Postcards From Midlife
Stop people pleasing, avoid burnout & cope better with midlife stress
Lorraine and Trish meet award-winning psychologist, leadership coach and holistic healer Dr Lalitaa Suglani to find out why her new book, High Functioning Anxiety: A 5-step Guide to Calming the Inner Panic and Thriving could be the key to unlocking a joyful, happier life for busy midlife women. Learn how to break down the unhelpful patterns we get into from childhood, cope with overwhelm, find out how to trust our intuition, and feel more present each day. And finally discover how to care more about yourself instead of putting others first and risking burnout. If you are a people pleaser this episode is for you. Plus: Quick tips for a daily mood boost; brain fog bloopers & a vibrator to be proud of…
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- Broadcast on:
- 22 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
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In the top, yes, yeah. Chatting away, and this couple next to me, and the lady puts her hand on my arm. And she says, he is exactly the same, pointing at her husband, that opposite. She, I said, "Oh, really?" And she said, "Yes." She said, "We've got a shed at the end of the garden." And he's got so many terrible, rubbishy, tacky old posters and cards and stuff that he just won't throw away. We've made what I call the shit art gallery as in shit art. Every day, she said, "When we feel a bit down "and we've got a bit of a moment to spare, "we're going to have a little walk round the shit art gallery." Wow, so funny. Oh, what was he doing while this shit-a-jazzle was going on? Well, he said to me, "I don't know what it is. "I just don't want to throw anything away." He told me all about his rubber bands that he keeps. Thousands of them. Oh, no, okay, no, be enough. Yeah, my husband does do that. That's, yes. Welcome to Postcards from Midline. I'm Lorraine Candy and I'm Trish Halpin. If you're living in a hormonal hot house, it's feeling a bit overwhelmed and in need of some positive uplifting and comforting guidance on how to lead from more magnificent midlife than this is the show for you. We chat to celebrities and experts on all things midlife from menopause and perimenopause to parenting teens via fashion, beauty, wellness, nutrition fitness careers, relationships, caring for elderly relatives and your finances. Yes, we ask experts and famous guests all the questions you need answered to have a happier, healthier and more harmonious second day. Hello, hello, one and all, whatever. And whenever you are listening to this podcast, you are very welcome, 'cause we're just very glad to have you with us. We know that some of you like to listen on a Sunday morning run or while doing the ironing or driving to work on a Monday. And we're just glad to be able to make things a little bit more fun for you as if you were doing whatever it is that you were doing with a pair of old friends, pair of old nitwits, more like. But you are right, Trish. There's a really amazing community of women on our postcard from midlight Facebook group. Well, all our listeners, everybody, we love you all, actually. And wherever I go, I keep being stopped by women saying, "Oh, I love your podcast, love your podcast." It's just so warming, heartwarming. And I'm a bit proud of us, Trish, for gathering all these people together. We've got 14,000 women on our private Facebook group and they are all just like you listening, sharing their life adventures, dilemmas and wisdom. Now, a month or so ago, Facebook did that weird AI thing where it sends you a post that tells everyone, "The group was four years old." Trish, my youngest was nine when we started that group. I don't think about it, we do the math. Anyway, we got that post went up and we got some really lovely messages. I love this one from Liesl. She said, "Happy fourth birthday. "Keep doing what you're doing. "It'd be proud of what you've achieved. "Bringing together this wide group "of gorgeous, supportive, funny, "ever juggling brilliant women." That's absolutely lovely to hear, isn't it? I don't think she means ball juggling, though, Trish, 'cause we're terrible at any sporting activity. The nearest you got to ball is that cock-on-a-ball cushion, isn't it, Trish? (laughing) Yes, my third year needlework embroidery project. What was the cock on the ball? It was the Tottenham Hotspurr logo motif. Anyway, that's a whole other story. But we had another birthday message from Claire who wrote describing the Facebook group as, "Such a great venture. "You seem to attract knowledgeable kind "and helpful people. "More than any other page I've been part of." Well, thanks, Claire. That is high praise indeed. And what a lovely compliment for everybody for all of our members. The fact of the masher is, of course, that we are all middle-life women. And while we all have our ups and downs, we don't put up with crappy people or situations anymore, do we? We want nice people. We want kindness and fun. We've got boundaries, Trish. We've got boundaries now. We do not put up without kind of behavior. Here's a very good example of the powerful confidence of a mid-life woman. Somebody on the group wrote this little story, heading off on a short, child-free trip with husband and have just come through airport security. Had packed a very small, discreet vibrator, having been told by Google that it wouldn't show up on the scanner. Google was wrong, bad picked for search, which involved a lady spinning the screen round so all the queue could see. She pointed at it and asked very loudly, "What is this, please?" Now, I decided not to shrivel in shame and announced, loud and proud, it's a vibrator. Snickers behind, but she said fair play and handed me the bag. In my twenties, I would have died, but the benefit of being 50 is not caring. A caution to all traveling, though. I mean, that's very funny, isn't it, Trish? But it really is. I think vibrator in an airport scanner should become a sociological thing. Like, you know that? Is it Bechtel tests? So, you know you're a mid-life woman when you aren't embarrassed to claim your vibrator in airport security? Yes, we could have a whole thread on Facebook, couldn't we, vibrators on tour? So the Bechtel test for anyone who doesn't, though, is one that measures the representation of women in film and other fiction. It sort of asks, does this piece of art, film, whatever, have two female characters in conversation who are discussing something else other than a man? I'm pretty sure we're gonna get through this whole episode without mentioning men. We feel hundreds of hours of their time without mentioning men. And we've got loads of other topics. We've not run out of topics to discuss, have we? No, we haven't. We certainly haven't. I should caveat that, though, by saying our most recent mid-week "How to Win" episode, which is now landing in your downloads every Wednesday, if you were very smart and subscribed to this podcast, on your platform provider, that one was about men, wasn't it? Grumpy, sad, disengaged mid-life men. So if you are struggling to connect to your partner in a long-term relationship, do have a listen, it's only 20 minutes. And hopefully, something in there will be helpful for your situation. Yes, we do like to be helpful between the fun bits and the