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Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, where we discussed all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. To get more information and resources, visit the website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. And while I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Happy New Year, y'all, and welcome to session thirty eight of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. I hope you're enjoying a great beginning of eighteen. I want to first start by saying thank you to everyone who has tried to visit the website at Arapy for Black Girls dot com. Y'all have shown their website so much love that it has actually crashed. So my tech team is in the process of upgrading everything right now so that as many of you as possible can be on their browsing looking for a therapist and listening to the podcast as possible. I'm hopeful that it will be up again later today, but I truly appreciate your patients as we undergo a little bit of a makeover for our very first episode this year. I'm excited to bring you a conversation I had with Registers Psychology Associate Dr Alicia Little Hodge. Dr Hodge is an expert in all things anxiety, so I knew I wanted to chat with her about how we can recognize signs of anxiety, where they come from, and what we can do about it. Dr Hodge is a registered psychology associate in the state of Virginia and Maryland. She received a master's and counseling psychology from a state university, as well as a master's and doctor degree in clinical psychology from the University of Hartford. Doctor Hodge has extensive experience in providing cognitive behavioral therapy across various treatment settings with adolescents and adults. She completed her predoctoral internship and postdoc residency at St. Elizabeth's Hospital and in Patient psycho Hospital in Washington, d C. With a focus on CBT for psychosis. She has clinical specialization in exposure therapy, cognitive remediation, complex trauma, parent training, and is a certified adoption competent therapist. Doctor Hodge also has conducted specific research surrounding the experience of trans racial adoptive parents and how to engender self confidence and efficacy. She primarily works with individuals addressing issues related to anxiety, perfectionism, O, c D, trauma, self esteem, and post adoption adjustment. She believes that our thoughts directly impact our feelings and behaviors and works collaboratively with individuals to identify their strengths, self understanding, and awareness of personal thinking styles. She is also an advocate for mental health awareness to eliminate stigma and encourage help seeking behaviors. I think you will be very impressed by the way Dr Hodge breaks down the world of anxiety in a way that's very understandable, and I hope you'll enjoy listening as much as I enjoy chatting with her. Here's our conversation. So thank you so much for joining me today, Alicia. I'm very happy to have you with us. I definitely wanted an expert to come on and talk with us all about anxiety. UM. I think a lot of us ably struggle with some anxiety symptoms, may not even know what it is, so can you start by telling us what anxiety is for sure, and yes, you are correct. Anxiety is a very natural experience that all humans have, so more than likely if you're alive, you have experienced anxiety. Um. And it can be a number of things that make us anxious. It could be getting out to talk in front of a large group of people. Um. It can be maybe introducing yourself to someone new. But in some ways anxiety is actually useful because it helps prepare us and motivate us to do well. But there are times when anxiety takes control of us in a way that we have intense fear or distressed and that's when things get overwhelming and we actually want to make me back away or shy away from that thing. And those are the times when we find anxiety does get in the way, and it's very common. Actually, about eighteen percent of adults in America have anxiety, which was probably shakes out to be about forty million adults, So that's a large number of people. Um. So it's one of the actually the most common mental health concerns and disorders in the United States. Yeah, that definitely is a lot of people, for sure. So a lot of the times anxiety, I guess in a nutshell, the way that I like to describe it to people is, um, it's a natural response that we have to a dangerous situation. So for example, if you and I were in a room and we opened the door and we saw that there was a bear, we would both of course be immediately afraid. Our muscles would become tense, we were briefly fast, and we'd be ready to go and sort of that side or flight type of state. But what happens, more so in an anxiety disorder is that the panic and the distress is there, but there's no bear. So oftentimes a person can be feeling anxious and realized, wow, I actually don't know what it is that I'm worried about. I don't have a reason, but I can't shake the ceiling. Because essentially, anxiety sort of caused us to overestimate how bad a situation will be and also underestimate our ability to handle it. And where does that come from? Um, the anxiety the feelings you mean, yeah, like if there is no there, like, why do we typically you know, sometimes develop that kind of a response. So essentially what happens is that our brain UM is operating on a fear based reaction, which sometimes there maybe is something fearful, and that's usually in the form of a thought. Um So we may think about something like, oh, I have that test tomorrow, and most of us would be a little bit anxious and maybe start to prepare and say, wasn't that I need to go study where someone who's quite anxious doesn't really move to the problem solving stage. They're kind of stuck in that fear based