Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of My Heart Radio and The Black Effect. Okay, I'll listen. I have definitely been very intentional on my journey, my journey overcoming depression, and then I felt like, well, I had done everything to get up out of that hole, to get up out of that dark place, and I focus so much on that. Now I'm focusing on the anxiety part, right. I'm just excited to have people on the show who can help walk with you and some of the things that I walk through and some of the things that I journey through, even just being in power to make decisions for myself. There are times I've made decisions, well, I'm gonna have friends and family over. I want to make sure it's flying. And it's like, Michelle, what do you want? What do you want? Don't decorate your house for others, don't buy clothes for others, don't buy a car for others, don't get your hair done for others, don't get your hair cut like yo, do it for you. But those of us who deal with anxiety, do you ever feel like your own fear and anxious thoughts hold you back from living the life you want. Maybe you just more empowered to make decisions for yourself, and you overthink, and you overthink your way out of amazing opportunities, your self sabotage, you do all these kinds of things. I've been there is there are certain things I'm still journeying through, and so my next guest has some practical answers coming up next right here on checking In. She's a clinical psychologist and author, and has also created online mental health courses, including one title The Overthinking Tool Kid. Please welcome to checking In All the way from London. Dr MICHAELA. Dunbar, Hey, Hello, Hello, Now, I'm sure a lot of people come across you because of clips, you know, like from Instagram on the Explore page, and I just said, oh my god, she speaks to me, she speaks for me, and I could not wait to talk to you. I am a secret subscriber to your email list. I'm just like, really, really, it's crazy. It's been a crazy couple of years, to be fair, because I not had the page that long, so yeah, it's been a whirlwind. I didn't expect all the love on the page and for as many people to connect with it as possible, but it just feels like, no, lie. Like every successful woman that I speak to, they're like, yeah, I get it, I get it. I'm not spoken to a woman that doesn't get it, which is worrying. Really not not worrying, but it just means we need to do something about it. And that's what I'm trying to do. That's so good. But you said something I'm just wondering. Is success tied to the amount of anxiety a person has, Like the more anxiety you have, do you see people being more successful? Now I'm not encouraging people to have anxiety to be successful, by the way, but you're talking about successful women or is that just kind of your target the people that seem to find you. There's a correlation. I don't know which direction it goes, Like the more success you have, the more anxiously were, the more anxiously were, the more success you have. But I just know that there's some kind of relationship. But what I do find is that the more successful, and when I say successful, I mean in the kind of the Western sense, like financially successful, You've got the good job, your career is popping, all of that kind of stuff. You know, what we generally have talked about what success means. When people are at the top of their game in any industry, I do find that they're just very anxious. There's a lot of stress, which makes sense because you have to do a lot of work to get to where you're getting too, especially as a woman, especially as a black woman as well, you have to work harder. That's just fact. So that brings the stress. And sometimes I believe that the anxiety that we experience pushes us a little bit, but then it can go too far. It can go too far and end up hindering us and and and blocking our success. So there's a little bit of a balance. Like we have anxiety for a reason. It keeps us alive. It pushes us a little bit. Under exam conditions like going back to school. It's helpful to have a little bit of anxiety because otherwise you wouldn't care, and you wouldn't revise, and you know, you wouldn't do as good as a job because you just wouldn't be that interested. But sometimes the anxiety and the fear of failure, it pushes you to do more, but it makes you very unhappy, and in my opinion, having high levels of anxiety high levels of stress and just waking up and feeling unhappy every day. Even if you've got all the money, even if you've got all the success personally, that's not the type of success that I'm trying to have. The thing is that you can still get it if you focus on your well being and do it the other way around. Maybe we'll go into gus and I talk about on my page, but I feel like I'm trying to reframe the definition of success because the success that we're kind of working towards requires a lot of anxiety, stress, sleep when you're dead, and I'm just not here for that because stress skills absolutely, Dr MICHAELA. Not only the work that it takes to become successful. I find it takes more work to maintain that level success, and so therefore I do believe it will take a lot more. I think a lot more anxiety comes with Okay, I got to maintain this level versus because we are in the culture of while you were sleeping, I was grinding. So it makes a person feel like even if I try to rest, I'm a bum. If I try to arrest, I'm not being