waffle and the cocks and balls and vibrators, don't we, Trish? Today, we are going to be speaking to an award-winning psychologist, leadership coach and holistic healer, Dr. Lalita Suglani. And she's gonna be talking about high functioning anxiety and how to calm inner panic and the worries that might be holding you back in life. This is gonna be particularly good for you and I, Trish, because we are typical Gen X mid-life women. And also, I think it'd be quite helpful for parents listening who might have anxious teenagers. Yes, before we meet Lalita, shall we have a few brain fog bloopers? We haven't had any yet this season and we do love them. So I'm gonna kick off with this one from Angela, who says, "Just spent 15 minutes looking for my phone "in my car while using the phone." That's the flashlight. I mean, classic, classic. It's up there with looking for glasses when they're on your head, I would say. Yes, I was looking for my swim bobble hat that you put on afterwards to keep warm while wearing before mentioned swim bobble hat at the weekend, Claudia pointed out. She said, "What, which one are you looking for?" 'Cause you've got one on your head. This is a really good forgetfulness moment from Karen. She wrote, "Spoke to the doctor three weeks ago "to request more HRT. "Went to the chemist in the village I used to live in "to collect my prescription today." Only for the assistant to tell me there was no record of it having been sent there. She was very apologetic. I reassured her it wasn't her fault as I went marching over the road to the surgery. It was only as I was explaining the situation to the receptionist that I suddenly remembered, I'd asked the doctor if she could change where I collect my prescription from to the supermarket where I now live. The irony of forgetting I'd arranged to collect the HRT and needed to help to stop me forgetting was not lost on me. (laughs) That is very funny. I think we should finish off with Car's brain fog moment. She says, "Bought a variety pack of breakfast cereal "for the teenager, hid it in the washing machine "so the family don't scoff it immediately "and forgot it was in there, shoved a load of washing "in this morning and you can guess the rest. "Close, covered in disintegrated cardboard, "but thankfully the bags of cereal stayed intact and sealed. "That's kind of like a consumer testing situation." (laughing) So at least you can eat the cereal, so there is an upside. I'm always doing that and then I discover all these lovely things that I've bought around the house. 'Cause you know when you do the shopping, you pop it in the cupboard and they eat it immediately and then they will go around the house saying, "There's nothing to eat here, there's nothing to eat here. "When there isn't, because you've eaten it all, "so I hide bits of it and then I'll find it "in the car all sorts of places, all stale and out of date." Yeah, it's usually nasty, long living chemical stuff that I find, you know, crisps and stuff. Oh yes, okay. So if you're not a member of our Facebook group, then you are missing all of this fun. So join up immediately. Every woman is welcome. There's one thing you have to do though. You have to answer Trish's questions. It's nothing scary, there's no spreadsheets. It's just three little questions about yourself and you have to agree to her rules, which we all have to agree to anyway, quite frankly, to live in this world. Don't send a friend request though because Facebook does not work like that. We don't know how Facebook works, but we do know that that doesn't work. Yeah, I think if you want to do the normal thing you can request a separate, but for a group, you have to go on to the group. Yes, so just search for postcards from midlife on Facebook and it will pop up and then ask to join. You get your three questions. And then we will let you in. I hope I haven't meant that sound complicated, but I know a lot of people ask us why they can't join, but it is actually really, really simple to join. Yeah, and if you don't answer the questions, it automatically won't let you join. So you do need to answer the questions. Very simple, take 20 seconds. Right, show me, Lolita. (upbeat music) - My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friend's still laughing me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. - Hey, this is Justine from Two Black Girls One Rose and I'm here to tell you about Zola. How weird does it feel to be called someone's fiance? The first time you hear it, you do a double take. From there, it's let's enjoy this moment. Turns into we're planning a fall wedding and I am right there right now. That's where Zola comes in. From a venue and vendor discovery tool that matches you with your dream team to save the dates, website, and an easy to use registry. Zola has everything you need to plan your wedding in one place. Start planning at Zola.com. That's Z-O-L-A.com. Here's a commercial message for you from Estee Lauder, the night skin science experts. Sometimes, Lorraine, I wonder if there's anything better than a really good night's sleep. You know that feeling of waking up all rested and revitalized looking fresh-faced and perky for the day ahead? Yes, it's marvellous stuff, sleep. It allows our bodies to do all sorts of clever things. For example, Trish, did you know skin rebuilds collagen at night? And if you want to give it an extra boost to help you wake up to replenish looking skin, you can give it a helping hand with Estee Lauder's new revitalizing Supreme Plus night power bounce creme. Yes, it's backed by 30 years of collagen research and this innovative night creme is a high-performance formula promising to improve visible signs of collagen loss while nourishing your skin with exclusive colonite-8 technology, which is a high-performance peptide and naturally derived Hibiscus morning bloom extract. And in consumer testing, 90% of women said their skin felt replenished after just one light. Well, that sounds like beauty sleep in a jar. You can shop now, in-store and online at stalorda.co.uk. Are you secretly overwhelmed? Have you been relentlessly people-pleasing? Is your fear of failure holding your back? Do you struggle to set boundaries? Or maybe you are a sensitive perfectionist with a tendency to catastrophize, procrastinate, or try to control every last detail? If any of this sounds familiar, then today's guest, award-winning psychologist, leadership coach, and holistic healer, Dr. Lalita Suglani is here to help. Trish and I are really looking forward to this interview because we recognize so many elements of ourselves and Gen X women we know in Dr. Suglani's intriguing new book, High Functioning Anxiety, a five-step guide to calming the inner panic and thriving, which we're going to be chatting about today. During her career, Lalita has seen over 10,000 clients and draws on her own personal journey to identify the causes and symptoms of high functioning anxiety. In her book, she explains how you can break patterns from your childhood and banish those intense internal worries which often plague women with 8 JFA. As we've discussed before, midlife is a time of reckoning and sometimes all those unhappy parts of ourselves that we may have kept hidden up until now, come tumbling out in the challenging but exciting rollercoaster of midlife transitions. Many of us are