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Michaela Light 0:01
All right. Welcome back to the intuitive leadership mastery podcast. I'm here with Melanie Gibbs Ginsberg. Hi, Melanie. Hi. And we might be joined by Samantha Alvarez. She is a nurse practitioner working in a hospital in New York and she got some pages so she might have difficulty joining but we will cover for her part. And today we're going to be talking about entrepreneurial anxiety, apathy and depression, which given the corona lockdown the economic depression, and various other excitements and isolations is a big thing right now. So welcome, Melanie. For those who don't know, Melanie, tell us about yourself in a brief whatever. Wow, I'm awesome. You are awesome.
Melanie 0:52
I, let's see, the reason that you should be trusting me to talk about this is that I experienced quite a heavy dose
I will say of depression, not true depression, anxiety, just very unpleasant while I was running my business and had to learn very fast how to swim. So now I'm hoping to teach these lessons. I'm hoping to catch them before the shipwreck, so to speak. But during is also, you know, if I can pull myself out, you can pull yourself out. So wherever you're at right now, know that it will be okay. And you can do it.
Michaela Light 1:27
That's great. And as well as being an author or an intuition coach on business intuition. I also have had episodes of depression and anxiety and OCD and various other things. So we'll talk more about each other's excitements later. And I know Samantha has had episodes of anxiety and she gave a meet up on this and we both all three of us have given various some different meetups in the dynamite circle which is an entrepreneur group around this top these different topics, anxiety, apathy and depression in entrepreneurship. So, very cool. Feel free to put questions in the chat. And let's share the OLED screen because we have some cute slides. But if you're listening on audio Do not worry. We will be saying everything that you need to hear. And Michaela is wondering what happened to the show the screen button. Here it is.
Melanie 2:41
Clicking doing great.
Michaela Light 2:43
She is doing great. Yes, she's gonna put a blue blocking glasses on even though they don't make her look quite as cute. We will talk about that later. All right, so welcome to the the entrepreneurial anxiety apathy and depression virtual meet up in the time so Corona hopefully everyone can see the screen and hopefully Okay, and it mentioned who who's here Michaela light melon against Berg, Samantha Alvarez. And let's talk about why we're talking about this now. Melanie, why are we talking about this now? Well,
Melanie 3:28
um, times are a little more uncertain than usual. Right now with all of the corona and lockdown constructions businesses are suffering. And just, there's, I feel a lot more of the uncertainty in the air. The energy has been definitely different these past few months, people are scared. There's a lot of fear and anxiety which can seep in and maybe mix with anything that's already inside of you and exacerbate anything that's already inside of you. So just seems prevalent at the moment.
Michaela Light 4:00
It certainly does. And also many people are locked down having to stay at home and they can't see their friends. They can't travel to places. There's a lot of social isolation, and that just makes any mental illness worse or created in the first place.
Melanie 4:20
Absolutely.
Michaela Light 4:22
And then, you know, for a lot of people's businesses, the economy is a bit screwy. Some people's businesses are doing better now some people are saying some people's businesses have gone into the toilet. So that can create stress and mental issues of anxiety and depression. So and I think the other thing is just there's a there's a general like you said, there's a feeling of anxiety but feeling of uncertainty, but I think there's also just general and anxiety and depression floating around. Absolutely no And many entrepreneurs are empathic, and we pick up on other people's energy, which is why we're great at doing sales and greater hiring. And also, that means we tend to pick up other people's emotions may not even be around depression is what I'm saying. But we can talk more about that later. Let me anything else we want to say about why now.
Melanie 5:27
I think also to your point that a lot of people are spending more time at home and maybe they don't have the distractions that they're used to, of traveling or seeing friends are going out to restaurants and bars. And, you know, so, so maybe some internal dialogues that they can usually suppress or ignore, are are much louder now because there are fewer distractions. Hmm,
Michaela Light 5:51
that is a great point. And we'll talk a bit more about how people cover up their mental illness later. Pretty much everyone listening has some kind of addiction that they used for that purpose. Maybe we Some of us have it more under control than others, but perhaps not.
So great. Well
what before we talk about, you know, mental illness, maybe we should talk about what ideal mental health is. What What do you think that is?
Melanie 6:24
I'm gonna take that Michaela
Michaela Light 6:27
are Sure. Well, I think it's being resilient, you know, able to deal with life's stresses and you know, just able to pivot fast and your business and your life if you need to change. I would say also, you know, just being calm, you know, focused. It's like being the center of the you know, the eye of the hurricane. It's got no wind's blowing, it's just sunny blue skies, even though there's this crazy 100 mana hurricane When's going around around you? And then perhaps on a more spiritual level, it's just being connected to spirit and connected to your intuition and your higher self. Having you know, sq is it's like IQ. She's like us emotionally intelligent quotient or whatever it is. sq Is this your spiritual intelligent quote. So you know, and perhaps another thing is, is just that you have a great relationship with yourself. You know, you don't have that negative self talk where you constantly beat yourself up. You're like constantly praising yourself and encouraging yourself and looking for opportunities. So that's what I I would say it is.
Melanie 7:48
Definitely and I think a big point is to your last point about having a good relationship with yourself. Part of that is knowing that maybe challenges will arise in life and struggles with will happen but but knowing that you are resilient and you can make it through and you know, not beating yourself up when things go wrong, but just saying, Okay, this, you know, how can I How can I get over this hump? or How can I readjust my sales or whatever
Michaela Light 8:16
it is I unshare my screen because people were trying to instant message me and I want you to turn that off without revealing to our audience what all those instant messages were. So, I think part of the thing is that, you know, if you break your leg, it's really obvious to you and everyone around you that you've got a broken leg and it will probably be a smart idea to go to a doctor or hospital or an ER or whatever and get it fixed. But the problem with mental health is it's all in here. And other people may not realize and and to be honest, a lot of people have resistance to ask for help. They feel shame around mental health. And so you ask them Hey, you know, they seem a bit down or anxious or whatever, and you're like, Hey, how's it going? And like, Oh, we have fine two thumbs up. And then before you know it, you know, they're in a downward spiral and not saying anything. So, and the other thing with it because it's like an inside job, we can kind of creep up on you know, and you know, you may not realize it's sort of like alcoholism for anyone here has ever had a problem with with a substance, whether that's alcohol or, or drugs or video games or sex or online shopping or whatever the addiction is, um, you know, you can think oh, yeah, I don't have a problem. And then you know, before you know it, you're drinking 10 glasses of what your favorite substance and getting totally plastered and having it having side effects on your business and life that you're not you know, performing. So, you know, I think that's important to recognize, too that, you know, we often don't even realize we have have it and, and the problem is that it has that spiraling thing that you tend to spiral downwards. When you're having mental illness issues. When you're having good mental health, you tend to be spiraling upwards. You know you, you have positive thoughts, you pick positive friends, you make you choose your environment to be a wonderful place to live, you make your business and clients and staff work for you great and supportive people. And so that all spirals upwards to create a great life. When you're having mental illness. It tends to be the opposite. You tend to pick crappy customers, mad staff are unreliable. You have friends who drag you down and pull you off into the addictions you have. And you the place you live in work is in itself depressing or anxiety producing because a lot of clutter or or whatever and The thing with a downward spiral is, it's fucking hard to get out of it.
Melanie 11:06
Absolutely, a momentum is real. But I think it's really I love what you said about the upward spiral as well. Because, again, that's why it's so important to to catch the creeping problem and to pivot. Because if you can switch and then start spiraling upward instead, then the momentum will will drag you that way.
Michaela Light 11:24
Yeah, I love that word momentum that is so great to look at. So and it's good to be aware of that. And that's true of many good habits, right? If you want to get healthy if you get into a habit of going to the gym with a buddy, then you get momentum on that, and you can build it up and the same with mental all mental health things. So let's move on to some barriers. Whoops. Oops, no, I think we're on On the right slide there. So we mentioned some barriers about it. You know, it's shameful to have mental health issues, people don't like talking about it, right? I mean, you know, I think if every everyone listening probably either as a shame themselves to talk about this, or they have friends who, you know, avoid talking about it, or they change the subject if you start if you start talking about it. So, and I think that's the society wide issue, but it's just not socially acceptable to talk about it. It's kind of like you, you know, I wasn't around in the 19, whatever 30s or whatever when it was, or Victorian times when it was shameful to talk about sex. And then we had the, you know, the 1960s, where, for younger people, it became acceptable to talk about sex or at least moderately acceptable. And I think we have the same kind of transformation we need to go through with mental illness. So Anything else we should talk about with barriers to mental health?
Melanie 13:04
I think the creeping problem is the biggest one and you touched on it, but just to reiterate, mental illness can be so hard to spot. You know, like, addictions like, Oh, it's just one glass of wine and then all of a sudden you're drinking two bottles a day. It seems like all of a sudden, because it's really hard to it creeps up. It's it's a silent, it's a silent killer, you know. And so you can say, like, Oh, I'm just hitting snooze today, or like, I'm just skipping one day at the gym, like, Oh, I'm just spending this Friday night at home instead of hanging out with my friends or whatever you're you can justify these one tiny thing, and then they all of a sudden totally snowball. And then it's been two weeks since you've interacted with another human being and you're not showering and you're not brushing your teeth and you're not doing the things that you know are good for you. And it's so subtle, and avoid
Michaela Light 13:56
avoiding other people is another one I used to do you know, as being A bit down, it would have done me good to connect with other people, but I avoided it.
