Brandon Fairweather's Anxiety Survival Toolkit and The Hell Inside Our Heads: why you can't beat anxiety and how to manage it well instead.

Brandon Fairweather was born with a heart defect doctors said he'd need to fix "someday." That someday came at 28 — heart surgery on his third wedding anniversary. Since then: 2 strokes, a near-fatal internal bleed, and a cancer diagnosis. Through all of it, a level of anxiety that, at its worst, made it hard to get out of bed. He wrote his way through it, and that became his book, The Hell Inside Our Heads: Managing Anxiety and Practical Steps for Better Mental Health. In this episode, Brand...

• 0:09Speaker 00

  You're not sleeping as well, so you've got heightened anxiety. Then you're waking up with anxiety in the night. There were physical symptoms that were happening. And I think the hardest thing was unpacking that, you know, after a while, and I think even people close to you, the situation, my wife included, who was such a great support and rock for me, was like, you would wake up with the same symptoms. You would have shortness of breath, slightly elevated heart rate, potentially sweaty palms, this fidgety feeling where you need to get up and move around and do things. You know, the typical symptoms would repeat and repeat. And you would think that after having them so many times and realising each time there was nothing physically wrong with my heart or my health, that you would learn and be like, okay, well, you know that that's not that, but your brain doesn't work that way.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  It still goes into this, as I call it misplaced fight or flight signals. And many times it was like, okay, well, do I need to go to hospital? And I would even feel like many times I would want to find medical help for something that was actually not wrong. And you start to feel a little bit crazy after a while. So again, I've digressed a little bit, but I think for me, it started with unpacking, what is the root cause of what was causing the stress, both historically and in more recent times? And then trying to break the cycle of, of how do I cope with these feelings? At, you know, at the time, I even knew these were, most times it was like, okay, we know what this is, but they didn't go away because I knew what they were.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  So how do I reduce or avoid these symptoms from occurring again? How do I avoid waking up at 2am? You know, where you've had a bad dream or you haven't even had a bad dream. You just wake up and because you wake up, you're like anxiety. You know, I got into a state where I would almost not want to go to sleep, like, which is a very unhealthy situation because of, you know, or avoiding certain functions or places. For whatever reason, before the heart surgery, to give an example, I had a really bad panic attack in a movie theatre one day. And it took me quite a few, possibly years to start enjoying movies again. Just because my brain associated that place, it's just a movie theatre. It's not scary. It's not, it's not that we were watching a horror or anything like that. It was just, could have watched a cartoon for all we care.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  Hello and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Sharina. I'm your host, I'm your partner in personal and collective transformation, your master health, sleep, stress management, nutrition, fitness, self actualisation coach, and just someone who is really passionate about humanity, our potential and getting better, growing into the strongest, fittest, most audacious and extraordinary version of self every day using science-backed, life-tested strategies from 18 years of my coaching career, my personal

• 3:00Speaker 01

  experience and experience of our dear fascinating, interesting and exciting guests. Today, guys, I am super excited. We have another guest joining us. Picture this, it's the day you get a cancer diagnosis. I know you probably don't want to picture this, but what do you do? Most of us would crawl into bed and stay there. My guest today popped a bottle of champagne. That's the kind of guest we've got for you today on Change Wired. Brendan, Brendan Fairweather is a brand manager by day.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  And he actually works on health and wellness brands for some of South Africa's biggest pharmacy retailers. But by life, in life, he's been through more than most people ever will. Open heart surgery at 28, two strokes, a near fatal internal bleed, a cancer diagnosis, and through every single one of those, a level of anxiety that at his lowest made it hard to even get out of bed.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Brendan wrote it all down. It became his book, The How Inside Our Heads: Managing Anxiety and Practical Steps for Better Mental Health. And today Brendan is sitting down with me to unpack exactly what he did to come back from all of it, not once, but over and over and over again. Here's what we get into. Why Brendan stopped trying to beat his anxiety, just like you can't beat happiness or sadness, and started treating it like a skill to train instead. The exact breathing technique and grounding tools Brendan still uses in panic attack

• 4:56Speaker 01

  or when anxiety hits. What his wife noticed about his symptoms, that he couldn't see himself and why locking this anxiety inside and trying to beat it all by yourself might not be the best solution. Why progress, not perfection, became Brendan's whole philosophy and how you can borrow it today. And that full champagne story, the full version and the mindset behind it. If you ever felt like your anxiety comes out of nowhere and you know, you don't know what to do with that, or like you are the only one who feels this way, stick around. Brendan is a proof that you are not alone and that there is a way through. So let's get into it.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Brendan Fairweather, welcome to Change Wired Podcast. Really excited to have you to tell your story and share with people practical tools for such a needed reality in our lives, our anxieties and mental health, right? So welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here.

• 6:01Speaker 00

  Thank you, Angela. I really appreciate the opportunity to have the conversation.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so Brendan, before we jump into all these strategies, tools, talking about anxiety, mental health and your book, The How Inside Our Heads, can you tell our listeners more about you, your backstory? How did you come to write this book? Yeah, so everyone gets to know Brendan a little bit more before we jump into all the tools and strategies.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Yeah, so I'm Brendan Fairweather. I am 43 years of age. I'm one of four boys, so I've got three brothers, all of whom are what I would say my best friends, which is really cool and has been a big help to me. But yeah, when I was born, I was born with a defect on my aortic valve in my heart. And the doctors told my parents that I would need to have corrective surgery at a later stage in life. They imagined it would be around this sort of age in your, in my 40s, they kind of, you know, no one can say when. And that surgery ended up happening in 2011, when I was 28 years old. And it just was something that was brought forward. I mean, I was always quite an active person, very involved in health.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  My very job is I look after, I work for Diskem Pharmacies in South Africa. So everything we do is actually around health and fitness and have had the opportunity to work on, on some of their bigger private label brands in the group. And, and so, yeah, it was quite, I wouldn't say a shock, but it was a lot earlier than we planned to have the surgery. And just what happened in, in life, I was always from a young age, very aware of this defect, for the lack of a better word, and, and the fact that one day it would need to be replaced or repaired, but we didn't know when. And it wasn't like it played my life. I was still very active. I played a lot of soccer and cricket, a little bit of athletics. I was a little bit limited in terms of the longer distance sports where it would just feel a little bit suppressed at times.

• 7:55Speaker 00

  I just didn't feel like I could give as much compared to other kids my age. But was always active, healthy, road bikes, skateboarding, everything, you know, didn't, it didn't hold me back. It didn't stop me from being active and always pursued, you know, moving my body, which was great. But yeah, at the age of 28, had the surgery and it led to quite a bit of anxiety leading up to the surgery because we weren't quite sure at that stage when it would need to happen. It all started, started about a year before, where I was mountain biking in a race and just didn't feel very great going up one of the hills in one of the training sessions. And ended up in hospital later that day with what I thought was anxiety, but it was absolute shortness of breath, couldn't breathe properly and was really struggling.

