The Psychotherapist - Bhav Kotecha on how to make friends with your inner chimp

In this show, psychotherapist Bhavesh (Bhav) Kotecha talks about anxiety, his life as an accountant and his work with lawyers and accountants on how to manage their own anxieties. Join us for a lively chat about your inner critical voice - or chimp - with the Lawyers' Therapist Annmarie Carvalho in conversation with TCC's anxiety specialist, where we discuss why anxiety is there to help you, and how to manage it to improve your performance in high-pressure situations.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Hi, I'm Amory Corvalet, the lawyers therapist and CEO of TCC, the Legal Coaching Therapy and Training Agency. Welcome to Staying Sane in Law, the Fortnightly podcast where we discuss the gritty realities of life in the law with a member of the profession or someone who works with the legal profession. And this episode, I'm really pleased to welcome Bav Kotecha, a psychotherapist and trainer who works with the legal profession and particularly specializes in working with more junior members of the profession. He also has teenage boys, so he is accustomed to a rambunctious and high octane lifestyle and is also an accountant by trade. So welcome to the show, Buff.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Thank you. Rambunctious. That's a good word.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Does that sum it up or is that fair?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yeah, no, it is fair. That's my life, rambunctious.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

You're the rambunctious therapist. Uh last time I was the crack producer. So you've got a much better adjective than I got. I'm gonna say that now.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

I'll take that. I'll take that.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Well, you're lively. You're words that no one should ever say don't take this the wrong way, but don't take this the wrong way, Buff. But you're not what I would expect of an accountant.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

That's actually a massive compliment. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

You are lively and fun and informal. And I apologize to any accountants listening to this. I'm sure you're all wonderful people. It's interesting though, having been an accountant yourself and still perhaps dabbling a little bit in that world, what do you think the worlds of accountancy and law have in common?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

There was so much overlap between both professions. Um well, firstly, these are really these are people that are really atop of their game. Uh sorry, the the cream of the crop. And they know how to spot mistakes, spot errors, think ahead, anticipate risk, and high standards and really competent individuals. Both disciplines are equally successful, particularly if you're in practice, because you have multiple clients, multiple projects you're working on, multiple staff that you're working with at your organization, with the client, you have strong, your your strong emotion, strong drivers to succeed. And then you're judged everywhere by your billable hours, what clients you're working on, by promotions, is real breeding grounds, both are to the for anxiety.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

But it's funny, isn't it? Because in terms of um the sorts of people who are attracted into these professions, I think that kind of security and structure, you know, the the targets and the billable hours and the, you know, these are both professions, aren't they? Where there is a sort of certainty to that structure. It provides a kind of comfort to a certain type of person. But then as you say, it can it can turn on you, can't it?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Absolutely. The the the kind of um the strengths that make someone a good accountant or a good lawyer, so this is this is like really good strong attention to detail, really, really sort of rigorous in what they do, um and um kind of relentless or work ethic is great at times and most of the time when you're at work, but is it also great outside of work? The same qualities that make um accountants and lawyers good at their jobs can also turn against them if they're not if they're not on top of how they how they manage their anxiety and how how they manage the way they work.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

I noticed as well. I have this uh as an ex-lawyer or a recovering lawyer, as I like to call myself, that kind of framework for life that serves you really well in your profession. So, you know, being absolutely perfectionistic and having the highest standards, it's really hard to switch it off in your personal life. So we we mentioned at the start you have two boys, and I have two boys and a girl. And actually, producer Andrew has two boys as well, who are not boys anymore.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

I do. Well, one's uh 18, 19 in a couple of weeks, and the other one is 15. So they they still manage to keep me busy.

SPEAKER_02 4:17

Uh applying that framework to life with rambunctious boys and girls, like it doesn't quite work, does it? I think there's a certain kind of rigidity to it that then if you transfer that into your personal life, it doesn't work out so well in my experience.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Yeah, it's I I sort of remember time and what when when when the kids were younger, um, and then you know, coming home and then kind of being with them, doing bedtime, but not actually being with them, they're kind of there, but you're like head somewhere else and just replaying the day and not actually be being there, you know, and they know that. Come on, daddy, you know, where's the fun?