Melanie 14:05
Mm hmm, exactly. Which is just, yeah, another really terrible thing about mental illness is that so many times it lies to you, and it tells you that the things that you know, will, will be actually helpful for you, it tells you that they won't be, which I think we'll get into later. So it's so important to constantly check in with yourself and to be aware, really, of all of the things that we're talking about. So even if you're watching this or listening to this, and you think that you don't have a problem, I hope that's the case. And that's great. And it's also so important to still be aware of how these things can enter your life without you maybe even noticing so you don't wake up six months from now and realize that you have a lot of, um, you know, healing to do.
Michaela Light 14:50
Well, and I would like to just put out there subsist sticks on mental health that 20% of Americans have mental health issues. Mental Illness every year, one in five of your friends, you know, in a normal year would have a mental health issue at some point during the year, whether you realize it or not, but in this time with the lockdown and the economic stuff I have so cystic Stam found that said 30% of people have clinical depression. That's not just mild depression. That's like they're clinically depressed. And we'll talk more about what depression is later in the show, but and then 30% have PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder, you know, that. Dealing with that, and then, so that's 60% of the population. Yeah, I think of the other 40% remaining, probably a bunch of them have anxiety or mild depression or some other mental illness going on right now. And then let's throw into the mix. entrepreneurs who are under a far more stress typically than people who have a Job is staying at home being a parent or whatever. I'm not necessarily I mean, sometimes staying home with being a parent with young kids can be quite stressful. But I think
Melanie 16:14
100 employees, you know, it's up to, it's up to you to keep everyone afloat, which is 100 people's worth of stress and anxiety.
Michaela Light 16:22
Yeah, and then also there's just this belief among entrepreneurs that you're supposed to be hustling and hyper busy all the time. And society itself you know, in the in the matrix or the rat race or whatever you want to call it. It's like a badge of pride to be super busy short on sleep, downing three martinis at lunches, you're with the madman, you know, closing that deal. If you as you as we go through all these different things, so much of the behavior that causes mental illness is normalized in society.
Unknown Speaker 16:58
So true. So
Michaela Light 17:01
It's a crazy mixture, right? We've got this society that creates a lot of mental illness creates a lot of homelessness, and what have you, and yet we don't want to fucking talk about it.
Melanie 17:12
We want to talk about it. That's why we're here. Everyone's right. You're part of the solution.
Michaela Light 17:16
Yes. All right, I think we've talked about resistance to asking for help. And, you know, entrepreneurs having more financial and work responsibilities. I think we also need to talk about you know, many of our listeners are digital nomads, or they, they they identify as digital nomads, but right now they can't do a lot of nomadic because they're locked down, which get very frustrating. Right, and isolating. Could you talk a bit about that? Because I know you've you know, before you planted your roots in Austin, Texas, you were nomadic all over the place.
Melanie 17:54
Yeah, I was a nomad for about three years and I loved it for the most Part, it can be challenging to, to connect with others and to connect on a deeper level with others. In the Nomad community, what I found is it was a lot of flash in the pan friendship. So it's like, oh, you're here for one week, and we get along, so let's just be best friends for one week, and then you're going to go to maybe Peru or whatever, I'm gonna go to Mexico City, and we're never going to talk to each other again until the next year when we reconnect for one week, or three days. Or maybe you'll never like I made so many friends that I just never speak to anymore. And it's nothing personal. It's just the nature of that lifestyle, which is fun. It's I love meeting new people. And it's great to connect with all of these fascinating, interesting people from all around the world. But from a psychological standpoint, we need deep connections to feel secure and we need to know you know, so if I meet Alice, and I know that she's leaving in one week, there's no really social accountability for me to like, she's not going to check in on me. So I don't need to. It's the accountability, you know, we need to know that we're cared about and that people want us to be healthy and successful and, and, you know, living our best lives or whatever. And when you have all of these, like tiny friendships that are disposable, um, you don't get any of that accountability.
Michaela Light 19:23
Yeah, I and I think that again, just like with how entrepreneurs tend to have more mental illness issues, even if they don't talk about it, then people in maybe the more general public, and I want to now give an analogy there. I think we all recognize that when people are in the military, particularly if they've been deployed to a war zone and have been seen violence or been injured. No, we recognize that they have more depression, more PTSD, more anxiety, more suicide. Sorry, I let the elephant out of the room there wasn't gonna let the elephant out of the room had it locked up. But we'll talk about suicide later. Thanks an important topic. But we recognize that being in the military as a high mental illness risk profession, but we don't recognize that being an entrepreneur has a high risk mental illness. And in in the modern American military, I know they do take some proactive steps to help people avoid having mental illness or be more resilient to it. And then they look after them after they come back. To some extent. I'm not saying they're perfect, but at least they recognize this issue and they're doing something about it. That's what I think we need to do with entrepreneurship, as well, that there's a recognition support, and that we have some best practices to have great mental health proactively before we go into the combat of doing a startup or whatever the thing is. And then the point I wanted to make about you know, digital nomad or location independence is yes, it is it lating more so if you're being the travel butterfly and you know you don't have a stable base and roots there and I think in general society Domini p polite See I remember once I was a kid I had a deep meaning
Unknown Speaker 21:31
I gay
Michaela Light 21:33
Asian convert caress
health issue that causes mental illness and isn't it that was before this lockdown yeah all right. I'll get off that that little ram box
Melanie 21:50
definitely I'm right there with you.
Michaela Light 21:53
Yeah it's quite crowded red box which is tottering on it.
Melanie 21:57
Love each other and support each other look you
Michaela Light 22:01
All right, I think we should move forward on to a deep dive into anxiety because a lot of entrepreneurs get anxiety. So let's talk about that because it seems to be now, you know, increased, right people who are mildly anxious. And maybe sugar. What Pepsi should have stopped by what is anxiety because it's not just worrying, worrying occasionally, right? It's a bit more than that.
Melanie 22:30
What do you think anxiety is?
Michaela Light 22:33
I think it's obsessive, worrying. You know, it's where you cannot stop yourself worrying. It's where you go to bed and you have difficulty going to sleep because you're worrying you wake up in the middle of the night and you're worrying. You get up in the morning and instead of being fresh as a daisy, you're like, immediately start worrying about your business and the situation in the world. And, you know, I think there's a spectrum of anxiety around the very lowest end, you can't be worried at all. Maybe When, maybe when you're gay walking across the street and a truck tries to run you over that's legitimate reasons boring and, And that, to me is the difference between healthy worry and Milton Ellis is if there's a thing in your reality that would be, you know, a tiger walked into your office, perhaps it's smart to have a little anxiety, you know, little fear. But if you're in a state of constant worry and you're having panic attacks and your heart is pounding and your hands are sweating, and even thinking about having that difficult conversation with that staff member you're thinking of firing is driving you into a frenzy of fear. Then maybe you've got some anxiety. I don't know. What do you think Melanie?
Melanie 23:44
I agree. I think it's Yeah, you hit on two really spot on components one the the uncontrollable aspect, or it's just you know, if you're trying to fall asleep and you literally can't stop thinking about these things. That's that's different than just being like, Oh, you know, did I turn my stove off today? And they I think I did. It's fine. And you can move on very quickly. And the other thing is
Unknown Speaker 24:11
the, the,
Melanie 24:14
like, I don't want to say legitimate fears versus the illegitimate fears, but kind of Yeah, if there's a tiger, yes, be anxious about that and be afraid about that. But if you're just worrying about things that it's not productive to worry about, then you're just spinning your wheels, you know, for no reason. And that can almost make it worse because you're like, I know, there's nothing I can do about this. And I still can't stop, you know, it ties into the uncontrollable illness. I still can't stop panicking about this, which they just play off of each other and it's very unpleasant.
Michaela Light 24:50
It is and it's not just, you know, people who, when I've had anxiety, it's not just I'm afraid of the actual Tiger in the actual office. It's like I'm afraid of the possibility of the Tiger escaping from the zoo and creeping into my office. It's having fears about stuff that isn't actually real.
Unknown Speaker 25:09
Yeah.
Michaela Light 25:10
You know, or to put this in more concrete terms, you know, it's not just, you know, understanding what's going on in the economy, it's being obsessed about it and being afraid what might happen instead of like, Well, hey, I've actually got some customers and they are paying me money and there are things I could pivot in my business and do about this.
Unknown Speaker 25:29
So yeah,
Melanie 25:32
I also would like to point out that there's definitely a physical component to anxiety I mentioned like sweaty palms. And for me when I was experiencing really bad anxiety, it was like, a lot of chests not paying but just like pressure, I guess. Yes.
Michaela Light 25:47
Um, constriction.
Melanie 25:50
Yeah, yeah. And some people I know experienced it in their stomach or like some people if they carry stress in their back when they are having an anxiety attack or you know, just feeling particularly good. It's like their shoulders will maybe tense up. And I think it kind of, if you're already experiencing something, it will make it worse. So like, if you have back pain, I think if you are particularly anxious A lot of times, I mean, there's such a big connection between physical health and mental health. So if your back is already hurting from something else, it will just magnify it.
