Overcoming Overthinking And How To Calm Your Anxiety w/ Heather Lillico EP 69

[00:00:00] Shanenn Bryant: You spend a lot of your life feeling anxious and I know that because I spent the majority of my life feeling anxious, waiting for the other shoe to fall thinking worst case scenario in every situation. Trying to be perfect to see if that would make me feel better, more confident. And I see you doing that too. 

I see you doing all those things. And because we're so jacked up in the moment and we want instant relief we're usually trying to solve the question, "how do I reduce my anxiety and my drama filled mind in the moment in the right now?"

[00:00:40] Shanenn Bryant: But there's some really important things that you can do while you're not in the moment. While you're not already searching for the panic button. 

[00:00:48] Shanenn Bryant: And today's guest Heather Lillico is used to dealing with overthinking people, pleasing perfectionist. I'm not saying you're those things. I'm just saying that you might want to hang around because she's going to reveal how to manage anxiety naturally while you're not in meltdown mode. And also, you want to make sure you stick around to the end because she's going to reveal her number one tip that you should be doing to reduce anxiety. So, let's get to it.

[00:01:19] Shanenn Bryant: Welcome Heather.

[00:01:21] Heather Lillico: Thanks, Shanenn. Thanks for having me, and thanks for calling out that piece on perfectionism because you're right, a lot of us wear it like a badge of honor, right? We wear that busyness like a badge of honor, and I'm here to break down some of those pieces around what might be the not so good side of perfectionism, right?

[00:01:38] Heather Lillico: The side that keeps us from reaching success, that fear of failure and the constant busyness and the constant overthinking, like all of that I think needs to be talked about with perfectionism too. 

[00:01:50] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. Well, I want to dive into the overthinking part, because when we suffer from extreme jealousy, like someone who's listening to this podcast, that's all we do is think all day long. Every day thinking about the same things, thinking about the same thing I thought about yesterday. The same thing that I worried about yesterday 50 times a day.

[00:02:11] Shanenn Bryant: Tell us like why are we overthinking so much? What's going on?

[00:02:16] Heather Lillico: Yeah. Okay. The overthinking is coming from some of the limiting beliefs that a lot of us have. And what I see as the most common limiting beliefs are that the deep feeling that I'm not good enough, or I'm scared that people are going to leave or abandon me. A lot of the overthinking patterns can be traced back to that, and those types of beliefs develop. when we're kids, right? When the subconscious mind is forming, we receive these messages from our caregivers, from the world, and we sort of internalize that and we start to run these beliefs as scripts. So it becomes this story that we tell ourselves, right? It's like this filter, we run everything through.

[00:02:56] Heather Lillico: So let's say for example, your partner doesn't text you back and you're starting to overthink like, oh, what's, what's going on? Or are they not gonna text me back? Have I done something to offend them? Are they going to leave me? There's like that zero to a hundred kind of spiral, right? We get stuck in that loop and what's happening there is that deeper belief is being activated. That fear of, oh my gosh, what if I'm gonna be left, I'm gonna be abandoned and alone. Right? That would feel so scary to younger version of you. So what's happening there is like the younger version of ourselves is coming online. That's what's driving the bus in the moment, and we don't want a 6-year-old driving a bus.

[00:03:34] Heather Lillico: Right. That's not a, that's not a way to live and not way. So, really, it's coming from these sort of limiting beliefs and our job is to bring a greater awareness to it and disrupt some of those patterns that are going on and reprogram what we do want to believe about ourselves.

[00:03:51] Shanenn Bryant: I like the comparison of the 6-year-old driving the bus because we are so good at surviving situations, when we're young, especially, you know, I didn't know it of course, until I started doing this work of how really well I did at surviving. Living, in a household where there was abuse, living with an alcoholic father, being embarrassed of where we lived and how we lived and the things that went on and not being able to have friends over. Like all of that kind of stuff and still going to school every day and trying to learn history and math and you just get, you get really good at figuring out how to survive, but then we don't go back and go, do I still need to do that?

[00:04:40] Heather Lillico: Hmm.

[00:04:41] Heather Lillico: Yeah, right? Like, is that, is that accurate? And the thing about the subconscious mind that is so interesting is that it doesn't care if you're happy. It's only caring about that survival piece, right? So if the way that you have survived since you were a kid is by preparing yourself to be left or abandoned, then that's great.