• 8:40Speaker 00

  And yeah, the doctors at that stage thought I would need to have the surgery then, which was a bit of a shock. And then they said, no, listen, you know, it was actually just some enzymes that were released into my bloodstream. But longer story short, you know, over the next year, it was this discovery of when, how severe it was and ended up doing that, that surgery, actually on my third wedding anniversary, on the day of that. So yeah, that was, that was a long time ago, but there was a lot of anxiety leading up to the surgery and then even after the surgery as well. So that was my sort of first introduction to heightened anxiety. In the book, I describe how as a child, I possibly was a little bit more prone to, to panic disorder compared to other children, whether that stemmed from this awareness

• 9:24Speaker 00

  of the heart issue or not, or just my personality and nervous system. Everybody's very different. But a lot, a lot of, as much as I had a very successful heart surgery, there were some complications that arrived later in life where. When you have the heart surgery, you're told that you have to live on on warfarin, the medication, which is a blood thinner. And it's not to cause panic around that. It certainly wasn't the cause for these things, but had some responsibilities in terms of keeping your blood at a certain thickness or thinness. So you've got to check your I N R, which is a measurement of of of how your your blood clots, basically. And had various experiences in the years that followed, in including two T I As, which is called a trans ischemic attack or a stroke.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  And then also had a near bleed out incident where I was bleeding internally and wasn't aware for a day or so, and eventually ended up losing quite a bit of blood, ended up in hospital again. So I have felt the the the downsides to both ends of the spectrum of of how thick your blood is. And then sadly got a a cancer diagnosis in twenty twenty three as well. So that is now clear and thank God that's all been successful. So I'm very blessed to have endured a lot of these things, but it has, over the years, caused a lot of medical related anxiety and just taught me a lot around how to manage my mental state with these repeat sort of episodes and issues that, again, like I say, I didn't welcome into my life. I didn't lead an unhealthy lifestyle. I've never smoked a cigarette in my life. I don't really drink much alcohol.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  I'm a proud lightweight in that department. I'm always active, running, exercising. So at times felt a little bit unfair that that happened to someone who was quite focused on their health, but it is what it is. And ended up, you know, getting to a stage in in in the years that followed the heart surgery where I had this really debilitating spell or period of anxiety in my life, where it was it was to a stage where, you know, you would almost struggle to get out of bed and find motivation with this constant fear in the back of your mind. So, yeah, I I got to a stage where it was really bad and and probably on and off for two or three years where it just got to a stage where I was like, this has to mean something. I need to use this for something good. This can't be how my life will be forever.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  And I think that's when I started to document how I was feeling, the experiences I was going through. And I thought, well, at worst, maybe it was a martyr type of approach, but I thought that this has to help somebody, if not myself, and has some sort of meaning. And that's where we arrived eventually at what is now a book called The Hell Inside Our Heads about what people don't see. And obviously, as you have more and more of these conversations and how the book actually came about was just having chats with people, realising that you're not alone, that a lot of other people struggle with similar issues. Granted, the the reason might be different, but that's probably a a fair start in terms of how we got to the book, where it came from, how and why it was born, and this desire to to use this for something good, if not for myself, then at least for for somebody

• 12:19Speaker 00

  else. And and that's really what the theme is, is just using your your pain for for a purpose and and and changing the belief that maybe the the adverse things we endure can become your advantage. That's kind of the catchphrase that I've that I've assigned to the book. So long introduction, but I hope that kind of covers how we got here.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Yes, no, you were so on point and clear, you know, how to tell your story. So it leads towards this like introduction to the book and how it came to be. And you know, you mentioned something that, you know, you wanted to at least create some value out of the whole experience. And I feel like it just, we have to bring something to light, make it seen before we can make it better. I mean, and that's why it is important to talk about your experience and other people experiences with things like anxiety, because if you don't look at it, don't acknowledge it, and we don't talk, all all all of us don't talk about it, then we're not going to find solution, we're not going to get better, you know, it's not going to go away.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  And I, well, what I also loved, you know, what you talked about in the book is the fact that anxiety for most people, it's it's it's a phenomenon that's gonna stay with us throughout the life, sometimes more, sometimes less. And the point is not to like, look at it and try to eliminate it. It's like, it's not going away. You need to learn how to deal with that. And sometimes you're going to have more of us, sometimes less. Also, there are factors in life genetically, et cetera, but you need to have tools to deal with that.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  Hmm, absolutely. And that's it's it's it's one of the key points that we we discuss. And again, I I add the disclaimer to every talk that I that I do and and and many times in the book, to the point that the publisher said, I said it too many times, but, you know, my my expertise, if you can call it that, comes from experience. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a dietitian. We have access to a lot of these resources in the world that we work in, but it's really a patient's perspective and and and the point you make is very valid. It's anxiety is an emotional state. It's something that you don't beat, it's something you manage. And initially, when I thought of that, I thought, sure, that's not going to be a great message to give, because if you're trying to give people hope, they want to know that they can win. But I think winning is understanding anxiety and realising that it's a part of the human

• 14:39Speaker 00

  condition, it's a part of our physiology, and it's something necessary, it's something we need. And I think the panic disorder is possibly the the part that's misunderstood, where that's fleeting, you know, and it'll always pass. And I suppose it's about getting the tools and strategies to to manage the your nervous system and the levels of anxiety that you experience and what to do in the heat of a of a panic attack, so to call it. But also what else we can do in our lives to reduce the number of times we have these heightened state of anxiety, you know. But I always say to people, you know, you don't, you don't try to beat happiness, you don't try to beat sadness. So why would you try to beat anxiety? It's a tool we have, it's something we experience.

• 15:22Speaker 00

  And in many other framings, if you think about watching sport, there's anxiety there, but somehow it's exciting, it's exhilarating, going on a roller coaster ride, which I hate, by the way. But for those that enjoy it, you know, that's that's a positive experience. And yet we celebrate those moments. So, you know, panic disorder doesn't feel like watching your favourite sports team win a game, but it's the same principle. So I think it's learning to just understand that this is part of who we are and it has a role, but at oftentimes, the heart and parts are just misplaced fight or flight signals that, you know, there can be a number of reasons as to why they arrive there, chronic stress, trauma, historically. You know, it's it's about unpacking your own personal journey and understanding what is causing those things.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  Your body's not happy with something, either it was something many years ago that you've been harbouring and never ever dealt with, or it's something more recent and temporary, where, you know, you're working late nights, you're not sleeping enough, you're pushing your body physically, mentally, spiritually, whatever it is. So, yeah, hundred hundred percent agree that this is something that we need, and it's actually a fuel and a catalyst to to become better people as well. But that that didn't happen overnight for me. It took a while to learn that.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  Oh, well, there's so many things that I that I want to unpack.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  I I think, you know, one of the key things that you mentioned again here is that it's something that we need to learn how to manage and it's not going away. And it made me think of the process of aging. It's like, we are going to be aging, that is a phenomenon, right? And if you get mad at things like, oh, you know, my body doesn't work that well, my memory doesn't work that well, or this things like I used to be able to do, but I'm not, if you're not in the frame of mind, it's like, this is part of life and I need to learn how to deal with it versus try to beat aging. So I feel like with anxiety and a lot of those more negative phenomenon that happened on on a regular basis to all human beings, we need to actually understand that this

• 17:25Speaker 01

  is a part of who we are and we need to develop better toolkit, like you said.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  It's, what was there? Another thing that I wanted to mention about anxiety is knowing your anxiety, you know, what you talked a lot about in the book. And just now you mentioned this, learning about like what anxiety is for you, like how does it manifest, right? How, like, what are the signals and what helps me to manage it? And how can I maybe create better environment or figure out the right strategies and how do I catch it? But can you maybe talk to you that aspect of it, like knowing your anxiety, how maybe

• 18:12Speaker 01

  what it took for you to understand how yours work and then figure out the best tools to manage that for you?