response and they're reacting to the concern and they can't move forward to the problem solving stage, which if you think of our brain, if you look at your head, you're sort of responding to fear in the back of it, whereas problem solving is more towards the front of our brain. So although it's a short distance, you know, if you're looking at your own head, is quite far in terms of um neurons. So what happens is that when we respond respond in a fearful way, we kind of get cut off from the problem solving portion of our brain. That's a great way to put it. I think that I don't know that I've heard it described that way, but it's a very like simplistic like you can kind of see how it happens that way. Yes. Absolutely, And a lot of times I find that that is helpful to people to sort of understand that this is a something that's happening on multiple levels. It's um not only maybe some of your thoughts, but it's their emotions, it's the actual physical physiological process in your body. So for the most part, when I'm working with individuals, I try to intervene on all those levels to kind of give them some sort of relief. So you kind of mentioned like the fans breathing and increased heart rate, Um, can you talk about maybe some of the other symptoms that sisters may be experiencing that they may not been recognized as anxiety. Absolutely. So often times, you know, you hear people sort of throw out the term anxiety, like or I'm anxious, And a lot of times we tend to think of the more extreme presentations, which is, you know, maybe an intense crying or um, you know, being really paralyzed with fear. But a lot of times I come across people who tell me things like I've been experiencing some chronic headaches, Um, I've been feeling pretty dizzy, which is usually from like a lack of oxygen from that hyperventilating. But interestingly, another area is like gastro intutional problems and um so things like stomach aches and cramping. UM. A lot of times people will just say, like, you know, I don't know you think about it, how the presentation And I've been having to get up and go to the bathroom a lot. Um so, things like frequently having to urinate UM or even having more extreme is the diarrhea. But another thing that women in particular UM experience is irritability. And that's something that I think is very much overlooked as an aspect of anxiety UM because there's a tension there that maybe not wanting to be bothered or even the smallest thing is said in you all, it could be that some anxiety is actually going on. Oh that's a good one at leisure. So how would you be able to kind of distinguish between you know, kind of just being irritable in general and it being an actual anxiety kind of symptom. Yes, it's actually pretty tricky, I have to admit, and UM at times I will get people to start looking at what are you thinking about? Because we tend to go through life and get set off by very small things, and that's that does happen, and it doesn't necessarily mean you have a disorder. However, if you can kind of look at what else it's going on for me, what is it that I'm worried about? Um? And I sort of maybe not present in my own life and kind of a really requires you to pull apart your thoughts a little bit and see what am I herrid about, irritable about. So if there's a situation where maybe you find, you know, I've blown up at someone, maybe if you can't stop yourself in that moment and say what was really the issue there? And that may help you walk backwards to see, oh, you know, was that person just getting on my nerves? Well? Could I potentially be worried about something else? Okay, that's a good way to look at it. And what are some of the most common anxiety disorders? Yeah, well, some of the more common ones are things like generalized anxiety, which the way that I like to describe that to individuals is UM, You're usually worried about maybe two or more different types of things in different areas of your life, whether that's the finances, family, friends, UM, performing well at work in the sense that most people have who experienced general anxiety is you know, what, life is going okay right now, but I always seem to feel on edges if I'm waiting for that other shoot to drop. And that's usually an indicator of, you know, being really preoccupied about the progress of life, in the process of life really and you're kind of thinking, yeah, I can say out loud it definitively that things are okay right now, but I'm pretty on edge thinking that tomorrow they won't be UM. And another common thing is social anxiety or sociophobia as it is called sometimes, which is essentially being very nervous and uncomfortable and really kind of overthinking those social interactions, kind of asking yourself, why did I say it that way? What if I offended someone? Will I offend someone? Will they like me? UM? And being very preoccupied to the point where you're almost unable to engage in social interactions or find yourself avoiding them frequently. And do you think that UM, social media or the increase of increased use of social media, has impacted social anxiety in any way. You know, I do find that sometimes it can exacerbate situations, because, as we all know, you can put a tone to anything on a text message or status and you can sort of make inferences and say that's probably about me, or I think that person is mad um And because social interactions are so complex when someone is already nervous about them, I do believe that interactions on social media and online can sort of spin way out of control a lot quicker than in person because you don't have those facial cues to read, you don't have tone or even the ability to sort of just immediately get that feedback like what did you what did you mean by that? M hmmm. So when people suggest things like not having difficult or tough conversations on