HFH Episode 8

Dr. Chloe Carmichael, a clinical psychologist, hosts the High Functioning Hotspot podcast. In a recent episode, she discussed the challenges of transitioning from quarantine and offered tips to cope with social anxiety and uncertainty. She emphasized the importance of acknowledging both the positive and negative aspects of quarantine and practicing self-care. Dr. Carmichael also discussed the concept of secondary gains and encouraged listeners to identify the benefits they gained during quarantine, which they can retain even after it ends. She suggested creating a quarantine story to process emotions and achieve closure. Hello and welcome to the High Functioning Hotspot with me, Dr. Chloe Carmichael. I'm a clinical psychologist in New York City and I started this podcast, the High Functioning Hotspot, just as a place to talk to interesting high functioning people. That's my area of specialty as a psychologist. So I often will have high functioning guests on the show and just talk to them and learn a little bit about their path. What today's episode, however, is a little bit different. It's the audio of a free live stream that I did called, On the Horizon, Getting Ready to Transition from Quarantine. Just because I know a lot of us have been shut in our homes for so long and as everybody keeps saying, it's the new normal. But now that things are changing again and we're starting to get out a little bit, some people are having issues with social anxiety because they just haven't been around people a lot. They're wondering how to put boundaries around their anxiety and some of the uncertainty and things like that. So that's why I made this free live stream, which is called On the Horizon. And there'll be a link in the show notes if you want to watch it as well. But this is the audio. So I hope that you listen and enjoy. And if you do hear tips that you like, I'd love it if you'd let me know on social media. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, everywhere. Or share with friends or whatever else you can because it's free information. And I hope that you'll find it helpful. I enjoyed sharing it and I hope that you'll enjoy listening to it. So without further ado, here it is. Thanks and have a good one. So hi, everyone. I'm Dr. Chloe Carmichael. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm really excited to share with you some free tips about transitioning from quarantine. And I know some of us, you know, have already fully transitioned. And that's great. Some of us may be in a little bit of an in-between space. And the first thing I wanted to do is actually to normalize the idea that stepping out of quarantine may not 100% feel like a picnic. And that can almost need to actually be understood because otherwise we have all this pressure on ourselves to be feeling and acting like, oh, I'm so glad quarantine is over, as if it's nothing but just pure positives. Whereas the truth is that it is actually, while it's good and, you know, has its positives, it's also a big change for us in terms of our routine. It can stir up a lot of uncertainty and there can be some stress associated with it. So the first thing to do is actually just to give yourself permission to have the whole story be there for you. And the whole story may be that maybe there were parts of staying at home, you know, that were kind of nice or, you know, maybe figuring out exactly how things are going to look post-quarantine does have a little bit of burden associated with it. And so the first thing that we want to do is just make room for that and recognize that it's okay to acknowledge it. The nice thing, of course, about acknowledging these things as well is that then we can start to practice really good self-care around the factors that we are actually, you know, feeling a little bit stressed by. So you might be wondering why I have here a picture of a woman on a couch wearing a cast with a big smile on her face with crutches. The reason is because I want to talk about secondary gains for a moment. Secondary gains is a psychology term that refers to the benefits that we get from challenging situations. The classic example in psychology textbooks is usually a child that breaks their leg and then they just get so into all the special attention and not having to go to school and all this other stuff that when it's time to take off their cast, they actually insist, you know, that their leg is still broken. And the child oftentimes even actually really believes that. And the way that we actually get around secondary gains and make sure that we don't have secondary gains actually stop us from really putting our whole heart into moving forward when it's time to move forward from quarantine is to stop and actually notice what the secondary gains are for us. And then we can really think about ways that we can retain some of those secondary gains even after quarantine is over so we can really have the best of all worlds. Each person is different, but some of the benefits that people in my office have been talking about would be things like having more time at home, obviously, maybe more closeness with family, certainly less commute time, perhaps spending less money on things like shopping, and also having to spend less energy on making sure we, you know, look exactly perfect before we get into the office and things like that. It's just important to be in touch with what your secondary gains are because if we're not conscious of those things