How to Overcome ANXIETY and CONTROL Negative Thoughts | Tom Bilyeu

I mean 40 million Americans have uh clinical anxiety. That's like 18 million Americans have depression. I think I was looking into aspects of my life to try and identify what was causing my reaction. Because when you get anxious, you try and identify what in your life is making you anxious. Anxiety is simply you living in a future state worrying about something that has not actually happened. The moment you can you suddenly see that those distorted thoughts aren't true, you can change. First of all, comparison is the thief of joy, so be careful just outright comparing yourself to other people. And in fact, understanding what anxiety is at like its most foundational level, I think it's going to be really helpful. Anxiety is simply It is literally nothing more than this. It is simply you living in a future state worrying about something that has not actually happened. And what you're doing is what I call rehearsing failure. So you're looking at somebody else, you're seeing how amazing they are, you're imagining your future, and you're saying, you know, I'm never going to live up to what they've done. I'm never going to accomplish that level. Now, you can imagine that's very different than saying, "Oh, look at what they've done. That's so incredible. I'm super inspired, and I'm going to get that good. I may not be that good yet, but I'm going to get that good." Now, one of those rehearsals creates anxiety that I'm never going to be that good. The other one reduces anxiety, and it actually puts you in an action-oriented state. Now, action cures all. That's one of my like just dead reckoning things that I say to myself all the time. Action cures all. So, when you look at somebody that's killing it in a way that you want to kill it, step number one is to just recognize that you You get good. You can get better. That that is just the nature of the human animal. You don't need to believe you're special. You just have to recognize the truth of the human condition. So, anything you put energy and effort into getting better at, you will actually get better at. Anything that you rehearse over and over and over, anything you repeat, is going to become real mentally. So, if you look at someone else and say, "I'm never going to be that. I'm never going to be that good. I'm a loser. I'm a failure." Whatever, that's the thing that you repeat. You're catastrophizing, okay, to use the language of cognitive behavioral therapy. If you're not If you're not familiar with that, that is the number one defense against anxiety. Read the book Feeling Great. Uh absolutely phenomenal book about how you stop the cognitive distortions, as they're known, and get into a state where you are in that calm state that you're looking for. This is the task that we all have. We all go through difficult things, horrible things, heartbreaking things, the kinds of things that we wouldn't wish on somebody else. But the job that we all have is in the face of that, we have to construct a narrative about it that moves us forward. And this is why I'm such a firm believer that you should do and believe that which moves you towards your goals. And I see people every day that tell themselves a story about themselves that they are worthless. That they're meaningless. That they're pointless. That their friends and family would be better off if they just died. So, we have to find a way to construct a narrative about ourselves that empowers us, that lifts us up, even though even though we make mistakes, even though we fall down, even though we're never going to get things right all the time, and even though terrible things happen to us. I honestly I think the I wouldn't underestimate the SSRI withdrawal I had. I think that the anxiety and the this this horrifying impending sense of doom I had, like I said, for about 2 years after I stopped taking SSRIs, I think I was looking into aspects of my life to try and identify what was causing uh my reaction. Because when you get anxious, you try and identify what in your life is making you anxious. And so I had, you know, my my dad was randomly getting controversially famous, which was incredibly stressful for my family. So that was a real source of stress. And then I had a surprise pregnancy, which is was a serious real source of stress. Uh and I think I was partly trying to reduce the amount of chaos in my life uh in any way possible. And then, yeah, it was definitely I definitely partially felt pressured. Um there was some family pressure. And there was some kind of neighborhood pressure. We moved to this It wasn't a suburb of Toronto, because it was still in Toronto, but it was kind of on the outskirts. And everyone there was 35, and they had kids. And I was pregnant. And they were like, There was judgment there about not being married. And there was also like, What do you do as a job? Which is a weird thing to ask a pregnant person. Which is like, What do you do as a job? Well, like, currently I'm having a child. Like