social media or by text, that's kind of what we're getting at right, like that you can't interpret so much um through text. That is better to have, like the face to face conversation. Asian. Yes, I am a strong proponent of encouraging people to speak in person as much as possible, or at least by phone um A, because I just think it's a nice human connection. But I also believe that it gives you an opportunity to really evaluate what's going on and not put your own bias or you know, emotional state into it got you. So you've mentioned, um, you know, some symptoms that we may not have been aware of. So the irritability, um, you know, kind of some of the gastrow intestinal stuff. And I think another thing UM that sometimes presents as anxiety is overthinking. And I think a lot of us get trapped in that. So can you talk about the overthinking piece that sometimes it's a symptom of anxiety. Absolutely, So overthinking is really um present and anxiety. And the anxious brain is one that is very hyper visionant and what I mean by guys always on the lookout, and it's looking for danger or is looking for you know, what could happen. And oftentimes when someone is anxious, I like to call it and what is game? They can play what if? Eternally they can say, well, what if this happened? And then well what if that happened? What if? What if? What if? And it can tend to make them cause make your mountain out of a mo hill, really, and you may over overthink and obsess about what you said, what you shouldn't say about if you're measuring up in the world, am I kind of where I'd like to be you might play the what if game and kind of make scenarios in your mind about things that could go wrong or things that could happen to our family members. Um. And another area is sort of that fear of what if? What if I have a panic attack? What if? Um, these things happen and I can't control it? What if? Pretty essentially, what is anything you know, that big looming question mark over your head that causes you to think you're so many scenarios that more than likely actually won't happen. So how do you get out of that loop? I mean that is you know, like you mentioned, you could play what if forever? Right, Um? So how do you kind of break through that loop to kind of get yourself out of that game? Yeah? So the main thing that I encourage people to start having is more self awareness. And um, sometimes that sounds a little bit paradoxical to people. They're like, well, I am aware, I know my thoughts. You know, I worry all day long, and here are the things that I'm worried about. And I say that's great. That's the start. And I'd like you to take a step back and ask yourself, are there any other options, because when you sort of play that what if game, um, you get really into it and you kind of you actually experience those emotions of like, well, what if I got you know, what if I got a flat tire? And then this would happen and this would happen. But I say, is it a possibility that you won't get a flat? What if you don't get a flat tire? Then what? And then people sort of open up to realize and there's so many other options or alternatives. And essentially that's the first step I like to encourage and saying you're taking the short route. You know, you're jumped into the what ifs each time. I want you to challenge yourself and after yourself, are there any other possible outcomes? Because that actually, in some ways even trains their minds not to go to the first scary thought only, but to consider what if it's not scary? Yeah, that sounds very simple when you talk about it, of course, So yes, that's that's a really good point, and I actually do get that response. People are like, well, yeah, if it was that easy, then I wouldn't be talking to you. Um. And I sort of presented in a simple manner simply to say that worried tricks your mind into believing that you cannot handle these things, or worry sort of has this way of catching your mind's attention and the way that our minds are creative. If something is not interesting, we tune it out. And I'm sure that we all have experienced that. You know, you're watching the show, half watching it, half paying attention to the conversation. So what worry is. It's sort of like this little, you know, red flag that says, hey, hey, pay attending to me. There's something important about this. But as you start to consider alternatives. In the beginning, it is difficult, and I sort of describe it like exercise. In the beginning, it's clumsy and hard in your sore. But after a while, if you continue to practice, your brain actually becomes a little bit bored with some of these worries because they realize, oh, we can think of some other things, or oh that's probably not going to happen, so I'm actually not as interested in that anymore. Yeah, so it is very much kind of like an exercise for your brain muscles. Yes it is. Yeah, Okay, so something I think, um and you mentioned already, you know, we kind to throw around a lot of these terms just in like everyday language, like oh I'm anxious, Oh I'm this, Oh I'm met, um, and so a couple of the other ones. I think that people throw around um without giving very much thought to our terms like O c D and PTSD, like, oh I got PTSD. Yeah, it sounds like that's a big pip for you. It is. It is a challenge. So that is something that really gets me. And the reason why is that I'm happy that people are sharing, you know, that I'm anxious or that something happened to me and I'm upset. But we have I do think that we need to be careful of the terminology we use because there's a big difference between symptoms or traits of a disorder and actually experiencing a disorder. So for people that might not understand a disorder, UM, it's sort of related to how much your life is actually impaired by this or how much does it get in the way. So if you're saying I