The Path to Self-Acceptance and Fulfilment Through Anxiety with Diante Fuchs

Could anxiety be more than just a burden? Join us as we explore this intriguing question with Dede, the visionary entrepreneur and author of "The Gift of Anxiety." Discover how Dede's journey from a clinical psychologist to advocate for a holistic understanding of anxiety challenges the traditional Western narrative that often labels it as a mere disorder. Through her story, we delve into how anxiety can be a signal for change, urging us to confront critical life decisions, recognize toxic relationships, or acknowledge unfulfilling work. Diane shares how embracing anxiety has transformed her approach to mental health, urging listeners to view it as a path to growth and self-awareness.

The episode also navigates the landscape of acceptance and mindfulness as powerful tools for managing anxiety and depression. Through personal anecdotes, including my wife's experience with burnout, we emphasize the importance of validation and the art of being present with our emotions. Explore how a blend of ancient wisdom and modern practices offers a comprehensive perspective on mental health. We also discuss the quest for self-acceptance, highlighting how true fulfilment lies in embracing our authentic selves rather than seeking external validation. Through stories and insights, we aim to inspire a shift in perception—viewing anxiety not as an adversary but as a catalyst for a more authentic and connected life.

Sponsored by Nico Van de Venne CommV

Chapters

• 0:00 The Gift of Anxiety
• 10:46 Acceptance and Growth Through Anxiety
• 23:45 The Quest for Self-Acceptance

Transcript

Diante: 0:00

At the core of it, we are lovable, acceptable and good enough regardless. So I mean, that was the second reason why anxiety might show up. So just for the listeners, in case they're like well, what are the other two? The other two are that either you're avoiding something really important, like a decision that needs to be made, or you're avoiding acknowledging that the relationship you're in is toxic or the work that you're doing you don't love it, whatever that might be.

Nico: 0:37

You're avoiding it and, as a result, you're not meeting your needs. So, in Christ, you will pop up there. Let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your eyes for a moment and feel the beat within. In a few seconds. You just jumped from your head to your heart and felt the beat within opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life and today's episode.

Nico: 1:02

I'm your host, nico van de Venne, confidant to successful CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs striving to achieve everlasting fulfillment. I have one question for your listeners, since recent changes on the algorithm on Spotify and Apple iPod, please check out the show notes and really click on a couple of links or give me a five-star review on the podcast, so that this podcast can be broadcasted to a lot more people and, in addition, if you like it, you know, share it with somebody. It's just one of your friends. You never know if you might impact them that way. So just go right ahead and listen on to the podcast episode of today. Welcome to the everlasting fulfillment podcast with. Welcome to the Everlasting Fulfillment Podcast with our next guest, diane Fouch. Diane, welcome to the podcast. What brings you to my neck of the woods?

Diante: 1:55

Well, we discovered each other on LinkedIn and that was a lovely connection to make. I love what you do, which is providing confidence to entrepreneurs. I'm an entrepreneur myself, so we have a connection point there, and I have written a book and kind of up-leveled things in my neck of the woods trying to reach more people and change more lives. I think much the same as you do.

Nico: 2:20

Yeah, yeah, and I love the book title. It is a great title the gift of anxiety yeah let me just give my point of view on this. I would love to hear yours. To me, the gift of anxiety is what you put in your bag after you've experienced anxiety. Is that kind of the thing that might be it?

Diante: 2:47

Yeah, I love the way you put that. Actually, I've never thought of it that way, but 100%, it's 100%. Anxiety comes and when we're able to be with it, to learn from it, to take what it can give us, we can transform that into gifts. So it is absolutely what you leave the experience with. Yeah.

Nico: 3:08

I also love the way you started your book, because it's such a personal mission for you. We just talked about it a little bit in the green room, but tell our listeners because I'm not going to spoil it. I had some spoiler alerts going on in the green room, but I would love for you to give little tidbits from your book and trigger people to read it, because I think it's going to be a great one to read.

