Why I Forget My Own Advice (and How to Handle Scary Thoughts)

Have you ever stood in the rain for forty-five minutes before realizing you were actually holding an umbrella?

In this episode, I’m getting honest about the "Gap"—that frustrating space between knowing exactly what tools you have and actually remembering to use them when life gets loud.

Whether you’re in a career transition, navigating "the void" between projects, or just dealing with a brain that won't stop whispering worst-case scenarios, this episode is a survival guide for your "internal library." We’re moving away from technical systems today to talk about the messy reality of being a human with a high-functioning (and sometimes high-anxiety) brain.

We’re diving into:

• The Hot-Cold Empathy Gap: Why your brain literally pulls the plug on your logic when you’re stressed.
• Uninvited House Guests: How to handle intrusive thoughts without handing them a megaphone.
• The Evidence Audit: A simple, non-technical way to fact-check your brain when it starts lying to you.
• The Physical Pivot: Why changing your view is sometimes better than "thinking it through."
• Micro-Resilience: Setting a Minimum Viable Standard (MVS) for your mental health.

If you’ve felt like your own worst enemy lately, this one is for you. You aren’t failing; the power is just out in the library. Let’s find the flashlight.

Connect with the show:

• Subscribe for insights on navigating life’s transitions.
• Share this episode with someone who needs a reminder that they are the architect, not the guest.

We’re still here. Still Technically Here.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