have O c D, the D is a disorder, you know, so I have obsessive compulsive disorder, whereas you may just be describing like so for me personally, I love my kitchen counters to be perfectly neat, and I need the flower jar and the sugar jar to be in a certain area, and it definitely makes me more comfortable and I feel like this is nice. However, the disorder at a clinical level is much more like, you know what, I'm going to organize my flower and sugar jar and I'm going to go to work, and then as I'm on my way out, I'm like, oh wait, let me just go back and check. Is it organized? Right? I get into my car and I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna drive. I'm gonna drive back home to make sure that flour and sugar jar are straight. And that, as you can imagine, is going to impair my life. You know, I'm going to be late to work, I may get written up. Things will be much more difficult than me just saying I'm a neat person and I like my flower and sugar jar to be neat. Um. So that's sort of an example I think between like having those symptoms and trades or characteristics versus having an actual just order and what about PTSD. So you gave a great example that kind of how does to illustrate what o c D looks like but what about UM like PTSD correct, So PTSD UM is a pretty significant disorder that UM I also as well, don't take lightly UM. So of course it's people are usually referencing a traumatic events. So maybe you know, like, oh, yeah, I waited a long time at that store, I got PTSD UM, so I would say, no, I don't agree, but I would say it's you know, it took more accurate to say, you know, I was a little traumatized, because we've all experienced some form of trauma in our lives, and it is it isn't up to other people to say whether or not we thought it was traumatic, but serious events like you know, the typical thing it's military combat or assault, or its surfivent and natural disaster can have really long standing effects on our lives. And UM PTSD is related to our biological response. So if we're in an event in which we fear maybe that our life is in danger or someone else's life is in danger, it can cause us to really enter into a crisis and we'll re experience that later through things like intrusive memories, which UM more commonly called flashbacks. UM. Avoiding a place or a person or objects and reminders of that trauma. UM, feeling numb, guilty out of your body, or just being very easily startled and kind of that hyper visionlance. I mentored, like always always on the lookout for what might happen, and that's much more severe and difficult than me just saying well, I don't want to go to that Walmart because they have long lines. M hmm. So Alicia, what would you say? Um, you know, and I've talked about this on quite a few episodes, just kind of the impact that everything that's going on in the world I believe has, like you know, like there, I feel like the black community has has almost like a shared PTSD response to just kind of that's happening. Yeah, you know, like with people being killed by police and um, the political climate and so what would you say about that? I mean, that isn't necessarily like a trauma that you may have personally experienced, because but because we see so much on the news and on social media, it does kind of feel like that. Can you talk more about I agree with you, I definitely. Um, even myself have had to kind of step back from watching those videos and watching those things because I do believe that I was at least at minimum having like traumatic stress responses, like I would be really upset. You know, I'm up at night, I'm thinking about these things. I'm kind of seeing it after I've already viewed it. So in some ways you are correct. PTFDU amongst the black community is actually we're actually more susceptible to PTFC, or we experience it more in our diagnosed with it more because of things like our exposure to violence, our exposure to homelessness. Um um. So you are definitely hitting something on the head. So I don't want to minimize that experience. And I do think that we as African Americans do need to practice self care around those things because they speak to a part of us that we can't change. So if I'm watching a video where someone with an assault just simply because of who they are, and I am like that person, it definitely can inspire in me a fear and a reaction. Mm hmm. And are there like strategies that you have maybe used with clients or you know that you could talk about that might help to kind of manage some of that. Yeah, So what I would say is the first thing, you know, that I've actually even personally done, is sort of limits my exposure to those things and limit my UM viewing and also sort of reminding myself that we're in a society of sensational things and that unfortunately, at times that's all that I get to see. So I do try to look at UM things that are kind of mindless or meaningless. UM. I also encourage people to talk with one another because a portion of PTSD is that narrative and that story and that avoidance. So sometimes we kind of enter into the zone of mental avoidance and we don't want to go back to so stressful things. We don't want to talk about them, and that can actually exacerbate our symptoms. So feeling comfortable and safe, you know, hopefully you have someone's safe that you can talk to and kind of share with your friends and share your feelings and kind of here that if they're feeling anything similar. But given yourself that rest in that break and realize that you don't need to click every rink if the if the title says, you know, man beat up or attacked by dog, like, it's okay to just keep scrolling M So I think another thing that has come up, UM, you know, and probably I mean this has been on the increase, like all of the different like random shootings that we experience