that's my job at the moment. Um so I think I was just trying to reduce the amount of chaos in my life by making things as ordered and structured as possible. And one of the things I thought might help, and my family thought might help, was getting married. Now, the the second idea is that when you're depressed and anxious, again, it's not the events of your life that are upsetting you. It's It's the messages you're giving yourself, the way you're interpreting events. And when you're depressed, you're giving yourself messages like, "I'm not as good as I should be." And there's a lot of people listening right now who are thinking that. And or if you're shy, you may be thinking, you know, "Why am I so shy? I'm really screwed up. There must be something wrong with me." Um depressed people often feel discouraged or hopeless, and then you're telling yourself, uh "Things will never change. This is my true self. I really am a loser. I'll be this way forever." And uh and the really amazing thing that that's been kind of known, what I just said, more or less for 2,000 years, but what's really kind of new and awesome is that the thoughts that trigger depression and anxiety are not valid thoughts. Depression and anxiety is the world's oldest con. And you're you're fooling yourself, but you don't you don't realize it. And then the final message from cognitive behavioral therapy is the very moment you change the way you think. In other words, the moment you can you suddenly see that those distorted thoughts aren't true, and you stop believing them, in that instant, uh you can change. Cuz you know, a lot of people listening, I mean, 40 million Americans have uh clinical anxiety. I assume like 18 million Americans have depression, but let's just say, you know, the lifetime incident of depression uh pretty high. I mean, you at one point, if you looked at data like uh I was going to get the study right, but I remember I saw a shocking statistic years ago that it was something like a quarter of women of childbearing age were taking an antidepressant. Wow. So, you you see Well, this you know, it it seems high, but the the regular statistic just of the whole population is about 12% 11 to 12%, and it seems high, right? But, it's sort of hard as a psychiatrist to see those numbers, and some of that says, "Well, it's good that people are getting treatment." You know, like what do those numbers mean? And and what we also know is, no matter how many folks are aren't taking meds, a lot of people aren't getting into full remission. And so, what starts as a somewhat minor concern about not being as cool as the next person, not accomplishing as much as they do, not being as smart or as talented, whatever, and it becomes this full-blown I mean, this can really go into like full-blown panic attack syndrome because you're repeating it. The more you feel it, the higher the anxiety. So, it's a positive feedback loop. So, I feel anxious about this, which makes me more anxious about this, which makes me think about it and worry about it more. And so, now my brain is wiring it, and the amplitude is going up. And so, when you get into a positive feedback loop like that that's destructive, now you're in a really dangerous place. So, step number one, don't compare yourself in to others in a way other than I could become that with enough time and energy and effort put into it. And then, number two, recognize that when you have a cognitive distortion like catastrophizing, "I'll never be that good." Right? You don't have evidence to support that, and even if you do, it does not serve you to spend time catastrophizing. So, you are way better off, just from a neurochemical standpoint, you are way better off doing what's called a pattern interrupt, stopping yourself from thinking that, and instead of saying, so that's nice simple pattern interrupt here, oh I'm never going to be that good. Wait. Pattern interrupt, I'm not that good yet, but I can get that good. Okay? And that becomes the way that you break that cycle, and the only way to undo that anxiety is to let it atrophy. Now, the fastest way to make something atrophy is to focus on something else. So now, the thing that we're going to replace that catastrophizing with, that's hardwiring into our brain, is we're going to replace it with the way the human animal works, I can get good at anything, right? So if it's what I call the only belief that matters. If I put time and attention into getting better at this thing, I will actually get better. That is the nature of the human animal. And so I would just repeat that. I can get good at anything. I can get good at anything. And so that becomes my pattern interrupt, that becomes the thing now that I'm reinforcing in my mind, that becomes the thought that hardwires, that becomes the feeling that hardwires. You know, you present people with this, they're just feeling absolutely horrendous. And the And the most powerful example I think you have of this is the mother of the little girl who was shot in the face with a