Everyone deals with self-doubt differently. Gam sits down with psychologist Dr. Alfiee Breland-Noble to discuss why we experience it, what triggers it, and how to combat it.
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What's up, everybody. I'm Gammy and this is positively gam something that's been on my mind lately. It is always on my mind self doubt. I go through it a lot and have spoken about it some of my insecurities on this podcast and on Red Table Talk. I know we all go through self doubt regarding different things, and so I wanted to talk to someone who can shed some light on why we go through this self doubt and ways we can become more confident in ourselves. So let's get into the episode. Dr Alfie am Brillian Noble, known professionally as Dr Alfie, is a pioneering psychologist, scientists, author, and mental health correspondent. As an in demand expert in BIPOC mental health, she hosts a video podcast, Couch and Color with Dr Alfie, and it's a regular broadcast, digital and print media contributor for various outlets including NBC, CNN, PBS, and The New York Times, and she's been a guest on our own Red Table Talk. So welcome Dr Alfie. Depositively gam Thank you, Gamy. Yeah, I'm so glad to see you again. It was such a joy to have you on Red Table Talk and you know, I just enjoyed our conversation so much. It just felt a need to talk a little bit more about some things that I feel a lot of people go through and definitely me personally so. And it's so interesting because I looked at my daily own the other day, I give the email and it was recognizing your value and I was like, how approse, Like this is karma or something, because that's what came up, and it's changed You're thinking to knowing that your life matters and that you are import too, and you know it can be it says it can be easy sometimes to buy into the illusion of our own insignificance a couple of things. So just thinking about coming into this space and having this conversation with you, it made me think of both of us as black women. Let's start there, right, and then I think start extrapolating out to all people who have these marginalized identities. So I I want to start there right. So when you have an identity where you're not always in spaces where people look like you, or think like you, or talk like you or share your experiences, I think for many of us, particularly, I think about the world that you live in and how we we all see you publicly, I would imagine that they are. Oftentimes, when you're in space, you might be the only person of color in the room. There are times maybe when you're in spaces where you're the only woman in the room. There are times when you're the only representative of your generation. Not always, but sometimes so. I think a lot of us go through that and have those experiences. And when we're looking to round and we don't see people who mirror us, right, one thing I feel is really important is you need your mirrors. That's why parents are so important and caregivers, because that's somebody who you can look at them and say, Okay, so they've had X, y Z experience and they made it through. Maybe I can. But when we don't have that, I think we tend to internalize and think there's something wrong with us. That's always the immediate thought, there's something wrong with us. And then the final thing I'll add is that gets reinforced when you watch things in all types of media, whatever kind of media it is. Let's not just pick on social media and everything you see does not reinforced you positively. So the whole name of the show positively gam right, that's a positive reflection of who you are and what you represent in the world. But we don't all always get that, and you don't always get it either, neither do I. So that's what contributes to ourselves doubt, right, and we don't always feel that. And I have to say that even being on Red Table, I mean there's sometimes when, first of all, me being at the table with Jada and Willow, Willow who is so prolific and so far above her years in her thinking and the way she expresses herself and just their experience and their comfort level in front of the camera. Sometimes I'm sitting at the table and I actually shrink right, and I just I can't find my voice. I can't find my words to fit into the conversation. So there have been several episodes that I've watched and I'm like, Wow, I'm actually not saying anything, and it's just my own self doubt that I don't feel like that I have anything to contribute to the conversation, and sometimes I actually don't. And so I know when to be quiet. Yeah, I don't need to talk if I ain't got nothing to say, you know, But there are sometimes when I feel like I have that I want to say things, but I don't know if it's the right thing to say, you know, And it's a once again that self doubt. I don't feel like what I'm thinking is important enough to even share. And so that's been challenging for me, even in that setting. And people assume that, you know, I'm very comfortable, and I am not. But I also feel like this is something This is not new for me. This is something I swear to you. I've always felt this way, even as a child. I just have always been uncomfortable in my own skin, and I don't know how to combat. And I've been in therapy and therapists have tried to delve into my childhood. Was there something in how my mother and father raised me, how I was treated. It's like, I mean, I was the