WMH Season 3 Ep 4: Quick Hacks to Improve Anxiety, Depression, Relationships and Coping Skills

This is a transcript of Watching Mental Health Season 3, Episode 4 which you can watch and listen to here:

Katie Waechter:

Welcome to another episode of Watching Mental Health. I'm so excited to see you here today, and we're going to just jump right in because that's how we roll today. We are officially in season three and we're kicking it off with some amazing guests. So I'm really excited because today is going to be featuring a mental health provider, Lindsey Carnick, and she's going to bring her expertise in anxiety, depression, stress, and relationship issues to light. And I think that's so valuable because I think that all of us are maybe feeling a little bit anxious and depressed or stressed out these days. And that's okay because she is known for sharing practical strategies to enhance mental health, mental wellbeing, and she's going to bring a few of those hacks, tips, and tricks to today's episode. So without further ado, I'm going to bring her on so she can talk a little bit more about herself. So with that, come on board. Lindsey, I'd love to have you as a guest.

Lindsey Carnick: Hi, Katie. Good to see you.

Katie: Hi. Thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited.

Lindsey: It's a pleasure.

Katie: And we don't really know each other too well. We met online, and so this is going to be a learning episode for me, I think as much as everybody else. And so I'm really just excited to jump right in. And so with that, just tell me a little bit more about yourself, your background and what brought you to the mental health field.

Lindsey: Well, I have a private practice that serves folks, adult individuals, and couples in 10 states. I am based out of Colorado. And what really keeps me riveted by this field and by doing the work I do, is that I've always been a story junkie. I mean, I really love stories and I love to write and I love literature and I've always loved to read. And really for me, what this work is about is the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we tell other people, and how we make meaning out of those stories and the ramifications of those, meaning making processes for how we understand our experience and what we think is possible, what we do with it. This work combines two things that are probably my first love, which are people and stories, and then you add in a little bit, excuse me, a lot of literary dork of the highest order, who loves to talk about meaning and symbolism and all the things that make stories so powerful for us. And there it is.

Katie: I love that. Oh my gosh, we would be really great friends. I'm all about the meaning behind things and sometimes you need that. And so I see you're filled with literature behind you. I think that's so awesome. And

Lindsey: That's the cold collection, that's the spars. I now give away books I've read as gifts. That's the new policy, one in one out, it's got a one

Katie: In one right now. I should start implementing that policy too. I think there's too many books, but

Lindsey: Otherwise they fallen out of the pantry. You go in for some oat oatmeal and a novel falls out, clunk everywhere. I can't make that for breakfast. That's not going to work.

Katie: Right. That's awesome. Well, I love that. I like that you bring storytelling and thoughts of philosophy and meaning to psychology and to mental health. How long have you been in the field? How long have you really been doing this work for?

Lindsey: I've been a licensed clinical social worker for 15 years. I got into it a little before that in a sort of interesting roundabout way. It started out with a volunteer job that was absolutely fascinating, a volunteer opportunity that was absolutely fascinating to me, and one thing sort of led to another. So I would say formally about 15 years.

Katie: That's beautiful. Yeah, I think that everyone comes in either with a story or they didn't mean to, and it just kind of happens and then it winds up being their calling. So tell me a little bit more about your specialties and kind of the things that you focus on with your patients.

Lindsey: My specialty is helping people move forward. I would like it for myself and for also everybody I know to spend more time living their life and less time talking and thinking about it. I think ultimately that's the goal for most people, right? It's like nobody wants to spend more time in the dentist's office. I mean, I love my dentist, don't get me wrong. I have many dentist friends. They're all lovely people, and I would like to spend time out in the world eating ice cream, not being in the dental chair. And I think we could think very similarly about therapy. So for me, I think my specialty, if we were to say something above and beyond a clinical diagnosis or a specific set of difficulties is helping people dial into what it is they need meaningfully to move forward on the things that are holding them back or seem like barriers or stuck points to how they want to be living so that they can get on with their lives. That's what I love about this work is seeing people get on with their lives and get to the place they want to be and the places they imagine being. It's so exciting.

