Two Steps To Overcome Anxiety and Body Shame Permanently #SANE

Jonathan:Hey, what’s up everyone? Jonathan Bailor and April Perry, and we are back with another SANE show. April is very excited. She even brought visual aids, so if you are just listening to this, please make sure you do hop over to SANEsolution.com and click on the blog tab. That is where you will always see the videos of these shows, because April has some stuff to show us this week.

April:Okay, I have a new favorite book, but before I show the book I need to preface it a little bit because I think it’s totally mistitled, and it, however, has solved one of the biggest problems that I have ever had in my life. I have some top books that I have loved, The Calorie Myth, obviously, being one of them. Getting Things Done, by David Allen, is another one that totally changed my life, and I teach thousands of people how to apply a TTD process for families and how to make it work – love that.

The reason why I am in love with this book is because I have had an issue with this voice in my head and having anxiety throughout my life ever since I was little. But I didn’t even realize that I was anxious until I read this book and my anxiety level dropped and I thought, “Oh, is this how normal people live? I am so happy.” So, when I find something that I love I have to share it. And also, it really relates to being SANE, and in a really powerful way. So, are you so excited, Jonathan, to hear about this book?

Jonathan:I’m so excited, I would just add one thing, when you said, “Oh, well, a lack of anxiety – that must be how everyone else feels.” I think, especially if you look at the data, being anxious is absolutely the normal state. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, but anything you can do to help.

April:Thank you for saying that, and actually, I do want to talk about that for one more minute to lay the foundation a little bit more. I will say the title of the book. The title of the book is, When Panic Attacks. Now, I would never have picked this book up at a bookstore because from what I understand, and what I read in the book, a panic attack is when, honestly, you’re not breathing, you think you’re going to die, you are kind of in this state – it’s an isolated event when you have a panic attack.

Now, people will often through that out into casual conversation. “Oh, I almost had a panic attack,” or something like that, and a lot of people really are having panic attacks. I have a lot of dear friends who actually do go through those, so because I know that I haven’t had that same experience, I just wouldn’t have picked up the book. However, what I think the book should be called is, How to Completely Reduce Your Anxiety and Help Calm Your Mind Almost Immediately. That’s what I’m going to call it.

The reason why this is so helpful is because when we’re choosing to go SANE, or when we’re choosing to live a healthy lifestyle, we have to get things right in our heads first. Any of this anxiety that we’re feeling, any stress or pressure, self-doubt, all those feelings, they start with our thoughts.

There are a lot of great books, like As A Man Thinketh. That’s another favorite book. Amazing. There are just beautiful books out there. My mom was always reading, You Can’t Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought. We had a book about self-defeating behaviors. I read a book called, What To Say If You Talk To Yourself. Can you tell that this has been an issue my whole life?

This is the problem, I think, for a lot of us, and I would love to hear your perspective on the problem – we want to do well, we want to feel good about ourselves. I think I started having anxiety probably fourth grade. Actually it was when I started gaining weight – I started gaining weight in fourth grade. I started wanted to control everything I could control, which meant I wanted to get straight A’s. I had one B, fifth grade science – never had a B other than that. I thought, “I’ve got to get A’s.” I’ve been very responsible. I like to do what I say I’m going to do. And I like to please other people.

What the book taught me is that I actually have a disease, and the disease is called “niceness disease.” I didn’t realize it was a disease, but the book said, you find the most anxious people in the world, and they’re usually the nicest. And I’m a really nice person; that’s a disease. Of course, I can still be kind, but I’ve got to fix the anxiety. That’s my foundation. You’re laughing over there. Any other thoughts on this, Jonathan?

Jonathan:Oh, my goodness. I’ve never heard the statement that people who are the most anxious people in the world are the nicest people in the world, because I’ve certainly met some incredibly anxious people that are very unkind. But I think this is huge, and actually, if you listen to any of the previous episodes, we oftentimes deal with questions where I give the answer that you wouldn’t find in a magazine – “The Thirteen Tips to …..”