productive. Hey, that word productive about it? Listen, taking a nap is productive. Absolutely. I love that you said that, because it's very true. We sleep for a reason. There's a reason why we sleep, rest in repair. But again, the messages of oh yeah, this is so good. Okay, Dr mchaelob you are a clinical psychologist, tell us how you got into this wonderful field. Okay. So I'm not even gonna lie and say I wanted to be a clinical psychologist since I was a little girl, because I didn't even know it existed. I thought when I was in school. I went to school in South London, difficult school. You know. I always say that you did a good job if you left school without a baby. That was kind of like, just just leave school without a baby and then you've done a good job. University wasn't talked about. There's no careers fairs or anything like that wasn't talked about. I didn't even want to go to university, like my mom had to con strategize to convince me. I didn't know clinical psychology existed. So what happened was my mom managed to talk me in to go to university to do my undergraduate degree. I don't know what I wanted to study, and I just felt like, okay, cool, well, psychology, and you know, when you go to do a graduate degree, you're like eighteen or nineteen at the time. I still think that's too young to know specifically what you want to do and spend three years doing it. But I said, okay, cool, I'm not very academic, but I know that psychology is really interesting to me and it doesn't feel like work, Like so what I go to listen, we talk about brains and behavior and all the things that I'm currently doing and other people are doing. Okay, cool, fine, I'll do it. Went to university. Then when I was in university, I got talking to some of the professors and the teachers and they were just like that's when the kind of idea about clinical psychology opened up to me, and I thought, okay, let's do this. There's actually a job. It's not just for the television, and it's not just for reserved for people with loads of money that can afford to do the doctorate, afford to do the masters. Actually it was funded, so it just worked out perfectly. Started to build up a little bit of self esteem and kind of think, okay, yeah, you're from where you're from. But the opportunity is there? Why not? Like, literally, there's nothing stopping here. So then it's a difficult process to get onto the training, only three getting every year. If you miss that, you have to wait till the next year to do it. So I got in and then I was just like fine, the first try, I got in, did the doctorate and that's it. After that, I was in works in the NHS and it's just been amazing since then. But the first thing was just kind of saying to myself, why not? Why not? Wow, That's how I fell into it. I say I fell into it because literally it wasn't like some big strategy from years and years ago. It was like, Okay, cool, I like it, let's try let's see. Yeah. Yeah, Well, I am so glad that you got into the field that Michayla. As you know, we talk a lot about depression and anxiety, which are very important topics to discuss, but I'm so glad that you talk about other specific like overthinking self sabotage insecurity and you get to the root of it all. When you're in medical school or getting the doctorates, it seems like there's a specific practice that you can go in. So just because you're in medical school. When you go into residency, you might find yourself saying, oh, I want to go into obstetrics. Oh I want to go into be a cardiac surgeon. Oh I wanna be an anesthesiologist something. Right. Yeah, Now being someone that's in clinical psychology, which we know it's over encompassing everything, mental illness, mental conditions, everything, right, But you seem to have found like a cool niche. It's me. I'm a niche. I'm the person that's how I can talk to it. This is how I can talk to me because I literally talk about what I was and sometimes still do struggle with my friends, some of my family. It's just real life. Yes, When I started the Instagram page, it was just general mental health. I talked to that depression, and I talked to that anxiety and kind of everything. But then I just thought, Okay, it's easier for me to support people when I'm talking from a place of really understanding. And I think that's what makes my job easier for me, because I've been there. When I've got somebody sitting in front of me, I'm not telling them to do something with no understanding of how it might feel to do what I'm asking them to do. I know sometimes it's hard because I've had to do it for myself and also because I've had some of the same struggles when it comes to anxiety, overthinking, self doubt, self esteem, all that kind of stuff. So the groove I got into or the niche it was me and it just made sense. Do you have people in your life who feel like, because you're dad to my Kayla, that you don't go through these things you just said yourself. I still overthink I still have some some you know, like, am I worthy? Am I supposed to be here? That maybe something pastor syndrome? Absolutely? Um do I not anymore because I put it all in the book. Okay, maybe before I started the page and before I wrote the book You've got this, I was very much I'm a clinical psychologist. I can't talk about my anxiety because as a clinical psychologist, why are you not practicing what you preach? Why do you have a like do you even know what you're doing if you have anxiety? So