and really thinking about how we can keep those benefits even after quarantine, then sometimes, you know, we can end up like that little child that, you know, doesn't feel ready to go back to school because they're actually so attached to some of the benefits of their, you know, broken leg. It's also important to understand that many of us might have even tuned out, you know, some of the negatives and actually deliberately really focused on the positives of those secondary gains that we were just talking about. We might have done that as a healthy coping strategy during quarantine because when we had no choice but to just be in quarantine, the most productive thing to do might have been to actually just focus on the positives about it. And so now we might be in a little bit of a cognitive habit of just constantly only thinking about the positives without really thinking so much about the negatives. So it's actually what was once maybe a very healthy strategy of just only thinking about those secondary gains. Now that we're starting to think about transitioning from quarantine, we want to transition our thinking style a little bit as well and start thinking about how we can keep those secondary gains even after quarantine. So for example, clients have been talking about learning to have family dinners at least twice a week or learning how to say no to extraneous activities like that they just used to find themselves running around town all the time and they don't want to get back into that space. So they just want to learn how to be a little bit more discriminating about which events they'll say yes to, for example, or even just thinking about budgeting and monitoring spending so that the pre-COVID time doesn't start to look exactly like the post-COVID time in a good way. So another thing that we can think about is what I call our key takeaways. Again, so what are those positive things that you got from quarantine and how can you take them with you? So I would encourage you to think about, you know, again, just actually really listing those things out for yourself. You know, again, whether it be more time with your family or finally having your shopping budget under control or, you know, even just the idea of having a little bit more downtime in your calendar. But if you go ahead and you list out what are the things that you definitely want to continue even after quarantine, that should actually make the process of saying goodbye to quarantine easier because you know you're not going to also be saying goodbye to the secondary gains. Another thing about quarantine that might help us to have a smoother transition is to think a little bit about the process of closure. And ironically, to think about closure, we sometimes actually have to go back to the beginning. And for many of us, when quarantine started in March, there was a lot of fear. I mean, there were, you know, death projections in the millions. There were shortages of, you know, hand sanitizer and other things at grocery stores that, you know, people need. And that provoked a lot of fear and anxiety for people, understandably, as they just kind of shut themselves into their home. And so now that we're starting to open the door again, literally and figuratively, we might need to actually go back and process some of those old feelings from March. Because the good news is, is that we're now in a very different situation than we were in March. You know, we have a lot more knowledge and information about the way the virus works. You know, we have ventilators and, you know, all of our hospitals are really much more prepared now. So that's great. But there's a part of us that still might need to come to terms with some of the initial feelings that we felt when this whole process began. So there's a couple of ways that you can do that, that you can achieve, you know, that closure. You know, you might be saying, well, closure sounds nice, but really, how do I get it? And there's two ways I'm going to share with you. So one way would just be to actually write what I call your quarantine story. And it could just even be as simple as one page. But noting down, you know, thinking back to March, you know, where were you when you first learned about this coronavirus and about quarantine? And what was it like for you when you were told that you couldn't go back into the office? And, you know, what were some of the feelings that you felt? And what were some of the shortages that you encountered as you were, you know, maybe trying to get things that you needed? And going through some of those memories and some of those feelings, and then also including in your story, a little bit about some of the secondary gains that you started to discover. And then if you wanted to, you could even also include in your story that part of your quarantine closure experience was actually to watch this webinar, this live stream, and to say, you know, and then I learned about the idea of actually writing a story about my experience as I'm preparing to, you know, move forward. And so that's what I'm doing now. And, you know, these are my reflections on my quarantine experience, you know, as I'm moving forward. And it might sound silly, but there's actually something what we call in psychology, which is called narrative building. And as people are able to build their personal narrative, they do feel more in control, they feel less stress, and they feel more strategic. And so just taking a moment to even write like