SPEAKER_02 4:58

And your does your fun side come out more now you're a therapist?

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yes. I mean, I would say it's always been there, but you know, I had to there was a time where like anxiety to took over, you know, in terms of like not being able to relax at all, but even when you're not busy, even when there's no reason to feel anxious. And that's one of the most frustrating, I think, aspects that the lawyers have brought to me in therapy is is when there's nothing really going on, they're on top of their workload, but but they still feel anxious, and then and then what happens is that they then fight that anxiety, which brings more cortisol and adrenaline into the picture, and it makes the situation worse. And like, I'm trying to relax, I should be relaxing, but they're not. And and it and and it's spilled over into like other aspects of their life, and they can't regulate our anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Is there a a complicating factor with those the sorts of professions like accountancy, like law, where um you've got you're kind of a constant for everybody else, sort of like business priests in a way. We we go to their temple and you know, we ask them questions, they consult the the gods of business and come back and give us an answer and we believe it. Because of that, they they see them as sort of two-dimensional characters. Is that something that makes it worse if if you're in that kind of profession?

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, I think two things happen. Um, one, um these people operate with a sense of responsibility. Um, and that responsibility they cribe on, like that they enjoy, but then it actually takes part of their identity. So, you know, I I should be able to be unclappable, I should be able to get on with this, I should be able to not feel anxious, I should be good at this, I shouldn't make making mistakes. It takes on a part of their identity. So when something does go slight, even slightly wrong, I'm talking like a typo in a report, it really attacks their like sense of identity and their integrity. But actually, it's a small typo in a report that you know the overall thing is great. So they do become like take on this like air that I should know what's happening all the time. Um and there is an element of that to the role, um, but then other people see certain professions as like oh, they they got it, you know, they know what they're doing, and I think that happens too, and then they play up to that, you know, that that I should be unflappable. I think a lot of um people that work in these environments, and I was one those, you kind of learn to mask it. You you kind of learn to have a game face where you can internalize your anxiety and how you're feeling. You don't want to show it because you see it as almost kind of weakness.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

That I'm glad you mentioned masking because it's something that we talk about a lot in relation to neurodivergent people these days, isn't it? But it and it's incredibly important in that context. And yet it it also applies with with everybody in society, doesn't it? These sorts of professions where often you're working with quite vulnerable people and they look to you as if you know you're an all-powerful, all seeing, all singing, all dancing, you know, professional advisor. So I think it's it's very common, isn't it, to feel that kind of mismatch between what people are seeing in you and how you actually feel. And add to that, most of the time, I think most intelligent people I know are so intelligent, their brain moves so quickly that they are able to see the flaw in everything that they do, they're able to spot the problem in everything, and therefore they are even kind of less confident than you know, your average, your person of average intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Yeah, they're always questioning themselves. So the internal narrative, I talk a lot about that in my sessions about um, you know, people would have had the phrase eternal critic, but sometimes it's just that this internal narrative that you've got yourself and you've got this this this almost person in your head that's that's giving you a hard time. Um in some of my sessions, we actually pull that person out and they and some of my clients even giving them a name and they uh bring a character together as well. So you you know you've got yourself to deal with, and you've got this this person here telling you you're you've got that you're this and that, you should have got that right, and and it's always there. So in some of my sessions, and we we then try to actually well reason with this character, you know, that that that's there, and um uh kind of almost like, well, is this person right? Is this really what's going on? Or understand where that where that voice came from in the first place? Because it's really debilitating having that with you all the time. Um, and again, this is what breeds anxiety.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Um I want to make a disclosure now, Bath, which is I I did similar work with one of my first therapists, and we named my voice Hester. So again, apologies to anyone out there called Hester because my kind of, I think it was like female version of Hector, it was like that voice is often Hectoring, isn't it? It's like you're not good enough, like you what are you doing here? Everyone else is better at this than you, et cetera, et cetera. But one of the things, and that I'm kind of curious to know from you, because I think one of the things I find hard about working with lawyers is you, you know, you do that work with them in the therapeutic sessions, and you can kind of separate out, as you said, that voice, that kind of hectoring voice. But often that hectoring voice might be um might be playing into dynamics that they are experiencing in their office. So, you know, a lot of even though we've tried to make the legal profession more psychologically safe and um more kind of empathetic and all that stuff, there are still, you know, some hard-nosed elements of it. So I think that's hard sometimes, isn't it, when Hester in my mind might just be, you know, consolidated or might just be amplifying the voice that I'm experiencing anyway from my boss or anyone else.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Yeah, absolutely. That Hector has come from somewhere and it's come and it's come from a range, a range of voices. And actually Hector is there to protect you ultimately. And that's the reframing that we kind of do, is that actually the voice is trying to protect you, but do you need that level of protection all the time?

