Jodi Aman: Anxiety I’m So Done With You

Announcer [00:00] Welcome to the Rehab Podcast on the Mental Health News Radio Network. Here is your host, Dr. Mark Leeds.

Dr. Mark Leeds [00:08] Jodi Aman, thank you for joining me on the Rehab Podcast.

Jodi Aman [00:12] Thanks so much. Glad to be here.

Dr. Mark Leeds [00:14] You’ve been a psychotherapist for over 20 years, your best-selling author. You have a book, You 1, Anxiety 0. Now your new book is out, Anxiety, I’m So Done With You, A Teen’s Guide to Ditching Toxic Stress, Hardwiring Your Brain for Happiness. You’re a speaker. You’ve done TEDx and you have an incredible YouTube channel and really great videos. Your videos are really helpful and really well produced and very engaging.

Jodi Aman [00:40] Thank you. Yeah. You know, I feel like as a family therapist, you know, I’ve been in a room with somebody, sometimes eight people a day. And I was realizing I was saying the same things, like the same tips, the same things kept coming up. And so I turned about 10 years ago, or maybe it’s a little more now, I turned to blogging thinking that I could reach more people and very quickly turn it into video because that’s how the world was going. Because I thought I could hit more people this way than eight people a day in my office. And that’s why I started writing books, actually. The same reason then, you know, you really expand your reach. And a lot of this stuff is simple, but, you know, we’re not taught how to take care of ourselves emotionally. So that’s why I’m doing this.

Dr. Mark Leeds [01:24] And this new book is directed at teenagers and it’s written to be very accessible. You have these speech bubbles and it’s written in a language that’s very accessible to teenagers. Was that difficult to do to kind of change your mindset of speaking directly to younger people?

Jodi Aman [01:39] Well, I’ve been working with young people for 20 years and I’ve raised my own. And, you know, my kids’ friends like me, my teenage clients like me. And I feel like maybe it’s partly because I have this empathy. So I really understand what people feel when they tell me I’ve been doing this work for 25 years. And so I get their mindset. I understand how they think. I could give examples of how they’re thinking. They’re like, how did you know what’s going on in my head? I do that to all ages, actually. So it was pretty easy for me to speak in the language that they might be able to hear.

Dr. Mark Leeds [02:14] People love your book. The last book that you have up there on Amazon, I was looking through the reviews and just they overwhelmingly love your book. And they’re just all five-star reviews.

Jodi Aman [02:23] Yeah, people do love it because it stands out. It stands out because it says things that other… I know there’s a lot of anxiety books. When I first published my first book on anxiety, there wasn’t that many out there. But in the last five years, there’s been tons of self-published books on anxiety. And I haven’t read them all. There’s just so many. But I think mine stand aside. People said this is the best self-help book that they’ve ever read because I tell it like it is and I tell it in a way that people can understand. I demystify anxiety. So I’m not just giving them skills that they already know. You know, I’m really helping explain and changing the way they think about their problems. And that’s why it’s so significant and changes so powerfully. And when you work with young people, they’re really open to changing those beliefs. They haven’t been in their mind for that long. I really feel like we have such potential to help these young people out. That mental health crisis among young people. It’s kind of scary. It’s rising. It’s intense. They’re really struggling. They’re suffering so badly. And we really could do something about it. And so I’m really hoping that this starts a big movement.

Dr. Mark Leeds [03:33] Especially now with the coronavirus, we’ve all been confined to our homes for the last three, almost four months now. And kids have gone from being around friends in school and playing with friends and being outside to now completely confined and they communicate with their friends over a screen. Everything is all social media and online communication. They don’t have any real life in-person meetings for the most part. I mean, now I think kids are opening up a little bit or parents are willing to bring them out to a couple of playdates. Is that also having a huge effect on kids and their anxiety levels of being confined and not able to get out?

Jodi Aman [04:07] Yeah, I think they’re going up and down. In the beginning, you saw some anxiety going down because there was less social pressure, less academic pressure. Some of that anxiety went down. It’s like everyone kind of needed a break, but then it became, I think people don’t quite realize the effects of isolation on us. We are social beings and we need to be around people. So having this sense of isolation really affects you, but you don’t know that’s what’s affecting you. So I see my clients crying and being upset about something else, but I know that it’s the isolation that’s affecting them in such big ways. And you see it different because obviously people are sheltering at home with different numbers of family members, right? Some people are single kids, so there’s no other kids to hang out with. Some people have a single parent who’s working and so they’re home alone. And then some people have lots of siblings and I think everyone’s faring different depending on that conglomeration of who they’re with. So there’s uncertainty about the future. We don’t have anything to look forward to. Kids are out of their routine, so they’re sleeping at all different times. So that’s affecting their emotional wellness. So yeah, we have it at a lot of different angles. They don’t have a sense of purpose. And so that’s affecting their emotional wellness. We really need that to be happy. We need to feel like we matter, that we belong. And all of that thrown off by this quarantine.