a one-page summary of your quarantine experience, as including the part of moving towards closure, could help you to feel a little bit more resolved about the issue. One other technique that might help you to have closure is to do a little bit of a guided imagery exercise. And so what you would do there, if you've ever done any kind of guided imagery before, that's great. You know, if not, this is a fine time to try. It's pretty simple. If you've ever, you know, even really had a daydream before, then you've had some experience with guided imagery. And so what you would do is you would just imagine yourself, say, one year into the future in June of 2021. And you imagine yourself talking with a friend, you know, clinking glasses, maybe as you cheers or have a dinner or lunch together. And, you know, picture yourself both talking and laughing and reflecting back on the, you know, spring, summer of 2020, when quarantine was a thing. And, you know, just remembering together what it was like. And what that activity can do is it can help to kind of nudge your mind a little bit into a different place of perspective about quarantine. I kind of compare it, for example, when I have a client who's going through a really bad breakup, and they feel like they're never going to, you know, live again or love again, I'll sometimes ask them to think about a previous breakup with a different person that maybe they felt the same way about. And then reflecting back on that experience and realizing that, in fact, now, they feel quite over that person from the past. And so then I'll ask them to imagine themselves in the future feeling the same way about the current breakup. So that's one way that you can actually use a little bit of guided imagery to nudge yourself forward and to remind your mind that you do have the ability to move forward and have a little bit more perspective. Now, another thing that is obviously going to be coming up for many of us, you know, is the topic of uncertainty. You know, we can say, okay, well, closure is fine, but, you know, what comes next after that? And I'm going to be going into that now, but I'll just share with you that the bottom line is that certainly we always want to focus on what we can control rather than the things that we cannot control. And you may have heard that before, but we're going to be going a little bit deeper into what are some of the things that you can control and how can you keep your focus on those things. And also, we want to increase our self-care. And we also want to remember that this is actually an opportunity for growth, to increase our ability to rely on ourselves during challenging times. When this is all over, one day we're going to be able to say, wow, you know, I lived through quarantine. And during, excuse me, during difficult times, sometimes relationships tend to either get a lot better or they really go sideways. And that's true of your relationship with yourself as well. So, this is definitely a time when we want to increase our self-care. Now, again, about uncertainty, I work with high-functioning people, which I'm guessing probably most people watching this live stream would be considered high-functioning people. And high-functioning people sometimes struggle with uncertainty because they're afraid that it means that they haven't really done their due diligence or that maybe they're missing something. And so, they can get a little bit critical or antsy when there's uncertainty. And sometimes that's actually a good thing. That stimulates them to go seek information and get clarity. That's a healthy strategy if clarity is actually available. But it's really not the best strategy if clarity is not available. And, of course, clarity is really not available on exactly what, you know, the reopening and everything is going to look like. So, what I would encourage you to do is to recognize that, you know, nobody knows what's going to happen next. You know, you're definitely not alone in that. And so, you might also want to recognize that, in fact, awareness of uncertainty, the ability to articulate and name it, that's actually a gift. That's a sign of maturity. People who are unable or unwilling to tolerate or acknowledge uncertainty are vulnerable to creating narratives as if uncertainty exists when it actually doesn't. Or they might start to micromanage or try to control things that actually cannot be controlled just as a way to take out their anxiety over having to deal with uncertainty in some other area of life. So, we also want to maybe welcome uncertainty as a sign that we're learning some new skills here, that, you know, some new things are happening. We're all in this together. And, again, the idea that you notice the uncertainty is actually a positive thing. So, now that we've said to ourselves, okay, we're going to definitely acknowledge the fact that it's here, we're going to accept it, and maybe even learn to embrace it and grow from it, you know, here are some tips about that. We want to think about the things that we can control. One of those things is going to be, for example, exposure to the news, choosing to practice self-care, maybe choosing whether or not to do some of the closure exercises that I've talked about already, as well as some of the other exercises and things that are coming up here. Now, I mentioned limiting your exposure to the news, which is, you know, I think a good idea, especially in this time, because you have to remember, of course, that the