Katie: That is. I think that that's wonderful. And a lot of people don't talk about that. They don't talk about the other side of therapy and what coming out of it might look like. And so I think that's really beautiful. You're always trying to move people through. And it sounds like you have some amazing tips and tricks, and I've been checking out your Instagram. So if somebody is coming to you and struggling with maybe stress and anxiety, what's the first thing you would say to them?

Lindsey: Well, the first thing I would say is good for you for wanting something to be different. Well done you. That's huge. So many of us at different points in our lives, and I don't know a person who this isn't true for, have sort of habituated to or accepted those experiences a way of life and kind of gone like, well, this is it. This situation, this job, fill in the blank, and I guess I'm just going to have to put up with this or tolerate or live this way and sleep deprived, upset stomach, all the things that we think about quality of life, issues that can go along with the high levels of distress. And they've just sort of resigned themselves to that. And so the first thing I would say to anybody is good on you, that you want something better for yourself and that you recognize that it can be challenging to even contemplate change. And it can be daunting to think about how change happens or to imagine change happening mean are a lot of, there's a reason there are so many jokes about change being hard. It is generally even when it's a good change, it can be really hard. And often with change we're gaining something, but there's also some loss. And no matter how much we stand to gain, there's always a little bit of loss. And those are very real things. So good on anyone who's even considering a change.

And secondly, certainly good on anyone who says they want some help with that. We rely on all sorts of people in our lives, professionals to know more than we do about something because that's their JOB and go to them for help. I definitely don't fill my own cavities. I don't work on my own teeth. I don't cut my own hair. There are many, many things. I don't change my own oil. I don't change my new tires. Most things I ask somebody else who has some real expertise in that area and getting good results to help me out with these things. And there's really beyond no shame in that. That's called smart. That's called don't try and reinvent the wheel and not do it as well as the people who invented the wheel. Right.

Katie: Oh my gosh, that's so true. I just love that perspective on it. And it's so true. I mean, it really is. Change is hard, even good change, but wanting change and then taking the steps to make that change, that's hard.

I know that a lot of people who are struggling, they struggle to find a therapist. It can be very challenging to find a therapist in today's world for sure. And so for them just to make those steps to get in front of you as a professional, that's powerful and to acknowledge that is amazing.

Lindsey: Absolutely. And I think one of the things that strikes me as the most interesting is we seem to make this very interesting differentiation between, so for example, most people who don't work on cars feel fairly comfortable saying like, oh, well I don't work on cars. I may fill in the blank accountant, so of course I'm going to take my car to Jiffy Lube, right? Yeah, my car. But when it comes to my mind, we seem to think we should be experts

In this way, that we would never assume that I should be an expert about my car, but my mind or my plumbing or my HVAC or whatever the thing is, but go with my mind. It's in my head, ergo, I should know exactly what to do with that and how to give it a tuneup or how to get it to run differently or all the possible automotive analogies we can come up with here. So I really applaud people on a secondary level for being able to sort of recognize that unfair metric that somehow this culture has created around, well, it's fine to take your car to a professional, but your mind, you should know inside and out and you should know what to do with immediately. That's absolute bunk. So I love it when people have the courage and the will to say no. What's important is that I get help with this issue, not that I do it myself anymore than as importantly, change your own oil. I mean, if you love doing that power to you, not some sort of merit badge for knowing how to change your own oil, if there is, I'm missing out on it and I will continue. And that's okay.

Katie: We don't need that merit badge. I don't need every merit badge. It's not

Lindsey: A merit badge, it's just a badge. I think that's the thing we got to be clear about and we can spend our lives chasing the badges. There are about a zillion badges that I'm not going to get in my lifetime of all the badges. I'm going to get many fewer than there are possible by an order of magnitude. And I have to be okay with that.

Katie: And that's okay. Exactly. And I think that it frees up more times for what's important in life, like you were saying, living it instead of just chasing what you think you should be or that sense of perfection or this kind of work, work world that we live in right now.

Lindsey: Do it yourself. The DIY is king, right? Do it yourself. Do it yourself. Do it yourself. Do it yourself. Why there are people who do it better than I do.

