ALIGNED as F*ck: Transforming Your Inner Assholes (like Anxiety) into Allies

The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin Dunston

Join us for this empowering episode of The Hormone Prescription Podcast, where we dive deep into the power of transforming anxiety into a powerful ally in our lives with clinical professional counselor, Lynn Dutrow. Discover how Lynn's unique perspective and practical strategies can help midlife women turn their inner struggles into incredible strengths.

Guest Details

Name: Lynn Dutrow

Credentials: Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC), Author, and Compassionate AssKicker

Background: Psychology, Education, Coaching, and Motorcycle Sales (a story for another day)

Lynn specializes in supporting Responsible Rebels (aka Brave Small Business Owners, Empathic Entrepreneurs, and Purpose-Fueled Professionals) in enjoying their success with less stress. She's also the author of the highly sought-after book, *ALIGNED as F*ck: Transforming Your Inner Assholes (like Anxiety) into Allies.*

In this heart-to-heart conversation, we explore Lynn's personal journey dealing with anxiety, her unique approach to overcoming mental barriers, and how she now helps others find peace and purpose in their lives.

Key Takeaways and Lessons

- The importance of acknowledging and confronting our anxieties and inner struggles

- Practical tips and strategies for transforming anxiety into a powerful ally

- How women in midlife can harness their anxiety for personal and professional growth

- The role hormones may play in our anxiety levels and response

- Techniques that promote self-awareness, acceptance, and healing

If you're a midlife woman who's ready to turn anxiety into a source of empowerment and growth, this episode is not to be missed! Tune in to The Hormone Prescription Podcast and get inspired by Lynn's relatable stories, powerful insights, and practical tools to embrace your anxiety and unleash your potential.

Remember, when you're ALIGNED as F*ck, you are unstoppable!

Speaker 1 (00:00):

“The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change their future by merely changing their attitude.” Oprah Winfrey, stay tuned. Cause Lynn Dutrow is gonna teach you how to get aligned as f you and how to transform your inner anxiety into allies.

Speaker 2 (00:24):

So the big question is, how do women over 40 like us keep weight off, have great energy, balance our hormones in our moods, feel sexy and confident, and master midlife? If you're like most of us, you are not getting the answers you need and remain confused and pretty hopeless to ever feel like yourself Again. As an ob-gyn, I had to discover for myself the truth about what creates a rock solid metabolism, lasting weight loss, and supercharged energy after 40, in order to lose a hundred pounds and fix my fatigue, now I'm on a mission. This podcast is designed to share the natural tools you need for impactful results and to give you clarity on the answers to your midlife metabolism challenges. Join me for tangible, natural strategies to crush the hormone imbalances you are facing and help you get unstuck from the sidelines of life. My name is Dr. Kyrin Dunston. Welcome to the Hormone Prescription Podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:17):

Hi everybody. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kyrin. Today we're gonna dive into anxiety again because it is such an important topic for women over 40. There are physical problems including hormonal imbalances, like hormonal poverty that can contribute to anxiety, but there are also mental thought processes that we can have habitually that can cause us to spiral into anxiety. And it makes it very difficult for us to actually achieve what we want to in life, like getting our health straight or doing the things we want with our career or relationships when we're stuck in anxiety. Cuz it's really a colossal waste of energy. As someone who suffered with anxiety in the past myself and sometimes also in the present, it's something that I think can't be talked about enough. More women than not suffer with this.

Speaker 1 (02:13):

Also men. So maybe you'll learn something in the episode today that will really help shed some light. My guest today is a licensed clinical professional counselor and she has a lot of experience in that area. She switched over to coaching. She's gonna tell you why and what the benefits of having a coach are over having a traditional therapist, particularly when it comes to anxiety. She's really action-oriented and we're gonna talk about that quote from Oprah. She's got a couple other great ones from Socrates and Heric Colitis that really get to the crux of what anxiety is all about it. You really have some unique and powerful tools that you can start using today to transform that ruminative thought process that's going on in your brain that really keeps you from living life fully and achieving what's possible for you. So I'll tell you a little bit about her and then we'll get started.