[00:05:00] Heather Lillico: It's done its job and it's helped you survive to this point. But what we're trying to do now as adults is with that more conscious mind being like, Hey, wait a sec, is that belief serving me? Like, is that something that I still want to believe about myself and can I dismantle some of that right and really dive back to see like, well, where does this come from? Why would I believe that about myself? And then is that true? Is that helpful and is that still what I wanna believe? Or perhaps I wanna shift and believe, you know what, I am good enough, or like I have myself and that's enough.

[00:05:32] Heather Lillico: Or people aren't going to leave or abandon me. I do have good people in my life. Like if we can kind of get to that state, then we can you know, make that 6-year-old go offline. That 6-year-old no longer driving the bus. We're taking over and living really from our higher self.

[00:05:48] Shanenn Bryant: Right, and I think also okay, maybe all of those things that we are worried about still could happen, but they maybe wouldn't affect us the same way that they did when I was six or I was 12, or I was 22 even. You can be different at different stages of your life and learn, okay, yes, this happened before, maybe it'll happen again, but I also know how to handle this when it comes up. Or, I know it's not gonna break me if this comes up. My husband and I were just having a conversation because there's a situation currently going on in our lives that's triggering for me, um, of things that have happened in the past, in my past relationships,

[00:06:34] Shanenn Bryant: and I have to think even if it does play out the same way that it's played out before, doesn't mean that I'm gonna feel the same way about it, that I'm gonna respond the same way about it, or that, you know, doesn't mean my life's going to blow up, right? Because I'm not six anymore, or 12 or 20, however old.

[00:06:54] Heather Lillico: Right, exactly. And what I've seen with anxiety is that we overestimate the likelihood that something is gonna happen, and then we underestimate our ability to deal with it. We think that this scenario is 100% gonna happen. And also I'm not gonna be able to deal with it. But the reality is that you've dealt with it up until this point, right?

[00:07:14] Heather Lillico: You've, you've survived up until this point so you can deal with it, but it's sort of retraining ourselves to see like we can handle hard things, that even if this outcome happens, I'm still going to be okay. I've still got myself.

[00:07:27] Shanenn Bryant: What is the biggest mistake in managing anxiety, because I know you talk about that, like we make some mistakes in managing anxiety. What's the biggest one?

[00:07:36] Heather Lillico: The biggest mistake that I've seen when people are managing anxiety is making it be their whole identity. Because it's really hard to shift something if. It is your entire identity because you're going to try to act in alignment with that identity. So when people are saying things like, I'm just an anxious person, I'm always going to feel this way, then yeah, you're probably gonna be stuck in that pattern.

[00:08:02] Heather Lillico: And there's this really cool study where they had people who were smoking and these people wanted to quit smoking, and so they divided them into two groups and they had one group of people say when they were offered a cigarette, they had them say, no thanks, I'm trying to quit. And then they had the other group of people say when they were offered a cigarette, no thanks, I don't smoke. And see how those are slight identity differences there, right? The I'm not a smoker and the group that said, no thanks, I don't smoke, they had a higher success rate when it came to quitting long term. So if

[00:08:36] Heather Lillico: we shift the type of words that were saying and say, Hey, yeah, maybe I experience the feeling of anxiety, right? But that's not who I am. That's not at my core who I'm going to be, long-term. 

[00:08:50] Heather Lillico: And what I've seen with clients is that the ones that have the most success have that willingness to see the shift, to identify something different and to change that language to say, I'm having a feeling of anxiety right now instead of I'm anxious.

[00:09:04] Heather Lillico: So it's a small language shift, but I think it can change the way that we're perceiving anxiety and get out of that like, you know, just trying to manage, manage and sort of be at war with it and, and really shift into something a bit different.

[00:09:18] Shanenn Bryant: Very interesting because, I have a big sweet tooth. I always have. My biggest problem is sugar. it's as addictive or more than heroin. They did this like test on these rats and these heroin addicted rats and then they gave them sugar and they let the rats decide and the rats always went for sugar after that.

