CIIS Public Programs Podcast

Transcript

Our transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human editors. We do our best to achieve accuracy, but they may contain errors. If it is an option for you, we strongly encourage you to listen to the podcast audio, which includes additional emotion and emphasis not conveyed through transcription. 

[Cheerful theme music begins] 

This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by the Public Programs department of California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. 

We all experience anxiety. Regardless of how bad it can feel, anxiety is part of what makes us human and may not necessarily be a bad thing. According to psychologist, author, and anxiety researcher Tracy Dennis-Tiwary, that uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty can be productive. In Dr. Dennis-Tiwary's work and writing she addresses both generalized anxiety—which we all face—and anxiety disorders, when our anxious reactions and feelings prevent us from functioning effectively.  

In this episode, somatic and transpersonal psychotherapist Deanna Jimenez talks with Dr. Dennis-Tiwary about her latest book, Future Tense. They explore looking at anxiety in a new way to offer hope to those suffering from it along with a way forward to better managing anxiety to spark creativity and joy for a more productive life. 

This episode was recorded during a live online event on June 2nd, 2022. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 

[Theme music concludes] 

Deanna Jimenez: Welcome. Good evening. How are you, Dr. Tracy?  

Tracy Dennis-Tiwary: Oh, of course, call me Tracy. It's so great to see you Deanna and it's so nice to see your face since we just talked the other day and we just had one channel of communication, now we have more. It's really nice to see you.  

Deanna: Right. Well, I'm really excited to dive into your book that I thoroughly enjoyed because I have had many dances with many iterations of anxiety. [laughs] So maybe we begin there. What personal experiences brought you, drew you to write this book? 

Tracy: You know, I've been a scientist for 20 years and, you know, I am a clinical psychologist, and I actually officially became a clinical psychologist on September 11th, 2001. [Deanna:  Wow.] So yeah, the September 11th, I'm a New Yorker. I’ve been a New Yorker for over 20 years. And so, I got my degree, you know, I became this official mental health professional on this really, you know, this, this day that changed everything for the world. And so, in many ways though, as difficult as our shared collective experience of that was, I also felt really more passionate than ever to focus on mental health. I said, okay. This is the field that I need to be in. This is the time that we need to really make treatment accessible. Really understand the signs, really lower the barriers and, and destigmatize mental health.  

So, I put my head down for 20 years, that kind of went by in a flash and, and really and was very joyful in this life of, as an academic. And it was only really about 4 to 5 years ago that I started chafing at the walls of academia. Because I was looking up and looking around, and I knew we had great solutions. Because I knew the, I knew the science. I had contributed to some of it. I know we have, you know, the clinical evidence that we also have amazing wellness practices. And so, you know, for a scientist like me, I thought, okay, wellness has even moved beyond just self-help. It's actually science-based now, we have medications for people for whom that's, that's needed at that time. But yet anxiety disorders continued to be on the rise, and that was the focus of my work, emotional health and anxiety and mental health in general, mental health disorders, in particular, were also on the rise.  

So, all of this that I devoted my life to, my professional life to, wasn't working. And so, I took a step back and I started to really think about what have we, what are, what have we told people about mental health? Because in a prior life, I was an artist actually. I was a musician before becoming a psychologist and I know the power of story from that perspective, and I re- and I relearned the power of story as a psychologist where so much of what we believe about our possibilities and our mental health and our potential shapes, what we can be, you know, what we and it you know, and and so I just really asked myself the question, what are we telling people about anxiety in particular? And that was the starting point for my book.  

Deanna: I love how you 1) the creativity or the, the storytelling and what are we telling ourselves which shapes our experience. And you know, truth be told there are many books written about addressing anxiety. So, I want to maybe just see like what would you say, what is at the heart of this book? What do you want people to really understand?  

Tracy: I, at the heart of this book is the idea that we mental health professionals have to own up to some terrible mistakes that we've made. And I see the heart of that mistake being that we have convinced people that broadly, that mental health equals the absence of emotional suffering or discomfort. And specific to anxiety, that anxiety in particular, is best thought of as dangerous and a disease. And of course, as mental health professionals, this comes from some very good intentions that if we medicalize mental health, we can be better able to treat it and we can get resources for it. And there's so, there's all this great motivation. But what happens when you think about a human emotion that's on a spectrum as a disease?  

Well, a couple, a couple things happen, one is that you start to fear and revile and reject it. You avoid it and try to eradicate it like you would any disease: cancer, covid. And, and so, and so that's one thing. So, the avoidance and the destruction of that experience is one thing. The second thing is that you start to think of it as a malfunction. So, when you're anxious, you, you've, it's a failure of happiness, of mental health. And what do you do with things that are malfunctions? You fix them. And these beliefs about when applied to anxiety in particular set us up for failure. They set us up to actually, not for success, let's put it this way. Sometimes, you know, they set us up to not succeed at what I believe is an essential feature and aspect of being human, which is to experience anxiety.  

Deanna: Mm mmhmm. You said in your book, the problem isn't anxiety, but our coping mechanisms. And you're really speaking to that right now. It's when we can, if I could use a word like reframe how we are using, or expand how we're using anxiety, we then have choice. And with that choice, we then have possibilities of how to navigate it, use it as a supportive tool, versus a hindrance or something to get rid of. 