Dr. Mark Leeds [05:27] What do you think of video games? They have these games, these immersive real world games or games where you feel like you’re in a 3D world. There’s Roblox, there’s Minecraft, and now Fortnite is one of the biggest games out there. And kids play these games and they actually feel like they’re out there with their friends running around over hills and through fields and bonding. And I’ve seen kids where they actually meet new kids out there that they don’t even know. They’ve never met them in real life. And they’re talking over their headsets and laughing and joking around. Is that a positive or negative thing long term?

Jodi Aman [05:57] I think it could be both. My kids never played video games, so I really didn’t have that firsthand experience. But I do see if kids are playing video games many, many hours a day, they’re not doing other things. And so that’s a concern and it makes those other things harder to do. So if they’re not familiar, you’re not pushing yourself, you’re not challenging yourself or going outside your comfort zone, then your comfort zone is going to get smaller and smaller. So I see that happening with people play video games that much. Oftentimes the sleep is reversed for people play video games. So this is very isolating, even though they’re with their friends online. So that’s a positive to meet people. Like my nephews met someone from Arkansas and they’ve traveled to visit each other several times. This is a couple of year friendship. So that’s exciting and that’s kind of fun aspect of it. So I think there’s a little bit of both. There’s probably some problem solving that’s happening in the video games, or at least they’re using that prefrontal cortex. That’s an important in peace. It’s not like they’re just watching. If they were passively watching TV, I’d be a little bit more concerned, which a lot of kids are doing. So there’s some skills, there’s some mastery, there’s some problem solving in that. So those are some positives, but it’s still a screen. It’s still, they’re on electronics. It’s still, they’re in a sitting position, which is terrible for their posture. And then they’re not doing other things outside their comfort zone. So it’s about mixing it up. So it’s not all bad and it’s not all good, obviously.

Dr. Mark Leeds [07:24] When kids look at social media, they may not realize that a lot of what they’re seeing is not real. People, they only show the good parts of their life. They promote how much fun they’re having. There’s a story about a mother that brought her young daughter to the pool and set her up with a bunch of pool toys and took a picture and then walked away and her daughter never even got to play in the pool. It was all about setting up a social media picture about what a great life to have and having the greatest life ever. That’s not how it really is for anybody.

Jodi Aman [07:50] The comparison is one of the problems. Generation Z is the way they’re different from millennials is they’ve had that smartphone younger. So they’ve had a device and access to the internet in their hands since about middle school. And so that’s what makes the difference is the millennials, they were seniors in high school or maybe in college before they had smartphones. But Gen Z, they’ve had it a lot more. So they’ve been much more influenced by these constant messages. Is kids receive about 4,000 messages a day. And one of the biggest problems, I outlined three in my TEDx moment to talk, but one of the biggest problems is this comparison culture, being able to compare themselves to other people. They lose that cause and effect, right? They lose understanding all the things to get there. This is someone’s highlight reel. And then you’re comparing it to your backstage mess, you know? And so there’s, we feel like, oh, those people are just lucky. And we feel so distant because we are not lucky and don’t realize all that hard work. There’s just the disconnect between you have to work hard to get something. And that makes people feel so out of control. Kids are missing out on learning the cause and effect, that they have agency in their life, that they do something, that they could respond to life. They’re not just passive recipients in life. And I really spent most of this book, Anxiety, I’m So Done With You, really bringing out the empowerment, showing kids the power that they do have, that agency that they do have in life. And it really changes everything. We’re not scared of the world anymore. We know we have a hundred percent of control over how we respond to it. And that response means more than anything else, than anything else really. So I think that’s an important piece to know. In the book, there’s text messages, the readers talking to me and answering questions because we’re living in this digital age. And it’s so influential. And I think that’s important to remember, to really understand what’s going on. That doesn’t mean to get rid of your phone, but if you understood it in a way, it doesn’t affect you the same ways.