Katie: Exactly. And you need to be okay with asking for help. So yeah, that's so true. So with somebody who is in front of you and who is experiencing maybe a lot of anxiety around maybe the state of the world today, I know that given our current political climate, depending on what size you're on, you can be very anxious right now. What are some tips or tricks you might give to somebody who maybe is feeling that intense stress?

Lindsey: Sure. Couple of things, and certainly we're going to keep it very general and high level, and we want to be clear that this is not mental health advice. We're not giving advice or clinical direction here. We want you to seek out therapist if you'd like.

Katie: Exactly. Everyone's different. Their human journeys are different. What'll work for me won't work for someone else.

Lindsey: Absolutely. But having said that, I think the first thing that can be really, really helpful for all of us is to recognize something that we often miss, that we often sort of sweep past. And that's myself included. And to recognize as Dr. Chad Lajeune says that he's my favorite working psychologist, he says, in essence, don't mistake the alarm for the problem. Don't mistake the alarm for the problem. An alarm is not a problem. An alarm is an indicator that there could be a problem. So for anybody who has ever accidentally set off the smoke detector with a hot shower or burning something in the oven, there's not a fire. I mean, I don't know how badly your baking goes, but there could be, but there's not yet. Yes. It's not usually indicating that it's that kind of fire. It isy stingy going on in the bottom of your oven because some apple cobbler goo has now hit the bottom and it's a fire, but there's not a fire fire. So anxiety and anxious thoughts are alarms that may or may not, in the same way that a fire alarm may or may not be indicating an actual fire

Alarm. And we commonly mistake the alarm for the fire.

And in nine cases out of 10, when somebody hears their fire alarm go off, there's no fire. There's maybe a drill, there's maybe something smoke in the oven. If you're in a school, maybe some kid definitely pull the fire alarm or whatever. There's not an actual fire. And so being able to acknowledge that, oh, the system's working really well, the alarm system is spot on, it's reading the room, it's sharply. Yes. And also being able to say, and that doesn't mean that there's a fire, is very, very important. And I think that's a good starting place for anybody whose alarm is going off a little more often than they'd like to. I had a wonder, wonderful. It's relative, but I had a really funny experience in my life with a carbon monoxide detector that went off because it got kicked in essence, and the person who kicked it triggered the test cycle when everybody was asleep.

And of course, this thing goes off. You never hear that thing go off, not even when it's low battery. It that's scary. That's a scary alarm. And all of a sudden there's this alarm driven carbon monoxide, carbon monoxide, this is the end. This is the end. And it feels so real because it's the job of the neurology, it's the job of the fight or flight system to make you run when there is a threat. And in this modern world, I like to say we're running new software on old hardware, and the old hardware is either on or off on that whole fight or flight business. It's not like a dimmer switch. There are not many levels of gray there. So we get to experience that, acknowledge it for what it is, and then say, okay, now I need to investigate further. Is this alarm also indicating a fire or is it indicating a low battery in the alarm or that somebody kicked the carbon monoxide detector? It's a starting point,

Katie: Not

Lindsey: A conclusion. And often we confuse it for a conclusion.

Katie: Yes, it's the point where you can start the investigation and then decide after looking at, after looking at everything, am I safe? Am I safe right here? Oftentimes you just need to remind yourself of that if you're feeling that fight or flight mode. I love what you said. I had never heard that before. We're running new technology off of old hardware. I feel like that is so stinking true. I feel like our human brains we're not meant to handle the amount of technology and information. This internet world that we created, we're all kind of on edge, right?

Lindsey:

Absolutely. And I mean, I think there's no anthropologists. Let's be very clear about that. And I don't play one on tv, but I think we can be very clear that in earlier points in human history and development, there were not so many shades of gray. An alarm was a fire nine times out of 10, right? Threats were threats and not threats were not threats, and there was nothing in between. And then we developed abstract language and our ability to think in symbols and our ability to abstract about what might happen, and now the fight or flight system is running in hyper drive in response to thinking instead of events, you and I could sit here together. You're in your climate controlled, lovely environment, and I'm in my climate controlled lovely environment. And despite the fact that we are safe as kittens.