there's a lot of shame around it. So I just kind of got on with it. But that's not the problem. That's what a lot of us do and when you don't address it, it it you can't solve it. So back then, I would say nobody would have known. And I've had family members saying, oh, I didn't know, and I'm like, yeah, But since the book and the Instagram page of me being very open, I don't know if there's anyone left now that doesn't know that because everyone has anxiety. Like it's just everybody has anxiety. They probably call it different things. They probably don't know its anxiety. But I ran across a post from you on Instagram as it relates to over thinking, and yet you are committed to help people to stop overthinking, which can lead to self sabotage, which then leads to self sabotage. You destroy everything you work for, You destroy everything you prayed for because of the mind. I am a subscriber to her emails frozen to fearless. It's it is amazing because I don't care who you are. Healing is gonna be a process, but we're gonna get to also overthinking versus problem solving because I'm thinking, oh, I'm just kind of peeling back the layers of an issue. So I want to encourage people there's nothing wrong with thinking to solve a problem. But as you talk about ruminating, and then it paralyzes you and then you're always second guessing, which, by the way, are all signs of overthinking. Now, what does overthinking look like? Okay, it's I call it like the rabbit hole. So you start off with one thought, and it's usually like, got a little bit of worry or concern about it, and it's usually a what if. For let's say you've got a presentation coming up or something. Oh, what if it goes wrong? What if I haven't prepared enough. What if I haven't looked at all the information on the internet to be able to provide this properly? What if I mess it up? What if I have not worn them right out? Or all of the what ifs. It's basically your mind doing an audit of every single thing that can go wrong and bringing it to your attention. Now, the brain, your mind, it's like it's not trying to make you unhappy, it's not trying to make you stressed. It's trying to do its job right. It's designed to think and solve problems, just like our heart is designed blood around our body. So, as you said, there's nothing wrong with thinking and there's definitely nothing wrong with problem solving. However, the over thinking comes in when if we've had difficult experiences that I would say, which who hasn't, But if we had difficult experience either growing up or it couldn't even be an adulthood. Sometimes we get stuck on the bad things that can go wrong, especially if there's a situation coming up that seems like that bad thing that went wrong back then whenever it was whatever it was, fast forward to today, and the overthinking can be triggered by anything again, depending on your experience, and what you're trying to do is protect yourself. Some people think that they're solving the problem, but that's a completely different thing. Solving the problem is solving the problem. It's looking at it and it's coming up with solutions and strategies. Overthinking it's just what if what it does? Not what should I actually do? Let's get some concrete, practical solutions down. It's but what if this? But what if that? What if that bit of bad things happen? And oh and what happens as well is your mind that's to go back exact. A time traveler goes back to think about the last time that bad thing happened, and then it picks up as negative friends and the things about the last time that could happen and what can happen in the future. It's a proper time machine. So we just have to end up with a lot of anxiety, a lot of brain fog. We've got no headspace. I like to have headspace. I call it. The thing is is that the problem stays if there is actually a problem. Sometimes there's not. Sometimes we're just overthinking. I think that's not even an issue. We're just wasting our time. But if there is a problem, overthinking is not solving it, it's actually creating more problems. So they always say, if you're overthinking about something, write down, write down, because it could be something that needs attention. It could be something any needs attention. But just thinking about all the difference of all the different sorry what ifs, and not wrapping it up and not thinking about how you can solve it, that's not doing anything but making you feel anxious and stressed. If you write it down and actually put some proper problem solving towards it, you won't need to overthink about it anymore because it will already be solved and overthinking can cause you to you procrastinate. Oh yeah, you probably missing deadlines or opportunities. So, for instance, it also calls you to overthink something as small as I promise you this is what I'm going through right now, Drapery shades for the videos. That's a surprising to me. I get it, I get it. It is the most foolish thing because you're like, I know, you're not sitting here second guessing Drapery should it be flushed inside the wind well? If it's not, make a freaking decision, the decision, but there's anxiety behind it is what if I make the wrong decision? Okay, Now, a legitimate thing is their custom most of the time. If it's custom, you can't get your money back because they're making specifically for this window. What if I'm stuck with something I don't like, YO, make a decision, because guess what if you don't like