):
never gonna find healing in your mind. The healing comes
from binding this place in your body, which I believe
is your younger self. So that part of her that
searches around the house for the suitcase is her ten
year old self. Her amygdalad or insula, the parts of
our brain that kind of record our experiences through life.
How created this sort of age regression in her? And

(07:02):
she goes back to that same place and she feels
like a ten year old, although she doesn't know she's
a ten year old. So it's really about finding this
alarm that's stuck in your body and realizing that it's
probably decades old.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
And when you find that, then how do you start
to get it? Does it ever go away? Did the
alarm ever go away? Or are you just now recognizing
it and that's allowing you to then deal with it.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
It's a great question, Mary, I would say it never
goes away. But here's the kicker. I have it. I
still have it today, like I still have alarm in
my system, but I know it now. You know. It's
like the old It's like the T shirt that says
I'm in my own little world. But it's okay. They
know me here. You know, I know it now. So
it's like I'm familiar with the sensation and I don't
have to compulsively start adding worries to this feeling of

(07:48):
alarm in my body, which when you were a child,
when you went up to your head and to worry,
you kind of escaped this old alarm that you would
stuff down into your body. So worries become an as escape.
So they become addictive in a way because they give
you a little escape from this alarm in your body.
But they become so habitual that they take you over.

(08:09):
And it's like OCD. When someone has OCD, they may
start with, you know, tapping the doorknob three times, but
then and that works, and then it stops working, so
they tap the doorknob five times, and then twenty times,
and then they spin around five times because they're trying
to recapture the same feeling of relief that they got initially,
which is what we do with worries. The worries actually
do provide us a little sense of relief for zero

(08:31):
point four of a second in our brain as we
make the uncertain a little more certain. That's what worries do.
They make the uncertain appear more certain and we get
a little dopamine hit in our brain from that, and
we get addicted to that. So if you're addicted to worries,
how are you going to stop? How are you going
to get out of your anxiety? Because there is the

(08:51):
human brain doesn't do anything where there isn't a reward,
So we're actually rewarded for our worries. And when we heal,
we have to go into our body the resolve that
alarm that's driving, that's providing the energy for the worries
in the first place. And when we resolve that alarm,
the inner and the worries just kind of fade away
or they become so weak that we can see them

(09:13):
as worries. Because what happens, I'm going to continue I
ran here, is that when we get into this survival physiology,
our brain makes our adrenal glands to create cortisol, which
is a stress hormone, and epineffrin orpenefferent adrenaline. So these
things we have off our body and they make us
feel like we're in survival mode. And when we're in
survival mode, we shut off our rational mind. We shut

(09:33):
off the prefrontal cortex. So not only do we make
more worries when we're in this survival state, but we
shut off the part of our brain that would tell
us that the worries are nothing to worry about. So
this is how we get looped into anxiety. These are
the number of ways that anxiety just becomes chronic because
we don't see a way out because the way we're

(09:54):
looking at it, there isn't a way out. The way
out is to find this alarm in your body treated
as if it were it is your younger wound itself
because it is. Even though that sounds pretty woo because
after forty years, that was the only thing that helped me.
So it's just finding that that anxiety of your mind
is actually just this state of alarm that's held in
your body, and all the traditional therapies are trying to

(10:15):
fix the wrong thing. That's why traditional therapies like CBT
and all that kind of help for a little while,
but they don't help long term. The anxiety comes back
within six months to a year.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Now, how often do you see too, when you have
clients and stuff that this anxiety that it has taken
them so long to recognize. Like, I know there's a
lot of people in my life and I'm like, oh,
you're probably dealing with but they don't want to face it, right.
They don't want to come to terms with I need
help here and this is an issue, Like, how can

(10:46):
I help somebody who's out there maybe listening to this
recognize like that this is a thing and this is
a problem that they can work through and have a
better life if they were to recognize it.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yeah, not to sound salesy, but I think I have
a program I'm called mbr X And I'm really not salesy.
I don't like sales I don't like that. But this
program I've created, it's inexpensive and along with the book,
it actually takes you through how to find your alarm,
and it actually takes you through the ways of connecting
with yourself. The video program really helps you understand because

(11:18):
you can only learn so much from a book and
it's really about connecting with that younger version of you
that I have this acronym called alarms. So it's abuse,
loss like great loss, like divorce of your parents. You
know you got really sick when you're a child, abandonment, rejection,
maturing too soon, and shame. So those are the alarms.
A for abuse, L for loss, A for abandonment, are

(11:41):
for rejection or bullying, m to be mature too soon,
become the man of the woman of the house too soon,
and S for shame. Anything that shameses as children will
create alarm in our system. So it's really realizing, Okay,
how do I go back and find these things, find
the younger version of me that suffered. Now, the proviso
on that is, if you have bee emotional, physical, sexual abuse,

(12:02):
you're going to need some help. Like it's not something
that you can heal on your own, but it's finding
a therapist who really understands like somatic therapy, internal family systems,
maybe down the road trip on psychedelics. Not that I'm
hell bent on psychedelics, but I do think it accesses
a different part of our brain that allows us to

(12:23):
heal this alarm as well. So there is this sort
of step wise approach, and you're right, there is only
so much you can heal on your own. And I
think just understanding that this anxiety you feel is actually
more a sense of alarm that you've been holding in
your body than the thoughts of your mind liberates a
lot of people. Anxiety really is a separation of your
adult self from your child self, and your mind from

(12:45):
your body. So as a protective response, as children, we
go up into our minds to try and save ourselves
from this alarm that's held in our body, and our
worries get worse and worse and worse. And the adult
in us doesn't want to go back today, doesn't want
to go back, and is that the child because the
child holds all our pain. And the child doesn't trust
the adult in us because we've left them alone for

(13:06):
sometimes decades, So there is this split. So to heal,
you have to bring those two aspects of you, the
adult part of you and the scared child of you
back together. You have to show that that child that
you're going to be with them, You're going to help them,
you're going to see them through, You're going to give
them the love and attention now and safety now that
they didn't get way back then. Now you can do