Tracy: That's beautifully put, and you can have that perspective and that can still allow for the fact of anxiety disorders. So, you can say, if you, if you treat all anxiety as a disease that you eradicate and avoid and suppress. Well, it makes you avoid anxiety, which is literally a recipe for making anxiety worse. Kind of like the whole, you know, the old white bear effect. Don't think of a white bear. [both laugh] And, and, you know, and that's a silly example, but it really, you know, the more you try to shove it down and suppress it, the more it roars back stronger than ever. That's how anxiety works. So, the disease model makes us avoid more. It also makes us miss opportunities, as you say, to expand our view of what anxiety might be. So that, you know, and what I know as an emotion scientist and, you know, I'm a clinical psychologist, but being an emotion scientist and actually devoting my work to understanding what is an emotion? How do we measure it? How do we fail to measure it? You know, how do we, what, what, how can it help us? How does it get us in our way? Well, if we start to think of emotion on this, excuse me, if we start to think of it, anxiety on this full spectrum of being an emotion like a dimmer switch instead of a light switch on and off, then again, as you said, all sorts of possibilities open themselves up. 

Deanna: Right, right. And when you, I guess, what leads me to the next is we say, when we're on this spectrum then possibilities open up. And one thing you speak to is hope, and I really want to just bring that in, you know, in the midst of all that we are experiencing collectively and individually right now, you speak of hope and anxiety as two sides of the same coin. Can you say more? 

Tracy: That is one of my favorite things about anxiety. It's kind of what made me decide to write this book, in a way, because I believe this with all my heart, and the science also backs me up. Which, so, so to understand why I would say that, and, and again, in, when you struggle with debilitating anxiety, it's so hard to wrap your head around that, but, but, but let me try to explain what I mean. So, first, first of all, anxiety, we equate it with fear. We think, oh, we're, and we often use the words interchangeably. So that anxiety is fight-flight. Just like fear is and we can even say, oh maybe it's helpful because it is protective in that way. But fear is an emotion. It's very distinct from hope- from anxiety. Fear is what we feel when we know there is certain and present danger. It is someone there's, there's a, there's a snake about to bite you. And it's there and it's real and there's no uncertainty about it. So, it roots you to the present moment and it does prepare you to act for the, the 3 f’s the freezing fight or flight. That's what our body’s primed to do when we're fearful.  

But anxiety has nothing to do about the present moment, anxiety is all about the future and it's, you know, from a definitional perspective, it's apprehension about the uncertain future. So, what does that mean? That means that in that future, that is uncertain, which is all futures, even one second from now, that in that future, something bad could happen, but something good could also happen. That's what uncertainty means. It's not despair. It's that there, there are these possibilities, and when you're anxious, what it's actually, it's the bridge between the now, where you are and these possibilities, both good and bad of the future. And so, what it, once you are oriented through anxiety, to that uncertainty, it then prepares you to avert the bad and work hard to make the good things come true. In both the, the cognitive aspects of anxiety, the behavioral and the biological. It's really far beyond just this fight/flight response. It brings all these other aspects of being human to the table that we don't often think about.  

Deanna: I love how you just described that and as you were saying that, with the fight-flight, there's this like in my body, it was this like narrowness and you speak around the pupil and the eye. So, there's this narrowness around protection and safety and the hope which is also looking into the future into the uncertainty there's an expansion of curiosity, room for opportunity. Yeah.  

Tracy: Yeah. And anxiety feels. I mean even the word for anxiety is from the Latin and proto-Europe, you know, proto-European words for choking. So “unga” it sounds like. [Deanna: Wow.] Yeah, it's a sort, it's a very old, even Indo-European, I mean it's sort of this very old, so there is that aspect to it. Because anxiety can also focus us. It can narrow our attention like fear. Anxiety helps us persist because it prepares us to keep working for that future, that hopeful possibility. So, it's at the same time that it narrows, it expands us, and that's why it's so different than fear. And one conversation I had with someone once, they were saying, you know, I've always been told or thought of myself that I'm a person who struggles with anxiety. I think I might have shared this with you, when we spoke to who struggles with anxiety, but that's never fit how I thought of myself and what I realized from what you're saying is that I'm actually a person who struggles with hope. And I just loved that because it again, it doesn't disavow the real suffering that extreme anxiety, debilitating anxiety can cause, but it also teaches us that we have all sorts of anxiety. And sometimes, because it capitalizes on this unique, what I like to call a triumph of human evolution, this ability to think about the future, to simulate it, something that hasn't happened, to plan and prepare, it actually, we could never be anxious if we couldn't think about the future and take this, this incredible skill that human beings and maybe only human beings have to this ability and to use it to bridge the gap between where we are now and where we want to be, and to care about our future. So, it has all of those parts to it.  

Deanna: Right. The spectrum, the, this unique, special ability we have. If I can share my past career, I was, I planned corporate meetings and conferences. And I never called what I was experiencing in the planning process anxiety. It was creating. It was actually probably in my job description to be in that future of uncertainty and through the details, looking through detail after detail of the planning, I am then preparing for possibilities in the future. So, when I think of, you know, like this spectrum or the nuances in anxiety, I can see like how it can run amok and also how it is like at the root of manifesting. 