in the country. Um, you know. So I feel like it's in the in the same vein as what we were just talking about. UM, but it does, I think strike a different type of fear in terms of like you just don't know what public event you might be at, or you know where you might be in a shopping mall, like just really anywhere. Um, you know. So, I think that that is a very real fear, right, Like you kind of started this episode talking about like if we open the door and there's a bear, you know, or if there's no bear. This kind of feels like you don't know whether there will be a bear. Yeah, So there's just that. Yeah, So that fear of the unknown can be really difficult. And you're right, I think that, um, it is important these days, unfortunately, to take some more safety precautions and kind of be more aware of your surroundings. And I think that having worries about that is kind of um at a normal level. UM. I would say, however, if someone was sort of saying, like there was a shooting at the movies and now I am not going to any movie theater ever. Again, I would be a little concerned about that reaction. Although you are perspecting yourself, and I think that self preservation is key. Um, that seems a little bit extreme. So sort of looking at your own life to see, in my generalizing, this fear too beyond what um maybe and I hate to use an a word normal honestly, but maybe beyond what my usual life looks like. If I'm someone who used to go to the movies every week. Okay, yes, maybe you will initially after a shooting cutback, but if you were advanced to say I'm cutting movies out of my life, I would say, you know, I think that you might want to reevaluate that perspective, but I would validate the fact that there's real danger and fear unfortunately, based on you know, these random shootings, right right. Yeah, so you have already given us, like quite a few exercising and exercises and strategies. But I know people always really like stuff to like hold on to. Um. You know, some people maybe kind of struggling, you know, Like I think one of the ones that it is most common is like social anxiety, right, like not going to new situations, or if you go to and then you're playing on your phone until somebody gets there that you know, yes, can you give us some tips and strategies or you know, things that you use with your clients to come to kind of help manage those like everyday type of anxiety things. Yeah. So I usually, UM, try to balance two things. I try to balance someone's coping skills, which is, you know, one of the things that they're using to manage that anxiety and deal with it. And then also there are other strategies that give that really can be uncomfortable at times, because essentially what I'm working on with people is how to face these fears, and my advice is to lean into the fear versus pull away. Um. And the way I tend to describe that is that when we get uncomfortable with people, we avoid, so sort of like you said, UM, at this event, I don't really know anyone, instead of actually speaking to someone, I'm just going to go check Instagram until my girl gets here. Um. And at times that's just a band aid. You know, in the moment it worked, but it's only a band aid. It didn't give you the opportunity to actually tolerate the feeling to actually see what it was like to actually meet a new person or introduce yourself, So it doesn't give you any evidence that you can actually handle social situations. So on one end, when I'm talking about coping, I like to encourage people to do things like deep breathing, um, which is like the go to and therapy and sounds very cheesy, but I am aware um, that deep breathing really helps to reset us in our bodies. So oftentimes when we are anxious, we're sending messages from between our body and our brain that says I'm uptight, something's wrong, Um, I don't feel great. When we start to breathe, we actually relax and the message goes to your brain to say we're all good down here, and you tend to get much more calm um. I suggest things like music, and that is according to someone's taste. Are there any songs that sort of just make you feel thank you a little more calm um? Yoga again, which I feel like is in the generic therapist suggestion, but um less of yoga in terms of like the actual posing and practice that encourage yoga for relaxation being more in tune with your body, realizing when your shoulders are tense, if you're how's just some mix, feel how's your breathing? Um. Those are some of the coping skills that would recommend, but for instances. In terms of techniques, a lot of it is literally jumping out there and kind of putting your toe in or jumping feet first to say, you know what, I'm pretty nervous. What is the worst thing that could happen? You evaluate what that is. So, for example, we talked about being at a party. So I say to myself, Okay, I'm really nervous. My friend's not here yet. The worst thing that could happen is that I introduced myself to someone and embarrass myself. And that's that's not the greatest feeling, I'm sure. But then you ask yourself, what else could happen. I could make a new friend, I could actually meet someone that is in my field and make a connection. I could find you know, there's so many other great things that could happen. So I'm really telling people to challenge your thoughts, um after yourself this is the only outcome, and then kind of really push yourself to say, you know what, I can't meet a new person. I'm just gonna go up there and say hi. So, what does this look like with you in practice? Alicia? So are you? I know, for a lot of people who like specialize in anxiety like you do, it may involve like a lot of out of office kinds of things. Right, So might you go with them to a social place or you know, like a public place. I have done this actually quite often. Um, if someone has experienced