Carla Miller 00:00
Welcome to the Influence and Impact podcast for female leaders.

My name is Carla Miller, and I'm a leadership coach who helps female leaders to tackle self doubt, become brilliant at influencing and make more impact at work. I've created this podcast to help you to become a more inspiring and impactful leader.

We'll be talking about all the different topics that affect you, as a woman leading today. Think of it as personal development meets professional development. And I want to become the leadership BFF. You didn't know you were missing until now. Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of the influence and impact podcast where we're still on summer holidays. And so we are bringing back one of the most popular episodes that we have done to date, which is an interview with Tim McLaren brown on overthinking and how to stop doing it. It feels to me with everything that's going on in the news, I am getting very stuck in my head. I'm starting to worry about the future. I'm feeling quite sense of scarcity. Already, even though actually my everyday hasn't been impacted. And I am relying on some of the techniques that he shares in the interview, to help me rebalance and calm myself down. I may not be alone in that.

So I thought it would be a great episode to bring back to you. In other news, I'm off to Edinburgh tomorrow, I'm driving all the way to Edinburgh back because when I tried to book trains, they said, these are likely to be cancelled at the last minute, which is really reassuring when you're booking a train to go and speak. And so I'm excited about that. I'm going to go and speak to the Women's Network at ACO SPO, which basically is an organisation that supports Scotland's voluntary sector leaders, I think we've got about 25 incredible women in the room there, I'm going to be giving them the first copies of closing the influence gap, which aren't available on your shelves yet, but I have some. So I'm going to be giving them those we're going to be talking about what is the influence gap. And we're going to be talking about what they can do as leaders to help to close the influence gap for the next generation of women as well. So super excited about that. Some people have asked me to sign books, which just feels really weird. It's like, why would you want me to sign it what you want me to write in it. But I guess I will have to get used to that now that I am a properly published author. So that's exciting. Obviously, we're ramping up towards the book launch. The Kindle version launches on the 19th of September, the paperback version on the 20th of September. If you haven't already, and you'd like to support that launch, please do join my launch squad.

Go to Carla Miller training.com forward slash launch squad sign up there. And you'll just get a couple of emails that make it really easy for you to buy the Kindle version for just 99p on the day that it launches. It's only 99 P for Monday the 19th of September, and to share that offer with everybody else so that as many women as possible can grab it for just 99 pence. And there is also a really special thank you. For anyone who does participate in that I think we've got about 83 of you signed up at the moment, which is brilliant. I would love to get to 100. And I know I have about 1000 also regular listeners. So if that was on your to do list, please go and do it. That would be awesome. Thank you.

And a special thank you is that assuming we get enough people who are interested in it, we are going to run a pilot version of my career development community, which is the next evolution really of what I'm offering in terms of career support for women, and I am super excited about that. In other news, my son start school next week, which I'm both very excited about because he's ready. And it's a bit of a rite of passage and I'm also giving him a ridiculous amount of cuddles. And he's actually home right now for a playdate and has just come to join me in the room. You want to say hello? No, he's shaking his head. Anyway, this is why we are doing a run because it's school holidays. So enjoy this episode with tea. I hope that it is timely for you. We will have some fresh episodes for you soon. But don't forget that the book is available soon. Also, don't forget that Be Bolder is running in October. That's our four week confidence and assertiveness course for women at all levels. And so maybe that's relevant for you. Maybe it's well but for some of the women in your team, it's a really popular course and makes a huge difference in terms of how they feel about themselves and their ability to speak up in meetings and have challenging conversations. Okay, I am going to both deal with my little munchkin who's climbing all over me right now. And also risking my washing from the washing line because it started raining. Have a brilliant day. And I hope you really enjoy this episode. Take care. Okay, so delighted to welcome Tee to the podcast, how you doing it?

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 05:41
Good. Thank you. Happy to be here.

Carla Miller 05:44
And this is actually the first podcast I've ever recorded in person with someone. So you can picture us right now sitting on my living floor cross legged on a rug sharing a microphone between us. So yeah, this might feel more relaxed than a typical podcast.

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 06:00
Yeah. It's just like having a friend ground.

Carla Miller 06:04
Exactly, so the reason that I invited tea on is we talked about content ideas all the time for podcasts, and blogs. And she said, You should really do an episode on people returning back to work and how they can handle that, because it's bringing up quite a lot of anxiety for people. And I thought, Yeah, we really should, but actually, you sound like you know more about that than I do. So that's what's prompted this episode, isn't it? Yes, yeah. So do you want to tell us before we jump into that, do you want to tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to be focusing on this area of overthinking?