news media, they get paid by the more eyeballs that they can get on their screen, right? So, they have a real incentive to keep you guessing, to keep you in a place of uncertainty, to make you feel like you really need, need, need to know the next update. I'm certainly not discouraging anyone from watching the news or from getting important information, but you do just want to make sure that you're not just allowing yourself to be totally and constantly assaulted with, you know, whatever the news media happens to put on. You can also control your self-talk. So, just like we were just discussing that, you know, learning how to understand that your uncertainty is actually a gift and that nobody knows what's going on right now, you might think about self-talk like uncertainty is appropriate right now. Uncertainty is actually the appropriate, you know, response for me to have to the situation. That can help to normalize it a little bit, and it can be kind of grounding for you to have that. Another piece of self-talk that might be helpful would be something like, no matter what happens, I will take care of myself and my loved ones, because that also puts some boundaries around the uncertainty. There may be a lot of things that we don't know, but one of the things that we do know is that we can count on ourselves. Certainly, another thing that's within your control is the ability to ask for help and to talk to somebody. So, you know, whether it be a friend or a therapist or, you know, someone at your place of worship, it's certainly within your control to talk through things, and that can be helpful in times of uncertainty. Sometimes feelings just actually really need attention. And, you know, as a psychologist, it always gets me when I hear people say, oh, they just want attention, like it's a bad thing. Wanting attention is not a bad thing. And if you have feelings of uncertainty that want attention, give it to them. And you do that by, you know, talking them through with a trusted friend or, you know, writing about them or journaling about them, because when we don't listen to feelings or stress when it's at lower levels, that doesn't make it go away. It just actually oftentimes makes the feelings become louder because they feel like they need to get louder and more rambunctious in order to get our attention. Another important thing to remember about uncertainty and challenging times in general is that this is the time when we increase our relationship with ourself, our ability to know that, you know, you are there for yourself and that you can count on yourself, that you'll take good care of yourself. It's also a good time to maybe review some past successes that you've had during times of uncertainty. So, for example, when you finished school and you were fresh on the job market, that was a very uncertain time, but you managed to get through it. Or if you've ever been through a divorce or, like I mentioned, a breakup, there's a lot of times in your life, if you think back, where you've had to deal with a lot of uncertainty and unknowns, but you've been able to get through it. You know, again, whether it become, you know, being a parent or quitting smoking, you've probably done a lot of hard things in your life. And if you actually just make a list of them, then that can help to remind you who you are. Another thing that I want to talk about, just shifting gears a little bit as we think about reopening, is the difference between, the difference and the similarities between anxiety and excitement. So, as you can see from this roller coaster here, sometimes we actually love a thrill. A little bit of a scary thrill even can be quite energizing for us. And so, as we start thinking about the reopening, you know, going out, interacting with people that we haven't seen in a long time and putting ourselves out there literally in a new way, that can actually be kind of exciting. And we might be prone to actually read signs of excitement, physiological signs of excitement, like a little bit of adrenaline or a little bit of butterflies in our stomach. We might be prone to read that as anxiety, when in fact it might even be excitement. That's why things like, you know, whether it be roller coasters or scary movies or whatever else, can give us that, you know, thrill. Now, one way that we can start to influence the way that we read our own signals as excitement, potentially, rather than anxiety, would be to ask yourself, when you are feeling those, you know, sensations of the jitters, as you think about reopening, is to ask yourself, is there something I can do right now or some plan I can make in order to protect myself? Because certainly I'm not trying to get you to just start mislabeling anxiety as excitement. The healthy function of anxiety is to stimulate self-care preparatory behaviors. So, the first thing we want to do when we feel those feelings is to ask, you know, is there something I should be doing to take care of myself right now? And if the answer is no, you've really already done all the things that you need to do to prepare, then ask yourself, is there something I might be excited about right now? And start thinking about those potential things as well. Now, another thing that I want to talk a little bit about is the difference between healthy vigilance and ruminating. So, vigilance, again, is that ability to be looking and scanning and thinking and planning carefully, but ruminating is when you're just spinning your wheels. You're