Diante: 3:33

Yeah Well, I think it starts with the fact that while I am trained as a clinical psychologist, I really just don't ascribe to the traditional Western medical perspective of looking at people as being unwell and ill and disordered. So every time I speak of having an anxiety disorder you'll see, I just put it into inverted commas because really it irks me to call things disorders so for the longest time working with a wide range of people over the last 15 years in my private practice from trauma, depression, anxiety, bipolar I have had this understanding, or this feeling, rather, that there is something that goes amiss when we get called or labeled with having a disorder. Right, and it's about understanding what is that thing that's gone amiss. It's not that this person is sick or unwell, but that something isn't functioning the way that it should. And so in the beginning of my career, when I was working with all of the people that would come into my office from, like I say, anxiety, trauma, relationship difficulties, the one thing that I had the most difficulty with was working with clients who were struggling with anxiety, and you know the reason would be is they would come and I would pull out my textbooks and I would throw all these lovely strategies that I learned through my master's degree, you know the relaxation strategies and the cognitive behavior therapy and the mindfulness strategies and I would say around a quarter of the people that I was working with would have improvement. They would notice things in their lives that were not working for them. They would be able to adjust those and the anxiety would subside. And then there would be a bigger group of people that would just keep coming back week after week. Obviously we had a good connection, otherwise they wouldn't be coming back, but they weren't seeing an improvement in the anxiety. It wasn't shifting. And so I decided that I probably wasn't fit to work with people struggling with anxiety and landed up referring them to other psychologists and counselors because I just didn't feel useful.

Diante: 5:31

But then, probably about a year into my practice, I landed up having my own big bout of anxiety. I had struggled with panic attacks throughout adolescence and early adulthood, but they would be sporadic, they'd come and go, it wouldn't be something that really interrupted my life, and then at this point I became really stuck. So I was afraid to leave alone and go and do things alone. I would sit in my office waiting for these new clients to arrive and then I'd be so deeply relieved if they didn't pitch up, and this doesn't bode well for somebody who's trying to run a practice. I'm not doing my job very well. This doesn't bode well for somebody who's trying to run a practice. You know I'm not doing my job very well and I always laugh because at this time I was trying to buy a new car and I was too scared to go and test drive the vehicle.

Diante: 6:12

So I would look at the cars online that I was interested in buying, I'd book the test drives and then I'd send my husband to go and do the driving and I literally bought a new car based on his opinion. Thankfully, he has good taste literally bought a new car based on his opinion. Thankfully he has good taste. So this was what I was going through at the stage and I decided I would go and see a therapist because I would need to see a therapist if I'm trying to be one and I'm too scared to see new clients. And I went for some CBT and I was like the quarter of the clients that I'd worked with before. I progressed really quickly. I could see what was stuck for myself. It my own core beliefs of perfectionism and unrelenting standards that were being triggered and trying to run my own business. And I worked through that stuff and my anxiety subsided.

Diante: 6:52

But then, around probably three years after that, in 2014, my husband landed up getting really stuck. And so this is the big story, right, he was running his own business, he was a plumber, and someone had called up to say that there was some work that he had done at a building site that they were not happy with. And when he went to have this meeting with them, he just had this intense pain in his chest and he started struggling to breathe. But at that time he didn't look at that and think, oh, I'm so anxious, I wonder what's happening. He immediately thought, oh, there's something wrong with my lungs, I can't breathe. And so this kind of spiraled him into the state of believing completely ludicrous to me that he was struggling with some fatal lung disease. So he had convinced himself that he was busy dying of this thing because he had struggled with it for a few weeks after that, before he actually confided in me that this thing was going on for him.

Diante: 7:52

And so the book speaks about this experience of me waking up one evening with him literally rasping on the edge of our bed because he was struggling to breathe and he was really distressed and he says to me I'm dying, this is what's happening. I'm not going to see our two-year-old grow old, I'm dying. This is what's happening. I'm not going to see our two-year-old grow old, I'm not going to be old with you, I'm not going to survive.

Diante: 8:07

And I was floored because my husband is really healthy and really fit and I listened to him talk about this and I thought, wow, you know, most of the time he falls asleep before me. So I listened to him snore he's not struggling to breathe, like what's this that he's talking about? So I very quickly realized that what he really was struggling with was panic and anxiety and tried to share that information with him. There was some relief for him to understand that that is probably what was going on. But people who struggle with health anxiety they can't let go of the idea that there's something wrong with their body. So we went through multiple doctor visits MRIs, ct scans, you name it to try to identify what was wrong and obviously they all came back clear.