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 06:40
Yeah, so I started a few. Well, I started getting really into mindfulness and meditation. And I did it really slowly. And I teach people meditation now. And I always say, it took me like a whole year to be able to meditate every day. And so I got into that. And as I was doing, I thought, Oh, my God, this stuff's amazing. And then I got into that, you know, when you learn something new, and you're like, everybody needs to know about this. So I need to be the person to tell everyone about it. So I did that. And in that time, I left New Zealand and moved to London. And so things got a little bit, like busy with work, and trying to sort out my life and travelling lots. And then I had, I had a terrible relationship, which ended up with me being like, basically all my ass, like, what am I doing with my life, and I decided, I actually I really want, I really want to coach people, I really want to be able to teach this stuff. So why am I not doing it? So I started getting into coaching and I thought, oh, I want to do, what kind of coaching do I want to do or just helping people, but I really generally, and then I did a meditation course. And I was like, oh, no, this is what I want to do. So I was that person at my office, like, Hey, everyone, I've learned meditation and mindfulness. And now we're having lunchtime classes that you can come to staff room. And from the I got really interested in overthinking and why people overthink in teaching people how they can understand their thoughts and emotions better, and understand how their mind works, and also to be able to control those better. And through that, I ended up making a course which I have called Stop overthinking it. And it's a 12 week online programme with group coaching that I take people through, and they start as like total anxious, that's for anxious over thinkers. And then we ended up at the end of it with a calm mind that they are in control of and just a lot happier. I'm really all about like positivity and making people feel good and enjoy everything that there is in life. And for people who overthink or feel anxious, you're not really enjoying the life that they that you have. So by the end of that I really want people to be feeling really good like that. And to feel like they are the boss of their brain, not the overthinking mind being the boss of them.

Carla Miller 09:06
I love the idea of being the boss of your brain. And I'm a fan of meditation, mindfulness as well. Not as dedicated as you. I did once want to start my own meditation studio. Actually, there's this really cool well, there was it's now closed down thanks to COVID. But there was a really cool studio called mindful in New York. And I ended up having about four or five in New York, I think, and it was a space you went and they held meditation classes, but it was very cool. Yeah, same time. And I was like London needs that. Thank goodness, I did do it. I'd be bankrupt. Oh my gosh, right now I literally nearly did it. And then I was like, Oh, I'm having a baby. Well done to you for actually learning how to do all of this. So when we say mindfulness, what do we mean by that?

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 09:48
Um, mindfulness at its core, I always like to explain it is it's just being present. It's just being present with what's happening now, without judgement. So It's being in the moment, it's being able to pay attention to what's happening now. Without living in your head, I always call it living in your head. So we're really often we're living in our heads, we're in the past or in the future. And we're not actually focusing on what we're doing right now. What people are saying to us when they're talking to us, we might be doing something in our minds are really absent. And so it's about being able to just be in the now as it's happening in each moment as it's happening. And then the non judgmental part is really important. Because while we just naturally have judging minds, so we might actually be living in the now but then we're thinking about it in a certain way, instead of just letting it happen. And that's the case as well for ourselves. Often we're doing something and then in the back of our mind, there's that little voice thing like, Oh, why did you do it like that? Or you're so stupid? Or you should have tried the sort of why did you say that? And so being able to be a lot kinder to ourselves and not judge everything that we're doing just brings you a lot more peace, and I feel like being mindful brings a lot of instant peace, because it's, it's all our thoughts that create, like all our anxiety and our and our stress. And so if you're, if you're paying attention to the present moment, and being mindful, you don't have space in your brain for all the other stuff, all the other hundreds of thoughts that are coming in all the time, distracting you in causing you sometimes to feel horrible, and sometimes just to feel like completely overwhelmed.

Carla Miller 11:34
And were you an anxious overthinking yourself before this kicked off?

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 11:39
No, I wasn't. And that is quite that's something that I found that I've as I've had more clients and gone through with my stop overthinking it programme, I've added more bits to it, because I I got into it because I was interested in how my mind works. And I realised that I caused myself a lot of stress my pain more from the stress side. And once I realised that I could choose stress, I was like, oh my god, this is something that I'm creating for myself. And so yeah, it was more stress for me. But I've always been more of like a, I've got my positive financial drink bottle here. I've always been more of a positive fine fo and more kind of like a bit more, I guess happy go lucky in a bit more. I've always felt like I set my mind to something and I just do it. And I don't really worry about anything around this happening. So with my clients, it's been really good to learn more about how people think, and anxious and overthinking ways and how to be able to help them to do that.

Carla Miller 12:44
I’ve been reading a little bit about high functioning anxiety, which wasn't something I'd heard about before. But I think lots of my clients seem to have that where we're we're all performing incredibly well. But there's a really high cost to us internally in terms of what we're doing to our own head and how much we're beating ourselves up along the way. And I used to do that hugely. And I catch myself now. But yeah, we often don't take time to enjoy our successes, do we? Because we're just worrying about the next thing worrying about the future.

