Latest / Pete Vs Anxiety!!!!! / Anxiety is not a Death Sentence
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- Pete: Ever wish you had someone to talk to anytime, anywhere, matter what you're going through? Meet PsychPAL, your 24-7 AI companion, designed to help you process your thoughts, calm your mind, and keep you moving forward. Chat anytime during a panic attack on a restless night or just when you need to vent. Prefer talking instead of typing? Try voice journaling. PsychPAL listens, transcribes, and truly understands. You can even upload screenshots of tough conversations, and it'll help you unpack how they made you feel. PsychPAL keeps life organized, too. It can add appointments to your calendar, track your mood, and even summarize your sessions for your therapist so you'll never lose progress. Plus, built-in crisis resources are always just one click away. It's a privacy-first, constantly evolving, made to complement your professional care, not replace it. Ready to try it out? Head over to the link in this episode and use my code, Pete, at checkout to get 20 % off your first month subscription to PsychPAL. PsychPAL, because your mind deserves a companion too. There we go. I think that's the one I like. We got it. We got it. Boom. peter: but Pete: went to doing like pre-recordings. Well, Keith, we're at the part of the interview where I'm gonna ask you those two questions. All right, Amanda Landes: that I had been kind of like since head for a while about about writing the story because Mia Mason: you are not the only one that experiences thoughts, Pete "mental Health Champ": Well, Dr. Erica, before we start wrapping up, I'm going to ask you to another exciting episode of Pete first anxiety guys before we get started today I want to give a shout out to my partners over at psych pal guys psych pal guys there's a link inside the description of this episode right now if you guys want to go click it seven day free trial and I was so nice I argued with them I said you know not five not ten but I got you 20 % off your first month off if you use Pete at checkout guys that's right 20 % off your first month subscription and with that being said let's introduce my guest today she has a PhD And NBC-HWC is a stress management and resilience coach and the creator of the five step framework, helping people overwhelmed by work, health and caregiving demands falling through on a practical five minute habits. Please welcome in Melissa Lewis Duarte. How are doing, Melissa? Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Great, thanks so much for having me. Pete "mental Health Champ": Well, Melissa, with all those titles said, what did you tell everybody a little about yourself? It is. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: It is a mouthful, isn't it? Yes. So I am a national board certified health and wellness coach. I did training with the Andrew Weill Center for Integrative Medicine. And before that, I got my PhD in organizational behavior. all of that is really just sort of background for what brought me here. So I started with a psychology background, but I found myself really struggling with my own anxiety and stress man, lack of stress management, I should say, and hit a breaking point when I had my third child was born really sick. And as he got better over a year or so, I found myself getting worse. And it was because I had just worn out. It had been too many years of perfectionism and anxiety and achievement and, you know, all of that. And then a sick child and the pandemic and everything else that happened. And I found myself just really struggling and needing to figure out, okay, how do I live with the anxiety? How do I help myself heal? What should I be doing that's more productive than losing all this time and energy to anxiety? And that's what brought me here. Pete "mental Health Champ": Very, very true. Very true. Well, we're so happy to have you, especially as a Decade as you are. It's great when we get individuals that come in that come share their own personal stories because, know, I think that's the way a lot of people basically, you know, feel like they're close with you because like now we know the story about, you know, Melissa and everything she's dealt with and things like that, you know, in burnout, it's really big for a lot of people. Like, you know, we a lot of people start discovering. you know, that they're really burnt out. lot of the workforce these days is burnt out, especially the pandemic. That was a crazy time because a lot of people's mental health started coming through because now you're in isolation. You're not allowed to leave the house for most people. You had to really worry about getting sick, you know, and things like that too, you know, from an unknown thing that we weren't really sure about what was going on. So a lot of people's mental health started showing through very fast while being in isolation because it's like a lot of people weren't used to that. They used to be able to go out and distract themselves with things. you know, and now they're stuck in one place. It's like, what do we do with our time now? Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah, it was a big sort of deal breaker, I think, for sort of, or maybe I should say the last, the Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: final straw for people when it comes to living with anxiety and managing stress, particularly like health anxiety type stuff. And so I know for me, was once sort of life was getting back to normal. realized like I wasn't getting back to normal. I was really, at a place I had never been with my anxiety. And that's when I thought, okay, I've got to start doing some of these things I know I should be doing to help myself decrease this anxiety. And it was through that, that I really figured out ways to do it that I just hadn't before, even though I had lived with the anxiety since, you know, I was diagnosed in college. So it had been a couple of decades, but it's amazing how when you sort of reach these breaking points that you're forced to to figure it out. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Yeah. Especially with kids too, you know, especially the last one, like you said, you were stressing out from all the, being ill and the child being ill and things like that too. It's a lot of weight in your mind because then your, your anxiety takes off and you're just like thinking of all the worst case scenarios and they're just going so fast and it's, and it's hard, know, but I do like the practical five minutes a day idea because Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Mm-hmm. Pete "mental Health Champ": it's like thinking about it. Cause you're only asking them to take five minutes out of your day. They're not asking them to spend a couple of hours doing things like that. So how did, how did you come up with the method? Was this just stuff you've done on your own that you've practiced and you try and you're like, you know what, hey listen, let's make this a practical thing for other people too. Let me teach them the things that I'm doing. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: it was a combination really. This has come out of years of work that I've been doing. as I mentioned, I was at this breaking point and that's when I decided I would start a blog. I wanted to write about my journey. It was never about being this person who had all the answers. It was rather like, I'm in the trenches doing this work too. Like what works, what doesn't work? What's the real messy reality behind it? And so I started a blog where I was really just trying it out and trying to experiment and hold myself accountable by posting about it. I've always enjoyed education and community. And so that was my attempt to sort of form that. And through that, after about a year of doing that, I realized, there's a lot of information here that's useful, but I'm not trying to be an influencer, probably not the best person as a blogger. So what do we do with this? And that's when I came across health coaching and realized that there was a way that I could really shift. And so that's when I got training through the Andrew Weill Center for Integrative Medicine and pivoted to really putting it into action of helping other people do what I had done. So it was based on all of that research I had done to heal myself and then the additional support I was giving over the course of several years to other people who were anxious and overwhelmed. And as I got more and more into it and sort of reflected back on what worked for me, I realized that there was really, you know, what I was doing and recommending to others fell into certain categories. And I... called it take five because most of what I focus on myself was like five to 10 minute practices. I I had a baby at home who was on oxygen and needed surgeries and I had two other toddlers essentially. And I didn't, couldn't take a month off and go on vacation. couldn't, you know, meditate for hours. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: I had to figure out what I could do in. the margins of life, the five minutes from one like preschool drop off and some other obligation I had. And I found that in working with other people, those are the best solutions because people can fit it into their life. When you're anxious or you're overwhelmed, the last thing you need is one more thing on your to-do list. And so Pete "mental Health Champ": Exactly. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: that's how I came up with these sort of really focusing on five minute practices, not that other longer practices don't work. It's just that I found that this is most what people can stick with more consistently. So I mentioned there's sort of five categories and I encourage people to think about the different ways in to stress and anxiety management. You don't have to do all five of these. You can choose one that most calls to you or that is interesting to you or one that you feel you have the most need in. And so the first one is what I call physical techniques. And so you can think about this as like from ground up. So what you can do to affect your body. Because these signals from your body go to your brain and influence how stressed and anxious you feel. So think about sort of the foundational health stuff, which you probably have already heard a lot of in the media, like nutrition, sleep, and movement. These are sort of big foundational things. Those are the you Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, but think about it, they're easy things to do. Your nutrition, your sleep, and just moving isn't... You're not asking much out of people. mean, you know, and that's what I like about this so far is that, you know, it's applying Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Well. Pete "mental Health Champ": to things that are practical to other people, though. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yes, those are sort of the foundational things or things we know we should be doing. I Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: always encourage people to remember that these are simple, but not necessarily easy to stick with. And that's okay. And that's where I think coaching can be really helpful. okay, so physical is sort of that foundational stuff, but also other things that really can be done in five minutes, something like breath work. So if meditation Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: feels overwhelming to you, like I don't know how to do it, or I couldn't possibly sit still that long, you don't have to do a formal meditative practice. If you just start thinking about the way you breathe, slowing it down, getting your breath more down into your belly rather than up into your chest, or we tend to breathe when we're feeling anxious in the moment, some of those simple tweaks can be really huge in changing the message going from our body up to our brain, telling it whether we're in a a fight or flight mode or arrest or digest mode. And then one other Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: category is sort of the physical area is what I call five senses techniques. So anything that involves one or more of your senses in an enjoyable way. So it could be, you know, sort of your ears. could be listening to... a soundtrack or even just one song that for you is calming or enjoyable could be something in terms of like aromatherapy, scent you'd really enjoy. Your eyes think about sort of gazing at the horizon, which sounds super simple, but actually sends an important signal to the brain that you are calm and safe. Because when we're sort of staring out at a big perspective, It sends a signal to the brain that we are at this place where we can be taking in our environment rather than sort of in it and having to be aware of everything around us. So some of these like simple things is a way to change the signal going from the body to the brain. So those are like the physical ways into stress and anxiety management. For other people, I talk to them more about what I call cognitive techniques. So this is more top-down approach thinking about changing the messaging, because so much of our stress is what happens between the ears and the dialogue that we have going on with ourselves. So this could be something like catching yourself when you ruminate and learning how to shift your thought patterns. It could be more in terms of self-compassion. So a lot of people who are feeling anxious in the moment, we beat ourselves up. We say like, why do I feel this way? Or I shouldn't feel this way. Or Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: we get into a loop and it only makes our anxiety worse. And the thing with self-compassion, which can feel really touchy feely as a term when I say it, but it's actually a skill set and it's very well studied in terms of managing stress and people who are higher in self-compassion do better with achievements. And so it can be really helpful to learn it as a skill. So that's more like top-down type stuff. So we've got the physical, we've got cognitive. The third one that I talk about is more emotional. So these are things that have to do more with regulation. So