Michaela Light 26:22
I think that's very true. And, you know, we talked about Mind Body medicine, right? That there's an intimate connection between the mind body and it's not a one way direction. It's not that that stuff happening in your mind only goes into your body. It's a feedback loop stuff in your body. So if you're having some terrible physical thing, like you're always having backaches, it's often common to worry about it right? What if it gets worse? Yeah, what if I can't work, you know? Um, so, and then like you were saying, if we having anxiety often causes symptoms, and actually there are more neuro receptors in the gut that There are in the brain. That's why when if you ever read the you ever read or watch the adverts for antidepressants, you know where they have this beautiful field with love and whatever and then they have two minutes is fine print where they go to court all the terrible things. And if you listen to that or read it, often it's they cause physical symptoms, you know, and cause constipation or other stuff in the gastrointestinal tract. So, there's a strong connection between physical stuff and mental illness in all of the mental illnesses we're going to talk about. That is true. So I'm part of it also is, you know, your body chemistry, right? If you shift your body chemistry by eating different things or doing behaviors, like working out or not working out, you know, if you work out, it releases certain neurotransmitters into your body and makes you feel better and karma. If you meditate, same thing. So we'll talk about things you can do. To prevent and cure later, but I'm just saying there's a there's a physical basis to that stuff
Melanie 28:05
for sure. Which again just contributes to the the creep or the downward spiral. Because if you have a good meditation and exercise and diet practice and then you fall into the slumps, and then you stop doing those things, it totally snowballs. And, and, you know, yeah, the mind and the body are very, very connected. So if you're not exercising and not getting those endorphins, then the anxiety just feels heavier and darker. And then it will make you not actually like that it makes you really not want to exercise or really not want to meditate and then it's just so bad. It's so bad.
Michaela Light 28:39
It is it's amazing. You couldn't we couldn't have dreamed up a more clever way to feel bad. Yes, having a negative feedback spiral. Um, I, I think we didn't talk about ups, OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder that relates to anxiety, you know, and that's where you're constantly having you were talking about going back to check your house. See if you turned off things, but that can apply to work and perfectionism and wanting to control others and micromanaging those role, like, you know, associated with anxiety. And then on the negative self talk in anxiety, I think it's like just, it's almost like I put negative sunglasses on and I see everything in the worst possible light. You know, someone says something to me, perhaps they were just trying to give some constructive feedback, but I reinterpret it, oh, they really hate me and they're never going to be my friend ever again.
Melanie 29:31
And not only do they hate me, and they'll never be my friend, but no one will be my friend.
Michaela Light 29:36
Now, I want to associate this I think having a really creative imagination is something that, unfortunately, is both beneficial for being an entrepreneur, you know, if you if you are creating new products or services, you know, or selling, having a great imagination is an asset. If you're having anxiety, it's a liability. You know yeah because your dream up even more crazy scenarios. So an entrepreneur is often a very creative
Unknown Speaker 30:07
So a really good point.
Michaela Light 30:09
um you know, this is a thing that so let me talk about some of the other related things do with anxiety while you if possible you see if anyone has said anything in the Facebook
Melanie 30:25
we got some people are sending love but there are no
Michaela Light 30:29
Oh, well that's nice. So some of the anxieties a wave form and we put all these in detail in the handout we're going to share with everyone after it'll be in the show notes on the episode. acrophobia fear of you know being in public spaces I used to have that I hated going to the cinema I thought I'd vomit in the seminar and people would then never friend me ever again. Maybe just general anxiety disorder, you anxiety, anxious about everything. Panic. attacks. I've had those where I just, you know, for no apparent reason I just start sweating and couldn't breathe and and the vomiting came up again. Maybe you're anxious in social situations I used to hate going to parties, I used to have to down a whole bunch of alcohol before I even consider going in the door of a party. I gave up alcohol in 15 years ago so I had to come up with better ways to deal with that. Some of which include not going to the party when I don't feel in the mood. And then phobias You know, a lot of people have phobias you know, fear of spiders heights flying, you know, meeting new people dealing with money, I don't know. Um, and then another anxiety maybe if you if you do over indulge in substances. You may have anxiety when you stop taking substance if you stop Drinking coffee. Or I know that's the very naughty thing to say, coffee but a lot of people get anxiety that if they can't get their coffee, they get anxious. Same with alcohol. Same with other drugs, smoking, street drugs, whatever you're into. So, any other anxiety things you think we should?
Melanie 32:23
I think that's good for anxiety. You want to move on to apathy.
Michaela Light 32:26
Let's move on. Yes. Whoops. apathy. Oh, this woman looks so apathetic. Suppose that was watching the video. I just want to give a shout out to ash in the DC who did the got these slides done. He did a great job. So what is apathy?
Melanie 32:46
To me, apathy is really just the lack of every emotion. The good ones and sometimes the bad ones, but really, I mean, what we miss is the lack of the good ones. So lack of excitement. Lack of engagement or interest in things lack of motivation. You just really feel like nothing matters. Nothing matters today and nothing will matter tomorrow. So what's the point of me doing anything? Because it doesn't matter.
Michaela Light 33:15
Yeah, that phrase, whatever comes to my mind,
Melanie 33:18
totally. Yeah. Yeah, I think the main symptom is, is really the lack of motivation. And you know it. Since if you think of humans as like machines you need the motivation is what pushes us to do things. So if there's no motivation, there's no action. And again, this, this relates to the downward spiral and the negative feedback loop. Because then we just don't do anything. If you're saying up whatever, you're laying in bed all day, you're watching Netflix or you're eating ice cream, and those are great to do sometimes, but not always. So, yeah, that that to me, I think is the main piece of apathy.
Michaela Light 34:01
I love that distinction. So in in anxiety, the downward spiral was an anxious thoughts and maybe withdrawing from activities because that but in apathy, it's the lack of motivation. And maybe negative thoughts about Hey, what's the point or why bother? It's not going to work anyway. And then just not doing anything because you don't do anything that gives you the feedback. You don't feel good because for me when I take action, even if I don't feel like it, if I go to the workout, I do my yoga even though I'm in a shitty mood, I feel better afterwards. And then I feel motivated to do other things. If If I pick up one of the mismatched pairs of socks lying on the floor in my bedroom and put them away, yeah. motivated to pick up a second one or if I
Unknown Speaker 34:47
actually
Michaela Light 34:48
exactly do, if I do that one thing I've been procrastinating about in my business, it makes me want to do something else.
Melanie 34:56
Absolutely. And again, we couldn't have designed a more clever or evil system for this because when you're experiencing apathy, you can say, like, for me when I was really deep in it, I was like, I remember that, like, in my past, I used to feel pumped up after going to the gym, but that's not real anymore. Like, I must be remembering that, like, there's no way that that that could help me feel better today because things are just different now. And, and it's so easy to convince yourself of that as well. So not only do you lack the motivation, but you lack the belief that anything you do will change, which again, so detrimental This is like the most evil genius. Whoever whoever, like concocted this, they were they were very cruel and very clever.
Michaela Light 35:48
Yes. And it's different from just feeling tired, you know, for an hour or two because you you know, that's that's also a lack of taking action. But it's it's Got that overlay of like, there's no point. So, and often this is related to burnout, you know, a lot of entrepreneurs get burnt out or bored is another B word. Yeah, you know, which is related to apathy. And I don't think we recognize that and but we do. You know, when I talk to other entrepreneurs, I'd say at least half of my like, either talking about selling their business or pivoting it now, but maybe legitimate business reasons for selling a business or pivoting it. And I think a lot of it comes down to people are burnt out and not admitting it, and not and they don't address it. And then they become serial, you know, entrepreneurs, or they become serial picketers. And they never, it's sort of the same issue with digital nomads who, who when they're coming up against a mental health issue, instead of addressing their boredom, or their burnout in their life. They go and travel to a new destination.
Unknown Speaker 36:59
Absolutely.
Michaela Light 37:01
So that's why again, this is entrepreneurs who are more risk of that because if you had a traditional job yeah, sure you could go change jobs but that's not quite as easy as what entrepreneurs you know, we have so much total freedom in in what we do in our business, it's easy to become subject to these things.
Unknown Speaker 37:19
So
Michaela Light 37:21
what are some of the symptoms you've seen in apathy or in yourself or other people? How would you How would you feel about pork fat you're not taking action on the your bedrooms, a mess, or?
Unknown Speaker 37:33
Yeah,
Michaela Light 37:34
or email folder is a mess.
Melanie 37:37
Think that's actually a very spot on thing like
your eat like chores, pile up things pile up, emails, pile up, tasks pile up, because you're just not doing anything. And so if you look around your life, and all of a sudden you're like, I have 100 emails to respond to dishes in the sink, and you know, 17 on like, Missed Calls that I need to return and 15 and listen to podcasts or whatever, whatever it is, I think that's a big symptom. That would be a big clue that maybe you're experiencing some apathy
Michaela Light 38:14
and related, you know, issues in your business that really should be dealt with, like that terrible customer you want to get rid of or the employee who needs to have a good talking to or be fired. For the position that you haven't filled. That means you're overwhelmed. And overwhelm is another symptom of this, I think. Yeah. So not taking action to make things better. But maybe doing things distractions or busy work. Yeah, because you just because so I have when I have apathy, it doesn't mean I'm not doing anything. I'm just not doing what needs doing.
