What I would encourage them to do is bring the color in, go through the toes and the tissue, go everywhere, but also on the exhale, see the color leaving, and take all the stuff you don’t want that doesn’t serve you like the worry, the anger, or whatever it is. Try to give people the tools to connect with that ability to go, “I’m going to offload this.” You talk in your ABCs, then you have C for connection. Russell shares his own journey through anxiety. He talks about how growing up with a father who was schizophrenic and bipolar, left alarm signals, imprinted in his body. And, for over 30 years he searched for relief from his anxiety. But nothing worked. You all know anxiety is my jam. I'm basically obsessed with all things anxiety, so when I learned of today's guest, you better believe I was all over getting him on The Courageously.u Podcast.

I don’t know why that’s an important natural mechanism. I get it. I have a couple of thoughts about it though. Every kid needs a narrative in their life. I’ve heard it all. Two of my three daughters, at one point or another, have in their development, one said to Laird, “Mom is your number one.” One of them said, “He’ll do whatever you want.” I’m their advocate because I understand their language better and they’re females. I’m thinking, “Yeah, because he doesn’t know some of these cues.” Having done all that, the "alarm" still would find its way through to terrorize me, and I believed the cruel, negative thought loops to such a point that I wanted to die.

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I still think when people go to medical school and they become neuroscientists, they should be called Dr. All that schooling, you deserve it. This is probably the longest review I've written here, thank you for reading. I know this book will not resonate with everyone but for me it was a true gift. If Dr. Kennedy ever creates a teacher certification program I would definitely sign up, because it would be incredibly meaningful to help others overcome decades of emotional pain. You can start making things better by stopping what’s making it worse. What’s making it worse is your brain, your compulsive need to explain the feeling. Sensation without explanation. Allow the feeling. If it’s overwhelming, get someone to help you process this feeling. Until you acclimatize, get used to that feeling, allow it to be there, and embrace it, anxiety is always going to hold you hostage.

I always say I don’t want people to have to suffer anxiety the way that I did. That’s why I found a new theory of anxiety, a new way of treating it, and a new way of understanding how the angst gets into our system and how our mind hammers it in there and makes it worse. If you can understand what makes it worse, it’s like the story about the guy who’s hitting himself with a hammer 100 times a day and someone walks by and goes, “Why do you hit yourself with a hammer 100 times a day?” He says, “Because it feels so good when I stop.” I don’t want to sound all positive, like, “Everyone’s got to get there.” If we don’t get our needs met in a critical fashion by our parents or our caregivers, there’s a split. When things don’t go right in your house, children blame themselves. There’s a great saying that says, “When you abuse, abandon, or neglect a child, they don’t stop loving the parent, they stop loving themselves.” What happens is that we take these jabs at ourselves. JABS is an acronym I created for judgment, abandonment, blame, and shame. Thanks, Gabby. It’s always a pleasure talking with you. You’re an amazing person. I thank the world of you. The short version of that is LSD showed me that my anxiety wasn’t in my head at all. It was this old trauma of alarm that was stored in my body and I didn’t pay much attention to that alarm. It was the generator of negative thoughts. That’s my little journey so far. I dealt with anxiety for many years and was frustrated with psychiatry, psychology, and all that kind of stuff. They couldn’t help me, so I had to go out and help myself.

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My little time in India gave me a sense that everyone has their path. Some people get cancer, some people get ALS, and some people live a life that’s comfortable and calm. I saw a lot of people because as a doctor, I talk to them at the end of their lives. It’s like, “Everything went well for me.” “I wish that I got divorced.” “I wish that something bad happened.” I say, “That was your path. Your path was to have a comfortable life.” That’s important because people feel that although we failed at this or we’re disappointed maybe we weren’t equipped yet. To give ourselves to be compassionate with ourselves and say, “Maybe I have more tools. I can get in there and try again or allow myself,” that’s another thing we do. We’re like, “I’m not good at this. I’m not good at that,” and we wrap it up.

When alarm strikes, ask yourself three questions: am I safe right NOW, what am I thankful for, where in my body am I safe? You can bring yourself into the present moment and the best way of doing that from my position is sensation. Use your sensation, use your touch, use your smile, use whatever you need, give yourself a hug or wrap your hands across your shoulders because that will bring you into the present moment. The other thing is looking at yourself in the mirror, in the eyes, which is way harder than it sounds. It’s hard to look yourself in the eyes because you are talking to your own emotional brain at that point. There’s no crap, there’s no BS at that point. You’ve got to answer yourself when you look at yourself straight in the eyes like that. And, the dragon is not discerning. Anything that caused us pain in the past is resisted by the dragon, especially if the pain occurred in our childhood. If you stood up in front of the class for show-and-tell and you were ridiculed, any potential public speaking opportunities in your future would light your dragon up in fight-or-flight resistance. This is where practice comes in. Your practice is connecting with this part of you, then you develop a relationship with the child in you and then you accept them unconditionally realizing that there is no new shames, they’re all recycled. There are no new blames, they’re all recycled. There are no new things that you’ve done that no one else has done. There are no new traumas, there are just recycled ones. Realize that you’re a citizen of the Earth, you’re going to make mistakes, and you’re going to do things that you’re not proud of, but chances are, you do things you’re not proud of because in your development somewhere you didn’t get your needs met. Dr. Kennedy’s podcast episodes that are very helpful: Do You Allow Yourself To Receive? + Find Your AlarmOther people go the other way. Every negative thing that could possibly happen happens to these people. A lot of us are here and given these paths because consciousness wants to experience itself. It reminds me of what Teal Swan says, “What would someone who loves themselves do?” That’s been a great grounding thing as well because you’re going and finding that child in you and loving them. When you can love that child in you and you can examine those wounds, those wounds are there for a purpose. When we were abused or abandoned by our caregivers, we still looked up to them. We could not blame them so we figured we must be to blame. We turned on ourselves as unlovable. Way to start it. You just put me in a good mood. Thank you. First of all, I am so sorry about the last time but now we have it double-covered. Your podcast threw us over the edge. We’ll get started. I’m excited to talk about this. It’s funny, I relistened your book and I was like, “I’m excited to talk about this again.” What’s the temperature where you are, Dr. Kennedy? The first time reading: I thought what a load of crap. I can not see the inner child problem and the rest of the book is just not convincing, too.