Tracy: That's such a, ooh, I might steal that phrase. Although I will cite you. [laughs] It's at the root of manifesting because yeah, it is alchemical. It is transformational. When we don't cut it off because we've decided it's so dangerous and destructive for us. Now the time and I've been, I meant to say this earlier, I do want to distinguish between anxiety and an anxiety disorder. So, we could, because the, because I think people hear this and, you know, I think they often feel that their pain isn’t acknowledged if we talk about this, and I really want to, I want to address that. And [Deanna: I appreciate you saying that, yeah.] Out loud, because I really, I've devoted my life to trying to help anxiety disorders so that's always in the back of my mind.  

So, anxiety, you can have frequent and intense anxiety every day, but that doesn't mean you'll be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. The only time that, that a psychiatrist or a therapist will diagnose it is when the ways that you are coping with that anxiety are getting in the way of living a full life. It's called functional impairment. And those ways of coping are typically characterized by avoidance and suppression. So, if we have social anxiety, you know, we start to, you know, if we're a kid, we don't go to school anymore. We just can't take the pressure of it. And, you know, if we have a job and there's, and we know that we have a big presentation coming up, we call in sick and, you know, week after week of doing that, you start to risk losing your job. So, it's that way of coping that is really getting in your way. I wouldn't be doing, having wonderful conference conversations on Zoom with interesting people if I let my nervousness, you know, so it's a coping issue, and or sometimes it's we turn to substances maybe too dull our pain or, you know, there are a host, whole host of ways, and after a while, it just, it just you can't sustain the joyful life you want to and that, and that's when someone will say hey, listen anxiety is getting in your way and you, and a diagnosis might be helpful.  

But really what they're saying is that there's a vicious cycle happening that needs to be broken between your experiences of anxiety and how you're managing it. Now, we can have so many tough things that are going on, on, in our life that the cards are stacked against us, right? So, you know, we could be the best copers in the world and we're you know, we're just, you know, and that balance, it's always a balance. So, so to say that anxiety is still an emotion that can help us does not, you know, does not take away from the fact that when we get into those cycles and all of us are capable of it, we need to seek that support and there's a whole range of things we can do. What I, why I think it's still important to talk about anxiety as a useful emotion is that the key to any of these therapeutic approaches is typically to engage with your anxiety and to stop avoiding it. It's literally gold standard treatment approach. It's in the CBT, which is a very common treatment approach for anxiety disorders. It's called exposure and response prevention. So, you expose yourself to what is causing anxiety. So, say it's your boss judging you at work or people judging you and their social anxiety, and the response that you prevent is not going to work anymore and dropping off from life and never seeing friends and doing these avoidant things. And so, so, so when we are thinking of anxiety in a way that primes us to avoid more and reject anxiety more, the message there is that that's actually keeping us potentially from benefiting from treatments and all these ways that we’re seeking to heal ourselves or to seek healing. So that's why I also think that never to blame or to say, oh, you’re just not thinking about it the right way, you know, that's why you have an anxiety disorder, but rather all of us can benefit when we look for the ways that anxiety can serve us, where we can own it, so, it doesn't own us. And that's really the heart of my message as well.  

Deanna: I'm just, I'm even taking a breath right there and appreciating that we did back up in order to really name that because that can sometimes be part of a spiral, right? Is that, like, I'm, what I'm hearing you say is that when there is the turning towards anxiety, one, it can be seen as an opportunity for manifesting. Another can be, I need help right now like and there are steps. So, I think it all kind of is turning towards and it can look very different ways at very different times in many people's lives. And so not to eliminate that as an option because we are yeah, discussing anxiety and these other possibilities.  

Tracy: That's so beautifully the way you put that because part of turning to anxiety is knowing that, you know, if we let go of the disease story, we need another story, right? We need another story. And what if we started to treat anxiety more, like, we do, say fitness or physical health, where let's take fitness as a first example, there are skills to be built. Skills that require endurance and stress and strain and sometimes failing. And so, if you're, you know, if you're, I'm not much of an athlete but if you're training to be, you know, a marathon runner, you're going to have some good running days and some bad, but you need to tune into how your body's feeling. You need to know when you're pushing yourself too hard, right? And if you're, you know, you need to say, oh wait a second that is actually too much and I need to make sure I stretch and I do these things or you can say, oh wait, that's a healthy discomfort, because that means that's how it feels when my muscles are getting that good burn and anxiety is the same way because these are skills if anxiety is energy and something to channel and a way of manifesting, it's like a wave, and a wave can drown us. But we can also swim, and we can surf, and we can, and we can be nourished by that wave, and we can ride it forward. And so, if we start to turn to anxiety in that way, I just think it will lead to so many more helpful things and minimize the unhelpful things that we might do in this this world that we really have a lot of anxiety present and a lot of reasons to be an, to be anxious. 

Deanna: Right. It made me think of a saying that I'm often reminding my students, there is no failure, there's only feedback. So, if we can see it as feedback, then we can be with it, utilize it, use the highest choice, we can like be in choice around it. And so, yeah? 