Everything is lovely in our environment, you and I could sit here and raise our blood pressure just by thinking easily. Everybody has this experience. And we could pick something that on a scale of zero to 10, with zero being no distress and 10 being absolutely panic stricken, we could pick something in the six to eight range, and you and I could work ourselves into absolute frenzy in under two minutes, maybe 90 seconds depending on what we picked. And that physiological, very real physiological response would be purely in response to thinking, because we would've introduced thinking into this perfectly serene, safe environment. And that's all it takes. That's all it takes. The neurology does not distinguish between real and imaginary threats. This is why movies work. You can be sitting people who like horror movies, I find this fantastic, can be sitting in a movie theater watching some gory slash or whatever, and they're eating popcorn and junior men's and drinking diet Coke right now. My understanding is when people actually get murdered in the real world, they're not usually spectators eating popcorn and junior men's and slurping diet coke. That's not a thing. So despite the fact that people who are sitting in those movie theaters have these anchors to the fact that they're literally anchors to the fact that this is not real, this has never been less, obviously not real. Nobody watches this happen and eats popcorn and junior mints, and yet the body goes every time whatever happens is the jump

Scare. The scare. Exactly. Or just the buildup, in my case, scary music, and I'm out the door on the ceiling. So it's such an interesting proof of concept that our fight or flight system cannot tell the difference. Tom Cruise isn't actually dangling off an airplane runner. He's you're eating popcorn. Those two things don't go together. And yet your heart rate is up. You're maybe a little clammy hand, you're sweating, you're like, or I think about that documentary, I don't know if you ever saw free solo, right? About the climber? Yes, I know. Before I see it, that guy lives and goes on to climb. I can't

Katie: Want to

Lindsey: Put myself through that. You don't do it. I completely agree. And despite the fact that you can fully know that Alex Holl is completely fine, you are in there watching him do these climbs, and you're like, where's my paper bag? Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. There is nothing on earth that's going to convince your fight or flight system that what you're seeing, that what you're imagining is not real.

Katie: That is so interesting. And our evolution as humans, I mean, it's really interesting to see how we respond in a modern world with, like you said, with an old hardware,

Lindsey: And everything's a paper tiger in the modern world, right? Because again, the neurology doesn't know. It doesn't make these distinctions between a what if and a it is. No, it doesn't.

Katie: Yeah. There's always a tiger. There's always a lion,

Lindsey: Always a tiger.

Katie: Yes.

Lindsey: And if it's not literally a drooling lion, it's the next iteration down the continuum and the continuum all ends up in the same place of fear of annihilation. So the neurology doesn't differentiate on that either,

Katie: Right? Yeah, boy. So it seems like stepping away from that information, overload from those triggers and regrounding yourself in present and just to remind yourself that, hey, the tiger isn't right next to you and you are safe. It seems like that in many ways is the first step for us as humans in a modern world.

Lindsey: I think that's true. And I think for me, and many people I know and that I've worked with, there's a really good one step question for this that'll in some ways, for some people, jolt them back. It kind of anchors them back. And what I encourage people to do is take a piece of anything you can write on, and it doesn't matter if it's the back of a receipt or a cocktail napkin or your college dissertation does not matter. This is not for posterity. Just find something and write it down. Is this thing happening right now? Is this thing happening right now? And it's powerful because what that does for us is allows us to diffuse as the act therapist call and diffuse, when we get caught up in thinking and we get fused to the thinking as if it were reality itself, instead of observations about a possible reality, we confuse thoughts about reality for reality.

Katie: So what you're saying is writing it down is that diffusing

Lindsey: Writing it down and the question is it happening right now, illustrate to you in a heartbeat the difference between what's fought land and what's concrete reality land. So again, if you and I ran the experiment where we're sitting here in our lovely climate control environments and somebody sets a stopwatch and they say, okay, guys, go think about the thing that upsets you. And you and I work ourselves into a tizzy and like 90 seconds flat.

And what makes us tizzy, what makes us fret is that we're caught up in that fantasy, that thinking fantasy. We're fused to it. We're experiencing it as if the thinking is happening, as if we're actually in it. It's like being in a dream and then waking up and being like, oh my gosh, did that not happen? Wow. It felt so real, right? It felt so real. And when you can say, that's not happening right now is simply the yes or no even. No, it's not happening right now. You go, oh, well then how is it here with me?

