Examining how anxiety sneaks into our lives! With anxiety expert, Lynn Lyons

Episode 64 of Ask Dr Jessica is here featuring return guest extraordinaire Lynn Lyons.  (To hear more from Lynn refer back to Ask Dr Jessica episodes 31 and 32).  Lynn wrote a book called The Anxiety Audit--and she explains sneaky ways anxiety can appear into our lives.  Finding ways to lessen our anxiety, Lynn points out, leaves more room for us all to make more authentic, deep connections.   In addition to being an author, Lynn is a therapist, a mother, and a speaker.   Lynn approaches anxiety in a very practical, light-hearted and relatable manner, and offers actionable advice.

I highly recommend reading Lynn's new book, the Anxiety Audit.

To hear more from Lynn, please listen to her wonderful podcast, "Flusterclux", visit her website www.lynnlyons.com or find her on Instagram @  Flusterclux.

Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner.

Do you have a future topic you'd like Dr Jessica Hochman to discuss? Email Dr Jessica Hochman askdrjessicamd@gmail.com.

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The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only. She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.

Transcript

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Welcome to Ask Dr. Jessica the podcast where my goal is to give you quality content to help you along your parenting journey. I'm your host and paediatrician Dr. Jessica Hochman. I'm thrilled to introduce today's guest anxiety specialist Lynn Lyons. Lynne has been on the podcast before if you want to check out past episodes, episodes 31 and 32. And she's always been a pleasure to talk to Linda, therapist, author, speaker and host of the podcast fluster clucks. Today we're going to talk about Lynn's new book, The anxiety audit. Lynne, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so happy to have you here. I am delighted to be here. I've been so excited to have you here we had you on in the past. And you're here in the past, and the feedback that I've gotten from patients about how much of an impact you've made and how listening to your podcast has really influenced them, I have to tell you is tremendous. So thank you so much. Well, you're very welcome and right back at you, because I have referred, I have sent many of my clients to the different podcasts that you had, including the one you had where I think you were talking to your uncle, the GI Bill. Thank you, doctor. Yeah, and I have a client who is really struggling with anxiety related to her gi stuff. And I said, you just need to listen to this, you're gonna learn some things. So it was really helped. Thank you very much. I can't wait to talk about your new book, The anxiety audit. And I think just just up front, I want to say what I one of the reasons I love you so much is you you don't you talk about anxiety in a way in such a light hearted manner. You know, I like that your mission, I relate so much with your goals, which is to get us back to having fun, enjoying life connecting with others. And I think so much can get lost, that that is so important in life. And so I appreciate that. You talk about that. Yeah, well, thanks. I think that right now, especially with the teenagers I work with, there's really a culture of pathologizing and a culture of crisis. Not that they aren't struggling, of course. But I do want to just give the message that sometimes really just going outside for a walk is a really good thing you can do for yourself, right? You don't have to, you don't have to do all these dramatic things that people talk about. Sometimes you really just need to hang out with your friends or go for a walk or get an ice cream cone. Like it's just, we really need to just help everybody kind of take it down a notch because there's so much to be worried about. And it's not doing us any good. I completely agree with everything you just said, I know for myself, personally, if I feel stressed, and I want to lighten my day, those simple things make all the difference, just getting outside just for a little bit, just calling a friend that I enjoy their company. Those little things make a world of difference in my day. So I agree. Yep, same with me. Same with me relate. So I wanted to talk about your book a little bit. And I encourage everybody who struggled with anxiety or even if you don't, or I would say we all do, but it's such a great book. And it really breaks down how to find where anxiety sneaks into our life. And I definitely related with so much of what you wrote. Before we get into it. I wanted to ask you what inspired you to write the book? I know you've written books before, but what particularly inspired you to write this book? Well, yeah, so the previous three books I've written, I've been really focused on kids and parenting in particular. And I've been talking so much about modelling. And I'm a big believer, I think I probably said the last time I was on with you, I don't see kids alone. In my practice, it's so important that