looking for a new sense of calm as would mature, which is what Lalita is here to help us with today. Welcome to Postcards from midlife Lalita. I'm really grateful to be here today. Thank you for having me. Let's start, shall we? Because your book is absolutely fascinating. So maybe we should start with how you would define your HFA or high functioning anxiety. Maybe use your own personal story because you're one of five children. Your dad landed in the UK from India, age 70. And you say you felt a cultural pressure to succeed and not let your parents down because of their sacrifices, which I think is something many of us feel. You were diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia in your 20s, having been an A-star student at school in uni. So what is HFA and how does your story play into the definition of that? So let's start off with, first of all, what is high functioning anxiety? And when we think of it, the first thing, or the way that I like to describe it, it's a bit like a swan. So when we look at the swan above the water, it looks like it's really graceful. It looks like it's really calm and collected. But actually, underneath, there's so much more going on. So it's sort of like trying to flap away and doing so many other things that we can't see. And often that's what high functioning anxiety is about is underneath, we're overthinking. We're catastrophizing. We might be feeling isolated. We might be feeling quite introverted. Exhausted, tired, but we'll never show those parts of us to everyone else. And instead, people see us as being sociable, hardworking, like we've got it together. Like we have this, or we live this perfect life. But that's not always the case. And the real struggle with that is we really struggled to show up being vulnerable. And a lot of that is to do with shame and how people might perceive us. Just taking you through, my story is, so my dad came here when he was a young boy and he came here with nothing. And he had to enter this survival mode of trying to give more to his family. And for him, it was about giving his children and his family a better life. For him, it meant doing the things that he wasn't able to do. So education, we were like told, okay, have a good education. But by doing that, it meant that I was looking for success, looking for happiness externally, and not realizing it comes from within. So you're on this treadmill of like the next thing, I need the next thing, I need the next thing. Always looking for the external world to make you and fulfill you. And that's when you're temporary. And it's only until I started therapy, which ended up being an accidental space that I entered into because of the course and the role that I took. I started to delve deeper into my patterns, and everything just started to make sense in why I showed up the way that I did. This constant caretaker, nurture a role that I had taken on, and not annoying what my own needs were. And I think now I meet so many women who just don't understand their own needs. They're like, I've always been this nurturer, the caretaker, the role of looking after everyone else. And I don't even know what it is that I like or why dislike. Yeah, it's a lot of high-functioning anxiety traits. When we talk about this, just to be clear, it's not clinically diagnosed anxiety, which is a very different thing, isn't it? Yeah, so this is a very hidden type of anxiety. It's not something that's diagnosed. When we talk about high-functioning anxiety, a lot of people are like, what is that? I don't have that. And when you break it down, like the perfection, the people pleasing, the role of looking after everyone else, the role of this exhaustion, because you're constantly go, go, go. People are like, that's me, and I relate so much. So people have to hit this burnout and this point where everything breaks down for them to stop, and then they realize, okay, I need to look within, but I'm about trying to open people up before and just helping them to see what these patterns are. It sounds like so many women we know people that we speak to, I would say. Yeah, and how is it different to sort of general anxieties? There are different. Yeah, so with general anxiety, it can stop you from doing your day-to-day tasks. It can be very debilitating. But although high-functioning anxiety can feel very exhausted, you still push through. You still push through. Okay. And no one sees that you're struggling because you might have or feel panic. You might feel anxiety, but you'll never show anyone that this is what's going on because there's an element of, I can't. You've learned the art of masking, and so many people relate to that is, oh my God, if it only people knew what I really felt and what I was really going through. Yeah, and you do explain this very clearly in the book, and I think everyone's going to identify with it. The book's in two parts. So it's about unlearning what you're doing and learning. And the first bit defines HFA and describes the symptoms and how it plays out in life. You know, these women, women we know, perfectionists, high achievers, people please, there's really hardworking. And they're sort of hiding, as you say, this kind of shadow self of panic, fear and worry. And that's actually really, really lonely, very common in midlife. And to get to your forties and feel a bit unlovable and hidden is really upsetting, isn't it? Can you describe the second part of your book where you talk about the five steps to healing that and living a calmer life? To be able to move forward, we need to walk backwards. We need to understand the belief systems that have got us into the patterns of keep giving and giving and giving. And sometimes we don't even realize it does come from our early attachments where we may have taken on a specific role in the household, but that role continues to play out. So the first sort of two chapters take us through the unlearning side of, how is it that I've ended up in this space? But then the next three chapters are all about how do I now relearn? How do I relearn to step in and really manage my sensitivity? Because when you're showing up and you're a very sensitive person, which we all are being high functioning, we can feel and tune into things. But what happens is if you don't know how to manage that, we personalize everything. So we think it must be me. I've upset this person because look, they're not responding the way that they normally do, it must be me. But that's your intuition telling you and screaming at you that something's going on for this person. Because we don't know how to manage that and we've learned the belief system is, I need to keep giving to others. And if I don't, then I'm a bad person. That tints the way that we then show up with others and we then personalize it and we then become over responsible and take over. So we have to relearn. How is it that we tune into these emotions within ourselves? And that's what the next sort of three chapters is about is really identifying and learning to speak the language of what your emotions are saying and how to communicate with that. There are five steps you mentioned, aren't they? So very briefly, 'cause they are determined. What are the five steps? So the first step is going back, understanding like where is it that this has started off and where does this come from? Then