it, you never know the company might give you. Some will go wrong, there might be a thirty day exchange. We don't know. But make is that how you are with your clients, because that's how I would be make a decision, not that, not not that anovated but in my own way, But do you want us tell or fright? Chicka in what do you ever me yesterday? Busically? Gary go or X tell what shoul have? Okay? Cool? So this is it right? And I completely relate to that. The thing is is that we need to start trusting ourselves, trusting our decision making, and also trusting our ability to bounce back. I always say my bounce back game is strong. Mikayla, Your bounce back game is strong, because even if I do make the wrong decision, I have been alive enough years now to know that I will be able to recover. So I just go over it at this point, Like, even if it is wrong, it's I know who I am, Like I can fix things. My life shows that I've got this. I'm covered. So but I have to keep minding myself of that and reminding my clients of that as well when they're in the same situations. We need we need to talk about self trust. Now, we need to talk about the reason why you're catastrophizing, and we've got to give ourselves space and grace. I might make the wrong decision, but you don't know until you do it exactly exactly and exactly you're wearing your friends and family out. You're calling twelve people to help and make this decision. Because stop doing that. That's the worst thing you can do. Stop doing that. Make the if you if you're a person that needs to call everybody, don't call anyone to make the decision. Make the decision yourself. Start off small with small decisions, and then get more confident in your decision making as you start making decisions by yourself. I usaid to that as well, like with my mom all the time, Mom mo bah mom. Now it's like okay, like you're grown. You do not need to call your mom at this age to help you make decisions. And as I as I said, the more I make decisions, small decision it's like what to eat, like what to watch the movies, if I'm going with my friends, just genial things that I'm doing with my day to day career opportunity is. The more I give myself the grace to make mistakes also the trust to know that I can bounce back, the easier it is. There's the second guess and it kind of slows down. But you just need to make those start making those decisions by yourself for yourself in order for that to happen. Listen, if we're talking to you, just go a hand and put your hand in the air and say they're talking to me. Now. Part of what we're talking about two is the inability to make decisions overthinking. Obviously, that's some self doubt, right, is that self doubt rooted maybe in not being empowered as a child to make decisions for yourself. Absolutely, And maybe you didn't make a decision for yourself and then you got a bad response. And when you're a child, that bad response, that bad reaction can be you have not even got like actually in trouble for it, but it could just be a facial expression like as children with sponges, we are looking at everything. This is how we learn about the world, right from the adults around us, the care give us around us, our teachers, our friends. So if we do something and we make as you said, if we make the decision and and somebody doesn't like it and then they give us like a slight frown, we're like, oh, Okay, maybe I'm not good at this, or maybe I shouldn't do this again. And if it keeps happening constantly, then of course that's the way you see the world now, right, until you decide to change the way you see the world, to change your perception of who you are and take off all the cloak all the other things that your family have put on you. You'll be living life, you know, in relation to the adults around you and their values and what they think is important, and that could be completely different to how you feel as an adult today. And also what is helpful he was an adult today. So yeah, definitely, I bring a lot of things back to And it sounds cliche, but I'm a psychologist and this is what we do. But I bring a lot of things back to childhood. A lot of things back to childhood. Doesn't mean it can't be changed. Of course, it can be changed. That's why my job exists, right, But we do have to do some digging to figure out like is this all our stuff or is this their stuff? It's old stuff? Is this past stuff? So all that that we do and everything that we're talking about also has some physical things that can happen in your body. Heart palpitations, nausea, yes, not being able to sleep on edge, you are irritable and you help on your site you talk about emotional regulation, Yes, because when that's disregulated, it starts showing up in physical symptoms. You share three components of emotional regulation, initiating actions triggered by emotions, inhibiting actions triggered by emotions, and modulating responses triggered by emotions. Now it's specifically to women because women, we are emotional, we are nurturers, we can feel, we have intuition. I'm not saying men don't have these things, but women we gotta. We have it like times ten thousands. Ye. Now, when you talk about those those things about emotional regulation, are you saying that, Okay, well you did say we're going to have a little bit of anxiety. But the encouraging part is we have it within us to regulate it ourselves absolutely. And these are the things that we're not taught in the school. Right