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 13:16
Yes, yeah, I always say that we, it's so funny, because we're always this kind of two ways you can think about the future. And I'm the type of person who's like, oh, new ideas, new plans, or I'm always thinking ahead of like, okay, well, tomorrow, I've got to do this. And the next day, I've got to do that. And then there's people who are worrying about the future, what we're gonna need some feeling anxiety about it. But it's funny, because we're always will, we're kind of like living in a moment, but our mind is always ahead of us. And then when you get to that maybe you get to the next day that you've been worrying about, as you're living that day. You're already in the next day in your head. And so we're constantly like just always jumping ahead of ourselves and never actually living in doing concentrating on the thing we're supposed to be doing. Because we're always in the future worrying about something or planning,

Carla Miller 14:05
or whatever. I have this ongoing discussion with Charlie, my three year old where I'll say we'll do that tomorrow. And he'll say it is tomorrow because that's what I said yesterday or tomorrow never. How do you explain that concept with rerun, but it's so true. Like we actually never get to tomorrow is always stuck with you can't control that future. Can you only control this moment that you know if I can control this moment? You can only work with your response or reaction? Yeah.

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 14:39
Yeah, yes. Yeah, tomorrow is never gonna come. But we can worry about it. So I try to help people to see like actually, if you are always worrying about the future, you're always creating anxiety about the future. You're basically wasting your energy because you Can never, you can't predict the future. And even if you have a really good idea of what could possibly happen, it's probably not going to happen in the way that you're thinking anyway. And so we really could actually channel that energy into the moment that we're in now or living in our day now, instead of wasting all our mental and emotional energy, worrying about what could happen in the future. And some, and I think for some of my clients is always like a bit of a switch, where they're like, Oh, my God, I am just wasting my time here like this. Why am I doing this and and the thing about our bodies is our emotions. And our stress response is only in the now like, our body doesn't know the past or the future, but our brain can go anywhere it wants to go. And so when we are worrying about the future, or about tomorrow, we're causing that stress in our body right now, even though you might be like sitting on the couch, watching TV, absentmindedly start thinking about something and worrying about it, you might be two days in the future in your mind, but your body in the now was like, Oh, my God, I'm under attack, something bad's gonna happen. And you get that you get that stress response. And we cause ourselves a lot of a lot of unnecessary stress and strife. And we waste a lot of our time and energy. Because we've jumped ahead, and we're worrying about what, what could possibly happen. And grunting through all those scenarios.

Carla Miller 16:26
Do you think it's exacerbated by the fact we've got such a short attention span? At the moment, but I'm multitasking all the time, even when I'm watching something on my laptop, lying on the sofa, which is how I spend most of my evenings. I also have my phone to hand and I must be grabbing from my phone about every 1015 minutes and just checking. I don't seem to be able to just fully focus on one thing.

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 16:53
Yeah, actually didn’t you just you did that live recently with work life mother. And she said that something that helps her is reading a book because you can't multitask while you're reading a book so that you're you're so focused. And I think that that's one example. But yeah, you're right when we watch TV, or we're on our laptops, or I was working and watching Queer Eye at the same time, which obviously isn't very productive. I think that is how that that's just a habit we've gotten into. And that's the thing with our brains, and I say to people, like you're not stuck with the mind that you have, it's just that you haven't trained it properly. And that's why meditation and mindfulness are so helpful, because it actually builds up that ability to focus on. So it's like building up muscles in your brain. So it's building up that focus muscle, and then you actually do have a better ability to be able to focus on one thing and give it all your attention. But we just got into these like thinking habits where we're like, like to have lots of different things happening at the same time. Or we just kind of let our brain do what it wants, which is naturally like all over the show. And instead of being yeah, like I said, being the boss of anything out of trainer and being more disciplined with it. And it does take discipline, I always say like motivation is amazing, but it doesn't really work. And so if you are trying to say like with my phone, I have this little box, that I've put this child's wrapping paper around to make it fun. But I put my phone inside the box, and it's not allowed in my workspace when I've got my laptop and I'm trying to do work. And that in itself has helped me focus. And so it's about like understanding that, okay, my brain is probably naturally going to be quite sketchy. But how can I do things to change like the functioning of it through mindfulness and meditation, and also understand that I need to set myself boundaries and really stick to them. And if it takes like putting your phone in a box and putting a lid on it and saying, like, sometimes we like, right, you're allowed to scroll on Instagram, but you can only do it while you're standing up. Like that. It's pretty, it's a pretty short scroll for me because I'm like, I don't want to stand in the kitchen, holding my phone. So being out and being out of sight like okay, yeah, actually, it is really hard to focus, but how do I create more focus for myself. And then slowly underneath that working on, like building up those muscles in terms of like being mindfulness and having a more focused frame because it really is just that it's not, we're not like, we're kind of we've kind of let our brains do whatever they want and not knowing that we can train them and that we actually can have control over our thoughts and we can have control over our emotions and I feel like I'm always say, if only we learned this at school because it'll be so helpful and I know that they're doing more things like this in schools, but I feel like all the stuff that I have now learned and forgotten like an S class or in computing or whatever else I did, making scones And cooking, my time would have been better spent learning about my emotions and emotional control and my thoughts and how I can actually train my brain. So it works for me instead of being like I always says, I can handle rolling puppy. We've all got an unruly puppy brain. And we just didn't know that we could take it to puppy school.