Katie: Oh, I'm

Lindsey: Thinking about it. Oh, it's a thought. Oh, that's a thought. Those have a lot of power for something I can't see, smell, touch, or lick. Right? Wow. Yikes. But it's still just a thought.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely.

Lindsey: And that question, I think helps us let some of the fuel, a lot of the fuel out of the thought and reposition it as just a thought, as opposed to a capital T truth. They both start with T, and that's where the similarities end. Otherwise, thoughts and truths are very, very different.

Katie: Yes, absolutely. Oh my gosh. And it feels almost like the asking that question and writing it down, is that going back to the analogy of the alarm is us investigating

Lindsey: In

Katie: That heartbeat of a second. So that's really, really cool.

Lindsey: And I think the act folks have pointed this out in a million different ways. If you can identify something as a thought identification, which is labeling is a way of pointing at something, you go, that's that. That's a thought, that's a, that's a song, that's a dog, that's a cat, that's a human, that's a spaceship. Labeling an identification is being able to point at something. Yes. And name it. And as soon as you point at something, I don't know how long my finger is, my guess is about three inches, I got short, stubby, little hands. You've created space between you, and even if it's just two and a half inches, you've created space between you and it and space between you and it. Oh, that's all you need to breathe.

Katie: Oh my God.

Lindsey: It is about two and a half inches. You can take a really deep breath. Oh, it's a thought. Oh, it's over there. And I'm over here. I know that because I'm pointing at it. And in order to point something, I got to be over here pointing at the thing that's over there. Right. Oh, thank goodness. I'm over here. It's over there. I got my eye on it. It's good.

Katie: Oh my gosh. Wow. You're just filled with wisdom. I love it. So let's shift a little bit. We only have a few minutes left, but I wanted to ask you more on your thoughts on relationships. I know relationships is something that you've talked about in the past and your content and just talking about people, again, relationships are so valuable. We needed them in our caveman days, and I think that we still need them today. So I want to get your thoughts on that.

Lindsey: I love that. I mean, yes to all of that. I think we could say some interesting things about what need means to different people and how people kind of construct that and what that looks like perhaps in different kinds of relationships. Are these platonic relationships, not platonic relationships, professional relationships, mentorships, studentships, all sorts of relationships. And I think this culture, interestingly, puts a tremendous value on romantic relationships. Most cultures do, although romantic is sort of relative. I think most cultures put a premium on some sort of pairing, but not necessarily romantic. This culture is obsessed with romantic of it. Yes, exactly. And I think this is a tricky culture to figure out what kind of relationships are the most meaningful and fulfilling to you, because we do get a lot of messages about what is we should want. And some of those messages are the tail end of very monolithic, moneymaking industries, which doesn't make them right or wrong, but it is something I think we need to be aware of in the same way that we would want to be aware of any messaging we get and where that's coming from, and be clear that it's on us to get radically bold about defining these things for ourselves

And defining what's important to us and what's meaningful and what's a value add. And if there's a kind of relationship in your life that's a value add to you, great. Get more of those as long as it's safe and doesn't hurt you or anybody else. But that doesn't have to be a romantic relationship. And many people, I think, feel pressured to have that relationship in a way that I think is neither representative of what's necessarily helpful, nor do I think is life affirming for people, quite frankly, because relationships with other people, connection with other people can come from so many different kinds of relationships, not just romantic relationships, which are overemphasized because there's a bazillion dollar industry behind it.

Katie: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's almost like you're giving, and you don't need to because nobody needs permission, but it's almost like giving permission to somebody to say, Hey, stop trying to chase the love. Just go for the connection. It doesn't need to be a romantic connection. If you find that that's wonderful, but relationships are not just about that. And yeah, I think you're right. We put so much pressure on ourselves.