SPEAKER_02 11:05

That's really an interesting way of thinking about it. So the voice, rather than just thinking, okay, this voice is universally negative, actually, there's some there's some diamonds in there too. It's trying to help you.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Because if we think about what happens during anxiety, you know, anxiety is is a good thing in the right at the right time. It's it mobilizes energy, sets courses all adrenaline so um we can get the task done or get done whatever we need we need to happen. Um but uh what happens is that sometimes that can be a bit uh misconfigured. So we're entering a situation, or situations looming that actually isn't isn't that threatening. But somewhere along the line that the amygdala, the part of the brain that's responsible for scanning the risk, is thinking that the situation is potentially threatening and it's sending lots of adrenaline calls as well and other hormones for you to mobilize. So it is actually trying to protect you, but it doesn't need to be that intense all the time. So by having this almost this character, um, some people will also have it as a as an animal. I can think of somebody, one of my clients that use that uses it, calls it a chim. Um, and almost like saying sort of knowing that it's trying to protect you, you're almost having a dialogue with it, which actually lawyers find really difficult to do, I have to be honest. When I sort of say, well, there's try and have a dialogue with your chin, corby, or Hector, and you know, give it a personality. I don't want to do that. So just try it, just try it. So when it comes up, like for me, it was always like at night time, like going into bed and I'm like, well, it's time to relax, but hello, I've got this thing here. I'd be like, Well, I don't hello, thank you for showing up. I I don't really need you right now. I know you're trying to protect me, but actually don't really need you right now. Um and not to be cross with it, angry with it, fight it, just be compassionate with it. Now I know conceptually, this isn't saying this sounds crazy, but over time it does work, it does help to treat it with a compassionate voice rather than oh, good job, I feel anxious, I hate you, why are you doing this? You know, you're you're an idiot. Just to be kinder to it.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