Carla Miller 20:21
I love that. I'm really puppy. Yeah, absolutely. So listening to a podcast, actually, with Nicole remember the name of the author. But his book is called in distractible, and he was talking about how you can surf the wave of discomfort. So the example when he was talking about the example I had in my head is I've I'm sitting writing some, some copy, which I find quite hard to do, like I can do it that involves intense thinking. And if I get to a point where I'm stuck, I reach for something. So I reach for anyone to listen to those I reach for column Caterpillar, although I reached for my phone, and what that interview of that podcast helped me realise was actually what I wanted to do was reach for some comfort, because I was sitting in discomfort and I didn't want I just wanted to snap out of discomfort as quickly as I possibly could. And at least I'm aware of that now. But he was saying, one thing you can do is either say, Okay, well you can have or do that thing, but in 10 minutes time, and then distract yourself do something else, or you can surf the wave of it. So you can just sit and notice, like notice the fact that your hands itching to, to grab something and that awareness is, is really interesting that I keep forgetting to do it, I keep remembering the concept and forgetting to do it. But I really liked that idea of like surfing the wave of the deer that it's not going to stay constant, you're not going to sit there and then explode because you haven't got your Colin, the caterpillar, or reach for your phone, you're going to be able to notice something yourself.

Tahirih McLaren-Brown
Yeah, that and that's definitely what I do. If I, if I get stuck, like writing a sentence, and or I just get this little, little ounce of boredom, I instantly want to reach for my phone, which is why it's so helpful having a weigh in a box because I can't do that. And I talk about this. I recently talked about this on Instagram as well about loneliness. And sometimes we if we're alone, because we're not used to being alone without distractions, we feel like, we get that little like that discomfort. And then we feel like okay, well, I need to like go and watch a YouTube video or I need to turn the TV on, or I need to scroll on my phone because I'm feeling this like, or something. And often we don't let it be uncomfortable for long enough to even realise what it is like, usually if it's automatic, and like you said, you're uncomfortable, because then you're doing something a little bit harder, and you just reach for your phone straightaway. You've never actually worked out like, Oh, why am I feeling like this. And that's what I feel like the same with people, people ability to be alone at the moment, even when you're not alone, you're waiting in line at the supermarket. And you are like standing there for five seconds. And then you're like, oh no. And then you get your phone because you feel that just can't fit again about being there and not having anything to keep you occupied. And we've gotten into this world where we're so used to being occupied. And I think that discomfort thing is really something that we all need to pay attention to with all of our emotions, especially anxiety and overthinking because a lot of us avoid feeling, feeling our emotions because they're uncomfortable. And so instead of letting them come up, and instead of kind of sitting with them and figuring out why we're feeling that way, we instantly try to do something to distract ourselves or push them away. And I always like to remind people that it's only discomfort, like that feeling of anxiety, that feeling of worry, or that feeling of stress, it's not actually going to kill you, it's not even going to hurt you. It's just going to feel uncomfortable. And if you can get used to sitting and discomfort and asking yourself, Why am I feeling this way? And what's kind of triggering this? And what thoughts Am I having that are creating this, then you can actually work through it and help yourself rather than constantly pushing it down or distracting yourself from it, which eventually it's all just going to explode, explode and come up anyway which people find that happens to them. So yeah, I think just comes it's really interesting because as soon as we feel uncomfortable, we try and push it away. But actually if you just like set a timer for five or 10 minutes and just sit with it for a little while. It makes your life so much better. And it's so easy to be able to do that.

Carla Miller 24:38
The only time I have ever done that is meditating. So I've done a couple of like half day meditation sessions or whole day meditation sessions and that thing where you know you've got pins and needles in your foot and you really want to move and just going with that although I do for like my foot gets dead or undead or a dad or as I no longer there with discomfort than I would do normally Yeah, then my brain gets a bit obsessed with the discomfort.

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 25:03
Yeah, I mean, yes, you can. That's all you can think about as you're like, I can't get rid of this. But that's another great thing about meditation is that you do learn to sit in discomfort and not just physical discomfort. Sometimes you'll go to meditate and something will feel off or you're upset about something, and allowing yourself to sit. And meditation with those feelings is so helpful to be able to work through them. And really, if you're sitting in silence for like, 10 minutes, you can't, you can't avoid the emotions. It's like coming up.

Carla Miller 25:32
There's some really good I when I first learned to meditate, I think I use the headspace and may get you to notice, like, what emotions are on going on for you and what you're feeling in your body. And that's really interesting. So I meditate for 10 minutes every day that I don't have Charlie. I can't do it. And I have Charlie and I don't want to do it. I wasn't so firstly in the morning, first thing in the morning is having a child clamber on. And last thing at night, I will just fall asleep. So that's my excuse. So four days a week, I meditate for 10 minutes, and I have to do it. At the same time. I have to have it as my routine. And then I noticed if I've missed it for some reason, like there's a call I really noticed. Yeah, I missed it. But it just for me, it's, it's bringing calmness, but I remember reading somewhere they describe meditation as basically saying is paying attention to yourself. And when you pay attention. And attention basically is the same as love. So it's basically a way to be loving to yourself is to just pay attention to yourself and what's going on for you for like five or 10 minutes a day. I've never really progressed. Now, I did do 20 minutes before I had Charlie, and I thought he was gonna be a really Zen baby because I meditated all the time when I was pregnant. And the first few days he was really then and then he was the least sent child as well. It still is the least time. I'd like to teach him.

