Mastering Anxiety & Panic: A Story of Motherhood, Resilience & Healing
Takeaways:
- In this episode, we learned that Figgy Skincare is all about merging mental health and skincare, which is pretty rad!
- Gene emphasised that understanding your anxiety triggers can help you cope better with both your mind and skin issues.
- The link between anxiety and skin health is real, and it’s wild how our emotions can manifest physically!
- Figgy Skincare offers courses that share personal experiences with panic disorder and how to manage it effectively.
- We talked about the importance of balancing life as a parent while managing mental health, which is a real struggle for many.
- Finally, Gene's journey shows that sometimes life pushes you in unexpected directions, and that can lead to amazing things like Figgy.
Transcript
Hello everyone.
Speaker A:Welcome back to another episode of the Breaking Point podcast.
Speaker A:Today we are here with Gene Retief.
Speaker A:Gene is the founder of Figgy Skincare.
Speaker A:Figgy, and that is a skincare brand which endeavors to reconcile skin and mental health.
Speaker A:Would that be a good way of putting it?
Speaker B:That's perfectly perfect.
Speaker A:So Jean, tell people about, well, let's go into Figgy and then we'll go into your past a bit afterwards.
Speaker B:So Figgy is a real holistic approach to managing your anxiety.
Speaker B:There are many external symptoms to anxiety, one of which for me was very sensitive skin.
Speaker B:But then of course you also need to deal with the internal things that trigger your anxiety.
Speaker B:What are the triggers?
Speaker B:Understanding your triggers and understanding how to kind of peacefully exist with your anxiety if you've been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or if you've just gone through perhaps burnout, grief, loss.
Speaker B:So figgisoul offers online courses that I present based on my own life experience with panic disorder, on how to get back to a space where you can live your life in the best way you can.
Speaker B:Understanding this is how you wired.
Speaker B:And then the skincare helps with the sensitive skin so, so it helps with the inflammation, it helps to calm, it helps to soothe.
Speaker B:And they too, these two work together.
Speaker A:That's great.
Speaker A:I suffered a lot with skin, sort of with acne particularly growing up and still sort of do on and off, as do many young people increasingly more and more.
Speaker A:And we, it sort of understood that the skin is a reflection of what's going on internally in the sense of how things are health wise internally.
Speaker A:But we don't treat it, we don't treat it.
Speaker A:We never look for the root cause of skin issues.
Speaker A:We always treat the symptoms with various pharmaceutical creams and stuff.
Speaker A:So why going down this journey that you've gone on, have you wondered what is the link between like internal health, the food we eat and our skin, the way it manifests in our skin?
Speaker A:And why do you think people separate the two?
Speaker A:Why do people, why aren't there more doctors going, oh well maybe you should look at what, what you're eating and your environment as opposed to just treating it as a separate entity.
Speaker A:Do you understand what I mean?
Speaker B:Yeah, 100%.
Speaker B:And there is this movement towards what is called psychodermatology which focuses more on why this is happening to your skin.
Speaker B:But it's very new and there's very few dermatologists that practice that.
Speaker B:Yes, when I was diagnosed with panic disorder, I severely mismanaged it.
Speaker B:I did not want to accept my diagnosis.
Speaker B:So when I recalibrated my path and started figgy.
Speaker B:One of the things that was key to me was arming myself with as much knowledge as possible towards my condition so that I could understand myself better, my symptoms better, my triggers better, and so I could understand how to correctly formulate the skincare.
Speaker B:And it's so strange because the skin is our largest organ and obviously the organ most visible to the world.
Speaker B:So it's weird how we don't make that connection.
Speaker B:Even now, when I tell people there's a link between anxiety and your skin, they're so surprised because we think about so many other.
Speaker B:We think about our gut, we think about the gut microbiome, we think about heart health, liver detoxification, all of these things.
Speaker B:But the skin is kind of the last thing that we think about.
Speaker B:It's so affected by everything that we do.
Speaker B:So, for example, if you have an anxiety disorder, your brain knocks out kind of this alarm glass to put you in that fight or flight mode.
Speaker B:And when that happens, a whole bunch of cortisol and adrenaline is dumped into your bloodstream and that shoots to all of your really sensitive nerve endings because it's trying to send this message to your body.
Speaker B:You need to move, you need to protect yourself, you need to act.
Speaker B:And a lot of the super sensitive nerve endings is just beneath the first layer of skin.
Speaker B:And that's why you start getting this feeling that you're burning, that you're itching, tingling sensations, or why you go red in certain spots when you rub it too much.
Speaker B:People who have eczema rosacea acne tend to, if they think back on it, realize that a period where they were super stressed or really anxious, it seemed to be worse.
Speaker B:And that's why, because it really is a connection between the brain, the gut, the body, the nerves, the sympathetic system, the nerves, the nervous system.
