Podcast: E13 - Why are you miserable? 2024 Vision exercise

Listen to the episode here: E13 - Why are you miserable? 2024 Vision exercise - https://apple.co/42BspBf

Hello there, friend. It is Dr. Tiffany, and this is Integrative Mental Health Therapy with Dr. Tiffany. And let's see, this is episode 13 of the public podcast, which is exciting, and episode 32 of the private podcast. So we have been at this a while. And for those of you who do not know who I am, because I realized with the public podcast that might need to save from time to time just kind of who I am and what I do.

I am a naturopathic doctor. I am a holistic neur which just means that I'm where you go when you're dealing with symptoms of ADHD, anxiety, overwhelm, nervous system dysregulation, a recovery from TBIs. And you want to do these things naturally. You want to do them holistically. Maybe you've tried medication and you didn't like it, it didn't work, it was ineffective. Maybe you've tried a tremendous amount of traditional psychotherapy and didn't get the results that you wanted, something.

You know, in my own personal journey, because of my orientation and approach to life, I've wanted to avoid medication. So this approach, holistic approach of brain, body, mind, using plant medicines, using amino acid therapies and food therapies and nutritional interventions, that's made sense for me. And my husband is very similar. He's often tried to avoid medications where possible in only the most extreme circumstances. So it's just not to start on this path of needing medications, you know, becoming dependent on them and then having side effects that we now need other medications for. We've been on this journey because we've just wanted to, as long as possible, go the holistic route.

So that's who I am and I always look at things from this three stool perspective of people come to me and they're like, I've just been doing therapy for three or four years and I've hit a wall and come to find out they never looked at the body they never looked at the physi physiology excuse me of what's going on or there's brain-based issues there's nervous system issues from having hit their head to um having you know dysregulation in the nervous system um for trauma reasons or both and we just can't get their system stable. And when you holistically keep working at all these things, you get a lot of healing.

And I have a very tender spot for young people. I have a considerable number of young people in the practice. The youngest I have worked with from a functional medicine perspective is five years old. Typically when I'm doing brain balancing. It's a little bit easier if I can kind of get them in that 9, 10, 11, 12 year old range. But depending on the ability of the parents and the level of communication of the young person, I'm able to work with as young as seven. And that's just tremendous. I mean, for the adults listening here, just imagine if we were able to have gotten holistic help. early on the amount of suffering, addiction, struggles that we could have avoided, right? And so that's part of my mission is to change the pattern and the trajectory of the young people in our world because we've got much higher rates of mental health issues now in young people than we've ever had, which is unfortunate.

So what is this episode? What is today's episode about? What are we talking about? Why are you miserable? Yeah, think about that. Why are you miserable? That is the title of episode 13 and episode 32. Why are you miserable? And I've just been thinking about this.

Remember I said I wanted to talk about vision and I wanted to you know I did a lot of reflecting I had an episode that was on reflection that was very well received to have a lot of downloads I think that excuse me I think that got your attention and and the second piece of this after the neuro inflammation session episode was was the vision you know and I spent I've spent a lot of time on okay now I've reflected I've really know, dug back into 2023. How does that set my vision for 2024? What rhythms do I want to cultivate? What do I want to see more of? What do I want to avoid? And then, you know, for me, it wasn't a matter of why am I miserable. It was in my reflections what made me miserable. When I was miserable, the specific moments I was miserable in 2023, what was that about? Where was I? What was I pursuing? What was happening?

And Oftentimes what I'm finding and this is kind of you know, as I was thinking about how to position vision I thought as you look at your vision for 2024 Look at remember I said in a lot of my videos in my my podcast look at the reflection Okay drop into mindfulness from 2023 And then why were you miserable? What made you miserable? And here is what I think the answer to that question is as I reflect on what I see with my clients and when I reflect on my moments of 2023 that got me into trouble.

There's a brilliant author, coach, life strategist. His name is Dan Sullivan and he does a lot of work in the space of transforming, um, just your life and your business and, uh, your goals. And he's, um, been working hand in hand with the gentleman, um, Dr. Benjamin Hardy. One of my clients mentioned, uh, Dr. Hardy to me, uh, last year. And she said, you know, I think he's going to be right up your alley. He's, he's, he's the kind of guy that you'd be interested in. And then it was just so funny, this always happens for me. She mentions him and then on one of my training calls, Dan Sullivan's work is mentioned and then Dan Sullivan is working hand in hand, oftentimes with Dr. Ben Hardy and I said, okay, I got it, I hear ya.

And as I dug deeper into their work, I really thought about my practice and how I will encounter, very blessed. I get to work with some really brilliant individuals in my practice, some hardworking individuals, people who have big life experiences where they're leading other people. They've struck out on their own and they're running these massive businesses, generating a tremendous amount of revenue. And what I'll find is despite access to what many would think would make one happy or a Life that would hopefully bring joy and happiness to someone many of the individuals are miserable and Get this it it it gets worse.