the second step, we're going a little bit deeper into that. So we really define and understand and there's so many tasks throughout the book that allow you to go deeper and deeper into just unraveling more and more about why you present. So step two is going deeper into that. Then step three, we start to look at the tools. What are the tools that are available to me to understand what my needs are? Because again, people are just like, what do I do? How do I know if like I want pizza or Chinese? I'm not, I don't know how to make that decision and for us it's like, it's a simple decision. Just decide what you want. If you've never had the space to explore that, you won't know what the right thing is to do. And again, the right thing, the right thing for who? Why is it that we're so stuck in that overthinking? So step three is about looking at tools. And step four and five is like going deeper into self-compassion, self-love and self-trust. Number five is all about self-trust because that's the thing that we've disconnected from. When we grow up living externally, living, trying to please everyone else, we disconnect from our intuition from our self-trust. And step five for me is all about how do I navigate that no matter what happens in life, I've got my own back and I know I will be okay. I know I will get through this. And there's 12 powers that I share in step five where you go deeper into that self-trust and learning to really harness how do I feel and tune into that self-trust without guilt taking over, shame taking over and other big emotions being like, oh, I can't do it. It's like, no, we need to learn to regulate our nervous system and step into our light, into courage, into strength, into things that we perhaps never have done before. That's interesting you say about the fact that we just ignore our intuition and we don't listen to our intuition. We probably also ignore what's going on in our bodies as well because our bodies do keep score physically as well and we're feeling under such consistent mental kind of pressure and strain. And what's interesting about this life stage in midlife is as women approaching perimenopause, menopause all years, they can suddenly start thinking, oh, this is all menopause. This is all gonna be solved by HRT. This is all gonna be, but actually, if you're going into it already feeling like this, it's not gonna be the case, is it? - Yeah, and I think it heightens. Like when people reach menopause and start going through and start experiencing symptoms that they never experienced, they force to pause and really reflect on what's going on. But then you also start questioning like, how have I ended up here in life? And you start then feeling resentment because it's like, I'm always doing everything for everyone else. What about me? - So there's all these new emotions coming up because you're allowed yourself to just pause to be like, actually, I'm not okay here. You start helping yourself, but other things start to come up these emotions that you've never really felt. And naturally, they sort of elevated during menopause so you're feeling them, but you're feeling really, really, like, I don't know what the answer is. I don't know why I'm feeling this and it can feel like resentful anger, frustration. It's also like you're going through grief of how have I ended up here in life, giving, giving, giving to others and what about me? And I see that a lot when people are hitting menopause where they start experiencing this grief phase of life. It's like, what about me? Throughout all of life, it's been about everyone else taking on that caretaker or looking after everyone else. And it's almost like you've been invisible and that's where you start to develop more and start to understand what life do I want and how do I create my own identity? But before you even get to that phase, you will hit that part where you're feeling frustrated, you're feeling resentful. - But I'm guessing then people who have high functioning anxiety sleep is affected probably and your nervous system will affect stress on the body. Are there other physical symptoms do you think that we might be alert to? - Well, I think there's so many that we've ignored throughout our lives, like headaches, migraines, you might notice like stomach aches, you might notice that sometimes like you're not being able to go to the toilet like constipation, like all of these warning signs that we've had throughout our lives, but we've never really understood what they're trying to communicate. And when we do like really just step back and stop listening and understanding what's the physical sensation because a lot of high functioning anxiety you're intellectualizing everything. You're constantly go, go, go, and you're not in your physical body. So when you're forced to enter that physical body and starting to feel into some of these feelings, you're like, wow, I didn't realize that all of this is my body trying to communicate to me. - That's interesting, isn't it? - Do you think you could anonymously describe to sort of protect identity, maybe a mid-life client who realized they were suffering from high functioning anxiety and learnt, you know, HRT, aside all of that to kind of deal with it? Because I think 18% of people in the UK would have what you classically describe as HFA and 37% of women report high levels of anxiety anyway. - How did you very briefly cure, as it were, or help someone deal with it? I mean, do you cure or do you just adapt? - It's self-awareness, it's as we develop in self-awareness we gain understanding, then we can consciously make changes to our lifestyle, but if we don't know what's going on for us and why these things are, and often people don't know, growing up you would have been, naturally you would have been highly sensitive individual. But because there was no one to nurture that sensitivity you would have learnt that my sensitivity is bad and dismiss it, suppress it, ignore it, I'm not gonna feel into that 'cause that's bad and I need to connect with wherever people are at and give them what they want in order to receive validation, love, which is our safety, our security. But what ends up happening is we continue through life and I've worked with many mid-life women who experienced this, where they come into therapy and they will say, I feel all of these different emotions. I feel like I'm existing in this life. I've got my kids, I've got my partner and we're doing all these different things but I don't feel present. I don't feel like I'm feeling joy or happiness anymore. And that's because their version of joy and happiness once upon a time was, making sure everyone else was around them was okay. Until they start to realize, what about me, I've got needs? I've never really delved into that. So once upon a time we would have avoided the fact that we had needs in order to survive. But then you get to a point in life where you go through experiences, you might have had like a disruption of some sort within work, a conflict of some sort. And that's when you're like, I need to understand this and you're ready to understand it. Because life may not be as busy or you may feel like, okay, the kids have got to a certain age and I don't really know what I'm doing with my life anymore. I don't really feel like what my purpose is. So that's when people naturally start to delve into, I don't understand and I want to understand. So they come into a therapy space. And it might be that they come in with high functioning depression, loneliness, anxiety, stress, a disconnection in their relationships and they wanna go deeper to explore that. So when we go deeper, it is about going back into our childhood, understanding our patterns. And I know people are like, "Oh God, we always blame everything on our childhood." But that's where we've learned to show up in certain ways. And things may have happened like, say for example, if dad left the household or you had a passing of one of your attachments, you would have learned I need to now be this caretaker or the role, this is the role I'm taking on. But we need to understand where does that narrative come from? 