(13:29):
there's a lot of that you can do on your own,
but there is a lot. If you have severe history
of physical emotional sexual abuse, you're probably going to need
some help with that. So with me and my programs,
what I do is I try and open the door
to a new way of thinking, a new way of
approaching this because psychiatran and psychology have had seventy years
to come up with the answer and they haven't, so

(13:51):
and I have.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
So that's Hey, we like finding new solutions. I like
what you're doing and how you're trying. You've utilized them
and you went through and you found new ways to
approach it, and that's learning new things now. Is there
also a possibility to I know a lot of it
exists within childhood. Is there also a possibility that you

(14:12):
develop anxiety later on in life and that's something that
can come or is it always there's always a source
and that's always from childhood.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
Usually it's from child I would say ninety five percent
of the time it's from childhood. And the example that
I use in this is combat veterans. So combat veterans
that don't have child like trauma, as children are way, way,
way less likely to develop combat PTSD than the veterans
that had a stable childhood. So it's kind of like

(14:42):
we build this brain, like eighty percent of our brain
developments done by the first five years of life. So
by the time you're five, eighty percent of your brain
development's already formed. So it is really important. Now. You
can develop anxiety later on in life, for sure, but
almost always I can track it back to some kind
of trauma that was unresolved. I've even had loads and

(15:04):
loads of cases of people that said, my parents are great,
they're amazing, they're still together, they love me, they love
the rest of our family. And I say, well, ask
your parents if you had a separation from them when
before you were five years old. And it's amazing the
number of people that come back said, oh, they took
my older brother of the Disneyland when I was three

(15:25):
and left me with grandparents for two weeks. And it's like,
in a sensitive child, that's all you need to start
the sow the seeds of this feeling of being unsafe.
So and or after birth, you know where you separated. Oh,
there's another bunch of cases where people would say, oh,

(15:45):
my mother had a postpartum hemorrhage or I had a complication,
so I had to spend some time in the ICU
away from my mom for the first you know, three
to four days of my life that you know can
also cause significant issues with safety and anxiety later on
in life. So it's really understanding. And I'm not saying
that these cases are specifically because of this, but it's

(16:07):
certainly kind of suspicious when they say my childhood was great.
You know, I want to break in a doctor evil there.
You know, my childhood was typical summers and Rangoon Louver
lessons in the spring. We make me ten minutes, you know.
But I think there is this sense that, you know,
if you had good parents, that you shouldn't have anxiety.

(16:27):
And there's lots of good parents out there that missed
a couple of places, and in a sensitive child, sometimes
that's all you need to develop this issue with anxiety.
Because we are sensitive beings. We are, really, especially the
ones of us, those of us who were born now
were born sensitive.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
Mm hmm. I call those the deep feelers. I'm part
of that crew. It's so crazy, though, how our body
just as such a young just like entering the world.
It's like, Okay, I'm going to take on everything that's
coming at me. It's wild how that works. Now now
that we've gotten to kind of the root of what
it is, how it causes it and everything, how do
we really start to maintain once we start that healing

(17:09):
process in which you talked about some ways to heal it,
ways to focus, how you can do different things. But
how does somebody once they've kind of gone through a
healing of this, maintain peace moving forward?

Speaker 3 (17:21):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's continuation of that adult
child self connection. You know, I have a picture on
my phone of me when I'm like three years old.
You know, I don't know if it's here, but but
and I have a picture of me above my bathroom
mirror when I was about ten or eleven. And it's
really about maintaining that wholeness because the reason why I

(17:45):
believe we don't heal more on the on the permanent
side is that, yeah, we start feeling better, so we
just start going, oh I'm fine now, I'm fine now,
and it's just like no, it's still there. It's it's
it's waiting for a chance to kind of bubble up
on you. So it's really maintaining that sense, you know,
bringing the child in you to the good events in

(18:07):
your life, not just waiting until you feel panic, not
just waiting until you have a speech to give to
your school or to your office, you know, before you
start doing the breathing and connecting like this is a
daily practice, especially if you've got a history of anxiety,
is connecting with that younger version of you and making
sure that they feel safe, because it's that child in

(18:28):
you that feels horrendously anxious and overwhelmed. It's not so
much the adult. You know that the adult gets taken
down by the child, but it's really maintaining that connection
to the child. That's what I found in myself and
my patients, the ones that I've been able to sort
of maintain their healing. And like I'm saying, it's not
like the alarm goes away completely. It's still there, but

(18:50):
it's just you have this sense like, oh, I know
what it is now. This alarm is basically the younger
version of me sensing that there's something unsafe and their environment,
and it's up to me, as adult me to sort
of show them no you're okay, No, you're fine. And
if that's just putting your hand over where you feel
the alarm, if that's just breathing into it, if that's

(19:11):
just relaxing your shoulders, relaxing your jaw, staying present. There
is this saying that I say, and this is the
one that my daughter loves the most, because my daughter
has a bit of anxiety, not so much, not as
much as me, but as a bit. She said, Dad,
you know the best thing you've ever told me about
that is say, am I safe in this moment? Or
I am safe in this moment? She says, in the
middle of the night. That is the best tip you've

(19:32):
ever given me. Because anxiety is always about the future,
It's always about worry is always about the future. This
might happen, that might happen. Oh my god, Oh my god,
Oh my god. And then the past is what creates
this alarm in us. So if we can bring ourselves
into present moment awareness and just say, yeah, I'm worried
about my tax bill, I'm worried about having to see

(19:54):
the deadist tomorrow for that root canal, I'm worried about that.
But in this moment, right now, in my bed safe,
I'm I'm safe here. And if we do that a
number of times a day, getting back to what you
just said about, you know, maintaining your healing, if you
reassure yourself multiple times a day, yeah, I'm saying even
I'm just you know, going to get the kids at
school or you know, making myself lunch, It's like, I'm

(20:16):
safe right now. Because the more you acknowledge that, the
more you start creating these little islands of safety, and
then the islands of safety congeeal into a bigger land
mass over the course of time. But you have to practice.
The unfortunate part of that is that your ego this
I have patience many many patients who have said to me,
you know, doctor Kennedy, I to be honest, I feel