youngest of four. That's the only thing that that I can think of. I don't feel like I was neglected. I was the youngest. I have a sister who was two years ahead of me. We were very close and typically I would not do things without her right So, I mean I would go to school, of course, and be in in class, but when it came to our outside activities, I you know, I wanted to be wherever she was, so we went to the y. I wanted to be in the same classes that she was in. And it didn't always happen there world classes that we took separately, but it was always that comfort to me that when we were switching, like if she was taking Spanish dance, I might be in uh ballet. But I knew, like when it was time for us to switch and go to another class, either I was gonna pass her in the hallway or I was gonna see her or meet up. We're not taking this class together, but then the next class will be in the same you know what I mean. It was just like and I mean that has gone on for into my adulthood. It was just always this don't want to do anything by myself. Mhmm hmmm. I think damn some of that. Think about it, like this one thing I will I hope that you will carry with you the first thing I thought of. And I'll come back to this because I gotta say both of these things is your feelings are always valid, but they're not always accurate. Think about that, right, and so you have these feelings, Sometimes feelings come up my Mom's used to see. She used to say, and my grandma, the devil, you know, is better than the devil you don't know. You know that Black folks say that, and so that idea that it's still a devil, but you know it. So it's comfortable. Yeah, about that, So that feeling sometimes you're used to having that feeling, so when it comes up, we just accept it. This is accurate because I always feel like, how often do we say that's just how I am. Yeah, I'm just like that, right, And so I think part of it is. So that's a piece of it. I want to come back to that. Before that, I want to say this, I wonder if you and your listeners and your viewers can think about reframing it so that you focus on those aspects that I'm just listening to you talk that you shared, where you talked about what you do know. Sometimes I'm gonna reflect it back to you. Sometimes I said at the red Table and I have nothing to say because there's nothing for me to contribute. Damn, how many people can say that. How many people literally just talk and talk because they're just trying to fill up the space. Whereas what you shared is I know that there are times when there's nothing for me to contribute, so I don't contribute anything, right, So sometimes all you need to do is just acknowledge those aspects of who you are and what you bring to this world that are positive and that are enough. Right. So those are two pieces I want to share, and then I gotta throw one thing in there because it just made me think of it. I really believe this idea that we're valuable, and I think we talked about this at the Red Table. Just because we exist, you don't have to do, have be say anything. You're valuable. I remember this vividly because you made it here to be on this planet, and there's so many people who did not. Yeah. I think it says that in the daily home too. Yes, yeah, so I wouldn't you know. I didn't make that up, but I remember when it would shared with me. It just it was life changing for me. So I think this idea that you can acknowledge what your strengths are. Sometimes it's enough to just acknowledge that strength and just sit with that, and then to remember your feelings are always valid in the moment you feel them and they're real, but they are not sure feel accurate. They do feel accurate, And I think part of it is practicing. How do we practice being in the space where I acknowledge this is what I'm feeling and not but and I find ways to bring myself to a more positive plane when I'm feeling those things. So think about yourself sitting at the table and you're thinking to yourself, I don't have anything contribute to this conversation. Maybe remembering me or somebody, or remembering yourself saying that's okay because there's nothing for me to contribute right now, and when the time comes to me to contribute, I'll be ready. What if you could remind yourself of that in those moments, then there's less pressure to feel like I should be saying something, I should be doing something, you know what I mean. So just reframing it in the moment sometimes it's what you need until that practice becomes automatic. Because at this point your automatic thought is right, and I'm sure you've probably talked about this in therapy. You're automatic thought is I'm not saying anything, and then it devolves into I'm not worthy should I really hear? Why anything to say? Right? That's automatic? So what if the automatic starts to become I had this conversation with somebody and they said to me, maybe it's okay that I don't have anything to say, because that means I know myself well enough to know when do I contribute and when do I hang back? M Yeah, that's that definitely would have to be in reframing from me because I always go to you don't even need to be sitting here because you ain't even saying nothing right and thin. But think about this, gam Think about what you represent just by being at the table. Think about a generation of women right who, like like I said, Jade and are gen X. When Jada is at the table, I know she's only speaking