We're taught the maths and the English and history, but we're not taught how to just be a person in this difficultult world or this world that can be difficult at times, and how to regulate our emotions. So I believe, and I feel like I'm being an extra saying it's an extreme, but there's a lot of people in jail. There's a lot of people not alive anymore, ended their own life, ended somebody else's life because they struggled with regulating emotion. They felt a really big emotion at the time. Maybe it was deep sadness, maybe it was heightened anger, and in that moment, the best thing that they could think to do was whatever they did. But that thing that they did in order to get rid of that emotion ended up making things much worse. And that's on the extreme end. On the other end, bringing it back to day to day, it can be like you have an opportunity, let's just call it, whatever the opportunity is, but then you feel anxious, anxieties and emotion because you're not able to regulate that within What you do is avoid I'm going to run away from it now, and that's how I'm going to regulate my emotion. That's how I'm going to feel less anxious. But guess what you've just done. Now You've just taken the opportunity off of the table, and now you're going to feel bad about yourself. Now you're going to be more anxious. But if we're able to kind of sit with our emotion, that seest way to regulate your emotion is just to sit with it. If we're able to do that, sit with the emotion and regulate it, then we can still move forward to do the things that our brain is telling us don't do, don't do. It doesn't matter what our brain is telling us, really and truly, it doesn't matter how we're feeling inside. If the thing that we want to do or the thing that should be done, is in line with our values, if it's in line with what's important to us, that we can do it regardless. Take the anxiety with you if you need to. If you can't regulate it, take it with you. The worst thing you can do is avoid a situation because of anxiety. Now, if the situation is obviously a life or death situation, then you avoid it, right, But most of the time that's not the case. The anxiety is like you send a risky text message to some guy and now they ever message you back. Anxiety. Actually, that's a fake threat, right. We need to get a clear distinction between a real threat and a fake threat, because if we decide that the threat is real, so taking the opportunity and seen it up. If we decide that's a real threat, our body is gonna be like, Okay, cool, real threat, let's do this, and then you're gonna get all the same physical responses, the hard perpotations, the nausea are not sleeping or because you've decided and you've told your body essentially that this is a threat, when really and truly it's not a car coming towards you at full speed that is a threat. Have an opportunity and stumbling on your words, that's not a real threat. Right. You might feel shame, but shame is not going to kill you. It's temporary. It's temporary. That's it. It should be temporary. And emotions are something that we should be ashamed of or run away from. Their indicators m hm yeah, yeah, their messengers, they alert us. You know, this is what we have them. There's nothing that works in our bodies and our minds and our emotions for no reason. Nothing is redundant. Everything has a place, and your emotions, I believe one of the most important things that actually keep you alive. When they arise, you can listen to them. What's this anxiety trying to tell is there a real threat here? What's this anger trying to tell me? How that has there been an injustice. What's this guilt trying to tell me have I done something wrong? But you have to look at these things objectively with the facts around you. Is this how you help people? As you say, name it to tame it. Yes, yeah, that's it. That's regulating it, Sit with it. This is what it is. Amazing, amazing, amazing. I love how you talk about highly sensitive people because I also feel like there's a fine line of being anxious. But you're probably picking up on some energy in the room a conversation. I feel like I can hear literally what's not being said. Yeah, I do you relate with the trait? I do? Yeah, there you go. That's why I love talking about it because a lot of people are like, oh, this is a thing. Yes, it's asolutely a thing. So there's a person called Dr Elaine Aaron and she's kind of the pioneer behind the research aroundhighly sensitive people. But in a nutshell, highly sensitive people are deep thinkers, deep feelers, and they notice and are stimulated potentially by everything around them, including the emotions of others. They can absorb the emotions of others facial expressions. We're going to go in like we're looking, we're seeing and we're able to connect the dots, reading between the lines. Body language. Okay, called we're picking up on that obviously, you know, a persent, a communication is by a body language. But we are really good at spotting, as you said, what's not being said and sometimes an it's great, That's what I always say. It's a superpower. However, if we are not able to regulate emotion, because we feel our own emotions very intensely as well, So if we're not able to regulate emotion, and if we're not able to have strategies to kind of slow our mind down a little bit, because we are deep thinkers and deep thinking can sometimes turn into o're thinking, then it can be I call it like turn