Speaker B:It's all affected.
Speaker B:And it's the same with an anxiety disorder.
Speaker B:Everything is affected.
Speaker B:It's not just that you get panic attacks, it's that you have irritable bowel syndrome, you have gut issues, you have sleeping issues, and insomnia, are sensitive to the environment around you.
Speaker B:Sounds, noises, like lights, anything that's overstimulating, it all works together.
Speaker B:And then it just makes sense that obviously your biggest organ is going to be severely affected.
Speaker B:I hope that answers the question.
Speaker A:No, that, that, that makes complete sense.
Speaker A:And you bring up that there is still a sort of prehistoric view from certain doctors that when you, when you look at the way that medicine has progressed there, what's it called?
Speaker A:I think it was the.
Speaker A:No, that's not it.
Speaker A:There was a.
Speaker A:We used to have a, like a distinct separation between mind and body and it was, it was believed that the mind and the body were completely separate and they, the head just sat on top of the body and there was no link.
Speaker A:And then there was, there's.
Speaker A:It's got a term but I can't remember what it is.
Speaker A:And it was this sort of sudden acceptance, not sudden, but this gradual acceptance that actually the mind and the body were interlinked and that everything impacted one another.
Speaker A:And it was one.
Speaker A:But there is still this degree of sort of separation and this acceptance, incorrect acceptance that we're not everything in the body is connected in some way.
Speaker A:And it's like when dermatologists say, well, you have a.
Speaker A:Do you have like a skin certificate or something?
Speaker A:Did I read that right?
Speaker B:You have, yeah.
Speaker B:I went back to school to do my certificate in cosmetic chemistry so that I could formulate it and understand how everything works together and what the different ingredients do and so on.
Speaker A:So I can ask you some questions on queries that I have sort of dermatological questions.
Speaker A:But it's like when doctors say, oh, diet doesn't impact skin.
Speaker A:I just sort of think, what are you on about?
Speaker A:Either A.
Speaker A:Why is there no research done into diet and skin?
Speaker A:I have.
Speaker A:The reason behind that is because that would lead to data that would not benefit the pharmaceutical companies because they can't profit off.
Speaker A:If it turns out that diet is linked to skin and they can.
Speaker A:People could just stop eating certain foods and it would.
Speaker A:They wouldn't need as much into medical intervention, pharmaceutical intervention.
Speaker A:But what did you discover?
Speaker A:Did.
Speaker A:Does.
Speaker A:Do you believe that diet impacts skin?
Speaker A:I know this is slightly moving outside of your realm, but.
Speaker B:No, no, it's okay.
Speaker B:I mean, honestly, I can speak again when I speak to it.
Speaker B:I speak to it from the perspective of somebody with panic disorder.
Speaker A:Yes, we're going to get into that definitely.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:By that.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And that all is connected and diet is connected to both of those for me.
Speaker B:I mean, let's just think about supplements, right?
Speaker B:How many supplements do you take a day?
Speaker A:I've started taking quite a few at the moment actually.
Speaker B:But the thing is that they say.
Speaker A:They don't work because even if they don't work, I believe they do.
Speaker A:And there's a placebo effect and there we go.
Speaker B:So I'm not saying supplements are bad, but definitely there are things that we can take in from our food every day and that helps with many things.
Speaker B:Cognitive function, the Skin, the body, how we handle stress.
Speaker B:Of course there's a link for me, of course there's a link between diet and stress.
Speaker B:If you are going to eat junk food every day, you're pounding your body with all sorts of really, really bad things that are going to end up showing on your skin because it's going to cause inflammation in your body.
Speaker B:When there's inflammation in your body, it's going to cause inflammation in your skin.
Speaker B:You're going to get cystic acne, you're going to get breakouts, you're going to get those burning sensations.
Speaker B:The same if you're eating things that don't accommodate with your gut.
Speaker B:Some of us are just not tolerant to, for example, lactose or gluten.
Speaker B:If you eat those, then I'm sure if you keep a diary and you go back to it and you understand the symptoms, just like you would keep a diary to know the gut symptoms of what it is that upset you when you eat it, you're going to see that it also showed up on your skin in some way or another.
Speaker B:So some people obviously get hives and all sorts of allergic reactions to certain things that they eat because everything goes through the gut, everything goes through the blood system and everything comes back to your biggest organ.
Speaker B:It most certainly makes an impact.
Speaker B:Same as the things that you drink every day.
Speaker B:If you're not going to drink enough water, if you're not going to drink enough good teas and antioxidants and all of those things, it's going to show up in your body, it's going to show up in your skin.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And this, the skin is sort of like the ultimate manifestation of the immune system in the sense that because of all the things that you listed were like, auto can be autoimmune related.