• 18:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, like I said, it was not, it was not easy in that it was a very slow process, you know. For me, it was unpacking, I mean, the obvious things to a lot of other people looking inward would be like, well, you've been through a traumatic experience. Have you dealt with everything that that meant to you, not just physically, but mentally? And I think the heart surgery for me is very, it was very successful, it was smooth. There were no complications, barring a little bit of pain and discomfort and the usual things you would expect from such an invasive process. But I don't believe I ever dealt with mentally the stress that we were put under. The, to be frank, the, the honest thought of it not going well or possibly dying in the, in, on the surgery table.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  What that meant for my wife at the time, the fact that we hadn't had children yet and we were very concerned about that. I can't tell you why that's the thing you think of, but it was almost like, well, we wanted this family to continue, you know? That's, you know, li- little things like that where, I say they're little things, they were probably bigger things than we allowed them to be at the time. Where you don't really have a choice. It's like, this is happening now, you need to do it. The alternative is your heart's gonna fail if you don't do this soon anyway. But I think to get to your, your question, I think a lot for me was discovering what was the root of the anxiety? Like, what is causing this? You know, outside of the obvious things, you know, things happen in life. You, you have a breakup or your relationship is under strain or you have a tough work environment.

• 19:48Speaker 00

  Maybe you lose some money, you're running a business, the business collapses. There's enough in the world to, to keep us stressed and wired anyway. In this always on, very fast paced world with a lot of access to both the best and worst type of news every day. You can wake up and find something on your phone or on your P C that can tell you something quite heavy. Whether it's war or, you know, crime or whatever it might be. But the biggest part for me was learning that there was a repeat trigger that was causing something. And I think years and years of this, am I okay? Question physically. Eventually manifested into a deteriorating mental sort of health situation for myself.

• 20:31Speaker 00

  So, you know, it would be unfair for me to say, well, figure out what's causing your anxiety as the start. It's very vague and it's a process. It's a process of learning and unlearning, developing new habits. But, but I think unpacking the fact that, A, recognizing that this is not normal, as simple and as obvious as that seems. Is that, A, it's not right, it's not how you usually function, there is something wrong. There were many times where I was just like, why am I feeling this way? And, and I imagine, I never really ever had full blown depression, it was more heightened spells and repeat. Sort of intense moments of anxiety or panic disorder. But, you know, as obvious as it sounds, it was almost like, why is this happening now? You know, what is, what is the trigger for that?

• 21:14Speaker 00

  So I think trying to unpack that, and a lot of work was done with a clinical psychologist, with talking to very close friends and family. And it was a very small circle for me because as with most people. There's not always an obvious reason as to why you're feeling that way. And I would imagine depression is quite similar, where it's just a recurring thing. That you just feel this low or feel this heightened state of stress. So I think unpacking the, the root causes was, was a slower process. And then looking at other shorter term things of, you know, in, in the moment, if you have this kind of heightened state of. We are nervous, the system is always firing, you know, the role of caffeine and other stimulants that, that can kind of cause that.

• 21:57Speaker 00

  So, so unpacking the sort of smaller moments in the day, the lack of sleep. But I mean, I also got into a stage where you were in this kind of repeat cycle where you're not sleeping as well. So you've got heightened anxiety, then you're waking up with anxiety in the night. There were physical symptoms that were happening. And I think the hardest thing was unpacking that, you know, after a while, and I think even people close to you, the situation, my wife included. Who was such a great support and rock for me, was like, you would wake up with the same symptoms, you would have shortness of breath. Hot, slightly elevated heart rate, potentially sweaty palms, this fidgety feeling where you need to get up and move around and do things. You know, the typical symptoms would repeat and repeat and you would think that after having them so many times.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  And realizing each time there was nothing physically wrong with my heart or my health. That you would learn and be like, okay, well, you know that that's not that, but your brain doesn't work that way. It still goes into this, as I call it, misplaced fight or flight signals. And many times it was like, okay, well, do I need to go to hospital? And, and I would even feel like many times I would want to find medical help for something that was actually not wrong. And you start to feel a little bit crazy after a while. So, again, I've, I've digressed a little bit. But I think for me, it started with unpacking what is the root cause of what was causing this stress? Both historically and in more recent times. And then trying to break the cycle of, of how do I cope with these feelings at, you know, at the time.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  I even knew these were, most times it was like, okay, we know what this is, but they didn't go away because I knew what they were.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 00

  So how do I reduce or avoid these symptoms from occurring again? How do I avoid waking up at two A M? You know, where you've had a bad dream or you haven't even had a bad dream, you just wake up and because you wake up, you're like anxiety. You know, I got into a state where I would almost not want to go to sleep, like, which is a very unhealthy situation because of, you know, or avoiding certain. Functions or places, for whatever reason, before the heart surgery, to give an example, I had a really bad panic attack in a movie theater one day. And it took me quite a few, possibly years to start enjoying movies again, just because my brain associated that place. It's just a movie theater, it's not scary, it's not, it's not that we were watching a horror or anything like that, it was just, could have watched a cartoon for all we care.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  But understanding what was the stimulus, trying to understand why, how do we then break that pattern? And, yeah, I, I, I think there's so much that goes into it. If you look at sleep, your diet, the concept of community, the quality of your relationships, the way that you're working. The presence or absence of movement, for me, physical exercise was one of the most powerful tools. We were discussing it just before we started, what a privilege it is to be able to move your body. But, but it's, it's, it's not an easy thing to answer, to understand, you know, what, what is causing that anxiety? And what can you pursue to, to improve how you manage the, the heightened moments? And then just a general level of where's your nervous system at, you know?