your sensitivity from a saboteur to a superpower, because it can in the wrong under the wrong circumstances, and if we're not able to manage the traits, it can actually be a hindrance and make us feel, you know, quite bad. The statistics show that highly sensitive children that grow up in a difficult environment and an emotionally invalidated environment are more likely to go on to develop problems with mental health growing up. Sorry as an adult, however, highly sensitive children in a nice environment and validating environment actually do better than less sensitive children. So again, it just depends like sensitivity or superpower. Yeah. Now, if I was talking to somebody in the church, they say, girl, that ain't nothing but a spirit of discernment. Yeah, yeah, fine, But but isn't that amazing of science and spirit? We are spirit as well, and I lean into and I accept even being able to put language in word to it as far as being a highly sensitive person, but it can also have its negative effects because you're absorbing everything and you're a sponge and it's almost like the mood or spirit of a room. Instead of you changing that spirit or mood in the room, you almost have to retreat. Times I have to leave a space. Yeah that's okay, I recommend it. Now, I recommend it is a highly sensitive person the same as introverted because to me an HSP has to leave a room to recharge. Absolutely, so there are a lot of intravit highly sensitive people and there are extra vert highly sensitive people. It's not leaving the room because you'll have the kind of an anxiety around it, or you just don't enjoy being around people. It' just you're absorbing a lot, and you need to take a break, and I recommend people do that. If you identify as a highly sensitive person, you know that you absorb the emotions of others and the people that are in the room with you, you know, or the environment isn't the best and it's a little you know, you know what I mean, little negative, We're going to absorb that. So you're well within your right to take yourself out of that situation. And you know how it is, you're a highly sensitive person. When you're in a comfortable environment, you've got the energy. You probably are an extrovert. And when you know it's a little bit more negative and there's just things that you just don't feel comfortable way, but the energy you're picking it up, then you're a little bit more quiet. It just depends on the environment. That's I'm concerned. Now, do you agree that very creative people like writers, musicians, and artists are highly sensitive and is that a gift? Absolutely? I'm not saying that all artists and creatives are highly sensitive people. I'm just saying a lot of highly sensitive people are very creative it and that's just that's what I'm saying. So yeah, yeah, the creativity definitely, and the we because we absorbed the feeling that you get from art, music, whatever it is, like you can, it's tangible. So it would make sense that, you know, you would lean into the creative side of things, and some people don't get the opportunity to. But if you do, I would say, if you consider yourself a highly sensitive person, then pick up something, paint, brush, sing, draw, whatever it is, right, whatever it isn't just allow yourself. You have to have the time to do it, but allow yourself to just let the creativity flow and see what happens, because there is definitely something in there that's so good. Because there was definitely the question, you know, of what a person can do that is highly sensitive soothing self soothing like like you said, painting, drinking tea, prayer, meditation, which is whether you're highly sensitive? Now are? I think those are some of the things we should make some daily devotional practice. Anyway, what about being highly sensitive and you're always indecisive? Again, I think it comes back to what we're talking about earlier with the deep thinking. So highly sensitive people we like to be thorough because we're absorbing a lot of information and we can do that we like to get different pieces of information to make the right decision. But sometimes we can spend forever trying to gather all of the information possible to help us make this one small decision, and it delays the decision making. Sometimes it stops the decision making. And again, as I said before, if you don't then make those decisions, you lose your confidence in making decisions, and then becoming Making decisions for yourself is always a big thing. Actually, we just need to say, okay, fine, I'm going to give myself ten minutes to research this thing, or however, set a set a boundary around it, and just go for it. Make that decision, and again, tell yourself, my bounce back game is strong. If it's the wrong decision, I will be able to recover. I love the latest initiative you have about overcoming being comfortable. Yes, you know, overcoming being comfortable? You like I want you to be uncomfortable, Yeah, you said, I don't want to just see you as a comfortable woman. Being comfortable doesn't equal happiness, peace of mind, or encourage you to create the life you really want. As the saying goes, your comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there. That is amazing because you said from months from now, I want to see you be a courageous woman. And y'all this is from her Frozen to Fearless that I'm a subscriber to. You know in the podcast um that I recorded not too long as Go with Dr Romans and