How to Interrupt Your ANXIETY and Finally Calm Down with Dr. Kathleen Smith | “Everything Isn’t Terrible”
#242 • Do you live with anxiety? If so, how does it show up in your relationships? For example, are you over-involved with your extended family, or do you make up excuses to avoid them?
We all have our tricks for managing anxiety. (Mine is procrastination). And psychologist Dr. Kathleen Smith, author of Everything Isn't Terrible: Conquer Your Insecurities, Interrupt Your Anxiety, and Finally Calm Down (Hachette Books, Dec 2019), encourages us to curiously examine our anxiety and our efforts to squelch it. Many of us try to control other people, myself included. "Because when we feel anxious, we often try to make other people change," she writes. "We try to calm everyone else down so we can finally relax. But if you can work on managing yourself in these relationships, it’s likely that your family, your workplace, and even the greater world will calm down a little too." So we pinpoint some ways that we can follow through on this.
Throughout the episode Dr. Kathleen Smith offers tools for how we can live a calmer, more authentic life, one that isn't defined by what other people think or feel. Sounds liberating, doesn't it?
Xx Ellie Knaus
Special thanks to our sound engineer Owen O’Neill, production assistant Olivia Hastie, and Jeremy Turner for our original theme composition.
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Crib Notes (AKA Episode Research)
The 5 Biggest Causes Of Stress & Anxiety — And How To Handle Them Without Losing Your Cool - The Zoe Report
How I Learned Not to Take My Panic Attacks Personally - Psychology Today
This Is What Parenting With Anxiety Is Like - Scary Mommy
About Our Guest: Dr. Kathleen Smith
Kathleen Smith is a licensed therapist and mental health writer who lives in Washington, DC. She has written for popular publications such as Slate, Salon, New York Magazine, Lifehacker, Bustle, and Counseling Today, among many others. She is an associate faculty member at the Bowen Center for the Study of the Family and hosts the show Family Matters, a production of the University of the District of Columbia.
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Atomic Moms Podcast Pairing:
Existential Anxiety and Target | Claire Coffee, Bridget Moloney, Ellie Knaus
#210 Claire Coffee (six seasons of NBC's GRIMM) and Bridget Moloney (AFI Directing Workshop for Women) are back to discuss mom anxiety! We're sharing our most neurotic fears, questionable spending habits, and how to kick digital addiction. Join us!
xx Ellie Knaus