Dr. Mark Leeds [09:54] I wanted to bring that up to how you explain the word agency. The first time I had heard the word agency used in this way was in an interview with Matt Mullenweg, who’s the creator of WordPress. And he’s dedicated his life to giving people agency, helping people to express themselves and own their own expression and not have to hand control over to somebody else. And I thought it was really incredible. I mean, I kind of latched onto that. I thought, what a great idea, agency, you know, really owning your own thing, you know, owning your own website, your own marketing, your own expression, you know, and you don’t have to hand any control to anybody else. It belongs to you completely. But when I tried to look up the word agency, It was all religious stuff and it was hard to understand. And you’ve really explained it clearly. It just means like you’re like an agent. You could be like an agent for a band and you get to decide where you go and what you do and how you spend your time.

Jodi Aman [10:49] Yeah, exactly. We always think of our lives are about all of our experiences and that’s how lucky or happy we are. But it’s not really true. That’s like a really tiny percent of how our lives are affected, what happens to us. Most of it, like over 95% of how happy we are is our response to things, like how we think about it. So something happens to us. And then we are an agent, like we have agency. That means we have control over how we think about it, how we understand it, what we do next, what relationships come out of it, what relationships are ended because of it. We have 100% of control over this thing called our agency. That means our response to everything that happens to us in life and our response. So it matters. 95% of your happiness in life is about your agency, is about your response, not about what happens to you. This is incredibly powerful. Now with people who have anxiety, we’re taught to like surrender what’s out of your control. Just don’t, just surrender. And that is the scariest thing for someone with anxiety. They don’t want to surrender. They don’t want to focus on what’s out of their control and try to quote, accept it or something. I mean, it’s such a, we just reject that idea because that feels more out of control to do that. And anxiety is lying constantly. Anxiety keeps saying, look at what you’re out of control over. Oh my gosh, you’re out of control over this. Look at this. You’re out of control. You can’t handle this. And the reality is there’s tons and tons of things that we are in control over. And so we could take our attention from one, or we could take our attention to one or the other. Anxiety wants us to focus on what’s out of our control, but really what’s in our control means so much more. And we have a hundred percent of control over it. So for people with anxiety, instead of being like surrender to what you’re not in control over, I’m like, uh-uh, let’s embrace that we have a hundred percent of control over the thing that matters most in our life. That’s so much more of a relief than trying to surrender to something.

Dr. Mark Leeds [12:56] In the world of addiction recovery, that seems to be a big message, you know, and the serenity prayer and stuff like that, as far as accept what you can’t control, you know, let God take over. And so you’re saying that could actually increase someone’s anxiety by just saying, well, let me just let the universe decide and handle things and turn over control to a higher power.

Jodi Aman [13:21] Yeah, but you have to trust that higher power. So it’s part of it. So the saying is without trusting yourself and without trusting the higher power, then it’s really hard. It’s not everybody. Some people feel calmed by that idea. That’s because they have trust. They have trust in that higher power. If you don’t have that trust in yourself or in a higher power, then that feels more out of control and there’s a bit of resistance to it. And so, you know, you go find something else to try to help you because that’s not it. But that is it is it. But because they don’t trust, it’s not working. And so for the serenity prayer, there’s a lot of work done to really lay down that trust and then a higher power. I mean, that’s a really important part of the process, right? Without the trust in the higher power, without the trust, then it doesn’t necessarily work to surrender.

Dr. Mark Leeds [14:13] It seems like addiction is very tied up with anxiety. Probably a lot of kids get into drugs because of anxiety and maybe a part of people overcoming addiction, you don’t need to address their anxiety. Have you seen that over the years as far as when you’ve worked with families?

Jodi Aman [14:30] Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Being uncomfortable with our emotions is the reason why people do turn to the self-medicating things to try to escape from that and feel so uncomfortable. And so when you’re in recovery, you have a twofold actually, a lot of withdrawal increases our anxiety. So that’s a physiological effect of withdrawal. So you’re struggling with that anyway, but also this not being comfortable being uncomfortable, right? You haven’t had to be uncomfortable for so long because you’ve used these substances to abate the discomfort. And so when you’re feeling uncomfortable in recovery, there’s such a knee-jerk response to want something quick to stop that. And so it’s about being comfortable with being uncomfortable in recovery. It’s a difficult thing. And anxiety is just discomfort. If you think about it’s an intense and awful and sometimes terrorizing discomfort, but you’re safe. It’s just a feeling. It’s just an experience. So it’s just a discomfort. But when you’ve used substances for so long to not have to feel that, it’s more intense. So the anxiety is more intense than you have anxiety from withdrawal. And if it’s an OB-I, sometimes the withdrawal is like a couple of years. There’s a couple of years of difficulty sleeping and higher anxiety. Those are physiological effects. And then there’s the emotional anxiety of, I have to be uncomfortable and I can’t do anything about it. And then there’s the original uncomfortable because you’re human and you have feelings. So there’s really layers of anxiety and recovery, and that makes it really difficult. It’s doable, but it’s really difficult. You really need a lot of provisions and support around you.