in social anxiety, we will do things like you know what, Okay, well today we're going to walk down to the end of the street and I would like to say hi to five people. So, just starting off a little bit small, with just an acknowledgement who we do, sort of go to the range of something called overcorrection, which is, let's sort of do some of these worst case scenarios and see is it that bad? So if you're really embarrassed just to say hi after time, you know, with some coping skills in place and you feel safe with me, I would say, let's walk down the street and do some really weird things. Let's walk backwards, let's skip, let's uh, you know, ask people what time it is while we're holding our phone. Because obviously we know what time it is, but we're just doing something embarrassing. Um or even you know, I've had someone pick up a pair of depends, the adult diapers and go to the front and ask what they were for, because we know that these type of things will invoke anxiety. But essentially the purpose of treatment is to show you that you can handle it and perhaps it was not as bad as you imagine, And it also gives your body an opportunity to experience those anxious feelings and interpret them as less dangerous as they were being interpreted before. M M. Okay, so you're really I mean a lot of what you're talking about. It sounds like it is really kind of trying to rewire your brain to like calm down and like I'm not in danger. I'm actually okay M. So we're just trying to recalibrate your system a little bit and change your perspective on how you view these situations. Okay. And at what point might you suggest medication for somebody who's struggling with anxiety? So maybe you've done some of these exercises and you're seeing you know that there may be isn't a lot of movement. At what point might you suggest somebody consider medication for anxiety. Yes, so, um, as you mentioned, you know, I engage in talk therapy, but I am not against the use of medication adjunctives to therapy. So if an into to will sort of explaining that they're having very frequent um panic attacks, which might I put in there. That's another thing that I find that people say, like, oh, I had a panic attack, and more than likely they were just maybe overwhelmed or overcome by anxiety. But a panic attack is somewhat different, and it has similar symptoms, you know, racing heartbeat and ability um to breathe and kind of sometimes people will say, you know, I felt as if I was going to pass our have heart attacks. The differences is the intensity. So panic attacks typically reach their intensity within ten minutes or less and then they go down and they usually are out of the blue, unexpected. Um. So, if you're having that type of experience and it's happening pretty often, medication can kind of help get your body to a more um calm physical state so that you can actually do the work, because, as I mentioned, a lot of the work that I do is putting you in somewhat of an uncomfortable situation, and we need you to be able to have the resources and ability to kind of endure that to some degree. UM. So it also see fine that you're spending a great portion of your day worrying or almost sometimes people describe it it's like a hiccup in their brain that they can't get off the thoughts and they can't um deviate or distracted themselves. Then we might need some medical intervention there. And you have already mentioned um, you know like yoga and meditation. UM. Do you have like some favorite resources for your clients or other people that you love to suggest that helped to manage anxiety? I two, So I UM am a huge fan of a book called The Worried Trick UM, which is by Dr David Carbonel. I believe it's how you pronounce his last name. And what he discusses in that book is very similar to what you and I have talked about, but he shared it in such a nice simple format, and he discusses, um, how to manage chronic worry. He kind of tells you about your brain, about the physiological test process, and he gives you some techniques that are really helpful, um to navigate whether you're in therapy or not. So I really like to explain chronic worry and how to kind of overcome it. UM. Let's see what else. I also like YouTube has a lot of guided meditation scripts. So for sometimes people who have a hard time relaxing UM or they notice they get distracted if they don't have anything to listen to UM and YouTube you can go in and I think if you just type in like meditation or guided meditation or even relaxation scripts, there's lots of videos would call music and someone with a really pleasant voice that guides you just through some relaxation UM and features you how to relax your muscles or kind of excuse me to envision a happy place, so to speak. UM. And then in terms of technology, there are a few apps that I like. UM there's one that I actually haven't used, so you know us or be aware, but it's called Headspace, and that's a paid app that a lot of people UM have come to therapy and let me know like they've used it in the past. I'm not very clear on why they don't currently use it, so that's why I said I can't really vouch for it, but UM, they mentioned that it can be helpful. But also if you like the free ninety nine like I do, you can you can look up an app. It's called relax Melodies. Um. I think there's also another app called Nature Sounds. And the nice thing about this app is it just has nice relaxing nature sounds and you can combine them on top of each other. So sometimes I'll do like rain mixed with the beach or fireplace noise mixed with the wind. Um And it had the timer on it, so you can even set it at night if nighttime is a time where you feel more tense, you can set it for about twenty minutes and kind of lay down to your deep eating and listen to the sounds and hopefully you get to sleep and it will just shut