[00:09:39] Shanenn Bryant: So it's like, holy crud. So you can say things differently like, no thanks, I don't eat sweets. Or I'm trying to quit sweets. There's two way different things. And so that's a kind of psychology piece I've been working on. Uh, I don't do, I don't eat sweets

[00:09:59] Heather Lillico: Yeah.

[00:10:00] Shanenn Bryant: versus, but there's a really good reason that I'm not doing that.

[00:10:03] Shanenn Bryant: You talk about calming foods for anxiety. I'm very interested to hear what those are. So can we switch gears into that?

[00:10:12] Heather Lillico: Yes, let's talk about food because it's such an underrated piece when it comes to anxiety. I don't think a lot of us make the link between what we're eating and how we're feeling. And not only are there foods that are going to worsen anxiety, like sugar, you mentioned caffeine is another one. Any type of food sensitivity it and my practice, the most common one I see is dairy, that it doesn't agree with a lot of people. Um, red meat as well. We want to be cautious of 'cause it isn't. And inflammatory to the body. Um, and alcohol as well can affect, um, our inflammation levels. So there are foods that could worsen anxiety, but there are also ones that can make it better. And these are our calming foods. So I'm not about like, okay, let's totally restrict and limit everything in the diet and you know, have zero fun.

[00:10:58] Heather Lillico: I still want people to eat like whole nutritious foods, but what could we add in to the diet that's actually going to help anxiety? So, things,

[00:11:05] Shanenn Bryant: Well, and before you go there, I'm so glad that you said the alcohol because I tell people like, okay, you can drink, but it's probably gonna make things worse. So, thank you for being the downer with me saying it's probably not a good, probably not a good thing to do. 

[00:11:22] Heather Lillico: Yeah, and I mean, I think a lot of us know, you know, the next day after having some drinks, there's that kind of anxiety that comes up, right?

[00:11:30] Heather Lillico: There's that and like physiologically, there are things happening in the body that's causing that. When we're having alcohol, it's reducing GABA our main relaxing neurotransmitter in the brain. It's gonna burn through your B vitamins, which are like your mood and energy vitamins. So some of that could be offset with, um, you know, if I am gonna have a couple drinks the next day, I'm gonna have some supplements that is gonna offset some of that and lessen those feelings of anxiety. Um, but also, you know, thinking about like, what are we using alcohol for? Is it that we're feeling anxious and we wanna numb out and we don't wanna process what's going on? Then it's really just like a short-term band-aid solution. And usually, most people find the anxiety pings back the next day with full force.

[00:12:11] Shanenn Bryant: RIght. Because there's that fine line between having it to calm down or maybe there's a situation that you're worried about. And then that fine line into, okay, now it's went too far and it's now causing issues. Right,

[00:12:23] Heather Lillico: Yeah. Right. And it can lead to the overthinking as well, If, if anyone has ever had too much, and the next day you start thinking about every interaction you had yesterday and, oh my gosh, did I say something awkward or weird? Or why did I do that? And there's like that kind of rumination that comes along with it.

[00:12:40] Heather Lillico: And, um, you know, specifically for our listeners on this podcast, I would bet perhaps that jealousy comes out more when we're drinking or that, you know, paranoia, that questioning of what's, what's happening?

[00:12:53] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. And then they're dealing with, oh my gosh, I really, went too far. My actions were even more heightened than what they would have been because you know, when you're drinking, you have less control over your emotions and your actions anyway. And then even more so the guilt that comes, you know, the next day.

[00:13:12] Heather Lillico: Yeah. Yeah absolutely. Yeah. so, let's calming So, calming foods, these are like real whole foods that anybody can work in. So, one of the best categories when it comes to foods for anxiety are nuts and seeds, so things like walnuts, almonds, pistachios, hemp seeds, flax, chia, sunflower, pumpkin, any of those.

[00:13:36] Heather Lillico: The reason they're great for mood is that they're rich in magnesium, and magnesium is our calming minerals involved in over 300 reactions in the body. It has links to helping sleep. It has links to muscle relaxation as well. So if you feel that kind of tension buildup in the muscles, magnesium is great for that.

[00:13:52] Heather Lillico: They're also rich in zinc. Um, and zinc is great for immunity, but also for mood as well. And they usually, nuts and seeds usually have a good amount of fat in them. That's sort of stabilizing for our blood sugar and our mood, right? And we wanna keep our blood sugar.