just sitting there going over the same material and there's nothing that you can necessarily even do about it, and then you start becoming anxious about being anxious. And that can actually almost become a little bit of an addictive cycle. We can start to become almost addicted to the adrenaline or we can have a cognitive habit that whenever we have a little bit of downtime, we go into this place of fear and of thinking about, you know, all of the catastrophic thinking about reopening that might happen. And so, if you feel like that's something that you might have been doing, then I would encourage you to think about a technique that I call the mental shortlist that I created and it's in my book, which is Nervous Energy. And you can see in drcloy.com slash hello, you can, you know, link up with me on social media if you're not already. And there's a link about the book as well. But with the mental shortlist technique, what you would do is you would think of, say, five things in advance that you know would be much better for you to spend your mental energy on rather than running through over and over all these doomsday scenarios about the reopening. And so, your mental shortlist could include anything from maybe having a list of birthday and holiday gifts that you want to be brainstorming and staying on top of to, you know, some weekend plans that you think you want to make, maybe a work project or two, maybe a list of friends, creating a list of friends that you need to call and say hello to. I like the number five for a mental shortlist because it's big enough that you can have a little bit of variety, but it's not, you know, overwhelming because the idea is that you actually do want to be able to have your mental shortlist memorized. So that way, you know, no matter where you are, no matter what's going on, if the old kind of thought monster strikes and you find yourself in that ruminating space, you can immediately pivot onto your mental shortlist instead. This technique will help you with stuff even besides COVID. The idea is that when there's something that you're thinking about maybe a little bit too much, you don't want to just tell yourself not to think about it. That's like telling yourself not to think about pink elephants. It just reinforces the topic in your mind. So what you do is you have five really good topics that you have ready for yourself instead. I sometimes also compare this to like with emotional eaters. If they just have a fridge full of really good, healthy pre-cut snacks, they'll go and eat those. But if they don't have them ready, then it's a lot harder for them in the middle of a snack attack to think of what would be a good, healthy meal. So the mental shortlist is the same. You come up with five really good, productive, you know, purposeful topics, enjoyable topics to think about. And that way, you can deliberately pivot easily onto those if you find yourself going into a place of rumination. So another thing that I want to talk a little bit about is social anxiety. So many of us haven't necessarily spent a lot of time around people because of quarantine. We haven't been spending time certainly around as many people. And so we can get a little anxious thinking about, you know, going back into in-person groups. And it's easy to actually confuse that with thinking that you don't want to go and be with people. And I just want to let you know that in fact, it's often the opposite. Sometimes we actually have social anxiety because we specifically really want the interactions to go well. So if you're feeling a little of anxiety about, you know, reconnecting with people, you know, please don't necessarily just interpret that automatically as a negative. It could actually be that you're really excited about getting together with people, and you just want to make sure that it's going to go well. Now, it is a little bit unfortunately of like a perfect storm. Because when we do get together, you know, people are keeping social distance still, they might be wearing masks, etc. And there's something called rejection sensitivity, rejection sensitivity, where even though we intellectually know why people are doing this, in the back of our minds, we could feel like, Oh, you know, how come nobody's smiling at me, right? Because we just can't see them smiling behind their masks. But just in that kind of back of our brain, we might just feel like, Hmm, nobody's smiling at me, everybody's standing far away from me, you know, why is that happening? And so it can be really important to, you know, use thought replacement, to to deal with that, or to get yourself an ally, and or to get yourself an ally. So with thought replacement, you might want to create self statements, like, you know, we're actually distant from each other, because we care about each other, we're keeping our distance, because we care about each other. Or, you know, we're all in this together. And I know we all can't wait for this to be over. And those types of statements might sound really simple, and almost like platitudes, when you're sitting here in your calm state of mind. But if you really memorize them, then they will be handy, potentially, for you to use when your mind starts spinning out. And you're, you know, a little bit beside yourself, and a little bit scattered, and a little bit nervous, because you're in a socially anxious space. So coming up with those thought replacements in advance can be helpful. Another thing that can be helpful is