Lindsey: Oh, we really, really do. We really do. And I think it makes people very unhappy. And I think it also sets up this measuring stick that is really harmful, that even I think many people, as is probably true with a lot of different experiences, can sort of on the one hand say, oh yeah, I shouldn't feel pressured to, I don't. But on the other hand, they kind of do. And it's kind of this struggle to sort of push back and also recognize that sometimes it gets to you and maybe you do feel like that, and that's okay. It doesn't mean you've caved to some cultural force. It just means it's really out there and it's really omnipresent. And when you're surrounded by stuff and noise, after a while, your ears will start to ring. So to anybody who's frustrated with that, I say, and rightly so, because we receive, especially women in this country, receive a lot of mixed messages in this culture, I should say, a lot of mixed messages about be independent, be your own person, cultivate your own growth, and do it all. And also make sure you're married or partnered off or something by the time you're at age with Exactly. Exactly. Do it all. Do it all. Yeah. We get some really mixed messages that I think can be fairly destructive. And I say, push back on that junk. Push back, actually, don't waste your energy pushing back. Just ignore,

Pushing back requires energy expenditure.

Katie: Right. Exactly.

Lindsey: Yeah. Turn your energy to what feeds you and what feels meaningful to you, and you've got the rest of your life and things change. And who knows, stay open to the possibilities, but don't feel like you have to meet some metric when somebody else or some cultural force is holding up a measuring stick.

Katie: Right. Absolutely. And don't feel stuck. Don't make it. You don't have to feel stuck. And so that leads me to my last question, and I think I know your answer on this, but I want to get your thoughts, and I ask pretty much every professional who comes on, and that is, do you think that a mental health challenge or a diagnosis specifically is something that people can overcome or is it something that really sticks with them that there's a part of them for the rest of their lives? Or is it somewhere in the middle?

Lindsey: Well, a diagnosis itself is a label. And labels are interesting because sometimes they do a really great job describing people's experience in shorthand, and sometimes they don't.

Sometimes they describe that experience accurately and well for a specific point in time. And sometimes that's a shorter era than others. So I think what I would say is I most certainly believe and have seen very many times over that mental health struggles, broadly construed, are experiences that people have and that absolutely you can move through those. And overcome is also an interesting word. I'm not sure that we have to get everything in the rear view mirror in order to move through it, because some parts of this are parts of the human experience.

And so do I believe that people can have the life they want? Absolutely. And whether that life does or does not include a label or a kind of experience, I think that's something that everybody has to decide for themselves. Is that the thing that's a barrier to my quality of life and to what degree do I need to address that thing in order to have the quality of life that I want? Or how much of that thing can I have and still have the quality of life? I have aging anxiety and a very high quality of life. Right. And so that's okay. Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's less great, and I work on it and I'm always moving through it, and I'm not going to wait to be through it or over it to live my life.

Katie: Right, right, right. Yeah. And I like what you said, sometimes a label can be good, but sometimes it can hold you back, and I think comes down to each of us to decide what that will do for our quality of life and how to move through that without having to put everything in the rear view mirror. That's beautiful. You're filled with puns and wisdom, and I think that's awesome. I think it's because of your literary background, to be honest. I really love it. So I know we're over time, but I want to end it on this question, which is anyone who's maybe looking for a good book to read around mental health, around mental wellness, what are a few of your Mount Rushmore, so to speak, of books you might recommend?

Lindsey: Oh, my Mount Rushmore books. I love this so much. How many figures can we have? How big is the Rock? All the presidents, seriously. So the ones that jumped to front of mind immediately, one is a book called You Are The One You've Been Waiting for by Richard Schwartz, and doesn't that title just make the hair on the back of your neck Stand up. Oh, so good. You are the one you've been waiting for, resonates with almost everybody I've ever met. It resonates with me. I've read it many, many times, and every time I read it, I get something more out of it. It is a digestible read. It's not too dense, and I think it is tremendously good. I highly recommend that one. Highly recommend a recent book called Body Image. Body Self by Otto, and I am forgetting the second author's name. I'm remiss Body Image. Body Self. Really interesting book written by two clinicians who specialize in eating disorder treatment. And the book is geared towards individuals who have struggled with body image and body struggling with body image could mean a lot of different things. And that's intentional.