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 26:48
Yeah, yeah so good for kids as well to learn and to understand, like, how this, you know, often, children can't really express how they're feeling properly that to be able to understand like, Oh, this is what like, this is what my anger feels like, this is what my like being upset feels like, as I'm, yeah, it's really helpful. And I know his face does have like kids series on there now. So that's really cool. I

Carla Miller 27:14
have to check that out. And now the reason that we initially started talking about this was talking about going back to work, because lots of people obviously are, even if it's just partially heading back towards the office at this point, what do you think is going on for people in that situation?

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 27:32
I think some people will be really excited, like a lot of it. I think a lot of the stuff that's around at the moment is you know, like easing back into work. But I feel like lots of people, actually there's some people who will be really excited about it, because I've missed being in the office. And I always think about people who are younger, who perhaps are working in their bedrooms and share a house with like five other people which has just been horrible. So there's that that I think lots of people I think that it's not enough might not even be specifically for going back to work but it's just that human beings hate uncertainty, and we hate things being unknown and our our reptilian brain, Aliza brain is always trying to protect us. And that's one of the reasons why we overthink because our little lizard brain is like I'm doing such a great job, like making sure Cal is safe. But actually all it's doing is like, hey, that's dangerous. And that could go wrong, you should worry about this. So our brain there is like, oh, my gosh, this is uncertain, I'm not sure what's going to happen, these changes. And even though you might be like, Oh, I'm sick of being in my house all the time, actually, the thought of going back to work as a change that your brain is like, Oh, I'm not sure about this, because it's different. And I don't know what's going to happen. And there's all these new roles and, and it's not even just being at work, because it's like going to work and having to be on the tube or the train or in traffic again, or whatever. So I think lots of people will just be feeling some people will be feeling really anxious, and other people will just be feeling unsettled. And that's okay, as well. And I think that we have to just take it, I guess we have to be more mindful with it. Just take it as it comes. And, and really, like be aware of how you're feeling on each day that you're maybe going into work where you're thinking about it. And also not it sounds like it's such as such bad advice that nobody wants to hear, but it's like, don't worry about it. But is that what I was talking about before you know, we are constantly like trying to predict what could go wrong, and we're trying to think about all the different scenarios that could happen and perhaps with thinking about like, how we might be feeling unsafe there or what the protocol is going to be like and and all that. And really, we can't, we can't like do anything about that. So it's understanding like what you can control and then also I feel like just living as it happens and being an under unknowing, because our brain when it is like thinking about things like that. It always underestimates that will underestimate you, when you're worrying about things. It's, it's thanks, Oh, you don't have the resources to be able to deal with us you don't have you don't have the things to be able to deal with anything that comes your way. But actually, we do. And I think if you look back at other times that have been challenging for you that have been unexpected, you've probably like, handled it really well. And, and sometimes that, you know, sometimes we worry so much about a bad thing happening, that when the bad thing happening actually happens, it's feels better, because it's like, oh, that's finally happened. And I can do something about it. And we kind of need to take that mindset, like just in a smaller way with going back to work to be like, Oh, actually, I am. I'm an adaptable human. And I can work things out. And I can make things work for me in a fun just like gentle with myself and take the day as it comes, then I'm going to, I'm going to be fine going into work. And instead of kind of getting ourselves all worked up about the potential things that could be happening and, and all that all that uncertainty around it and knowing like you know what, I can handle uncertainty. And I'm just going to handle that as it happens.

Carla Miller 31:19
I think it's one of the biggest skills in mindfulness isn't it is that ability to embrace uncertainty, and so hard, I'm such a control freak, until you and I work together. And so I'll show you see in me like with as soon as the plan that I think is going to work doesn't work. I go into a lot of tears. But my brain goes into ideas mode and all let's try all these different things. Because I felt so much better when I have this clear plan. That was definitely going to work. Yeah.

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 31:52
Yeah, and I think lots of us are like that as well. We like to know what Yeah, we'd like to have a plan and really know what's going to happen with it. And that's the hard thing about things being uncertain, you just don't know. And that's something that we've all had to deal with for over a year now of thinking like, Okay, well, right, we're in lockdown for this time, but then what, but then maybe we're gonna get out and then we don't and then something changes. And we've had to really deal with like uncertainty head on. Because I think normally, we kind of live our lives in the flat, happy little bubble that nothing's uncertain, even though I always say, which might not be very reassuring, but everything is always uncertain. And so you can never predict what's going to happen like in the next five minutes, or the next day. But that's just the way we live. And if we can kind of accept that, and understand that, oh, he were able to look like this. And it's totally fine. And the other thing that I always try and say to people is everything good that's ever happened to you has been unknown and uncertain before it happened. So we often it's and it's not your fault, either to your brain, again, with negativity bias, thinking, oh, there's all this danger out there. And I don't have the resources. And there's underestimates all the opportunities that are out there for you. So you think about these things in terms of like all the bad things that could happen. But actually, there's a whole nother side to it, where there's so many all everything that's uncertain and unknown is full of so many amazing opportunities that could come your way or great things that could happen to you as small as like seeing somebody you know, or having a nice chat to somebody to bigger things like a big, a big great opportunity or an idea or something happening to you that you're like, oh my god, this is amazing. And I'm so lucky that this has happened but we're not very good at at thinking of uncertainty in that way. We often the word uncertainty instantly makes you think, Oh, something could go wrong.