to think of an ally, to find an ally. So these two guys on screen, I realized that many of us won't actually be having physical contact and fist bumps at the office. But you know, you get the idea that if you're going back to the office, and you're a little nervous about seeing like everybody again, you might want to just text or email one or two of your friends and say, hey, I'm, you know, a little nervous slash excited about going back into the office. You know, it'd be nice if we might, you know, plan to take a little walk at lunchtime together, touch base, that kind of thing. Sometimes just having an ally is really all that you need. So Maura, my wonderful assistant here is going to come on and share a couple of words. And then I'm going to go ahead and talk about some new habits and things like that that we're going to be trying to build. Maura, take it away. Thank you, Dr. Chloe. I just want to say thank you again to everyone for joining us. And I remind everyone that I am monitoring the comments on every platform. So if you have questions, something you're interested, any comments to share with Dr. Chloe, feel free to comment them below and I'll be able to see them. And if we don't get to answering any of your questions today, don't worry. It's good to know what questions you have when planning future live streams. If you are watching this and you are not on our mailing list as well, you can absolutely DM us your email and we'll keep you up to date with future events as well. As Dr. Chloe mentioned, the link drchloe.com slash hello, which is on screen, is where you can connect with her on her social media. They are all linked there, as well as the link to pre-order her new book, Nervous Energy. It's super exciting that it's up for pre-order. We've gotten great feedback so far. So if you'd like to pre-order her book, the link is right there on drchloe.com slash hello. So thank you again. I'm really excited to hear the rest of the presentation, Dr. Chloe. Thanks, Maura. Yes, I'm really excited to share. So we've got only about 15 minutes left and then we'll be all back to our days. So I'm just going to jump right in. So with new habits, I just want to highlight that it does take about 66 days to build a habit. And now we're like, you know, 80 plus days into quarantine. So we definitely now do have a habit of staying in. So just simply going outside is going to start to feel a little bit, you know, awkward and new because it is new. But the good news is that psychology studies show that when we are relearning an old habit, we actually learn it a lot faster than when we have to learn a new habit. So the process of flipping the switch and getting back out there is actually likely to be easier than the original process of building the quarantine habit was in the first place. And we're going to talk a little bit about some ways that we can make it, you know, feel a little bit more normal for ourselves. First, I just want to normalize that, you know, it can absolutely feel a little bit awkward when you're back out there in the world and, you know, you're dealing with, you know, maybe a mask or, you know, maybe there's a new organization or protocol at your office and everything can seem a little bit different. And so I would just urge you not to, you know, get anxious about that. I just want to normalize that. And I want to discourage you from comparing yourself and your sense of ease with how you felt, you know, shortly before quarantine started. It's not really a fair comparison for you to give yourself to compare, you know, the first few weeks of being back out there in the world, comparing that to what it felt like the first, you know, when you were, you know, in your normal life. Also, you have to remember that other people are going through their own awkward phases as well. So if other people seem a little bit off or a little bit distant, especially for the first few weeks, it can be helpful to just try not to read too much into it. And, you know, just normalize the fact that it's actually almost supposed to feel a little bit awkward at first. The more patient you are with yourself, ironically, the easier it will go. Another thing that can help with the relearning process as we're starting to relearn our old habits of being out there is to increase our motivation to be out there. So for another, you know, quarantine activity to get yourself excited and motivated around the process of getting out there is to start focusing on the benefits of the transition. So earlier, when we talked about secondary gains, we were talking about getting in touch with the gains and the benefits of quarantine, and that at one point in time, it was probably really helpful for you to really focus on those benefits and not focus very much on what you were missing, because there was nothing you could do about it anyway. But now it's changing. At this point in time, now, it's going to start to help you to reconnect with your desire for your life outside of your house, right? So here we've got a picture of a man at a spin class, and we've got, you know, friends or co-workers chatting. You know, in the past, you know, pining for these types of activities, there was no real benefit to you in doing that. Whereas now, it actually can help you to start reconnecting with your desire for your, you know, previous life. So what you might want to do is actually make a list of all of the people and places and things that you're excited to see again, you know, whether