Speaker 1 (03:08):

Lynn Dutrow is a licensed clinical professional counselor. She's an author and compassionate ask kicker with a background in psychology, education, coaching and motorcycle sales, and that's a story for another day. She specializes in supporting the responsible rebels in enjoying their success with less stress. The responsible rebels are brave, smart business owners, empathic entrepreneurs and purpose fueled professionals, people just like you. She is the author of Aligned as. And I will say this is an explicit episode because Lynn speaks, frankly, she curses. So we've marked the episode as such, so if cursing bothers you, we don't have too much, but if it bothers you, have this episode or not play it when there are. She's the author of Aligned As, transforming Your Inner, like Anxiety Into Allies. Please help me welcome Lynn Dutrow to the show.

Speaker 3 (04:05):

Thank you. I'm honored to be here. I'm looking forward to our conversation. So

Speaker 1 (04:08):

One of the first questions I have for you is you're a licensed clinical professional counselor, but now you predominantly do coaching and help people get aligned as we're gonna talk about that. But how did you make the transformation? What made you decide to make the transformation from clinical counseling to coaching?

Speaker 3 (04:34):

So there's, there's a few things that factored into that. One of them simply being, I like to tell people what to do more than, than just the whole tradition, like how does that make you feel? And the also the ability to go beyond what felt like constraints of a typical or traditional counseling. So I do combine, I I really combine both of them. I tell people that I kind of came out of the womb being a good listener and so it's just a natural progression to work in the helping field, but it just has felt more and more like the coaching aspect of it, being able to be a partner with people and not just say, okay, like going back into the healing part, I'm more action oriented. So it's like, okay, this is going on now how do we get you to where things can be easier in how you're doing things?

Speaker 3 (05:30):

So rather than spending all the time in going back and, and looking at like, where did all of this come from? It's okay, what's going on now and how can we take action steps to get you to be living the life that you really wanna be living? So that's the shortest version that I have. why, why coaching appeals to my style more so than traditional counseling. So, and I think I also got started getting a lot of people who just weren't really looking for counseling, but they wanted a partner. They wanted someone to help them understand how anxiety and their other inner were impacting them. So I tend to get people with more high functioning anxiety, which isn't even a DSM diagnosis. So that there's the, there's where you talk, start talking about the constraints of where you, if you're doing counseling, there's the diagnosing and all of that too. So rather help people along rather than get caught in all of that. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (06:30):

I think it's an important topic for people like you to discuss because I think the average person is pretty confused right about now because there's so many different degrees that people can have. They can have a social work degree, they can have a marital and family counseling degree, they can have a be a clinical psychologist, they can have a PhD, they can have a master's, PhD, master's, all the different credentials. And there are so many different types of coaches out there and it's not regulated. So there's no standardization and I think people are confused. But one thing I think women are not confused about is that anxiety is a problem for the majority of us.

Speaker 3 (07:13):

Absolutely. We all have it in one form, form

Speaker 1 (07:16):

Another. Why, why do we, why do we all have anxiety? Lynn, please tell us why.

Speaker 3 (07:23):

Because anxiety's actually part of our survival system. It's there for a reason. It has just been given way too much power and we don't live in the same world where we have to be concerned about the Sabre twos tiger creeping up on us and having our survival system keep us alive. But that same survival system still there. And so the more comfortable we make our lives, the more that survival system and anxiety in particular over does its job. It's making things that aren't actually a threat to our survival, into things to react to. And there's so many things now that I was just talking to someone this morning about how we've made being a woman, being a mother, being a wife, all of those things into like an Olympic sport. And then so then you get all of the, your, your perfectionist gets involved in all of that and you know, we just keep trying to achieve and strive and do all of these things. And so anxiety's there all along the way going, oh, you're not doing it right, you're not doing it right. And ooh, let's panic about this even though there's nothing to panic about. So it's there. And the way that I work with clients is to have to acknowledge and accept it first, and then we're gonna work on changing your relationship to it so that, as I say, you teach it better social skills, get it to actually be working for you instead of against you.