What we generally talk mostly about in a SANE lifestyle is mindset stuff, because until you understand the mindset, everything that I say, everything that April says, everything that exists in the same program is going to be like it’s coming at you with a different language. It’s going to be like we’re speaking French and you only speak English, because the mindset is not aligned. So, I totally agree with you, April, that we have to take on a SANE upper case and a SANE lower case mindset before any tips, tricks, or secrets will ever make any difference.

April:I’ll just share a brief before and after because what happened was, probably three weeks ago there were a lot of events happening in my life that felt out of control, and I felt a lot of anxiety. Every morning I woke up feeling, “I don’t know if I can do this.” I was feeling really almost nervous about starting the day, a lot of self-doubt, a lot of frustration. And I’m really okay talking about this in public because I find that I’m not alone. This really is something that a lot of people deal with, and I think when you pretend like, “Hey, Jonathan and April just have perfect lives, and they never stress about anything, and everything just goes smoothly.” I think that is doing a dis-service to people. I think they need to know that you and I are human, as well.

So yes, I was waking up, and I didn’t know what to do about it. I didn’t know who to talk to, because I don’t go to a baby shower and people say, “April, how are you doing?” And I say, “Actually, I’ve been having a lot of anxiety and I’ve been waking up feeling kind of panicked.” People would look at me like I was crazy, they don’t want to talk about that. And I’m not going to email people and say, “Hey, I’ve been having anxiety lately.” That’s kind of ridiculous. And so what ends up happening is, you keep this to yourself.

Now, pre-SANE, this is where I would have buried myself in favorite foods. I would have gotten ice cream more often. I would have just said, “I’m just so anxious right now, I deserve to eat junk because it’s going to alleviate my pressure.” So what I did is, I went into a Facebook group of women that I really trust and I said, “Hey, this is what I’m going through.” And then, this book came in the mail from my friend, Candy, and she said, “I love you. You need to read this.”

I respect her, and I know that she knows me, and I started reading it, and the next day, I started breathing better. I don’t wake up feeling stressed and panicked. I said to Eric, “Do you notice something different about me? Do you notice that I’m not as high-strung as I used to be?” And he did notice a difference. So that’s a big deal, and it’s been consistent for the last couple of weeks. The anxiety hasn’t come back. So, I want to talk briefly about the process and I’m going to apply it to SANE. Does that sound good?

Jonathan:Let’s do it.

April:The process is actually super-simple. It might even seem too simple, but here is what you do. You actually has a little daily mood log in the book. The first thing is that when an event happens and you feel a certain way, usually this is when you would dive into junk food, right? You’re feeling sad, depressed, anxiety, guilty, frustrated, angry, whatever it is, some negative feeling that comes to you as you have this event. So you identify what the feelings are – he has little ones you can circle at the top – and then you write down what the thought is that is going through your mind.

The reason why I think this is so brilliant is because he said that the feelings you are having, this anxiety, or anger, or whatever, is because of the thoughts that are passing through your mind that time. So you have to record it. What is the thought that you are having? I’ll just go through a SANE example, actually, as we are doing this because this was super-helpful for me. Let’s say my negative thought that I have is, “I just ate an Oreo. I will never be successful at being SANE.” So now I’m beating myself up because I just ate something inSANE. And then there is a little column right next to that negative thought and you have to say how much you believe it. This is something I’ve never been told to do before, but you have to say 0% to 100%, how much do I believe that because I ate this Oreo I’m never going to be successful at being SANE.

Now, in the moment, when I’m feeling kind of creepy I would say, “Maybe 50%.” So, 50% I believe it’s true, 50% I still have hope in myself. Well then, you have to do a second thing. You have to come up with a positive thought on the other side, and that positive thought you are going to say if you believe it, 0-100%, but it has to satisfy two conditions. One is the necessary condition. That means that the positive thought must be 100% true, you have to believe it, and then the sufficient condition, which says the positive thought must put the lie to the negative thought.

So here’s one. I could replace, “I just ate an Oreo. I’ll never be successful being SANE,” I could say, “I ate something inSANE. Yes, I did. But, I have the ability to get right back on track. It’s about progress over perfection.” Do I believe that sentence? Yes, I do. How much do I believe it? 100%. So then, if you have these two claims and you believe one 50%, and one 100%, he is basically saying that you can’t believe two things that oppose each other at the same time, so then you have to decide, which one am I going to believe? The one you believe 100%, typically, is going to win out. Honestly, does that seem super simple, or what do you think? Because this has changed my life.