it be your barista at Starbucks, or, you know, just friends or your favorite spinning instructor, really make a list for yourself. And if you really are, you know, a little nervous about transitioning from quarantine, and you want to pull out all the stops, what you could even do is start to actually get some pictures or images of some of the people and places that you will be encountering again, and start putting them up around your house. I know it might sound kind of silly, but your unconscious brain actually thinks in what we call pre-verbal terms, it doesn't always actually think in language. And so starting to have some pictures and images around your house of some of the people and places that you are, you know, at least in theory, excited to reconnect with, will start to socialize your brain to the idea of being around those people and start to awaken your sense of relationship with those people. And that will start to increase your motivation. And when we have motivation to learn to transition, then the transition process is easier. When we have a motivation to learn something, then the learning process is always easier. So we want to get in touch now with our motivation and our reasons for wanting to transition. Another thing that I just want to share a little bit about is the topic of defensive pessimism. So defensive pessimism is, you know, kind of as the name sounds, when we think a little bit about the downsides or the problems about things as a way to protect ourselves against disappointment. And to a certain degree, this is actually a really healthy and helpful thing to do. A person with no defensive pessimism skills would just be constantly disappointed. You know, they would just always expect everything to go 100% their way. And, you know, they'd be shocked and blindsided when that didn't happen. So a certain amount of defensive pessimism, I just want to say is actually great. But we do want to learn how to keep it in check. So we don't want to, you know, go into catastrophic thinking or not really allow ourselves to get excited and to think about how it could potentially be nice to connect with some people, places and things that we haven't seen in a long time. So, you know, we want to allow ourselves to do that. So we want to ease up on the defensive pessimism, but not trying to get rid of it altogether. And the same thing is actually true of anxiety in general, by the way. A lot of times clients will come to me and they'll say, you know, Chloe, how can I just get rid of my anxiety? I'm so sick of being plagued by anxiety. I just want to get rid of it. And I always want to let them know that, in fact, anxiety is actually an important thing that we need. We wouldn't want to get rid of anxiety. Anxiety stimulates preparatory behaviors, just like to a certain degree defensive pessimism can as well. But we don't want to get so good at it that we end up actually drowning out our awareness of the possibility for positive things as well. So if you think you might be someone that is a little bit too prone to defensive pessimism, then challenge yourself to just spend five minutes only thinking about some of the excitement and the possibilities and things that you feel hopeful about. Even just for five minutes, that can help to kind of nudge your mind into a little bit of a different perspective. Another thing I want to talk about as we start to think about wrapping up, I can't believe how quickly time flies here, is the topic of behavioral activation. So behavioral activation is another psychology term where when we start to take on the behaviors of a person in a certain mindset, we actually start to take on that mindset. The typical example of this in psychology textbooks is often that with a very depressed person, sometimes their hygiene will start to go. They'll not be taking showers and things or practicing literal physical self-care as often. And I've witnessed it firsthand as a psychologist when I was training, working in inpatient units and hospitals. Sometimes for a very depressed person, what would help more than any medication or therapy was simply to be forced into a shower. They didn't want to do it, but once they got in there and had a shower, they would actually end up feeling a lot better. How does this pertain to quarantine? Many of us have taken on a behavioral activation potentially of a socially anxious person, of a depressed person, or of a socially avoidant person. And we may have almost behaviorally activated ourselves into a place of becoming a little bit socially avoidant or socially disconnected or socially anxious. The good news is, is that behavioral activation works in a positive way as well. So if you were to even just take the plunge, force yourself to text a friend and say, you know, look, I feel like I need, you know, a dry run of, you know, getting together with another person before I can set foot in the office. You know, could we just get together and, you know, have a drink, have a cup of coffee, whatever. If you just start taking those little behaviors to start activating the part of yourself that is connected with other people and with the world outside of your home, a lot of times just that will nudge your mind to follow. So people sometimes think that it's our thoughts that lead to our behavior. To a certain degree, that's true. But a lot of times our behavior can actually also influence our thoughts. So that's just a good thing to think about as well. Now, another thing you