Nining. You know, when a person is always going along to get along, you're always agreeing with things. Oh yeah, you lose your own voice, your authenticity, your identity, and you become just kind of morphing into another identity that's maybe being created for you. So you don't have the courage. You're full of fear because you're afraid that if you actually do something for yourself, you're going to get penalized for that. And that's uncomfortable. But imagine if you didn't care about feeling uncomfortable. Imagine if fear was not an issue, Not if you never felt fair, because that's impossible, but if you didn't let fair stop you, didn't anxiety stop you, you didn't let discomfort or boredom stop you, you could do anything. So being comfortable, as I said, it's it's nice to be comfortable, but also it will not get you the situation that you really want, you know, that deep desire that requires the gap between where you are now and that deep desire you have. Whether it is that big success, or it is that strong relationship, or it is that I've got my voice now so people are not walking all over me because I can sit boundaries now. Whether it is that that gap, it's going to take a little bit of discomfort is going to be especially if you're not used to doing it and not used to using that voice and not used to you know, standing up for yourself. Then in order to get there, it's not going to happen if we just stay comfortable. Sometimes we have to ruffle feathers, not even in a big, huge way, but sometimes the only feathers were ruffling is our own. Most of the time, you make a big deal about setting boundaries and a big deal about doing this project and this thing. It's very straightforward thing to do, but we create a scene about it. But if we're getting used to feeling uncomfortable or don't fear emotion, don't fear the more uncomfortable emotion because you don't need to. Then we're coming from a place. So that's a very powerful place you're coming from. It's a very powerful place to from. Like, my emotions will not stop me, anxiety will not stop me, fear will not stop me. As I said, that's a very very very powerful place to come from. So good. And lastly, you made a confession, and you said, when I really started to see change and progression in my career relationships was when I stopped making my issues about everyone else and invest in time and money into myself. Because if we want to overcome some of these issues, we have to make certain investments. I definitely consider you guys her courses counseling to get to the group of that overthinking which is so paralyzing. It keeps you from making decisions, even something as simple as like should I go to Greece or the Caribbean for a vacation? Yeah, pick a place they're both. Like I said, it just keeps us from living, It keeps using. What do you say to the person who feels like they're just way in over their head. They're also saying, Michael and Michelle, I hear you, but I'm in too deep to get out. Find somebody that can help you get out. Make a decision, because long do you have intention, You've created the possibility to get yourself out of this situation. So if you have the intention to call it emotional well being, I'm sitting emotional well being goals in financial goals. So if you have an intention to make your emotional well being a priority and you put the steps in place, you will, just by the nature of putting your energy towards it, be able to bring yourself out. Maybe not by yourself. If you've already tried it, you've tried the self help stuff and it's not working, then maybe we need to think about a strategy about how you can access support from an external person, whether it's one to one support, group support like in the first of the Feelers membership, that kind of support. Just whatever it is, something needs to be done. Everyone can get themselves out of that situation. Whether it's by themselves or not, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how you do it, but it can be done. As I said before, this is why my job exists, and it doesn't need to be a clinical psychologist. It can be anyone that you can speak to and develop. And you said something before about having the language and the worst that they're able to explain certain things. That's even very powerful, just knowing how to name your emotions and say how you're feeling. Some of us didn't get that opportunity grown up. You don't talk about emotions and certain communities and it's not a thing. You just get on with it. His life is hard, but then you lose the ability to to talk about how you're feeling and sharing. And if you can't talk about how you're feeling, then how can you fix it? Like, how can you do anything about it? So I would definitely say if you set the intentions that things can start rolling. Put the action towards that intention. Self help. There's books out there, there's loads of things that if you haven't done anything, start with that or lead them to you. Where can we find you exactly? Go to Instagram, find mysy therapy and there's loads of stuff on there. But even outside of what and this is why I'm offering this as well, Like the way I run my page is very real, is very light. There's lots of illustration on there because I want people to know that it's not that deep, like it feels that deep, but everybody has a battle. Everybody is struggling with some thing nobody's life is perfect. It's impossible. So I want everyone to have the language to