Diante: 8:48

So he really had to struggle with that idea that this really is just anxiety and he's afraid of the symptoms and that's what's happening the more afraid he becomes of the symptoms, the more anxious he becomes and the more symptoms he's experiencing. So we struggled for 18 months with that, you know, and we tried everything. He YouTubed healing, hurt soundbites, he tried free diving and breath hold. He did exercise, he went on medication. I even sent him to the therapist I'd been to. Nothing was shifting.

Diante: 9:16

So, you know, in my own home I experienced myself as one quarter of my clients that improve and my husband as the other three quarters that just stay stuck.

Diante: 9:26

And it really opened my eyes to the thing that is the defining factor between why somebody gets really stuck with anxiety and why and how somebody actually moves through it.

Diante: 9:36

And that is, you know, when we become afraid of the experience that we're having and that was what it was for him is that instead of just acknowledging oh, I'm anxious about what's happening right now, he immediately became afraid of the physical experience that he was having, which then locked him into this. I guess fixation on trying to fix what wasn't really wrong, like his body, isn't really wrong, it's that a core belief or some other thing in his life had happened and that's what the anxiety was asking him to pay attention to. So only when we're able to move past the fear of the fear and actually listen to what the anxiety was there about in the first place is when we're able to really shift it, and that was a defining factor. So, yeah, that experience kind of really opened my eyes to understanding that disorders are stuck emotional responses, and I needed to write a book about this because I want people to understand that they're not unwell, they're stuck and there are reasons for that.

Nico: 10:33

Yeah, like I said, it's an amazing story and it's so recognizable. The funny thing is we've got something in common on that level, which is not a positive thing in this case. But, in all honesty, my wife as well. She had a first burnout, so, and then a physical burnout about two years ago I think already two or three years ago and then followed by depression, and then followed by depression.

Nico: 11:03

So yeah, depression is one form of um of anxiety, or just, you know, face not facing yourself, or you know, relieving yourself of the faces that you've been carrying all those years. But, um, and I remember she had lost a lot of weight. She really went into all kinds of panic attacks and scared and so on and so on. And the lucky thing that she told me later was that I was the one that was there to listen, just listen. I learned to listen a lot and I mentioned this before in the podcast as well. It's one of the techniques that I love doing. It's just extremely listening, extremely well, just being there and not answering or not looking at how can I fix this, because there's something like this. Just not no, simply listening. And she said the effect of that that you were just there and listening to me gave me the assurance that I'm okay and that I'm going through a process. And then, at some point during the process, she asked me how did you me, how did you get through the anxieties? And one of the things that I've learned, and you kind of confirm it, is that I actually went and physically moved myself onto a chair, defining the chair as being my anxiety, and going in there and sitting there and saying, okay, now I'm here. So what is this? What's the lesson I need to learn, or is there anything that I can, you know, body, tell me? Basically, that was what I was saying and by doing that, confirming that it was the reality of being anxious and it being there, it kind of dissolved by itself.

Nico: 12:46

You know, giving yourself the opportunity of just allowing it to be was, for me, in my case, not for everybody, but for me, it was the trigger that moved me through my depression and moved me through my anxiety attacks and all that that moved me through my depression and moved me through my anxiety attacks and all that. And she said okay, I'm going to try that. It was a process that you just clicked on six, five, ten steps and you just sit down and do this. And she did it. And she said there's a certain form of relief, but I don't notice all the kind of relief that you're talking about. So is something wrong with me? And it's so strange. Like you said, people make a whole situation out of it and try to find a solution with somebody else first. Oh, you fixed it, so it's going to work the same way. I don't know if you had that experience.

Diante: 13:39

Oh, absolutely Absolutely. I think what you're raising is such an important point is that, at the core of ourselves, most people just need to be validated. You know, we just need to feel like it is okay that things are this way. And I always say to my clients if we could just tattoo like a mantra on our arm that said it is what it is, and if you could literally take that sentence it is what it is and live that in the moment, there would be no reason for anxiety or depression. Right, because you would just simply accept that this moment as it's unfolding is what it is is.

Diante: 14:18

And it's kind of what you're doing when you sit in your chair with your anxiety. Right, you're saying this is the anxiety, it is what it is, it's here, what can I hear from it? What can I learn from it? What can I be with it? And when we acknowledge that and validate it and we don't make it mean more than it is, because it only means that you're anxious in this moment, it doesn't mean you have an anxiety disorder. You're going to be stuck like this forever, you're going to land up in hospital and on medication and never be able to work again. But these are the things that we spiral out with our thoughts as we simply kind of start to imagine the worst case scenarios and we make our experience in this moment mean way more than it needs to mean Absolutely.