Tracy: And anxiety, I was just going to say I love that because I love, I think failure is one of the great human skills to learn. Its, that's really when we’re in the messy work of being human and where there's real potential, and there's this great concept that Patrick Gaudreau, who's a Canadian psychologist, he coined, the term excellencism. And people, I we talked about this um, and people who are more anxious tend to be excellencists. Now the best way to think about excellencism is sort of it's the light side to the dark side of perfectionism. Now perfectionism, we know is just toxic. It's this unrealistic, impossible standard of flawlessness. No, it's all, we're always going to fail eventually, and it actually leads to worse outcomes. So there the law of diminishing returns, when you're a perfectionist. You don't know when good enough is great. You don't know when to stop and you often are inefficient, don't get work done and don't actually reach your full potential because you're just striving after this impossible goal and it’s associated with many more negative mental health consequences. Excellencism, on the other hand, is striving, having a tendency to strive for excellence, but knowing that you're going to fail along the way and knowing that you have to fail along the way in order to get to excellence, right? And realizing and believing, and this is the other part that I think takes practice: believing you have the capability to be excellent. 

Deanna: Oof, that's a, that's a big one, right? 

Tracy: [laughs] That’s a big one. But people who are more anxious on average actually are better excellencists, and they're more create, and studies that Gaudreau has done, he shows that people who are excellencists are actually more creative and innovative. So, if you do standard tests of problem solving and creativity, and you look at the quality and quantity of creative output, excellencists, who are also a little anxious, they just come out, they come out a little better. They come out quite a bit better in some circumstances. So, this is a way where I feel like when we're riding that wave it re-, these feelings that are sometimes so difficult and yes, debilitating, and sometimes we just have to, you know, sometimes it's like, you know, don't open your arms to anxiety. Sometimes it's time to say, okay, I need a break. But, if we have that sort of a relationship like we do with an ally we need to negotiate with, these things are possible. I re- everything that I've learned and believe over the past, I'm pushing 50 now, all these years really, I believe that with all my heart.  

Deanna: Another breath right here, not only for myself, but all of the people in the YouTube audience, I'll shout out to all the excellencists out there. [both laugh] Just to allow the space for that to soak in because that is so real, right? That perfectionism, excellencism, I love that reframe or that new word in my vocabulary and again, how to use something that might be perceived as heavy or negative and how can it work for us. [Tracy: That's right.] I'm really wanting to, one thing I really appreciated in your writing is how you look, like we talked about, leaning in on anxiety, leaning towards difficult topics and like, let's be there. Let's understand it. You cover topics around global pandemic, viral misinformation, political upheaval, climate change and ecoanxiety, you just speak to these things. And so, there's something around, like, a resting in my nervous system where it's like, oh, we're not going to brush over it, and that just feels really important, similar to like, hey, let's go back and let's talk about the pathology, not to pathologize in, but like the spectrum and diagnosing. So, I wonder if there's something that we could speak to the topics of aliveness. What's alive for me right now are not just the things that you were speaking of in the book that are alive, like in our news today, around the, the Texas shooting at the school around, the shooting in East Coast. Both centered around guns, but I'm just really wanting to bring that into the top, topic because that really brings anxiety for me.  

Tracy: Yeah. I feel my throat closing up right now thinking about those shootings, I mean, I've been it's, you know, you don't have to have a kid to feel, I’m specifically speaking and thinking about Uvalde. You don't have to have children to just feel this collective tragedy, that we are a society that accommodates the slaughter of children on a regular basis. And it's, it's very, you know, and it's hard to know how to talk about that at all and certainly how to talk about it with kids because what's our job as parents and as community members, and as aunties and uncles, and everything in between? It's to comfort our kids, right? Or make them know that we're going to keep them safe. Right? But kids know liars when they see them, and we are a society of liars right now.  

So it's very, you know, so I think a lot about what I'm, you know, how do I practice what I'm preaching in this book when it comes to something so raw and painful and we can have all the, you know, we can have those conversations on so many topics in our life, you know, I think about the painful conversations we've had about social justice, I think about the painful conversations we've had about climate change, painful and necessary. And so, when I think about what I'm, what I believe about anxiety, what I believe science also tells us about anxiety, it's that the only way out is through. So then, how do we create safe enough spaces where we can respect people's histories, people who you know, I do think we overuse the word trauma, but there is real trauma. There is absolutely no doubt about that. To respect people's, you know, their trauma or things that feel like trauma to people, you know, how, how do we say hey, we have to have these very difficult conversations and you may feel pain because of what you've been through. I wanted to tell, and I talked about this in the book. I want to talk a little bit about the absolutely, what I feel is our responsibility and the crucial need for these conversations from the perspective of the history of safe spaces.  

And so, we talk about safe spaces now as really places where we can be free of, clearly of hate and prejudice of all sorts, bigotry of all sorts and that is crucial. But we also have come to think of these safe spaces as places where we are free of emotional discomfort and opinions that we might disagree with or that we feel because they're painful might do harm to us. Now, this is a very difficult conversation, I think there are lots of constructive debates about this. I will say that the history of safe spaces gives us a lens here to think about it.  