if you find yourself super reactive, which you can be, I know like when I'm feeling super anxious, I am gonna, you know, snap at my kids or my husband more because I just feel like on guard. Like I need things to fall in line and be a certain way, right? Which I'm sure a lot of anxious people can. relate to. And so we can start to think about our emotions as things that we can regulate. We don't have to just react that way. And so there are specific skills we can build for regulation. Also, for those of us who have been dealing with more like chronic stress or anxiety, a lot of times we just start to feel bad. And so there are specific things we can do to boost our mood. and to help ourselves emotionally, whether it's like a gratitude list or some time with friends and family, but very specific skills in terms of practicing feeling better. Even if we don't feel better in the moment, we can practice it and get better at it. So those are more emotional. The fourth one that I talk about are what I call purposeful techniques. So these are the ones that let us feel or help us to feel like life well lived or very more fulfilling life. Those things that sometimes as we adult get put on the back burner. So if you think about what brings you joy, you know, what did you enjoy as a kid? What is some, some form of play for you? That can be really helpful. Or sometimes with clients, we work on really redefining their mission and values. Cause a lot of times we don't think about that unless for like writing a college essay, right? And we're having to say like who we are and what we want to do. And then like we get into the thick of life and we forget about it we end up in a job where maybe it's not really congruent with our values. And what we want to do is, you know, sort of have a sense of purpose. And so that can be a good starting point for people. And then the last way, the fifth way is what I call more organizational. It's more logistical stuff for those who maybe have some challenges with focus, which is happening a lot of seeing anxiety a lot, even in our young kids. And part of it is from the scrolling and the constant stimulation, short form Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: entertainment. And that is sending a signal to our brain. It's just sort of like hijacking it where, you know, you know, so many people feel like they are just compelled to pick up the phone and to scroll, even though they don't feel good about it. And so we can talk about specific ways to build focus or to change behaviors. and that's more like what I think about as organizational. So we've got these five, we've got physical, cognitive, emotional, purposeful, and organizational, and there are different pathways in that have all sort of shown themselves to me through the work that I did myself, as well as with the coaching clients that I work with. And as I started off saying, this can feel really overwhelming if you're like, oh my God, take a note, I have to do all of this. And it's like, no. One thing, one tiny change can have a really big impact. It's deciding what one of those areas is most compelling to you or useful for you to develop and starting there, thinking about how you might spend just five minutes on one of those areas. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, no, I agree 100%. I like how it's palpable though, kids. It's not like, you're like, oh, we got to do all five of these. You're like, no, no, listen, hold up, hold up. Pick one. Let's take it easy. Go with one because, know, and spend five minutes like, you know, the scrolling thing, I think is the most interesting one out of that group, though, because me and a few other podcasters, we get together on Wednesdays. We were discussing the same topic. We discussed that the negative effects on social media and kids is like, was like 50 or 60 percent. Melissa, it's crazy. but we still let them Melissa Lewis-Duarte: was huge. Pete "mental Health Champ": get on there. know, and everywhere how we used to make fun of those parents, these are helicopter parent people, we call them helicopter parents because they watch it. I don't blame them now. After Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Mm. Pete "mental Health Champ": everything you're learning, like roadblocks and all these other sites, you find that all these things are happening. It's like, hey, more power to you. Listen, forgive anything I've ever said to you because God, after doing the research and finding things out and all these things you're seeing, it's insane. It's just like the things that these kids are learning at a rapid pace they can't handle. And nobody really Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": can, honestly. Like we're learning too much. There's too much information coming faster than we can process. know, when everybody doom scrolls and they're on TikTok and God, I wish people, you know, would just use TikTok for good reasons, not bad reasons, but you know, it's the internet. So God knows what kind of people are going to find out there, you know. So Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah, and I think you're bringing up a really good point in that our kids have this unfettered access to it. Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: But also if it's not good for them, it's probably harmful for us too. And I'm not saying Pete "mental Health Champ": Exactly. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: that we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I there are some Pete "mental Health Champ": Definitely. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: great things like you were just mentioning with TikTok and YouTube. You can learn so many good things on there. Yes, yes. Yes. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, exactly. Use it for the power of good. Not bad, damn it. Quit, everybody. Because there's some videos out there, I'll tell you, that a cop on my Instagram stream, I'm just like, OK, well, I'm done there today. My take is done. yeah, TikTok's really great, though. I think it's a sleeper pick for a lot of people who don't realize it. That's where I meet a lot of interesting people mental health wise, you know, Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Hmm. Pete "mental Health Champ": like in this area that a lot of people are really strong advocates for things, know, like so you run into different people. So when I tell people... is that if you're going to use it, use it to your advantage. Look for the things that you want, you know, don't, don't worry so much on the negativity of, know, that's the whole point of scrolling. You can scroll past these videos, the things that don't apply to you. you know, Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": the, make the algorithm work for you basically, essentially, you know, and if, and Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Mm-hmm. Pete "mental Health Champ": even at that, don't spend all day on there because it's not good, man. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yes. Pete "mental Health Champ": You, I've had a few tick tockers on here and they've told this story about how hard it is for some of them. Like they spend all every day getting on. It's like, it's a grueling process. like, no, feel like I have to get on here. Everybody wants to be famous, but nobody understands and realizes what kind of work these people go through. Everybody wants to be streamers. Do you know how Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": many hours these people spend streaming video games? Look at some of them. There's no way they're happy. I'm sorry, but some of those guys look miserable watching them. One guy was watching one like that. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah, content creation is a lot. It's like a, it is a full-time job. It's not just what you see. It's the Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: hours of preparation and editing and all of that afterwards, which can be huge for people. I think, yeah. yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": It's the same thing for podcasting too though, Melissa, for me as well. People start getting, I started showing people the behind the scenes of what I do and they're like, Jesus, how do you do all that? I'm like, it takes Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": a lot of work, but I enjoy what I'm doing though. If you enjoy it, it's different, you know, for a lot of these guys. But I want to let these kids understand it's like you want to do these things, but understand what a lot of these guys go through. It's a lot of long hours, man. A lot of stress you're going through. You don't have privacy anymore. Forget that. That's out the window. You know, you don't have privacy anymore. You have your life is on the spectrum to everybody. Everybody sees what you're doing, you know, and all these people that show up on the news and things like that. these these. what's that most recent guy was making fun of the Spirit airline girl. I was like, this is what I'm talking about, man. Like people don't realize, like with the Internet now, it's recording everything you're doing and it's still there. Like 20 years down the road, people can pull a post of things you said like 20 years ago. The worst, the worst things you've ever said will pop back up or something like that. Everybody will forever see it. And now you have more ways to share it. This isn't the 90s anymore Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": where AOL was our only access to the internet. Now you have TikTok and all these other places that you can be, that you could just spread this message out to people at a rapid pace even at that too. It's crazy though. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah, it is concerning. And I think it's important to recognize that we've had a significant increase in anxiety levels in our youth Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: and also in adults, but I don't think it's accidental. It coincides quite a bit with the smartphone. And so it's important for us to build our awareness around the fact that these, although many of these platforms can be wonderful and serve a purpose. mean, Facebook was When I was going through my very difficult pregnancy and the traumatic birth of my third son, I was in a group that only had parents dealing with that. And it was wonderful to have that support and to know that there were other people and to have someone to bounce ideas off of. So it can be good, but it's important Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, exactly. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: to be aware of how it can go wrong and to put guardrails up for all of us. We all need that. there are specific things you can do when you've feel yourself being compelled to pick up the phone and to start instead engaging with other activities like getting outside or I had mentioned before like look horizon gazing or you know just a few things that can help you to really get more in the moment and get less pulled into that so that you can make good decisions there. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, 100%. Couldn't say it any better myself. mean, I do a lot of unplugging. Sometimes I'll just stop Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Mm-hmm. Pete "mental Health Champ": going on apps for while and people are like, where you been? Doing everything but this app, honestly. You know, sometimes I just have to take breaks from it because it's just rough. You know, between the show and everything else I try and do and all these other projects I'm doing, I have bigger focuses. I don't let these people's drama get to me of, you know, all these, well so-and-so said this. That's great. So-and-so could say... Whatever they want. That's nice. I'm too busy doing other things that are more important. All my friend always gives me a hard time. She's you go outside and touch grass today? Yes, I went outside and touched grass and she gets on me constantly about it, but it feels a lot better when I get outside because there's there's actually a patio right outside the studio window where I'm sitting out. I go and sit outside and it's nice, you know, and just being out there, it's a lot different. It's such a de-stressor Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yes. Pete "mental Health Champ": because you're just not having to worry about anything and you just sit there and listen to this wind go or just enjoy the weather and just be nice outside, you know. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: I love that. Pete "mental Health Champ": you know, and things like that too. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah, those are things that really build your resilience. I encourage the people that I work with to start thinking about resilience as bandwidth and Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: it gets eroded. And so even if you love what you're doing, you may find that your bandwidth is wearing down over time. And so you have to know what are those things that build it back up. And so for you, it might be really just turning going outside that sliding glass door for a few minutes. It's nice that you have a good friend who reminds you to sort of get your feet in grass or look up at the sky or whatever it is. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yes. Yes, Trina. I'm talking about you, by the way. I'm going to call her out by name, but yes, you know, I use that. then I, there's, there's some weeks I have to reschedule with people too. And then it's like, and people are like, you're to get mad at somebody else. I don't have to tell them my mental health is the number one priority here. If I can't give you a hundred percent, Pete, I'm honest with some guests. like, Hey, listen, I can't give you a hundred percent. Or I recorded this, Melissa Lewis-Duarte: I'm like, listen, I can't put you under the sun. Pete "mental Health Champ": I did this guest before you and it just, took a lot out of me. Like we've talked about, What is it? The new there's a new definition for incest, but we had a conversation with this woman and it was it was draining, man. I was just like, OK, I'm like, I can't do anything else. I got to be done for the day. Like, I can't do anything. I got to go out and just take a walk from this because it was it was rough. These conversations don't get easy. Like there's conversations we did in the September for Suicide Awareness Month. Listen, I'm going to tell you, there's some of those episodes were bad. Like after those, I had to go outside and literally just take a walk for a while because it was like, wow. The things that you're hearing, we had one woman, we had to suspect it from the person who didn't, who didn't, wasn't successful. She shot herself and you're not, you didn't know this through the whole conversation until you get to the moment she tells you, yeah, when the ambulance came, had the gun seen next. I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute, what? Like you're hearing this story from the perspective of somebody, but you don't know what happened until she mentions it. And I'm just like, yep, I'm done for the day. I'm done. You know, and, you know, when you get into this area, It's something I understood a long time ago that, sometimes I'm going to have to put myself first, you know, in, in, I'll have to take breaks. Like I'll have to take breaks, walk away, you know, things like that. I record sometimes three, four hours at a time. Like I'll do like three or four guests back to back, depending on what it is. you know, and sometimes I got to get up and take a break afterwards. I just stopped doing everything else. I'll go and just disappear. I'll get off, stay off my phone and just go wander off and somewhere else. And people are like, my God, where are we at? I'm here, right? mean, it's like, Calm down, like I had to do what I had to do to protect myself. At the end of the day, I'm looking out for me. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": Sometimes I'm plugging from these sites and everything. I'm doing a test currently to see how many people notice that I haven't said anything online. I haven't been online, but I post because I have something automatically post. I'll post something, I'll pop in randomly, and people all ask me the same thing. I'll just say, I've been busy doing something else. Then other people message you directly and ask you, hey, you good. I'm good, man. I'm taking some time off. Like I just, took this whole month off and you know, doing like heavy amount of TikTok. Like usually I'm on TikTok doing battles and things like this and other stuff like that. I'm, I'm a little more active than usual, but it's like now I'm just like, you know, I'm going to take the month of May off. It's, it's been a long time. I've been going really hard at both ends. I do this show, I do another side project to do meetups with other podcasters, you know, and it's, it's hard for people to those boundaries. And I think that's one of the things too, a lot of people have trouble with just setting boundaries. It's like, you know, limit that. Limit that need of that fear of being missing out, know, the FOMO, fear of missing out on things because that's what these apps are meant to do. Turn your phone in silent. Greatest thing you ever could do is turn that thing on silent and just leave it there. Like, you know, the people that need to get a hold of you, not to get a hold of you, you know, because all those Melissa Lewis-Duarte: true. Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": apps are constantly ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah, I think it's important to have safeguards like that that you put Pete "mental Health Champ": Okay. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: up regularly rather than having to think in the moment. Should I do this or how do I do this? If you have more of some like some structure really built in around that, it can help you to Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, definitely. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: make sure you're protecting yourself. And I think, you know, it's really good that you're able to recognize when you need that break and to take it. A lot of times people who are anxious or overwhelmed don't even recognize what their triggers are or when they're sort of, you what the red flags are. And so Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: it's very useful to take some time to reflect on that or work with someone who can help you figure out what are your red flags? What are the signs, the warning Pete "mental Health Champ": Exactly. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: signs that you need to unplug or you need to get in grass or take five minutes to yourself? Because if we don't recognize... Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, yeah, my my friend, most of the time, she always tells me the same thing. She goes, have you got a touch grass? Have you walked in the grass and those shoes? Have you hugged the trees? My favorite one, she always tells me. Yes, I went and hugged the tree cat, you know, but I love her to death, though. it's it's like, you know, I learned these things. So like, didn't I didn't know any of these things before I started the show. But after I started meeting more people and start learning new things from everybody and the different takeaways from conversations with people like, you know. I meditate now and talk to my inner child. It's just weird to people because I had a lot of abandonment issues when I was a kid. My mom abandoned me when I was 10. Me and her still don't have a great relationship. The hardest part was forgiving myself, if anything, because that forgiveness just wouldn't let me go. The wall just kept coming up. Every time I tried to get to that point, it just kept going up. But now that I've just kind of gotten past it, everybody sees me in a different light because now I'm different, is what they say. But to me, it's like you watch the evolutionary. Pete from day one of this show to where I'm now, you see a whole different change of focus of things I do differently now than I didn't do before. You learning more things as I go because it's great because it's a journey of self discovery together. Like I'm meeting new people Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": or hearing their stories, hearing the things they're doing, exploring the areas of things like what you're doing, yourself doing and other people are doing. You know, it's really cool because you make these connections with different people. And I've had a lot. have a lot of lifetime friends after this that I still talk to this day, like constantly talk to people around the world. that I've met on this show here too, that we constantly check in with each other to see what we're up to. And I wouldn't have these opportunities had I not done this. Instead of taking my abandonment and living in crippling me, I turned into a superpower because now I have a show that's heard around the world. People are knocking on the doors, literally knocking on the doors to be on the show. People email me and things like that too. So these constant emails of