Jonathan:April, the good news is, that’s actually a good sign if it’s simple, because some of the stuff that is most impactful in life is very simple, and then we need to run the other direction when we see complexity. But yes, just to take a step back, I think this is super powerful. I’m just going to do my science thing now for a second. Dr. David Burns is one of the pioneers of cognitive behavioral therapy which is, if you think about, I’m going to go see a psychiatrist or a psychotherapist, the image you may have in your mind is laying back on a couch for 15 years while you talk about your problems from childhood. That’s not cognitive behavioral therapy, that’s the old school Freudian model of therapy.

It’s sort of like nutrition. That’s what we thought worked a while ago, and now when you look at the modern research there is a new form of therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy, which is where people like Dr. David Burns, or in this context, April, are teaching us how to retrain our thoughts, to identify our thoughts and then to have almost arguments with ourselves.

It has been proven clinically, we all know people who have done maybe old school, maybe they’ve seen a psychologist or a therapist for 15 years and you think, “You’re crazier today than you were back then.” At least that has happened in my family. Whereas cognitive behavioral therapy is proven effective, it is super powerful, and I’m so glad you’re sharing this with us, here, April, because these types of mental tools are transformative.

April:The reason why I’m so excited about this is because Dr. Burns said that initially when he started his practice he was just giving out medication for anxiety and depression, just like most other doctors do. But he actually found that this cognitive therapy was actually more effective. And what I love about it is that it is something natural. It’s something that you can do right in your own home. You can do it without having to pay for a prescription.

And just like SANE, we’re trying to go back to being natural, we’re trying to go back to what people did 200 years ago before there were all these medications? Did they not feel anxiety when there was a war starting, when there was lack of food, your family is going through horrible situations, or having cholera? People have experienced anxiety and discouragement forever. Why is it now that we are drugging ourselves up?

I don’t want to put it out there that anyone who is on medication shouldn’t be because, clearly, you’re going to work with your doctor on that and figure out what you need, but one of the things that I love is thinking about is comparisons. For example, me, without knowing about SANE, without knowing about Dr. Burns’ work, I would be eating processed foods, but only 1200 calories of them, I would be hungry, I would be frustrated, and I probably would be on some sort of a medication to help me not be anxious.

Or, where I am right now, I eat as much as I want, I love to eat, I’m full, I’m happy, unless I skip a meal or I’m mad at my kids. And I’m completely – well, I wouldn’t say completely yet – but mostly healed from this anxiety I’ve had pretty much my whole life, without having to take anything additional or pay anyone to do anything, and it’s working. When I look at that comparison, I think, I really want to share this other option with people who are struggling, because I know where I would be if I didn’t have people like you and Dr. Burns who helped get this information to me.

Jonathan:It really ties deeply into what we talk about on all of our previous shows. Even if you think, I don’t get how this really ties together, because what cognitive behavioral therapy is, and what the specific application is, the first thing you have to do is, you have to stop and identify the thought. If you think about it, in some ways, we think, “Hey, I’m going to look at this nutrition label on this food, and I’m going to look at the calorie count, and that’s the determinant of whether or not this is healthy.

Steven Covey phrased this really well, who April and I are big fans of, and if you haven’t read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, please do so. He says, “Between stimulus and response there is a gap, and in that gap, the quality of your life is determined.” I think what cognitive behavioral therapy and SANE mindset shifts, which is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, do is that they teach us that stimulus and response can all take place in your brain. The thought that I ate an Oreo, therefore I am a failure, is a stimulus, and the response is, I believe that and I get depressed and anxious. But what we are learning here is that we can interrupt that and question it, and that ability is a master ability that will help you redefine the way you think about exercise, it will help you redefine the way you think about eating, it will help redefine everything. So, it is super powerful.