Dr. Mark Leeds [16:14] And anxiety, I’m so done with you give kids a lot of practical tools that they can use, which would be useful to a lot of adults also, and also people in recovery, anybody dealing with anxiety. It’s not just explaining things you give practical things that people can do right now that you can get up and do them and a person might say well a book isn’t going to help me you know getting outside and getting some fresh air isn’t going to help me it makes a difference when you actually do something when you actually go through and do all these things the tools that you give people it does make a difference

Jodi Aman [16:45] Yeah these are tried and true exercises that I have in this book and you’re right it’s good for all ages any age could get that book just like my other book, You 1, Anxiety 0. I mean, I wrote it for adults, but kids over 13 have been reading that for years and loving it. And so this book, I’m speaking to teenagers, but really all people of all ages. I would really encourage parents to read it because it would help them understand their teenagers, but it also helped them with their own anxiety. I think people of all ages could read it. Yeah, I do give practical tools. And I think that does make me stand out because a lot of times I hear thought leaders say, you just have to forgive. You just have to intend to forgive and let go. And people don’t know what that means or how to do it. We never give these practical steps. And I think that’s why my videos are so popular is because they’re real practical. It’s like, oh, you’re telling me exactly what I have to do. Okay. Because so many people say, let go, let go. I have an MP3 on my website. When you sign up to get emails, when my new blogs come out, you get a free MP3 and how to let go. And I really, it’s like practical. I don’t see this taught anywhere else on the internet. I’ve never heard anyone else teach it like I teach how to let go. It’s so practical. I think that’s what we’re desperate for. We’re really desperate. We want to do all these things that the thought leaders tell us to do, but we don’t know how, and it makes us feel worse. It makes us feel unable. And so why not give people these practical steps? So in the book, I have exercises at the end of each section. They’re really actually things that you could do. And we know acting and doing stuff actually releases the GABA hormone in our body, which puts the brakes on the adrenaline. So I’m constantly practicing what I preach and encouraging my readers to do the same because it’s actually having a physiological effect. And that’s a bonus.

Dr. Mark Leeds [18:38] And the things that you recommend to people are not, they’re not all obvious. You know, when I read it, I’m like, wow, that’s a great idea. I wouldn’t have thought of that. So I definitely recommend people go and read the book and learn these things and actually do them to see how they’re going to help you.

Jodi Aman [18:52] Yeah. Because I’ve been doing this so long, some stuff is like, oh yeah, I already know this. But a lot of my things are unique. A lot of the things I help explain to people are quite unique. And people tell me all the time, I’ve never heard that it makes so much sense. It was like a penny dropping and they’ve never heard it anywhere before. I’m really proud of that. I’m proud that I can bring that to the world because it’s happening inside all of our minds. And to have someone explain it to you and be like, oh, it changes everything. And so I’m really, really excited about this book. There’s an energy to it, a healing energy that I want people to have. So I’m really excited about that element too. I think people are going to really feel that. A lot of press got early copies and they’re feeling it when they’re interviewing me. They’re like, I know what you’re talking about. I’m excited. I’m so excited about it.

Dr. Mark Leeds [19:40] I see what you mean about that. It was very compelling. I just kept reading and reading and read it all in one sitting. It wasn’t like a dry book of lists of things and it didn’t seem repetitive. I mean, it really drew me in and I kind of felt that feeling of reading it. So I definitely see what you mean about that.

Jodi Aman [19:56] Thank you so much.