(20:38):
unsafe when I'm not worrying. I feel worried when I'm
not worrying. Right. So that's your ego. That's your ego.
That's that that thinks that the worries are keeping you safe. Right. So,
as a child, you create this what I call this
ego dragon, this omnipotent figure. It's not smart, but it's
very powerful, and it basically wants you to worry because
it perceives that the worries keeping you say, so, when

(21:01):
I start showing you how to leave your worries behind,
this part of your ego starts to freak out because
it assumes that you are leaving something that's actually helped
you in the past, which you kind of are. So
there is this kind of mountain thing you have to
get over when you first start healing from anxiety, because
that ego dragon will start to revolt and it will

(21:24):
not like it when you stop worrying. Since we're children,
we want an explanation for everything. Since we're toddlers, we
drop something on the floor, it breaks, we have an explanation.
We know what it works, we know how the world works.
But we get it lulled into this sense of security
that we can explain everything with our mind. So when
we feel worried, we think that that's explaining the world,

(21:45):
when actually you're just scaring the crap out of yourself.
So it's really learning to get into the sensation of
your body, even if it hurts, actually especially if it hurts,
because early on it usually does because that's where your
alarm is.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
You know, when you were talking about the thing that
you're doing. Really loves that you say all the time.
It reminded me of something that I've adapted in dealing
with my own and also a lot of I did
I classify it as like an energy massage, but we
experienced like where there was literally knots of my feelings
and emotions that were in my body and they were

(22:17):
coming out in all kinds of ways, and I was like,
what is happening to me? But I've learned through the
course of my experiences, like when I have this moment
of fear and panic and worry that kind of comes
over me, I take off my shoes, I put my
feet on the ground. I kind of take a huge
breath in, and I go, what's happening right now? And

(22:41):
I look around me. I'm like, nothing's happening right now.
There's nothing that what I'm thinking and what I'm worried
about doesn't actually exist. I'm just creating this world that
doesn't exist. And I, as you pointed out, I unclenched
my jaw, my shoulders start to relax, and I'm like, Okay,
share one fact and one thing that I'm creating a

(23:02):
narrative of. And then I start to bring myself like
back to reality. It's like this grounding thing that I've
learned to do, and that's what you were talking about.
Reminded me of that, So that's super cool. I loved that.
I know you do a lot of work in non
traditional treatments, which I love. I think it's so ofesome
that you've combined, you know, years of your working in

(23:23):
medicine to now learning non traditional ways of doing it.
So some people with anxiety over the course of their life,
what are some of those kind of more non traditional
treatments that maybe they can look into.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
I think it's more there's a type of a therapy
called somatic experiencing therapy, and that's when it really shows
you that your anxiety is really in your body and
it shows you how to be safe in your body.
That's a really really effective therapy. The website for them
is Trauma Healing dot org. All one word Trauma Healing
and then dot org. Another form of therapy that I

(23:57):
find really helpful, this non traditional it's called Internal Family
Systems therapy or IFS, which kind of espouses the fact
that we have certain things that we exile from our
consciousness when you're younger. So IF you're bullied when you're
in grade three or whatever, you're eight years old, you're
being bullied. There's a part of you that sort of
pushes away from that part of you that's getting bullied,

(24:18):
you know, So we exile that part out to try
and keep us safe. And the more we fracture ourselves
when we're younger, the less able we are to sort
of handle and have some capacity and resilience in our
nervous system when we're older. So it really teaches you
how to go back and find that younger version of
yourself and show them that they're safe. So I FS

(24:39):
somatic experiencing. I think, you know, temperature stuff I think
is really helpful, you know, saunas, cold plunges, Just getting
yourself out of that sensation in your body, like that
alarm in your body is being repeated over and over
and over and over and over again. And for me,
it's like in my solar plexus it's hot, sharp, it

(25:00):
pushes into my heart, it pushes down against my spine.
I know it really well. So if we can change
that sensation, we can start adjusting its power. So if
we can move it out of this steady kind of
well known familiar pattern that it comes to do. We
can move it out of its familiar pattern with cold
plunges is one of them, or breathing into it, putting

(25:22):
your hand over it, you know, self touched. Compassion for
yourself is really really important and what a lot of
us with anxiety don't really have. We have a lot
of self judgment. I have this acronym I called JABS judgment, abandonment,
blame and shame, which is what we do to ourselves
when we are in experiencing something that's uncomfortable for us
as children and we're not getting help repairing it, or

(25:44):
we're not getting help fixing it, like if we're bullied.
Oh so it's judgment, abandonment, blame and shame, and we
do that to ourselves. There's a place in our brain
called the posterior singulate cortex. Name doesn't matter, but it's
part of the default mode network in the brain and
the fault mode the faulte network in the brain is
what our brain does when we're not doing anything specific.

(26:05):
So what happens is I believe this posterior singular cortex
finds a place in us when we're younger that judges us,
that says, oh, you're not you know, you were bullied,
so you're not worthy, or you know your mother said
you were fat, so you're not worthy. That stays in
there and that becomes the default setting. So when our
brain isn't doing something, we default into this self talk

(26:28):
of oh you're gonna get fat, Oh you're lazy, oh,
this and that, of course never allows you to process
the alarm because you're too busy being sucked into your
head with all these machinations and loops in your brain
that you can't get out of. So it's really understanding
that this is much more a physiological issue than a

(26:49):
psychological one. The psychological part of it is the byproduct
of the physiological one. So fixing the physiological one is
the part. Is is the way to really find your
healing permanently, as opposed to just feeling better in the
short term. You know, I often say that it's you know,
healing from anxiety is often about getting better at feeling
that it is feeling better. You start learning that every

(27:11):
negative emotion doesn't have to get railroaded down into anxiety.
You can feel envy, you can feel jealousy, you can
feel pain, you can feel you know, being rejected, you
can feel it without going down that firing it down,
that same old root of anxiety and alarm. So it's
just it's learning to build some capacity in the nervous
system so that you have other options in your nervous

(27:33):
system rather than just automatically every single time you feel
negative going up into your head and starting to worry.