could do, you know, is to talk to a therapist. Obviously, this live stream is not therapy. It's not a replacement for therapy by any stretch. But sometimes, you know, some of the activities that we've discussed here, like, you know, making a story or talking things through or getting some support, those things can be done, you know, by yourself or with a friend. Or they can also be done with a therapist. Or, you know, also if you're feeling like maybe there's like a little bit more to this for you. Maybe this has touched off some deeper feelings about, you know, survival or connection. And you want to take the opportunity, actually, while you're still feeling a little vulnerable and really in touch with some of these feelings. Sometimes that can actually be a perfect window of opportunity to go and talk to a therapist. Now, I'll admit, I almost, you know, almost as a joke, made this person look like he's having a really great time as he's talking to a video therapist. And I did that on purpose, just because I want everyone to know that actually talking to a therapist can be kind of fun. We're nice people. We don't bite. You know, certainly we do talk about sometimes heavy topics. But the idea is oftentimes that these topics are more manageable than the person might have thought. And the act of going through and talking and getting some support usually actually does feel pretty good at the end of the day. So as we start to think about our conclusion here, I really like this picture of a woman looking outside of her window. And you can see a new day is dawning. And I want us to start to think about that a little bit with that frame of mind as we start to think about transitioning from quarantine. So just to review some of the things that we've talked about here today, we want to think about listing our motivations for why we want to transition from quarantine, potentially doing a little one pager of our quarantine story to get some closure, remembering to focus on what we can control, potentially finding an ally at the office, or, you know, creating some thought replacements that we can say to ourselves about, you know, we're distant from each other because we care about each other to help to keep ourselves on track if we think we may otherwise be prone to kind of spinning out into a rejection-sensitive, socially anxious monologue. You know, also creating that mental shortlist of good, healthy, fun, productive topics to think about if you think you might be prone to just, you know, ruminating in kind of a negative way or catastrophic thinking about the reopening, you know, when you've already done everything that you can to help yourself, and you're just ruminating, then that would be the time to think about that mental shortlist technique from my book, Nervous Energy. And also to remember to manage your defensive pessimism and to be patient with yourself as you relearn these things and to understand and normalize the fact that it can be a little bit awkward at first, but it's okay. That's the way it's supposed to be. Nobody actually really has this figured out yet. And, you know, one of those self-talk pieces, again, to remember that uncertainty is actually the appropriate thing to feel right now, and this is an opportunity to build some skills and deepen your relationship with yourself. But I just want to emphasize again that everything I talked about here today, these are just ideas. These are not obligations. Obviously, you should take what works and sounds like it may be good for you, and whatever doesn't seem like it's going to apply to you, you know, no problem at all. I'm just here to offer some support and some potential ideas. Now, these are all of my social media handles here, and also you should see on screen drclay.com slash hello, where you can please, you know, sign up for my newsletter so I can stay in touch with you. And if you feel like you want to hit the share button on this presentation to anybody that you think might want it, I would certainly appreciate it. I'm always excited to get my message out there, and it could also potentially be very helpful, you know, for the people in your community if you feel like these tips would be helpful for them. So I'm certainly open to doing more live streams in the future. So like Maura said, if you want to DM us with your email address, we'll add you to our newsletter. If you want to DM us with questions or ideas for future live streams, doesn't have to be COVID related. By all means, we're here and we're interested and we're listening. So thank you again so much, everyone for coming. And I'm going to go ahead now and see if I can figure out how to how to end the live stream. That's the one thing I didn't figure out. But thanks, everybody. Have a great day. Well, thanks so much for listening to that unique episode of the High Functioning Hotspot, just the audio of the free live stream that I did on the horizon. So as I mentioned earlier in the show notes here, we will have a link to the full episode on video if you want to watch the original. And if you do feel like you heard some tips or some fresh ideas that you like, by all means, communicate with me, share them with me on social media, or, you know, share a link or whatever on social media. I do always appreciate if I'm able to help spread the word. And if you're able to help me do that, that's fantastic. But either way, thank you so much again for listening. I'm looking forward to connecting again at the next episode.