Dr. Mark Leeds [19:58] Now, one thing I really liked is how you talked about how doctors explain mental illness and medications and antidepressants. And I don’t think people realize if you, when you talk about an SSRI, by a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor like Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Lexapro. People are familiar with these medications. I think at one time, Prozac was the most prescribed medication on the market. And they think that they know how they work. But if you read the FDA-approved literature that comes with the medication, every one of them starts with, we don’t know the mechanism, but here’s what we’ve proposed. So they have no idea how these things work. So when a doctor says to you have a chemical imbalance, and I’m going to give you this medication and we’re going to get everything all balanced. You know, you imagine that they’re calculating and figuring things out and they’re really not. They’re just giving you the starting dose of a drug and hoping that you’re going to feel better. And that can help. I mean, it can be useful to a lot of people, but we should understand there may not be a chemical imbalance. Like you say, there’s no measurement of serotonin. We don’t know how much is in there.

Jodi Aman [21:01] Right. Exactly. It changes constantly. You know, the chemical, they use the word chemical because it sounds a bit foreign. It sounds a bit scary or pathological, but really they’re talking about hormones and our hormones are constantly changing all the time. There’s no one balance of hormones in our body. They’re changing all the time from what we eat, from what we feel, from what we’re doing. All of that changes our hormone levels of all these different hormones that we have in our body. And so it’s just a false metaphor, actually, to say you have a chemical imbalance. But also, what most people don’t know, which is surprising to me, that the SSRIs only help about 57%. I think the fact is 57% of people get better. And I think that people don’t know that. They think that if you get better, that means you really have the depression or something. I don’t know. There’s so much mystery around medication that we don’t really… And even if people are going off their medication, it seems like doctors are not telling people, okay, your anxiety is going to increase because of the withdrawal. And so people are like, oh, I can’t go off this medicine because I have anxiety. Well, it’s the withdrawal from the medicine that’s causing the anxiety at that point. There’s just not really education, really understanding what these are and what they do. I think they’re a tool to help people live. And so I don’t discard them altogether. I think they’re a very important tool in the toolbox to helping us get better, but they’re just one of the tools. And we have to really understand what it is and what it does because some people are like, oh, I have a chemical imbalance. I’ll just take this medicine. I’m fine. I don’t have to do any inner work. Missing a lot there that you could have to be happy in your life, to help yourself really live centered and sovereign and okay. And well, we’re missing a lot of that. If we think we just take this medicine and then we don’t have to do anything else.

Dr. Mark Leeds [22:58] With a teenager or a child who is very introverted or shy, and I’m sure if the child is shy, they have a lot of anxiety around other adults and children. Then they have a parent who is concerned, you know, that they’re not interacting as much and they’re quiet and maybe the teachers are complaining they’re quiet. And now the parent and the teachers and everybody around them keep telling them, you need to come out of your shell more. Is that bad advice? Is it okay that a kid is shy and introverted or should they be giving them some kind of more practical advice?

Jodi Aman [23:25] I think the jury’s out on that. Are people introverted or is that just a social anxiety? How are we really looking at it? Because if people are saying if you’re introverted or you’re a highly sensitive person, then when you do do something social, it’s so exhausting and it drains you and then you need a lot of time to recover from that. Is that because your adrenaline’s buzzing so much because of the anxiety of being around a lot of people and that’s why you need rest? Or is there’s something else going on. It tends to really look like anxiety to me. And so are they missing out on things because of that anxiety that they would ordinarily enjoy or like, or make them feel good or have relationships? Are they missing out on something? So that’s what I’d be worrying about, but it’s hard to really know. And I think it’s always good for all of us to come outside our comfort zone. And we all have this comfort zone and pushing ourself outside of it. If we don’t do that, it gets smaller and smaller and smaller. And so I’m for like a gentleness in going outside the comfort zone. Putting one toe outside it is better than nothing. And so why do we have to jump like three feet outside our comfort zone? That might be too much, but could we do something gradually and take some littler steps that feel okay and that we know are safe? I think that’s a problem. If someone like throws themselves into the deep end, then it might be too overwhelming and then they might not do it for like years after that and stay in their comfort zone gets smaller and smaller and smaller. I think that’s restrictive on a person. When parenting, we’re guessing all the time. Sometimes we have to push our kids to do something they don’t wanna do. And sometimes we have to give them a little bit of a break and you don’t wanna do one or the other too much. But it’s hard because you have to kind of intuitively decide which they need in the moment. And then it’s guesswork. And it’s okay to make some mistakes sometimes and put them a little bit too much and then they give you feedback and then you know you have to figure that out together but not ever pushing them past their comfort zone is a huge problem because it restricts our life and you don’t want to do that

Dr. Mark Leeds [25:32] You talk about prioritizing uplifting relationships which makes sense it’s probably I think it’s good advice for everybody to spend time around people that are uplifting and people that like you and support you and help you and that you can help each other to move forward in life and better yourself. But what about for a teenager or child who’s living in a home? You know, they talk about narcissism and narcissistic parental abuse and gaslighting. You know, maybe it’s not outward abuse. It’s maybe not a parent beating up on a child physically, but maybe emotionally or psychologically tearing them down all the time and making them doubt themselves and maybe even families ganging up together on one child. Is that something you’ve seen in your experience in family therapy?