Speaker 4 (27:39):
Oh wow, I don't.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
Have that answered your question.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
No, it totally did. And I loved that you said that.
I had heard somebody say anxiety is just you really
caring so much, and I also thought that was a
beautiful way of putting it and to help us, Okay,
understand this sucks, but also it's a cool thing that
you care as much as you do. Yeah, another level
of it. I really appreciate you coming on doctor Kennedy

(28:02):
and just seeing all of your work and the specialties
that you're doing. I want you to shout out your
book one more time before we head out, since it's
dropping well.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
Anxiety RX, and it originally came out in twenty twenty.
That was the first version, but the second version and
I really revised it a lot. You know, I've been
in a lot of podcasts, I've really revised. The theories
are the same. I've just revised them and explained them
better and made it more practical for people so that
they understand exactly what they have to do. There's a
step by step guy. There's like how you find your alarm,

(28:32):
you know, where is it in your body? Localizing it,
breathing into it, really realizing that this is how you heal.
Is making your adult self look after your child self,
you know, because we do have this sense that we're
very caring individuals. One thing I do see with people
with anxiety is they're very smart because they've been going

(28:53):
to the brain gym every day, because they've been ruminating
on their thoughts since they've been two years old.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
We love a rumination, oh yeah, oh for sure.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
And it makes you It makes you cognitive. So but
it's like having this you know, if you had like
a bar graph up here with cognition, but you're down
here with feeling. Right, you don't really feel that much
because feeling is painful, so you railroad everything into your
thoughts instead of actually starting to allow yourself to feel.
And it's you really want sort of be kind of

(29:22):
half cognition, half feeling, but us anxiety. People were like
ninety percent thinking and only ten percent feeling. And the
ten percent we feel is hugely is usually uncomfortable. So
it's not it's not great, not a great way to live.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
That's fair. Feeling is very hard. It's a human experience,
but it's very hardsolutely. Thank you again for coming on
and taking some time to talk with me. It's been
great getting to hear from you and get your expertise
on everything.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
Thanks Morgan. It's nice to be here.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
I am joined by one of my fellow friends in
this industry on your hammer. How are you hi?

Speaker 4 (30:00):
I'm so good.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
I'm honored to be here. Thank you so much for
inviting me on. Seriously, this is gonna be so fun.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, welcome to the cozy space. This is where we
get very real with our feelings.

Speaker 4 (30:09):
It's gorgeous. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
When you mentioned you're like, do you want to come
on and talk about mental health? I was like, talk
about my feelings absolutely.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, Because you know, if there's any two roles in
this industry that really like to talk about their feelings,
I think it would be you and I I.

Speaker 4 (30:22):
Think it's us. Yes, we're like that girl for mean girls,
you know, at the in the gym scene. I just
have a lot of feelings, you know.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yeah, and you know, I also think I have some
Janis interview. Also, I'm really spicy.

Speaker 4 (30:36):
I love that. We gotta be a little spicy. Big
feelings comes with big spice.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Okay, exactly, so we got big feelings.

Speaker 4 (30:42):
We got big spice.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
But I want to tell the people I know about
you and your role and things that you've done, but
give a little bit of background on who you are,
where you're at, how you got to where you are,
kind of thing, just so we can get a little perspective.

Speaker 4 (30:54):
Little context.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
Absolutely originally from Massachusetts, came down to Nashville in two
thousand and eight to go to Belmont University, did the
artist thing for a little while, realize that that is
the hardest thing in the world, and I said no
thanks after about five years.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
In a ten year town.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
But anyways, kind of fell into hosting when I was
kind of at that crossroads, you know, leaving you know,
music professionally behind and really like wondering what I was
going to do with my life and stuff. And then
I ended up getting hired by a company here in
town called Taste of Country. They're like a country music
news outlet, and I was there on camera, host and

(31:32):
producer for like three years, I think, and that's when
I just really fell in love with hosting.

Speaker 4 (31:39):
And now I have.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Been at Sirius XM for about five years and I
work on our like top forty country channel called The
Highway and it's.

Speaker 4 (31:48):
Been a blast. I love it. I love it so much.

Speaker 2 (31:50):
Oh yeah, that was a great little rap up. You know,
just your whole life email down into like two seconds, right.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Well, you know, it's like it has been a very very,
very long winding road, and of course the older I get,
the longer the story gets.

Speaker 4 (32:03):
So I figured out a way. It's just like, let's
bullet point this onny end.

Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yeah, but you know there's so much more to that.
And you've had a lot of experiences in your life
to speak to some of the mental health sides of this.
So what do you feel like because you didn't really
plan to be in this industry, right, Like for you,
you wanted to be an artist and now you're on
the other side of it. Like for me, it was
that I had planned to do TV and now I'm

(32:29):
in radio and like life just you know, comes at
you in a different way sometimes.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
Yeah, what's the hardest.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
Thing that you've experienced changing careers?

Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yeah, tons of imposter syndrome and a lot of worrying
too much about what other people are going to think
about this jump. So going back to like when I
was twenty five years old and since seven or you know,
since I came out the womb, singer. That was my

(33:02):
entire identity, and I was singer, singer, singer, singer, I'm
going to be a famous singer. I'm going to be
a famous singer. I was, you know, I grew up
in a small town and so as you know, you're
like big fish in a small pond. And then you
move to Nashville and you go to a school like Belmont,
and everybody around you is an incredible singer. And then
you start to get to know the industry a little

(33:23):
bit more. You get to know the ins and outs
of it, and you start to see things that you're like, oh,
I don't think that I want to do that.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
You know.

Speaker 1 (33:31):
Like my biggest thing was realizing just how much I
would be gone from home. And like the older I got,
the more I realized, I was like, oh wow, Like
I really like my couch and my dog and my house,
and like those things are not on the road, yes,
like having creature comforts, and like, you know, it's really
easy to look at it at one of our artists
that we get to champion in this industry and think

(33:52):
that like everything's all good.

Speaker 4 (33:54):
You know, they're comfortable on the road.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
And the reality is is for a very very long
time until you get to that top, you know, echelon
of things, you're in buses, you're in vans at first.

Speaker 4 (34:07):
Yeah, cars, vans, buses exactly.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
But anyways, circling back to just kind of you know,
when I was about twenty five years old and was
just so beat down by the nose, by the like
trying to gain just like an ounce of success and
progress in this town and move towards that goal of
being on more stages and building the platform and all

(34:34):
this kind of stuff. I was just hearing a lot
of nose and I got to a really really really
bad place mentally when I was trying to make it happen,
it wasn't working, and it was just like you're not enough.