pellet gun, and it explodes one of her or multiple of her teeth perhaps, and multiple surgeries, and the mother had let her go out to play, and so it's like, oh man, she's beating herself up over it, I never should have let her go out, I'm a terrible mother, you know, my daughter is suffering, how could I ever allow myself to be happy again? Um how How did you help her realize that hitting the magic button and making all of that anxiety and all of that, you know, shame and guilt, like how on earth did you make her see that guilt and shame and anxiety are actually positive? Well, that's the really fun fun thing. You see, she'd been suffering for for 9 years since her daughter had been shot at the age of 12 and she blamed herself that she she said I shouldn't have let her go off to play that night. Uh so I'm a bad mother and just horrible 9 years and so said to her after we empathized I was treating her in front of a live audience and I I said now if there's a magic button here, I said well first of all what do you want out of this session? If a miracle happens, what miracle would you want? She said well I I feel better. I'm so so tired of feeling 100% guilty and 100% anxious and 100% ashamed and 100% depressed and hopeless and angry. And I said well let's imagine there's a magic button here and if you press it you'll be instantly cured with no effort and you'll go into a state of euphoria. Uh will you press that button? She says absolutely. I'd press it in a heartbeat. Every everyone says that and I say well we don't have a magic button but I've got some incredible techniques but I I don't think it would be such a good idea to use those techniques. Uh and I she says well well well well why not? You know this is what I need. I've been trying for 9 years to get over my my depression. I said well before we use those techniques let's see what all your negative thoughts and feelings show about you that's positive and and also now now let's say your sadness and depression to start out with. You've been horribly depressed because your 12-year-old daughter for 9 years has had surgeries and unsuccessful treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and she's been pretty miserable. So if you press the magic button you'll be joyous and happy. So you're saying you want to be joyous and happy about the fact that your daughter's been suffering for 9 years? She says oh no that that doesn't sound right. So so I said what does your sadness show about you that's positive and awesome? She says it shows how much love my daughter. So put that down. Is that real? Is that powerful? Is that important? She said, "Absolutely." And then you're you're you're telling yourself uh that the people here in the audience are judging you. That was another one of her negative thoughts. They think you're a bad mother and you think you're a bad mother. What does that thought show about you that's positive and awesome? The fact that you're concerned that the people in the audience here may judge you. She says, "I guess it shows that I want a positive loving relationships with with with them." And I said, "Is that true?" She says, "Absolutely." I said, "Is that important?" She says, "Absolutely." So put that down. Shows that I want loving relationships with the with the people here in the group. And then you're you're very self-critical. You're beating up on yourself constantly. I'm a bad mother. I'm a failure. I I shouldn't have done this. I you know, I should have done done that. What what does that show about you that's positive and awesome?" She says, "Well, maybe that I have high standards." I said, "Absolutely. Is that true?" She says, "Yes." And I said, "Have your Have your high standards helped you?" She says, "Oh, yes. I I do everything I can to help my daughter and and I got a PhD in clinical psychology. I've I've achieved a lot." And I said, "Is that important?" And she says, "Absolutely." I said, "What else does all this self-criticism show about you that that's positive and and awesome?" And and she says, "Well, maybe humility." And I don't like bragging about about myself. I said, "Is that important, humility?" She says, "Yes, I'm a very religious person. That's That's a spiritual principle." So put down humility. And then uh and you're anxious all the time. And if you press the magic button, your anxiety will go away. What what are some good things about your anxiety? She said, "It keeps me vigilant to protect my daughter daughter. The last time I let down my my guard, she got shot in the face. Uh so I guess you're saying your anxiety is is your love for your daughter. She says, "Absolutely." So she puts that down and then your anger is is that valid? Uh what what are some beautiful things about your anger? She says, "Well, the parents of those boys never should have let them go out and play with other children with a loaded rifle." Uh and so so what does your anger show about you, Karen? That's awesome. She said, "Well, I'm I'm like an angry mother bear. I'm going to protect my daughter. I'm