[00:14:06] Heather Lillico: stable in order to feel calm and more balanced. So, nuts and seeds are incredible and pretty easy to work in, right? Like grabbing a handful throughout the day, sprinkling them on salads, adding them to smoothies. Pretty easy for us to, to try to get in a handful of those a day.

[00:14:24] Heather Lillico: And then we have other calming foods. So, your leafy greens are gonna be good for calming. They're rich in folate, which is a B vitamin. Great for mood. And I usually suggest going the darker and richer colors. So kale is great, Swiss chard colored greens as opposed to like an iceberg or romaine lettuce, maybe not as many antioxidants in there.

[00:14:45] Heather Lillico: We really wanna pack a punch when it comes to diet, right? We only get so many opportunities in a day to get these nutrients in. So we have to make sure that each meal is thoughtfully planned out to incorporate as many nutrients as we can.

[00:14:58] Shanenn Bryant: Yes. One thing I just learned that I love is arugula. No idea. didn't know, know a lot of 

[00:15:04] Shanenn Bryant: people dont. Yeah, I was,

[00:15:05] Heather Lillico: Spicy. Mm-hmm.

[00:15:06] Shanenn Bryant: I like the, the kick of it too. So I was like, okay, that's good. That's a greener, you know, I'm, I'm going greener. 

[00:15:13] Heather Lillico: Going green. Yes. Yes. a, that's a, great one. And you know, we can think sort of outside of the box as well, like mustard greens or, um, beet greens or radish greens. Like these can be thrown into soups or smoothies and blended up so you're not even tasting them. Even something like, um, dandelion greens. Those pests, right, that grow everywhere in the summertime, the, the green part of them. That has incredible nutritional value, really detoxifying for the body, so helps our liver, you know, make sure that we're detoxifying things like heavy metals for example, a buildup of that can lead to anxiety. Like there are nutritionally things that can happen in our body that are leading to us feeling more anxious. So our diet can kind of circumvent that.

[00:15:58] Shanenn Bryant: Love it. Okay, so we have nuts and seeds. We have leafy greens.

[00:16:05] Heather Lillico: Yeah, let's talk about, let's talk about one more. So, uh, fermented foods. Fermented foods like kefi, yogurt, kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha. These all contain live bacteria and they're gonna support the bacteria in your gut. And we have a couple kilograms worth of bacteria in our gut, and different strains do different things.

[00:16:29] Heather Lillico: And there's a really exciting area of research right now showing that certain strains of bacteria actually help anxiety and help our mood and help us feel calm. So, a lot of the bacteria, your gut can help make some of your neurotransmitters. And there's also this communication going on between gut and brain, and it's bidirectional, which is really exciting.

[00:16:49] Heather Lillico: Meaning that if you work on your gut health, your anxiety will improve. If you work on calming anxiety and stress, your gut health will also improve. Which is relevant 'cause a lot of people who are suffering from anxiety also have digestive issues, whether it be bloating, heartburn, IBS, issues with transit time, too fast, too slow.

[00:17:11] Heather Lillico: I mean, people probably know if you feel anxious, like the stomach is gonna be affected.

[00:17:16] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got the stomachache. You've got, you’re like, Ugh, I don't feel good all the way around. 

[00:17:23] Heather Lillico: Yeah. yeah. Or people like running to the bathroom. I know when I used to have, uh, public speaking events and I would get really nervous for them, like right up until speaking, I was in the bathroom. I was just like waiting, waiting, waiting. Or, you know, people's appetite as well. Like when we're feeling anxious a lot of people will report that they just have no appetite. So, we know that the gut is linked with anxiety and with our mood. And what's so exciting about that is if we work on one, the other will improve too.

[00:17:50] Shanenn Bryant: Wonderful. That is exciting. That's great to hear because yeah, there's ways you can work on both. You know, you can do meditation, or you know, whatever it is that you like to use to work on your anxiety. At the same time, incorporating some of these foods that you've shared with us today in helping our gut, so.

[00:18:12] Heather Lillico: Mm-Hmm.

[00:18:14] Shanenn Bryant: Well, there's also along that same vein, there's exercises, right? I know there are types of exercises that disrupt hormone balance and things that we should probably do instead. So, let's talk about that.