Speaker 4 (34:49):
You're not enough.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
You're not enough, you're not enough, you're not strong enough,
you're not good enough of a singer, You're not motivated enough.
Like it was just like the negative self talk was
impossible to turn down at that point, and so changing
careers was very scary, especially since I changed careers from
being in this chair as like the artist chair, to

(35:12):
the completely opposite chair saying Okay.

Speaker 4 (35:17):
Now I'm going to be.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
I'm just completely opposite from where I always thought I
was going to be sitting.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Yeah, you're now putting the spotlight on other people versus
having the spotlight on it.

Speaker 4 (35:27):
Yes see, yeah, which I now love.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
But going through that was very, very scary because I
told people, told people in my life that music wasn't
making me happy anymore, and that was the truth. I
was at one of the lowest points in my life
when I was going through that kind of like breakup,
quarter life crisis. Not to sound like a complete drama queen,

(35:53):
but it was really really hard to say, this thing
is not making me happy anymore.

Speaker 4 (35:58):
I'm going to move on to something.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Else, and that what I really struggled with was worrying
that people were going to think that I was weak.
I just couldn't make it, and now I'm like using
this as an excuse all of the things, you know,
like the meanest things that I could say to myself.

Speaker 4 (36:17):
I promise you I was saying them too.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
But you're feeling a lot of shame.

Speaker 4 (36:21):
Yeah, yeah, Actually that's what we're told.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
When we fail. There's shame to say with that. Yeah, bright, shiny, Hey,
guess what, You're gonna get to do some really cool
things because this isn't what you were supposed to see.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Yeah. Do you feel like this negative self talk was
part of you before you ever tried to pursue being artist, Like,
was this a part of you as a kid?

Speaker 4 (36:43):
Oh totally, yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
I mean I think that I just had I'm just
a perfectionist inherently.

Speaker 4 (36:48):
Do you know much about the Enneagram? Oh yeah, okay,
I'm an Enneagram three. And so it's like the achiever.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
So my entire life I have been big personality, gonna
go and do big things, obsessed with, you know, doing
the cool thing.

Speaker 4 (37:07):
So that I could feel love.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
Like that's kind of the base of the achiever, the
base of the Enneagram. It's a lot of what I
think I deserve love for is like what I do.
And so it's taken a lot of therapy and a
lot of time to kind of unpack those feelings and
realize that, like, the people in my life who are
gonna love me love me because of who I am

(37:33):
and the friendships and the love that I give to them,
and like all of the things that I am as
opposed to what I do. And that was a really
difficult thing for me to go through and accept and
learn because I thought, you know, if I'm not doing
the cool thing anymore. And I remember when my husband
and I first started dating, I was going through this

(37:56):
transition from you know, pursuing an artist career. He works
in music as well. He was watching me go through
it and come home crying every single day and all
this kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (38:05):
And I said, you know.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
If I decide to like go and be a librarian,
are you gonna still love me? And shout out to librarians,
y'all are amazing, and I love you. It's just that that,
to me is just so different from what I always
said I was going to do.

Speaker 4 (38:26):
One is not inherently better than the other, of course.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
But like.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
I just I didn't know if I would be the
same person to him if I decided to completely change course.
And of course he was like, are you kidding me, Like,
I don't love you because you're a singer. I don't
love you because you're chasing an artist career, Like I
love you for this, this, this and that all that.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
So it sounds like he helped you he Yeah, in
ways that you didn't know you were going to need
help and healing.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yes, absolutely, he's been quite the rock. I love him
so so much. When you when you're entire identity is
one thing, and then that thing starts to make you
really really unhappy, it's very difficult to know like where
to turn.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
You know.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
And I think everybody experiences, at one point in their
life or another an identity crisis. Yeah, they have this.
What am I doing with my life? What's happening? Who
am I? What does any of this mean?

Speaker 4 (39:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (39:20):
If you've never had that, then you're so so lucky. Yeah,
but I do think everybody experiences it at least once.

Speaker 4 (39:26):
Yeah, I think so too.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
And it's such a you know, when I have shared
bits and pieces of this story and through everything that
I share, and I'm sure you feel the same way.
I'm curious if you do. The more I share, the
more connected I feel to people, because the more me too,
moments I get to have with the people that we
reach with our platforms, and that is the joy of

(39:50):
my life.

Speaker 4 (39:51):
Like, yes, yeah, connection is everything.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Yeah. So much of where we're at feels disconnected totally.
So to be able to share something and feel connected
with people you may never ever meet in person. Yeah,
and for them to be like, oh my gosh, you
said things that nobody else has ever said. Ye, or
this is me. How did you know? Those experiences feel

(40:17):
so personal and so important.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
I don't know if you also feel I go, this
is what I was here for.

Speaker 4 (40:24):
Yes, yes, this is the reason. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
There's nothing else I do good, There's nothing else I
accomplish or whatever. This is what I was here.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yes, absolutely, I couldn't agree more. And I think that
that's what I fell in love with and realized what
I loved about music and singing. I realized that I
could do the thing I loved most about being on
stage as a host, just in a different way. And like,
my voice and my music is so precious to me

(40:51):
that I'm so happy that I just get to keep
that for myself right now. Who knows what will happen
with it in the future, But doing what I do now,
I still get to have those human connections, and I
mean we talk with our country artists all the time
about like that's their favorite part about being on stage,
that's their favorite part about meeting fans out on the

(41:11):
road and stuff. And we get to do that part
too a lot of the time, which is just such
a blessing.

Speaker 4 (41:17):
It's awesome.

Speaker 2 (41:18):
So for you, what are some of the things that
you've experienced in the mental health space, so, you know,
for me, I've I've dealt with depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts.
Those are my three kind of big trifecta if you will.
What are some of those for you if any.

Speaker 4 (41:36):
Yeah, absolutely so.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
Anxiety is absolutely something that I think I struggled with,
I mean for much longer before I actually like started
going to therapy for it.