the parents are getting the information. So there was I really wanted to talk to adults directly about the patterns they have. And in particular, having them recognise, you have to own your own stuff, you have to recognise your own patterns, because you will unknowingly model them for the children in your lives, and you will unknowingly bring them into your relationships and your jobs. I don't think a lot of people really know how these patterns are connected to our worry and anxiety. So as I started doing this, and I actually did a course with with Robin, my podcast co hosts and sister law, we did a course during the pandemic called the anxiety audit. So she said you should just make that into a book. And I remember she said it'll be easy, which if anybody Yeah, for that's what people who haven't written a book say it'll be easy, just write it up. So that's how it all came to be. But I really wanted to talk about modelling and understanding. Just normalising this whole thing because it's just so so common, and we need to expand our view of it. So it's not seen as you know, just a pounding heart or just sweaty palms or just feeling sick, that there's so much more to it than that. And I think you're so right when you say that modelling is incredibly important. I know that when I see kids in my office that are in Just not always, but I would definitely say most of the time, the parents also suffer from anxiety. And so I know that parents often tell me they're concerned, they they know they go, I'm anxious. And I really don't want my kids to have that problem. How can I help my kids? So yep, your book is a great a great resource for anybody who's listening that that does have that concern. Yeah, and we should all have that concern, because anxiety and depression and substance use are so common, that we as parents really should be thinking about, how are we interrupting the generational cycle? Right. That's my that's one of my big goals. We all came from something and we all have baggage. How do we interrupt that cycle? Absolutely. So I wanted to ask about a few things that I that I extra connected with. Okay, the first is the topic of being crazy busy. I think so. You know, I think you really, you really nailed it. Just that being crazy busy. It's such a problem. And that nowadays, people that are busy, it sort of correlates with sounding important. Yeah. That was that was interesting research. When I was when I was looking up what I was going to write about in that chapter. It was so interesting, what, what I found, which is so true, is that we can't really brag about money. Like if somebody says, you know, Hey, how are you? Oh, I'm good. I just closed the deal for 50 grand. So I'm feeling you know, you're like, Oh, my God, what a jerk. Right? Or when people are like, Hey, look at my new car, you're like, oh, please get over yourself. But if we run into somebody, and we can brag about how busy we are, how busy our kids are, right, that humble brag, I talk about that you see at Facebook, like, what a crazy weekend by oh my gosh, we had seven soccer games and 12 gymnastic meats. And it's just it's socially sanctioned, to just talk about how busy you are and how important you are. And also, it makes us feel good. Like, we feel like we're important. And we feel like we're worthy. Right. And that's the message we have to make sure that we aren't passing on to our kids is that the way we measure our worth? Is how stressed we are I talk a lot when I go into schools. I was just in a school. Where was I yesterday, North Carolina, and I was just in this school and they were talking about what I call one upping. So in these high achieving environments, a kid will say like, oh, I only slept for four hours. And then another kid was like, Well, like I only slept for two hours or, you know, well, I'm on five meds while I'm on six meds or you know, they just it's it's how can we make our absolute stressful lives sound important? And kids are totally picking up on that the conversation even just you talking about? It sounds stressful. I'm stressed. It is stressful. It is. Well, it is funny, because if I read it to you, we don't live in the same place. But they say we lived in the same town and I ran into you. And I said, Hey, how are you doing Jessica and you were like, You know what? I'm just coasting. Man, I'm just woof, I'm just laid back. I would go home and I would go, wow, what's going on with Jessica? Right? And she was she doing she's not stressed. And it just seemed so boring, right? Why she was she lazy? Hey, she lazy. Yeah, we're very judgy these days, about people not doing a tonne of stuff. Er, it's true. And I. But then at the same time, you know, I do know, I know that it's good for kids to have free time and to not be so structured. But there's a flip side to that, where if they're if there's too much idle time, and they're too unstructured and too bored, they can get into trouble. Right? Right. What was that saying? They used to say idle hands are the devil's Exactly. Yeah, right. Yeah, well, it