for Jada, but there's so many gen X, Black women and women of color and women in general who look at her and they're like, yeah, she's saying stuff that resonates with me. Saying with Willow Right as a gen z er, it's the same for you for your generation. You just your presence and as gorgeous and as radiant as you are, and how you just show up. You are giving voice and visibility to so many women who are in your generation who might have felt they didn't have a voice and nobody was reflecting their experiences and you do that just by showing up. Speaking of generations, do you think that self doubt and these um insecurities are feelings that are passed down through generations? Because I feel like I was born that way, my mother was, it was not this way, my father was not. I just don't know where it came from. But do you feel like those kinds of issues and fears are passed down through generations? I mean not only are they passed down internally through generations. So you think about intergenerational trauma, but you also think about societally, what kind of messages do we get from society? So even if it wasn't happening in your house that you were aware of, think about this. We don't know what was happened internally with our love that we don't know. All we know is what they tell us. So I guarantee you there's somebody in the family somewhere, probably close first egre relative who's struggling with the same stuff, but just never verbalize those things. So I think there's this internal part where we pass it generationally. I also think society gives us these messages. Think about where end up your generation and what women were told they could and could not do. Think about that, right, I think about women of my generation, we could do a little bit more because of the sacrifices that you all mad. And then I think about Willows and my daughter's generation, right, they do even more. So I think it's a little bit of both internal passing down but also external messaging as well. Now, we also did a show on anxiety, and I never thought of myself as being somebody who is anxious. Is anxiety and self doubt connected? But they're not the same, right, They're not the same. They're not the same. But anxiety and self doubt can absolutely be connected. So when you think about anxiety, I tend to think about anxiety as worried, right, just making in plain English, worried. That's out of proportion to whatever the stimulus is that's presented to you. Right. So if something happens, whatever it is, like somebody cut you off in traffic, many people who don't have anxiety, Oh they just cut me off in traffic. Maybe they get annoyed. An anxious person starts thinking stuff, what was that in the wrong lane? What did I do wrong? Why did they cut me? Off, this is just the worst day ever, right, and it just starts spirvuling. And so I think it's this idea of think about fight or flight. We all have fight or flight, right, It's just it's is born into us anxious people. Their fight or flight isn't overdrive, right, and it's varying degrees or overdrive. So it's not like everybody's that attend in flight all the time. But I think when you're anxious, you're in my because I'm anxious too, has a little more, you're a little more reactive. And so I think absolutely self doubt contributes to that. They feed each other, right, So it's not necessarily know which came first, but they absolutely feed each other. So I'm gonna give you an example. I had a situation recently where I had an opportunity to attend an event, right, and they only had one ticket though, so that man, I was gonna have to go by myself. And it was an important event, something that I really would have loved to attend, but I didn't want to go by myself, and I had all of these reasons why I couldn't go. I can't go, I'm going to be at the table by myself. I won't know where to sit. I won't there's not gonna be anybody there. I just I can't do it. And my husband was like, Adrian, you absolutely are going to know some people at the event, and what will happen. What would be the worst thing that would happen if you go and you're sitting at the table by yourself. You know how to talk to people, you know how to have conversation, and guess what, if you don't like it, you can get up and leave. And he really had to talk me into it. My r rap was like I will be there. I will be there and I can greet you and make sure that you get in your seat and all that and you know, and then I was like, Okay, I can do it. I can do it. And then it turned out I had to work and I couldn't go anyway. But then I got all ramped up, and you know, ready I wanted to go. I was excited about going. It was an event that I actually really wanted to attend. I was just I let my fear take over, so I see that anxiety because my head I went to all of this, just all these reasons why I absolutely could not do it. I just I can't do it. I can't do it, you know. And my husband was I mean, I love him so much, he just he is a grounding force in my life. You know. That was I think a really good example of anxiety and self doubt, like the two of them like combusting and creating such a you know, a negative force in my mind. It wasn't real. It's just it's you know, I just went left immediately. What about codependency Does that that trigger yourself out as well? Yeah, because think about it like this, codependency is you can't It's an extreme version of I am half a person and I need