Kurt Lewin, who was one of the fathers of social psychology, he was doing work, post-World War Two, and he worked in a lot of corporate environments, actually, and at the time, it wasn't the NAACP, it was another organization that was fighting for racial justice as well as fighting against antisemitic hate. And they approached Kurt Lewin because he had been, he is one, also one of the fathers of action research, really applying principles of social psychology to positive social change in action, so, they went to him and they said, listen, there is a lot of prejudice that's poisoning the workplace and we have some things, good positive changes that are happening, but people of color, people of Jewish backgrounds and people of also, you know, all sorts of people who are different in some way are, there are blocks and there's prejudice and there's pain and we need to deal with this. What do we do, Kurt Lewin? You, you're the expert in this and he said, well, we need to do two things. We need to do sensitivity training and create safe spaces. But check this. What did he mean by that? What he, a safe space, in the Kurt Lewin, in the Lewin's terms, is a place where everyone comes together, in a community, at work in this case, and talks about the prejudice they're seeing and the prejudice that they are even fearful they're perpetuating.  

So, if I'm a boss in this workplace environment, I'm going to come and say, hey, I need this space where I know that I'm not going to be judged or reviled, or, or a, but I need to admit to something that I really want to change. I believe that the men who work for me, I'm a woman, I'm a boss, I believe that the men are not as smart as me. And I know this is sexist. I just find myself, I want to change but I want it, I want to get this out in the open. And so, people would have raw, painful conversations and, and, but the key to this is that the person who has committed to change and also could acknowledge that there was something wrong and maybe they couldn't articulate it quite well, but they were, wanted to do it would not, would be able to would be supported in that goal. And the people who were maybe feeling that, so the men in that, you know, in that example, the people who felt that they were the target would know that they were free of hateful prejudice, prejudicial experiences, but it would still be a very difficult conversation. And sensitivity training was teaching people to allow those conversations to happen. It wasn't being tiptoeing. It was going right into it. But in a way that was respectful.  

And when they did research on these safe spaces, they found that they led to transformational change on the individual level, and even starting to make change on institutional levels.  

So fast forward, and safe spaces today are really nothing like that because we emphasize the safe aspect of it with the best of intentions to not cause someone further harm or and they’re vulnerable, vulnerable communities and we're very aware of that. But I think we've perhaps gone so far in that direction that we're forgetting the power of leaning into the sharp points of these difficult conversations and trusting each other that we actually can work for change together. And I think that that might be a big opportunity cost, that our view of mental health and emotional discomfort is actually making worse. Because we believe that emotional discomfort might cause us damage, and I do not believe in almost all cases, I do not believe that that is really the way that humans work.  

Deanna: Yeah, that is so intriguing because as you're talking, I'm following this researcher’s experience and you know, and curiosities come up from me around science that now has come up around and I don't know the science specifically, but just how the, this role impact of trauma or the perpetual, like the mundane extreme environmental stressors of racism. And so how, like I'm trying to if you have a thought on this, but like really trying to for me right now, I'm trying to untangle how there's this study and this practice and safe spaces, and how we danced with, how we become use the word anti-fragility, or fragility, like, how we can dance with that while also, honoring like how historical racism and how these things really, we are finding, do live through in generations and impact us, right?  

Tracy: And that's the dance and you know when it comes to trauma, it's a real, it's a very, it's a really interesting double-edged sword because there's great work on the absolute necessity of acknowledging that trauma, and that it is transgenerational and it's deep and it's, you know, so we can acknowledge that and also acknowledge that there’s science that really calls into question that you're traumatized, everything is going to be worse for you. Not to, and that and you can still, because it ignores this notion of resilience or antifragility. And it doesn't have to change your view of the trauma. And that is, you know, that is unacceptable. But then to also say that human beings can also work through and come out the other side acknowledging the trauma, but also growing. And there's a way to have that conversation that I think, the first stage of that, much like, you know, in some ways, my book is just take one step. It's just one, you know, just do this one thing, and then see how everything else works for you. It's sort of like that's like just change your, be a little curious about anxiety. Try it out. And see how then, I think it's the same when we talk about these, these traumas and to say, you know, I have something I need to say, it's not, I know it's wrong, and I want to say it and I want to work through it.  

Deanna: I think that might be the key part. I know it's wrong. So, there's a…  

Tracy: Yeah, and so you acknowledge, but people are so afraid to acknowledge because, because right now it's not okay to be part of the problem. [Deanna: Mmm…mhm.] What we don't realize is that acknowledging that you're part of the problem can be part of the solution. I mean, that's my perspective. Now, we can also in that same breath say, well wait a second, you have unique privileges, you have- and we think about this a lot with anxiety and talking about how anxiety can be an ally. Some people may say, well listen, you've had numerous privileges, you have numerous supports and numerous resources that a lot of people may not have. So, for you, it's easy. So, how do I, who is in this XYZ circumstance, whatever it may be. I am debilitated by this anxiety because I don't have your privilege. So, what do we say to that?  

And, you know, I don't have an answer but what I do say is we have to talk about, that's, that's exactly, [Deanna: That's the answer, right? Let’s lean in on it.] Yeah, and let's say, and to say, you know what? Maybe it's condescending to say, if I'm here saying, oh no, you have anxiety and a disease, and you have a lot of stuff working against you. So, how can we possibly expect anything of you? There's a flip side to that disease story. There's a flip side to saying I'm traumatized and therefore I am that trauma. There is a, there's a cost to all of these potentially helpful ideas. And I think we have to- we have to lean into that nuance.  