• 24:58Speaker 00

  And I think I'll unpack a lot of that in, in the book.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Yes, you know, you mentioned a few things, that it is very individual and you kind of sort of.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  You need to understand where your baseline is, in a sense that some people are more anxious in general, like that level of anxiety, right? That's a usual level of anxiety. Some people are less pro anxiety. And you, you wanna understand that just because you feel this way and somebody else doesn't. It doesn't mean you are broken or not normal, it's just different people have like different levels of that state for, again, whichever reason. Like, understanding that your playbook will be a lot different than somebody else's playbook. And I think what I also loved about your book and how you talk about that is that.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  You talk about coping mechanisms as skills to master, not something that, you know. You learn off and you sort of get really good at it. What I mean by that is, if you decide to take up, let's, let's say, running. And you're very new to running, it's gonna take time for you to get better, to get any good and then, you know, to, to get maybe greater at it. So the same thing, I feel like we often misunderstand that mental coping skills, mental health skills. It's also a set of skills that you, that choose practices and you work on them, but it doesn't mean that.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  You immediately gonna be masterful and it's all gonna go away right away. You actually need to, yes, understand where it's coming from, that it might change, that a, you're gonna. Start using different tools and some of them gonna work better, some of them not so well. And then over time, you also get better at it. So it's again, not like a pill you take and, you know, it's all gone.

• 26:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's a great analogy in terms of running or even like lifting weights or something like that. You don't go to the heaviest weight first, you know, you have to start with a lighter weight. And the same with running, you might start with a walk. And if I think about my own journey with running in particular. Like I said, I was always active when I was young, but I probably only really, well, not probably, I definitely only enjoyed running. I don't think anyone enjoys running when you start, it's hot, it's uncomfortable. Um, but it, it was this one, this notion of one step in front of the other, you know? In the way that you learn to run or relearn to run, my, my first sort of exercise physio. When I was in I C U, was involved someone walking with me, holding me up.

• 27:35Speaker 00

  Walking across a very short room of maybe two or three meters at most, walking back, collapsing back in bed and sleeping for the rest of the day. Because I was exhausted from this big marathon that I'd done to the end of the room. But that's, the concept was something that was rewarding, where each time you would then eventually progress a week later to walking in the halls. To ten meters and coming back and then eventually being out of hospital and having to do fifty meters, a hundred meters. So it was a very pure analogy of recovery and I think mental health is exactly the same. You have to take steps forward, but there's some times where in a certain day, you might be standing still or might even take a step back. Where you feel like, hey, I was doing so much better, but then there's a low, you know? And, and so it's hundred percent, it's, it's a learning and it's an unlearning of old habits.

• 28:21Speaker 00

  It's a very slow process, it's not linear, it's very different for everybody. But I think it all starts with a fundamental belief that your life can get better. I always had this little light in the back of my mind and I think having a family or a reason, and I think finding purpose is such a big. Deeper thing, I know it's not the answer that if someone said, how are you gonna solve your mental health? The answer can't just be, well, you need a deeper why or a deeper purpose, like that's almost the flame that keeps you going. But it's certainly, there's, there's a lot of these things in philosophically that I unpack in the book. Where it's, it's really, there's things we've got to do in the short term, like today, right now, what do you do in the heat of the moment? Then there's things we've got to do in practice, day in, day out, in the same way that you were trained.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  Look at your sleep patterns, look at what you're eating, look at how much movement you're getting and are you getting sunlight? Are you letting your feet feel the grass and the sand beneath your feet, you know? Little things like that where, again, it's not just gonna stop a panic attack, but maybe every day in a month's time or two months' time. You'll have less panic attacks or less intense panic attacks. You know, looking at how we show up for other people and how we interacting with other people. Just the concept of of community and having someone that you can confide in, whether that's a psychologist, whether it's a friend, a parent. I was very blessed that I had many of those solutions and I can only imagine it must be ten times harder when you don't have someone to confide in.

• 29:47Speaker 00

  And if not, you know, there are independent care lines and counselors and even free solutions out there where you can just engage with somebody. And sometimes people want someone that they don't know, you know. But I love the analogy of of slow progress, you know, it's for me, I often speak about progress, not perfection. So if you wake up in a day and you're like, oh, I'm feeling low again today. Just that belief of tomorrow could be better and the fact that you've committed to a process. Uh, and in the same way, that's sort of restrictive or debilitating or poor mental health takes time to get there as well. You don't just wake up and have poor mental health. There's some habits, there's some things, there's some history, maybe there's some trauma. Whatever it is, it doesn't have to be open heart surgery.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  It could be abuse or a bad childhood experience or a robbery or a crime incident, a divorce, you know, whatever those things are, you know, sometimes they sit with us, it, you know, and and we only unpack them later in life. So I think it just always comes back to this belief of, you know what, tomorrow could be better and I'm not going to give up as simple and as obvious as that cliched advice would be. It's just the belief of that is is sometimes all the light you need to be like, okay, well, let's chalk off today. Bad, bad set, bad exercise, you know, tomorrow will be better and then try again. And and then there's things, obviously, like I talk about supplementation and vitamins and things like that. I think all these things can play a role, but it's not one individual thing, you know.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  If you sleep better, it won't cure your mental health. If you exercise, it won't cure it by itself. But collectively, if you say, cool, I've got about ten things here and each of them I'm gonna try in different stages to to improve. And then, of course, there's always the thing that I certainly don't demonize medication. If someone has a legitimate chemical imbalance, sometimes modern science and medicine is there to just help us get that extra lift, you know, whether that's an S S R I or a very strong vitamin or or a certain, you know, dietitian's program that can just help, you know, your body and your brain produce the chemicals it needs to achieve a level of calm. And and what I call in the book equilibrium is, you know, sometimes it's not

• 31:57Speaker 00

  this highs and lows, it's just trying to get the state of equilibrium where you you're not in this absolute low, but you're also not at this peak excitement or happiness. You know, because I think those highs and lows can also be sometimes problematic. So so kind of just achieving the state of calm and this equilibrium where you're like, you're not incredibly overjoyed today, but you're also not absolutely depressed and down and out, you know, and and just trying to get those improvements of balance, you know, I think is is is probably what the short term goal should be. Instead of this this euphoria of tomorrow, you're gonna wake up and the problems will go away, you know.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I always, you know, actually try to remind myself that it's kind of like that, yeah. Roller coaster ride, the higher you go, the lower you're gonna usually drop down. And the same way with our mental and emotional state. The higher the high, the lower you're gonna feel the low. And that's where actually a lot of, you know, those monks who meditate for hours, they try to reach a state of peace and balance, not the the state of a constant euphoria.

• 33:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Uh, and also what

• 33:08Speaker 01

  I love about your message is this idea of like your good mental state, balance and peace. It's, again, it's something that you build towards. And back to this idea of skills, it's, again, it's gonna, it's it's not gonna get again from zero to to hero. It's gonna get progressively better. And I I feel like the challenge with that is compared to a lot of physical skills like running or muscle building, which you can measure, is that we don't develop or don't usually use any mechanisms to track the progress and that improvement by whether that's we measure our energy every day

• 33:53Speaker 01

  through some app or some wall tracker or measuring those incidents when we feel really not good, right? Most of us don't measure those intangibles in any way. And that's why every time something comes up, like an anxiety episode, it feels like it's back to level zero because it happened again, whereas like, well, but it did not, it happened less, right? And then it happens less and less and then it's less severe. But because we don't measure, it always feels like almost we are not making any progress just because we don't feel perfect all of the time.