[00:18:28] Heather Lillico: Yeah. Let's talk about exercise because. At least the, the people that I work with are recovering perfectionists and there's that tendency to wanna go so hard with exercise, and there's that mentality of like, exercise is punishment if I'm not absolutely exhausted and sore from every muscle group that I haven't worked hard enough, right?

[00:18:48] Heather Lillico: I haven't achieved. I wanna reframe that for people, because especially if you're experiencing anxiety, you know, you're having a lot of overthinking, you're feeling overwhelmed, your hormones are already stressed out. Your main stress hormone, your cortisol is gonna be high, and we wanna help regulate that and bring it down to a more balanced place. 

[00:19:08] Heather Lillico: And so, if we're doing really intense workouts like you know, CrossFit, circuit training, bootcamp, HIIT, any of those, it's gonna affect your hormones if you're already tending towards that burnout zone. And you know, for years I would do these types of workouts and I found that I was getting exhausted by doing them, and I was getting injured.

[00:19:29] Heather Lillico: It was really hard to recover from them. And so, we can explore different types of movement. Movement that feels really good for the body. And, you know, if someone is a runner or they really enjoy lifting weights or being in the gym, that's, that's fine. You can do that. But maybe it's not every day. And maybe, we explore other types of lower intensity types of movement, like walking is one of the best that we have out there. So good for mental health. There's continually studies showing that between 20 to 30 minutes a day of a, you know, a little faster than a stroll, that can, uh, improve mental health and reduce depression and anxiety. Activities like yoga. That's so great for the nervous system and helping us connect in a different way to our body and our breath. For me, I was used to doing boot camps and really intense classes and I really didn't have that connection to my body and breath and yoga was sort of like a retraining of that to better understand like how I could slow down and that it really helped me in a way sort of process emotions differently than I was used to, if that makes sense.

[00:20:37] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah, I know. The intense workout, like for me it would spike my blood sugar level like so high where it actually, like you said, wasn't good for me to do that intense of a workout and as often as I was doing them. 'cause you know, I was hitting it hard, you know, like you were talking about, like, I'm going all out. I'm doing it all. And what I found is it's better to not do that, for me, for my body. yeah. 

[00:21:04] Heather Lillico: Yeah. And that's what I've seen with a lot of clients is that if there's that mentality behind exercise that we have to burn a certain amount of calories or like, you know, that that's gonna put the body in a state of stress, right? And then what usually comes along with that is guilt; is falling off some sort of bandwagon.

[00:21:21] Heather Lillico: And what I want for people is something that you can do long-term, right? Something that feels so nourishing and supportive for the body that it's not something that feels like work. It's not another thing on the to-do list, and it's not something that you're gonna fall off of. It's just part of the fabric of who you are, right? If that's the identity piece that we were talking about earlier is like I'm a person who moves my body in a way that feels good. Like that's the new identity that we're bringing into this year.

[00:21:48] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. I love it. okay, last thing then. What is your like, number one tip that we should be doing to try to reduce our anxiety? I. 

[00:22:00] Heather Lillico: So, I think, you know, we haven't really addressed the mindset piece, and that is probably the key to it all is. Bringing in practices that help us regulate our thoughts and emotions and relate to them differently. And that comes from the practice of meditation. So doing, you know, a guided meditation every day, and it doesn't have to be long, like two to three minutes.

[00:22:23] Heather Lillico: That's typically what I work with with clients is like under five minutes because I think we can all carve out that time in a day. But the reason meditation works so well for anxiety is it really helps you disrupt that cycle of overthinking and rumination and getting stuck in the worry loop, and it helps you relate differently to your thoughts and your emotions, right? We can, in meditation, we practice finding a bit of detachment from the thought, the emotion, and sort of like seeing it pass over us. You know, maybe it's like a cloud in a sky that thought is going by, and so we don't have to identify so intensely with it and get so gripped by it. And it's the same with emotions. Like we can feel where, where do I feel that in the body? And bring in that. Element of curiosity into it, but not get taken over by it. And I think with anxiety, the fear is that the anxiety is gonna be so overwhelming that I can't cope with it. It's like the fear of, you know, if I go do this, if I go to the concert, if I go hang out with the friends, if my partner leaves me, it's gonna be so overwhelming that I won't be able to handle it.