Jodi Aman [26:17] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think it unfortunately happens to too many children being raised by narcissistic parents who are just very self-centered. I think that’s the same thing, actually. But it’s so hard on the child because they’re constantly walking on egg shells and trying to appease that parent and really doubting themselves and not liking themselves. And I’m so worried and anxious about everything that they do. It’s incredibly difficult for the family. Every Monday at 11 a.m. Eastern on my Facebook, I do a live coaching. And sometimes I have a topic, but I take the questions that people are on the call and do some live coaching there. And so Monday I did one on gaslighting. So if people are interested, you could go to my Facebook page. So facebook.com slash Jodi Emanlove and go to the videos and you can check out that video. And so, yes, we need to surround ourselves with uplifting relationships. And unfortunately, sometimes we are in the house with some toxic people. And so we have to get that outside the house. And there’s usually someone, that’s how kids survive, actually, these kind of experiences. They’ve hooked up with either a teacher who believes in them or some friend or, you know, they spent time in a friend’s house and their parents are kind. And those things are how they survive. It’s having an auntie that gets them out of there and makes cookies with them or something. So over and over again, this is, you know, and reflecting back as adults, reflecting back on their parents. But I do have teens that I work with that are currently in situations like that. And it’s really, really difficult trying to separate how they think about themselves from how they’re treated. You could do that. It’s not easy, but you could do that. And then think about strengthening these other relationships that are uplifted and do help them. I’ve taught some clients how to drive because, you know, they need that independence to get out of those kinds of situations and no one else is going to teach them to drive. You know, there’s several clients over the last 20 years, I’ve taught them to drive, taken them to their driver’s test, and it changes their life to be able to get out of there if they needed to.

Dr. Mark Leeds [28:25] I actually saw that on YouTube that you have a video about driving and dealing with the anxiety of driving. I would imagine a lot of people have that you’re out on the road and suddenly it occurs to you, wow, this It’s really dangerous, you know, being on the highway going 70 miles an hour.

Jodi Aman [28:38] Yeah, exactly. On Udemy, I have some courses on Udemy, some small courses. So I have like helping your kids with anxiety. I have driving anxiety. So if you look up on Udemy, that platform where they have online courses, you could find my driving anxiety course there. And yeah, people love that course. It’s my bestseller, actually. That’s something that triggers a lot of people driving. They feel really out of control in the car. And it’s funny because literally you’re in the driver’s seat. That’s a metaphor we use when we’re in control, but we have so much anxiety about driving. And so I really shift that idea and that meaning and help people through their driving side. It’s very common.

Dr. Mark Leeds [29:17] You had mentioned coaching and it seems to be a movement now of, you know, coaching versus therapy and, you know, in the addiction field, you know, you see now people who are addiction coaches, addiction business coaches, and, you know, then you have therapists and you of psychologists and family therapists and counselors. How do people make sense of that? Is coaching a good idea in addition to therapy?