Unknown Speaker 38:49
Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 38:51
Um, and
Melanie 38:53
if you ever get to the end of the day, and then you're like, what did I actually do today? Oh, that's always a For me that maybe I'm not, I'm not in a great spot. You know, I'm not sure I would be willing to bet that most of the listeners and viewers have some sort of evening routine or something, you know? And if you don't, I invite you to, but for me, it's I always like kind of check in with my day and do a quick reflection. And sometimes I'm like, what, literally, what did I do today? I don't even know like I was, quote, busy all day, but what do I have to show for it? Maybe? Or like, what did I actually accomplish? And I think you made a great point, Michaela that it's not always apathy isn't Oh is not doing anything because we're very good at tricking ourselves. So you can have very busy days but still be not. Um, you know, making any movement towards the goals that you care about.
Michaela Light 39:50
Yeah, and not feeling fulfilled. I think that's part of the key in this and and another sign is just your addictions have gone up. Yeah, no, no. For several notches you're drinking more you're going on social media more you whatever your addiction to sugar is. But you are reading news is another common one. And we didn't mention that in the anxiety one but social media or news Yeah, addictions often play into anxiety equals they give food for the anxiety. You know, whatever creature that lives in our head, it's like those monkeys they talk about, you know that distracting people from meditating some of the monkeys are anxiety monkey summer apps, the monkey summer depression monkeys, and we feed them you know, yeah, you know, here's a little social media snack for you Ms. apathy monkey, you know, and then they whatever. So, and again, that, you know, apathy can be associated with lots of physical issues, headaches, tummy aches, digestion issues, anemia, you know, depressed immune system and, in fact, all all mental illnesses. press's immune system. And right now with this Coronavirus floating around, we all want great immune systems, I hope, because that's the best way to avoid getting sick, really. I mean, you know, hospitals and doctors are all great and fine, but the best key to health is to look after your own health. Absolutely. And having a good immune system is a good part of that. So and then one final thing I think on apathy is, is just numbing out. Yeah. You know, maybe that applies to all of these mental illness issues that, you know, that's what the addictions do. They help us numb out but just as a general, we want to protect ourselves because we don't like feeling this way.
Unknown Speaker 41:43
Oh, yeah.
Michaela Light 41:46
And so so we just numb out and you can really see that and people have come back from war. I don't you've ever seen photos of soldiers who've just come back from the frontline. They have this. They're not connected. They have this far away, look in their eyes and they're just They just not they're spiritually speaking. It's like their soul left their body. Yeah. So Alright, I think we should probably move on to depression, looking at the clock.
Melanie 42:12
Oh, we could talk about this forever.
Michaela Light 42:14
I know. Well, maybe we should come back and talk about some other aspects in the future. But I want to make sure we cover all the things we've got to talk about prevention and cures to
Melanie 42:25
our we have so much to say.
Michaela Light 42:27
Yes, it's a big topic.
Melanie 42:29
So an apathy slide.
Michaela Light 42:32
Oh, I'm on the apathy slide. With the two apathy slides. I may have slowed down. I'm probably showing the wrong slides.
Melanie 42:39
Okay.
Michaela Light 42:41
But we'll move on to depression.
Unknown Speaker 42:42
Yeah. Um,
Melanie 42:45
so, variance. Depression is kind of the terrible combination of apathy and anxiety. It's just like the one I wish for no one to ever experience this because it is the lack of interest. lack of belief that things can get better, a lack of joy and excitement and all of the happy emotions that we get to feel as humans. And there's also the total negative self talk that I think comes along with anxiety that nobody likes you. Nobody cares. You know what you were saying to Caleb about you, you have these lenses on and anything, you know, someone can say, Oh, hey, sorry, I missed your call. And you just totally interpret that to the absolute worst degree. And, yeah, it's quite awful. I think it's really important to say that there's a big difference between feeling sad and feeling depressed the same way that we talked about anxiety, that there's a difference between Oh, I'm scared of this tiger. That's like a legitimate fear. And I'm scared that the world is ending or, you know, no one in the whole world cares about me as a human. So there, it's normal as As humans, we have a spectrum of emotions and I think that's cool. It's normal to feel sad and it's normal to feel like quote bad emotions and I think it's healthy to feel those things. But depression is just so much deeper. It's longer, it lasts longer and it's more nebulous. I think like it's not, you know, if I say, Oh, my cat died, that's a thing and then I feel sad about it. Cause and Effect, but depression is just like, everything. It's just like, everything sucks. Everything is terrible. Yeah, it's a more long lasting.
Michaela Light 44:33
Yeah, I mean, it's not just being sad for an afternoon because you saw a sad movie or something in your life happened that was sad. It is. You know this, you wake up feeling crappy. And and also, like you say, there's this mental chatter that you're not good enough. You're a bad person. It's not just you're sad. You're bad because you're sad. Yeah, and nobody will love You today and nobody can ever love you. Yeah, you know, it's that it's that exaggeration, so cruel. And you can't be fixed. You know, there's this little I feel depressed, you're saying these things, but I get those out, don't let that
Melanie 45:19
it's not true if your voices if your inner voice is telling you those things, it's not true, you are loved, and you can get better and your existence does matter. And you are worthy of all of the happiness that you want and desire. And
Unknown Speaker 45:31
that's the truth.
Michaela Light 45:33
It is the truth. Absolutely. I went into a little anxiety spin. I had the wrong slides up, but I think I just hadn't edited the slides. Right. Thank you. So yeah, and I think you can say the apathy is kind of a cousin of depression. But it doesn't have that all those the same negative voices going on. It's got a different set of its own next Voices, so and just to speak of those negative voices, you know, they may have come from our childhood or some other traumatic experience from teachers or co workers or bosses or customers or spouses even, you know, it's pretty common that someone is in some kind of business or family relationship with someone who is not helping. Yes. Um, so, you know, those negative voices may be just repeating back what you've heard, what they may have come from me movies, or news or, you know, other things of that nature. So there's a lot of programming that happens in our lives from other people or from media or organizations. You know, some organizations instill you know, I, I don't want to beat up on the military, but they go through this boot camp thing where as I understand it, they basically try and put pull people's egos down by saying they are a bunch of crap. And then supposedly they build them back up in the mold. They want them to be killing machines. Sounds pretty kind of weird to me either way. But my point is that's not just true in the military a lot, you know, some religions do that. Yeah, some schools do that. Some offices and corporations do that they just make people feel bad about themselves as a ineffective way to motivate them to do what the organization wants.
Unknown Speaker 47:28
So
Michaela Light 47:31
are we ready to let the world move out of the box?
Melanie 47:34
Go for it, this is all you would kill it.
Michaela Light 47:37
Oh, okay. So, it may be those voices are not even in your own head. They may be negative spiritual entities that are attached to you that are telling you bad things. And I see this a lot in my work that people have negative entities attached to them. And when I work it on more they go to an energy healer or shaman and have those removed suddenly they don't have the same negative force. is running around, I don't have the same crappy feeling in their emotions in their bodies. So I just want to put that out there. If you're open to woowoo, then and you're having any of these mental illnesses, just, you know, it may not be your mental illness, you might be being attacked by either other spirits or other people may be putting energy cords into you and draining your energy. I've had that happen a lot.
So,
you know, just just the thought to be open to that. All right, we ready to let the elephant into the room or should we?
Melanie 48:39
I think we can address it. Yes.
Michaela Light 48:41
All right, the elephant is suicide. Now. I was reading about suicide statistics. yesterday. I'm over 129 people every day in the United States of America actually succeeded in committing suicide. That's 40,000 people every year and that's in a normal year. I believe more people are doing it now, but I don't have a current statistics on this year. But I do know in previous similar things like the Great Depression in the 1930s, the suicide rate went up. It's also the case the suicide rate has increased by 25% since the turn of the millennium. And now those of us the people who actually succeed in killing themselves, ah, do you want to know how many people attempt suicide? Do you want to make a guess of that? anyone listening or?
Melanie 49:30
That's just that? I don't want to guess.
Michaela Light 49:32
Okay. 1.4 million people in United States every single year attempt?
Melanie 49:37
Yes, in the US. That's, that's terrible.
Michaela Light 49:40
That's just the US worldwide is bigger. Yeah. And then, um, I forget the exact number on this, but I want to say maybe 9 million people have suicidal thoughts every year that they've reported to someone else. Obviously, more people that have money keep to themselves. This is a crisis in our society. I believe and the economic cost of this is more than $60 billion every year from, you know, all the hospitalization and lost work and what have you. And that's just a suicide if you put all these other mental illnesses in there, I've no idea what the the economic cost of this is. I mean, there's the enormous personal and spiritual cost, but this is actually costing businesses money as well, that we're not addressing this.
Unknown Speaker 50:28
I believe it.
