Everyone deals with anxiety in life, but there are many steps we can take to take control. In today’s show, we are covering all the bases about what we are doing wrong in letting anxiety call the shots. The truth is that there are specific principles to follow to live your best life and manage every anxious situation.Â
Dr. Kathleen Smith is a licensed therapist, mental health writer, and author of Everything Isn’t Terrible: Conquer Your Insecurities, Interrupt Your Anxiety, and Finally Calm Down. She’s a freelance writer for Everyday Health, and her writing on mental health topics has appeared in New York Magazine, Salon, Slate, Bustle, Lifehacker, and many other publications. Kathleen received her Ph.D. in Counseling from George Washington University, where she teaches at Trinity. She also runs her private therapy practice in DC. In this episode, Kathleen shares numerous, helpful ways to cope with our anxiety-ridden times with smart and practical antidotes. She also shares her top technique for taking charge of your anxiety and shedding anxious habits. She shares how to build a more solid sense of self in an increasing anxiety-inducing world, along with tools that anyone suffering from anxiety can use to finally calm down.
There are things we all do that add to our anxiety, and most of the time, we are completely unaware. Kathleen says we borrow standards of success from the world around us and borrow solutions from experts or family without using our brains to think for ourselves. We act as if our anxious imaginings are a reality, and we try to make other people act more mature instead of acting mature ourselves. We avoid situations where rejection and disappointment are possible, and we convince ourselves that another person must change in order for us to calm down. Do any of these sound like you? Most of us distance ourselves or avoid certain situations, try to control others, and create a triangle by pulling in a third person to calm us down.Â
Developing your own principles and describing who you want to be each day will help you be less anxious. Kathleen says you should write these things down, so you have something tangible to look at when you begin to freak out. Identify who your best self is in anxious situations, and even though you may fail more than you succeed, try to be that person every day.Â
Kathleen wanted a book to hand to her therapy clients to highlight her work. She’s put together a collection of 18 stories based on client experiences that remain confidential. The book tells the stories of young people who are striving to calm down and grow up in their relationships. The book is humorous, practical, and helpful, and it’s based on the Bowen theory that anxiety is best analyzed by how we interact in relationships.Â
Three key themes sum up Kathleen’s work. Observing means to pay attention to the ridiculous things you do when you’re anxious. Be curious, but don’t blame or shame yourself as you become more observant. Don’t avoid all the people who make you anxious, because you won’t have opportunities to practice calming down. Look for opportunities to try something different in your relationships and practice managing the anxiety you feel. Evaluate by asking yourself who you want to be. Always strive to be your best self, which to Kathleen means the most mature version of yourself. One focus of the book is to work on your relationships with your family because that’s the hardest place to manage anxiety and be mature.Â
Many relationships need to be rekindled, especially within our families. Kathleen explains the importance of rekindling intergenerational relationships because young people today are less connected to previous generations than ever before. It’s beneficial in many ways for us to have meaningful and strong relationships with people both older and younger than we are. It often takes a challenge or difficulty for us to realize the importance of those family ties.Â
Kathleen says that it takes a lifetime to learn to manage anxiety and take yourself off anxious autopilot mode. The work of being human is a lifelong process, and you will eventually arrive at the place where functioning as a healthy and mature adult feels more normal than it did before. Most of us can honestly identify how we act as mature adults and how we act childish, petty, and manipulative.
Much of our thinking is informed by the media, like the music we listen to and what we watch. Most love songs don’t portray a healthy, mature relationship. If we listen to those, we don’t get a template for love but a template for ruining our lives. Kathleen explains why we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves when we react in immature ways, but we should focus on the small victories in our growth and development.Â
The unpleasant truth is that learning to handle disappointment and rejection is a useful tool. Any small steps we take toward that skill will help greatly in managing anxiety. When we’re younger, we learn to blow disappointment and rejection out of proportion, but we need to train our brains that these are manageable experiences. Other tips for coping with anxiety include getting to know your anxiety well, even to the point of giving it a name.Â
1. Favorite book to recommend for women?
2. Favorite self-care hack?
3. Best piece of advice and who gave it to you?
4. Female CEO or thought leader you’re into right now?
5. One piece of advice you’d give your five years younger self?
Integrative Skin Care for Overall Well-Being – with Lori Bush
Subscribe to the show on iTunes (Android here).
Thanks SO MUCH to everyone who took the time to write a review on iTunes! If you write a review this week, send a screenshot to support@nextfem.com and we’ll give you a shout-out!
The post Don’t Let Anxiety Call the Shots – with Dr. Kathleen Smith appeared first on NextFem.
