How To Be Your Own Therapist with Dr Julie Smith #263
Dr. Julie Smith, a clinical psychologist, discusses making therapy tools accessible for self-empowerment. She covers metacognition, journaling, emotional vocabularies, self-soothing, and attachment styles to foster self-awareness and resilience.
Deep Dive Analysis
17 Topic Outline
Introduction to Dr. Julie Smith and accessible therapy
Therapy's educational component and common themes
Dr. Julie's viral social media journey and challenges
Separating feelings from facts and acting opposite to urges
Metacognition: Gaining perspective on thoughts
Mindfulness explained and its practical application
Life's challenges and the importance of a 'toolbox'
Developing a healthy relationship with failure
Navigating public life and maintaining personal balance
Defining and living by personal values
Happiness habits and intentional living
Journaling for self-reflection and clarity
The power of emotional vocabulary
Understanding attachment styles and adult relationships
The profound experience of being a therapist
Self-soothing techniques using the five senses
Empowering message: There is always a way through
7 Key Concepts
Educational Component of Therapy
Therapy involves not just talking through problems but also learning how the mind works to influence mood and cope better daily. This educational aspect helps individuals manage their week-to-week experiences.
Metacognition
This is the brain's ability to think about the thoughts we are having, allowing for reflection and gaining a 'bird's eye view' on experiences. It helps create distance from thoughts, seeing them for what they are rather than letting them control you.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the process of staying in the present moment, observing thoughts without trying to stop them, and gently guiding attention back to a chosen focus. It's a practice of mental muscle to choose which thoughts to pay attention to and which ones to let pass.
Values
Values are what is important to you and matters most in life, guiding how you want to be and approach different areas of your life. They are distinct from goals, which are finite achievements, as values represent an ongoing path that is never truly finished.
Emotion Granularity
This concept refers to the ability to find specific words to describe very specific emotional experiences. Developing a rich emotional vocabulary helps in mapping out and understanding one's life, predicting when feelings will arise, and knowing how different actions impact those feelings.
Attachment Styles
These are patterns of attaching to people that are learned very early in life based on one's upbringing. These styles then get reflected in adult relationships and can be either helpful or destructive depending on whether they are still adaptive in current situations.
Self-Soothing
A distress tolerance skill that involves actively feeding the brain new, comforting information through the five senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell). This helps to soothe oneself and allow intense emotional distress to pass, signaling safety to the brain.
13 Questions Answered
Her work emphasizes self-empowerment, helping individuals understand that they possess the tools to manage their mental health and don't solely need to rely on professionals.
She felt frustrated that only clients in her therapy room could benefit from her knowledge and wanted to make the educational component of therapy accessible to a wider audience.
Therapy often involves a process where people rediscover their own abilities to manage, especially after reaching a point where they feel 'out of ideas' and need support.
By building awareness of urges and practicing acting opposite to them, choosing actions based on values instead of immediate feelings, even in lighthearted ways like resisting the urge to crunch a mint.
Through metacognition, which is the ability to think about our thoughts, we can create distance from them, seeing them as 'masks' that can be held at arm's length rather than controlling us.
Mindfulness is not about achieving calm or perfect concentration, but about practicing the mental muscle to choose what to focus attention on and allowing other thoughts to pass, thereby gaining control over one's focus.
If failure is seen as catastrophic or a reflection of self-worth, it leads to a defensive way of living, avoiding risks, and shrinking one's life, preventing learning and growth.
Goals are finite achievements (e.g., passing exams), while values are ongoing paths or attitudes (e.g., lifelong learning) that guide how one approaches life, providing resilience against failures.
Yes, values absolutely change depending on life situations, such as having children or new experiences, and it's okay for them to evolve as one learns what truly matters at different points in life.
Journaling helps in gaining clarity on emotions and experiences, allowing for self-reflection, distinguishing thoughts from feelings, and seeing connections between different aspects of one's life.
Having specific words to describe emotional experiences (emotion granularity) helps in mapping out and understanding one's life, predicting when feelings will arise, and knowing how different actions impact those feelings.