Michaela Light 50:30
Um, and I it, can I give you permission to go on a brief rant? permission? Yeah, I know, I'm almost on the rant already. Um, I just think that our Western society, not just the United States, but all Western societies have way more mental illness than I've seen in other countries. I've traveled to way more. Mm hmm. And we have way more homeless and a lot of homelessness is related to mental illness and You know, a lot of people try and help out and we'll do help out. Right? You know, we have therapists you can see we have doctors, we have counselors, we have support groups, we have Alcoholics Anonymous, we have lots of churches, we have all kinds of groups who, who helped treat the symptoms of, of this crisis. But it's like we never sit down and say, What the fuck is wrong with our society that 20% of Americans or more, currently even more are mentally ill every single year. And all those 10s of thousands people commit suicide millions of people either attempted or thinking seriously about and have a plan for it. Yeah. isn't something seriously wrong with our society? Yes. And you know, all the soldiers destroying jobs and isolation and consumerism, maybe it's Not the direction we should be going in. And perhaps with this Corona lockdown economic disruption, political shifts, all the other things that are coming in this year for those of us who are pre Cognizant and can see what's happening and could happen. There's an enormous shift happening and perhaps the even the name of the year 2020, which in AI vision, right means clear vision, maybe some, you know, many people are getting a much clearer vision, perhaps the direction we've been going in is not one that creates happiness and health in most people,
Melanie 52:36
for sure, for sure. And I just want to very clearly say we address this a little bit later in the presentation, but if any of you listening or watching are experiencing suicidal ideation or suicidal tendencies, please please please reach out for professional help. We can throw up some resources in the comments here. There are plenty of hotlines and even just telling loved ones what you're experiencing to, you know, kind of share just just to be seen and to share that a little bit. It's it. I know, it's very frightening to do that and to admit that to yourself and to admit that to others, but it's so important because again, like all of those voices in your head if they're telling you that it doesn't get better and life isn't worth living, those are those are lies and your existence is a beautiful gift to the world. And we all need you here. So please, please take care of yourself.
Michaela Light 53:33
Yeah, we That is great. Thank you for saying that. We don't want to let the elephant in the room not be addressed. So and I say the elephant in the room because people don't talk about this stuff. And that's part of the problem because it kind of keeps the the those negative thoughts inside your head and they can grow until they're crazy. Yeah, in size and crazy in in how they are very, um, but yeah, definitely If anyone's feeling any of these things in particular suicide so final, you know, yeah and and even you know, although many more people attempted than succeed even the people who attempted it's so harmful to their to their mental body you know their emotions it creates yet more negative voices that not only are they a crappy person but they even crap it kind of killed themselves right so
Unknown Speaker 54:26
I then
Melanie 54:27
said this seems like a good time to move into prevention and cures because yes we have so many ways to reverse this momentum if you're in a downward spiral, it just takes one little I don't mean to like say all it takes is one little shifts but you just need one one win and it changes the momentum into a positive airo and snowballs and and then life becomes beautiful again and it is beautiful. And I know that you know that somewhere. So whether you remember it right now, you have experienced that joy And you will experience that again.
Michaela Light 55:03
Thank you. Yes, we don't want to create a downward spiral here. And I have moved to the prevention tips. I do want to say one other thing on mental illness in general and suicide in particular, it affects everyone around the person, if someone is depressed or apathetic or anxious, all their staff and customers pick up on it, their family picks up on it. If someone in your organization or your family has these issues, it does and if if anyone actually does commit suicide, all the people around them typically have quite a lot of trauma around it. It's just like a soldier in combat, if they're, you know, that body in the whatever they call those teams that soldiers work in, I forget platoons or something. I'm not good on military speaking I've, I think I had a past life where I was in the military, if not several, and I've read a lot of books on it. But you know, if you're with someone who dies, particularly if they die suddenly and violently is traumatic, and that can PTSD and mental illness itself. So all right. Prevention tips Let's start with the basics right? These are things we all know probably a mom told them to you and you probably gave them your mom the middle finger finger mentally when she told you these things or possibly did, but they help so, so much. So, common basics are quality sleep, healthy diet, good gut health, you know, no or, or moderate drug abuse, exercise time in nature sunshine, getting away from all your digital devices getting regular touch. Now, I think most people could accept that all these things probably do help. Mental health, most of them actually help physical health to the two are intimately tied together. But so often as entrepreneurs, we Carry a badge of honor to like, Oh, we only had two nights two hours of sleep last night. Or Yeah, I wasn't I was so busy on doing this pitch to the investors I didn't eat or, you know, or let's have a few brewskis and few turns into a whole bunch of beers. So all we say in front of inside in front of our computer all day and don't get any sunshine Yeah, so I call them the basics but because they are you really need these things in there. The fact that building blocks for mental health, but we forget to do them, because we think we can get away with it. And maybe when we're 19 years old, you know you can do without sleep and still be okay ish. What are your thoughts on these things?
Melanie 57:51
I agree. They're so they're so important. And yeah, it's really That you nailed it there, the the foundation, the building blocks, you know, like everything else is kind of just bonus I think like it's, it's also I think with the apathy and with some of the symptoms of these mental illnesses, it's so easy to convince yourself that you don't need to you don't need to sleep or and you literally can't if you're so anxious that you're not getting a good night's sleep, you know, and then again, it goes into the negative feedback loop. So really just like focusing, everything you can do to get yourself back to the baseline health will really help you will prevent it and depending if you're in it with improvement.
Michaela Light 58:41
Well and here's the thing I found that if I'm having trouble sleeping, what I used to do is I'd reach for a drug or I'd reach for social media or TV or something that really wasn't actually helping but it kind of strive to be the fact that I was having difficulty in this area. Yeah. So you know, I can they can kind of whatever spiral in on each other. So what about those things I think we can all agree on, helpful to do and I just suggest to anyone who's having some, you know, if you're on the border or you think you might have mental issues, or if you'd prefer to, you know, prevent them in the first place. Just make a list of these when they're all listed out in the handout, we're going to link in the show notes. And we'll put in the Facebook Live thread later. You know, what I do for a lot of these things, I have a little spreadsheet that lists all the basics, and I check them off. Yes. And this will be printed it could be a piece of paper, you've checked them off or, or whatever, but I like a little spreadsheet where the cells turn green when they put yes in them because it kind of gives me a little thrill. Yeah. And then I kind of a it helps motivate me to do these basics. But secondly, I can look to Back on my week and saying, Oh, yeah, Tuesday was a bad day. Oh, I noticed Monday night, I didn't sleep good. And I didn't do these other things that day and oh, maybe that's correlated. Which comes to the next point of protection. How can we, we mentioned this is a creeping problem, it's often hard to even know you're starting to go down the slippery slope of mental illness. What are some ways that have helped you to detect? You know, something, you're starting to spiral down?
Melanie 1:00:27
Great question. I think self awareness is the coolest thing that humans can do, we can learn. So for me when I the ways that I check in with myself his daily meditation and daily journaling, those are the big two for me personally, but other other people may really rely on their intuition or, you know, looking at their surroundings like mirroring is really big. You mentioned before that if, if you are surrounded by maybe negative friends who don't necessarily support you or that would
Michaela Light 1:00:58
be a dirty mirror. Yeah, exactly. It's one of those fairground mirrors that makes your face look ugly. Yeah, that would be bad friends bad family members, bad members of staff bad mastermind members.
Melanie 1:01:11
Yeah, so just the things that I'm you know, whatever works best for you to check in with yourself How do you I don't know maybe you have a daily dialogue with yourself you look at yourself in the mirror and say hey Melanie, good morning how you feeling today? That's a great idea that I just thought of, maybe I'll start doing it. So whatever it is to just be raise your awareness around around how you're feeling. I see
Michaela Light 1:01:34
beautiful Samantha has joined us I I temporarily muted you just because you will rustling as you've got yourself settled from your pages of helping out other humans in their health. Nice hairdo too. So yeah, I think I think positive mirroring I find coaching also helps you know if I share it with you Either a professional coach or a friend who's good at listening, that can help me Rick recognize I've got these patterns going on. And being in a good mastermind is invaluable. For me, a good mastermind is where people are prepared to lovingly say the truth if they see it, if they think I'm looking depressed, they'll say, Hey, mckaela you're looking a little down what's you know, what's going on? Give me space to
Melanie 1:02:25
a mastermind or just friends and family can reflect that back to as well if, you know, observant and loving as well.
Michaela Light 1:02:33
Yes. So what are the prevention things that I I'm in a gratitude group? Cool. Every day we share some gratitude. So some people write down a browse to you to the end of the day or the beginning of the day.
Melanie 1:02:46
Yeah, I do both.
Michaela Light 1:02:49
Can't have too much gratitude.
Melanie 1:02:51
You can't have too much and the cool thing about gratitude is it really like since I do it, at the end of the night, I find that during The day I'm like, Well, what will I be grateful for tonight, so you're scanning your environment for those good things, and you're just tuning your brain to look for the positive. And over, you know, I've been doing this now every single night for at least two years and it like is so my brain, it's so much better trained to look for good things.