Speaker 1 (08:55):

Well that sounds great and hopefully we can do that today. Give some people an idea of how they can do that. But I just, before we move on to that topic, why have we made our lives into Olympic sport? Why are we such perfectionist? Why do we have to be the best mom, the best wife, the best worker, the best business, the best everything? Where in the world did this come from that now all of a sudden we have to be the best? I don't think that it used to be that way. So what happened? I

Speaker 3 (09:25):

Don't think it used to be that way either. I think that there are a few things that have contributed. Technology is one of them because we can now see what people are doing all over the world for 24, you know, 24 hours a day, seven, seven days a week. And we didn't used to be able to do that. I mean, you know, just as far back as, you know, my parents' generation, they didn't have a television. They could tell what people were doing, you know, from radio or reading, you know, or those sorts of things, but they just got about their day. They went and did whatever they needed to do. And I don't think people were comparing themselves in the way they are now. And so that's, I think a big contributing factor is that, you know, any moment of the day you can pick up your little rectangle that we, you carry around with you and you can jump on social media or anything else and suddenly there's somebody to compare.

Speaker 3 (10:16):

I think we also have made the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of success in however that has gotten defined, which is to be the best at rather than, and and there's also this avoidance of failure, you know, so if you're walking around avoiding failure, then you've got, the only other option is success because we are very wired to this all or nothing, especially if we have a tendency towards, so this all or nothing, it's like, well, you know, we can't fail so we must succeed. And then there's really nothing in the middle and we're just all over focused on it.

Speaker 1 (10:55):

Yeah. I call it paranoia, . Yes. We all have serious case of paranoia, compare and despair. Alright, so, so you know, I was talking with a friend earlier today who was in a little bit of distress, and as I was talking to her, these words kind of came out of my mouth. You know, everybody says if you're in anxiety, you're in the future, you're not in the present. And what I realized as I was talking to her is that's not, that's not exactly true mm-hmm , it's in the present. What should I do about this now, right now? Right. So you're having to decide on actions, you're having to decide on words that really is a, a a present struggle. And I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts or insights on that that you wanna share? Because they say mindfulness, people have said that mindfulness is a cure for anxiety because you're not being in the present. They say, if you're not in the present, then you know you're on the present. I've heard that. That's not the whole, do you know the saying I'm, I'm thinking of.

Speaker 3 (12:02):

I think so. I love them. You're on the present. That's hilarious. Yeah. So the, so, so my take on this is, yes, mindfulness can be helpful, but, but more from the perspective of learning how to think about what you wanna think about when you want to think about it, and to what you said, I think how anxiety is future oriented, how it impacts the present is that you are feeling like in this moment, I have to make a decision that feels like it's going to impact, you know, the next minute, the next hour, the next day, the next week. And so it feels like all this pressure in the moment. And what you can do with that is say, I can make this decision right now, and if in a minute or an hour or a day or a week from now I realize that the decision I made right here isn't working for me, then I can make another decision. And that's the part that gets us worked up is the, that I'm gonna make a decision now that's gonna dis like completely that I can't change it, you know, this is it, I'm signing up for whatever, and it's staying in the moment to, to trust that I'm gonna make the best decision I can right now. And then if in the future that's not working out in that moment in the future, I can make a different decision.

Speaker 1 (13:27):

Okay. That makes sense. So that's, yes, that's more staying in the present. So what do you think are the most important besides that? Which sounds pretty important. What else is very important for every woman listening to understand about the anxiety that she's got? She's got anxiety about the work she's doing in the world. Maybe she's a business owner, maybe she worked for somebody else, she's anxious. Am I doing enough? Am I good enough? She's worrying about her kids. Is she present enough? Or maybe other family members, spouses, partners, she's afraid she's gonna lose things. You know, there's a a lot big fear we've had in the past couple years. People afraid of losing their health or losing family members or friends to health problems, concerns about money problems. So what is important for all women to, to understand about anxiety?

Speaker 3 (14:19):

Well, I think one of the biggest things is to understand anxiety's role. And so anxiety is meant to do basically two things. It can be a force of good, which is when it's giving you a signal. And I would say in a lot of the cases that you just mentioned, anxiety is attempting to give a signal that you're doing too much, you're expecting too much of yourself. Well, that's probably the biggest one. They, they're expecting too much because too often I think women in particular, especially mothers or well, or, or people at work, so a woman who has a high pressure career, they're taking on too much responsibility. It's like we get a dopamine hit for being competent. We get a dopamine hit, you know, for for being the, the competent, the successful one in the room. So what happens is we feel like we have to do everything, but to be a really good leader, whether that's at work or you have to figure out how to, to delegate, how to let other people, you know, my daughter goes to a Montessori school and one of my favorite Maria Montessori quotes is, you know, basic is something along the lines of don't do for others what they can do for themselves.