Speaker 4 (41:48):
Anxiety and depression.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
I think that the depression stuff really started through singing,
through that transition that we've been talking about in my
life and just kind of leaving music behind and stepping
in to this new space. Anxiety very much comes from
my like craving of control. I've realized mine is, like

(42:10):
you know, they always say that anxiety is about like
worrying in the future about what's going to happen, you know, next,
and focusing on the like right now is a great
way to curb it as difficult as like way easier
said than done. But for me it's been a lot
of like trying to control things that are completely out
of my control. Being a perfectionist absolutely contributes. People pleaser

(42:35):
also of course factors into it, so anxiety and depression definitely.
And then I also in twenty twenty one experienced my
first bout with burnout and really really crashed and was
in the lowest point that I've ever been in my
life because I it just all came crashing down after

(42:58):
you know, smiling and noting and surviving, not thriving for
months on end in a situation that was just really
wearing on me. My body paid for it, and it's
like it was wild. It was really wild, and I
had to dig myself out of that for and it
took months and medicine and therapy and crying and slowing

(43:20):
down when I didn't feel like I could slow down.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
And I would imagine that depression anxiety came in because
it always likes to come in when you are at
your lowest moment.

Speaker 4 (43:30):
Oh, yeah, experiencing it at the same time, totally, totally. Yeah.
In twenty twenty one.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
I think it was like throughout that summer, I started
really feeling I would wake up every morning super nauseous
because as soon as I opened my eyes, my anxiety
was so high about what was going to happen in
the day ahead, what I had to get done, what
I was going to.

Speaker 4 (43:54):
Have to deal with all of that.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
I felt so physically ill from the anxiety and the burnout.

Speaker 4 (44:05):
It was miserable.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
And you know, when we have those miserable days, like
we keep fighting through it because we have to, like obviously,
and there's so many people that struggle with this and
show up with a smile on their face and like
they go and do the job whatever it is, whether
it's outward facing like ours is or not. And I

(44:27):
woke up basically crying every single day, nauseous, you know.
Finally got on some antidepressants and anti anxiety medicines that
really worked, which is a whole other journey.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
You know.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
And I want to recognize the people to who are
out there and who are getting up every single day
and going to work even when it's really hard, like
maybe your personal life is impacting you. Maybe it's the
job itself that's really hard for you, but you get
up and you go because you know that this is
what you have to do. And I think it's so
brave that people are willing to do that and willing

(45:02):
to put themselves because I come from a place of
understanding that some days you just don't want to do
it and another option would be easier, and that other
option may see me there easier. It may look easier,
but it isn't the better one. The better one is
finding your way through it to the other side. And

(45:23):
maybe that's finding a new career path. Maybe it's finding
your way that you didn't think you could find your
way through. And maybe the imposter syndrome is so hard
right now when you come out, the others are like,
what am I talking about?

Speaker 4 (45:35):
I knew I could do this.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
I do want to encourage those people much like you
experience I've experienced, and I know a lot of people
close to me have, like I'm proud of you. I
think we hit that.

Speaker 4 (45:46):
Yeah, you woke up.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
Today and you decided I'm going to go to work
and I'm going to get through this, because that's not
an easy decision. We want to look at a lot
of our decisions in life and you know, decide what
you're gonna eat for the day. Sometimes it's not easier.
Deciding to go work out also not easy. But one
of the hardest decisions you make sometimes is getting your
butt out of bed and saying I have to go

(46:09):
do this today.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
And you'll surprise yourself over and over and over again
at how much you can do that, and like how
strong you actually are. And asking for help is the
bravest thing you could ever do. Asking for help is
not giving up. It is actually the bravest.

Speaker 4 (46:30):
Thing that you could ever do.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
And we all have our different points when we finally
let go and say hey, I need help with this thing,
and we're all on our different journeys. Thankfully, I had
a great example in my mom, who I knew had
gone to therapy, you know, throughout my high school years
and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (46:52):
So in my house it was.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
Very normal to be going into that kind of setting
and stuff. So in that way, I had it easier
than a lot of people did.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
You know.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
At my asking for help was not maybe as scary
as it is for others who maybe grew up in
an environment where therapy was not talked about, mental health
was not talked about, all of that, and I'm so
thankful to be a part of the conversations that are
hopefully breaking down those stigmas.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
No, it is because even if you listen, family is
what you make it. Right. If you don't have a
strong family bond, you can have friends. And if you
don't have friends, there's support systems that you can find
in groups that are free, and there's so many different
ways to find the help that you need. And talking
about it allows us to also be a support system that, Like,

(47:42):
if you are ever going through it, I guarantee both
of us will sit here and say, reach out to us.
You will try us.

Speaker 4 (47:48):
Yes it might not be great at it, but.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
We will be there and we will help you find
your way through. Like we're fumbling our way totally.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
We are surviving, not thriving, guys. Like it's not like
we have everything figured out. But I think the first
step in kind of, you know, maybe moving towards a
healthier space is just having that meat too moment, having
that Like I don't know if I have any advice
for you, but I can say with one hundred percent certainty.
I have been there, and I have felt that before,

(48:15):
and you are not alone in that feeling.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Now, these are we're speaking of things that are over
arching and over experiences, but day to day life, as
we just mentioned, how getting up some days is just
really hard. What are some things that you do that
really helps serve you to get back to a good
place when maybe you kind of fall out of step
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
So I will say that being on the medicine that
I am on has been such a humongous blessing, and
I will admit that I am on medicine as many
times as it takes to again continue to help break
down the stigma around it, and I'm very very thankful
that I did find something that works for me. But

(48:55):
on the hard days, which I still do have, of course,
it's not like.

Speaker 4 (48:58):
I'm like walking around like a with no emotions or anything,
because we definitely don't want to get to that point either.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
I've realized that the longer I try to pretend that
I'm okay, the longer the funk sticks around confronting the
bad feelings quote bad feelings, which are actually just like
very natural human feelings, whether it's anger or sadness, or

(49:24):
disappointment or frustration or jealousy, all of these things that
could be labeled as bad. I've learned through therapy it's
just like, let's make make everything neutral. And that includes
the happy and the joy and the excitement, Like everything's neutral.
This is all just like human stuff that every single
person on the planet goes through. And so when I

(49:44):
learned not to shame myself for feeling the disappointment and
the sadness and the anger and all of those things,
I realize that just letting myself sit in it for
a second and like naming it and looking at in
the eye allows me to.