it's that balance, we use that word balance. But I think it's, I don't want kids to be bored. I don't want them to be doing nothing. I don't want them to be lying on the couch on their phones all day. I just don't want them to be super scheduled. And I think particularly with young kids playing, letting kids play without having it so scheduled and so arranged and so organised is really, really important. And I find what's interesting is people act like there's this attitude that we can avoid it. It's just the way life is. But I do think that being busy really is a choice. It really is a choice. You know, even myself like sometimes I'll complain about how busy my day was, but it really, I can't say no, I choose not to but it does ultimately become our choice. And we have to check ourselves saying no is a skill that we have to develop. And really sometimes giving yourself a little pause before you say yes to something which is something I've learned to do if somebody says hey, can you do this? I will say you know what, I need to get back to you or let me think about that. Because we want to say yes, it feels good to say yes, it feels good when somebody He wants you to do something. And I think particularly as women, that the expectation is that we'll be able to handle everything. And we do handle a lot of things, we're really good for the most part of making stuff happen. So it sort of feeds our esteem to when we're asked to do things, and we want to be busy. So saying no, sometimes goes goes kind of against what we, what we have been trained to say and what we want to do. Yes. Sometimes I say no, when I really want to say yes, and I say I sort of think of different parts of myself, I say that. So there's a part of you that wants to say yes. And there's another part of you that wants to say no. So let's which party you're gonna listen to? Yeah, it really is. It really is a skill you have to develop in practice. I love the example in your book about the invitation you got for a Sunday in May. And, and you just thought about it, wait a second, it's gonna be so beautiful. I don't want to take the words out of your mouth. But it'll be so beautiful, visually visualising that Sunday and May, even though it's it was many months away, do you really want to be? Would you really want plans that day? Or are a beautiful spring day in May? Would it be better just to have no plans? Right? Right. Yeah. That's regret prevention. And thinking, if you my husband will say that to me, too. He'll say, because he does. He does. He runs my business. So I want to talk about my husband, he's he's writing contracts. So he knows what my schedule is. So if I say, Oh, this is this is a Saturday in May or a Sunday in May. And he says, so let's just, let's just think ahead. And if you if he will say to me, if you say yes to this, just imagine how you're going to feel the night before. And if you say to be Oh, why did I say yes to this? I am I'm going to have no sympathy for you. And that's regret prevention. If I say yes, now, can I project myself into the future? And imagine what that will feel like on that Sunday in May? And I really could I absolutely could imagine what it would feel like, you know, and I knew exactly how I would feel. No, it's true. And I think that I've learned to really love having nothing on my calendar on a weekend. It's the best. It is the best. Yeah, my mother in law, I've learned from her. She always says that not getting invited to something. She it's often a blessing. Like she's so happy sometimes when she doesn't get invited. Because, you know, when I was younger, I would think Oh, my goodness, I didn't get invited. I feel left out. And she's like, No, no, no, no, it's the best. Like when you get to that day, you don't have to go to something. So I take a page from her book. Yeah, that is very wise advice I was in I was in my bed. A Saturday night recently, under my covers watching something on Netflix, I was probably watching the great British baking show. And I thought to myself, there are people who are out doing things, right. Oh, that must be awful to have to go to a party or to go out to dinner. And I love my friends. But it is really nice to just be able to say no, we have to be able to appreciate that we need that time. Absolutely, absolutely. So another thing I wanted to ask you about is this idea of self care. And what really is self care. It's this term that I agree with you it gets thrown around a lot. Can you talk about it in the sense that? How can we? How can we find true self care where it can help us lessen our anxiety. So there's a distinction I make between self care and self medication. And I see those things getting combined a lot. We did a podcast episodes, one of our most popular podcast episodes actually on the mommy wine culture, because that is something that I hear a lot, right. So I'm going to give, I'm going to take care of myself by drinking or I'm going to take care of myself by spending money I don't have. The way that I defined self care is