Speaker 3 (15:31):

And that's been challenging. But when I tell people that my daughter has been doing her own laundry since she was five, you know, the, the jaws drop that, wait a minute, you know, I, I don't have to do everything for my children or my spouse or I don't have to do everything. I mean, I've worked with, you know, folks VP and higher level in companies and when we really break it down, we realize they're doing too much of what their employees, their subordinates are supposed to be doing because there's such a fear that it's not gonna be done right. Right. So it's teasing through a lot of these thoughts that we have of things having to be done a certain way or done Right. And again, that compare paranoia or compare para paranoia. Yeah. . And so when we can start to discern, is my anxiety giving me a signal?

Speaker 3 (16:21):

Is it, is it telling me something that's actually important and actionable that I can do something different? Or on the other hand, because because anxiety is not always showing up the same way, sometimes anxiety is showing up as noise, right? So that's when it's waking you up at 3:00 AM you know, worrying about something that you have no control over what to do about it in that moment. So the first thing is to distinguish, is my anxiety behaving today and actually giving me a signal about something that would be important for me to take action on, look at differently change? Or is it just being an and giving me noise to, to wind me up? You know, I tell, I tell clients that anxiety's kind of like that, like the neighbor or your cousin or somebody that you had to hang out with. Like you, you weren't, you didn't have a choice.

Speaker 3 (17:13):

Like you had to hang out with them at least some of the time, and you got along okay when it was just the two of you. But if you bring anybody else in, they started acting up and trying to keep your attention. Anxiety's kind of like that. It's like, Hey, wait a minute, I want your attention. So if you start focusing on something else, like I'm gonna draw you back and say, Hey, the only place I can keep you safe is right here. So I'm gonna keep you frozen. I'm gonna keep you stuck. I'm gonna keep you worrying, I'm gonna keep you on the, the hamster wheel, whatever it is. And so learning how anxiety works and how it plays, you know, the what if game and all of those things, that's a, a really great start to changing your relationship with all of those thoughts and feelings that overwhelm you. And

Speaker 1 (17:57):

So I try to tie everything into hormones, which includes the, the nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, sympathetic, parasympathetic. Why do we even have the ability to be anxious? What biologic capability or survival advantage does it confer on us

Speaker 3 (18:14):

To survive, to be alert, to notice, you know, my clients very often, they're the ones that pick up on the subtle things in their environment. They're the ones that, you know, you get something written by them, the the grammar is correct and all of that stuff. They're the ones who are constantly looking for things out of the ordinary because that's how we survived. And I, the a psychiatrist friend of mine, and I, I don't think she probably just repeated it, but it was, you know, basically we all evolved from the anxious people, from the people who were on alert because the people who relaxed dancing around the fire got eaten. Right. So I got it.

Speaker 1 (18:55):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:56):

Right. So we are predisposed to survive, which means we are always on the lookout for things that might be a threat. And that's what I was talking about though, our lives on some level have gotten so comfortable that our survival system isn't quite sure what to do. It still wants to do its job. So it tends then to pick things that if we really stand back and look at them, they're not, nobody's gonna die. Right. But our body is overreacting as if that could be a possibility. So that's where, you know, becoming aware of what is going on and, and why your sympathetic nervous system gets so easily triggered. And I do agree that this can, and I often get people who say, well, I never thought of myself as anxious before. And then I, I look at their age and they're over 40, especially women, and it's like, okay, now what role is either the, maybe you weren't aware before because this is just how you functioned, but it all has to be related and I'm not the medical person, but you know, it all has to be related.