I have a confession. This week I stood in the rain for 45 minutes before I remembered that I was holding an umbrella. Actually, it's worse than that. I spent those 45 minutes staring at the clouds, wondering if the rain was punishing me for something I did three years ago, and trying to convince myself that if I just thought hard enough, I'd magically become dry. Meanwhile, the umbrella was right there in my hand. I just forgot to use it. Okay, so that didn't actually happen, but you know the feeling. When you're caught in a situation and you know you have the right tools, but you just kind of forget to use them. If you've been listening to the first five episodes of this podcast, you know that I love a good tool. I've talked about boundaries, perfectionism, and dealing with big life changes. I believe in those tools. But lately, I've realized there's a huge gap between knowing what to do and remembering to actually do it when your world feels like it's spinning. It's not that I'm failing, it's just that when things get stressful, I default to my old messy habits. Today I want to talk about why that happens, why we forget our own wisdom, and how we handle the loudest mental noise of all, those intrusive, scary thoughts that pop up out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Candid conversations on code, careers, and culture.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Welcome back to Still Technically Here. I'm your host, and usually I talk about things through the lens of systems and technology. But today, we're actually not going to go down that path, because today's episode is for anyone who has ever felt like they are their own worst enemy. And we're going to talk about this in terms of real life that I'm sure anyone can relate to. Today, we're going to be covering the heat of the moment problem, why our brains lock us out of our own good ideas, the uninvited house guests, what intrusive thoughts actually are, and why they aren't actually you. And the gentle reminder, how to snap out of a spiral just a little bit faster. So, let's start with that umbrella metaphor. Why is it that we can sit here calm and collected and agree that certain tools work, like taking a breath or checking our facts? But the second a real crisis hits, those tools are the first things to go out the window. I can be pretty hard on myself about this. I'll think I just talked about this on the podcast. Why am I spiraling over a single email? I can sometimes feel like a fraud. But then I started looking into the actual why behind this, and it turns out our brains have a very specific way of locking us out of our own wisdom. I want you to imagine your mind is a beautiful, well-organized library. Every episode of this podcast you've listened to, every book you've read, and every therapy session you've ever had, those are books on the shelves. They are categorized, indexed, and ready for you to use. When you are calm, what we call your cold state, the library is quiet. The lights are on. You can walk right up to the stress management section, pull a book off the shelf, and read the instructions. It's easy to take your own advice when the environment is peaceful. But then life happens. An intrusive thought hits you like a bolt of lightning, or a stressful event rolls in like a massive thunderstorm. Suddenly, you're not in your quiet library anymore. You are in what we call a hot state. In this state, the power in the library goes out. The wind is blowing, the doors open, papers are flying everywhere, and it's pitch black. You know the book with the answers is in the room. You can practically feel the shelf that it's on. But because the environment is so chaotic, you can't find it. You're fumbling in the dark, just trying to keep the windows from breaking. There's actually a name for this in psychology. It's called the hot, cold empathy gap. Research shows that when we are cold, calm, and safe, we have no way of being able to know what it feels like to be hot. So when we are in that cold, quiet library, we do not have the ability to imagine how dark and loud the hot storm is going to be. We underestimate how hard it is to find our tools when the wind is howling. And if you want to get even more real life about it, think about your internal smoke alarm. You have a part of your brain called the amygdala. Its only job is to scream fire when it senses trouble. The problem is, when that alarm goes off, it actually pulls the plug on the electricity in the rest of the house to save power. That electricity is what powers your logic and your memory. So when you're in the middle of a hot state, your brain has literally pulled the plug on your tools. You're standing in the dark, wondering where you put the flashlight. Your brain has rewired itself temporarily, cutting off your access to your wisdom in order to save energy for your survival. I felt the weight of this recently, and I feel a little bit embarrassed to admit, considering I've spent the last five episodes talking into this microphone like I have it all figured out. I have the notes, I have the research, I have every script from every previous episode right at my fingertips. But recently, I found myself in a period of the void. You know, that space when you've done all the work, you've checked all the boxes, and now you're just waiting. Waiting for the world to move. In that silence, the storm didn't just rattle my windows. It blew the doors off of my library. For a while there, I wasn't a podcast host with a toolkit. I was just a person sitting on a couch, feeling completely overwhelmed, totally forgetting that I had already built the exact survival guide I needed to handle this. I wasn't using my tools. I was just racing for impact. I knew intellectually that the void could be due to anything, and it was just going to take some time. Time for everything to get figured out, time for everything to fall into place. But it probably would, right? I couldn't see that because I was in a hot state and I couldn't access the logic. I was just sitting in the dark, fumbling for a flashlight that I forgot I even owned. And I'm sharing this because I want you to know that the gap between knowing and doing is real. It happens even to the person who dishes out this advice episode after episode. We often think that the goal