people saying, I heard this episode, did these like that. We just hosted a... an author with like over a million followers. Like if I would have told some of these are the things I wouldn't be doing, I would have looked at myself and laughed because I'm like, you just don't know when hell you'd be doing those kinds of things. But you know, it's all because I'm just just doing one thing. It's just having a conversation, people. And it's interesting to see how many people are moved by the conversation. And then when I when I started the show, like the response, most I had 150 people in like two hours below my phone. I thought the phone was an explode. I said, this is crazy. People really want to talk about these things, you know. And now here we are now. Wrapped up season three, working into season four now is where I'm right now. I'm already planning out the rest of this year for the fourth season and going into 2027, I'll have season five already pre-recorded and ready to go ready too. So that way I can do other projects and do these panels and all these other kind of cool things I'm planning on doing. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: That's amazing that you have, like you said, you've turned it into something worthwhile, something positive. You used it to help you grow and to help others, to bring Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: others along with you on the journey. And that's sort of, that's why I started the blog for myself as well, is I wanted to share what I was learning with other people. So I... Pete "mental Health Champ": Are you still doing the blog by chance? mean, it's great to get your insight thoughts on what you're thinking though. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah, so what I do is I still write, create posts. Mostly they are instructional on the five minute practices. So I share them, Pete "mental Health Champ": Okay. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: here's how to do it, here's why it works, here's the science behind it. Although I have recently been thinking maybe I should get back to more of that, my personal journey with everything as well, because that was really helpful. But one of the things I wanted to go back to that you mentioned I think is so important is you have this sort of history that you can look on of your growth. You you have this podcast, which is pretty impressive. And for a lot of people, they don't have that type of thing to look at their own personal growth. And so I encourage people to start thinking about, you know, if there's a way that you want to grow or change or, you know, develop new habits, really just compare yourself to yourself. And the podcast gives you that where you can look back and see how you've grown, what you've learned, what you're doing differently now. And other people can do something. They don't have to have a podcast to do that. They could, you know, write it down. They could create a tracker, you know, but it's really important to have that. We call it self-referential growth in psychology of making sure you're looking at where you Pete "mental Health Champ": Hey. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: were a month ago. looking at where you were and then making sure that you're making progress and just comparing yourself to where you were before, not where other people were. Pete "mental Health Champ": Exactly. Yeah, I know it makes it makes perfect sense though, because, you know, but like you said, writing is really great too for people with anxiety too, because it helps you get your thoughts out. And you know, a lot of times I'll do that, like I'll start talking to myself and say things out loud because it makes more sense because it's like, you know, because then you're listening to what you're saying, you're like, okay, well, that doesn't really make much sense. Because you know, with anxiety, it comes in different ways for everybody. Mine's like it'll take and start playing its own telephone game. So like it'll reinvent itself to something else. or start thinking something. then when I start saying it out loud to myself, I'm like, yeah, that doesn't sound right. know, nevermind. You know, in different things like that, you know, so Melissa Lewis-Duarte: that's cute! Pete "mental Health Champ": and I have an anxiety journal too I use as well and things like that as well. So, you know, lot of really helpful things I got over the years of doing the show and things like that from people sending me things and a friend of mine gifted me the anxiety journal, which is interesting too, because it changes your perspective on what you're looking at. So like you'll start one one thought and then I thought it'll change to something else after you look at it, realize how how really ridiculous it sounds. Why do you think that? And then it'll Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": work you through the pages. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah, that's really useful. There's a couple things there that sort of nuggets that your listeners could take away. One is to start writing if you find that helpful. There's a specific technique called expressive writing. This isn't five minutes, it's 15, but it's really helpful. And if you find that you're feeling really stuck and you're sort of ruminating on the same thing over Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: and over, you can take 15 minutes. The goal is to sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and write it. Handwriting is the best way to go if you can. It forces your brain to slow down to process information at a different level, but just write everything you can think about that topic for 15 minutes. doesn't, grammar doesn't care. You're not writing it for anyone. Pete "mental Health Champ": Exactly. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: It's simply just free flow consciousness, getting it out. Do that four days in a row. That's called expressive writing. Can be really helpful to get you feeling unstuck from whatever that thing is. It sounds too good to be true, but it really is helpful. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, it is really helpful. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: And the thing I wanted to point out that you were talking about is talking to yourself out loud. A lot of times, I was mentioning before those cognitive techniques, like we're stuck in our heads, especially if we're anxious. And oftentimes we would not ever talk to ourselves the way that we do if we had to say it out loud. And so that can be a nice sort of practice to have, sort of fact checking yourself. or at least thinking through it in a different level rather than allowing your thoughts to ping pong all around. When you Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: say it out loud, we tend to talk in complete sentences and at just a different level than we do when we're stuck in our heads. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, know, and then mindfulness is another interesting one to use too, uh, for people who've never done it before. There's an episode we recorded during season one of the show where we were using coffee as the example. It's like, you know, and the way they broke it down was just a different way to look at things. And now like I apply it to a lot of things I do now, cause if you really, start breaking it down, you really start to look at things from a different perspective, you know, and I spent some time, uh, I was, I was interacting with somebody had BPD is another thing too. I learned how to communicate with somebody with BPD. Cause it's interesting with those guys, you have to be very careful of what you say because everything you say can be taken and run with. So like you have to think about what you're going to say to this individual and things like that too. So I thought it was very interesting. It was an interesting lesson to be learned too, because now you can, apply it to everything now. Cause I think about what I'm going to say next. Like I'm thinking the next 20 answers to something somebody is saying to me and I'm sitting there in my head dissecting which one the next one I'm going to say is. Instead of just verbally just spitting things out like, you know, and it's, it's changing interactions. People noticed it too. A lot of people I know of are like, yeah, listen, you don't seem the same. There's something different about you. There was a woman, in fact, that made a comment, said that she's known me for a while now. She said, she left and came back to where we're at now. And she was like, I could tell you right now, he's, he's way different than before. Like you, you didn't think that he's, he's something, but he's not. It's like, you have no idea. You've never met him, meet him five years ago and you'll notice he's a way different person than he was before. You know, and that happens a lot of people that don't know a lot about my past when I was an asshole, but people like before, let's just say what it is. I was very rude to people and it was more just because I shut off the hip and I've always been really defensive about things, you know, but now it's like, don't do that same thing. I changed the way I do things and a lot of people notice it. Even my kids notice it. Like me and my kids have never really had a great relationship after we... They were living with me and they went to go live with their mom because I was a terrible person to be around, you know, and I've already admitted that openly a few times to people on this show. But, you know, even they, they noticed the difference too, because the way we interact is way different now. It went from not speaking to now next week, my daughter is going to graduate high school, so I'm going to see her and everything else. And she's excited to see me. This is a different dialogue. Had Melissa Lewis-Duarte: That's great. Pete "mental Health Champ": someone talk to me last year when I was doing the show because they wanted nothing to do with me at one point. And rightfully Melissa Lewis-Duarte: and Pete "mental Health Champ": so. I was a terrible person to them. Like I don't blame them. I was a horrible person in those poor kids, man. They did deserve what they went through. But I can admit though, I'm wrong now before, no way in hell that ever happens because I was never that type of person. But now that I went back and self-reflected on the things I've done, it's changed my perspective on things and people notice these things. A lot of people will start to notice when Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": you start doing things differently. And that's really what it takes. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": It's like, you don't do it for anybody else, do it for yourself. But at end of the day, other people noticing is always a great thing too because it's reassurance that what you're doing is different. is making people see you in a different light. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: And it's really helpful to, you know, when you reflect back on how much you've Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: changed and how you've grown to remember that you're a human. so oftentimes Pete "mental Health Champ": Exactly. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: we're doing the best we can with what we have in the moment. And when we know better, we can do better. And so as you've learned ways to maybe regulate your emotions or communicate in a different way, it can have a big impact on improving Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: those relationships, but we can't. We can't look back and say you were a terrible person when it probably wasn't malicious. It's that you didn't Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: have the tools. And so when you have the tools, you can learn to do differently. And I encourage people to really think about managing stress, building resilience, or dealing with your anxiety as using this, just learning new skills. And Pete "mental Health Champ": Mm-hmm. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: the things that I teach people, they can learn. It's, you you mentioned mindfulness and I felt for myself with anxiety, that was a huge game changer for me because I had tried for several decades to really rationalize my way out of the anxiety. And that's, that's really the common approach is to use cognitive behavioral therapy where you start to examine your thoughts and question whether they're accurate. And that's very helpful and useful. And then for me, sort of only got me so far. And what I still had anxiety because anxiety is not rational. It doesn't care whether or not it's Pete "mental Health Champ": Exactly. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: reasonable to have those fears. And so I had a really good therapist at the time who said, well, what if you just accepted that you were going to be anxious? And I thought, what? Like, I'm just going to accept this? because I had sort of been white knuckling it for a long time, trying to resist it and run away from it or talk myself out of it. And I found that that was really hard. And instead, mindfulness taught me to simply just surrender, to accept that I was anxious and that it was going to be uncomfortable. I wasn't going to die, but it was going to be uncomfortable. It was going to suck. And then I would get through it. And then I would be in a better place. And so for me, that helped me to, you that was really helpful to have that just that relief of I don't have to hide it. I don't have to white knuckle my way through it. I can just sit back and say, OK, I'm going to be anxious for the next few minutes. Let's see what happens. And as soon as I had that sort of that letting go of trying to control and more of a curiosity perspective of what it. my you know how long was it gonna last that's what it almost took away all the power i don't know Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: if you found this for yourself but there was so much in resisting the anxiety that just made more anxiety for me Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah, because yeah, you're trying to avoid it, Melissa Lewis-Duarte: yeah i started saying you know resistance equals persistence and the more i tried to resist feeling anxious the more anxious i felt or the more workarounds i was trying to create in order to because i thought like, oh, I have to do this, otherwise I'll be anxious. And as soon as I said, well, I might just be anxious, it suddenly took a lot of power away from that feeling. Pete "mental Health Champ": Yeah. So Melissa, we are at that point in this interview where we're going to ask you two questions. Now, I told you I was going to ask you, but didn't tell you what they were. So the first one's actually a really fun one. So the question to you is that if your mental health had a song, what would you say that song would be? Melissa Lewis-Duarte: my gosh. Hmm. Pete "mental Health Champ": This is really fun question when I ask people. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah, that's a fun one. Off the top of my head. Ooh, I feel so put on the spot. I guess let it be. Maybe that would be one, Pete "mental Health Champ": Okay? Okay. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: sort of let go. Pete "mental Health Champ": All right, I'll take that. There's no wrong answer to this question at all. It's interesting to hear people's responses to this thing, because it's just because music's a big thing for me. So I actually Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": borrowed this question from a friend of mine who runs a podcast called The Shit That Goes On In Her Heads. She'd asked me the same question. So, you know, I broke mine down into two different answers. But, you know, it was just Melissa Lewis-Duarte: What was yours? Pete "mental Health Champ": fun. Mine answers were the original, my way, this artificial suicide by Battlements is because the tone of the song is just... That's what my anxiety is like when it's full blown. It's like that. OK, so then my depression song was Leave a Light on Talk Away the Dark by Papa Roach. And it was just because I was a big Papa Roach fan. love the song. And the end of the video talks about 9-8-8, which is it's real, you know, it's like it's a really powerful song, especially when you're feeling your feelings. And then the other answer I gave was a different kind of pain by cold is another one I used as well, because they were just both that kind of like real mellow feeling. know, when you're really down, that's really what it's like, you know, in Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah. Pete "mental Health Champ": I think a lot of people don't understand what it's like to be in these things. think Jim Carrey said it best, depression is basically you not wanting to be that character for the day, basically. And being sad is just feeling down. And the way he broke it down was so masterful that I love it so much. And it's a quote I like to use for a lot of people. Because a lot of people just don't understand what it's like going through these things. So for me, music's my biggest expression. I'll put together playlists for people to understand what I'm feeling like some days and then it just makes sense because the songs go up, down, know, everywhere else. So, but Melissa. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: I love that. I love that music was so important to you. That's awesome. Pete "mental Health Champ": It is 100 % important to me. Music, I listen to music every single day. I'm listening to new things all the time. I'm the guy that is turning people on to different new bands. I've had a lot of bands on the show. I pick a new artist every season. So this this season's artist is actually going to be a Christian rapper who I met through TikTok, you know, and then last season's was a gentleman named Note. He's a younger guy. He has a music background. He's a big he's been a big supporter of the show and he was a guest on season two as well, you know, and things like that, too. So now this leads us to the main question and the reason this podcast exists. So if you could break the stigma about mental health, now what I'm asking you is that something that you hear every day that you just want people to stop believing, what would you say that one thing would be? Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Hmm, that's a good question. So one thing, so a stigma, a myth about anxiety? Pete "mental Health Champ": Anything you want to say, whatever you feel like you want people to stop believing. Is there something you hear people always refer to? Something, anxiety, mental health, something in your practice that you've heard people say that you've met while helping your clients. Is there something that's a repetitive? Anything that you just want people to stop believing. Melissa Lewis-Duarte: that you don't have to live, anxiety doesn't mean that you have to live sort of like a, it's not like a death sentence. It's not something that that has to ruin your life. And there, you can have a very wonderful full life, even with anxiety. There's a lot you can do. I want people to walk away feeling empowered. that there is so much within their control. We can't control the things coming at us, but we can control our reaction. And so I hope that people feel a lot more of a sense of empowerment. Pete "mental Health Champ": I agree. Melissa, thank you so much for coming to hang out with me today. Before we start closing out the show, would you like delivery? Know where they can find you. Websites, socials, where's the best place to interact with you if they want to learn more about you? Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Yeah, the best place is my website, is www.workingoncalm.com. Under the articles tab, you'll find those blog posts I mentioned before, so lots of tools, techniques that you can use right now to start building resilience and decreasing your anxiety. You can sign up for my newsletter there called Take Five. It's where I share monthly five tips that are five minute practices that you can start using right away. And you can find me on all the socials under Working on Calm as well. Pete "mental Health Champ": I love it. Melissa, thank you so much, guys. will have all those in the links for this description of the bio for everybody to look at this listening at home. And Melissa, thank you so much for coming to hang out with me today. I really appreciate it. Melissa came at the last minute, but it's awesome. She came through and killed it. Melissa, thank you so much. I appreciate it. And guys, with that, Melissa Lewis-Duarte: Thank you. Thanks, Pete. Pete "mental Health Champ": thank you so much. Well, with guys, with that being said, we're going to wrap up this episode of Pete for his anxiety. You know where to find me on Pete for society and X all the way down to tick tock. I'm on Spotify all the way down to Pantor Radio. And as always say, it costs nothing absolutely to be kind to somebody. One kind act you could do could save someone's life or hell, can make their day. I'm Pete for this anxiety sign off saying don't ask how your day is today. Say hey, how's your mental health?