Speaker 3 (20:08):

Because if you are wearing out, you know, if your sympathetic nervous systems on all the time, then you're wearing out your adrenals or you know, the cortisol, all of those things that are then gonna just make all of this worse. So when I have clients, that's what I work on, like a multi-level, is we begin the process of what I call, like the education, just understanding how all of this works. And I think one of my gifts is I take what I call psychobabble and I break it down into real language that people can understand. So like that's with my, with the book that I wrote, you know, that's the comment I get. Wow. It's like, I like it sounds like I'm having a conversation with you and this makes sense to me. And then as we're doing that, then we start digging into some of the other things like what might be going on with clients' hormones, what might be going on with their health, what are they eating, what are their sleep habits look like? And oftentimes I think, I know for myself, when I looked at my hormones, that made a large difference in how my anxiety showed up, the intensity of it. So it definitely got better when as I began to look at my diet and, and how to change, you know, my hormones, my metabolism, all of that. So that is something that mm-hmm. , I think especially every woman, if you're experiencing extreme anxiety or any other mood issues you wanna look at that, it's important.

Speaker 1 (21:33):

Yeah, absolutely. And that's a part of my story that I've shared on the podcast many times. Extreme anxiety on many medications for it. And then when I got my hormones straight and got my gut straight, I didn't need any medications. Right? So if that's you and you're suffering with anxiety, that is the number one thing you want to do. But then beyond that, I do find that I have some thought patterns that tend to lead to anxiety like a lot of people. And I think a lot of the anxiety centers around this quote that you shared with me from otitis, there is nothing permanent except change. We don't like change, Lynn.

Speaker 3 (22:14):

No, we don't. We don't. But the one thing that's inevitable is change.

Speaker 1 (22:21):

Life is just a series of changes.

Speaker 3 (22:24):

Yes. That is something that I work with clients is like to increase their tolerance for discomfort. And I think that's another, you know, as I'm thinking about it, that's another thing that plays into why things are worse now. Because every marketer out there, every company that has hired someone to do their marketing has hired someone who knows that the best way to get us to buy someone buy something is to appeal to our fear and anxiety. Our fear and anxiety. That we're not good enough, that we're not living up to something that, and, and that we don't have to tolerate discomfort at all. You know, there's a pill, there's a blanket, there's a something, there's food, there's something that you can use to change how you feel. What I find is when my clients begin this process of not, their goal isn't to be comfortable and to be certain all the time, because that's what anxiety tells you.

Speaker 3 (23:24):

You have to be comfortable, you have to be certain, well those are illusions. We love them. We love the idea of being able to be certain, to make sure, like if you could sit in my shoes every time, sometimes I think that's why I like to sit alone in the woods and not be around people because the anxious language is just there. Make sure I have to make sure this, I should be doing that. All of this, that's all language that's, that's saying to us that we can in fact be certain and comfortable. And when we can step away from that and really be aware that there really is no way to be certain. And comfort is not, we're not meant to go through this life being comfortable. Some of the best things that we learn about are in the very trying times.

Speaker 3 (24:13):

We learn a lot about ourselves, about what we're here to do. I think it was Glenn and Doyle talks about if you're looking to figure out what your purpose is, figure out what makes you cry. You know? And I love that allowing ourselves to get past what we think society is telling us we should be doing our obligations mm-hmm. and get that, like what, what really makes our, you know, hits us in our heart. And you gotta get, you know, you gotta figure out how to get the, your inner critic and imposter syndrome and and doubt and all of those things. How to keep them from telling you what to do because they're like the secret service and they're gonna always pick the safest, like the safest route. But the safest route isn't always the route that's gonna get us where we're we're meant to go. So being able to take calculated risks and be uncomfortable for periods of time is important in this work.

Speaker 1 (25:07):

Yeah. You know, I love that you're going down this, this line of discussion about this topic. You know, what you're saying speaks to me of, we, we try to make decisions with our heads, right? What's the logical choice? What would a smart person do? And I've recently been learning more and more about something called human design, which I'm not sure if you're familiar with it. See you shaking your head Yes. And it's basically told me that in your brain is not designed to make decisions and nobody's brain is, and I actually am, have an emotional authority. So my emotions are, and other people have a splenic authority or they might have a sacral authority or something like this. No, no. Humans are supposed to be making decisions with our brain and yet that's where we make most decisions. And I love what you shared about Glennon Doyle.

Speaker 1 (25:55):

I love her writing and what you shared about what makes you cry. I talked to so many women midlife who are really confused about their purpose and their path and what would bring them joy and they don't even know what they want. So can you talk maybe about how you help people get in touch with that heart-centered, maybe emotional or splenic or whatever the, your authority is that can help guide you to what would be most meaningful. So you can take those calculated risks, but I think that, you know, if you don't go out on the branch on the limb, you can't get the fruit. So you kind of gotta go out there. So how do you help people navigate that?