• 34:28Speaker 00

  And I think I think that's a big part of the story is to say that it wasn't a quick process and certainly in a way better position than I was many years ago. So what I'm also very mindful of and a very central theme to to my belief system is just empathy. Because I appreciate that even some of the advice that I give and the things I write about, not all of them, but some of them in in the worst times of of sort of debilitating anxiety might not have helped at that point. You you just feel like, oh, please, you know, sleeping better is not gonna help. This is not gonna help, you know, so it it's just more that if it seems far fetched or if it feels like that's out of reach for you now, know that I'm a finished product

• 35:10Speaker 00

  or a work in progress, not a finished product, but but someone who's far far further down the line, who's employed these things and clearly they've worked because I've managed to get to a stage where I understand this a lot better. Uh, it doesn't mean I don't get moments of heightened anxiety anymore. Very recently had an episode, but I I understand it now. I'm like, oh, there's that experience again, there's that feeling, I know what this is. And I know what I'm doing on ongoing to to to improve that my response to it. And again, one of the biggest things, as simple as this might be, is just that you don't always need to fight or flunk. Sometimes you can just be still and be like, okay, just experience this for now. It's gonna pass if it takes you five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, hopefully not longer than that.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  But you'll always get past it and be like, okay, bad day today, wonder what caused that. But you do get to, I mean, the message I really wanna give to people is you do get to a stage where it gets better. It takes work, it takes belief, it takes things that are practical solutions and then some that are more sort of grand scheme philosophical thinking of, you know, your pain meaning something to someone else. Telling someone that in their lowest of their lows might not help them on that day. They're like, you're kidding me, right? How's this gonna serve the world? But I think sometimes it's just that one percent of light that you instill in yourself of this could mean something. And and like I say many times is, you know, sometimes our challenges and our traumas are not a detour from your path. They actually the path that you were meant to travel.

• 36:40Speaker 00

  And I think just having this higher belief of everything that happens to you actually happens for you. And I know that might seem easier said than done if someone just receives devastating news that they've lost a loved one or something. How do you tell them that that has meaning? And how do you tell them that that is to serve a purpose? But truthfully, I've been through enough to know that that having that belief is sometimes the thing that's all that's get it gets us through, you know.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:09Speaker 00

  My my faith and my belief in God was central to the process. But I've also got a very honest relationship with with what I define as God. I have very frank conversations and frustrations with the things that I've experienced. But it's it's just to say that these are just a number of tools that you can say to someone, listen, these are the things that I did, I'm much better now and I'm still learning more. And I think part of the book is just a contribution to having more conversations around mental health. So say, well, what did you do? How did you find this? Did this help, did not help? You know, maybe three of the things I mention out of ten might not work for you, but the other seven might. But yeah, it's it's just these baby steps of constant belief of there's a lot of people who go through this and I think sometimes just the feeling that you're not alone

• 37:54Speaker 00

  is sometimes comforting enough and and having an empathy for other people to be able to just have a conversation and to just be mindful that, much like the book title, you don't know what's going on inside people's heads, you know, you we could have a conversation today and we're smiling at each other and we're having a nice conversation. But you can have a world of trauma that I don't know anything about and vice versa. So just having that awareness deeper than how someone reacts to you day to day, how you see people in the traffic, in the shopping malls and just that awareness, I think sometimes just helps lighten the load a little bit. But certainly, you know, this this view that things will get better, they can get better. You have a role to play in making them get better and being patient with yourself and having a narrative

• 38:39Speaker 00

  that supports your your healing and and the pursuit of a goal where you you achieve a greater level of peace in your day to day life.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  Yes, and Brendan, I'm actually so love this idea.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  When you speak about having the beliefs that are that move you forward or help you to get better or help you to take actions that serve you or improve things for you. Um. I feel like um a lot of times people don't understand that it's not even about whether that's belief true or not, whether things have purpose or life is a bunch of random things. It's about like, what's gonna make your day better? And what will help you to take more positive action? And what will what will help you to feel better today, right? I think that's the very important part about beliefs to choose. Because again, it's not about truthfulness of them or how life works or how God works, et cetera.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  It's just what's gonna make you feel better, believe that.

• 39:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And and I think the the other thing is like, what is the alternative, you know?

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:44Speaker 00

  If you if you do nothing, I believe you need to have a plan, even if you don't have all the answers. I think the mere pursuit of a life and a mental state that's better than you are today is sometimes that first step of, hey, yes, believe things can get better, that they will get better. Reading stories like mine and many other people who've endured hard things. And and these were just my experiences. There were some things that were really hard and some news that was very unpleasant. But I know other people who've gone through ten times worse experiences, but the principles are still the same. It's like, what can your hardship teach you? And and what can you what can you take from that experience? You know, even if it feels very unfair at the time or very difficult at the time.

• 40:27Speaker 00

  And eventually that transformed for me into actually actively pursuing doing harder things. And I'm not just talking about physical challenges. I write about the fact that for me, I I decided to do a half Ironman, which I never in my life ever thought I would do. But it doesn't mean you have to do something like that, you know. So for some people, they might have said that was not a wise thing to do, given the medical background and challenges. But what I would say is I did that with a lot of thought and care and consultation with literally every type of doctor and specialist that I've ever encountered in my journey. So a gastro, the oncologist, the cardiologist, none of them were jumping up and down about the the idea. But I just said to him, as long as no one says to me, don't do this, this is foolish. I was gonna do it. And and and I think it's this concept of

• 41:12Speaker 00

  hard things actually help us learn and develop. And and I know that there's a part of your brain that develops as you do more hard things. But then there's a funny switch that happens where as the hard things become too regular or not easy, but as you manage them. You, if you don't do a new hard thing, that part of your brain can actually underdevelop or or shrink. So humans were meant to do hard things. We were born to do tough things. And and the other thing I I would say is that we also here to serve one another. So sometimes we can be a bit selfish and think, well, woe is me, this is terrible, why is it happening to me? But there could be a lesson in there that you could use to help someone else who's gonna still go through the same thing or something similar.

• 41:56Speaker 00

  And that's, I think, part of what the sharing of, I wouldn't say knowledge, but experience has been. It's just saying, hey, guys, this is what I went through. These are the things I did. Some of them weren't conventional, some of them are not scientifically backed and there's no double-blind placebo studies on them with humans involved. I was the experiment and I was trying different things, but there were a lot of things that were also very textbook in terms of if you do this, things like breathing exercises. I write about stimulating your vagus nerve, which I only discovered recently, and I wish I'd discovered that earlier. I I probably should have done biology until high, to the end of high school. But, you know, you learn things about yourself physiologically that can help. You know, the concept of grounding yourself in a panic attack, sitting on the floor, which might sound weird.

• 42:39Speaker 00

  And maybe you don't get that opportunity if you're in an office or in a shopping mall. But there's ways you can find a way to do it. Maybe it's just sitting down, not not lying down, but.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:49Speaker 00

  The concept of physically grounding yourself in a moment of panic is is helpful. So it doesn't solve your ongoing mental health crisis, but it might just lighten the load for that day or that moment. And and I think that's what it is, is just do the things you gotta do to to manage. But then also proactively get ahead of, how do I avoid the frequency of these panic attacks? And how do I avoid this feeling? And the belief of you can get better, the combination of believing you can get better, knowing that you will get better. And and then actively taking some steps, you know, like I'm big on having a plan of action to just accept it and lie in that feeling of this feels terrible, this is how my life is supposed to be. It's that that will just keep you there and possibly set you back even further.