Michaela Light 1:03:22
I think a lot of these things become habits and, um, and, you know, with physical stuff, you know, if you wanted to have toned arms, you recognize you've got to like, do some yoga or lift some weights or swim or whatever the thing is you do. Um, and I think we forget that with the hidden side of mental health that we need to if you want to have good mental health, you've got to actually take some action and focus on it and make some good habits and get some support from people to maintain that So, and I guess, you know, if if we let our body go to seed and you're around people who are pretty healthy, you know, they probably speak up, but we're not quite as practiced speaking up when someone's mental health is not doing so well. So I encourage people that that's something for all of us to improve. Anyway, other things that prevent, I would say laughter and play a really important I've noticed that unless young children, you know, toddlers under age seven unless they've been abused or had some other critical trauma, generally, they're fucking happy and resilient, you know? Um, and one of the keys that you know, starting to study children they love hundreds of times a day. You know, you hear him giggling and for no reason, and it releases some of this toxic mental staff or stress and helps them be happy. And adults spike marrison typically only laugh Three or four times a day. So get your laughter quotient up one day, maybe one day like that Fitbit that measures how many steps you take, maybe they'll have an apple watch or something that counts how many times you laugh a day. And
Melanie 1:05:15
there's a lot of research that shows that laughter that our brain can tell the difference between genuine laughter and like, quote, forced laughter So if you've heard of laughter, yoga, it's just people for a half hour an hour just going ha ha ha ha. And to create those those positive chemical releases in your brain. And also in my experience of laughter yoga, it actually creates genuine laughter as well because you feel really silly and it's also just like a lot of joy in the air. So if, if you don't think you have enough laughter, and you're feeling uninspired with the Netflix, stand up comedian options, just fake it, fake it till you make it and I think you'll still get a lot of those positive benefits.
Michaela Light 1:05:56
That is a great point. I think Sam wrote something in the chat. She wants To share. So hold on, unmute her.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:03
Can you hear me? There's a lot of noise here.
Michaela Light 1:06:05
We can hear you and we can't hear the noise.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:08
Oh, good. I'm in the lobby. I'm actually I, I can't see my own picture, which is unusual, too. But I'm in the lobby, and I, unfortunately can't stay for long either. I don't I wrote something. But I remember what it was. What did I write?
Michaela Light 1:06:21
You write it becomes a graddic gratitude treasure hunt throughout the day?
Unknown Speaker 1:06:25
Oh, yeah. I wrote a book. I wrote a book on burnout. Right. And that was one of the gratitude was a big part of it. And
Michaela Light 1:06:32
you wrote a whole book on it. And you didn't tell us?
Unknown Speaker 1:06:34
Well, it's a book on mindfulness. And well, no, I could look at burnout. Yeah, the burnout recovery diet, its guide it's because it's for nurse practitioners. It doesn't really apply to a lot of people. I This was my first business idea was totally bombed because I had no idea what I was doing, but I wrote a book. And five minutes away, it keeps the burnout away. And so one of the one of the things is Do a treasure hunt for in the morning when you look at your morning schedule to look for the patients you're excited to see today. And be like, Oh, I could just see Justine for blah, blah, blah. And then the afternoon to do the same thing instead of looking for the ones that you're like, Oh, God, I gotta see blah, blah, again, which is what we normally do. Let's see. And just like you're doing with the when you said you do, once you get used to doing gratitude at night, and you start looking for it during the day. So it's the same thing. If you look, think about what you're looking forward to, and what you're going to look back on it. It raises awareness of things you have to be grateful for.
Michaela Light 1:07:40
is a great thing. Now you're in a quite stressful situation working in a hospital in New York City. 24 hours a crisis. 84 hours a week long hours to do you have long
Unknown Speaker 1:07:52
12 hour, days a week. I've worked 27 out of the past 28 days.
Michaela Light 1:07:57
That sounds quite stressful. It's almost as stressful as being an Stop, if not more, just attach.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:02
It's been in a startup, but it's more stressful.
Michaela Light 1:08:05
Yes, because people are sick and dying and crabby and what have you? Yeah. Now, I'm curious if you have any prevention tips that you've, you know, been following in the last 28 days, I've lost
Unknown Speaker 1:08:19
almost my entire self care routine for lots of reasons, because I just can't do it. So I have started doing a couple of different things. The first is a gratitude practice. I do so I wake up at 520. Every morning, I'm on day shift seven at 7pm. And wake up at 520 my alarm goes off, I do a three minute headspace meditation, and then it ends and then as long as I stay awake, the other seven minutes I think about all the things that I have to be grateful for, like I'm grateful to be here and helping where I need to be. I had to quit my job to be here. So it was a big deal. Like there's a lot of things that I'm really I'm in the right place at the right time, and I'm really grateful for that. So I just, I think Feel that gratitude and I do the same thing when I go to sleep just for a couple of minutes. I'm like, you know, I'm really grateful that I'm here. I'm I have food I'm being taken care of. I see lots and lots of people dying. And I'm not one of them. And it's pretty amazing. And during the day for separate reasons, I had to get an Apple Watch. And so but it's got a brief thing on it that dings every couple hours that says you should breathe for one minute. And I find that super helpful because I'm literally running around all day. I got another two pages as I was sitting down since supposed to be on my way somewhere else to go. I'm a Coronavirus swab or tester. So I do the stick the thing in the nose in the mouth to dozens of people every day. Whenever the doctors or nurses or nurse practitioners up in order, I go and do them to the patient. And so they just they hit our pager, to have us come you know and sometimes they're fine and just waiting to go home and sometimes they're in the ICU and sometimes I walk up and You know, it's somebody I was talking to two hours ago and now they're dead. Like, it's really, really uncertain footing of what's going on here at the hospital. And, but the gratitude practice the the breathing piece on the ice, I watch. Apple Watch has really, really helped. And also maintaining perspective. I'm around a lot of people who are complaining. I'm so jealous. So I haven't had a truly hot meal in four weeks. I don't have access to hot food, I don't have access to a microwave like I have access to take out but it takes him an hour to get here because everything in New York is closed and it's a it's a clusterfuck I mean, it's a crisis. There's a reason I'm here. So I had some of my friends are completely gone. I can. I'm so jealous of the people that have, you know, hot food with with their microwave or they can go to a restaurant and you know, eat out whatever and I'm like, I'm grateful I have food. I'm really grateful. I have food. I haven't placed this sleep tonight I have meaningful work to do I get things to do. So it helps. It's a little bit problematic. I can't see if the person is here. So I don't want to talk about too much. But it can be a little bit problematic to hear those kinds of things. But actually, to a certain extent, some of it helps me because it helps me maintain perspective. Like, I'm here. I'm taken care of, I have food to eat. I got work to do. And I'm really grateful to be here. Now my ratings at me and tells me to breathe, and I do. That's
Michaela Light 1:11:34
great. I think breathing is a really great thing that helps clear a lot of these mental issues amazingly, so it seems so simple. We didn't write it in the basics list. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:45
It's only right now. I mean, if it takes longer than a minute, I'm out. Mm. You know, I'm 14 hours a day I have to get on the bus by 615. And I'm not home until usually after about 815. So they're actually 14 hour days with the commute and I Don't have time for anything that I normally do. I'm not doing my stretching. I'm not doing my. Yeah, I just have to do the bare minimum. And be and be okay with that, because that's where I am right now. And I have a day off tomorrow, friend of mine is getting married. So I got the day off tomorrow.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:18
Yay,
Unknown Speaker 1:12:19
yay. I also have people on three different days to get the day off, but I got it.
Michaela Light 1:12:24
Yay. I also just want to reflect the the gratitudes you mentioned, like I have food to eat sounds so simple and basic. But many people who haven't done a gratitude practice might even think to think of that as gratitude. And one of the keys to me of gratitude practices revenues, recognize there are so many thousands of things I can be grateful for, that I might have been ignoring.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:48
Yeah, it's well, and the other thing is, I'm in the middle of a crisis, right? So it's right in our faces, like I don't have access to hot food and I haven't for a long time. And so that's the thing that I think about I'm like, wow, I I really wish I could have this or have that. And I think those thoughts too, because it's true. Like, I wish I could make something or eat something out and get it delivered. Like to get it, put a plate down in front of me and it be hot and I can eat it. Like I used to, like, that's a big change from my normal life. And so it makes me reflect on other people in different parts of the world. And because I'm in the middle of, you know, shit exploding all over. And New York City is still basically closed. And I it's just, I'm seeing these really basic needs not being met. Like there's a lot of people going hungry, not not just missing hot food, but going hungry because of the economic consequences of the shutdown of a city of 9 million people. Like there's a ton of people without any food. And so seeing that, on a daily and hourly basis, helps me reflect on Wow, like I'm here. I'm paid to be here, right? Like I'm a volunteer, and I'm crazy for being here. But I mean, hey, You know, I'm one of the few people with a job in the city right now. So our income, it's just, it's, it helps provide perspective. And that's been really meaningful.
Michaela Light 1:14:13
Well, thank you, Samantha, for your insights from the front lines of this Christ. Welcome. And thank you also for contributing to the handout and the presentations. So,
Unknown Speaker 1:14:24
you're welcome. Yes. So I think I'm gonna run and go do these swabs.
Michaela Light 1:14:28
Yes, half happy swapping be I'm grateful for you joining.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:32
I really love you both. You're fantastic. I'm so glad you did this.