'Cause each and every one of us will have a different story. Is there a scale of it then? Could you be somewhere very high functioning? Or is it just you are, that's what you are? - There's a scale. It depends on where you're at in life. Like I know some people, they medicate as well. So they'll go through life, medicating through alcohol, drug taking. - Excessive exercise. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Swimming. - But that's all in avoidance, isn't it? What are we avoiding? We're avoiding ourselves because we don't know how to sit with ourselves. So we become go, go, go and finding anything to escape ourselves. And that's the sad bit for me is all we're doing is we just don't know how to be with ourselves. - And the parents thing I think is particularly relevant and interesting for our listeners in this age group because obviously there's the patterns that were established from our parents, possibly the pressures, the expectations, et cetera, that they put on us. Of course now the tables are starting to turn where a lot of people are finding that they are now looking after their parents and their the carers. And there could be resentments, there could be feelings of shame, there could be, it can be very, very another very problematic time in terms of that parent relationship. - Could you just talk to us about that and what might be helpful because we do get a lot of stories on our Facebook group about women really struggling to kind of cope with this next stage of that parent relationship? - Yeah, that's a really great question. And for me, I feel there's so many chapters that we go through. So when we become a parent, we will go through our own motions of, hang on, I'm so aware of what my child's feeling. And I didn't get this. So you can feel things there, but then when you enter this space of when your parents get elderly and you now need to take on that caretaking role, again, this chapter of life can bring up lots of different emotions. And I say this to clients, it's okay to feel resentment towards what's going on and the sort of like the story that you've had with your parents, but also to feel the love as well. 'Cause people don't realize that you can feel both because you're experiencing emotions of like things that have happened in your life. And you're grieving that, but you're also loving your parent and being in the same chapter. So you can have or be in the same space with these two different parts of you. And what we want to do is we don't want to suppress and ignore the part where we are feeling resentful. Because often people will feel like, I can't believe I'm feeling this about my parent. I shouldn't be feeling this way. And we try and suppress and ignore. And we're like, no, no, no, we want to feel into that. And maybe you do that in a space where, you know, like three, four days, you may not see mom and having space to journal, sit with a therapist, sit and talk with your friends about these emotions that might be going on for you and not ignoring them. I think that's key thing is just listening to what are these emotions. So if you're feeling resentment, it might be that you're feeling anger because you felt that mom never really showed up in the way you wanted her to. But let's sit with that. Let's understand that. So you're giving space to grieve and to understand why you feel the way that you do. But at that stage, it's a little late to bring it up with the aforementioned elderly parents, isn't it? Because they're not going to change. And that's the case. You have to deal with it yourself, don't you? And that's a hard thing. It's a really hard thing to bring. And I see it all the time with people that I work with, where they feel alike. Well, it's not fair. It's not fair. Why is it that I have to be the one that is going to therapy? The one who's trying to manage everything, whereas parents and other people in the family, they're not changing, but I'm the one that has to change. And that can feel really difficult and very alone. And that's why it's so important to have a community of people and that you feel that you connect with and that understand. And maybe are also cycle breakers in some ways where they are also in a space where they realize that they want to take or go down a different route. They don't want to continue the same pattern that their parents have given them. So if their parents have been very emotionally and available, they may feel, I don't want this for my kids. I want to show up where I am emotionally available. But that doesn't mean that you can have that space with mom or with dad or with siblings to be able to discuss that because they may not be on that journey. That's where it's okay to have space and time to reflect and there's other ways in therapy that we talk about. They start writing letters or being able to have a space to discuss how you would like to speak to mom if she was there. And so you're not then just ignoring these emotions because like we said, the body holds on to it. And we want to be able to allow the body space and time to talk through some of these things that have been going on for you. The other thing that as parents ourselves, we are very anxious about our children, we fresh about our children, we worry about them. What if somebody feels that their child is displaying what we've described here? So far what you've described, Lolita, they think they have a child who's anxiety might be going towards the high level. What could they be doing at this stage to step in and help them? First of all, I think it would depends on the relationship you have with your child because sometimes you can go in and you can feel anxious because you're as a parent. You're like, oh my God, it goes well, okay. And we need to make sure is it our anxiety or is it the child's anxiety and what's going on? So we want to regulate our emotions as well within that space. And maybe it's also like, okay, do we ask our child, do you want it to be called for a drink or should we go for a walk? And while it's there, you just start to bring it up because again, if you're feeling something, bring it up rather than ignoring it and thinking, oh God, she's going through something. I'm just going to ignore it. It's like, no, I want to talk through this. I'm being a parent that is going to bring things up on the table and it's like, what's going on? Let's talk about this. And again, sometimes kids don't want to talk to their parents. So it's like, okay, if there is something going on, let me know then what we can do is we