Carla Miller 33:53
I've mentioned on the podcast before I like reading Buddhist books. And one of the concepts I find really interesting from that is that it would be so helpful if we could stop labelling things as good or bad. And just experience them as they are because so much of our so much of what we would consider unpleasantness actually comes because we've labelled it as bad. Like even just like a tummy ache. It's not a pain but a tummy ache. Like to us. It's like, oh, something's wrong alarm bells going off out. Actually, it's like, well, it's a sensation within the body. It's probably not super painful. It's not making you cry with pain. It's just a sensation, but because you've labelled it, and then we've got this whole story about the things you're not gonna be able to do later that day because you've got a tummy ache. Yeah, it's it's really interesting concept. I've not got very far in trying to apply it. But that I guess, fits into mindfulness as well.

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 34:43
Yeah, yeah. Sitting on Judgement coming back to that non judgement. And yeah, it is. It is if we label things as as bad and sometimes we label things that happen and then let it ruin the rest of our day, you know, instead If like that moment to moment, like living as things are happening, something bad will happen at like 10am. And you'll think, Oh, well, that's the rest of my day to give up now everything else is gonna be terrible. And then we carry that kind of emotion, we are much more aware of potential things that are going wrong. So you could have had something bad happened to you, and then somebody bumps into you in the street and you think, Oh, see, it's a bad day. To me, instead of just leaving that and, and, and going into the next moment, like not judging the things because if you've had the best morning ever, and so on hip hop done to you, you probably would have been like, oh, sorry, no worries, just carried on. So yeah, that labelling is a big thing that we do, but I think it just helps our brain to like, categorise things for us as an end to end the world. So overwhelming, just in general, for O'Brien net, to be able to label things makes it much easier for us to process them.

Carla Miller 36:00
Yeah, I remember someone telling me and I found it really useful showing the clients as well that people when they're feeling nervous, actually, when you think about the symptoms, so it might be like butterflies in your stomach, for example. That's the same as for excitement, as well. And so actually, if you just even just really label it as anticipation, so that it's not assuming that things will go wrong, but it could go either way.

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 36:25
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then all our like, all the sensations and emotions that we feel in our body, are triggered by our thoughts. And that's really helpful that if you are like overthinking or feeling anxious to be able to be like, Oh, I've got this feeling in my body, what thoughts Am I having that are causing this? And I think that helps to give you some more control as well. Because often when we're feeling anxious, or when we might be feeling nervous, we feel like we have absolutely no control over what's happening to us. I always like to think of that as like, this big wave has just dumped on us emotion on us. And then that's it. But if you understand that, oh, actually, I'm having thoughts that have triggered this reaction in my body. And to figure out, okay, what are the thoughts I'm having, and knowing that you have the ability to control your thoughts, even though that does take practice as well. But that's, that's like with feeling nervous or feeling anticipation. In fact, I actually, if you switch your thoughts around and label it something different, you feel completely differently about what's happening in your body.

Carla Miller 37:33
Yeah, I've got a poster just behind t that says good vibes only in pink, because I like a bit of pink. And the reason I have that up there is for that idea that you can pick your thoughts. Not. So I know there's a phrase at the moment, toxic positivity. And I am in no way suggesting that if you feel genuinely sad or angry, or any of those things that you go, or everything's fine and forget about it, I'm a big one for actually feeling your feelings. Having not done that for many years of my life. However, just like you just said, t, we can, we can choose a different if the thought we're having is unhelpful, we can choose a different thought. And I have it there because about two metres from there is where Charlie used to throw food on the floor. And it used to make me genuinely furious. And but I could then get in the right funk about it. And that's I don't, it's very, very rare. Now. I mean, possibly when I get hormonal, but it's very, very rare now that I will have a day of being in a funk, when actually that probably used to happen relatively frequently. Because now I exactly like you're saying that I recognise I recognise. I'm feeling off. I recognise what the thought processes are. And then I do things and choose better thoughts to snap me out of it. And that's practice as well, isn't it? But that's where to remind me. I mean, as with anything in your house, you forget, it's there most of the time, don't you? Yeah, but yeah, that really helps me to remember you can choose your thoughts.