that it's a consistent practice that has long term benefits. The other way that you have to think about self care is that sort of, ironically, paradoxically, oftentimes, you don't feel like doing self care before you start doing it. self medication is a quick fix. It helps you eliminate emotions. It takes away something but long term, you're going to have regrets, right. There's a lot of talking a lot about regret, but regret prevention is a good model to follow. If you are doing True Self Care long term, you're never going to regret it. Like when I go for a walk with a friend when you go for a walk with a friend. The next day I don't say Oh, I can't believe I went with a went for a walk with Christine. Right. Oh, I shouldn't have done that. I never say never. If I go if I go and exercise if I get a good night's sleep. But when you when you self medicate, oftentimes the next day you say, oh, it felt good at the time, but why did i Why did I stay up too late? Why did I drink so much? Why did I eat that half a chocolate cake. Thinking about self care as a consistent practice? is so much more helpful than thinking about how can I do something to feel better right in this moment, that really is not going to pay off. That's really true. Yeah, it's really true. I always say my one of my favourite lines is I never regret a workout. And it's true. I never like that. That's what I that's the mantra I tell myself to get myself out the door. I never regretted but you're absolutely right. I've definitely regretted staying up too late watching a movie. Maybe buying something I didn't need to buy. Yep. Yeah. procrastinating doing some stupid things so that you procrastinate. Yeah, I mean, I've never I've never left the gym and gone like, Oh, why did I get up and go do that workout, right? I'm always driving home thinking, Yay, I get to go drink coffee now. So being being aware of that, and paying attention to that is really helpful. The other thing too, I talk about with self care, is the word self care. Oftentimes, you hear that and it does sound a little cliche, you're right. But generally, you're taking care of yourself, because it makes you a better person to the other people that have to deal with you on planet Earth. Right? You're a better paediatrician, when you're taking care of yourself, I'm a better clinician, I'm a better parent, I'm a better wife, I'm a better daughter, when I'm taking care of myself. So really is, you know, I'm really doing family care. I'm not doing self care. I'm doing family care. I'm doing people that I love. Benefit from me taking care of myself. Yes. And I think that that's pretty obvious. When you think about that, you're also being a good example for your children. So hopefully, when they see you, when they see that model of someone who exercises us self care and healthy self care, hopefully they'll do the same thing when they're older. And maybe that will help their anxiety. Yeah, right. Right. If you're, if you're, if you're saying to your kids and showing your kids and they're gonna see it, too, like when my kids were little, if I went to the gym, or I used to teach spinning and I came back, they knew I was in a better mood. They knew I wasn't cranky after I went and taught a spinning class. Yeah. And I was very clear about that. So you're modelling. Modelling. Modelling. Yep, for sure. Absolutely. It's and I definitely relate to you. Because when you talked about how exercise is so important, it's your it's your, I don't wanna say drug of choice, but your what you choose to do to help. Yeah, yeah. Would you to do to help your my dragon? Yeah, to help your mood? I completely relate to that. Yeah, and I think, you know, one of the things I've been thinking about in terms of what's increasing, we talk about anxiety and thinking about that with kids. And I was thinking about what our bodies are meant to do, like what they're designed to do. So they're designed to move we are not designed to sedentary creatures. They're designed to sleep during the night, not during the day, because we're hugely diurnal, right? Those circadian rhythms are powerful. They're They're designed to eat real healthy food that gives you nutrients, not Skittles, and Cheetos, were designed to be social and to verbally communicate. I mean, there is such cool information about this voice we have that's so unique in the way we communicate. And if you think about what has happened, and what has changed dramatically over the last 10 years, with kids, it's it's sleep. It's whether or not they're moving. It's what they're eating, and whether or not they're verbally communicating with people face to face. And so when we say like, what's going on what's going on, I just feel like well, look, go back to the basics and look at what our bodies and brains are meant to do, and how different that is and how dramatic that's changed in the last few decades. I think it goes a long way to explaining how how we're seeing so much change in both mental health and I'm sure you see it in the physical health