Speaker A:Which autoimmune is such a shame because autoimmune basically means we don't really know what is going on there, which is obviously not ideal.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And your skin is your shield to the outside world.
Speaker B:Literally, it's what protects your organs.
Speaker B:Everything is protected by your skin.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's very important.
Speaker A:We don't delve enough.
Speaker A:We definitely don't understand as much as it is.
Speaker A:What's this how I watched a little bit of an episode with someone and you were talking about the sun.
Speaker A:So how does the sun impact skin?
Speaker A:Because I've always thought growing up when I had bad skin, my parents would say, get out in that sun, Ollie, and get the sun on your skin and it will sort it out.
Speaker A:And then when you Read the Internet.
Speaker A:It basically says that if you go out in the sun, you're going to die.
Speaker A:And, well, you know, I'm being hyperbolic, but it's the.
Speaker A:The.
Speaker A:The dermatological community is so against sun exposure.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:But then I do find it does help my skin.
Speaker A:It does clear it up.
Speaker A:It obviously has an ability to kill bacteria.
Speaker A:Vitamin D may.
Speaker A:Maybe it's the vitamin D that.
Speaker A:But then where else are you going to get vitamin D?
Speaker A:Because you don't believe in supplements.
Speaker A:But what's your opinion on sun?
Speaker A:Random question.
Speaker A:But before we move on, I'm intrigued.
Speaker B:I mean, for me, I always think no matter what, life is about balance.
Speaker B:I don't think you should ever be in a situation where you're completely going to avoid sun.
Speaker B:Because you're so afraid of what the dermatologists say.
Speaker B:Of course, there is reason to fear the sun, the uvb, UVA rays.
Speaker B:But vitamin D is, of course, very good for you.
Speaker B:You can take it in a supplement if you don't get it enough throughout the sun.
Speaker B:But the big thing about the sun and the exposure to sun is the free radical damage that it causes.
Speaker B:Free radicals damage the cells within your skin that cause the signs of premature aging.
Speaker B:So wrinkles, fine lines, dark spots, sagging skin, uneven skin tone.
Speaker B:All of that is caused by UVA and uvb.
Speaker B:And we need sunscreen to protect ourselves from that.
Speaker B:Because it's way harder to fix those once it's already occurred than to avoid it in the first instance.
Speaker B:Unfortunately, skin cancer is also a very real thing that we have to be super careful about.
Speaker B:But, you know, none of us really apply enough sunscreen in any way.
Speaker B:We don't do it correctly.
Speaker B:We don't apply it enough times per day.
Speaker B:But that's not to say we should then completely throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Speaker B:We should still do our best to use our sunscreen.
Speaker B:Spend time in the sun consciously and carefully.
Speaker B:I mean, I certainly do not sit inside indoors all summer long.
Speaker B:I go to the beach.
Speaker B:I enjoy being outside.
Speaker B:I'm just careful about it.
Speaker B:Don't be in the sun.
Speaker B:Warmest time of the day.
Speaker B:Use your sun protection.
Speaker B:Protect yourselves from those free radicals.
Speaker B:And you're gonna thank yourself for that in the future.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Now, I think that's a pretty balanced argument, to be fair.
Speaker A:Let's talk about you and how.
Speaker A:So you studied law?
Speaker A:International law, is that right?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:You were a lawyer?
Speaker B:I was a lawyer and I operated my own consultancy and international human rights and criminal law.
Speaker B:My PhD was in the laws of war.
Speaker B:So I worked in that for probably 14 years, and I loved what I did.
Speaker B:I loved my career.
Speaker B:I mean, I don't think you commit to doing a PhD if you're not absolutely sure that this is what you want to do with the rest of your life.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B: ught up to me in a big way in: Speaker B:And I had to make very difficult decisions about how I was going to move forward.
Speaker B:And it just didn't make sense for me to be in that line of business anymore.
Speaker B:I needed to find a different way to speak to my diagnosis and take ownership of what my life looks like now.
Speaker B:And that's really why I changed gears.
Speaker B:Many people would ask me, how did you decide to change your career and what gave you the courage to do it?
Speaker B:And unfortunately for me, it just wasn't like that.
Speaker B:I didn't choose.
Speaker B:Wasn't something I had been thinking about for a long time and had the courage to do.
Speaker B:I was forced into it and I was very mad at it for a long time.
Speaker B:But now looking back at it, I honestly believe it was a blessing in this, guys, and I'm glad it worked out the way it did.
Speaker A:No, that's.
Speaker A:I rate that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it's good that you're honest about the situation.
Speaker A:But also, I think, yeah, the fact that you built a skincare brand is bloody cool.
Speaker A:So that's definitely something to be.
Speaker A:To be very proud of.
Speaker A:What was it was.