Michaela Light 1:14:36
Yay. All right. Ciao. Ciao. All right. Um, let's wrap up the prevention. We mentioned, avoiding news and social media or limiting them, you know, maybe with an app, I use rescue time, you probably have your own little app you use for that, that just, you know, it monitors how much time you spend on those sites and it Well, in the case of rescuetime, it's very friendly. It just says, You decided earlier, you had important goals to do, and you don't really want to be on this site. But if you'd like to go into it, here's a countdown for 15 seconds that will let you go in. And if you click on it, and then you get an hour where you could go into it, and then it starts all over again. And then I think another prevention thing is just before you get into mental illness, if you've nurtured your support network, whether that's your co workers or your friends or family, and you have helped other people out and they're able to listen to you that can help when you need them.
Melanie 1:15:42
Definitely.
Michaela Light 1:15:44
One other thing I just say related to burnout is what I call a joy audit, where you kind of do you list all the areas in your life or all the areas in your business like you know in your business, maybe it's sales, marketing, accounting, HR, whatever they they are for you and then you rate them on a scale as Are 10 where zero is totally sucks and 10 is absolutely a static and that can help you see areas that may be dragging you down. Yeah, causing you stress. Alright, let's move on to cures. Whoo. And I notice I keep dragging the chat widget down into the top of the screen share. So I think we said this before, but we'll say it again if you're really feeling seriously mentally ill get some professional help. We put some resources in the thing but your family doctor, a suicide prevention line. You know, there are some lines where you can just I forget the name of them but you can just if you're having problems you can call up and have someone listen to you. If you don't have anyone else you could listen to you. Obviously friends are good to those basics we mentioned just check in. Maybe you need to do a reset on that. I use the at the end of the week, the Sunday as a reset if I've been affected. accumulating a bad habit on sleep or eating or whatever it is or exercise. At the end of each week or the end of the month. I'm like, Okay, I'm going to do a reset on this habit. You know, I can, I'm forgiving myself for not doing it so well. Now I'm going to rededicate myself to doing whatever that thing is for me in my case, for example, sleep I have a commitment to go to bed before 9pm stretch goal is 8pm because I noticed the difference when I don't do that. Yeah. So that's my sleep one you know, whatever your metric is for your for the basics. You can look at that and if you're recording them in that in written down form or in a spreadsheet, you can see patterns and see like, oh, like for me, for example, when when we have the full moon, I don't sleep so good. So I deliberately go to bed even earlier on the few days around the full moon because I know I'm probably going to wake up in the middle of night and have difficulty going back to sleep. So at least I've got some good as asleep. No What What, what are your thoughts on cures?
Melanie 1:18:07
I think, definitely professional help. I can't speak highly for that. I know there's a big stigma around getting well asking for help in general can be very challenging, especially for entrepreneurs, we're used to doing everything ourselves, it can be a big challenge to, to admit that you need help. And to ask for it. We have a lot of beliefs that, you know, it's a weakness to ask for help. And I think it really is a strength. So I want to double down on asking profit doesn't need to be professional, you know, and asking for help from a friend saying like, hey, I've been noticing these changes in my life. Can you just, like, messaged me once a week and asked me if I've, if I've been meditating, or ask me how I'm doing and then if I say, oh, things are fine. Don't let me just say that, you know, ask me to tell you the honest answer. So, asking for help is great.
Michaela Light 1:19:03
That could even be asking yourself by journaling, if you don't, if you literally are on a desert island with Tom Hanks and his baseball, you could journal what's going on. And then you're asking yourself out or you could ask God for help. Or you could ask angels or your guides for those who are into those things.
Melanie 1:19:20
Exactly. Oh, I yeah, I will say also there's a I mean, I am even hesitant. This is another elephant. Everyone has very strong opinions it seems about medication and drugs. And I think, you know,
Michaela Light 1:19:35
drugs, medication, yay.
Melanie 1:19:40
It can be so helpful and there's no shame in taking antidepressants and taking anti anxiety medication if that's what you think will be helpful for you. You know, it is not again it is not a weakness, it is not a failure. Sometimes there is literally a chemical imbalance in your brain and in order to rebalance it, like you've been talking about the comparison to physical Help. If you broke your leg, you wouldn't just be like, I'm not going to get the surgery because my body can heal itself. Yeah, your body probably could heal itself, but it would take much longer, it would be very painful. And if we have the technology to put a metal plate in your leg, why wouldn't you do it just because you want to be strong or independent, you know, like, it's, I think it's great to ask for help and to accept help.
Michaela Light 1:20:25
Absolutely. And, and also, you know, that negative spiral tends to make us not want to ask for help, because, you know, I don't deserve it. Well, no one could help or blah, blah, blah. So it this interrupts that negative spiral just by speaking up and interrupts those negative voices by speaking it out loud. Often the negative voices actually are saying pretty stupid things. Yeah, sorry, negative voices, but you are. And just speaking out loud helps us recognize either ourselves or the friend or the doctor or therapist or whatever. Point out. That was This isn't really based on reality. You know, let's look at some other alternative beliefs. Mm hmm. So I think also coming back to the business, you know, so many people don't feel infused about their business, right? They're just doing it for the money. And that motivated them for a while but no longer is motivating, having a big why if your business have meaning in your work, it needs to be more than about money or being busy. If it's going to make you happy in the in a deeper sense, you know, it's the difference between eating junk food and eating really healthy, natural, fresh food. Yeah, one leaves you feeling satisfied and healthy. The other one leaves you feeling empty. And it's the same with businesses, I believe. Yeah. Um, I think also having some balance between your work and your life, you know, it's fine to want to be do a lot of work if it makes you happy and you're being healthy about it. And it also helps her balance and to be honest with you, I achieve more when I do.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:08
Yes, yeah. Yeah. And if
Michaela Light 1:22:12
Yeah, if I take a vacation or I go away for the weekend, I often solve problems or I come up with great creative new ideas, my business will get perspective that if I kept my nose to the grindstone, I'm, you know, working really long as I'd never seen.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:27
Yeah,
Melanie 1:22:28
yeah. And that's something that Kayla, thank you that I love to tell entrepreneurs is that you are not your business. It's so easy. Too late to say that again. That's not your business. You're not your profit. You're not your revenue. You're not your clients or your customers. If you have a quote, bad month, on paper for your business that has nothing to do with your worth as a human being. And you know, if you are you're not, quote, productive enough, like that has nothing to do with your family. you as a person, so just balance is so important and balance and separation remembering that you are a multifaceted human being and you bring so many gifts to this world, not just the gifts of your business, you know, your friend, your child, your sibling, maybe. And, and like your Yeah, your value is not the same as your business's value. So very important.
Michaela Light 1:23:26
Very I think that's a great point. You know, I think some self compassion really helps to kill all of these, you know, just acceptance that I've got this issue, and I don't know how many people have ever done EFT, tapping, and I'm realizing I keep looking to the side that's because I haven't got your photo in the middle layer if I put your video in the middle above my webcam, that way I now look like I'm looking at the camera. And I forgive myself and love myself even though Yeah, during media. Press Oh, But yeah, if ever anyone ever has done EFT tapping, that is a you know, some of that is I love and accept myself. But even though I have this mental illness, whatever the thing is, or even though I had this bad month, and, you know, even though I may have caused it myself, I love forgiveness and then you're tapping like little acupressure points around your face. I've got an article on the intuitive leadership mastery website or you can just Google for EFT tapping, you'll find lots of videos and stuff. And another energy shift method for curing these things is EMDR, which I think stands for eye movement desensitization something or another. But basically you work with someone else and they you talk about and bring up the issue and then you move your eye they move your finger around, you follow it in different ways, and it stimulates different pieces of your brain. And I guess because you have these neural patterns and pathways in your brain while you're thinking about the issue and you stimulate them by By looking it clears out the crap.
Melanie 1:25:03
Yeah, super powerful. I've had very powerful experiences with that.
Michaela Light 1:25:08
Yeah, me too. I mean, like, shattering the gap and then coming back you know, perhaps the basics you know, having good routines and habits, you know, routines around eating regular meals I, I sometimes forget to eat. I don't know if you've ever had that problem. But yeah, or the opposite problem that I don't I'm not conscious and I'm always eating. Mm hmm. Not necessarily eating healthy things. So So putting in place good routines, having a buddy who helps, you know, you know, you have if you have difficulty exercising, get a friend and both agree you're going to either go for a run together or you're gonna check in with each other if you're not allowed, you know, contact with each other because of social distancing. I think running with a meters distance between you is fine. No one has had in recorded history has ever caught Coronavirus from exercise outside. I'm serious on that statistic we've studied that generally when you're stuck inside the air circulating round and round, for sure. Anyway, I won't go off on that tangent. And then the final thing I'll just add on this is reframing the thing. I think we touched on that briefly, but you know, looking at the problem in a different way, and that's where friends, family therapists, counselors, coaches can all help in reframing. Yeah, those those thoughts. So I, did you have anything else? I'm curious before we flip to the next section, I think, which is the penultimate section, I believe. Yeah. So some loving reminders on Melanie.