I wanted us to get personal as well in this episode, as I like to do in every episode, because I think what really people forget, so as humans, we are constantly judging our insides by other people's outsides, aren't we? We're constantly thinking everyone else has got it sorted, and I'm the only weirdo wandering around feeling like rubbish. And it's completely untrue, but we all buy into it. I and for me, what one of the things that I think is really important about what you're saying is managing anxiety, understanding that it's there for life and you've never got it sorted completely, but you, you know, and this is one of the benefits of getting older, you find ways to manage it. So I remember when I first started doing presentations and things like this. You know, you go on presentation skills courses in your early 20s, and it's an absolute nightmare, and everyone hates it, apart from the supremely confident person in the corner of the room. And I remember delivering a presentation on one of these courses, and it was the old days. So, you know, we had projectors. Do you remember those? Projecting you had to write on the like translucent sheet, transparent sheet, spilling water everywhere over all these sites, being so flustered and having a rash everywhere and like just being absolutely terrified and leaving the room, you know, being so kind of mortified on like left the room. I can't do this. And I always think about it because then, you know, fast forward to a few years ago, doing a training session for a law firm, and I was pregnant at the time. And when you are pregnant, you're often aware of the baby's heartbeat, and it's faster than yours. And I suddenly became aware during this training, I was delivering with another person, but I suddenly became aware of this heartbeat, and it felt like anxiety. So then I started to feel anxious. So my heart was like going, and and your brain goes foggy, doesn't it? You can't, you're in your chimp brain, you can't get into your prefrontal cortex and think analytically. So I thought, I'm gonna have a panic attack. This is a I'm gonna have a panic attack. And it was awful, it was absolutely awful. And I was presenting remotely with another person, so I could send them a message on Zoom and say, can you just take over the next few slides? And just, you know, shut my screen off so no one could see and just went and walked around the room and did some of the things you you're talking about here, Bav, the breathing exercises. Um, and and it just took the edge off just slightly enough so that I could go back to the screen and instead of thinking, oh my God, this needs to be the best presentation ever, oh my god, I've got 45 minutes to go. This is a nightmare. Just focus on what are the next words I need to read on this slide? What does it mean to me? What's the next thing I can say that's useful, the next thing after that, really breaking it down. And so I got through it and it was okay. I mean, I felt like a bit of a wally afterwards, but it it I didn't run out screaming and never give a presentation again. I guess my reason for telling this story is, you know, people see people like us, Bav, you and I often deliver training together, and they assume that we are, you know, supremely confident people. And we're absolutely not. We're just winging it half the time.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

We are right by now.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

So you you will have had your own experiences with anxiety as well, Bav, which I imagine means you bring something to the relationship with your clients that's really important.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Well, my my anxiety where you sort of started in my kind of late late teens, I kind of just kind of dealt with it, hid it. But I think as you get older and more progress through through uh your firm and you get more commitments outside of outside of work, it's then hard to then hide and manage. And that's certainly what happened to me. It's so you know, started off late late teens, and then gradually as life became more and more serious, and as I worked and uh practiced in the in one of the big four where it was intense environment, I was still okay, and then got married and then got kids and then changed all, and then all these things, and then it remains to the point where actually, hold on, I'm anxious all the time, and I actually got dialogue with generalized anxiety, um, which I don't have anymore. But at that time, it was the first thing was like, oh, I've I've got I've got something, you know, I've got people to this, which felt okay for a bit. And then it was like, hold on, but actually, it's not helping me at all. Um, and it was, and stuff like um for me, one of my triggers was doing any kind of presentation or public speeching, would then literally flip me out my window, and I would be so incredibly anxious from the moment and I knew that I had to do it, not the actual lead up to it the day before. From if I had a three weeks notice, I'd be anxious for three weeks, incredibly anxious about it. Um so doing stuff like this and doing like the the the kind of the presentations that we that we do, I would not kind of have to do four, four, five, six years ago. Um, and that and so for me it was understanding what is it about that particular scenario that triggers me so much, and then and and sort of deeper therapy helped with that, and to kind of understand well, where does that fear come from in the first place? That's one side of it. And the the other side of it was then um working with my own chimp and the reasoning with it and actually asking myself, well, are you actually helping me right now? Because that's another thing, right? We give ourselves a hard time, and then we have to ask ourselves, well, this all this thinking that we do it, which is up here and not actually real, it's the inventing scenarios that then make us stressed about hypothetical scenarios, is that actually helping me right now? And I say that to myself quite a lot when I when I kind of get myself into an overthinking state. Is this actually helping me by now? And usually the answer is actually no way it's not helping you right now. Um so if people can actually see into my mind an amount of like self-talk that I end up less now, but during that period of time when I was rewiring my brain, I think I'm like some the mentalist because you know, talking to myself in internally, um, but then over time kind of went from that having harsh conversations with my internal critic to more compassionate, kinder ones, and then and then then being kinder to myself about you know about my anxiety, and then knowing to trust myself to just go into slot, you know, periods of uncertainty, and then I'll be okay. You don't need to over-prepare for everything, you'd be okay. But it's taken a while to get to that point.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