I was talking to a tech entrepreneur not too long ago and tech entrepreneurs are very interesting if you talk to them, they have all sorts of ideas about their godlike powers, like and, and they and we were talking and we were talking about people who are from under-resourced communities. And we were talking about how technology can be, you know, it obviously can be something we get lost in and was not designed for human well-being, especially social media and can be a crutch and, you know, all we just put our kids on these social media, they get sucked into it. And he was saying, well, you know, imagine your mom, a single mom from an under-resourced community and you have to work two jobs. Yeah, of course, you're going to put your kid on the iPad all day. And how are we, you know, how can we judge them? And it's them, of course, it's a ‘those people.’ It's a, those people kind of thing. Right? [Deanna: Yeah.] And so, he said, and he’s saying that and of course, you know, that's just what, you know, so we just have to stop thinking it's so easy and we just have to stop judging them.  

And I said to him, I said that is the most condescending thing because you're essentially saying, oh, because so then you’re, what we're calling a bad mom, and we can't expect anything more of you. Because, because of that, and I feel like we do that sometimes. So, then it gives you excuses not to actually give that person resources or to say, wait a second, there's an opportunity for change or hey, wait a second. Maybe we have the system that's broken and we have to, so it becomes, it's utilized in ways that I actually feel like when we actually talk about it more, we can break through some of those destructive ways that these ways of actually supporting people are sometimes used and I just feel that mental health is, we're it's part of that dialogue as well and it's not easy. I don't have any answers, but I think we have to talk about it.  

Deanna: Everything you're saying, like there, it's not a period at the end of any, it is like the start of a whole ‘nother dialogue and I’m just wanting to acknowledge that. That, but what I am hearing is, remaining curious, expanding the possibilities and kind of what you're saying, the fight-flight we were saying like kind of narrows, anxiety kind of narrows, that when as soon as we have the answer, we eliminate the possibility of anything else and you're really speaking to like all the topics we've just like rushed through.  

Tracy: I know. That was my fault. That was a little much. [laughs] 

Deanna: No! I mean, it’s important in these spaces when we have them to be able to open them up, say like, hey, we're talking about it. We're still okay, we can take breaths. We could slow down. But yeah, I'm just really holding that there is just power in leaning in.  

Tracy: Thank you, Deanna, you know your reflections and your interpretations are really, really helping me think through, why did my mind go from talking about anxiety to talking about the entire human condition or, or stories that we tell about that human condition and the trickiness of acknowledging pain and wanting to end it, but also knowing that it's, it's actually a feature of being human. So, how do we, how do we fight for change but also acknowledge pain? And that's, that's essential, that's the essential tension of my book and that in every page, in every chapter, that I feel that I'm navigating. And what I try to do in that navigation is to surprise people with things about anxiety that they might not have been told before or even that we scientists don't know that much about. Things like in just the past decade or so, we've realized that when you're anxious, it doesn't just trigger your stress, like fight-flight system, it does, you know, your autonomic you know, nervous system, but it actually also increases oxytocin, which is the social bonding hormone, which primes us to seek social support and reach out to our loved ones. So, that means that anxiety contains within itself almost its own solution because social connection is one of the best ways to manage anxiety. Just to use our social resources, whatever they are or create new ones.  

Anxiety also increases levels of dopamine in our brain and dopamine is not just sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It's not just addiction. It actually is a neurotransmitter, it’s like a little shuttlecock that communicates among different areas of the brain and allows areas of the brain to work efficiently and in coordination when we pursue goals, things we really want. So, anxiety, while it also is protective, and maybe we feel the butterflies, you know, it's also preparing us to act and when you, and when we teach people that.  

There's a beautiful study that came out of Harvard in 2013, Jamison and colleagues, where they taught socially anxious people with a social anxiety disorder diagnosed. They have them come in and ask them to do something that's sheer kryptonite for socially anxious people, which is to give an impromptu public speech, without any time for preparation in front of a panel of judges who were taught to like be like this with their arms crossed and looking very judgmental. And, and they were just about to be thrown into it. But half of them are told, you're going to your heart's going to race. You're going to feel that sweat, but that is actually your body preparing to perform. It’s your heart's pumping, blood to your brain with oxygen so you can focus and think clearly and here's some studies to show why that's the case and here's evolutionary theory that shows how anxiety evolved and so they were taught to think of anxiety as this potential ally that was preparing them and the other half of the folks weren't and what happened, they give the speech and the people who learn to anticipate anxiety was going to prepare them had lower blood pressure calmer heart rates, and they performed better. So, their bodies look like people who, who were primed to, you know, perform at their best instead of people who were burdened and stressed out and overwhelmed. So again, this shift even when we suffer from clinical anxiety disorders, like, like this group of folks did, these are shifts that we can do, we can practice, we can get better at them. And that's, and that's the kind of, that's the kind of, that's the kind of boop just like a little, like a little, little perspective shift, like 45 degrees or, you know, I think that these are powerful, and we can all do it. 

Deanna: You made that full circle because we began speaking around as we were expanding the perception of anxiety that it increases options or yeah. Possibilities. We also began at the beginning, around the flip side of anxiety and hope and you just came right back around. Right? 

Tracy: [laughs] I started life as an artist. That's why my brain works that way. And I just, I just trained myself to be a scientist and think linearly. I'm glad, I could, I came back. Thank you.  