Melanie 1:26:43
Yes, I am. I accidentally leaked this one first, but I got too excited that you are. I think it's so important and it's such a it's such a big issue with so many entrepreneurs because it makes sense. You know, it isn't. For so many people, their business is just an extension of themselves. Because their heart and their soul and their mind is in it. Um, but but it's not the success of your business is not reflective of your success as a human being. So I think it's really important to separate that. My other loving reminder to entrepreneurs is that I know we all love to overachieve, and we'd love to work hard and see growth and see improvement. And this is a crazy time, we're in a crisis, like Samantha said, they, they're not calling it a crisis, because it's not. So now is not necessarily the time for you to you know, reach enlightenment. If you want to, like ease up on your expectations for yourself, I think that would be very healthy and kind, if you want to, you know, instead of instead of reaching the next phone, if you're focusing just on preventing the the slide or the downward spiral or the crash, you know, like we got to adapt, that's something entrepreneurs are really good at adapting and this is a different time. So your your goals and your systems that you have set up for yourself and quote like regular times might, you know, it might be helpful to readjust those a little bit.
Michaela Light 1:28:09
that those are great loving reminders. We've written those out in the handout that we're going to share so you can print them out and tape them up and say them out loud or whatever you want to do. At. And also, I think another reminder is that the reality what people share on social media probably is not what's really going on in their life. And if you see all your friends are all happy and seem well adjusted, chances are at least 20% of them are like having serious mental illness. Actually, right now, probably all of them are. At least 60% are having, you know, either clinical depression or PTSD and a bunch of people are having anxiety. So don't be fooled by social media, or reading the news and looking at life for famous people is another way people delude themselves so I'm not asleep. Tesla's this mega entrepreneur Well, yeah, say so what you know you're very good at what you do and and be if you really went to that person's life and trailed them 24 seven for a week you probably discover their life isn't all rainbows and unicorns either. And same with marriages, you know, relationships often people who are single thing go here everyone is in relationships ecstatically happy. Well, that may not be true. Yeah. So all right, I think we should talk about resources. So we have the replay of this, which will, you know, it's all on the Facebook Live. And also, it's also the podcast and the issue of video, we're gonna make this. We've put some resources in the notes, but I have a bunch of podcasts on this topic around anxiety and depression and suicide and dealing with addictions and amazing interviews I've had with great Rate entrepreneurs around the world about how they overcame some of these issues in their life and you know, improve their mental health. So I'll put all those links in there you can find all the podcasts on intuitive leadership mastery site. And then some tools. I think Samantha mentioned headspace, which is a meditation app on your phone. She mentioned a watch she uses the Apple Watch that reminds her to breathe. I think there are other gizmos that have similar things. You know, Fitbit or similar devices keep track of your steps or other exercise things. There are other meditation apps like brain FM has focused on sleep music, I use one called Pitts which is PCI CC, great for naps. Great for sleep. I when I in a world where I used to be able to take care of planes across oceans, hopefully that will happen again. But I'd use that sleep on the airplane and it has what I love about it has you can Pick all these different musics and all the different voices and the voices all these encourages voices saying, Oh, you've had a good day and you deserve to have a little rest. And it's, you know,
Melanie 1:31:09
awesome. What is that? One can
Michaela Light 1:31:12
Pitts. It's PZI at the sea. And I will tell you, if you sign up for it, I'll try and will give you a 14 day trial and they're trying to get $99 out of you. But if you just hold steady while they send you constant reminders through your email, eventually, they'll give you a 75% discount. Yeah, well, that's how I got it. And that's a lifetime thing as far as I remember. Um, yeah, that's great app. And it also has focused music, as does brain FM, which helps you folks, you know, I find if I'm having apathy, if I just get one thing done, though, you know, in my business, and if I put focus music on is so much easier to do that like tedious task. I didn't want to get out of the way, you know, all that I've been. I've created all kinds of mental Crap chatter around how terribly difficult it will be. And then I actually do it turns out to be pretty easy. Absolutely. And then I mentioned rescuetime earlier, there's lots of other apps that will control how our social media and news or whatever other websites you think are naughty. pornography is another big one for a lot of people. You know, when you're in an office, not that many entrepreneurs work from home, but you know, when you're in office, there's social reasons to not go into some of these websites too much. When people work from home. It's so easy to slip into pornography or video games or online chests or whatever your addiction to sugar is. Not the chest is bad, but if you're doing it for 12 hours a day perhaps that's a little bit
Melanie 1:32:42
anything can be a medicine or a poison, depending on how you how you consume it. So
Michaela Light 1:32:48
yeah, I think we will say our disclaimer at this point. I've got to disclose somehow the disclaimer side snuck up without me clicking. So this poke Cast video meet up whatever you want to call it is not a substitute for therapy or medical advice. And if you need medical professional help go get it. And so if you feel like you're obsessively worrying and it's interfering with your work or relationships, or other stuff, that would be a clue. Or if you're, it's upsetting to you and difficult to control or if you're depressed and having trouble with drugs or alcohol or other addictions. Or if you think your mental health issues are related to your physical illnesses, or apps are fucking lonely if you're having suicidal thoughts or behaviors, like cutting is an example of that. Please go get emergency help immediately like right now.
Unknown Speaker 1:33:51
And
Michaela Light 1:33:53
you know, as we've said these things if you don't deal with them yourself or with the help of friends or professional help, they It can get worse. And you don't want that. So if in doubt, get some help. And we put some links on that in there. So I, I think that's all material. Do we have any questions in the Facebook chat that we missed
Unknown Speaker 1:34:17
that? Yeah,
Michaela Light 1:34:18
not yet they're all absorbing it possibly It was very deep and dark subject that takes time to digest. So if any of this talk resonated with you, but you were like, Oh, that's a bit achy, I'm not sure what to think about that. Just take a break for a day or two and then consider coming back to the recording and re listening to that piece a few times, because sometimes with deep stuff, particularly with mental issues, it takes a few goals, to, to hear the message. And if if Melanie and I's approach, this just didn't resonate with you at all, find some other podcasts, find some other video, read some other books, go talk to some What else? You know, we're not the only people on the planet who talk about this stuff, though I think we are two of the better ones.
Melanie 1:35:08
And I will say, if this did resonate with you, um, I'm depending on how you're consuming this, if you're on Facebook, I'm going to throw a comment in on here. If you want to reach out to me privately, I don't wanna speak for you, Michaela. But I would imagine if they want to reach out to you privately, I'm more than happy to chat with you on any of these things to go deeper on any of these things. And just be a resource. I love talking about these things and sharing. I think that Yeah, mental illness is so challenging and it's such a difficult place to be in and and if there's anything that I can do to help you prevent or get out of that I would love to
Michaela Light 1:35:48
why is fabulous. Yes. I mean, I shared the Facebook Live, you can just pm me there or if you have some other way to reach me, you can do that. I also You know, I put out a lot of material on the intuitive leadership mastery website to do with this and other entrepreneur intuition topics. So that's another resource. And I've written two books on business intuition, too. So, you know, that has, if you're, if any of the woowoo stuff appeal to the intuitive leadership mastery book has plenty of woowoo when they're probably more woowoo than, you know, many people want to deal with, which is why I wrote the second book it has has no woowoo in it, but has the same ideas presented a different way.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:38
Thanks.
Michaela Light 1:36:39
Well, thanks, everyone for attending. Thank you, Melanie, for all your wonderful work on this and, and passion and contributions. And we'll see you all another time.
Melanie 1:36:53
Yeah, thanks, Michaela. This was great.
Michaela Light 1:36:56
Great, and now I've got to figure out okay, how do I add This take a while so we'll just sing just talk amongst yourself
Melanie 1:37:06
ever and I'll just throw some compliments at everyone listening to this while we wait. You're beautiful and you're resilient and you're exactly on the right path. And you are worthy of all the things that you want in life. And you are loved by so many people, whether they tell you or not you are making a difference in their lives. You inspire people. You are so beautiful and handsome if you prefer that one, you you light up every room that you enter, and you are so smart and you learn new things every day. And you people are so proud of you and you should be so proud of you. And you are so great and you are so fun to be around and you are so funny and you bring Joy wherever you go. And let's see you. You're just awesome. People that you don't even know have have heard about how great you are, and have been inspired by stories about you and from you.
Unknown Speaker 1:38:17
And
Melanie 1:38:19
your you're a beautiful butterfly and a beautiful sunflower. I've been really into sunflowers recently. Mikayla, how you doing?
Michaela Light 1:38:29
Oh, I was ready quite a while ago, I just so much enjoyed listening to your stream of praises. You know, like I wanted to put it onto an app and listen to it, you know, meditate. We did have a question. Someone said what was that meditation app there were several out there. The ones we mentioned were headspace. Brain FM and Pitts, which is PCI CC, and we'll put those all in the handout so Worry not and also, I forgot. We have This cute slide that says when AI is replaced with we even illness becomes wellness. I thought that was pretty deep. So whoops we're not doing a sharing time because this is a recording and we want to be sensitive to people's stuff. So I'm going to stop the share. I'm going to stop the Facebook Live somehow stop live stream. And I'm going to stop the recording and thanks everyone for coming.
Melanie 1:39:27
Fantastic. Thanks
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