when in paediatrics, it must be astounding. Over the last 2030 years, what has changed? No, it's true. And I think all parents know that too much. screentime causes anxiety. It's not as healthy as going outside. But I think parents don't know how to make those changes. I think kids are it's really hard. That's why I think I think honestly, you talking about it is such an important step because recognising it, and being deliberate about how we spend our time, it's so important. Another thing I want to talk about that I really loved you drawing attention to is this idea of rumination. Because I have to admit I am guilty of this, I noticed that I ruminate. And I love that you brought it up because I'm trying to catch myself that ruminating or thinking about things I could have done should have said could have played out differently. It doesn't help. It does not help. It does not help. And the way that it's so enticing is that it does feel like you're doing something productive. Right. It feels like you're working through stuff. One of the things one of the beefs I have with therapy because I have a lot of beefs with my own profession, is that a lot of therapy is really ruminative. Like if you're depressed and you're going back and you're just talking about things or when I say to kids You have gone to somebody else I say, so what did you do in your therapy for four years? Oh, I just went in and talked about what makes me anxious, going over it, and over it and over it. There's, there's this this sense, or this belief that we're doing the work, but it's not really what we're supposed to be doing. It's not problem solving. Right? It's the gum chewing of thinking that it feels like you're eating something nutritional, but you're just chewing gum. And it's it becomes kind of a habit that that it's great that you're recognising that you do it because a lot of people don't even know that they're doing it. Oh, definitely. And I think I mean, but there is that idea that if you talk about something that happened in the past, that might be therapeutic. But I think it only goes so far. Correct. So people ask me that all the time. They'll say, Well, aren't you supposed to be able to process your trauma? Or isn't it important you for the for you to understand sort of, you know, what happened in your family that made you think about things in this way? And that is absolutely the case. ruminating is not it? ruminating is is going over and over and over something. Sometimes looking for approval, sometimes hoping that it'll be differently, sometimes it's just to beat yourself up that you did something and you feel guilty about. So you're just gonna go over it and over and over it. There's no, there's no point to it. There's no end goal to it. This is why with therapy, I always talk about the how questions versus the why questions? Why is interesting, you know, like, Why do you love it? You know, why have you had 20 affairs? Why do you bother? Okay, we can figure that out? We can figure that out fairly quickly. I think like I don't need when somebody comes in and they're anxious. I don't need 20 sessions to figure out why they're anxious. I usually need about seven minutes. It's not that complicated. And then we gotta move to the how so ruminating is you're sort of stuck on the Y wheel? Like why, why, why? And the how is what am I going to do next? That's what we want it to to be. We want it to be an active process, not a ruminative process. So, but ruminating feels good to that's why people do it. It doesn't. Is that what it is? Yeah, I mean, it feels bad and good at the same time. Yeah, well, I definitely noticed that, you know, if I'm lying about it, if I'm lying in bed at night, and I can't sleep, I can ruminate. What's your advice on that front? How to End rumination just to catch yourself while you're doing it? And yeah, so So you want to catch yourself while you're doing it. The first thing always is that it's going to happen. So if you say to yourself, like I have to eliminate ruminating, not going to work, it's gonna happen. And then you have to catch yourself. And then when you catch yourself, you want to say oh, so I'm ruminating. And and I'm going to acknowledge that this is not useful. Because people who ruminate really believe that it serves a purpose. So if you catch yourself doing it, you can say, Oh, this is not useful. And then you want to unhook from it. So unhooking is a little different. People talk about distraction. Distraction is sort of like oh, I can't think about that. I don't want to think about that. unhooking is like, Oh, I'm doing that thing. So now I'm gonna say, okay, so I did it. So now I'm just gonna take a step in another direction. So you catch yourself doing it. I was just talking to somebody this afternoon. John London, actually, we were talking about ruminating. And she was talking about at night falling asleep, how she catches herself ruminating. So she started doing the subtract numbers like count backwards. So if you catch yourself ruminating, and you have a