WARNING: POOR EXAMPLE OF A SOUTHERN DRAWL DUE TO MY RECENT INFLUENCES AS OF LATE-What's your influence? What's influencing your thoughts? If you're telling yourself not-so-nice things you're going to believe those not-so-nice things. Why do you tell yourself the negative things? Why are you so quick to accept the negative instead of the positives? Staaaap. Just Staaaaap. Start changing your wiring in your mind and start immersing yourself in positive things. Start telling yourself you're successful. Start telling yourself your GORGEOUS. Start telling yourself you have a lot to offer to those around you. If Chandler can stop smoking with a hypnosis tape-so can you! Let me ask you this... has your negative "just keeping it real" comments to yourself done anything for you? No. Probably not. Go get your coffee or tea and let's get to spilling.

I love this topic so much. Addiction to your illness is definitely a "thing". Being addicted to your illness (mental health in this case) is something we're all probably doing. Hey-we're trying our best... cut us some slack! You've heard the story.... you grew up with anxiety or developed it along the way from an intense experience and learned to cope with it by finding a different way to function and it has worked for you but now it's created more dysfunction because you have gained something from the dysfunction. (INSERT DEEP BREATH AFTER THAT LONG RUN ON SENTENCE). Yikes. Deep Breath in... expand the belly and deep breath out. Take a listen as I explain more about this and how to start identifying if this is going on for you. Is this what's keeping you from having healthier relationships? Is this what's causing the same argument in your relationships? Is this keeping you from moving forward? Those secondary gains are NIIIIIIIICEEEEEE. You know why they're nice? Because they're easy. We've used them to get around the actual problem and the actual healthy solution. Awww, man! Does this mean I can't project my anxiety onto my loved ones so they can handle what's causing my anxiety?! Yeah, 'fraid so. But I promise it'll feel even better to work through and develop better behaviors to cope.

****yaaaaaawwwwnnnnn***** Good morning! How'd you sleep? Still feeling exhausted in the mornings (or whenever you wake up to start your day)? Maybe you need a nighttime routine to have better sleep hygiene. In this epi, I talk about the cycles of sleep and why going through the stages of sleep is SO important. I discuss some of the habits or things that could be interfering with a good night's sleep too... you know that glass of wine or beer you drink before going to bed??.....I know! I'm sorry, I didn't make this fact up-but it's actually not so good to be doing. The keyword we're looking for here is CALM..... CAAAAAAALLLLMMMM. How can you calm your system down before bed? Where do you start with creating a bedtime routine? Let's talk about it and get those ideas started for you so you can be on a path to better sleep.