Early life situations teach us specific attachment styles or ways of coping that, while useful at the time, can become destructive when applied to adult relationships if not recognized and adjusted.
By using all five senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell) to feed the brain information that signals safety and comfort, allowing the intense emotion to pass while providing gentle support.
54 Actionable Insights
1. Understand Your Mind’s Mechanics
Learn about how your mind works to better influence your mood and cope with daily challenges, as this educational component is key to managing mental health.
2. Cultivate Metacognition
Develop the ability to think about your own thoughts (metacognition) to gain a “bird’s eye view” on your experiences, allowing for reflection and diffusion from intense thoughts.
3. Know and Revisit Values
Understand your personal values and regularly remind yourself of them, as this serves as a crucial tool for navigating life’s stresses, obstacles, and conflicting demands.
4. Map Your Personal Values
Dedicate time to map out your personal value system by listing different life areas (e.g., health, family, career) and for each, bullet point what truly matters to you and what kind of person you aspire to be within that area.
5. Rate Value Alignment
Regularly assess the importance of each life area and how well you are currently living in line with its associated values; use low scores as a non-critical opportunity to identify what’s pulling you away and how to steer back.
6. Approach Self with Curiosity
When reflecting on your life and values, always do so with a mindset of curiosity and exploration, rather than criticism or self-attack, to foster constructive self-awareness.
7. Practice Present Moment Awareness
Engage in mindfulness by observing thoughts without judgment, and when your mind wanders, gently guide your attention back to the present moment, rather than trying to stop thoughts entirely.
8. Expand Stress-Response Gap
Consciously work to enlarge the mental space between experiencing stress and your automatic response, allowing for more thoughtful and intentional reactions.
9. Pause Before Acting on Urges
Recognize that feelings often come with urges to act, but you have the choice not to immediately follow every urge, allowing for more intentional responses.
10. Opposite Action for Urges
When experiencing an unhelpful urge, such as staying in bed when feeling overwhelmed, try acting opposite to it (e.g., getting up and moving) to potentially shift your mood and outcome.
11. Practice Urge Resistance
Engage in lighthearted exercises, like resisting the urge to crunch a mint, to build your awareness and ability to not act on urges in more challenging situations.
12. Embrace Failure as Learning
Cultivate a healthy relationship with failure, recognizing it as an inevitable and essential part of the learning process when striving for change or growth.
13. Avoid Failure’s Shrinking Effect
Challenge the belief that failure defines your worth; otherwise, a fear of failure can lead to a defensive way of living, causing your life to shrink as you avoid risks and opportunities.
14. Separate Self from Endeavors
Detach your sense of self-worth from external projects or public validation, understanding that your actions are separate from your core identity and value as a person.
15. Cultivate Strong Self-Identity
Work on developing a firm sense of who you are, independent of external achievements or public profile, to build resilience and confidence in facing life changes.
16. Embrace Journaling Practice
Engage in journaling as a powerful tool for self-reflection and clarity, especially when unable to access therapy or when dealing with overwhelming emotions.
17. Deconstruct Experiences: Thoughts, Feelings, Urges
When reflecting on an experience, break it down by distinguishing between your thoughts (words/pictures in your head), your feelings (where you felt them physically), the urges you had, whether you acted on them, and the subsequent impact.
18. Externalize Thoughts via Writing
Write down your thoughts on paper to externalize them, which helps create distance and allows you to see them more objectively, reducing their immediate power over you.
19. Prioritize Journaling Expression
When journaling, focus on freely expressing all your thoughts and feelings onto the page, rather than worrying about writing “the right things” or achieving perfection.
20. Journal with Pen and Paper
For protected and focused self-reflection, use a pen and paper for journaling in a distraction-free environment, away from electronic devices, and experiment with different methods to find what works best.
21. Enhance Emotional Vocabulary
Actively work to increase your emotional vocabulary (emotion granularity) by finding specific words to describe your emotional experiences, as this ability is linked to better coping after stressful events.