not going to let those parents get away with with that." And and and I said, "Is that important?" She says, "Absolutely." So we came up with a list of about 25 beautiful things about her depression and anxiety and shame and guilt and anger and hopelessness. Even the hopelessness is even a a good thing cuz it prevents her from getting uh disappointed, getting her hopes up. Like it doesn't make sense that you could sit down with Dr. Burns for one session and be cured. That's like a snake oil salesman. So your hopelessness shows that you're a critical thinker and it prevents you from getting horribly uh get your hopes up and then then get all disappointed at the end of the evening. She said, "Absolutely." So then I said, "Well, look at given all these beautiful things about you. We've we've listed 25 beautiful things about you that that that are all expressions, you know, of these these negative feelings. That that you have these negative feelings because of these beautiful things about you. And if you press that magic button, all go down the drain along with your negative feelings. Is that what you want?" She says, "No, I I don't want to suffer, but I don't want to give up all these positive core values that I have." And then we said, "Well, maybe we can make a little compromise here. Maybe instead of pressing that magic button, we'll have a magic dial and you can dial them down to a lower level, but not to zero. So So, how sad would you want to be at the end of the evening? It's 100 right now. She said, "Oh, 10% is enough." I said, "Are you Are you Are you sure that's enough? Are you Can I sell you on 20?" Now, I'm in the position of trying to persuade her to be more upset. You You You see, rather than try to sell her on something which only would trigger resistance. And then so she dialed them to zero. She thought the shame, she didn't need any shame and one of them she only needed 2% and some of them she wanted 10% and that type of thing. And now I've made a deal with her subconscious mind, with her resistance, that we'll dial them down to these levels, but no further. And then I said, "Now, Karen, that I have to advise you about one thing. The techniques we're going to use are so powerful that you might overshoot your goals. Like your depression may go all the way from 100 to zero rather than to 10. But don't worry cuz if it go If you get too happy, I'll try to I'll help you work your depression up to 10 before the end of the evening." Then she started laughing and at that point I knew I had her. And so I stopped rehearsing failure. I started rehearsing success and I just said, "I'm going to let failure take me totally by surprise if it ever happens because I'm never going to allow myself to think about it." And so now anytime I find myself like, "Ooh, that could be like a risky situation." I say to myself, "No, no, no. This is an opportunity for me to shine. This is going to be amazing. I'm going to kill it. I'm going to get out there. I'm prepared. I always prepare myself. You know that. You're ready to rock and roll. Let's do the damn thing." And because that's what I start repeating in my head, now when I think about something like that, I'm not nervous. I've rehearsed that feeling good. I say those things to myself in an elevated state, so I'm excited about them. And so now all of a sudden I'm rehearsing this feeling good, I'm rehearsing it being fun, and so that's what comes to mind when I enter what used to be a very stressful situation. When somebody as intelligent as you understands the power of being sexy, how do you deal with that? Okay, so it used to make me angrier. Um and especially being in charge of my dad's business and having business conversations with particularly with men, but it's not just men, it's also with women. Uh because of the way I look I'm immediately put into this category of like stupid, young, blonde woman who has only only had any type of influence because of her dad. Right? So I I immediately know what kind of little box I'm put into. And it used to make me really frustrated and angry. And now I just find it funny mostly. So I've played up the like we had a Times just a terrible article written about my dad and I and I was in that article way too much in the Times earlier this year and she called me some sort of What did she say? Hooting Barbie. And I And And so I've decided to embrace it really. Like you know what? Yeah, okay, fine. I can do both. Sorry that makes some people angry. But is it bad like is it worse than just doing one? Like if I'm smart, do I have to be like frumpy? Like is it just one? And Instagram is tricky, so it's tricky because you're navigating like how to spread awareness about your brand. And so I can put out these podcast clips, which is 95% of my content is podcast clips, uh and they get interaction. People enjoy them, people share them. But then if I, you know, every freaking, I don't know, 2 months or 3 months put out a bikini photo, then you know, a quarter of the comments are people like, "How could you