can get some support if you don't want to talk to me. So again, it's not being forceful to make the child speak to you because sometimes they want a different space because they may feel there's things going on for them that they don't want to discuss with you because they don't want to hurt your feelings or they may feel like you're going to feel guilt or you're going to feel certain things. So they're trying to protect you but they may not even realize they're doing that. So we want to just make sure, first of all, what's your relationship with your child and understanding what your emotions are and then thirdly, just bringing it up and seeing what the best way is forward to try and help your child and the right support available. You have some really great specific advice in the book because you have lots of practices and you ask lots of people to ask themselves lots of questions. I wonder if you could give us a little bit of top line advice on some of these ideas here because these are the things we get asked about again and again and again. So setting boundaries and saying no, big problem for midlife women, stopping the people pleasing, big problem for midlife women. And I think it would be really nice to give some guns on overthinking comes up a lot. How do we step away from that? So that's, how do we say no set boundaries? How do we stop a pattern of people pleasing and how do we stop overthinking? Just some guidance around that. I'm assuming it's similar in each place. - What you were asking Mary is great because sometimes you see and you hear all over social media where it's like, just say no and sit back and it's like, - It's hard. - It's not as easy as that. - It's not that easy. - So, so hard. And we don't talk enough about how hard it is. It's not just like, okay, I'm gonna say no. It's like, no, with that, there's consequences, there's responsibilities, there's managing your guilt now and sitting in guilt, shame and all these other emotions of like, oh, do I feel embarrassed by not being able to like provide and all of these different things that can come up? So I would also say is, yes, you might understand that you are a people pleaser. You might understand that there's someone in your space who wants to take, but you can't just disconnect from that person because it might be a family member and you can't just say, right, I'm never gonna have anything to do with them ever again. Sometimes you have to navigate these relationships and it's about you becoming more aware and attuned to your growing, your developing. And the other person may not understand that because they're still on the same path. You've moved to a different lane. And the lane that you're in now, you're trying to like, try and make sense of it. It's like, I want everyone to realize I'm on this path and to treat me like I'm on this path. So you've shifted, you've evolved, but they haven't. And this is where it's like, okay, how do we now navigate this relationship where I might say no, and this person might say, well, why not? Like, you always do it. Like what's your problem today? Or there's a conflict now that's a reason because you've said no, what comes up for you is guilt. And then you wanna quickly go back into that lane and be like, I'll make you better, here I have this. So you'd have to deal with their reaction, don't you? Yeah, and dealing with their reaction is actually you dealing with your emotions. Because you're feeling guilt. You're feeling like I'm a bad person. You're feeling uncomfortable because they now don't like you perhaps. That's how you're feeling in that space. And you're like, oh, they're not gonna like me, they're not gonna come back to me. So in that space, there's like this shakiness that comes up and you get to decide here, do I go back in this lane and give them what they want? Or do I continue in this and have to manage this difficult erosion? Either way, there's gonna be some uncomfortableness. And we have to decide what uncomfortableness is the right space for us. And you might go back into the lane, but let's reflect on that. What's caused us to go back? Why is it that we've decided to fit into that? So there's always learning. There's always growth that goes on. So it's not gonna be like, just gonna say no and that's it. There's so many other emotions. And that's the same, Lorraine, with what you said about overthinking is when we're in this space, if this person and we sense through our sensitivity that this person's not okay and there's gonna be some sort of conflict and our intuition is like screaming at us that something's gonna go, so it's gonna go. We start to overthink. And the overthinking comes because it's trying to keep us safe. It's like, right, okay, if we decide to go back, if we do this, if we do this, if we do this, and we can get so caught up in that because we're, again, it's our safety. We wanna make sure that this person doesn't not like us because that makes us feel uncomfortable because we're seeking their validation. But as you're healing, as you're growing, you learn that your validation doesn't come from external people. You learn to self trust and be like, hey, look, I notice you're a little bit upset when I've said this. Can we talk about this? And they might turn around and be like, no. And we have to be okay with that as well. There's no real, like, these are the rules. No, because everyone's different and every person is gonna be different that we're trying to set boundaries with. It must be exhausting, constantly thinking about yourself and what your reaction to everything is gonna be. So in every situation thinking, does that person like me when that person probably hasn't given you a second thought? Is this, this, this or this gonna happen? It does mean that you are someone, if you have high functioning anxiety, almost constantly thinking about yourself. And that must be quite exhausting. It's quite, in many ways, it's quite self centered and quite selfish in some ways 'cause often people have moved on way beyond your thing. How do we move away from constantly thinking about ourselves, because we're not taking care of ourselves at that point, we're just thinking about how is it gonna affect me, as it were, if I've read that right? - Yeah, so when we think of like stepping into a space of, okay, what's important for me and what's important for everyone else, for me, I don't feel like that's a selfish space. I feel like it's like, okay, it's like when we go onto the airplane and they say, put the oxygen mask on yourself and then put it on someone else. So you're not dismissing what someone else is going through. You're wanting to hold space and talk through things. So you're like, okay, I'm feeling this and this. What is it that's coming up here for you? And other people may think, I don't want you to give me the oxygen mask, like, I want you to give me your one, because they're so used to you doing that. But that's what you need to ask yourself, okay, what is that about for me? Why do I keep giving my oxygen mask and how am I suffering? How is it that it's causing knee stress, anxiety? And how can I communicate that to the other person to let them know? So I would say a lot of people that end up down the root of high functioning anxiety is that they feel like I can't be selfish, I can't put myself first, and they've