another half a person to be whole. Right, It's not I'm at a whole individual. This other person as a whole individual, and together we can be a whole couple or a whole partnership, or you know, whatever the case may be, whatever your relationship is to that person. Codependency is really about we have to really sort of lean on each other so much that neither one of us can stand on our own. And of course that's going to feed self out because you think about it, if they're things that you should normally be able to do, without any difficulty. I think in our minds, the codependency really sort of feeds this idea. Of course, I can't do that unless I have this other person to do whatever that thing is, So we don't give ourselves an opportunity we are. Part of working through self doubt is giving yourself enough data to see that when you're faced with a difficult situation, you can get through it. But if you're codependent and you always need that other person to help you get through whatever it is, when do you ever learn the lesson that you alone, like you said in your daily own, are good enough by yourself just as you are. You don't give yourself an opportunity. So to me, of course, that naturally is going to feed self doubt. And I think that's a natural tendency for those of us who have anxiety, especially if it's really high level anxiety where it's with us all the time and it's activated all the time. That's a natural tendency to go there because we're not trusting ourselves that we can do things on our own, and of course we can't. We just need practice. Yeah, So how do you think the pandemic has affected or triggered people when it comes to self doubt, just that being forced to be alone all the time. It is, Yeah, you're forced to be alone with your thoughts, and you think about it, you're you also don't have opportunities to practice. Again, My thing is always about you gotta practice behaviors to learn them and integrate them into your life day to day. When do you get to practice things like, say, for example, one of your things is you're socially shock, but you're really trying to work on engaging people. The pandemic forced you to be in the house more so, when do you get to practice and what do you do? You revert back to the stuff that makes you feel comfortable, and sometimes the stuff that makes you feel comfortable. Remember what it said, the devil you know, it's been in a devil you don't know, but it's still a devil. You're hanging out with that devil of self doubt and it just you're allowing it to grow. I think there's a part of it said that. I think there's a part of it where we think about things like depression and anxi siety often go together, right, So you're maybe frustrated because you're in the house anxious, your anxiety is growing, and then you get sad because your anxiety is getting worse, and then it's just a vicious cycle. So when do you get the opportunity to help pull yourself out of that if you're not out of the house doing things that help you relieve your anxiety. I remember one of the things you said was you like to be out in nature, Okay and right, and the nature and nature helps you. I'm the same way. I like to be outside running the walk, and especially we have like creeks and streams by where I live. I love being by the water. What happens if I can't get outside to be by the water, I'm just sitting with that anxiety. And one more thing I'll add is people who are able to do things like let's say you figured out that exercise really helps you with your anxiety, and you really like to go to the gym. During the pandemic, the gym was closed, right, so you couldn't go to the gym, And now that it's open, maybe you're worried about people are in there without masks. I don't go in there, get no germs. I don't want to get be exposed to COVID and so you keep yourself in the house. So I think there are lots of ways in which, to your point, the pandemic and isolation and quarantine have really fed people's anxieties, not intentionally, but it's just a byproduct. So what are the different things, Like, are there exercises or that we can do to just kind of help us with this, you know, things that we can do to build up our self confidence. Absolutely, so I think it's baby steps. So one of the things we teach people when you're teaching them how to manage anxiety is something called exposure treatment. I think that without getting too formal, we can expose ourselves to things step by step, in little baby steps to help us get more acclimated to doing those things and develop more confidence in ourselves that we can accomplish those things. So, for example, like when you said your husband was talking to you about going to this event by yourself, I think an example of that might be can you sit quietly? This is what I teach my patients when I work with patients. Can you sit quietly and just visualize what would it be like to show up at that event. Let's just start there, work on breathing, what do you need to do to help yourself be calm in the moment. Maybe you need to count right, just count to ten. Maybe you need to take deep breaths. I don't know. Maybe you need to give yourself some affirmations, but just pretend like you're in that moment and work yourself down away from that high level anxiety. That step one, it's just visualization. Step two might be, let's go to an event together together, and then you leave me by myself for ten minutes and let me work on what