is to never let the storm happen, but we can't control the weather. The real goal is just to learn how to find the flashlight a little bit faster. If it usually takes you three days to realize the power is out and find your way back to your tools, and this week it only took you three hours to say, wait, it's just a storm, and I know where the flashlight is, then that is a massive victory. Success isn't about being perfect, it's about shortening that darkness time. You're not failing. You're just waiting for the shutters to open so you can see the umbrella that's been in your hand the whole time. The problem is when we are in that dark library waiting for the power to come back on, our brains don't just stay quiet. They start to fill the silence with noise. And that noise usually sounds like the worst possible version of ourselves. Which leads us to the biggest, loudest ghosts in the library. Those intrusive thoughts that tell us we aren't good enough and that we've somehow failed the system. And the project we just submitted is a complete piece of trash. So let's talk about those unwanted house guests. If you are in a period of change, whether you're looking for your next big thing, moving cities, or just stepping into a new version of yourself, you know these guests. They don't knock, they just let themselves in. One of them sits on your couch and whispers, everyone else has this figured out, why haven't you? Another one stands in the kitchen and says, What if your best work is behind you? These are intrusive thoughts, and if you're wondering why they feel so real, there's actually a psychological reason for it called cognitive fusion. Research in ACT, or acceptance and commitment therapy, explains that when a thought pops up, we often fuse with it. We don't see the thought as a temporary event, we see it as the absolute truth. We stop saying, I am having a thought that I am failing, and we start saying, I am failing. The research shows that our brains actually struggle to tell the difference between a thought about a threat and an actual physical threat. So when the imposter guest whispers in your ear, your body reacts with the same shot of cortisol it would give you if you were being chased by a predator. But here's the most important thing I can tell you today. A thought is just a mental event. It's not a fact, it's not a command, and it most certainly is not a reflection of your character. There's also a documented phenomenon called the white bear effect. In the late 80s, a Harvard psychologist named Daniel Wegner found that the more you try to suppress a thought, meaning the more you try to kick that housed guest out, the more frequently that thought actually returns. So by trying to force the guest to leave, what you're actually doing is handing them a megaphone. This is why we often make two big mistakes. First, we try to argue with them. We sit down with the guest on the couch and we try to prove them wrong. We pull out our resume, we list our accomplishments, we try to logic our way into feeling better. But because of how our brains work, arguing with the thought just keeps it at the front of our minds. You cannot win a debate with a white bear. The second mistake is that we actually believe these thoughts. We assume that because the thought is loud, then it must be true. We fall victim to mental filtering, where we focus only on the scary thought and ignore all the evidence that we are actually doing just fine. We start living the thought before anything has actually happened in the real world. So, how do we handle them when we're in that hot state and we actually can't find our usual tools? We change our relationship with the guests. You don't have to kick them out. Wegner's research says you probably can't do that anyways. But you don't have to serve them drinks either. You can just let them sit there. This is what psychologists call cognitive diffusion. It's the act of stepping back and observing the thought rather than being inside it. You can say, Oh, I see the imposter guest is back. He always shows up when I'm in between projects. He's loud and he's annoying, but he doesn't actually live here. I'm guilty of needing to do this myself. In the moments where the silence of a transition feels deafening, I acknowledge the guest. Hi there, I see you. You're just a byproduct of my current stress. You're a ghost in the machine. And I can admit that when these thoughts are happening, sometimes I believe them too. Getting to the point where you can easily and without intensive focus and thought dismiss these guests and let them visit without power is the goal. Because here's the cold hard truth. The goal isn't to have a clean house where no bad thoughts ever enter. Because if you're waiting for a day where you never have any doubt or a scary thought ever again, you're waiting for a day that just isn't coming, my friend. The goal here is to realize that you're the owner, not the guest. You are the house. The thoughts are the visitors. Some of them are pleasant, and some of them are absolute jerks who overstay their welcome and leave a mess. But they don't hold the deed. They don't get to decide if the house is good enough to stand. In episode 5, I told you that my value wasn't something granted to me by a director or an HR rep. It was something I carried out of the building with me. The same applies here. Your value isn't something granted to you by your thoughts. The guests might be loud tonight, they might be throwing a party in your brain that you weren't invited to. But remember, guests eventually leave. They run out of energy, and they move on to the next house. But you, you aren't going anywhere. You are the structure, you are the architect. And even when the house is full of noise, you are still technically here. Now, if you're standing there realizing you're the owner of a very loud, very messy house, what do you actually do? How do you reach for that umbrella when your brain is convinced the storm is the only thing that exists? Earlier, I said the goal isn't perfection, it's recall. It's about shortening the time between the panic and the tool. To do that, we need what I'm going to call the gentle reminders. These are not complex systems. They are low energy, high impact moves for when you are in a hot state and can't think straight. The