• 43:33Speaker 00

  So a a lot of it just starts with that belief of just deciding. And and I know it's not easy, but it is a choice, you know, your brain wasn't designed to make you happy. Our brains were designed to help us survive. And sometimes in in in sort of heightened levels of stress, they go into those very primitive survival modes, which is where that fight or flight comes from, you know.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  So.

• 43:55Speaker 00

  You've got to choose what world you want to experience and stop at nothing, you know, leave no stone unturned to to improve your life, improve your mental state because of what an impact it has on all the other areas of your life.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  No, it's um we we look at everything in our lives, right? Through the lens of emotions and how we feel at any given moment. And the same situation can look completely different, depending on how we feel, like what our lens in the moment. Getting into practical stuff, can we go through some of the tools that helped you short term and long term? And obviously, some of them are gonna be physical, mental, environmental. Please share like what's been your experience, what was the most helpful, so people could also look into that plank in their life to feel better.

• 44:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, I I need to try, I need to try to remember some of them. I I think if you're asking in terms of in in this sort of heightened moment of of a panic attack or heightened anxiety. For me, one of the biggest ones was a breathing technique that a clinical psychologist helped me unpack and and do. So just, there was an exercise, there's a gentleman named Richard Sutton, you might know of him, he's also a very powerful mental coach. He's worked with many sports athletes around the world. His technique is even more advanced than the one that I adopted. But there's this concept of taking deeper breaths to just be very mindful and conscious of your breathing. To almost close your eyes, sit on a couch in a very relaxed position and take in these very deep, slow breaths. And then a slow exhale as well. And I think there's even a a certain number that you count to.

• 45:31Speaker 00

  But I know the one that Richard mentioned that we did at a recent seminar that I went to. They talk about this sort of three to four second slow inhale. And then when you're there, take another deep breath on top of that. So it's almost like you fill your lungs. And then you do another one when you feel like they're full. And then you do this, like, do the slow exhale, like five seconds long as well. And you do that for ten, fifteen, twenty times in a row. And you'll immediately feel a slightly more calmer state in terms of how the oxygen is traveling around your body. My psychologist spoke to me, he actually gave me a voice recording that I would sometimes play. Uh. And he would tell me about, I must imagine my lungs filling with a certain amount of air and I must almost visualize this color, which maybe you should say like your

• 46:16Speaker 00

  as your lungs fill, they become like this pinkish color and you kind of create this whole visual was very. I can't repeat it because I can't remember exactly, but it was very intricate, you know. And I think those were the lens, if you talk about, you think to yourself, well, that sounds a bit crazy. But that was something that helped me. So I was like, okay, well, now I would do this thing. And sometimes I would even play his voice notes. And I think he sent it to me because he knew I can't go to him every day. And and and, you know, maybe for some people, that's embarrassing for me, just being transparent about some of the techniques that I that I did. But certainly a more commonly known one now, and you even said on social media, because you know, at my worst stages, there wasn't as much as much access to information as we have now. But that breathing concept of a slow deep breath and then one extra one and then a slow exhale.

• 47:01Speaker 00

  And you repeat that a few times, just to kind of lower the the the state of stress that you're in, I think is one big thing. We spoke about the concept of grounding, I think the ability to to just get lower down, you know, which you might think to yourself, well, how's that gonna help? It helped me at times where I just felt like a little bit more centered. If you're driving in a car and you experience that, maybe just to pull over and to do these things, obviously just be careful and and responsible with where you do these type of exercises. To think about that. Another very common one is people talk about naming objects in a room. So you'll sit and say, okay, well, name ten different things around the room and do it slowly and intentionally. Psychologically, what that does, I couldn't tell you, because again, I'm not the expert. But I know there's definitely a form of distraction involved, where it just brings you

• 47:45Speaker 00

  down to earth and realizing that you're not in this scary world that you completely have lost your mind. But it just kind of just brings back the sort of human experience. I, as simple as this is conversations, just talking to somebody. Uh, you know, for me, that was another thing about the vagus nerve. So your vagus nerve is this nerve that runs from your brain and it connects to your heart, your lungs and your gut as well. So all these vital organs. And in the past, I always think to myself, okay, well, stimulating your vagus nerve, they call it the, the central highway of your nervous system. So it connects all these vital organs. And the way that you stimulate it, you can sing, you can hum. But the other interesting thing was talking is a way of stimulating it. It almost seems a little vibration, which sounds a little bit far fetched, but

• 48:29Speaker 00

  what I then realised was, well, when you're having a conversation, whether it's us chatting now or talking to a psychologist, yes, he's a doctor and an expert. And there's an element of psychological safety that maybe helps you feel better. But the idea of talking is also stimulating your vagus nerve. So A, you're getting thoughts out of your mind, out of your body into the universe. So you're kind of unpacking it, which is therapeutic in itself. But then at the same time, you're also stimulating that vagus nerve. So having a conversation to a partner, a brother, a sister, a psychologist, a counselling hotline, whatever that is, not talking is definitely worse than, than talking. You know, talking and just saying something of, even if it's just repeating the fact of, I feel very stressed or I'm, I'm feeling really anxious right now. Again, you've got to be careful with your narrative, but

• 49:14Speaker 00

  you know, the, these were some of the shorter term things. For me personally, going to have a cup of tea or a juice or something like that, engaging in something, doing something to distract yourself. Getting outside if it's daytime and you have the opportunity to get outside and just feel the sun on your body. Feel the grass or the sand beneath your toes. And if you've got shoes on, I think just being out in nature. So, so I think there were, there were things like that. I think, I think practically there were also hormonal remedies that, that I used, products like Rescue Remedy. That had a calming effect and you get little sort of sublingual tablets that you can take. They're not medicinal, they're over the counter, even in a vitamin section. That was a big help to me at times where something you just needed an extra

• 49:57Speaker 00

  ingredient to help you feel a little bit calmer and give yourself a few minutes. Things like counting, again, there's an element of vagus nerve stimulation. So there's no science behind these things. Well, if there is, we'd have to dig it up. But I think just practically you need to distract yourself. You need to be careful what you're telling yourself in that moment. You need to appreciate and as obvious as it seems, and, and mention to yourself that you're currently experiencing anxiety. So you name what it is that you're experiencing and you almost accept that, okay, this is a a misplaced fight or flight situation. So I think those sort of things were helpful. And then there's a couple of others that are, that are, that are unpacked in, in the book. I, I, I think in terms of

• 50:39Speaker 00

  avoiding the repeat instance, instances of, of panic attacks is far more deeper in terms of your lifestyle. And again, I think we've covered a lot of those things, but I would go back to, you need to have a plan. You need to think to yourself, okay, well, I can't keep having these things. So what is my plan? Am I gonna, you know, in the short term, psychologists can be expensive. But maybe you, you're willing and, and that desperate to, to be able to invest in, in someone that you can see on a regular basis to say, what, I need to just unpack this because this is not normal and I don't want to keep feeling this way. So I think certainly having a plan with that and whether you're doing that with professional help or just personal relationships. Being very mindful of just trying to get rest, you know, getting as much rest as you can. When you're under this duress,

• 51:24Speaker 00

  you need to get as much, as much rest as you can. So sleeping four or five hours a night is not going to help your situation. Being full mindful and doing a little bit of research in terms of what type of foods can help your nervous system and just eating cleaner. I think processed junk food, for the lack of a better word, doesn't help your situation. I think the closer again, you can get to nature and more natural, healthier solutions, the better. I, I think that's important. The ability to move, you know, unless you have a physical disability that makes that difficult or impossible. The idea just to take a walk, it doesn't have, you don't have to be an elite athlete and go to a CrossFit competition or a sprint race or anything like that, but just the concept of, of moving your body.