Jodi Aman [29:40] It depends, I think, because all coaches are a little bit different. So some coaches aren’t trained in the trauma response and that kind of work that I’ve been trained in and have experience in. Understanding and weaving together the past, present, and future is something that I have skills in. I don’t know if all coaches have that. And actually I’ve been in the blogger and YouTuber field for a really long time. So obviously there’s a lot of coaches in that field. And so in different groups that I’ve been in, I’ve been coached by people who are trying to get their certificate. And there’s this emphasis I find on finding someone’s blind spots. You know, there’s this emphasis on finding things that are wrong and that doesn’t feel very good as the client. And it could be like, oh my gosh, I didn’t see this and it could be relieving, but there’s this emphasis on what’s wrong. And I don’t do that actually. My emphasis is on really noticing what’s right that people don’t notice for themselves. And so when we breathe life into those skills that they have, they’re able to access them, step into them. It creates a whole new identity for themselves. And I think that’s what coaches, they don’t have the education of understanding to be able to do that. They point out what’s wrong and then that’s going to affect a person’s identity and self-confidence. The person has to be really, really strong in themselves and know how to do something about that to respond to a coach. I don’t see coaches being cheerleaders that much, but I think they should be. I think that’s what they should be instead of just pointing out the wrong things. But yeah, so I can’t speak for all coaches. Some people are intuitively just really good at being a caring person and uplifting a person and seeing the good in a person. Some people have that naturally. I’m not sure if they’re teaching that in coaching schools, to be honest, because I’ve been interviewed so many times when people point out my problems. That doesn’t feel right. I don’t know. I say I’m coaching because I say coach or I counsel. To me, it’s the same thing because it is about uplifting people in my book. It is about healing them. And if you think about it, everything that hurts us is devaluing us. It’s either devaluing us or aging us or healing us. And so you could have, you know, so if devaluing you, someone dissing you or someone being a jerk to you or being mean to you or abusing you, that’s all how we feel damaged. And so the healing for that is lifting somebody up, acknowledging them, validating them, lifting them up. And if we’re not doing that as healers, I mean, coaches should be healers. If we’re not doing that for people, then what are we doing? If we’re pointing out their problems, that is a problem for me, but I’m not knocking all coaches because I don’t think they all do that. But yeah, so I still work with people privately. So if you have any listeners who are looking for somebody, something fresh and new, come on over to my website again, and I can help you out.

Dr. Mark Leeds [32:37] Now, as far as family, what do you think of the idea that family is not just the family you’re born into, but family can be defined by pretty much anybody. I’ve even heard someone say a family can be one person, which I mean, I don’t know how you feel about that, but definitely can be friends or people you meet along the way, or maybe people in recovery, they meet people in meetings and they get to know them and that could be their family. It doesn’t just have to be the people that you grew up with genetically related to.

Jodi Aman [33:05] Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it feels like the family is someone who is a witness to your life, as somebody who has your back, that’s how family should be. And so if your original family is not that, doesn’t lift you up, doesn’t have your back, doesn’t witness you in loving ways, then yes, you could definitely create a family. And even if your family is loving like that, you could definitely add more in that are not blood relatives, but they’re so close to you and serve that purpose that you consider them like family. And that’s how I like to think about family is it could be blood relatives and it could be people that you’re just really close to and like I said humans are social beings and we really need that sense of belonging like a community to belong to so whether that’s a family or extended family or friends or some kind of community that’s built around this connection then we are happier We’re happier with those kind of relationships because we need a witness to our life. Without a witness, we’re like untethered. You know how in businesses it says like if it’s not documented, it didn’t happen? That’s how we feel. So if you’re a family of one, I mean, technically, I mean, depends on how you define a family, but if you’re one person in a household, someone might define that as a family of one, but we don’t feel good as a one. We don’t feel good in isolation like that. It’s not really an emotionally happy place to be. We feel untethered, unseen. And so it’s like, do we even exist? That’s why isolation is so difficult. It really distorts our reality, our view of ourself in so much ways, because we’re not a self in a vacuum. We’re only a self in relationship. So we could only see ourself as it’s reflected back off the people around us. And so if you have terrible people, mean people around you’re going to have a bad self-view. And if you have good people around you’ll have a good self-view. But if you have nobody around you’ll get caught in the negative and get stuck in that negative and just spiral into the negative without someone to pull you out of there. And so, yeah, I think family could be anybody and we can make a choice if we don’t have a blood family that supports us like that. We really do have to get that from outside of our family. And I think absolutely we can. And so there’s a lot of hope. There’s not a hopelessness around that.

Dr. Mark Leeds [35:32] You had mentioned also in the book, self-harm, which is a serious issue. You know, kids cutting themselves to deal with anxiety issues and that there’s things that they can do practically. There’s even an app that you recommend and there’s physical activities and parents should probably be looking out for that kind of thing, signs, I guess, because, you know, Kids can really hurt themselves, I mean, seriously injure, maybe even kill themselves by accident by doing these kind of things.