I Will do a bang-up job like I will do an amazing assessment. I will go in and do intervention style work and you know and work with multiple family members and people will see life changing, life altering shifts and improvements and they're still miserable. And I know better, like I'm not attached to this emotionally, personally, myself. So I don't expect that people will just say, hey, it worked. And so now I'm ecstatic. So that's not the part I'm speaking to it's wow It's not enough To be successful or get the things that you want or you think you want or the things you think you need Without the right mindset It is amazing to me how quickly people forget where they were and So Dan Sullivan talks about this concept of the gap and the gain. And we have different ways of looking at this

 in psychology and just everyone has their coachee version of this, but I really like this concept of the gap and the gain because it's something that I've always intuitively been able to kind of harness. Now, not always, but as I got further in my career in this work of helping other people, I got better at this idea of the gap and the gain. And so that's just part of why I don't mind reflecting. I don't run from Journaling about days that didn't go well or moments where I put my foot in my mouth or moments where I failed Or moments where something was awkward I think it's you know, partly my faith that helps me to have that resilience but I also think I've understood intuitively this concept and in those weeks or months where I got into a miserable place it was getting in the gap where I got into trouble, but I know better. What I have found is that people don't always know better.

So let me explain this concept of the gap in the game. Someone will come to me and they will say, I'm not sleeping, I sleep six hours a night and I can't fall asleep and I can't stay asleep. Now this is a basic example. I have way more complicated things that are normally showing up at my doorstep, but let's just keep this simple. Six hours of sleep, can't fall asleep, can't stay asleep. So that is where they started. And so let's say I can help that client get to eight and a half hours of super high quality sleep and they're falling asleep and they're getting, you know, solid hours of restorative sleep is staying asleep, right? The next thing would be, if this person is in the gap, would be, well, I should be able to do this on my own, or I shouldn't need any supplementation, or I should be able to have tons of energy okay so i'll get i might get comments like this if the person's in the gap right so you just did the thing that they wanted and instead of saying wow this is being in the game look at where i was i was at six hours of low quality sleep couldn't fall asleep couldn't stay asleep man look at how far i have come if this is possible imagine where i could be in the future and celebrating, it's about what they don't have. It's always the gap. They're always comparing their current moment, and I am intentionally using the word always because I do think that thought distortion shows up with the gap. And those of you who have worked with me in CBT know about always and never. They're always comparing to some future ideal version of themselves or comparing to some ideal version of someone on social media or some construct they have of some friend of theirs. And so because of that, they're in the gap. Nothing is enough. It's never enough. It's this bottomless pit and they often find themselves miserable.

And I will feel as their therapist or coach like somebody's moved the cheese like what are you talking about remember when you started and you filled out the paperwork and you said this is where you were and you would be successful and feel accomplished and that the goal was to get to here we got here we're there now what are you talking about And so I have people who'll come to me in my more complicated cases, and they'll be on a ton of medication. And we could spend a considerable amount of time titrating off of medications, onto supplements, and trying to repair the brain, literally try to repair the body and brain, and looking at a spec scan, and just trying to get everything healthy again. And then they'll be off of all the medication. And when I tell you herculean efforts were required by myself, by my team, by their family, by the medical professionals, we have done the thing that was impossible. The next response is something like, why should need these supplements? I should be able to be this person without these supplements. No sooner than we have gotten off the medications, I should be XYZ. always in the gap, always in the gap, never in the game. And because of that, there's this constant impatience, unhappiness, predisposition to depression, and a chronicity to the stress response in the system. Miserable. Nothing is enough. A bottomless pit. That's tough stuff. And I'm often confronted with showing them the gain, making sure that they see that, but also highlighting that I think part of the mood disorder that they were also struggling with is coming from these cognitive distortions of always and never, and this gap mentality versus the gain mentality.

So when you're setting your vision for 2024, when you're reflecting on 2023, when you're looking at those moments that didn't go well, and all those moments that were a blessing in God's grace and went incredibly well. Think about this idea of the gap and the gain and ask yourself where you're standing. I always respond to the gap by highlighting the gain. We're already in always, you know, always and never. So I respond to it by highlighting the gain. And I want you to know that a lot of where I am able to tap into my own optimism and I think tap into healing and how I've been able to put lupus and remission has a lot to do with, oh, look at the gain. Look at where I was. Look at what I would feel like before. Look at where my sleep was before. Look at what my digestion was like. Look at my energy. Look at how today went versus three months ago. It's the game. And that builds neural pathways that release positive neurotransmitters. Right? And then that's a happier brain. Then that's a healing brain. And on and on we go. And this is why I do this three-leg stool, because it has so much to do with working on all of it, very carefully, very gently, not in an overwhelming way at the same time. So think about this. This is not my concept. The gap and the gain is Dan Sullivan working with Dr. Jim, Dan, excuse me, Dr. Hardy, Benjamin Hardy. So this is not my original concept. Look into that and think about. Is that what's making you miserable? Are you often looking at where you're not, the gap, instead of the gain? And know that that is within your power to shift. I hope this was helpful, it touched you. If you know someone that could benefit from this, please share. And I'll see you in the next episode. Until then, be well.