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 39:04
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think that's, that's kind of what happened was me with stress. And for everyone with stress as well, like, you can have something really stressful happened to your work. And then you feel the after effects of that for like, a couple of hours. But actually realising that, oh, that one stressful thing that happened, like how can I think about this differently, and you're able to recover much quicker from it. And that's a sign with any kind of unpleasant emotions that we might be feeling as, as knowing like, Oh, do you know what? There is a direct link between how I'm feeling and the thoughts that I'm having and being able to, I always say like follow the breadcrumbs back to your thoughts to figure out oh, what, you know, what can I change about this? And it does come with practice. And that practice also is like changes in your brain because you've got these like automatic ways of thinking. So It's much easier for you, if you're usually an anxious person, it's much easier for something to happen for you to then go down that like anxious line of thinking and lots of people I work with just get stuck, and they go down that negative spiral. They're anxious spiral. And so being able to stop, as soon as you recognise that that's happening and thinking, Oh, what, what kind of thoughts Am I having that are making me feel like this? And then to think like, oh, how can I think different things. And the other thing about it with practices. Like I said, if we've got this unruly puppy brain, and we haven't trained it, then if you've got like a puppy running around at the park, and you call its name, and like it just sit and you haven't trained it to do that, to do that, it's just gonna completely ignore you. And it's the same with your brain, like, a lot of you might be thinking, Oh, that's really nice. But I can't control my thoughts like that out of my control, I can't change them. Once they start going, there's like, a million of them a minute that I just, I can't get a grip on. And that's not You're not stuck with your brain that way is just that you haven't taken it to puppy school year and when to do learn. In meditations, another great thing for this, you learn like, oh, actually, I can see my thoughts, I can observe them, I can choose which ones I want to pay attention to, which ones I want to let go of, then those skills are so helpful for you like in the moment when you are feeling anxious or frustrated or upset. And you know that you're just in a funk. Like you see colour, if you are feeling really upset or annoyed or something and you want to feel it, then definitely feel it. But if you're in like a mode where you're like, I get this sometimes when I get frustrated at my partner, and I'm just like, why are you even annoyed about this? I don't even know why now, like, that's the time where you just like, you work it out in your own head and you let go before you start to get so wound up that you like ruin the next couple of hours for yourself.

Carla Miller 42:05
That makes sense. Yeah, I think I need to do some more practising puppy training. Yeah. So how would you encourage someone to stop doing that? Where would you? I mean, is this something you helped them with? Or would you send it towards an app,

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 42:16
Um, I, so everything I do, which would bang on and off already, but as about as meditation. And so I think that's a great starting point for everybody, because it actually does train you, it trains your brain for you. And then you can do that, like on any sort of meditation app, there's so many of them out there now. And I think they're really helpful. If you if you think like, I'm just gonna go and like, be quiet for 10 minutes and do it by yourself, you'll probably have a rude surprise, because it's not that easy. And that's really doing that and like practising mindfulness, about being able to bring your attention into the moment. And if you're meditating, like, bring your attention back to your breath, or to whatever else you might be focusing on. And so helpful, because it really is training your brain to let go of thoughts that you don't want and focus on something else. And to be able to choose the thoughts that you do want. Another thing I think is really helpful is just writing things down. Like it feels really overwhelming when there's lots of thoughts in your head. But as soon as you get them down on paper, they just kind of, they lose their power, because they're like out of your mind. So writing down like okay, this is how I'm feeling or why and what what kind of thoughts are going on in my head about it, that can be really helpful. And, or if you're more of like a talker, being able to speak them out loud. And that's not to say you have to talk to somebody else about them. But you I have known someone who just uses the like voice recorder and her phone and she just basically sends herself a voice note. And as she's talking about, and she's like letting everything spell out. And because she's doing it to herself, there's just like, she doesn't feel restricted in any way that helps her like further out and out in her head. But a really key thing to remember is that your brain is not going to think logically or calmly if you are feeling in a stress reaction. And when I say stress reduction, I don't just mean being stress that's like you could be feeling anxious or it's that kind of when your body's going into that fight flight or freeze and you start feeling those physical sensations. They're basically what your body's doing is saying, like Carla's in danger, and she needs to get out of there like I don't need to think clearly at all. Why would I want to do that? Why am I wasting my energy on that? She just needs to like run or like, fight for her life and that's what your body is doing and when you can really understand that and think well, yeah, I can't get a clear grip on my thoughts because My brain itself has shut off that logical way of thinking because it's trying to survive. And so often when people are overthinking quite a lot, I always say like, go back to your body, first calm your body down. And as soon as you calm your body down, you'll be able to think clearer about the situation. But if you need that address, your body being in survival mode, your thoughts are always going to be frantic. And I find that sometimes when I get overwhelmed with the amount of things I have to do, and then I can't concentrate on anything, because my mind is so scattered. So yeah, those are just a few things that you can do to kind of practice helping yourself. Turn your thoughts around.