Deanna: Yeah, I'm, we have a bit more time. And so, one thing that was, that's really was alive for me when you spoke was being anxious the right way. You speak in your book around being anxious the right way. And so, I wonder if we can begin moving into like, okay, we've really spoken around like these the complexity of anxiety. Your book also shares like, how to some steps or some framework on how to really support anxiety. I wonder if we can begin there? 

Tracy: I'd love that. So that is a quote from a very old philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard, people have very strong feelings about Kierkegaard, but he was the patron saint of anxiety in many ways. He wrote a book about anxiety 180 years ago, and he says, in that book “whosoever learns to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.” So, I'm just sort of picking up the, and many people have, there’s little gems that have been dropped along the centuries. I feel like I just sort of pick it up and try and shine it up a bit and see if I can take it a little step further. But what does it mean to be, but that begs the question, okay, if anxiety is part of the human condition, what does it mean to be anxious in the right way?  

And in the book, you know, I sort of have aversion to self-help books in the traditional sense and maybe these books, maybe no real self-help books are this way anymore, but it used to be that there was this feeling that there's this really almost toxic standard of positivity where you have 50 boxes to check off. Here's what it means to be a healthy human being or to do this right. And so, I check check, check, check, check. Oh, I missed 23 and I missed 47 and oh, I guess I'm a failure. [Deanna: Mm..mhm.] And so, I very much, I mean, the real focus of the book is just this one act of being curious about anxiety. But as you say in that last chapter, I do present a framework.  

And the framework goes something like this. I hope if you've read this book, you'll, you'll consent to being curious about anxiety and to think for a moment, that, that it might have some information to give us because all emotions are information about where we are in our world and what it means for our well-being. And so, the very first principle, there are three and I was raised Catholic, even though, I think I always will always think in threes because of that. The very first one is anxiety is information, listen to it. And what that means is, sometimes it just means being curious. That's the first step we could, because we're open instead of shutting it down. It also means that we need to give words to those feelings that are sometimes not so easy to understand because anxiety isn't just this, this little this, you know, it's not this neat little box that we open up and there's our anxiety. It’s messy. It's often there are other feelings that are mixed in with it. But we know and we know there's so much, you know, and I'd be really interested in hearing from your perspective as someone who does body work as well and thinks about the somatic aspects of, I mean emotion lives in our body. When we give, this is intellectual, but when we give words to those emotions, that's it's called emotional granularity sometimes and give it that specificity, it's actually a form of emotion regulation and actually immediately helps us start to work with it. And I think the body work we do around emotions do exactly the same thing. They, it allows us to listen to the messages so that we that, that anxiety might be giving us. So, it's we know, okay, sometimes it's a call to panic but really anxiety is a signal that tells us there's something we care about in the world, there's uncertainty and we and we still believe that we're in it to win it. Like we have what it takes. So, so that very first principle that I outline is just, you know, considering that it's information, practicing listening to it, words. I talk about cross cultural words for anxiety and how our words for anxiety, anxiety shape. Think, you know, or maybe it's bodywork that allows us to connect with those feelings. But again, it's giving the inchoate a form. And that's really, that's really the first step.  

And then once we've listened and we've given it that chance, ourselves a chance because anxiety is not outside of us, it's a feature of being human, then we may decide that it's not useful information. So, I would never ever tell someone, oh, yeah, every experience of anxiety, you should just like white-knuckle it through and it's like just do it. Well, no actually what I mean, all I'm saying, is listen to it. Yes, always listen to it. But then you're going to sometimes realize that this is useless information, that it's, or that it's too overwhelming at this moment. I, you know, when I wrote this book, it was in the pandemic. I, and in the book, I detail a couple experiences I had where I just had unmanageable anxiety. There were just things going on in my life that I could not, there was nothing I could do. And when you, and when you're and we really feel helpless, it's very hard to know what to do with that anxiety. So, I realized I have to let go of the future tense, you know, this pull that anxiety brings us because there's not a lot of hope, right, right now to find, and I need to immerse myself in the present again. So that's really that second step. If it's not useful information, let go of anxiety and do those things that we know to do in our lives that immerse us in the present, for many people, that's bodywork, exercise. It might be seeing your therapist who or it's talking to that friend that always makes you feel like yourself, right? It’s music and art and dance. It's, I like to write poetry and it's very bad poetry a lot of the time, but it puts me in this completely different state of mind and that brings me to the present. So, so that's you know, so and to be empowered to know that we can in this kind of like riding that wave, we can be in the future tense and then we do have the skills to let go of it and come back to the present.  

Deanna: Right and somatically, you're really speaking to that if you're in that end, like for whatever reason not ready to be there; writing, dancing, the bodywork, these are all things that feeling the soma that bring you back into the body and that's the coming back. 

Tracy: And right, and then you can decide how is it channeled because emotion is energy and like energy, any energy it’s neither created nor destroyed. It has to go somewhere. Do you find in any of your background and work in the things that you think about with emotion, is this, is this connecting with some of that? 

Deanna: Most definitely, there is so much, what you're speaking to around that, one thing that was coming up for me when you were speaking around the emotion, one is that, yes, emotion is energy. So, the leaning in, the being curious, and without judgment, I feel like that just feels so important, right? Without judgment, that when I can be with this without judgment then opens up the space for curiosity and with the curiosity come the options. [Tracy: That’s right.] Right? And that's what you're speaking to.  