Speaker 3 (26:37):

Well, it starts with just that education of how these inner parts of you work and then getting in touch with, well, what, you know, think, you know, it, it's different for different people. Sometimes people are able to get in touch with it when they think back to what they love to do as a child back before all of the expectations were piled on them. What do they find? Like, you know, if you have even five minutes to yourself, what, what do you gravitate to? What do you, what do you like to do? And, and also help them to, because again, I work with so many clients that have the all or nothing thinking they get, somebody gave me feedback in the book where it was like, I, you know, I don't, I don't wanna do any more of this work because it's gonna mean that I'm gonna have to divorce my husband .

Speaker 3 (27:24):

It's right. It's the all or nothing. And so I, I help guide them all on the path that it's, it's not that you have to take one huge step, let's just talk about 1% incremental change. Like looking at what's one little thing that you can do here? And also maybe you won't end up doing the thing that you're passionate about for a career. Like you don't have to give up your job today and go do something that, that you feel passionate about, but maybe you could start volunteering with something that you feel passionate about something. So just walking them through the, getting past their inner to even have a conversation about that things could be different than the way that they are right now. And to just look at little things, tweak a little bit here, tweak a little bit there. I think one of the big conversations that I have with clients is not to set goals.

Speaker 3 (28:17):

You can set intentions, you can have an idea of where you wanna go, but we get too caught up in the failure that happens between, you know, so think, think like with weight loss, it's like, okay, well I wanna lose, I think you said you lost over a hundred pounds. I mean that's big. But you had to, instead of focusing on the losing the a hundred pounds, my guess is you focus on the the things that you could be successful at every day until you got there. And that's what people miss. It's, it's the, oh, I'm gonna set this goal and I don't map out how I'm gonna get there. And so every day I wake up and I feel like I'm a failure cuz I'm not at my goal yet. So how do we break it down into having those successes every day? And so with finding your purpose, it's, let's just break this down and start looking at, you know, what makes, what makes you cry, what ma what gives you makes your heart, you know, feel full, you know, those sorts of things. And then what, how can you incorporate a little bit more of that each day? What are you doing that you can take off your plate? You know, the little thing. So that's how we get started with that. Yes.

Speaker 1 (29:27):

And it reminds me of this other quote you shared from Socrates. The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new. So when I lost all that weight, I focused on, I'm building health. Yeah. I wasn't even focused on the weight loss, I just was doing the things I needed to do to address the underlying causes, the hormonal imbalances, the toxicities, the gut dysfunction. And then the weight just started coming off. So I wasn't even focused.

Speaker 3 (29:59):

Right, exactly. That's exactly it is the changing the way that we focus it isn't, it wasn't ever about the weight loss. It was about making the healthy choices to have a better life. And then you get the, the secondary gain if you will. Oh well look when I did that, when that's what I focused on. So yeah, helping to, to people to see that if you focus too much on a goal that without those steps and without knowing what the deeper meaning behind it is. So that's what you did. And there's where your success,

Speaker 1 (30:34):

Right. And I'm wondering what you think stops most of us for going for what we actually want. So I think there are different categories of women at midlife. Some of us really don't know what we want. We haven't been asked, I've talked to some women and I say, well what is it you really want for your life? And they say, I don't even know anymore. So some of us don't know we have to go through a rediscovery process, but there's some of us who know, but we don't wanna say the thing, we're up free to say the thing cause we're afraid that someone will shame us for it. Or who do you think you are? And you talked about imposter syndrome and then our attitude oftentimes whatever situation we're in at midlife regarding what we truly want in life. And maybe it's great help that we want, maybe we wanna lose a hundred pounds, but we won't even admit it cuz we don't think we can have. It has to do with our attitude. And like you said, Oprah Winfrey shared the greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change their future by merely changing their attitude. And so many of us have this attitude of silence. We don't, it doesn't even mean that anyone else has silenced us. We've silenced ourselves. We don't say the thing that we need to say or want to say. We don't do the thing, we won't admit the thing. So help us here, Lynn. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (31:58):

Well it's, it goes back to the same thing. It's not safe to do those things. We, I think especially, you know, our generation, I am really curious whether these younger generations, I guess you would call it like the millennials and the Gen Zs, are they gonna have the same trouble when they get to be our age? Because they seem to be able to identify what they want a little bit more, or at least verbalize it. Now whether their experiences will show them, you know, this idea that they can't have it or not, I don't know. But I know like, you know, I'm a child of the eighties and nobody ever asked us what we wanted. So we, we don't know how to even answer that question. And I think though it's tied to safety, what feels safe. And so if you've ever had, and all it takes is one, all it takes is one situation where you spoke up, you said what you wanted and somebody either said, no, you can't have it, circumstances don't allow it.