Nico: 14:54

Yeah, our imagination is our own devil at that point, isn't it? And what I found is I've, I've done, I've done a lot of spiritual work and, and at the beginning it was more like woo, woo, absolutely it wasn't a little bit too hard. But I started to realize that all the let's say, the medical progress that we've been making in these, these aspects have some roots in these old ancient wisdoms, and I started looking at what's going on and what is relatable to our modern society and bring it into modern days, let's put it that way and in the Western days.

Nico: 15:37

You're not in the West, but you know what I mean. But it's just, you know the idea and at first I was really looking at Tibetan and Indian culture and all that beautiful, beautiful matter. But then I said, hold on, I was born here in Europe, so that means I need to understand the European mindset with these matters and these emotions. And then I came up on I don't remember if it's a book or a lesson or something like that and the guy was saying, like you said, it is what it is is one sentence. And the other sentence that he said was I accept that it is what it is and it's like, well, it just smacked me in the face Like whoa man, this is like an extra layer on the top of the ice cream pie, you know. And then from there he said so it is what it is, I accept what it is, and it is only an emotion, it is only a bodily function that gives you an indication of something is happening that you need to fix or you need to accept or whatever.

Nico: 16:42

And it gave me so many triggers, you know. You know piling up all those different things, and then you, of course, find your own way, maybe with a mantra or something like that. It keeps you back all day. You know all the time that, but it's, it's so ungrabable sometimes to you know, say worked for me, so try it again, it'll fix for you. It doesn't work that way. I think that's one of the hardest things. Like you said, so many people are so different. Part of them get fixed in two days and others take years.

Diante: 17:15

Yeah.

Nico: 17:16

So what's your point of view? You've written the book, and, and so what's what's the effect been on on yourself after creating the book and seeing what comes? You know that story because, of course, writing a book is a therapy by itself, as I've heard, um. So what's the story? What what came after the book? What's what's right now?

Diante: 17:37

Well, I must say that writing a book really makes you accountable to the things that you say.

Diante: 17:44

So it's a lot of fun, and I spend a lot of time working with people in my online programs and online with my own podcast as well, and so I'm consistently trying to share ways that people might understand their anxiety in a different way, because absolutely, we can't take what works for one person and then just kind of repeat it with another person and expect that it's kind of across the board. Then we can begin using ideas or strategies or ways of working that can help people to accept more of themselves and their moments and their situations and lean into that with a little bit more validation and self-acceptance, right? So, then, I do share a lot of wisdoms and insights and things that I learn from a range of other coaches and people out there that have a range of other coaches and people out there that have a lot of valuable things to say, but the more I share that, the more I have to, you know, implement it in my own life. I'm going to walk the talk a little bit.

Nico: 18:49

Kind of stick with it now.

Diante: 18:50

Yeah. So I have found that it has been an incredible growth journey of watching myself, because one of the things that I speak about in the book is that anxiety comes up for generally four reasons. Right, it's either a past trauma in your life that's been triggered in your current life, so something that's reminding you of something that's happened before and your brain just wants you to keep safe, so it's trying to get you to pay attention. It's otherwise and this is most commonly it's triggering a core belief that you hold about yourself that doesn't serve you anymore. And that's what happened with my husband, right, Like he has this core belief that he's this failure, he's an imposter, that somewhere, somewhere along the line, someone's going to look at him and go you're lying, you don't do this stuff, you're not good enough. And when that person called him about the work that had gone wrong, it immediately triggered that you see, you're a failure, you're going to lose everything, and that's where the anxiety came from. So for him, the process has been overcoming that core belief of failure and really beginning to step into his power and his own abilities and capacities. And the more you kind of open yourself up to the possibility that I might be more than I believe I am then suddenly you begin to experience things that prove that. So it's been a massive growth journey for him.