April:I just want to give a few more examples of thoughts that used to go through my head prior to SANE, and still, some of the thoughts I have been trying to heal myself from. The reason why this is so important is because I know so many people are thinking, “I agree with Jonathan, it sounds like he knows what he is talking about. I believe that there is a hope and there is some possibility for me that I could be healed from what I am going through right now.” But I know that a lot of the feelings or the thoughts that I used to have were things like, “I am too overweight for anyone to ever love me.” That’s an example.

Although I didn’t ever get to the point where I was obese, as I was having children, and even thinking back to when I was in seventh grade – whenever I talk about seventh grade my daughter, Grace, says, “Mom, I always want to cry when you talk about seventh grade. I would have been your friend.” But I was struggling, I was quite overweight, and I was young, and I had braces, and I’m trying to figure myself out. If I showed you my pictures from when I was 13, you would think, “Aw, that’s a little sad.”

But here’s the thing. I would be saying things to myself like, “Because I’m overweight, I can’t run for president of my school.” Or, “Because I’m overweight, that cute boy would never like me.” These are things I would tell myself. But then what starts happening is then those feelings you start saying, “Because I’m overweight and because I’m not worth very much, it doesn’t make sense for me to put in the energy to blend green smoothies or to try to figure out ways to eat more vegetables, to have food that is high quality. I don’t really deserve that.” And it seems like you’re just being logical. It’s not logical. You’re telling yourself all of these negative things that are simply not true, and we have to turn that around.

Jonathan:And it’s this all or nothing thinking. If you’re thinking, “How do I get started with this right now?” I would say a good next action for me, personally, and I have to catch myself in this, too, is all or nothing thinking, because life doesn’t work that way. Even sometimes when I give my Jonathan non-answers to questions, they’re usually answers to questions like, “What’s the best pre-workout meal?” That’s an all or nothing question. It assumes there is a single best pre-workout meal for everybody. That’s an all or nothing black or white question, whereas most things in life are not that way, and most of your thoughts aren’t that way. It’s not, “I ate Oreos, therefore I fail at life.” It’s, “I ate an Oreo at 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday because this happened, and now I’m writing about it…”

So, the more we can identify the all or nothing, black or white, yes or no, that’s how life should work – that’s not how life works, and if we can identify and challenge and then empower those thoughts, that makes everything a lot easier in life, I think.

April:I just want to give a few positive reminders to those who want to go SANE or who want to see a difference in their lives, that you, first of all, are definitely worth the effort. Whatever it takes, whether it is more energy or more patience with yourself, or more time invested learning how to solve these problems you have, there are solutions out there for you, there are resources out there, and if you have the mindset that, “I am valuable, I am worth it, I am going to invest in myself to do this,” that is going to help you to get where you want to be.

I’ll just put in a plug right now, Jonathan, for your program and for the SANE families program, stuff that we’ve been working on, to help people. So many people will come, and I’ll just say this right now. I get emails from people who say, “I don’t want to spend any money on any programs or anything out there, but I just want to know how I can solve this problem, how can I lose weight?” I get these emails all the time. “I’m not willing to invest any money or time, but I would like you to just kind of fix it for me.”

What I have to say is, when you’re willing to invest your time, energy, and money, there are programs out there. There are people ready to help you. When you’re ready to do that, and you put in that investment, saying I’m worth it and I’m going to be able to make this happen, and you are establishing this commitment to yourself, there are so many people who will come to me and say, “Oh, I just can’t do this, I just don’t have the ability,” and just totally discount it and won’t take those steps. Then there are people who say, “I’m going to invest and I’m going to make a difference.”

And this isn’t a sales pitch, it’s just saying, are you choosing to believe in yourself and make those choices, read the books, do what it takes, learn what you need to do? Because that’s how you are going to see change happen in your life.

Jonathan:I 100% agree, April, and I think when we talk about investing, I think a lot of time people will only think about that in terms of money, which is certainly something we can invest, but one of the number one things I see as the single biggest road block, especially when it comes to wellness, is the investment of time, because even the idea that if I could, hypothetically, give you a pill, because everyone loves pills in our culture, it’s like, “Oh, there’s a pill for that and I can just take a pill.”