• 52:06Speaker 00

  And then like I said, if you need further support in terms of dietary, you know, nutritional supplements, there are things out there that can help you lead in healthier diet as well. And certain vitamins and minerals that help with your cognitive function, be it omega threes, things like vitamin D, magnesium for sleep and rest and recovery. There's quite a few like that. So doing a little bit of research as to what are these things. There's products out there like Altheanine, Ashwagandha is getting very popular now as well, but they genuinely are giving people an actual benefit. And so looking at that type of research, I think is helpful. Uh, for me philosophically, I, I found that at certain times, and this is something that I wrote about as well,

• 52:47Speaker 00

  is just changing the focus. So certainly not in the heart of a panic attack, but when you're feeling a bit low, the one day I just out of the blue decided I'm going to reach out to a family member and just thank them for something and, and give them a gift or invite them for a coffee, just to say like, I just want to see them or whatever. And, and sometimes it's so counterintuitive. But the idea to serve somebody else when you're under duress somehow gave me a deeper purpose of, you know what, I can still add value in this world. So I think in terms of that greater purpose, just doing something helpful, maybe it's giving a beggar on the side of the streets some money or a bit of food or a cold drink or something like that. I know it sounds pretty silly, but sometimes for me, that was just my little lifeline for that day of, you know what?

• 53:29Speaker 00

  I'm still a great person internally and I have this belief that the best version of myself is still going to come back. And so that small little act was like, hey, that little candle is still alive in me. So yeah, doing good for, for, for others is, is good. And anxiety or depression, it sounds like a contentious thing to say, but it can be quite selfish because you're very much in your feels. It's like, how I feel today? How am I experiencing this? Uh, and so sometimes just shifting that focus temporarily, uh, can be very good. And then another thing that I'm big on is just the concept of gratitude. You know, again, I'm not talking about short term healing tools, but just the concept of when things don't feel great, just focusing on what you do have.

• 54:10Speaker 00

  And sometimes as trivial as it seems, the ability to say, you know what, I woke up today, I'm alive. I have another chance to do this again and to try a different route. And this concept of gratitude of naming things that you have in your life, it could be your pet, it could be a spouse, it could be a, a son, a daughter, a friend, a job, an income. But most importantly, just a level of health that allows you to wake up every day and, and fight again. So, so gratitude is big. And then again, I can't stress enough the ability to, to, to put into words and to try and articulate how you're feeling

• 54:47Speaker 00

  and to have those conversations. And at worst, in, in, in sometimes in my case, which again is, is also part of how the book came about, was just writing down what you were experiencing. No matter how crazy or dark those thoughts could be, to rather put it down on paper and then read it back to yourself and just say, well, is this who I want to be? Is this who I actually am? Or is this just a feeling I have right now? So certainly just, I think, I don't want to talk about just conversations, but articulating your feelings. Not everyone's comfortable sharing their deepest, darkest thoughts or fears or insecurities. And I think just this awareness of the fact that you're not the only person who's feeling this way. Cause for many times, that's what struggled, I, I battled with a lot was just like, no one else can be feeling this way. This is, you, you kind of feel like you're losing your mind.

• 55:32Speaker 00

  You, you literally, especially when there's no real reason or stimulus for that feeling of heart and anxiety. So yeah, so I think the ability to unpack and, and have conversations. And as I've done, and again, part of the reason the, the book was done was these conversations often ended and you know what, you should actually write about this. You should actually mention this or share this with the world. And sometimes it wasn't my ideas, it was their ideas that helped me. But the fact that we're all in this together and we've got an opportunity to make a contribution. My, my underlying but overwhelming feeling is that humans were designed and created to serve one another in some way. And doesn't mean you must sit out there and, and launch a charity or an NPO

• 56:15Speaker 00

  or write a book for someone else's benefit. It's, it's just this belief of in my work, in my life, how can I serve the rest of humanity with my existence here? We're not here forever. And statistically, we're actually all a miracle. I mean, the chances of any person being born is so minute that you think to yourself, that alone should tell you, you were meant here for something. And, and part of your struggle is determining what that is and maybe just holding on for another day to figure that out. I think would be a nice sum up how I approach things.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Yes. Well, thank you so much for sharing Brendan this. I love in your approach, this understanding and how you put it into practice, this idea of it's.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  Multifaceted experience, meaning you have your mind to manage and there is a body part in it and there is environment. And so anxiety and almost everything that we experience as humans, it's not the one-sided type of experience. And in order to achieve like that, you know, mental peace or wellbeing or balance, you wanna, you need to look into all of that. Like what's in my mind that might be causing it, like my frame of things or where I choose to focus or how I think about things and situations, right? Having perspective. It's, it's also not, it's also part of my body, like what, how I sleep or what I feed my body

• 57:39Speaker 01

  or how like I move or don't move or do I get light exposure, right? Like humans supposed to. Like it's a huge part of it. And then also environment, like is your place cluttered or, or not? And a researcher says that it makes a huge difference in how your mind feels, makes it cluttered as well, right? Or people, like I always say, like, what's your social diet, right? Who, who does that you talk to or use to listen to or know, like social media? And so, yeah, what I loved about your book and how you talk about things, and even now, you, you sort of like, okay, here is the mindset, here's the beliefs, here's the body, here is, you know, things in your environment. And so, yeah, I just wanted to emphasize like that it's

• 58:24Speaker 01

  a holistic three sixty experience. It's not just one thing to get it right.