Speaker A:It was panic disorder you were diagnosed with.
Speaker A:And so I'm interested in, because one of the questions I have that I'd like, which I think is exceptionally relevant at the moment, is anxiety in high achieving women.
Speaker A:Because I speak to a lot of high achieving women on the podcast and there's certain patterns that crop up that I've sort of clocked onto.
Speaker A:So it's something that I'm interested in talking about.
Speaker A:When you were diagnosed, when did you start experiencing panic symptoms?
Speaker B:Well, if you asked me just after I was diagnosed, I would say the day I had my first panic attack.
Speaker B:But now that I've had time to reflect back on it, I've always struggled with this.
Speaker B:I've.
Speaker B:I mean, I was the one that grew up always hearing, you're so sensitive.
Speaker B:Why are you always so stressed?
Speaker B:Why can't you manage your stress?
Speaker B:Why don't you meditate?
Speaker B:Why don't you, you know, you're such a perfectionist.
Speaker B:You take things so personally.
Speaker B:I grew up in a family with a lot of really severe generational trauma, a lot of undiagnosed mental illnesses.
Speaker B:And I, you know, we also had our fair share of unfortunate abusive episodes with trusted family members that lived with us.
Speaker B:And the way that I learned to cope with that was making sure that everybody's always happy.
Speaker B:There's no chance for anybody to be angry because if nobody's angry, everything's okay, everything is fine, there's nothing to be stressed about.
Speaker B:So I was always super anxious and people always would often mock me as the nervous ninny.
Speaker B:And that was really hurtful to me because I thought that I was broken in some way, like I just didn't function like other people functioned.
Speaker B:And of course I was dealing with all of this situation at home that I'm not talking about to my friends or to others, so they don't understand where it's coming from.
Speaker B:Then of course, I launched into this career in human rights in which I thought, okay, all my issues are solved because I'm dealing with it on a daily basis, helping other people with the same trauma I went through.
Speaker B:And of course it get caught up to me understanding that just because you're sweeping it under the rug and looking at it through a third party lens doesn't mean you're dealing with it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So it was very, very hard for me to be diagnosed with this because I had such a fear that I would be the same as my family members.
Speaker B:Oh, I have it too.
Speaker B:I'm the.
Speaker B:But again, educating yourself, understanding the toolbox.
Speaker B:There are many different types of anxiety disorders.
Speaker B:It's very, very important to be diagnosed with your anxiety disorder.
Speaker B:There's a big difference between stress and anxiety and a panic disorder is yes, you do have panic attacks, but you are high functioning.
Speaker B:So I can go through days and weeks where I'm completely normal, I can handle an intense amount of stress.
Speaker B:But then something will trigger me.
Speaker B:I will go into complet obsessive behaviors and then I will have a panic attack.
Speaker B:I will be down for a week or two and then I'll go into the whole thing that I'm afraid to have a panic attack again.
Speaker B:So I'll start changing my behaviors.
Speaker B:So for example, in the beginning I stopped eating because I had this sensation of choking.
Speaker B:And if I ate, I felt like I was going to choke, so I stopped eating.
Speaker B:The other times I stopped leaving the house because I was afraid if I was between too many people and too much sound and noise, it's going to trigger a panic attack.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So that's what it is to me.
Speaker B:In terms of high achieving women with anxiety.
Speaker B:It's so important to me as somebody that struggles with this, to send the message out there to say that you have to get diagnosed with this because you may not have an anxiety disorder.
Speaker B:You may just be going through a really difficult time and you need some guidance for this time in your life, which is wonderful because you can deal with it.
Speaker B:But the amount of how much we read the word anxiety in our society to me is alarming because I feel like it's underscoring what people who have been diagnosed with these various types of disorders really go through.
Speaker B:So if you're going to say that you have anxiety and it comes with whatever it is that you're facing within your life, just go do all the tests, get yourself diagnosed, be in the right space to heal and understand whether you really do have an anxiety disorder or not.
Speaker A:Oh my God.
Speaker A:I completely forgot what I was going to say.
Speaker B:I'm so sorry.
Speaker A:No, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker A:You said something, something occurs after an anxiety attack that you, you said something interesting and I was like, oh, that's interesting.
Speaker B:So I don't have an.
Speaker B:There's a very.
Speaker B:The DSM 5, that's the diagnostic statistical manual that they use to diagnose you.
Speaker B:And your psychiatrist can explain it to you in much more detail.
Speaker B:But there is key differences between anxiety and panic attacks.
Speaker B:I have panic attacks.
Speaker B:After a panic attack, you get what is often referred to as the panic hangover.
Speaker B:Because you have to remember when you get a panic attack, it really is.
Speaker B:You are so convinced that you are dying.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:You see a light flash in front of your eyes, you can't breathe.