Speaker 3 (32:59):

Or someone judged you like you did get it and you're feeling really good about it. And someone says, this happened to me like I got a pretty good job, a pretty high paying job out of graduate school. And I found out through the grapevine that somebody that I knew basically said I didn't deserve it. I didn't deserve to at my age to have gotten that job. Now that critical voice is in my head. And so I'm a little more cautious because if you think back to, and this wasn't really in the, in the big picture of things, this wasn't really that long ago. You know, there was a time when if you didn't stay in the favor of the tribe, you couldn't survive because that point in time to try to be a loner didn't really work. And so I think we've carried that forward.

Speaker 3 (33:49):

And so if we don't feel safe to ask for what we want or even get what we, what we think that we want because other members of the tribe are gonna be jealous and judge us, or we're not even just jealous that they have concerns about what's going on in your life and they're gonna say, Ooh, you know, don't take that risk. It doesn't take much for us to say, okay, well then, then I don't feel safe taking this risk or ta or asking for what I want. Mm-Hmm . And so I again built into our, our genetics and the physiology and our conditioning.

Speaker 1 (34:23):

Okay. And then I do wanna ask you before I wanna give Emry on some practical tips, they can start using poor anxiety that they're having. So we'll get to that. But the name of your book is Aligned as, transforming Your Inner, like Anxiety Into Allies. And I'm wondering if you can talk about that title, what does that mean, aligned as, what are your inner? So can you talk a little bit about that and then we'll also talk about some things people can do to get started with their anxiety.

Speaker 3 (34:55):

Sure. So my inner didn't want me to write that book. And so they were coming up with all kinds of obstacles for me. And so aligned was a word that really resonated with me that by getting, you know, getting them in alignment with what I wanted to do was important. So I used the letters of aligned to come up with the concept for each chapter. So there's a chapter A, a chapter L, you know, so on and under each one I talk about different concepts related to that letter. So that's how the whole thing started and it just kind of took off. So the book is really helping you to step by step look at, okay, what are, what's important to understand about how these, what I call inner, the ones who you know, your anxiety, your doubt, the inner critic, the perfectionist, all of that, how they have gotten in charge and how to demote them and teach 'em better social skills.

Speaker 3 (35:53):

So the first chapter talks about just acknowledging that they're there, accepting that they're there. And then the big one, the big step at that point is to anthropomorphize them. And I had to practice saying that word a lot. It does not really, you know, trip off your tongue, but it's giving human characteristics to a non-human form. And so I have found that clients have been very, once they get what they get how to do it, they've been very successful. And because it allows you to basically have a conversation with yourself and those parts of yourself that you're not, that you're scared of, that you're not getting along with that trip you up that sabotage you and to then recognize how to work with them differently. That's where I start people and then I have them look at their language and how to lean into discomfort, how to take a leap and be a leader, find their inner c e o and get these inner lined up and working for you rather than against you.

Speaker 3 (36:53):

And the book has been so well received that I actually am working on a companion workbook. So in the book I give an action step per chapter. So there's like seven, there might be some bonuses in there, but the workbook is actually a action step for every single concept. So there's like 23 or 24 concepts that I cover in the book that the workbook's gonna actually give you more examples as well as an action step for each one. So I'm doing my best to break it down as much as I can for people to really take the time to figure out how they can do this differently and have a, have a better result for themself.

Speaker 1 (37:32):

Okay. So your inner are all the things that stop you from being who you wanna be, doing what you wanna do in life, like anxiety, your inner critic, things like that. Mm-Hmm and getting aligned is teaming them, turning them into allies so that you can actually make the choices and changes that you want to live a more fulfilled life. Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (37:55):

That is correct.