Diante: 20:05

My own core beliefs are things, like I've said before, around unrelenting standards and perfectionism and needing things to be exactly so. So the minute something feels like it's not going to according to plan or I need a bit of help and it's really not an okay thing to ask for help according to my core beliefs then my anxiety flares up really high. But as I've been doing this work and I've written the book and walking the talk, I'm learning more to sit with that, the imperfection of this moment and, as you say, I accept that it is what it is and leaning into the fact that the anxiety is highlighting that it's okay for me to ask for help, it's okay for me to be less than perfect, it's okay for me to make mistakes and get this wrong. Nothing terrible is going to happen to me, I am good enough and I am still loved, which is largely again when the anxiety comes up, it's trying to pay attention to the fact that you don't feel those things, which is really a departure from the truth right At the core of it. We are lovable, acceptable and good enough regardless.

Diante: 21:04

So I mean, that was the second call, but the second reason why anxiety might show up. So just for the listeners, in case they're like well, what are the other two? The other two are that either you're avoiding something really important, like a decision that needs to be made, or you're avoiding acknowledging that a relationship you're in is toxic, or the work that you're doing you don't love it. Whatever that might be, you're avoiding it and, as a result, you're not meeting your needs. So anxiety will pop up there. And then, as in the case with your wife, if we are burnt out, if our systems are too stretched and we're not paying attention to our own needs for self-care and rest, then anxiety is going to scream really loudly to get you to pay attention.

Nico: 21:41

Oh yeah, that's one of the big alarm systems there. Yeah Well, it's good to see that for yourself, this has become a part of, like you said you walk you talk and you talk you walk, you're an entrepreneur yourself. You might be a clinical psychiatrist, but anybody who has their own company is an entrepreneur. Yeah, you mentioned that you don't really like to stigmatize certain words in psychology or in the words that we say. I started using a terminology called CEO disease and founder syndrome.

Diante: 22:24

Yeah.

Nico: 22:24

Because one of the parts of those two words well, a combination of words is anxiety, of words um is anxiety and comes down to actually what you mentioned, you know, not feeling good enough, being, you know, the perfectionist and all those things that entrepreneurs, founders or ceos encounter in their daily lives. Because they are, you know, they're kind of pushed to the brink each time because everybody looks up to them, you know you know, what we need to do.

Nico: 22:52

You're the strategist and this and that, but the other way around as well is that they, they themselves, don't always recognize where this comes from. You have any experience with, with entrepreneur, ceos or founders who come to you with these things, and you know you might even call them ceo disease or a founder syndrome.

Diante: 23:11

In that way, yeah, yeah, so I guess it's all going to come back to the core beliefs, right? It's when we are. We also talk about it as imposter syndrome. Would that be the similar thing?

Nico: 23:24

Yeah it's one of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's quite a lot of symptoms I've written, but basic. Every you know it's basically every human has these things, but at their leadership role it kind of emphasizes a little bit more, because everybody looks at them.

Diante: 23:43

Yes, yes, absolutely. So we're always going to be going back to what is it that we truly inherently believe about ourselves? And I often find that most often the things that we create in our lives, including our businesses, and the things that we sort of strive for, are sometimes these desperate attempts to undo what we believe about ourselves. So if we believe that we're not good enough, then we're going to work really hard to prove how good we are, and obviously the more followers you have on TikTok and the more business associates you can make, the better person you are right. It's proof. But then we're always bumping up against this inherent fear that actually this is not really a good enough proof of the good human that I am, or the fact that I am actually capable or acceptable, because we inherently believe that we're not. So, you know, doing that kind of work of trying to put yourself out there and create these empires and make more money and show your success to yourself, to make yourself feel better, isn't really healing the core, which is saying I feel unacceptable regardless. So that anxiety is going to come up if you're, you know, trying to do something but you're still not working on the core belief, because the core belief is going. The bigger you get and the more people that are looking at you, the more likely it is that they're going to see that you're unacceptable. And then we might also be faced with you know that one comment that comes back and it's like you know, tells you that you didn't do a good enough job, or that they want a refund from your program or whatever that may be. And then it triggers into that space of like oh my gosh, I'm not good enough, I am a fraud.

Diante: 25:14

So absolutely, it's probably one of the most common things that come up with people who are business owners. But it's a beautiful gift anxiety, because if we use it, it becomes this little flag that goes hey, there's this thing here that's not serving you. Pay attention to it, pay attention to it, not pay attention to. You need to do more, you need to make more money, you need to be better. But look at what it is that's driving that need. And then why are we feeling so anxious about achieving it? Well, it's actually because I'm trying to fill something in myself. We can do a better job of filling that with our own self-compassion, our own self-acceptance, and then you're probably going to do way better at putting yourself out in front of hundreds of hundreds of thousands of followers. Right, true?