do this? How could you do this?" And then the other But then it it it like I I said, it's like 10 times as much engagement, and then my followers grow, and then more people become aware of my podcast. So I think I'd be stupid not to. Plus, I'm actually really, really proud of the fact that I look okay because I didn't look okay for a while. Like I had my hip and ankle replaced. My skin was like dying. I was really not okay, and I've managed to pull myself out of that. Like exercise, eat on this really strict diet to keep myself healthy, and I look good. And so I also want to show people that, "Hey, I went from, you know, that to this, and you can, too. It's not just me." And showing how my body looks is really effective way of doing that. So this gets to an interesting intersection that drives my fascination with this, which is All right, as somebody who's struggled with anxiety, I can tell you diet exacerbates it, but I still need a trigger of some something of an emotional nature. So it becomes really hard to tell, is is this something that I ate or you know, have been shifting my microbiome over the last month in a direction that's not very useful, or is it I'm just freaked out about this thing? How do you help people begin to tease that out? I I think that's the question that we're in and and and that nutritional psychiatry tries to help people sort out cuz it can be all of those things. I am first and foremost a therapist. I love long-form listening to people's free flow unconscious and helping them find the meaning in it and a purpose in that. So, when you tell me there's a your your hum of anxiety, I would say one that's probably one of the reasons you're quite successful. It's a I wrote a piece for Men's Health called Your Anxiety Is Your Superpower and and and I think that's true for a lot of people. And then when it perks up as you know, I would say part of you taming or mastering or say riding your anxiety is you find the meaning in that. And so, that's one reason it goes down. Then there's that what I consider more biological anxiety. You wake up in the morning with a panic. Your heart is racing. Now again, that can be psychology. There are things that do that to us that freak us out whether it's grieving or loss or parenthood or intimacy. I mean, that that happens. But there's something when it's biologic that we we really feel and that's where I think food really does play a role. If you think about your brain is the lens through which you're filtering all this data. Right? Is is the lion on the screen a lion on the screen or is it actually in the room with you about to eat you? Your your brain is very good at sorting that out. Um and and if we think about the quality of that lens really being influenced by a few things or a few processes. One you mentioned like the microbiome, that's really talking about inflammation. Right? How's this word of inflammation affect the brain? If we think about it in terms of my favorite concept these days neuroplasticity, right? brain growth and and brain change over time. Uh definitely food influences that. There are a bunch of specific molecular mechanisms where we can see that now. One thing that you're really known for that we haven't touched on is diet. You mentioned something earlier that I thought, I want to ask about that. But now that it's much later into the episode and we will have weeded through a lot of uh sort of casuals, I want to ask. You said that your daughter's diet is really good. What is your daughter's diet? Is she eating beef and salt? Oh god, no. That would be insane. Like eating beef and salt sucks. It fixed all my health problems and I can I can full-on say that it fixed all my health problems, but it wasn't fun. It sucks. I miss foods. So, no. I I am so careful with her diet though. Like I'm the most neurotic mother on the planet probably with her diet because I had no idea how much of my issues were genetic. Like they're not obviously genetic. I don't have some weird genetic glitch that I'm aware of. Um but I was like, "Well, this depression came down on my dad's side. My mom has arthritis. Um celiac disease is in there somewhere or at least a wheat sensitivity." So, I was like, "How much of this is genetic? Um and I'm so I was so sick. Um I was like, "How much of that could I pass on to Scarlet? Uh whether that's through like microbiome or genes or whatever." I was like, "I don't want to trigger anything um when she's young." So, then do you feed little kids a whole bunch of foods so that you dampen down their immune system or do you feed them the foods you think are healthy? And I went the route of feeding her the foods I thought were healthy. And so, I breastfed for a long time. We started out with introducing like meat and meat fat because that was pretty similar to breast milk. I was like, "That's a pretty easy transition." Breast milk, meat fat, meat, and then really slowly started to introduce more foods. And she's healthy. So, she's 3 and 1/2. Super healthy like I said, but she can kind of