22. Personalize Emotional Labels
Focus on finding words that resonate with your unique emotional experiences, even if they’re from other languages, rather than trying to perfectly match your feelings to universal labels.
23. Describe Feelings for Prediction
Practice describing your feelings and associating them with specific scenarios to better predict when certain emotions will arise and understand the cause-and-effect relationships of your emotional responses.
24. Identify Your Attachment Style
Explore different attachment patterns (e.g., avoidant, anxious) to quickly identify your own style of relating to others, understanding that this pattern was learned early in life and can impact adult relationships.
25. Adapt Childhood Coping
Recognize that coping mechanisms learned in childhood, while effective then, may become destructive in adult relationships; identify these patterns to adapt your responses to current situations.
26. Practice Self-Compassion
Engage in self-compassion exercises to address deeply ingrained patterns and foster healthier relationships with yourself and others.
27. Self-Soothing for Threat Response
When your threat response is triggered, actively feed your brain new, comforting information through self-soothing techniques to change your internal environment and manage distress.
28. Sensory Self-Soothing
Utilize your senses for self-soothing during distress, particularly smell (e.g., a comforting perfume or lavender), as it can be fast-acting in providing a sense of safety and calm.
29. Discreet Scent Soothing Tool
Create a discreet self-soothing tool, such as a keyring filled with a calming scent like lavender, to carry with you and use in moments of distress (e.g., panic attacks) without drawing attention.
30. Personalize Self-Soothing Items
Create a personalized self-soothing box or collection of items that you uniquely associate with safety and comfort, such as a specific scent or a cherished photo, to use during difficult times.
31. Daily Small Skill Practice
Consistently practice small, simple skills every day, as their cumulative effect can significantly improve your life and make daily challenges easier to manage.
32. Automate Mental Tools
Regularly practice mental well-being tools, starting with conscious effort, until they become automatic responses in stressful situations, leading to calmer reactions.
33. Continuously Re-evaluate Life Balance
Regularly assess if your current lifestyle aligns with your desired balance, and make small, continuous adjustments to steer towards your preferred direction, understanding that perfect balance is an ongoing process.
34. Define Your Happy Ending
Imagine yourself at the end of your life and identify three key things you would want to have done or achieved, using this vision to guide your present actions and intentions.
35. Identify Weekly Happiness Habits
Identify three specific activities that would genuinely make you happy this week, such as movement/exercise, connecting with friends, and focusing on nourishing food, and prioritize incorporating them into your schedule.
36. Set Present Relationship Goals
Translate your long-term relationship values into specific, actionable weekly goals, such as being fully present for a certain number of meals with family, to ensure consistent nourishment of important connections.
37. Daily Perspective Break
Dedicate 10-15 minutes daily to “step outside your life” and gain perspective, which can be achieved through activities like a walk or simply stepping away from your routine.
38. Daily Exercise for Perspective
Engage in daily physical activity, like a jog, to gain perspective and a sense of calm, as consistent small efforts can accumulate to greater well-being than infrequent long breaks.
39. Prioritize Nature Breaks
Make time for regular short breaks in nature, such as a couple of hours at the beach or a walk in the woods, as these can help you feel reset and recharged more frequently than waiting for a long holiday.
40. Just Start Journaling
If the choice is between journaling on a device or not at all, choose to just start journaling using whatever medium is most accessible to you.
41. Verbal Journaling via Voice Message
Consider using voice messages or speaking aloud to verbally journal, as voicing your thoughts can be a powerful way to gain clarity and process experiences, similar to therapy.
42. Echo Others’ Language
When communicating with or supporting someone, use the specific language they employ to describe their experiences, reflecting it back to them to help them feel understood and heard.
43. Seek Credible Support & Education
Actively seek out all available support and educate yourself from credible sources about mental health tools and strategies, as continuous learning can lead to gradual, positive change.
44. Challenge Hopelessness
When feeling overwhelmed and isolated, challenge the mind’s conviction that you are alone and there’s no way out, recognizing that this is often untrue and there are always paths forward.