never prioritized themselves. They've always been busy prioritizing everyone else's needs, because they've always thought of themselves as being real well compared to everyone else. And they've never given themselves permission to tune in to what are they feeling because they've never felt worthy enough. So when you do start to feel that worth, initially it's exhausting because you're like, what do I want? Like, and again, a simple thing, like, do I want pizza? Do I want tiny? Like, this is such a big decision. I don't know what to do. The more you do it, it becomes autopilot. Like, initially it's exhausting. It's like learning to drive for the first time. You're like, oh, which way do I look? Do I do, do, do, do, do? There's so many different options. But then before you know, how did I get to this destination? Like, I managed to get here and I wasn't paying attention. So it's the same with when you're coming out of this. Initially, it's very, very overwhelming and it can feel exhausting. And I have clients that will say, like, I can't imagine myself ever being there. I really want to be confident. I really want this self-assurance and this self-soothing without having to rely on others. And I'll say to them, trust the process. And the more you sit with, like, things that are coming up and stay in that lane and sit with, like, these big emotions that are coming up, you will get to that space and you're just like, I got here. And when I see people go through from this place where they are people, please, there's perfectionists, still focus on everyone else. And then they enter this space where they start to understand themselves. They're like, I can do this. And it's beautiful that they start to see, like, they have these wings and they can use them rather than them just being clipped. 'Cause at the opposite end of the scale, I suppose you've got high functioning anxiety. People think about other people all the time. You've got narcissism, haven't you? Do you wanna just quickly talk for a minute about narcissism and how it's very different and what that is? 'Cause some of us might think we're living, or we've had narcissistic people in our lives by the room families or whichever. - Yeah, I think a word narcissism, like, we throw it around on me and it's like, there is a diagnosis with what does narcissism mean? And often, I will get, again, midlife women that will come in and they'll be like, I think I'm a narcissist. And I'm like, what makes you think that? I'm like, because I do this and I'm like, that does not make you a narcissist. So we sometimes fear that we are going to, or we are a narcissist. And again, that's us trying to ignore and the fact that we don't like ourselves and we've ignored that part of us, ignored it, being so busy looking after everyone else. And when we really look at ourselves again in the mirror, there's a fear of, am I really a bad person? Am I really this narcissist? I always thought I was. And when we start looking at that, you're not a narcissist. It just means that you never learned to put yourself first. And when you did, you were told, or you experienced the feelings of, I'm selfish if I put myself first or I'm a bad person for putting myself first. I need to make sure everyone else is okay. That would have been the role that you would have taken on board. Narcissism is a really interesting time. And it's someone who is intentionally manipulative because they want to try and get something. It's a control element. And deep down within that narcissist, there is a version of them that they do not like, that they have learned to live so externally, so focused on control on everyone else. And often narcissists will focus on compassionate kind, high functioning people because they know that they're going to get that kindness from them and they know that they're going to get the compassion and they'll feed up that. So when you start realizing, hang on one minute, I keep giving to this person and they're gaslighting me. They're making me question myself. I feel like I don't know who I am because I feel like I need to keep giving to them. That's when you start to understand your patterns and why is it that you keep giving to these people around you to try and make sense of your patterns? But when it comes to narcissism, often narcissists don't want to look at themselves. They're too busy focused on what they can take from others. And that comes from their own deep trauma. - Yeah, it's controlled, isn't it? I think what was really interesting about your book as well is you describe these moments of pause being really important. And we talk about this all the time with midlife women, this ability to soothe yourself by taking just two minutes then three minutes to regulate everything. How do we move a moment of pause into our lives? 'Cause we also as Gen X, we've got a slightly cynical view around wellness and yoga and all those things that we thought were a little bit self-indulgent. How do we bring that pause in? And is there any other habits or routines we could bring in? - You used a really interesting term there, which is self-indulgent. And I think that's it, isn't it? When we pause or when we do something for ourselves, we feel selfish, we feel like we're self-indulging. - We've been told we are. - Yeah, and that's why when you do it, you feel guilt because it's like, I should be doing this for myself because you feel really bad for doing it because you've been told constantly. So it's been drilled within you that you're a bad person if you do that. You have to put other people first. - When we're telling people, yeah, just pause for a minute. You're trying to give them a new narrative of how they should see the world. It's like them leaving the house and you're saying, the sky is green, look, the sky is green. And they're like, what, like, how do I navigate this now with the world being a different, really bad analogy, but the world being different to what I thought. But when we go back into pausing, it can start something simple, making a cup of tea. You don't have to have your phone there. You don't have to be doing 20 other things at once, like doing the washing machine, doing the dryer, doing this, doing this. It's like, no, I'm just going to do one thing at a time. So pausing doesn't mean that you're going to be sitting on top of a mountain in, like, a mold of just deep meditation. That's not what we're saying when it comes to pause. Pause could be, I'm just going to be very mindful making this cup of tea. And I'm just going to bring my senses to this space here rather than being, what am I doing next in my head? I'm being present. So just doing things that are more present for yourself. So even waking up in the morning, it's like, what am I going to do to try and help myself? So is it that I have, like, again, one minute or maybe just doing a sun salutation to start the day? And you might think, that's really, like, I can't do that. I need to get up and I need to do the washing. I need to set everything up before the kids wake up and then this and then this. But you're creating that busyness. And my question is, what is that busyness really about? What are you really trying to avoid there? Often it's the avoidance of self because we don't know how to give ourselves or give ourselves a permission to have pause, to have space to be