Speaker 4 (50:02):
Move on a lot faster. Yes, have you ever dealt
with that yours?

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Well, I'm saying yes because when I was talking to
doctor rus Kennedy, he was talking about this and this
experience and why it's really important, especially to do with anxiety,
to really feel it and allow yourself to recognize it
because it's in your body and you can't do anything
about it being there, so you got to deal with
it head on. And yes I have. There's been moments

(50:28):
where I'll have a really hard day and I will
I typically wear my little house slippers, but I'll take
them off and I'll put my feet on the ground
and I just kind of stand there and I literally
allow whatever the feeling is to like hit me and
go past me. Yeah, because if I keep moving, it's
like I'm running away from it.

Speaker 4 (50:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
I could be so busy, and oftentimes it hits in
our busiest moments, right or when there's so much chaos
around us. So I have to intentionally like sit and say,
hit me, let it come through and go out, so
then I can keep moving because if I keep running away,
it just piles and piles and gets worse.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Yes, And I think that that's a lot of where
like the burnout stuff, those burnout symptoms start to come
into play.

Speaker 4 (51:12):
What was the quote that I shared on Instagram a
couple of weeks ago that you were.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
Like, it's about this, let me look it up. Yeah,
because it was so spot on, I was.

Speaker 4 (51:22):
I love quotes. I love quote a quote.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
I think it's why we love country music and love
lyrics so much too, because of I.

Speaker 4 (51:32):
Mean, we were the Pinterest generation.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
How many hours have you spent scrolling on Pinterest like
pinning you know all these inspirations I love them.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
Yeah, and because it was the original way for us
to notice that somebody else was feeling what we were feeling. Yes,
if there was a quote about it, I was like, oh,
somebody else will that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
Yeah, it's like someone else wrote something that I haven't
been able to put into words. So the quote that
we bonded over a couple of weeks ago was you
can't heal if you keep pretending like it doesn't hurt.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
Yes, because it's so important to feel pain. Because again,
we have been taught. I've had an episode on here
where I had a childhood therapist on and she works
in childhood trauma, doctor Amy Tran, and she was like,
you have to unlearn things, And that is the thing
we have to unlearn, is that we have to stop
running away from the pain and just kind of let

(52:24):
it hit us, because when we do, it moves through faster.

Speaker 4 (52:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
The further we avoid it, the longer it takes to
move through it.

Speaker 4 (52:31):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
And I have friends who, you know, they just are
people who are used to being like the bright light.
I think that was one of the things that I
really struggled with when I first started kind of realizing
the depression within me. Realizing the anxiety within me. I
get a lot of comments about, like, you're so positive

(52:54):
all the time, You're so You're such a bright light
my favorite compliment, don't get me wrong.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
But I also want.

Speaker 1 (53:02):
To be really real with anyone who comes across my
content or listens to my show on the Highway or
whatever it is, like, I'm not that way all the time.
I'm so happy, and I wear it like a badge
of honor that I can be that for so many people,
But I want to do it in a way that's like,

(53:22):
I also have really shitty days and I'm also like
a very normal because there's a very fine line between
like being a positive person and toxic positivity, right, Like,
we can't we can't walk around saying oh, it's going
to be okay to someone going through like the hardest
season of their life, you know, Like that's not I
want to hold space for that hardest season of your life.

(53:44):
I want to say that sucks. And while I do
believe it is going to be okay, that's not what
I'm gonna throw at you when you're in the thick.

Speaker 4 (53:52):
Of it, you know. So it's kind of holding both
things at the same time.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Yeah, and two things can be true. Now that.

Speaker 4 (54:01):
Things can be true?

Speaker 2 (54:02):
That was another one. Yes, you know that. That's a
very real thing. Because it was really early on when
I was sharing and first started the show. A lot
of people are like, gosh, you're so positive, You're so
you live such a fun life. And that's when I
quickly realized, oh, I'm only presenting one side of this.
Yeah you go, And that was my fault, not because
I meant to, but just because I was scared to

(54:26):
show the other side.

Speaker 4 (54:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
That was also super early on and like what's happening
to my life?

Speaker 4 (54:30):
What are we doing here?

Speaker 2 (54:32):
But it was important for me to be like, yes,
and you know what, most days, I want to live
life to every extent of the fullest, and even on
my hard days, I still try to because that's how
I get out of my hard days. That's how I
find my funk out. Like that's people find different strategies
and how they work, and I'm just really good at

(54:53):
sharing that stuff in its entirety. So it looks really
pretty and like it has a really pretty on it,
right absolutely, But then you see a video of me
crying and they're like, why is she bosing crying on
because you saw fifty videos of me laughing. Yeah, and
we need to know that that's not just it.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
You know, absolutely, that's not an accurate, accurate representation of
life in general, any human's journey, but it's also not
an accurate representation of us.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
One thing that I think is really important is just
in hearing this, I hope you guys know that.

Speaker 4 (55:27):
You're not alone.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Yeah, overatching theme all of it is that whatever you're
battling on any of these levels, other people are experiencing it.
And that's kind of cool.

Speaker 4 (55:39):
Yeah, you know, the coolest.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
It's always been true that two people are suffering really
love companies.

Speaker 4 (55:44):
So you know, misery loves company, baby, we do.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
And that's okay because sometimes you're going to suffer because
that's how life works.

Speaker 4 (55:54):
Yeah, totally, And I think.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
As much too. Artists may we would love life to
be easy, but it's not.

Speaker 4 (55:58):
It's really not. It's never gonna to be.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
And I think that, you know, if there's anyone listening
right now that is even trying to convince themselves that
your situation is so unique to you that you know,
maybe this doesn't apply to you, I promise I don't
care what your unique situation is in your brain, Like,
I promise you there is someone out there that has
experienced something similar enough to be able to relate and

(56:24):
to be able to connect on You're really never alone,
never ever ever.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
No, And sometimes it just means putting yourself out there
a little bit more than you maybe wan too.