Carla Miller 45:43
How do you how do you calm your body? Down, because I'm guessing quite a lot of the people you work with or anything like me, may not be that connected with their body because, and for years, I thought that my body was just there to carry my brain around, pretty much. So how do you how did you start? Yeah, tell us everything. But why don't we start with farming? Well, the

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 46:07
first thing to start with is something that I have in my programme, which is called the awareness diary, and for, seven days, you every time you it could be once a day, or you could do it every time you're feeling it. But when you do recognise that you're feeling stressed or anxious, is to write down, okay, this is the sensation that I'm having in my body. These are the emotions I'm feeling. And these are the thoughts I'm having that's connected with it. And doing that it gives you such an amazing connection with your body and understanding of it. Because often, we might just don't, we might not even realise that we've got this, like low level anxiety all the time. And sometimes our body is telling us but because we aren't aware of what those signals are, we just kind of carry on and let ourselves be in that state. So really, it can be it's different for everybody for how you feel sometimes you might be like, I get like a churned up stomach and my, I get this really hard, not in like chest that I'm like, Oh, I just feel like everything's bunched up. But I know, one of my clients at the moment, she just feels like her body feels numb, because all her energy is going into her overthinking in her brain. So being able to recognise that is a really good way to start. And then when you actually recognise, okay, I've gone into a bit of survival mode here, the best thing you can do is just getting in touch with your senses, because you really want to, you're really it's your job to tell your body that you're safe. And the best way to tell your body that you're safe is to breathe. And breathing is free. And we don't use, we obviously use it all the time. But we don't actually use it enough as a tool. So if you can take really deep belly breaths, then you you actually are informing your body, hey, I'm calm. Because if you're breathing in your chest, you know, you're like in that really in that survival mode. And something that I like to do is called the four step pause. So you can do it anywhere. And I've done it like at my desk at work and on the tube before is just you start by getting really aware of all your senses. So listening to all the sounds around you. So that's the first step, just listen to the sounds around you. And then the next step is to feel like everything that your body is touching. So it might be your feet on the floor, you could be sitting at a chair. So feeling that those points of contact that your body has. And then the third step is taking some deep breaths. And that's enough deep breaths until you can really feel that your body has calmed down. So it might be two, but you might need to do 10. And then after that, the fourth step is just asking yourself, what do I need? Right now, like what's the best next step for me? And it could be like, Okay, I'm just gonna head out and have a drink of water. I'm gonna go for a little walk. Or it could be mine was often rewrite your to do list and only put two things on there. And that can really like doing understanding what's next. But yeah, it's listening to the sounds around you. You can do it with your eyes closed. But I understand that if you're in an office, you might look weird sometimes that with my eyes, like listening to the sounds around you, feeling all the physical sensations, that your lack of your body touching things, and then taking deep breaths until you feel like oh, actually, I'm relaxed. I've actively relaxed my body and then asking yourself like, what's the next best thing that I can do to help myself right now?

Carla Miller 49:45
Love that question. Absolutely. Love it. Okay, so super, super helpful. Tee. Thank you. So just two more things. First thing is if people want to find out more about you or where So how do they do that?

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 50:01
So my, I've got lots of things on Instagram. So I'm at mindful underscore t and S T E. And I have a Facebook group that over thinkers Club, which I am going to be jumping in and doing more of India. And then also my website is my name. So that's to hit her. So to hit a.co, I somehow got the URL for just my name. So I feel like Beyonce. Yeah, and on, and I'm going to have some free, a free seven day meditation for everybody listening to the podcast that you can get in the show notes. And, um, you'll be able to just jump on and sign up to there. And you'll instantly get the seven days of guided meditations. And I've also actually got a YouTube video of the four step pause. So include that as well. So people can go through and guide their exercise on the video.

Carla Miller 51:03
Amazing, I think I need to download some of your meditation. And then finally, if people take one thing from this episode, what would you like them to take from it?

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 51:15
Um, question, I think just that you, you aren't, I always like to say you're not stuck with the mind that you have, you're not stuck as like an an anxious person, or you're not stuck as an overthinker. It's just that your mind has gotten into these habits of thinking that way. And that's what's really triggering these responses that you're having. But you can actually have control over your thoughts, you can have control over your emotions, and you can naturally feel a lot calmer in your life. So if you have either feeling anxious about going back to work, or you're just generally a kind of like an anxious or overthinking type person, don't don't just think, Oh, this is just the way like, this is just how my brain works. Because that's not the case, you do have the power to be able to change it. And it does take a lot of like small steps and different things. But it is possible for you in I've seen it enough time for people to know that that is that you are able to change. So don't kind of like give up on yourself on just just an anxious person. Because you're not just an anxious person. You're not just an over thinker, you can do lots of small things, to help yourself to make a big change in your life.

Carla Miller 52:36
Beautiful. So that's, that's lots of insight from tea and some great resources as well that you can go and find. And if this has really resonated with you, I'd also check out my How to worry less about work masterclass. There's some crossover with the things that we've been talking about. But that's good, because that means it's good stuff. Lots of wisdom from working with tea and you'll get little bits of wisdom from my master class as well. Thank you very much tea,

Tahirih McLaren-Brown 53:06
thank you

Carla Miller 53:14
If you've listened to the podcast, and you want to know more about how we can work together, here are a few places you can look.

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