Nico: 25:57

true, yeah, absolutely, you know. It comes to the point where today even I had um so um we. We also have pod match, both of us, you know, and, and one, one person I contacted, you know, I've got this standard text I create, you know, to talk and explain to them welcome, welcome to my podcast, I want to talk to you, et cetera, et cetera. And the guy answered me with a simple question, saying how many followers do you have? Or how many listeners do you have and what's the demographics? I was like, oh my God, yeah, oh, what's happening? This is me. No, now I don't want to talk no-transcript. You know honestly who doesn't? You know? Extra perk anyway, but I would love that. But in the essence is, I might have, maybe sometimes I have only 15 listeners in an episode, but if two people in those 15 are affected by what is said, it's more than enough for me.

Nico: 27:24

And sometimes people say it's a numbers game, you have to post a lot and this, and that I'm like, oh, I post what I post and I do not listen anymore to all the likes and bleeps and whatever. It's good to know your statistics, it's absolutely. You need to know your numbers in that way, just to know that actually what you're doing has some effect. But, living on those things, I used to do that really heavily. I was enormously active on Facebook and all other socials and then for two years I left everything. I deleted even my accounts and then started all over again because I wanted to remove myself from that idea of being dependent on comments and likes and so on. And now I get comments and it's so funny that I just delete them. It's like if you give me a bad comment, it's not that I don't like your comments, I don't want to see it even. Just delete it. I don't even read it or see that it's a bad comment. But I understand what you mean.

Nico: 28:21

We want to be that perfect image and attract anybody because of us having that perfect image and it struggles with who we really are on the inside. You know, I love the cover. I've got the picture of your book right here. I love the cover of your book as well. My wife is into butterflies, so it's it's gonna be a christmas question, oh amazing, and it's. You know, it's really leaving its cocoon, which, you know, images make everything. But I love the colors as well and it's very vivid and so on and that's the whole thing, isn't it? We are a beautiful butterfly on the inside. We might be a little caterpillar still somewhere at some point, but we're a beautiful butterfly that is allowed to open up the wings and pump in that blood and then start flying and showing who we really are.

Nico: 29:12

And it's a bit like you said earlier it starts from within. Indeed, you know, accepting yourself and actually not looking for that love externally. Of course, you would love to have a partner who likes to see you every day and loves you, but it starts from within and I think, as a leader or an entrepreneur towards your customer, you start loving yourself and being acceptance of acceptance of yourself. You, you show it outside, everybody sees it. And I had a conversation today with somebody who, um, we were having a meeting and she asked the question and it kind of triggered a little, a little fight, not really, you know, aggressive, but somebody jumped up and said well, no, I want to do the blah, blah, blah.

Nico: 29:53

And she came afterwards and I I always ask I don't know. I always send a message to people who ask questions during meetings. I always thank them for questions, because I find it's always very courageous to ask a question, even if it's a little one, and I sent her a message saying thank you for the question. She came back back and she said yeah, I, I actually I I'm sorry, I actually asked the questions because of what came after it and I told her you have every right to ask a question. You are allowed to show what your concerns are and who you are from within, and so this is this don't don't push yourself away, just keep asking these questions. And it's amazing how many people get stuck in that idea of I'm not gonna say anything, probably do something wrong. It's so. It's a pity, isn't it?

Diante: 30:43

it is. But you know it stems so deep because I always say to my clients that and everybody that will listen, sorry, hear me that really, as human beings, we want just two things, that's it. We want love and acceptance and we want to avoid feeling like crap. That's it. That's the only two things that we strive for, and we spend every single day of our waking life, from the minute we are born, learning from our environment what it is that we need to do to find love and acceptance, or be lovable and acceptable and to avoid feeling like crap. So you know, in that example, as a baby, you have this pain, it's your hunger, and so you cry. Somebody picks you up and feeds you feel better. You very quickly learn crying makes me feel better. I don't feel like crap then. So we do that. Then, as you grow older, that crying doesn't work so well anymore and maybe now in your you're reaching for a glass of wine instead, and that's how we're learning, right. But the same thing goes for the lovability and the acceptability is that the people that we're surrounded with when we're growing up are going to be the people that we're learning from the most. So that is your caregivers, your parents and your close friends or teachers and in that space, when you're very little, your brain knows that if these two caregivers, if they don't accept you and they kick you out, you'll die. You can't find, like you know, shelter and food on your own as a little person. Primarily, your brain knows that. So it takes on everything that they do as a life or death thing, like the. The minute they disapprove or they just you know, they're disappointed in your behavior or they discipline you in some way, the brain is receiving that as oh, you're unacceptable, this is going to kill you if you carry on doing this, because you'll get cast out right. So we start to store those memories as things not to be repeated.