it feels like to be alone. But I know you're around here somewhere right until you work your way up to I actually can make an effort and make an attempt to go to an event by myself. So it's that visual visualization and practicing and baby steps. I always also say prevention is always so much better and intervention. So if you work on keeping your anxiety at a low level daily, every day, you're doing something to help you manage your anxiety. That and to build yourself confidence right, reflecting on something that's good about you, practicing affirmations, setting your intention. For some people, that's prayer. If you can find something that you can do every day, to reinforce your self confidence, reinforce something that you like about yourself, for multiple things that you like about yourself, those things start to become automatic. Remember how we were talking about the automatic thoughts where our brads go normally. Right, you got to build it up the same way you like sort of build yourself down into that self doubt. So it's building ourselves back up, and it's practicing it every day, so that it's prevention instead of waiting until we're in the throws of oh my god, I hate myself, I can't do it, and trying to talk ourselves out of it. It's that's too hard. So prevention first is always the key. Okay, all right, I have a lot of work to do. Really too, I have a lot of work to do. Is there any other advice that you would want to give people who are dealing with self doubt like myself? Yes, I would say two things. Come back to remember what you said from the daily own and what I've learned a long time ago. You're valuable because you exist. Remember that daily. That's one thing too. Curate your news and curate the sources of information that you allow to come into your space. Right. So some people love watching like network news or you know, cable news, or whatever the case may be, but it triggers anxiety, it makes a worry. You gotta reduce the amount of news that you consume because you're really trying to calibrate and make sure that the stuff that you take in is not stuff that send in your anxiety spinning. So always be mindful of what you're consuming in all different kinds of ways. Exercise is important. And then the final thing I will say, it's just try to find that one piece of light within yourself. Think about that one thing that you know you do better than anybody else, and remind yourself of that constantly. If you can continue to do that, you're always coming back every day to something that makes you feel good about yourself, that makes you positive, that gives you a boost, And hopefully, if you do that enough, that thing becomes automatic and you have at least one thing to help counter any of those aspects of self doubt that you might be feeling. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr Alfie. That you know, I started out feeling anxious about just having the conversation, but I'm so glad that I did. I'm so glad that that you agreed to come on. So now it's time for this segment. Wouldn't you like to know? And I want to ask you three rapid fire questions before you leave. What book are you currently reading? Oh, that's a good question. I'm always in the Secret some version of that always. Yeah, I'm familiar with that book. What's one thing you want to get off your chest that I am? I have to remind myself of this. I am fearless, I am unapologetic about who I am as a black woman. I love myself and I demand that people show up and respect me exactly as I show up in the world. And don't ask me to change anything. Girl. Yes, okay, and seen and cut. What's the model you live by? Oh, one of my favorites. I wish you lots of loving light, and I'm always hoping that your loving light and your mental health are informed by good, culturally relevant science. I love that. I love that model. And where can people find you on social media? Yes? Of course. So my kids and their friends call me drowthy d R A L L by E. They always called me dropping, and somebody called me that yesterday. And I'm picking up food and I put dr Alpha. They were like dropt I was like, okay, so drafty at all social media Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn whatever. Then I have a website, dr Alfie dot com and then people can also follow my nonprofit, the a Coma Project a a k O M. A Comma Project one word on all social media. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr Alfie, thank you for using your platform for this, and thank you for having me. I am you know, I'm a forever, ever and ever fan and not just appreciate you and your team so much. Thank you so much for joining us today. My most important takeaways from today's conversation is number one, your feelings are valid, but they're not always accurate. And number two, we're valuable because we exist. And join this episode of positively Gam, then subscribe to the positively gam series to catch up on all of season two. And that's our show for today. You can follow me online at Gammy Naris. Also help us out by leaving a five star review on Apple Podcasts and by hitting the follow button on I Heart Radio. Stay great for you all. Positively Gam is produced by Red Table Talk Podcast and I Heart Radio. Executive producers are Adrian Banfield, Naris Valin, Jethro and Jada Pinkett Smith. Our audio engineer is Calvin Bailiff, and our associate producer is Irene Bischoff Burger. Our theme song is produced by d Beats