Speaker 1 (37:56):

Okay. I like it . Awesome. Well this is great and I look forward to seeing the workbook. And what tips would you give everyone who is suffering with anxiety, who is listening right now? What are just some of the top three things you might have them start working with? Yeah,

Speaker 3 (38:14):

I, I think those would be the thing is just accept that yeah, this does happen. There's nothing, there's really nothing wrong with you. This is your body giving you a signal that it's time to listen to these voices, but listen to them with a discerning ear to see whether some of what they're trying to say to you are things that are important to address. Because again, it can lead you to saying, okay, like all the things that I've been trying to do for my health, which you know, all of the outdated stuff of eat less, you know, exercise more, all of that, that it's time to find a better path. You know, have your hormones tested, work with somebody who can help you get some relief there so that you can put the rest of the work into action and actually be getting closer to the life that you would like to have without all of your inner trying to say no, you can't have it.

Speaker 1 (39:07):

Okay. So get your hormones tested for sure.

Speaker 3 (39:11):

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (39:13):

. And what would be a couple of other things,

Speaker 3 (39:17):

Practicing self-compassion. We didn't really talk about that before, but I think, yeah, in this age of all this paranoia and comparisonitis is learning to have self-compassion. I, you know, I talk about language and too often my clients are talking to themselves in a way they would never talk to, you know, a child or their best friend or, or anybody for that matter. And so really starting to know, you know, how you're talking to yourself and how we can be compassionate to others, but we have to learn how to be compassionate to ourselves as well. And then that goes in line, if you're being self-compassionate, then you are finding others because that's one thing too, especially for women. You don't have to do this alone. There are people out there and, and to go back to do you need a therapist? Do you need a coach?

Speaker 3 (40:09):

You know where to start. It's about the relationship. So start noticing who you resonate with and not just who you feel like is gonna tell you what to do, but who feels like somebody that you could work with that would be a partner to you. And not just somebody who seems more powerful or knowledgeable. Just because you know people have a lot of letters after their name doesn't mean that they would be a good fit for you. So that's part of, I think the process as well is finding mm-hmm someone. Cause you don't have to do it alone.

Speaker 1 (40:40):

You do not. There is lots of support and I'm so glad that you've written the book that you've written, that you're working on the workbook that you transitioned to coaching. I think that therapy is wonderful. It's helped me tremendously. And I also think that coaching can be extremely powerful. I've had coach coaching as well, and it can be very action oriented and help you to take actions contrary to what you've been getting because if you keep taking the same actions, you're gonna get the same outcome. Absolutely. So trying something different is key. Yeah. So thank you so much for coming on the show, Lynne, and sharing your insights about anxiety and the inner with us and helping everyone understand how to become as aligned as buck. Any last words you'd like to share with everybody?

Speaker 3 (41:33):

No. Just yeah, keep your eye out if you're, if this interests you at all, like I said, there's the book, there's a workbook you can get on my website and get a taste of the book. I think it's chapter three is available for my website. And I just really appreciate this conversation. It's been great. I hope it was helpful.

Speaker 1 (41:52):

Yes, thank you so much. And thank you all for listening to another episode of The Hormone Prescription with Dr. Kieran. Hopefully you've learned something today that will inspire you to take action and do something different and really figure out what it is you want for your life and go for it. Don't just dream about it. I always say that the dream chooses the dreamer. You didn't choose the dream, it chose you. And that your dreams as humanity calling forth from you, those gifts that only you have, that only you can deliver. So what are those gifts and what are you gonna do to move towards delivering them today? Thanks so much for joining me. I'll see you next week. Until then, peace,

Speaker 2 (42:34):

Love, and hormones, y'all. Thank you so much for listening. I know that incredible vitality occurs for women over 40 when we learn to speak hormone and balance these vital regulators to create the health and the life that we deserve. If you're enjoying this podcast, I'd love it if you'd give me a review and subscribe. It really does help this podcast out so much. You can visit the hormone prescription.com where we have some free gifts for you, and you can sign up to have a hormone evaluation with me on the podcast to gain clarity into your personal situation. Until next time, remember, take small steps each day to balance your hormones and watch the wonderful changes in your health that begin to unfold for you. Talk to you soon.

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