Speaker B:I lose my sight sometimes the entire right side of my face just goes completely lame.
Speaker B:I start shaking.
Speaker B:I have heart palpitations.
Speaker B:It's a really horrible experience.
Speaker B:So your body is being dumped with so much adrenaline, so much trauma, so much stress in that panic attack needs to settle from that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So you're super fatigued, you sleep a lot, you get really depressed because you're all of a sudden you went from this super high to this really low.
Speaker B:And then you're dealing with all of these fears, which is very significant, of a panic disorder where you're starting to change your behaviors because you're so afraid you're gonna have that panic attack again.
Speaker B:And that can last anywhere between, for me, 48 hours and two weeks, depending on how bad the panic attack was.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And also if you're, if you have a temperament of someone who is inclined to experiencing panic attacks, then the likelihood is that you're going to reflectively look back through a negative lens in the sense of obviously it was a negative experience, but you're going to look back and judge what happened and judge you.
Speaker A:Did you used to do that?
Speaker A:Did you?
Speaker A:Because you bring up the depression.
Speaker A:You said that you feel depressed.
Speaker A:And obviously there's not only there's the hormonal sudden imbalance and period of equilibrium that needs to take place, but there's also the retrospective thinking, oh God, that was so horrible.
Speaker A:I'm such a.
Speaker A:What's wrong with me?
Speaker A:Why is this happening?
Speaker A:Da da da da da.
Speaker A:And then that leads into the agoraphobic.
Speaker A:That not.
Speaker A:But just when you said someone then goes, oh, I can't go there because this might happen, or I can't do this because that might happen, those are symptoms of agoraphobia.
Speaker A:And then the world just closes in on you, doesn't it?
Speaker A:Which is just accepted that.
Speaker A:Did you experience that happening?
Speaker A:Did you experience the world shrinking?
Speaker B:For me, the worst feeling afterwards was the guilt and the shame.
Speaker B:Yeah, shame.
Speaker B:Because I have a little girl, she's seven years old and obviously I don't try to have panic attacks in front of her, but it's happened in front of her.
Speaker B:It's so shame that she may have seen it or I may have been with other people who have seen it.
Speaker B:Guilt.
Speaker B:A lot of guilt.
Speaker B:Because I feel like I didn't do what I was supposed to do in order not to have panic attacks.
Speaker B:I didn't listen to my triggers, I didn't listen to my body.
Speaker B:And that's why I, I'm completely against self help tools.
Speaker B:I was so into it because when you're wired like me, you're also a perfectionist.
Speaker B:So I just thought, okay, well, I can read every single book about this and I can do all the steps and all the meditations and I can ace this and fix this and make it better.
Speaker B:And every single self help book you read has this thing that they had panic attacks and now they've never experienced it again.
Speaker B:And if you do this, then you will be the same and you'll never have it again.
Speaker B:And that put me on such a low because I always felt like it was my fault.
Speaker B:I didn't do the work the right way.
Speaker B:I wasn't positive enough, I didn't take enough time to meditate, to listen to my body.
Speaker B:And then I had a really big panic attack about three years ago and my husband came to me and he said to me, well, we're going to do this differently now.
Speaker B:This is how you're wired.
Speaker B:This is always how you're going to be wired.
Speaker B:You're probably going to have a panic attack again.
Speaker B:So when this happens, we're just gonna write it up to a bad day.
Speaker B:You went from having a bad day every single day, to two bad days a week, to one bad day a month, to one bad day every four months.
Speaker B:So if this happens, we're just gonna say it was a really bad day.
Speaker B:Tomorrow we can try again.
Speaker B:And that has helped me immensely.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, I would say, I think that's very wise.
Speaker A:But you could even say it was a hard day.
Speaker A:I think a hard day would be better than a bad day because the bad day has the connotation of positivity and negativity, good and bad.
Speaker A:And I think trying to take that away, the stigma, away the self placed stigma that you put on.
Speaker A:And obviously it is a negative experience.
Speaker A:I'm not denying that.
Speaker A:But if you said it was a. I don't know, actually it's a good question, what would be what's wrong And a bad day.
Speaker B:And the reason for that is because I feel in my recovery journey it's been, it's been very helpful for me to understand that it's okay to have positive and negative experiences and emotions.
Speaker B:It's part of life, it's normal.
Speaker B:Life happens.
Speaker B:And that doesn't define who you are in that moment.
Speaker B:It's just life.
Speaker B:And some of us are just wired differently than others.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker B:You know, sometimes we may be happy, sometimes we may be angry, sometimes we have reason to celebrate, sometimes we're really broken and sad.
Speaker B:But that doesn't make everything bad or everything good.
Speaker B:It just makes it the balance of what it is.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, that, that's, that's important that you.
Speaker A:Not important.