say I feel anxious today. I felt really sad, I couldn't get out of bed for a couple of days the other day. Just being able to name that and say it. Remember, shame grows in the dark. So as soon as you start owning your staff and talking about what's going on for you, it takes a shame off of the table because this is nothing to be ashamed ashamed about. Emotions are God given, but they're here for a reason to keep us alive. So if we're struggling with them, of course we can get help. So good are you in private practice? I am. I've only got a few slots. It's getting quite busy now, but I do still have a few one to one slops. I open up like every three months. Okay, and y'all. She is based in London, so all the listeners who are based in London, you better go to my Easy Therapy and you can find her site as well if you click the link in her bio and prayerfully you're one of those that can get in private practice. One last question, as we're getting ready to go, being from the UK, and of course seeing stuff across the pond as a black woman in London. Are you seeing similarities as it relates to race and mental health and are you able to study what you see in America as well? Are they kind of the same. So I actually, because I'm all online now, so I have clients like once one clients from the US as well, and actually you do, I do? I do. Yeah, the bulk of the membership, and I think it's because US seems a bit further along in terms of their understanding of mental health and there's more stigma in the UK. Let's just say that, not massively, but there's more. The membership is actually the majority of people from the U S which is amazing. I love to be able to support people from all around the world. But in terms of the racing things, there are the same issues, but definitely I think it's to a higher level. The impact might be the same, but the instances, the triggers, I believe are bigger in America. It's a bigger place anyway, but there's a lot more from what I see. I ain't know. I'm gonna getting stuff some news and you know, people that I talked to, but from what I'm hearing, what I'm seeing, there's much more triggers. There's a lot of stuff that people are having, Black women, black people are having to still in America that even though I mean Britain, which is you know, you would expect there to be a little bit more. But maybe it's just racism in Britain. Maybe it's because it's smaller. There are stuff going on, but I definitely think that in the US it's more difficult. Let's just the impact the same, but there's more triggers and it's more difficult. That's so amazing that you would say everywhere we go, the impact of racism, the impact of violence, the impact of injustice is all the same. Dr michaelab thank you. Do you have any upcoming projects of courses that we need to be aware of? So the book You've Got This, I would say that's the best bet. There's the UK version now the US version is coming out next year, but you can still pick up the UK version that's called You've Got This. The Overthinking Talker is great and these are things for people who maybe you've got a therapist already, but they're not ready tapping into the hyptive peace a lot of therapists don't even know about the highly sensitive trade, and I think that's why it's you know, the page has got so because I talk about it so much. So if you feel like you need a little add on from your therapy sessions, I've got people in there that already have a therapist. If you feel like you want to learn more and you don't have a therapist or a coach, and you want to focus on your well being goals emotional well being goals in three, then the membership is perfect for that. The book as well as great. I would start with the book if you want to just ease yourself in and you're not sure if a group would be helpful for you, But yeah, if I would, saying at MYSY Therapy, the older resources are there that Lincoln bio Hopefully there's enough. There will be more, There'll be more. This is just the beginning. Really, thank you, Dr Mchaelin. I'm so happy that you are out here at y'all. Her bio says that she is here to help sensitive, ambitious women conquer overthinking, self doubt, anxiety, and rest. Yes, but it's all in caps R E S T. So we want everybody to rest again. Dr mckayl. We're so thankful for your time today and helping us get some understanding about the effects of overthinking. Maybe somebody is sitting here today saying, you know what, I think, I am a overthinker. So this episode is definitely for you, and it was definitely for me. We'll see you again. Thank you so much for having me. Okay, didn't I tell your why this was amazing? Ha Listen, she's got a post right now that says, this is why anxious people can be indecisive what anxiety causes. It causes you to doubt second guests and make it hard to make decisions. And so listen, did y'all like this episode? I think I'm gonna have her back, and I was so happy she took time out of her busy schedule. Now, y'all, it's a huge time difference between the East Coast here in the United States and the United Kingdom, so I'm glad she could join us. She is absolutely amazing, And so keep me posting and tell me what you're thinking about these episodes. Truly know that you're loved and there's really nothing you can do about it. Until next time. Keep checking in Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production of I heart Radio and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.