So I'm delivering the presentation tomorrow. And what I typically do before those now is I I think we may have talked about this buff. I go to the toilet like a million times, and nothing that people in the queue behind me are like, what on earth is going on with this woman? Has she got a serious issue? But it it's the breathing exercises, it's the kind of reminding yourself, okay, my job here is to be useful. I'm just here to impart information, no one's looking at my hair, like it's fine. Because one of the tricky things, I think it's a it's a common fear of people's, isn't it? Public speaking. And there's nothing worse than getting up there. And I've definitely been in this position where you get up, you look at all these faces, someone's picking their nose, someone looks bored, someone's giving you a kind of dead cod face look, as my husband would put it. And you start to lose your nerve. And then Hector comes out or Hester and starts saying, Well, you're rubbish, I'm Marie, no one cares anyway, shut up, you're talking rubbish. Um, so it's almost like I find in those really anxious moments trying to kind of narrow my awareness of what's going on. Because sometimes I'll get it when I'm driving on the motorway, where if I'm feeling particularly, you know, stressed, or I remember driving up um uh to for a funeral a couple of years ago and getting really anxious on the journey because I'd suddenly became aware that I'm driving at 70 miles an hour. This is crazy. Why am I doing this? So it's not that helpful in many ways to have that kind of awareness. Obviously, you have to be aware on the motorway listeners, taking that awareness, narrowing it a little bit, and and yeah, like I say, when you stand up in front of people, not uh, you know, deciding who you're going to look at, who looks friendly, scoping out the room beforehand, I think really helps, you know, sort of getting the feel of how it feels to be up there in front of um, you know, at the front of the room. Um, all of that sort of preparation helps as well, I think. And I guess, yeah, a lot of the work that we do is trying to make um working as a lawyer more comfortable in a way, you know, to the extent that you can. You can't control and change everything about the law firm that you work at, but you can make minor adjustments to how you work. If you're working remotely, have a I always have a hot water bottle on my lap and my fluffy slippers, you know, like silly things like this, like it sends cues to the brain, I think, that it's okay. You're all right.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

I think that's it. It's it's small adjustments. Um, and I I like that what you said about then narrowing awareness. Yes, because 'cause that I I certainly do that now in in in presentations where I just I I think well hold on, well I I feel stressed and anxious, but what but what what what is the next best thing I can do is just actually deliver my presentation. Um and it's something about that comes up again a lot with lawyers who just reminding me is about being able to control situations. You can't control every situation, but in a way their brains are wired to try and control situations so that overthinking down on these loops to try and control a situation, which they can't control. So saying with the public speaking bit, I just think focus on what I can control, which is me delivering my presentation. What they think about me, I can't really control that. I mean, I can influence it to a point, but I can't really control it. So it's accepting that that you can't control every situation is a big leap for a lot of lawyers. Because in the day job, they aren't trying to do that. You know, with every eventuality that might come up that they've got a solution for. But in life, it's not like that. What you can control is back yourself to respond to that uncertainty, uncertain event when it happens, if it happens. But the moment, over catastrophizing, is it helping you?

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Well, it's probably quite a good time. Uh, you know, I I with my producer's hat on, I'm looking at the clock and thinking it's ticking, the time is ticking down, but but Bav, you must have some top tips that you can share with us. And and and Marie, I'm sure, I'm sure you do uh have uh tips as well, or anything that you've you've learned to do. I mean, let's get it all out on the table.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