If I could give you a pill that would do nothing for your weight for 60 days, but then would cause you to naturally establish a healthy weight over the remaining course of that year, and that you could maintain that easily and enjoyably for the rest of your life – let me describe that a little bit more simply, you take a pill, nothing happens for 60 days, then over the next ten months, with no willpower, you just naturally get back to your healthy ideal weight, and can maintain that easily for the rest of your life, you would say, “Give me that prescription and I want everyone in my family on it immediately.”

But if those 60 days are simply refractored into spend those 60 days learning and educating yourself and cooking and eating in a certain way and not weighing yourself, because it’s not about the next 60 days, it’s about the next 60 years of your life, and then putting in the time and the effort over the next year to educate yourself and to empower yourself, we all know how to do stuff temporarily, we have all lost weight only to gain it back, we’ve all pursued the quick fixes and I promise you if the quick fix ever actually exists, you will hear about it because everyone will do it, but we have to be willing to invest the time in ourselves and in our families.

Like you said April, every single day, it’s like, “Just tell me what to do. What’s the instant, magic fix?” Which is like saying, “How do I snap my fingers and I don’t have cancer anymore?” We would never say that, but for everything in our lives – it’s not like everything is like cancer, but it’s like everything is real, and legit, and there are no shortcuts, you just have to put in the work and you have the correct information and if you’re willing to put in the work it will happen. But you have to put in the work!

April:Yes. So here’s my bookmark, here I am. I read about half the book, almost half the book, problem is pretty much solved, so excited, When Panic Attacks, by Dr. David Burns. Calorie Myth – I listened to your podcasts for a while, then I got the book. I read it cover to cover, I implemented all of it, and within ten weeks – ten weeks was the first time I took an after picture – problem solved. I just feel like there is such power, and I know you’re a huge reader, as well, Jonathan, there is such power in reading what intelligent, wonderful people have written in these books for us.

And I get it, there are a lot of books out there that are leading you in the wrong direction. I get that. But what I will say is, you look at the fruit, you look at the results, you look at what people are getting. And what I will say is, with SANE, my long-term results – it’s been about two years now, long-term results – I’ve never counted a calorie, I don’t weigh myself, I don’t even worry about [Inaudible _00:24:27_] and now that I’ve got this anxiety thing settled, I’m thinking, “Wow, life is getting better and better all the time, it’s fantastic!”

That’s how we want to feel. Everyone needs to feel that way, that wherever you are, you can be improving every single day. And when you do that, and you keep learning, life is awesome, and I’m just glad that we get to be a part of this journey with you.

Jonathan:As a next action – maybe this is a tip, and this has been my experience, and I’ve seen this across hundreds of thousands of people that I’ve worked with over the past decade plus, as you’re finding those resources April talked about, as you’re looking to invest your time and money, and as you are reading these books, here’s the one thing to watch out for – claims about time. Even The Calorie Myth book – on the cover of The Calorie Myth book, it makes a pretty sensational claim. It says, eat more, exercise less, live better. But you’ll notice it doesn’t say, in seven days. Or if someone says that they can help you make a million dollars, they might be able to, but if they say, “I can make you a million dollars in exactly 21 days,” that’s when you run the other direction.

So, as you’re going on this journey, we live in an instant microwave, Instagram, quick fix culture. Everything you want to do is on the other side of putting in the time, and there is no way around that. So, as a next action for me, I would just have your antennae up. You can improve so much in your life and defend yourself against claims that say – because you can, you can enhance everything about your life, but it’s not going to happen tomorrow, and the people who say it’s going to happen instantly – read something else.

April:If you’re listening to the podcast you have to go watch the video to see Jonathan with his little antennae up.

Jonathan:My antennae up. I put my antennae up, literally.

April:Love that. Love that next action. I don’t remember who opened the show or who closes the show. I feel like I’m in a good spot.

Jonathan:That shows you how effective this is, April is so overwhelmed with happy emotions right now that she can’t contain herself, so I will wrap up the show. I want to thank you all for joining us today because this is incredibly powerful information. So train your thoughts, train your mind, live better, and also remember – stay SANE. We’ll chat with you soon.