hard time unhooking, particularly if it's at night, that's when you want to do some of these little tricks I say you want to give your brain something else to chew on. So that it unhooked from what you're stuck on. So pick a pick a random number, pick 92 and start subtracting by seven or play the alphabet game, which I talk about, you know, the other night I couldn't fall asleep. I was in a hotel, I couldn't fall asleep. So I did the alphabet game with towns in Massachusetts. I don't even live in Massachusetts. But I just I was like a, Acton B, Boston, C. Concord, and I got I don't remember getting past letter E. I just fell asleep. That's pretty good. One of my recent tricks, has been trying to everyone talks about gratitude now and how gratitude can be helpful. Yeah, sometimes I'll just go to bed. And when I've catch myself ruminating, I think about the things in my life that I'm grateful for. And oh, that's great. How does it work? Do you fall? Sometimes? Not all the time, but definitely worth the other night? Well, you know, what, if you if you stay awake, going through your gratitude list for six hours, that's better than staying awake and ruminating for six hours. So at least you're using you're using your insomnia more productively, we might say that's true. Yeah. Okay. And the other part I want to bring up because I think that if it helps me maybe it'll help somebody else listening. He talked about how we can be irritable and irritable is normal. And your irritability can be a form of anxiety, but what I really liked with your advice I was talking about how, if you admit it to your family, you know, in a nice way, like, Hey, I'm really sorry, I worked really hard day to day, I'm just going to be irritable. I think that really helps so much. And so rather than coming home in a bad mood, or grumpy, and leaving everybody else to wonder what's going on? Right, I think that's, I think that was really helpful. And I actually think with my family when I try that, you know, I try to be in a good mood, but sometimes we're human. And we can't always be. It definitely softens the mood. So I think that was really good advice. Thanks. It. Yeah, it works. It works well for my family. Because my office is attached to my house. So my commute is, you know, seven inches. So people will tell me that they're irritable, and they're driving home. And that's where they listen to music, or they listen to a podcast, and it helps make that transition. I had a very quick transition to make. So yeah, I would just say, I'm really tired. I'm sorry, if I'm grumpy. And I've been talking to people all day, and just give me a few minutes to get my, you know, get my mojo back, get my groove back. I also find it's really helpful in marriages to write. So it's good for what we model for our kids. But if if my husband is grumpy, and sometimes I'll say to him, Have you eaten, because he's a real, he's a real? He's? Yeah, you know, the snickers commercials, he could be in one of those Snickers commercials. So I'll say, Have you eaten? And then I'll see. He'll say, oh, no, I haven't eaten yet. I guess I guess that's why I'm grumpy. Or he'll say, this morning, actually, he said, I've got to eat something right now before I start getting irritable. And I was like, You, You go, girl, right? Go, you go eat that oatmeal. So. So it really is just just owning, you know, I mean, this is what it is. It's like owning your own stuff. And saying to your kids, I'm I'm sorry, I'm grumpy. Give me a few minutes, or I'm gonna go for a walk. Yeah, the thing that's so important about that is that when parents are grumpy when parents are miserable, kids try and figure out what they did to cause it because that's developmentally what they do, right? We take a person out there. That's right, because they're, they're still you know, they're kind of the centre of their own world, right, a little seven year old is just sort of, you know, she's her whole world. And you're a big part of it. So they try and figure out what they did. And then for parents that are chronically irritable, and not addressing it, kids try and figure out what they can do to make their parents happy. And that is a bad path to go down. Yes, that that I'm responsible for your happiness. And so the more that parents are just talking about what they're feeling, emotional literacy, that's the ability to talk about your feelings. We don't we don't have to make it a, you know, a two hour discussion. But the more that parents model, putting words to their feelings, I'm sorry, I'm really grumpy today because something happened at work, or I'm feeling really sad today, because I heard about something that happened to a friend. The more you model that for kids, the more they're going to have permission to recognise and talk about the nuance of their feelings. We know that kids that are that are better at doing that have better mental health outcomes. So we're just modelling we're modelling how to be good human beings in all sorts of different ways. Not perfect human beings. But