So I would say, look, firstly, uh, understand what's going on, right? What's happening with your nervous system? Um, it's been triggered, right? What is going on? Why has it been aroused in this way? Um, you know, so so to understand what's happening and that but psychoeducation for a lot of people just helps them to know that something's happened, bang, adrenaline cortisol, but is it proportionate to the situation, right? So first thing. So the second second thing is to kind of be compassionate with it, be compassionate with your anxiety, understand that he's trying to trying to protect you. You don't need to fight it, fighting won't work, you don't need to reach for caffeine, alcohol, other substances. It it might help, it might feel okay in the short term, but actually it's not gonna stop it, it's not really gonna help. Um regulate your body when when you feel triggered. Um the breathing exercise I talked about, but anything that works for you, I think a couple of minutes is it is okay, but don't just sit with it. Do something with it. Move, it um ignite your senses, do something. Um when you find yourself getting into those thinking patterns, those kind of uh which which are catastrophizing or overthinking, just ask yourself, is this actually helping you right now? What actually am I in control of what's the next best thing I can do? And just try to become friends with your anxiety, which is I know bizarre to think about, but it is trying to help you. So try and visualize it, have your dialogue with it when you feel comfortable too. But first, it doesn't notice when it comes up and what and and what it says and what the patterns are.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

I think for me, like I know I'm quite sort of highly geared, except at like three in the afternoon when I have this kind of slump of energy. So I I think a lot of my anxiety and other people's anxiety is when your insides don't match your outsides, you're there's a kind of mismatch between what's going on. I think this is why lawyers often struggle with quiet times at work. And Andrew, you were talking about that thing in the media, which we have as well, as self-employed therapists of oh my god, I'm never going to work again if you know you have a quiet spell and then next week you're moaning because you've got too much work. So trying to get kind of release some of my excess energy. At the moment, I'm very much enjoying the trolls soundtrack, the trolls movie, which my three-year-old has really got me into, which is um a wonderful thing. Um, but I I think also the last two things I would say is graded exposure. I always think about. We talk about this a lot in therapy, don't we, Bav? So we talked about public speaking. You know, it would have been very easy for Bav or an I to go years ago, oh, I'm I I can't do that. It's too anxiety provoking. I'm never going to do that again. But often, if you're anxious about something, it sometimes it's a sign that it means something to you. You know, your values are connected to it. So trying to expose yourself to it a little bit in a in a measured way, you know, just as if you were afraid of a spy of spiders, you know, you'd first of all try to sit in a room with a small spider in the corner of it. And then over time you'd find yourself able to sit with a tarantula on your hand. I must stress, I've never done this, but I'm sure it works. I am, you know, grained exposure. And and my like I said, you know, my thing I always I always think about is my job is to be useful whenever I'm absolutely can I say like cacking my pants? Can I say that? Sorry. Sorry for the imagery. I I just your job is to be useful. Just go and be useful.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Well, that's great. Thank you for that. And I'm I'm also going to just throw in now, by the way, if you've listened to this show, uh uh, if your name is Hester and you are an accountant, if you get in touch with Anne Marie on her LinkedIn page, we'll send you a t-shirt.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Thank you so much to Bav for joining us today on Stain Sane in Law. It's been a pleasure to have you. Um, you can find Bav at carvalliotherapy.com. That's C-A-R-V-A-L-H-O. And you can find me at my LinkedIn page at LinkedIn.com slash in slash Amerie Carvalho. You can also find my legal agony column in the Financial Times on Thursdays in their newsletter. And do check out our other episodes of this podcast at stainsaneinlaws.budsprout.com or wherever you get your podcasts. So, Bav, please take it away.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Uh thank you, uh Marie Andrew. And I really enjoyed this, and I hope the listeners find this useful. Take care.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Thank you. Thank you so much, Bav. And remember, dear listeners, we're all a little bit wonky.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

You know, my chimp is constantly there, and I sort of I've been ignoring him. I need to have him drawn out, right? I need to draw it out and have a constructive dialogue. What do I do? How do I get my chimp out?

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Yeah, okay. Is that a serious question?

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Don't get your chimp out in public, is my advice. You see, now I'm even more anxious.