Jodi Aman [35:57] Yeah, I think it’s something to address because it’s an outlet that a lot of kids use and feel like it helps them. And they’re missing that right effort helps them. It makes it worse because it makes them feel out of control. And so they just really need to bring awareness to all the steps in it. You know, they feel like they’re overwhelmed and then they cut themselves and there’s relief. And then soon again, they’re overwhelmed again, but they don’t realize that the shame and the negative self-judgment about cutting is actually causing them to feel more out of control and so needing to do it again. And that disconnection has them thinking that it’s helpful, not realizing how it’s hurting them. That’s another thing that I bring to the table is really helping demystify that and so that they could see and make a different decision that will help them feel better. And it is in the same chapter with suicide because they’re connected in a way because they’re connected with not feeling good about yourself, not trusting the self and an intensity of emotion. But they’re quite different responses to the intensity of emotion, wanting to die and then just cutting yourself to relieve the tension. And so, but they’re together, but they’re separate. So it’s an important thing. I mean, I think we can’t talk to teenagers about anxiety and depression and not bring up these things. They’re using it. They’re thinking about it. And really, that’s the problem, right? Suicide rate is going up, up, up, and we really have to stop it. I mean, these are precious, precious lives for losing, and it’s just not okay.

Dr. Mark Leeds [37:33] You also went into some detail about ceremony, using ceremony to move forward. You talk about the meaning and witness, and you talk about weddings and graduations and receiving awards and that people can actually, when someone’s overcoming anxiety and about to start on a new journey of doing new things to work on their anxiety, that they can actually do ceremonious things to, I guess, to kind of have something in their mind of, I mean, can you talk about that a little bit about the importance of ceremony?

Jodi Aman [38:03] So through all of history, humans have used ceremony to create meaning, to create meaning when they’re making a commitment or they’re changing an idea or they’re letting go of some beliefs that they don’t want to have or they’re setting intentions, right? So since time immemorial, humans have been using ceremony and people really want that’s like, you know, indigenous or that’s like a, you know, a shamanic or something. And it is absolutely in those cultures, but it’s also in all of our cultures, right? We have graduation, we have weddings, like we have the, we have ceremony all the time that marks like a new identity, a new way of being or a new step in a person’s life. And so if we adopt these ideas of ceremony and I give people the outline of how to create ceremony, then it helps us because our minds are meaning makers. Like we humans are meaning makers. We want to make meaning. And if we make a commitment to do something different or be different, and we need to create some kind of meaning around that to help sustain that, it’s a support for it. So if we have a ceremony like outside or a meaningful ceremony where we’re acknowledging these commitments or acknowledging letting go or whatever it is, it’s going to have a powerful effect because we’re really connected with our ideas, really super conscious and connected to, and it’s almost like an offering, right? So we’re connected to nature, to the earth, we’re connected to ourselves, we’re connected to our higher power again. We’re really aware of our beliefs and what we want to do or let go of. And that awareness is going to up-level what we could do next. It’s going to really connect us and open us up to our higher potential. And so I think that was an important piece to bring into this book. And I know a lot of teens who love that, love that kind of thing. And, you know, I think teens are a little more open than adults, right? They’re open to a lot of things that’s going to really help them. And so I address all of those in the book.

Dr. Mark Leeds [40:13] You know, one thing that occurred to me in Alcoholics Anonymous, they have the big book, which was written a long time ago, I guess, by Bill Wilson and his partner. And ever since then, there’s been a lot of different groups that sprouted up based on that book and what they do, Overeaters Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, it’s pretty much anything anonymous. And most of these groups, all they do is they take the big book and they either mentally or physically cross out the word alcohol and replace it with whatever they’re working on. It occurred to me that I think people can do that with your book. Anxiety, I’m So Done With You. Whatever is going on in your life, whether it’s addiction, I’m So Done With You. Overeating, I’m So Done With You. I mean, anxiety is so entangled in everything. I think this book is for everybody.

Jodi Aman [40:59] Yeah. Thank you. I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. Our problems are bullies and they act on us the same way by really lying to us and making us really worry that what they’re saying is true, So self-doubt and embarrassment and anxiety and depression really says a lot of negative things about us, all of those. So yeah, you could replace it. Emotional eating, I mean, or self-hatred, all of those things are just bullies in our life, try to control us. And it’s time for us to reclaim our life because we can. And just showing people how they can. I think the biggest problem with anxiety is people don’t think they can get over it. And so it’s really important for us. That’s how I start the book is like, you have to believe it. And I’m going to tell you why.

Dr. Mark Leeds [41:48] Jodi Aman, thank you for joining me today.

Jodi Aman [41:50] Thank you so much, Mark. It’s been such a pleasure talking to you.