first tool is about breaking that glue between you and your thoughts. When a scary thought pops up, your instinct is to say, I am failing. The problem is that word I. As soon as you say I, you have merged with the thought. You aren't just having a bad day, you've decided that you are the bad day. Instead, I want you to name the glitch. Say out loud, I am noticing a thought that I am failing. But naming it is just the first step. Next, you have to fact-check the story. Think of your intrusive thought like a witness in a courtroom who isn't telling the whole truth. They're exaggerating. They're leaving out the good parts. So to stop the spiral, you have to cross-examine that thought. Take the claim. Let's say it's I've lost my touch. And force yourself to find three pieces of hard evidence that prove the opposite. Not vibes or feelings, but actual things that happened. Something like, I handled that difficult conversation yesterday, or I finished that task I was avoiding. Or even, I showed up today, even though I was tired. When you look at the evidence, the scary story starts to fall apart. You're proving to yourself that the thought isn't a headline, it's just a rumor. Once you've started to fact-check that narrator, you might still feel that restless, spinning energy. Sometimes your brain is just stuck in a loop because it's staring at the same four walls or the same screen for too long. When that happens, I like to use what I'm going to call the physical pivot. This isn't about deep breathing or managing a crisis. It's about forcing your brain to process new data. If you've been sitting at your desk spiraling over a thought for 20 minutes, your environment has actually become part of that spiral. You need to change the channel on your surroundings. The rule is simple. Change your view and change your temperature. Go into a different room, step outside for 30 seconds, splash some cold water on your face, or go snuggle with the dog on the floor. It sounds almost too simple to work, but there's a reason for it. By moving your body to a new space or changing your physical temperature, you're forcing your brain to stop processing the internal noise and start processing this new external information. Oh, the air is cold out here, the grass is green, the kitchen is quiet, the sun is warm coming in through the window on my toes, the dog is softly snoring. It's a manual break in the loop of your brain. It's like hitting refresh on a frozen computer screen. It doesn't solve the problem, but it clears the static so you can actually hear the logic that you just gathered using tool one. It's the easiest way to remind your brain that the world is much bigger than the scary thought you were just having. Finally, we have got to talk about the standard you are holding yourself to. In episode three, we talked about the minimum viable standard, the absolute baseline of what needs to happen to move a project forward. We need that same concept for our mental health when the storm is hitting. When you're in a transition or a period of high stress, your brain tries to convince you that you need to be some sort of mindfulness master. It tells you that if you aren't perfectly positive or if you're still feeling frustrated after doing your fact-checking in your pivot, then you're failing at handling it. I want you to throw that expectation out the darn window. You cannot optimize your way out of being a human being. Lower the bar. Your MVS for a hard day is simply this. I will not believe the meanest thing my brain tells me for the next five minutes. That's it. You don't have to be happy, you don't have to be crushing it, you don't even have to feel confident. You just have to refuse to hand the keys of the house over to those uninvited guests for five minutes at a time. This is a strategy of micro-resilience. It's the realization that you don't have to win the whole war today, you just have to hold the line for the next 300 seconds. I'm gonna call this the good enough standard for the soul. It's the permission to be under construction without feeling like the whole building is condemned. It's acknowledging that even if the lights are flickering and the guests are loud, the structure is still sound. Some days, simply refusing to agree with your own worst thoughts is the most heroic thing you can do. It's the ultimate proof that despite the noise, you are still a capable human. Look, I know that when we talk about these tools, the fact-checking, the physical pivot, and the MVS, it can sound like we're trying to build a fortress where the storm can never get in, but that is not what this is. The truth is, storms are always going to happen. Life is going to be quiet, transitions are going to be long, and your brain is occasionally going to invite some really loud, really mean guests over for dinner. That's just the cost of being an ambitious, feeling human being. The goal of everything we've talked about today isn't to stop the wind from blowing. It's to make sure that when the wind does blow, you don't forget that you're the one who owns the house. I'm standing in that house with you. Some days I'm doing a great job at auditing the evidence, and other days I'm just splashing cold water on my face, trying to hold on for five minutes at a time. But the more we practice this recall, the more we remember to reach for the umbrella, the less power the storm will have over us. You aren't a failure for having the thoughts. You aren't behind because you're in a transition. You're just in a version of the library where the power is out for right now, and that's okay because we have flashlights. I'm still learning this too. Some days I'm the person giving advice, and some days I'm the person standing in the rain, totally soaked, wondering where I left my umbrella, only to find it in my right hand hours later. But as we always say, things change, life gets messy, and sometimes we forget the plan. But you're still here, and so am I. And we're still technically here. So if you forgot your own wisdom this week, please give yourself some grace. The tools aren't gone. They're just waiting for you to remember that they're in your hand. That's it for today's episode. Hit subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a reminder to be kind to themselves, and I'll see you next time.