So body image, body self has a really wonderful piece of wisdom and observation at its heart. And one of those is that often when we struggle with body image, it is an externalized reflection of something going on internally that we have yet to name. And their way of exploring that idea and walking people through an ability to look at their thoughts about body image and then examine those thoughts and work their way, sort of reverse engineer their way back to what else might be going on. Because two days ago you weren't worried about that. You felt fine about your fill in the blank. Something must have changed internally, not external. Your cheekbones didn't change in two days and you felt fine about this two days ago. Right. Such a wonderful book, well written, well executed. Those are the two that jumped to mind most quickly.

Katie: Wonderful. Thank you. I'm excited for those books. I'm definitely going to read them and I just, because actually haven't read those two, so I'm really glad you recommended too. I haven't read, so that's awesome. Wonderful. Well, I think we're going to end it there. I'm just so grateful to have you as a guest. I'd love to have you back anytime. Thank you.

Anyone who's watching or listening and wants to know how to get in contact with you or more about your Instagram, how can people look up?

Lindsey: My Instagram is Onward Psych Services. I post every Wednesday, I do a practical, tactical coping skill video. They're really fun. I love making them. They make me tremendously happy. Instagram's a great place to find me. My company is called Onward Psychological Services. You can find me online at onwardpsychservices.com. That's my company website. I'm on LinkedIn. You can actually, this is crazy. I have a phone number. You can use that thing to do this thing, which I know is antiquated. I don't that anymore. I know it's weird retro, right? Yeah. My phone number's on my website. People are welcome to give me a call or submit a contact us form or email me all that information's on my website. I'm always happy to hear from folks. Wonderful.

Katie: And then I know people are struggling to find therapists. Are you open to new patients? Do you accept insurance? Are you cash based? Just tell us a little bit more about that.

Lindsey: I'm cash based and then I provide superbills. Yeah, and to anybody who's struggling to find a therapist, there's some really good directories out there. There's a directory called Zen Care that I think is quite good. There's another one called Best Therapist that's quite good. The directories work fairly well, and you can usually, if you want to use insurance or you know that you want a specific kind of therapist, you can usually filter by several things of that nature at a time. And I want to encourage anybody who's thinking about seeing a therapist, whether it's for the first time or the 40th time or whatever, don't be deterred. If you set up with somebody and you start and it's not a good fit for you, you don't have to justify that. You don't have to explain it any more than you have to explain to somebody who you don't like the haircut they gave you.

You really don't. You just make a new appoint with somebody else. And sometimes it takes a couple people to find the right fit for you at that point in your life or for what you're dealing with, but you really owe it to yourself to get yourself connected with somebody who seems like a good fit for you in all of the ways. And don't be afraid to move on if after one session or five sessions or 10 sessions, something becomes apparent to you that it's not the right fit for you. This is your life and therapy is hard work, and you should be doing it with somebody who you feel good about, who you feel understands you, gets you and understands what you're trying to get done, and seems equally motivated to help you get that done. Don't settle for anything less. It's too much energy and it's too important.

Katie: I love that. That's such great advice. I'm really glad we're ending it on that because yes, a lot of people will try and then it won't be a right fit and they might give up and don't give up. Keep going, keep going until you find somebody because they are out there and they can be so helpful once you find that right fit. And so

Lindsey: Really grateful. Truly, it's not a badge of honor to stay with a therapist that you don't feel like is a good fit. Please don't do that. Right. Neither

Katie: One of you need that.

Lindsey: Yeah, no harm, no foul. Just go on to the next person. Find somebody you like or that you respect and that feels like the right

Katie: Thing. Yeah. Because again, that relationship matters, right? And so you want to make sure that it's with somebody who you feel comfortable with.

Lindsey: Absolutely.

Katie: Great advice. Wonderful, wonderful. I hope everyone's listening to that. And with that, we'll end it there, but tune in Live very first and third Wednesday of the month to Watching Mental Health and then catch all of our episodes. We're going to have your episode up on my website next wednesday at katierosewaechter.com , so you can see all old episodes there. And in the meantime, I am so excited. This was such a great conversation. I'd love to have you back anytime. And thanks

Lindsey: Everybody. Thanks, Katie. My absolute pleasure. I'd love to be back. Thanks for having me.

Katie: Thank you so much. All right, have a great one. Bye!