[00:23:26] Heather Lillico: And so, we end up, not doing those activities, we end up living this kind of small life and meditation gives us this. Tool that helps us be able to process some of this and see that, you know, we can handle it. That it's, that it's gonna be okay.

[00:23:42] Heather Lillico: There's so many different resources out there for meditation. I mean, there's free ones on YouTube, but like, it doesn't have to be an expensive thing to pick up and to learn, but really just to dip your toe in the water and see, um, because I find with, at least the people that I work with, a perfectionist is that there's that fear of I'm gonna be bad at meditation.

[00:24:01] Heather Lillico: And so wanting to, you know, be good at it the first time. And so I would say to people like, there's no such thing as a bad. Meditation. I mean, I've been meditating for over 10 years and I'm still constantly catching myself wandering with my mind and coming back over and over. But it is a practice that you can grow and learn.

[00:24:18] Heather Lillico: And there's so many resources on YouTube. I mean, I have, um, an app that has meditation on it that can direct people specifically like for anxiety, but to just really start to explore this world and get consistent with it. I think that would be the greatest tip I have for people in terms of anxiety.

[00:24:38] Shanenn Bryant: Yeah. And because the feelings, I mean it, the feelings aren't gonna cause any damage. I think we, like you were saying, we get so afraid that, oh my gosh, I can't go to this thing 'cause what ha I'm not gonna be able to handle it. Or, you know, this event and I can't handle it. It's like the feelings aren't the problem. The feelings aren't gonna kill you. Right. But the stress of being worried about not being able to get through it, now that can Right? So, it's like the, the feelings are just feelings.

[00:25:07] Heather Lillico: Yeah, it takes the significance outta them. Not that feelings aren't important. I mean, I think that feelings are sort of signposts and they're there to let us know something and say, hey, this is going on, this is that, you know, that deeper limiting belief that's being activated. I think that's relevant and important, but maybe knowing that we have so many emotions and feelings throughout the day, we don't have to focus on each one and examine, you know, its full significance. We can have that oh, you know what, I'm having a feeling of anxiety right now. Okay. And as we're, um, recording this on a Monday, so yesterday was Sunday and I started to have that feeling of like the Sunday scaries coming in yesterday, right.

[00:25:44] Heather Lillico: Thinking, oh my gosh, I have a busy week. Like. Did I relax too much this weekend? Should I have been working? And, and, you know, some of that started to come in. And so, what I did is I just paused and I said, okay, I'm having a feeling of anxiety right now. It's a little bit uncomfortable, you know, I can feel that my heart is starting to be fast and I'm having some more rapid thoughts, and, and I could just sort of bring in a bit of compassion to that to say like, it's just a feeling. It'll pass. It's not dangerous to feel this way. It's uncomfortable. We can acknowledge that, but I think that approach can help us move through that emotion a lot quicker.

[00:26:21] Shanenn Bryant: Yes, I love it. Okay, so you have an app. Will you tell us how people can get it? How can they reach you?

[00:26:28] Heather Lillico: Sure. Happy to share. Absolutely. So the app is called Cultivating Calm, and it's a community that really helps to put some of these practices that we talked about today, to put them into habits. So, it includes a library of meditations, yoga classes, or recipes like targeted mood boosting recipes. And it also has courses on the app that include just spending a couple minutes each day to regulate the nervous system and help get people results. 'cause I, I think for most of us, we don't have hours every day to spend on self-care. And I know anxiety can be overwhelming, right? It's really takes us outta the moment and occupies our thoughts and it can be exhausting.

[00:27:11] Heather Lillico: So, I wanted to create something for people that feels really manageable to be able to work into the day, and that helps people. Be more present and build up those skills so that they can feel more confident. So, if anyone wants to check out Cultivating Calm, you can head to the App store and type in Cultivating Calm.

[00:27:28] Heather Lillico: It's also on Google Play for Android, and there's a free two-week trial that anybody can sign up for and just start to play around with these resources, and really start to build that presence, that confidence.

[00:27:42] Shanenn Bryant: Awesome. Well, yes, let's go check it out. We're gonna check out the app and, take advantage of that and see how it works for us. So, thank you so much, Heather Lillico. I appreciate you being on Top Self.

[00:27:53] Heather Lillico: Thank you for having me, Shanenn.

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