with our own thoughts. And we don't know how to. It's a different language. Fascinating avoidance of self, yes. Looking at you, looking at me, Trish. We're both not, I'm just nudging. I'm going to take a moment, myself, in a minute, think about all this stuff. And we do have some amazing questions that we just general lifestyle questions. We ask, are anyone who comes on our show? And I'm going to pop one here for you. What is the surprising thing you do each day that we wouldn't necessarily know about? Well, I don't know if this is surprising because I've mentored it throughout this conversation. But I start off my day doing sun salutations. I have to start off my day by waking up. And I just gained that mode of really just connecting to my mind, body, energy that day. And when I'm doing my sun salutations, I'd just do like any affirmations or just checking in with myself. And for me, that's really important. And if I don't do it, I'm scatty the entire day. So I'm like, I crave that space. Here's a random one, but it might give us a little bit more insight into Lolita. What was the last thing you threw away? Oh, all journals. I was like, I've had these journals for ages and ages. And I was like, I don't know why I have them. And I feel like they hold a lot of energy. And I was like, you know, I've taken what I need from them. And then I was like, right, these need to go now. And what was your last act of kindness? I think today, this morning, I was with a receptionist downstairs. She didn't see myself. And I was like, is everything okay? Are you all right? And she just told me about an incident that she had with a dog this morning. And she just started talking to me and just offering that space because I was like, I'm going to be late. But I was like, no, give this space and give the time and it doesn't matter. If you're five minutes late, that's okay. We can talk about that when we're there. But I just think sometimes giving space to people when you know that they're not okay is really powerful. Oh, that is so lovely. Thank you very much. Can't recommend your book enough. It's really practical. It's loads of helpful stuff in it. We will probably give one away on the Facebook page, but we will definitely pop it out there so everyone knows exactly what it is. Thank you for coming on Lolita. Thank you for having me. And it's been lovely to connect. Oh my goodness, that chat with Dr. Lolita. I don't know what to say, Trish. We're going to have to debrief over gin and tonics. How helpful was that? Now, I've got a little question for you, Trish. Yeah. About celebrity encounters. Oh, okay. Where do you accidentally meet someone who is a celebrity, who you're a massive fan of them, just in your normal day-to-day life? Do you say, hold on, I'm a huge fan, or do you just carry on as nothing has happened? Can I tell you why I'm asking this? Go on then. It's a cold, slightly rainy day on the beach at Dayma Bay in Cornwall. And I've hurt my arm, can't pull up the zip of my wet suit, can't pull it up to me. Wanda over to a lady who sat down having a picnic with some friends and I said, "I'm really sorry." And she's an older lady, so I only asked midlife because I know young women that look at me like my daughter. Why can't you zip up your wet suit? You idiot. Don't want to touch you. Yeah, they don't want to touch you. They don't want to go near you. So I said, "I'm really sorry to interrupt, "but could you zip my wet suit up for me "so that I can go in the sea?" And as she got up, I recognized her immediately, and I was so overwhelmed with, "Oh no, I don't know what to say, "do I say?" 'Cause I could see she was slightly nervous as to why I'd approached her, which obviously famous people are a bit nervous when you approached them. Yeah. And she sort of zipped me out and said, "These are that right, have I done it right? "You're going to be all right." Off you go, I hope it's not too cold, all of that. It was Nicola Walker. Oh, the actress. The actress. Oh, she's fabulous. And she's just such, I like having such a huge crush on her 'cause she's so brilliant. And it reminded me of that time we both met Leslie Manville outside the tour of the hotel in London, and we couldn't speak to her 'cause we were so excited. Couldn't make eye contact with her. So did you just, you carried on pretending that you didn't know you just wandered off? Pretending, I know. And I'm very opposite of my mother-in-law who every time she sees anybody famous says hello. She's very, very friendly grandma. I'm pretty sure she's so lovely, we all adore her. She met Paul McCartney by accident in the high street here and he said, "I don't sign autoglass," but he did stand and listened to quite a long story, I think. But so she would have had, in that situation, she would have said, "I love you. "You're amazing, buddy, blah. "What do you think? "What's your ops on that? "What's your take on that?" Oh, it's a tricky one, isn't it? 'Cause it's a sort of in-the-moment. I mean, I definitely would never approach a celebrity and ask for a bit of a chat or anything like that. 'Cause I just respect privacy. And just adore from afar. But I did have an encounter, actually, fully enough at a friend's house who just happens to have quite an A-list actor friend. And I didn't know he was gonna be there. I've made Nigella's salty chocolate nut bars. Do you know those? Do you ever made them? They're very good. I highly recommend them. Have I ever made them? Anyway, this actor talking away into them, absolutely loved them and was, "I only made these. "These are amazing." And I couldn't really make eye contact, isn't that pathetic? (laughing) I just like, "I don't have a conversation with you "about chocolate salty nut bars." So I just sort of smiled and yeah, it's hopeless, hopeless. But there we are, hopeless. But what I would say, though, is I do love it when podcast listeners come running up to me and say how much the podcast has helped them. I do like that. Oh, you do. It's, you know, you feel like you've made a slight difference to someone's life in some way. Then that's the whole point of us, isn't it? Really, it's not just the waffling on. It's certainly not the revenue, is it? (laughing) It's really lovely when people, so don't want to discourage anyone to, you know, certain doing that silly swim, those are women. Oh, I love the podcast. Do come and talk to us, we do like. That's 'cause you always wanted to be a similar bratilla rain, I think, 'cause you want to be famous. I want to be as famous as Cher, but I feel like I've missed the boat now. There's a long way to go on that one, isn't there? Yes, so thank you very much for listening. Everybody, we will be back again midweek with some of our midweek wisdom and tune in next week. Goodbye, goodbye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Dealing with mental health can be hard. Oh, the influencers, posts, articles, podcasts, tips about what to do, what not to do. Silence retreats, yoga retreats. My friends tell me to take some me time. My mom says, "I need a boyfriend." Therapy, impossible without insurance. Even with, it's expensive. (sighing) UnitedHealthcare can help make it in mental health care easier with mental health complete plus provided by Teladoc Health. Unlimited virtual sessions, only 59, 99 a month. Visit mentalhealthcomplete.com to learn more.