off on its own. So that's really convenient, So Alicia, or there's some um like directions around meditation, um, you know, because I think I've always heard you know, like you have to kind of train yourself to kind of get into this meditative state, like you can't necessarily, you know, you try to put on a YouTube video in the middle of a panic attack and think it's going to work. A good point, yes, And I'm glad that you said that because actually the meditation UM, that guided thing would be something that I encourage people to maintain their state of relaxation. So it wouldn't be something helpful to use in a crisis at all. UM, it would be something that you can use. You know. I just try to say put this, incorporate this into your practice of how you kind of wind down. UM. But if you were actually more acute in terms of like, I'm really anxious and I need something. One of the things that I encourage people to do is something called grounding. So this works UM with people who have experienced trauma, but also in UM dealing with anxiety, and it can be the purpose of it is to try to get yourself into the here and now and be focused, so you can do I tell people look at your hands and think about the five senses, but we're really probably using four and that is what do you see in the room right now? Can you kind of look around and see anything? Um? What are you're hearing right now? Do you hear the clock shaking on your wall? Is there the wind going by? You know? Is there any noise? What do you smell? Which may be nothing, but it still keeps you here in the moment, in your body and what do you feel. So usually I encourage people just kind of tap the chair or rub your fingers together and focus on those sensations to keep you in the moment and maybe not flying off into a panic attack or kind of getting consumed by your thoughts. That sounds great. So can you tell us more about your practice, Alicia, and where we can find you on the internet for are so right now? I am located in Virginia. I have actually two locations, two offices, one in False Church, Virginia and one in Alexandria the Old Town area. And I'm actually UM located at the Center for Cognitive Therapy and Assessments. And if you would like to look that up online, the website is kt psych p s y dot com and you can find me there and schedule an appointment if you would like to UM. And also, I just really like to use my online platform for social media to really promote mental health awareness. Thats something it's very important to me. UM. I think that we all can use a little bit more education, and my intention is to also reduce the stigma UM and the encourage good language around mental health and encourage people to have health speaking behaviors, is not um something that you can't handle. And if for some reason you feel like you really can't handle things, there are people out here willing to help you, and that My Instagram name is at helps me Hodge, so help you know the word help me and my last name h O D g Um and lastie. I just recently completed a an e book about self care. It's kind of encouraging some of the things that I've talked about, which is being relaxed and kind of stepping outside of your head a little bit um and not to get caught in the worry trapped. And I recently have a website and the website address is www dot help me Hodge dot com, which is similar to my Instagram name. Got you And all of this information, of course, will be included in the show build, so if you're driving, you don't have to worry about trying to remember all of this. Yes, they focused on the road. Please all right, this is definitely when we want you to stay president. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Alicia. I really appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate you having me, and I really hope that this was helpful to anyone, and UM encourages people to realize that if any of these things are going on for you, that there are trusted professionals out here that are more than happy to help you. Thank you, didn't I tell you such good information? Right? I'm so thankful Dr Haje was able to share her expertise here with us. You definitely want to make sure to check out the resources she mentioned. You can find those in the show notes at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash Session thirty eight. And if you try the site and it's still not working, give it a few hours and check back again later and definitely let us know what you thought about the episode. Did any of the information resonate with you? Use the hashtag tb G in session and let us know. And if you loved it, share it with someone else. Text your friend, your cousin, or your auntie and tell them that they have to listen to this episode or share it in your Insta story. You sharing the word about the podcast makes it easier for other people to find this, so I really appreciate your help in getting the word out and make sure you're following us all across social media as we have some really cool new things rolling out for the new year. You can find us on Twitter at Therapy for the Number four be Girls, and you can find us on Facebook and Instagram at Therapy for Black Girls. If starting therapy is something you plan to do this year, make sure to check out the therapist directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash directory. And if you're already working with the therapist who you've enjoyed working with and you think that other sisters should know about them, then share the website with your therapists and ask them to consider listening their practice as well. I'm very excited about all the great conversations and growth we're gonna have this year, and I hope you are too. I'm looking forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take it care. I doctor, doctor, doctor doctor, I doctor, doctor doctor