Speaker 4 (56:34):
Yeah that scary, Yeah that was so scary.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
But also make the phone call, Like, if you are struggling,
I don't care who you're afraid to tell or talk to,
make the phone call because also, nine times out of ten,
that person is going to be like, yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (56:47):
Got your back, Yeah totally.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
And circling it back to like what we do when
we work in music and stuff. Maybe you don't have
the words for how you feel, but between quotes and
le of songs, I promise you you can find something
that makes you feel seen and makes you feel heard
and understood. And if that's the conversation starter with someone

(57:11):
in your life that you can send, Like, if you
feel comfortable sending a quote or a song to someone
in your life to start the conversation of like, I
don't know how to explain this to you, but this
is how I feel. I think that that could be
like a great little tool to use of, Like, hey,
haven't I haven't figured out a way to talk about

(57:32):
this openly, but I just heard this or I just
read this and it kind of sums up where I'm
at right now.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
Oh that's such a good idea.

Speaker 4 (57:39):
It could be a good thing, you know. This is
how the doors.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
Okay, this is how we're gonna end. I love that
you said that. I want you to share your two
favorite either song or album and your two favorite people
fallow on Instagram.

Speaker 4 (57:50):
That will help you.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
And I'm gonna grab my phone.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
While yay, Oh my gosh. Favorite album that I am
listening to on repeat right now. Cassie Ashton's Made from
the is spectacular. It is so good, you guys. The
title track, it gives me the same feelings that Maren
Morris's Hero did her debut album. It was like, of course,
the singles are just absolute smashes, but then the deep

(58:14):
cuts made from the dirt. Cassie Ashton, if you don't
know where it got too unbelievable, and she's so like
uniquely herself. It's just so I'm obsessed with her. So
that's one album that I can't take off repeat and honestly,
like I love a sad song, so for me sad girl, Yes, absolutely,
I mean Adele's twenty one is constantly on repeat for me.

(58:37):
It's not new obviously, but like that one is just
always something I could listen to it all day, every
day and never gets sick of it.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
Those are good ones, Okay. So the two that come
to mind for me like right now in this moment
in this season of life. Yeah, the good witch Bye
Mazie Peters.

Speaker 4 (58:53):
Okay, I haven't heard it yet.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
Great album pop music, love it. And because of the
phase of life I'm in this, I mean you talk
about a healing album Girlscott Lyrics, da.

Speaker 4 (59:03):
Oh that makes me happy for you?

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Yah?

Speaker 4 (59:05):
So good?

Speaker 2 (59:06):
All right, Now give me your two instagram if accounts
of Fallow because we need good energy on our feeds.

Speaker 4 (59:11):
Absolutely. Okay.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
So earlier the quote that we were talking about We
the Urban super inspirational, very kind of what we were
talking about, like no toxic, positive positivity. It's just like
very feels very supportive. Yes, and you're gonna read what
you need to hear on any given day. We the
Urban is fantastic. And then one of my favorite writers

(59:32):
and poets right now. You can find her at Mary
Oliver's Drunk Cousin. Her name is Lindsay Rush and she's
just incredible. She has one of my favorite poems and
like pieces of words put together ever. It's called Cracks
of Light and it is just spot on for like
I have it on my phone background.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
Like.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
She posts some really really wonderfully relatable, funny, uplifting things.
So find her at Mary Oliver's Drunk Cousin.

Speaker 4 (59:59):
She's phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
I love that news.

Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
I love it. What about you?

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
The two that I have. One is Zana keith Lee
and it's spelled like z A n n A and
then keith Lee l E y okay. And she posts
so many quotes. And my favorite part about her though,
is every single day she posts affirmations on her stories
and I'll say, I'm out loud to myself because it's
kind of hard to come up with besides the affirmations

(01:00:25):
of like I am kind, i am smart, I'm shout
out the help, but she has ones that are just
really like here's today, I am grateful for all that
I have and all that's on its way to me.
Right now, I focus my vision on creating a life
of true joy and fulfillment. Like, so, she's just really
good at creating things that you need to say, but
you don't know how to put the words. Yeah, I

(01:00:46):
love and every day, even if I'm at work, I'll
just read them and I'm reading them in my brain
to myself.

Speaker 4 (01:00:50):
It immediate follow and this both.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
All of us are like, we're both gonna following. And
then the other one is Rainbow Salt. She's also just
a beautiful writer. Both of them just put things into
words that I don't Her name's Bianca's I'm not gonna
try and butcher her last name. But they both put
so many beautiful things into words that I never could
in that way. So both of them were really good.

(01:01:16):
Follow us loveday yay, so joy on our feeds. That's
how we're ending this little thing today. But Anya, thank
you so much for coming on and being vulnerable and
sharing your story with you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
Yes, Morgan, I'm honored and I'm so proud of you.
From one person in the industry to another, I know
how hard you are working and I see it every
single day, and like doing a podcast like this not
only is a ton of work from the setup, to
the booking guests, to the editing, to the posting on

(01:01:45):
socials about it. Like, that's a ton of work, but
you're also tackling some like really really important conversations and
ones that people need to hear, and that honestly takes
a lot of emotional and mental work. And so just
know that I'm really proud of You're happy for you,
and what you're doing is just really important. So thank
you for spending all that time doing it.

Speaker 4 (01:02:07):
You're going to be the world.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
Needs it so okay, But also the world needs you
you because as much as I know that there are
hard days, you are such a light and you're a
great person in this world and a great person to
have a platform. So please keep being you.

Speaker 4 (01:02:21):
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
Don't ever let anybody change.

Speaker 4 (01:02:23):
We're going to keep on keeping on. Yeah we are,
Thanks Morgan.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Thank you. My anxiety feels a sense of calmness. My
alarm feels a sense of calmness. After this episode, I
really loved learning the depth of anxiety and how we
can start to heal it with doctor Kennedy, and of
course sitting down with my friend Anya to share in
our mental health struggles and if you like this episode,
rate review, subscribe wherever you listen, and share with your
friends or'or on social media. I'll love you forever, but

(01:02:47):
I'll love you forever even if you don't and you're
just here listening, because that is the point the podcast
Instagram is at. Take this personally. Until next time, friends,
I love you, Bye.