Speaker A:I'm not being, that's, that's a wise thing to recognize because there's that weird sort of thing that used to go around social media.
Speaker A:There's like a little poem.
Speaker A:It's like if someone stole.
Speaker A:If you had 24.
Speaker A:This is a really bad example recount of what it was, but it was.
Speaker A:The point it was making was we take the small negative aspects of a day and we carry them with us for the rest of the day and maybe even the rest of the week.
Speaker A:But you have to look at it in the proportion.
Speaker A:Obviously it doesn't work like that because the world, there's emotional proportion and then there's time proportion and they're not the same thing.
Speaker A:So if something is emotionally More intense, that takes up, takes up more emotionality than just like the regular mundaneity of life.
Speaker A:But yeah, that's a, that's a good sort of outlook to have.
Speaker A:And the other thing I wanted to talk about was when you brought up self help and you said, what you said reminded me of the toxic side of light manifestation.
Speaker A:So I mean, whether or not you believe in manifestation, I think there's definitely a scientific root of the idea that the brain omits and puts information in depending on what you're thinking on.
Speaker A:But the toxic side of manifestation is people will say if it doesn't come true, then it's your fault, you did something wrong.
Speaker A:It's not.
Speaker A:It's either you didn't wish and you wish is the wrong word, you didn't write it down in your story, in your mood board enough times or you didn't journal enough or et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker A:And I can see there being the same toxic side to self help, which is that, I mean, I don't think I've ever read.
Speaker A:I don't think I've ever read.
Speaker A:I mean, I'm aware that there are sort of.
Speaker A:This is me being stereotypical, but there are quite a lot of female based self help books out there that are written in a certain way and I've.
Speaker A:My mum bought me one actually and I sort of read a few pages and thought, yeah, this isn't for me mum, and then gave it back to her.
Speaker A:But yeah, so I'm aware that there are a lot of that and obviously someone who's as intelligent and as experienced as you is going to need something that's a bit more gritty than that.
Speaker A:So that makes sense.
Speaker A:But yeah, that's an interesting distinction between anxiety and panic attacks.
Speaker A:That probably means I've never had a panic attack then.
Speaker A:Not for a very long time because I don't ever reach a point where I think I'm going to die.
Speaker A:I just get really, really anxious.
Speaker A:Yeah, I know what's happening and that doesn't mean you can control it.
Speaker A:But yeah, there's a. I can see how that.
Speaker A:I mean, God, panic attacks must be absolutely awful.
Speaker A:I mean, I definitely would have had them when I was younger, but that sounds pretty atrocious.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, I'm sorry to hear that you've had anxiety attacks.
Speaker B:I'm that.
Speaker A:Oh, no, no, no.
Speaker B:To deal with.
Speaker A:No, it's all right.
Speaker A:Not for, not for a long time.
Speaker A:That's why I started the podcast is to.
Speaker A:Because I had a lot of difficulties growing up.
Speaker A:But anyway, oh, yes.
Speaker A:That was one thing I wanted to talk about.
Speaker A:So we're 30 minutes in.
Speaker A:So we.
Speaker A:10, 15 minutes.
Speaker A:We don't have to go for too much longer.
Speaker A:I don't want to take up too much of your day.
Speaker A:Motherhood.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:How has that impacted your career and how did that impact your mental health?
Speaker B:You know, I'm just gonna give it to you straight.
Speaker B:And there's a lot of people that really, especially obviously women that feel differently to me, but it didn't impact my career for the plain reason that my husband and I were married for seven years before we decided to have kids.
Speaker B:We really took a long time to decide, and we also had all of the relatives asking, oh, when are you having kids?
Speaker B:When are you having.
Speaker B:There's never a good time to have kids.
Speaker B:If you're going to think about it all the time, you're never going to have kids.
Speaker B:And I'm so happy.
Speaker B:We just ignored that and went with what felt right to us.
Speaker B:And when we then decided, okay, we're going to try, we made peace with the fact that it may not work for us.
Speaker B:It did work.
Speaker B:We have this beautiful blessing, which is my daughter.
Speaker B:But we were very strategic about it.
Speaker B:We both agreed that neither him or I are willing to give up our career if we have a child.
Speaker B:We're going to obviously love her unconditionally and give her everything that we can, but she will have to fit into our lives.
Speaker B:Our lives cannot change to fit into hers.
Speaker B:So we made a list of everything that was important to us, that you have a good sleeping routine.
Speaker B:Because we travel a lot.
Speaker B:Is it possible that she can travel with me and how can we make that happen?
Speaker B:I was already lucky enough to have my consultancy, so I had some flexibility on time.
Speaker B:I saved and saved and saved and saved so we could afford somebody to look after her at home so that I can go in and spend time with her as much as I could.