• 58:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. No, absolutely. And I think that's an important message. Like I never want to trivialize anyone's struggle and make it seem like, firstly, I don't have all the answers. I have my answers and what I discovered. But it is multifaceted and I think certain things work better for certain people. But I do think there are some fundamental rules. And yeah, I think it's just you, you've got to, you've got to figure out your way. And like you say, it's, there's a lot of aspects to it. But, but, but the other big point that you landed now again is that we also have a choice of what we allow into our lives, whether we're in a heightened state of anxiety or depression or just feeling low. If, if people don't want to articulate it that extreme, like you choose, you know, everyone's like, social media is bad. And I write about that, I think

• 59:13Speaker 00

  in terms of comparison. And if, if who you following and what you following constantly makes you feel less or feels like, listen, I don't have a six pack or I don't look that way in a costume, or I'm not that strong, or I'm not that successful, or I don't travel the world like this person does. If that's the feeling you're getting from social media, then yes, it is a bad tool. But it's also been a help for me in terms of philosophy, in terms of motivational speakers, in terms of people sharing their learnings, in terms of podcasts and listening to things around mental health and that. So we have access to so much good and so much bad in the same tool. And I suppose you have to choose what you let into your mind, into your life, into your visual stimulus, who you're looking at,

• 59:56Speaker 00

  why are you looking at them, what that makes you feel, you know? And, and I think there's nothing wrong with looking at things that make you more ambitious. If I see someone who's just bought a new car and it's a sports car and that's something I want, I mean, I don't want a sports car, but if I did, and that was my goal and that inspires me, then cool, then keep following those people. Keep, keep those motivational quotes coming through. But, you know, your, your social diet is a big one. And I think you explained that really nicely. It's like, who are you hanging out with? Like, what are your relationships like? Are these people that build you up? Or are they people that break you down, you know? And I think it's just that realization of you do have a choice and it's partly your responsibility, it's mostly your responsibility to choose what you allow into your life in, in all these areas,

• 1:00:40Speaker 00

  you know, what you put in your body, you know, and, and that's, that's a very, very big point is we've got a role to play of sometimes we can be stuck in, oh, well, I feel terrible, but I'm not willing to change anything. I'm not willing to make the tough calls. And part of that hard work is making tough calls of, you know what, I'm gonna cut that person off, unfortunately, or I'm gonna stop watching this series, or I'm gonna stop following this Instagram account or TikTok channel or something like that. So, and I think especially in a state where you are in a low place, really be intentional about what you're watching and what you're putting into your system. And even if it doesn't feel motivational, but by design, it's something

• 1:01:21Speaker 00

  that will just plant thoughts and seeds of growth and possibility in your mind. Just keep filtering, filtering that in. And, and all these things collectively, like you say, if you can touch on all these different aspects of what can just nurture that mental garden, you know, the sooner you can jump into that strategy, the better.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Yes. I love the, you know, message of, of personal responsibility because yes, we are not always at all in control of what comes our way, like thoughts, emotions, things that happen to us. But it is in our control to choose what we're gonna do with that and whether that has a potential to improve things or make them worse and repeat them. Right. So, no, thank you for this message and like the message in your book and sharing your story, even though I know that those are not the most comfortable things to share or the most exciting things you wanna always share with the world or open up about. So, thank you so much, Brendan, for sharing your message, for writing the book and bringing

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  all these tools and strategies together. So, well, yes, and as the, as we're getting closer to, to a close of our podcast, is there anything you'd like to additionally share or listeners to really take away from this podcast, whether that's a tool, a philosophy or anything at all that you believe is super useful and super important?

• 1:02:46Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, I think that there's a lot, but I think if I had to try and sum it up, like I, I just hope that, I hope that the book helps somebody. My goal was always to, I had this ambition, you know, I thought of these clever marketing lines, because I'm in marketing. So I was like, you know, the, the ambition just healed healthy and stronger in one book. Like, that's my catchphrase. But I was like, you can't promise that to everybody. But it is genuinely my ambition. I'm just like, maybe not completely healed, but certainly allowing people to get on this train of recovery and being like, well, listen, things can be better. I really wanna wish anybody who's struggling with their mental health out there the absolute best of not luck, but progress, you know? And, and what I would say is just decide today that tomorrow could be better and, and try again. You know,

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  when things don't feel right, try again. If that has to happen 365 days a year, keep making that decision until you feel like it gets better. Pursue all the options that we have available to us. And if need be, at times, if it's medicinal, there's a place for that. It's helped me, it does help me. You know, you need to pursue all the options that are out there. And if all the natural solutions are still not achieving some level of progress and you've given that time and energy, then there are those resources. But really just encourage people to, to fight on another day. My experiences have been ones that needed me to make that decision. It wasn't obvious. It wasn't, many times it

• 1:04:12Speaker 00

  was counterintuitive. You know, the, the, the silly analogy I gave of opening a bottle of champagne on the day of my cancer diagnosis was counterintuitive. It's not something you celebrate. You don't want to celebrate that. But I made a decision that we were celebrating the future victory. Whether that transpired or not, I would never have known on that day, but it was a mindset that I adopted. And, and I think just looking at a lot of the work that you do, Angela, we also have to thank you for the work that you're doing and the coaching that you're putting out there and even the willingness to put a conversation out there. This is not PR for my book. It's a, it's a PR message for managing anxiety and depression better and just nurturing our minds and our bodies to a place of, of

• 1:04:54Speaker 00

  improvements and, and progress, not perfection. We weren't born here to be perfect. So that's probably a long summary, but I just wanna wish people all the best. And, you know, there's, there's resources like this book and many others that can just help the journey be a bit lighter. And I think overall, just have a little bit more empathy for one another and try and discover your purpose here on this earth. To me, it was that we were here to serve one another and, and you need to discover your role in that, in that process.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Yes. Well, thank you so much, Brendan. Such a beautiful summary. One of my favorite phrases there, you know, fight another day, there is better if you choose to, to make it happen. You have a choice. But also speaking of resources, where should people go to learn more about your work, to get your book, to help them to get to a better place mentally, emotionally, physically? What are some good places?

• 1:05:50Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, thank you for the plug and the opportunity. I mean, I'm very active on Instagram and LinkedIn as well. So you can find me at Brendan Fairweather there. I am busy creating a very short but small website that has resources around the book and some other ideas that we have around it. So if you want to engage there, the website will be hellinsideourheads.co.za. But the book is available at exclusive books, both online and in stores. It's also available on Takealot, Apple Kindle.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Amazon, I guess mine.

• 1:06:18Speaker 00

  Sorry, Amazon Kindle and Apple Books, apologies. And then other bookstores, although in less quantities, I've also seen it's available at Reader's Warehouse, Estrel Books, Bargain Books and luth.co.za as well. So exclusive books is, is really been supportive with a lot of my launches. So a lot of people ask and I think there's more availability of those stores. But I think between exclusive books and bargain books, if you can't get it there, then obviously the, the main Kindle and Apple Books e-reader website is also a nice channel to get it on as well. So, yeah, if that helps, it's there. In future, I'll be selling my books also directly through my own website as well. So when that's live, I'll certainly put it and shout about it on my Instagram page. But thank you very much again for the conversation and the opportunity. It's really been enjoyable.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  The pleasure is all mine and of our listeners, Brendan. Thank you so much for putting your story and all the tools and strategies out there for better health and wellbeing. I'm gonna link all the things that you named in the show notes. And yeah, you know, let's fight another day. Let's continue our journey and get inspired by people like yourself. And yeah, thank you so much for being on the show.

• 1:07:27Speaker 00

  Thank you, Angela.