Tracy: That's right. And it's a north star too because I had a, just something small that happened with my son the other day. He had a test coming up at school and he was nervous about it, but he'd studied a lot and he said, Mom, I studied. I did my work. I still feel really nervous and I'm worried and he said, you're the expert, you wrote a book an anxiety. What should I do? He's 13. So, you can- and I said well, well first of all, it sounds like you care about this test and he said, yeah, you know, I really do. I've done, I've worked very hard this semester and I really like math. And so, I really care about it. I said, so okay, that's amazing. It also sounds like you have prepared, but is your worry telling you that maybe there was anything you missed or, and he said, well, actually, there's that one type of problem that I kind of skimmed over because it was hard and I don't think I fully understand it. He said, well, so maybe let me study for another 10 minutes and see what that does. And so, he studied and then, you know, so the anxiety had risen and the worry and then he took action and then he came back. And I said, so, how's your worry? How's your anxiety? And he said, well, you know it went down as I was studying, and I said, oh, maybe that means you were on the right track and he said I think it was. It was right, I think I was on the right track.  

Now I should also say because I'm, I think that we all like especially psychologists who tell people how to fix everything. We have to tell our fails, our fails or our like non-perfect outcomes as well. So, then he goes into the test. I'm thinking oh he’s got this. Like, yeah, I did it. I did it. Right. I'm like a little prideful, right? So, he goes and then he comes out. He's like, Mom, I panicked in the test! He's like [Deanna: Aw, poor baby.] But I said, well tell me about it, and you know, his version of panicking means he might have, he's a bit, he is a perfectionist I'm wearing, I'm working on making him more of an excellencist, helping him find that. But I said, well what does that mean? And he said well, I mean, I think I got, I got XYZ wrong and I probably still, you I passed, but then I said, okay, so what, you know, let's what happened? He said, when I got nervous, I didn't remember to read the question. And so, so again, you know, and I'll make this story, it's a long story of, a very long, but the short version is, we leaned in on it more, and he decided he would come up with a mantra. That was, that was, it was something like, [chanting, sing-song voice pattern] when I panic read the question, when I panic…[laughs] 

Deanna: Really basic, right? [laughs] 

Tracy: Really basic. And he was able to use that in the next test and he made that, and so, he kind of, it was a step up and then step down and then it was another step up. So, he rode that wave. And when we for ourselves and this to all the parents out there, too. When we, when we see our kids and all we want to do is protect them and help them and god, we don't want them to suffer. But when we believe that they're not fragile, they're not teacups that are going to break in a million pieces, but they're antifragile. They're like, they're like the immune system that only can work when it gets germs thrown at it. They're like muscles that atrophy unless you work them hard, kids’ emotions are that way. And they can do it and we can get it wrong, and then we can and then we can make it better.  

So, that's that also is at the heart of what I'm trying, trying to convey with these, with these kind of principles of listen, let it go if it's not working, and then I'll stop now because I'd love, I think we're about at time, but I will say briefly the third step, which I think anxiety is really good at, which I was I told that long story to illustrate was that it points us to purpose. It points us to what we care about if, not always, but a lot of the time to what matters to us in the world and what we hope for. So that if we can say, okay. I'm ready to turn back to my anxiety. What can I do with it? We hitch it to purpose. We hitch it to what we care about because that's what it evolved to help us with, to navigate the uncertainty, to bridge the gap between where we are now and where we want to be in that uncertain future. So, connect it to what matters to you, whether it's a big purpose like working on climate change or gun violence or a small purpose. Like I just want to make sure that we, I have more time. I make more time to connect with my best friend every week because that fuels me. Whatever that purpose is that gives us meaning and makes us feel more ourselves in the world, leverage anxiety to help, to help you do that. And that's going to, and that's going to be how we can really be anxious in the right way.  

Deanna: Right, what a beautiful world it would be if we could all use this anxiety towards really manifesting our purpose. [Tracy: Yeah.] I have one of my, one of my many favorite things at your- quotes in hearing. You said you're speaking to your son and your son Cavi asked, how can we be anxious and hopeful about the same thing? Like, this doesn't make any sense. And the answer you gave him was we're only anxious when we care. And there is so much to care about. It just really speaks to everything you were just saying, as well as I'm hoping our audience can really take away that we do anxiety the right way. Thank you so much for this time. This one-on-one time I got with you.  

Tracy: Thank you so much, Deanna. What a lovely conversation this has been. Thank you so much.  

[Uplifting theme music begins] 

Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live. 
 
Podcast production is supervised by Kirstin Van Cleef at CIIS Public Programs. Audio production is supervised by Lyle Barrere at Desired Effect. The CIIS Public Programs team includes Izzy Angus, Kyle DeMedio, Alex Elliott, Emlyn Guiney, Patty Pforte, and Nikki Roda. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe wherever you find podcasts, visit our website ciis.edu, and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms. 
 
CIIS Public Programs commits to use our in-person and online platforms to uplift the stories and teachings of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color; those in the LGBTQIA+ community; and all those whose lives emerge from the intersections of multiple identities.  

[Theme music concludes]