Speaker B:So we chose to do it this way, and it worked really well for us.
Speaker B:So it hasn't made too much of an impact on my career because she's just part and parcel of wherever I go and whatever I do.
Speaker B:And she's such a little blessing in terms of my mental health.
Speaker B:It's been a journey because I did not get postpartum depression, but I did get postpartum anxiety.
Speaker A:What's that?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I should probably not be too shocked that that happened with me, but I had to make some difficult decisions with her, too.
Speaker B:I had a very difficult pregnancy.
Speaker B:I was very sick.
Speaker B:I Was very anxious.
Speaker B:I was in hospital many times.
Speaker B:Almost lost her twice.
Speaker B:So I decided I wasn't going to breastfeed, which made a lot of people very angry.
Speaker B:But I just felt that it wouldn't be good for my or my baby's emotional health to be up all times of the night worrying if I'm doing it right or not.
Speaker B:Not sleeping, being worse off emotionally.
Speaker B:I needed my rest.
Speaker B:I wanted to be the best possible mother I could be, and for me, that was the right decision.
Speaker B:With my diagnosis, as she got older, my first instinct was to hide it from her.
Speaker B:I'm not going to share this ugly part of life with her.
Speaker B:And I noticed that it was making her really anxious.
Speaker B:She was getting super nervous around me.
Speaker B:She was asking questions like, is Mommy feeling okay today?
Speaker B:Like, almost like she was walking on eggshells and trying to suss up the environment.
Speaker B:And I didn't like that at all.
Speaker B:I didn't want her to grow up like that.
Speaker B:So I was just honest with her.
Speaker B:I sat down with her one day.
Speaker B:I explained to her, like, you see the monster in the closet or under your bed when you're sleeping.
Speaker B:Mommy's head thinks there's a monster.
Speaker B:And I know it's not real, but that's what happens to me.
Speaker B:And that helped her a lot because now she understands what's happening.
Speaker B:It's not perfect.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:I do everything I can not to have a panic attack in front of her, but it's life.
Speaker B:It's reality.
Speaker B:And I'm just trying my best to help her understand what that looks like.
Speaker A:How old is she?
Speaker B:Seven.
Speaker A:Seven.
Speaker A:Okay, cool.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, I think the fact that you.
Speaker A:I keep saying.
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker A:Don't know why, but maybe that is the right term to use.
Speaker A:But the fact that you level with her, and I think that's a really, really good analogy, actually, of putting it of.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:The.
Speaker A:The monster or the.
Speaker A:The little worries that you have or.
Speaker A:Mummy has the same.
Speaker A:Mummy has similar.
Speaker A:Different ones.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And yeah, she's obviously she's going to be very intelligent and switched on because she's got you as a mum.
Speaker A:And I can't imagine your husband is going to be.
Speaker A:He's not going to be a duck egg, is he?
Speaker A:So she's got that going.
Speaker A:Fair.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I understand you said something right at the beginning when I asked.
Speaker A:You said it's not very popular, it's unpopular or something.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:In the sense of the way you formatted it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Because, you know, we still very much live in a society Especially I feel amongst women where there's.
Speaker B:We think it's the outside world putting it on us, but we put it on ourselves.
Speaker B:You have to be the perfect mother.
Speaker B:Your whole life has to come to a standstill.
Speaker B:When you have a baby, you have to fit in with the baby.
Speaker B:When the baby cries, you've got to get up when there's something wrong.
Speaker B:Everything has to be around this child.
Speaker B:And of course you love your child, you'll do anything you can for your child.
Speaker B:It's just not the viewpoint we took to parenting and it worked for really well for us because I feel like we're a very balanced family, we're very close knit.
Speaker B:My husband and I have a great marriage.
Speaker B:I know everybody doesn't see it that way and we really got a lot of criticism for how we raised her and how we took it on when she was born.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker A:Yeah, well, just.
Speaker A:I was just writing something down in case, in case we moved on.
Speaker A:I come back.
Speaker A:But women nowadays, they kind of get the worst of both worlds in the sense of if they are a stay at home, they're frowned upon by other women because of the way that the culture is and the idea of you should be you should work and you should do this and you should want to do that.
Speaker A:But they also get it if they are working, they're also frowned upon because they're not spending enough time with their children so they can't really win either way.
Speaker A:They're going to have a grouping of people who are judging them negatively because of the decisions they're making.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:But, and I think that's.
Speaker A:That's both wrong.
Speaker A:I do think that the disparaging outlook that women receive when they decide not to work when they're in a position not to work is wrong.
Speaker A:But I also understand that we live in the world that we live in and people have opportunities and they have ability to do what they want to do and build fulfilling careers and they should be allowed to do that.
Speaker A:So it's so very nuanced and you referenced a couple of times this is what worked for us.