we're modelling how do we take care of ourselves? How do we talk about things? How do we own our emotions? All that stuff is so good and families? Absolutely. And I feel victorious. Like my daughter recently, she'll tell me, you know, I'm just so sorry. I was grumpy this morning. I'm not a morning person. I don't feel like myself. I'm sorry that I did that. And I know, and she's 12 years old, saying that specific you should feel victorious. You should wear a tiara all day when she says that Jessica, you should just have like your like your tweener tiara that you put on and you were all day because your tweeter said that to you know, she she said to me, she specifically said, Mommy, I don't feel like myself till 1038 Till third period. She goes then I feel more like myself. And so I said that, you know, and when she said that to me, I also in turn, it made me more understanding of her in the morning when she's grumpy that night, not something I said it's not something she really can help. And she she's working on it. And that you don't have to fix it. Right? That's that you don't have to jump in and talk to her about it or fix it or worry like, oh, you know, do I have to give her more breakfast or what's going on? She's just saying, Yeah, I am not a morning person and I need till 1038 Right. Yes. So you're you're you're raising this. You're raising this, this little person who's really becoming self aware. That's a wonderful gift that you're giving her you must be showing her that Oh, thank you. Well, I think you know, again, why I loved your book so much is I think a lot of us have a an internal fear that we are going to pass on our stuff to our kids. I apprec. She ate learning about the anxiety audit auditing myself and hopefully making a difference with my own family. Yeah, cuz then there comes the guilt, right? Oh, yeah, it's real. Yeah. Yeah, that's a whole other topic. Yeah, that is a whole other topic. The reality is, is that we do pass on our stuff to our kids. That's what I say to parents. Like, that's how human beings work, right? So of course, that's how it works. We know that. So instead of, instead of resisting that, instead of sort of being like, Oh, my God, I'm gonna pass my stuff on to my kids just be like, yeah, that's how it works. So I better work on my stuff. Oh, absolutely. I mean, yeah, I mean, myself, I am often feeling guilty, I'm getting better, but because I work, and then I have my three kids. But the truth is, when I think about it, if I didn't work, I would not be a good mom. Like it went for my personality, it wouldn't, it wouldn't work. So for me to be the best I have to acknowledge and, and be forgiving of myself that for me to be the best mom, I can be I actually do need to work. Well, the other thing, too, is that obviously, if your 12 year old is saying, Oh, I have this awareness that I'm not a morning person, you're working, but you're also very connected to your kids. It's not like those two things are mutually exclusive. Thank you. Right. So So being there, there's a big difference between being a working parent and being a disconnected parent. Thank you, Lynne. You're not a disconnected, you know, the right things to say to me. No, no. But I agree. No, I do. I do feel like we really are connected. And I agree. I think that does make the difference. If I didn't feel that that would be a whole other whole other story. Yeah, yeah, I was talking to a mom recently. And she's got two little kids. I forget how old maybe like five and three. And she's got this corporate job. She's hating her job. She's feeling disconnected from her kids. And she's realising that as much as she loves to work, as she doesn't love this job, and that it's probably a good time for her to take a few years off so that she can connect with their kids and then figure out what she's going to do a little later in their lives. And that's, that's just good self awareness. Absolutely. That she, she she loves having her own money. She loves having the, the the status of her well paying job. But she's recognising that she's very disconnected from her kids right now. And she's not going to do that's tough. So we all have to, we all have to Yeah, but she's, she's going to make a change. Right. So we all have to, we have to just figure out, you know, I, I took time off when my boys were little. And then I sort of slowly got back into it. And they were mad at me. When I started working again, my younger son had a lift. And so anytime I put on a skirt, he knew that I was going to work so he would go feel good, feel good, because he was so mad that I was leaving, but it was good for all of us to have that. Yeah. So you are such a gift. I'm so I cannot tell you how lucky I feel like podcasting. This is the fun part for me is getting to talk to somebody as as insightful and wonderful as you thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Oh, my pleasure. Anytime. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of Ask Dr. Jessica. 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