Is the health of your skin connected to your mindfulness and well being? No one would be a higher authority on the subject than someone who has spent their career in senior-level leadership in the beauty and skincare industry. My guest today shares what she’s learned about integrative beauty and skincare, and how a personal health scare led her to an unexpected new endeavor.
It’s been said that Lori Bush shines from a mile away, and not just because of her fabulous skin. During her tenure as president and CEO of Rodan and Fields, Lori took revenue from zero to one billion. She also served as president of Nu Skin, Worldwide Executive Director of Skincare Ventures at Johnson & Johnson, and VP of Marketing for Neutrogena. She went on to become Chairwoman of the Board at Avon. Now, calling on her 30+ years of expertise in beauty and skincare, Lori’s latest venture, Solvasa, is an integrative beauty line dedicated to empowering everyone to live long and beautifully by caring for their whole selves. In addition to her legendary career, Lori is also a bestselling author of a beauty wellness book called Write Your Skin a Prescription for Change. She also helps young female entrepreneurs through seed funding. In this episode, Lori and I discuss her path to the C – suite and how she was able to grow her business so quickly, why she left, and how she was able to scale her startup to become the #1 largest independent premium skincare brand. She also explains why well being and the joy of missing out are critical to leadership success.Â
It turned out that Lori was the keeper of all pet projects that a CEO or owner wanted to be done, but no one else wanted to touch. Because she loved the challenge, these projects always ended up in her lap. She went through a time when she wasn’t getting higher-level promotions, and she was operating in autonomous areas, which led her on the journey to ultimate leadership positions. When she became frustrated with her lack of promotions, she was told that she didn’t have a promotable resume because she had spent her time focusing on doing the things she loved. After a long career path, it was in the early 2000s that Lori finally found herself in the C – suite with Rodan and Fields.
Before Lori’s opportunity opened up with Rodan and Fields, she accepted the position of president at NuSkin, where she explored the direct – selling model of business and found it an outlet for much innovation. She took on a chief marketing role and had an amazing experience that became a breakout role for her. She joined her first board of directors and got boardroom experience that prepared her for higher leadership.
For almost everyone with a long career in business, they have experienced the conflict in leaving one job for another. Lori had a vision, but she found that NuSkin was going in a different direction. She even questioned whether she had value any longer in the company. She didn’t agree with the approach they were taking in international expansion and the interface between different aspects of the business. Lori threw what she calls a little bit of a tantrum at a male-dominated meeting. She felt like she and the company were strategically misaligned, and she knew that it was the beginning of the end. Looking back, she calls it a happy firing.
When Lori joined Rodan and Fields, the company was already established as a brand and had been acquired by Estee Lauder. Lori had discussed with Rodan and Fields the possibility of making their company part of Johnson & Johnson. As they decided to pivot into direct selling, Lori was asked to run this new aspect of the business from the ground floor. Lori calls it an exercise in agility, as they began with an idea and recognized the power of word-of-mouth. Things came together at just the right time to be profitable as the timing of the economy and the product – value proposition combined with the social media effect to explode the business.
As the leader of a company, your values are practiced, promoted, and rewarded. Lori had aspects of wellness that were missing in her life, and she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Lori stepped down from active management in 2016 at the same time she discovered a lump that had been missed by mammography. She admits that she used to think that meditation was for those who had nothing better to do with their time, but she feels very different now. A new opportunity opened up for Lori through her reconstructive surgeon and his skincare products. Together they identified stress management and mindfulness as missing elements in the skincare world, and their new company, Solvasa Integrative Beauty, was born.Â
Fem Five:Â
1. Favorite book to recommend for women?
2. Favorite self-care hack? Intermittent fasting.
3. Best piece of advice and who gave it to you?
4. Female CEO or thought leader you’re into right now?
5. One piece of advice you’d give your five years younger self?
Let Go of Your Masks to Connect Authentically – with Stacy Raske
Subscribe to the show on iTunes (Android here).
Thanks SO MUCH to everyone who took the time to write a review on iTunes! If you write a review this week, send a screenshot to support@nextfem.com and we’ll give you a shout-out!
The post Integrative Skin Care for Overall Well-Being – with Lori Bush appeared first on NextFem.