Speaker A:I think that's the key point, that it's a case by case basis of what works with that We.
Speaker A:Someone painted my parents house or painted a room in the parents house and he has a son who's very autistic and his wife is.
Speaker A:They sort of break the stereotype of the wife, has like a very fully flourishing career and he looks after the kids and does like their painting and decorating when he can fit it in.
Speaker A:And around looking after the children and that just works for them.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think there's probably going to be more and more sort of marriages like that.
Speaker A:I mean, it will be tricky because women don't tend to date men and marry men who are less economically positioned or career positioned.
Speaker A:But who knows what the future will be going forward?
Speaker B:It goes about balance again, right?
Speaker B:The balance of what?
Speaker B:You can have your bread buttered on both sides.
Speaker B:You need to understand what works for you.
Speaker B:So for me, for example, I just don't listen to all of these things.
Speaker B:I just shut it out because I always tell myself I have enough to deal with and keeping my road straight.
Speaker B:So I always just ask myself, is my child happy?
Speaker B:Is she healthy and is she going to be.
Speaker B:Do I think she's a good person and that's all that matters.
Speaker B:It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks about how we're raising her or, you know, it's the same with my, with my family and my marriage.
Speaker B:Are we happy?
Speaker B:Are we healthy?
Speaker B:Are we good people?
Speaker B:Because that's all that matters at the end of the day, not how you got there.
Speaker B:It's just like your specific journey and people that you have in the car along with the ride, that's what you have to focus on.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:Just before we sort of close up and round off, how do you manage your anxiety now?
Speaker B:It's a really tough answer to give because again, it goes back to the whole feeling about how I feel about self help.
Speaker B:I don't have a cure, I don't have a golden ticket.
Speaker B:I can only help myself and help others understand our wiring and how to work with it instead of against it.
Speaker B:And that involves unfortunately, unfortunately a lot of effort.
Speaker B:I need to be aware of what I eat.
Speaker B:I can't get too hungry because that's a trigger.
Speaker B:So I always have to have snacks with me.
Speaker B:I have to be conscious about my sleep quality.
Speaker B:I have to exercise regularly to get rid of the stress.
Speaker B:That's why this is my office.
Speaker B:But you can see I have like a trampoline and a bowl.
Speaker B:Like I'm constantly going between the desk and here, releasing energy.
Speaker B:I had to learn to do things meditative that clear my mind.
Speaker B:It's all of these things together.
Speaker B:It's all of these tiny moments in the day that add up to me having longer and longer and longer periods without attacks.
Speaker B:But it is all encompassing and it is a lot to keep track of, but it is what it is.
Speaker A:You should try.
Speaker A:I know you don't like these sort of things, but I think this has really, really helped me in general because the breath is so.
Speaker A:I'm not going to say meditation, by the way, but because the breath is so pivotal in anxiety and attacks and panic attacks, you should try like a sauna or a cold plunge because anything that I mean, especially you could do a cold plunge now because you've obviously got a shower.
Speaker A:Just put the water.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I take the cold shower, but I don't do the plunge.
Speaker A:Okay, well, if you can.
Speaker A:If there's a sauna somewhere, you get.
Speaker A:Anything that makes you breathe in a way that you're not comfortable with is training your body to breathe better.
Speaker A:So when I.
Speaker A:My.
Speaker A:This probably won't go in, but my ex girlfriend had an awful lot of anxiety and I noticed that when we would lie next to each other, every one of my breaths was like three of her breaths.
Speaker A:And I always thought that's really problematic because your base layer of breathing is too quick.
Speaker A:So when you get anxious, your anxious breathing is going to be really quick and your brain just won't be able.
Speaker A:It will just be too much.
Speaker A:So anything that can slow your breathing down.
Speaker A:Because people say you need to practice breathing.
Speaker A:And people.
Speaker A:And then people say, okay, so next time I get anxious, I'll do some breathing.
Speaker A:That's not a good idea because you're too far gone at that point.
Speaker A:You have to practice when you're in a peaceful state so that the work that you put in then will manifest itself when you are anxious.
Speaker A:So that's like if I'm just going to give one little.
Speaker A:You know.
Speaker A:I get what you mean.
Speaker A:Self amp.
Speaker A:It's all.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:But I do think that's a practical thing that is, is.
Speaker A:Is really good.
Speaker A:Anything that.
Speaker A:Because the breath is attached to everything, every emotional state we get into our breath, our breathing changes to some degree.
Speaker A:But yeah.
Speaker A:What's the future for Figgy and for what you want to build?
Speaker A:Talk about Figgy's soul.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I'm really hoping that we can reach more people, build a community of others like me so that we have place to go to where we can support each other, share.
Speaker B:Be a support network for each other because your loved ones do get fatigued.