identify when she's eating too much of something. So, right now she eats like she mainly eats meat and she has some vegetables and some fruit. She doesn't have dairy. She doesn't have grains. She doesn't have any processed foods. Um she doesn't do legumes. It's basically vegetables, fruit, and meat. And she's thrilled with that. She doesn't drink juice, she drinks water, right? So, it's pretty it's pretty strict. But, if she eats too much fruit, she'll get a bit bloated and she knows that she ate too much fruit. Right? So, I figured that if I had been little and I had been more restricted in my diet, maybe until I was like six or seven, I think I probably would have been able to intuitively eat. Right? So, when I started cutting things out when I was 23 and I started to intuitively eat and say, "Okay, I ate this and it makes me feel this way." I think you have to get to a certain age to be able to do that. I don't think 2-year-olds can do that. I think if you give 2-year-olds candy, they're going to feast on candy, right? So, I don't think you can say, "Oh, just, you know, just eat a little bit of candy." to a 2-year-old. So, I think if you feed them and you teach them to eat intuitively, I figure by the time she's in school and she goes over to people's houses and she eats their food, my hope is that if she ends up not feeling good because of something she ate, she'll be kind of like clear enough and clean enough that she'll be able to identify that herself and then she can make her own decisions. But, until she's, you know, five or so, I'm prioritizing like healthy fats, a lot of meat, vegetables, and limiting She she she still eats fruit, but she can't like gorge on fruit. And like I said, she drinks water. So, I guess we'll see how that turns out. But, at the moment, it's great. She had sugar once in sausages that my mom bought when she was two, when she was just eating meat, and she turned into one of those, you know, those tantrum children that you see in airports and you're like, "What is wrong with their parents?" that are just screaming. She screamed like that and that like angry for like a day after the sausages. and it was not very much sugar in those sausages. Yeah, and I was like, "Whoa, I do not want that. Like, that's terrifying." The tantrumy toddler screams, she doesn't have tantrums. She'll get overtired and cry, but she doesn't have tantrums. I've never met a toddler that doesn't have tantrums. I'm like, "How much of tantrums is sugar?" I don't know, but Scarlett seems to be doing great, so I'm just going to keep doing this. That's interesting. Yeah, when people come to me and, you know, they have a problem, "Hey, I'm anxious. Hey, I'm depressed. My cat died." Whatever. I'm like, "It's your diet. I guarantee." "But, Tom, it's static on my TV." I don't care. It's your diet. I just promise you. And I came to that, you know, not I did not go through what you have gone through not by any stretch of the imagination, but watching what my wife went through, which was brutal and I actually worried at one point she was going to die, I was like, "Uh yeah, what you eat matters. It matters a lot. What you eat ate matters." And I never thought that I would say that. So, it's yeah, could tantrums be tied to diet? Absolutely. It is startling how much is tied to diet. Cuz I think there is there is going to be a revolution, I think in how we're living. Think in terms of really people who are wanting to optimize their health, not wanting to squeeze in a 2-week vacation someplace nice in the sun, but to live a life where there's more nature and more exercise and more groundedness and connectedness. And I think the pandemic's really accentuated that. I think food is one of those pieces of it that we have a lot of control over. It's why I like it as a factor in mental health. I think it's where it's different than our other treatments, right? Whether a Prozac works for you or Zoloft or lithium, like we're both crossing our fingers when I prescribe those that they that they work. And they do for a lot of people and they don't for some people. Same thing with psychotherapy. Uh and you don't really control that too much, a little bit. But whether food can work for you, whether there's nourishment or whether there are certain nutrients that your brain needs that really most Americans aren't getting, and I think that's one of the things that connects. We're talking about a rural city, you know, going to urban divide. One thing that's interesting is both of those places have horrible mental health crises. It's not like country living is like free of depression and anxiety. And another thing that connects that is as much as there is a wellness movement the general American diet in both of those places is just really atrocious and damaging to brain health. All right, my friends. I hope this added value to you. If it did, make sure that you smash the like button. Make sure that you are subscribed and that you don't miss a thing. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care.