Diante: 32:29

Now, you know, maybe the parents were really busy and you know at the end of the day they're exhausted and the children are making too much noise. And then they say things like can you just calm down and can you be quiet? Can you go to your room? That child is feeling like I'm unacceptable when I say things too loudly or I ask too many questions or I, you know, I'm too demanding. And so we're quickly learning Don't do that, don't do that, which is why we have so many people pleasers out there. Right Is that we've learned it's best to just be quiet and do what other people want, because that's how we're most lovable and acceptable.

Diante: 33:00

Now you find yourself in a meeting. You accidentally not accidentally, but you feel like it was accidentally ask a question, it's met with a negative response and your brain goes. You see, you see this is unacceptable. And now we have this fun part that is called our inner critic, which grows really strong when we're in anxious states, because it's really been designed to keep you in line. It's the part of you that internalizes these messages that you're getting when you grow up, and then it wants to remind you of them all the time. So it goes.

Diante: 33:30

You see, you spoke to love. You shouldn't have asked that question. Now look at them. They're upset with you. No one likes you. And then we say these things to ourselves. Most people don't even realize that they've got this piece of themselves that's nattering away at them all day long, telling them what they're doing wrong and how unacceptable they're being. And if they don't do this better, then this is going to happen, and that piece just fuels the anxiety, the depression, any sort of emotional state that might be negative. Quote unquote, you know, not necessarily negative. They're all good emotions to have, but they feel uncomfortable. But that part of ourselves is going to really perpetuate those uncomfortable feelings.

Nico: 34:09

Yeah, absolutely.

Diante: 34:10

Yeah, it's just like you said. You know emotions are just emotions.

Nico: 34:14

There's no positive or negative. And once you learn those little tidbits, you know life opens up. You see the sunshine, even on a cloudy day. Get really to the core of what it is that triggers anxiety, where it comes from, how you can, between quotes, really clearly make it go away go away easily, you know, between big brackets. But I love that and I I'm so grateful for your book as well. I'm going to actually read it in all time this time, but, like I mentioned before, I have a pile of them. Um, I should start inviting people without books, maybe make a little bit easier. No, I, I just love reading anyway, so it's okay. But I hope people that listen right now they would, you know, jump on Amazon and get your book right away. The Gift of Anxiety what else would you tell people right now that are listening? You know your little bit of inspiration today. What would you say?

Diante: 35:32

Yeah, the biggest message that I have is that as human beings we are designed to have the full range of emotional experiences, right? If you want to feel joy and happiness and excitement, and you want to feel those in big experiences, then we also have to be okay with the big experiences on the opposite side of those. Right, because you cannot have happiness without sadness. That just doesn't exist. So and the same as you can't have excitement without disappointment. So if you want to have the big happy, positive and then quotes, unquote, you know, in inverted commas experiences, then you have to be okay with the negative you know, in inverted commas experiences too. It's really important, and so the more that we can really embrace the fact that we are raw and messy and that is okay the less disorders and mental illnesses we're going to be diagnosed with.

Nico: 36:25

You're going to be out of the job.

Diante: 36:27

It's okay. I'm okay with that, that's good, I love that so. Dee. Where can people find you? What do they need to do to get you know? Reach out to you amazing thank you. Yeah, my website is theunstuckinitiativecom all one word and you can find me on instagram at theunstuckinitiative. That's where I hang out the most and, of course, my book is available on all main online bookstores.

Nico: 36:59

Cool, great. Thank you so much for your time. I know it's a 12-hour difference between us. You know really early for you it's evening, for me it's not that late, but I love that you took the time to join me today and inspire my listeners today oh, thank you for having me very, very great book. I'm gonna, you know, pick it up again thank you.

Diante: 37:23

Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a joy to chat with you today likewise, likewise and to the listeners.

Nico: 37:31

thank you so much again for taking the time to listen to this episode and we will hear you next time. Have a great one, everybody. Bye.