45. Embrace Life’s Marathon
Recognize that overcoming difficult situations takes time and effort, viewing it as a marathon, not a sprint, to foster resilience.
46. Rediscover Your Own Abilities
Cultivate confidence in your ability to manage your own mental health, understanding that while support is available, you possess the inherent capacity to address your challenges.
47. Anchor to Core Purpose
Regularly remind yourself of your initial motivation and core purpose, especially when facing challenges or public scrutiny, to stay grounded and driven by impact.
48. Accept Imperfect Tool Use
Understand that mental health tools won’t guarantee perfection in every situation; accept that you will sometimes use them effectively and sometimes not, and that this is a normal part of the process.
49. Cultivate Patience for Readiness
Embrace patience in pursuing goals, recognizing that waiting for the right time, even years later, can lead to greater readiness and a more grounded experience of success.
50. Regular Value Check-ins
Understand that your values can change over time based on life circumstances, so regularly check in with yourself to determine what matters most to you at any given point, rather than seeking a fixed “perfect” system.
51. Embrace Enthusiasm as Value
Consider adopting “enthusiasm” as a personal value, consciously striving to approach all aspects of your life, from parenting to work, with a positive and energetic attitude.
52. Re-evaluate and Re-steer
Continuously re-evaluate your life’s direction and make efforts to steer back towards your core values and desired path, especially after life events pull you away.
53. Self-Awareness for Choice
Cultivate self-awareness to gain a “bird’s eye view” of your patterns, enabling you to recognize cycles and realize you have the choice to respond differently.
54. Maintain Grounding Relationships
Surround yourself with people, like family, who keep you grounded and unaffected by external successes or public recognition, helping to maintain perspective on what truly matters.
7 Key Quotes
There is always a way through. I've seen people pull themselves from places you imagine people could never come back from, and they have. They've turned their lives around. It takes time and it takes effort. It's a marathon. It's definitely not a sprint.
Julie Smith
Why should people have to pay to come see me to find out this stuff? You know, I mean, there's a lot to therapy that isn't the educational part... But the educational aspect was so helpful in enabling the people I was working with to manage week to week in between sessions.
Julie Smith
You're one decision away from, from a different life. And, and, and that gives you that sense of freedom to a degree.
Julie Smith
Mindfulness isn't about making you feel calm and peaceful. It's not a relaxation exercise. It's practicing that sort of mental muscle, if you like, to be able to choose which thoughts you're going to pay attention to and which ones you're going to let pass.
Julie Smith
If I switch that account off tomorrow, I'd still be exactly the same person. And, and so it doesn't mean anything about who I am as a person, which enables me to, to be vulnerable and, and make videos and, and share that kind of information.
Julie Smith
A value system is neither correct nor incorrect. You know, it's not finding the perfect value system. It's working out what matters to you at that point in your life.
Julie Smith
I would be less concerned about getting it right and writing the right things and just focus on getting everything that's in here out onto the page.
Julie Smith
3 Protocols
Practicing Acting Opposite to Urges
Julie Smith- Identify an urge to do something (e.g., crunch a mint, stay in bed).
- Practice not going with that urge.
- Instead, do something based on your values.
- Reflect on the outcomes of going with the urge versus acting opposite to it.
Self-Soothing for Emotional Distress
Julie Smith- Identify an intense emotional distress or painful moment.
- Use one or more of your five senses (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell) to feed your brain new, comforting information.
- Examples: smell a familiar, comforting scent (like a mother's perfume or lavender), hold a comforting object, look at a photo that evokes positive feelings.
- Allow the emotion to pass while actively soothing yourself.
Journaling for Self-Reflection
Julie Smith- Find a quiet, protected time and space, ideally with pen and paper, away from distractions.
- Start by reflecting on a recent experience, such as what happened yesterday.
- Tease apart the experience by distinguishing thoughts (words/pictures in your head) from feelings (where felt in the body, physical sensations).
- Look at the urges that arose and whether you acted with or against them, and the impact of those actions.
- Focus on getting everything 'in here' (in your mind) out onto the page, rather than getting it 'right'.