Trauma survivors are everywhere around you. Some hide their stories in shame and guilt, and they cannot move forward from what’s happened in the past. At the other end of the spectrum are those who find empowerment and freedom in sharing the truth of their story. They become the strong voices who shed the shame and suffering to live in a new truth, using their story to help others climb out of the darkness.Â
Stacy Raske is a bestselling author of Be a Boss & Fire that B*tch: Quiet Your Inner Critic & Finally Believe You’re GOOD ENOUGH. She’s a speaker who helps high – performing women lead with soul and scale their businesses with ease and authenticity. As an Iraqi War veteran recovering from trauma and self – doubt, Stacy has taken what she’s learned and distilled it down in a powerful toolkit that is simple and actionable. Stacy has helped hundreds of women ignite their souls and allow their light to shine by releasing stories and doubts that slow their success. In working with Stacy, they fully embrace their power and finally find the success they truly desire. In this episode, we talk about how trauma and recovering from trauma fuel success, along with disrupting the saboteur, breaking free of learned stories. We discuss how we all wear a mask vs. truly connecting with our authentic selves, and how to let go of those masks, integrate the badass, and take our careers and lives to the next level.Â
Your body wants to heal itself from trauma. Stacy explains how powerful it is to get in a relationship with your body to bring massive transformation. Feminine energy is expressed when we are in our bodies, and masculine energy is when we’re in our heads. We have to achieve balance and lead with our souls. Since women associate feminine energy with powerlessness and being victimized, we are wrongly programmed to reject feminine energy when we experience trauma.Â
Being the Soulful Success Coach is at the core of what Stacy does in her work with alpha, high – achieving women. She teaches that having more strategy is not the answer, but having more soul allows a woman to get in touch with herself. A strategy that comes from chasing the external stuff will fall into place as you align yourself and bring yourself as whole to your business.
For Stacy, her relationship with her husband has been the best teacher about trauma. She has realized how our subconscious operating system attracts partners who trigger our deepest issues in our relationship with our parents. Stacy’s husband has helped her through her issues with her father, and another gift in her relationship is that her husband is a perfect mirror reflection of herself. Unfortunately, people who grow up with trauma tend to be the worst aggressors, which is a safety mechanism. She explains that her safety default was to be the asshole who was verbally abusive to people before they could hurt her. As her body responded to her mindset, she encountered frustrating physical symptoms. Stacy knew that she had to focus on improving both her emotional and physical health.
As Stacy sought to self – medicate, she realized her desire to control everything was causing great internal chaos. She had no tools and techniques to handle what she was feeling. In contrast, now she teaches clients that their sensitivity can be their superpower if they only learn to transform their relationship with it. Part of going through trauma is receiving the tremendous gift of sensitivity.
As her body suffered to the point that she couldn’t walk without a cane, Stacy threw in the towel and made a major reset. She lost 100 lbs. and got off all her medications. She transformed her health and allowed her entrepreneurial spirit to take over. She then had to face all the questions that come with limiting beliefs about her worth and her role. Stacy says that many women build their businesses backward because they show up in scarcity mode, only thinking about how they can make money. All of these experiences led Stacy to write her book as the universe divinely paved the path of her transformational journey. Stacy teamed up with a writing mentor to structure her book with a framework of safety, and the entire process took only five months from start to finish.Â
Stacy learned that people give their opinions and input about you based on their own story, programming, and paradigms. She had to get clear on boundaries as she stepped into the limelight and became a public figure. Her goals in writing her book were to share her truth in profound ways that she had never done before. The writing process turned out to be healing and cathartic for her, whether or not anyone else ever reads the book.
Stacy values transparency in being able to share her story. She recognizes that her story is unique to her, but many others struggle with trauma and share similar experiences. For her not to step up and share her story would give too much power to the trauma. Her focus is on sharing her story and using it for good. In doing so, she gives voice to those who aren’t yet giving voice to their stories. Her openness helps those who are still caught in the toxic struggle and are hiding behind their masks, trapped by fear and rejection.Â
To overcome the trap of fear and rejection, we have to build a relationship with ourselves. Our businesses can’t be successful if we still have this internal conflict going on. We have to embrace our identity as whole, even the ugly, dark shadows. Then we can love, embrace, and feel all the emotions of who we are. We’ve mistakenly been taught that we have to prove our worth through suffering and struggle, but we can identify as whole, break the paradigm, and rewrite our story.
A big focus for Stacy moving forward is to take the principles she has learned and use them to help people take their businesses to the next level. As the Biker Business Coach, Stacy knows that finding your inner rebel can be the integration piece. She’s busy creating tools to help people embrace their alpha female energy and leave good girl mode behind.Â
1. Favorite book to recommend for women?
2. Favorite self-care hack?
3. Best piece of advice and who gave it to you?
4. Female CEO or thought leader you’re into right now?
5. One piece of advice you’d give your five years younger self?
How to Be Great Partner and Co-Founder – with Julie Weber
Subscribe to the show on iTunes (Android here).
Thanks SO MUCH to everyone who took the time to write a review on iTunes! If you write a review this week, send a screenshot to support@nextfem.com and we’ll give you a shout-out!
The post Let Go of Your Masks to Connect Authentically – with Stacy Raske appeared first on NextFem.