Episode 15: Anxiety

Welcome to Wisdom from the Area of View, a podcast of two friends sitting around talking about things that annoy us, upset us, make us happy, make us sad. Today we're gonna talk about something that we're all going through, anxiety. But I wanna read from a quote that's actually on the book written by Donna Brazile, New York Times bestselling author, veteran political strategist. She says, and I think it's important for this conversation today, she said that in this inviting and insightful work, Klein has given us the tools, the vision, and the perspective to turn a worsening crisis, the state of our mental and emotional lives, into a shared rallying point to not simply address the crisis, but to turn this fraught moment into a launching pad for a better way of doing things. We are all, at least I am, feeling so much anxiety lately that it disturbs our sleep, it disturbs what we're doing. But having now read this book and having had many, many, conversations with you, I'm coming to terms with how to deal with it. So let's talk about anxiety today and tell us how best to deal with it.

Well, good morning, Enid and good morning, everybody. So happy to see you as always, Enid. It's always a great joy for me. And obviously, I love that we spend this time doing this podcast. You mentioned why we, that we're two friends talking about things, but you and I decided when we initiated this podcast, that the whole point was to make lives better for people, to make their lives better and in turn, hopefully make the world better. It's not an exaggeration. It's not hyperbole. That's really what we're after.

All right.

And what better way to do that than to help people deal with their anxiety? So this is an interesting fact that is a relatively new fact. The United States Preventive Service Task Force, which is the government group that decides what tests we should have, whether we should have mammography for breast cancer screening, colonoscopy or other types of screening for colorectal cancer, blood test levels, looking for prostate cancer. These are all decided. by this group called the United States Preventive Services Task Force. Most Americans have no idea it exists, but it does. And their job is to say, this test is worth having and this test isn't. They came out with a recommendation, within the last couple of years, I believe, last few years certainly, that Americans should be screened for anxiety. Well, that's so interesting. Why did they come up with that? It turns out...

that Americans should be screened for anxiety. That's so interesting. Why did they come up with that? It turns out that about 40 % of women and 26 % of men

that about 40 % of women and 26 % of men, now by the way, I'm not sure, this is their data, I don't know where they got it from. This is the United States Preventative Services Task Force data, that 40 % of women and 26 % of men will experience anxiety in their lives. That is a huge number. That's almost half of women and more than a quarter of men. And I think the male numbers are probably low. I think my guess is it's not.

Is it self-reported? Is it self-reported? Is that it? Yeah.

I don't know how they got the numbers actually, but I'm guessing that the male numbers are artificially low. Women are probably much more likely to admit they have a problem than men. So my guess is they're probably very similar. So 40 % of the population, let's say, has anxiety. That's pretty much the amount of people that have diabetes. It's a big, big number. Well, if you're testing for diabetes, you can get blood tests. You can get a glucose, serum glucose level or an A1C. lot of people know what that is. It's a reflection of

Yeah. Right.

It's basically historical data on how much glucose you've had circulating in your body. So it's pretty easy to figure out somebody has diabetes, right? Well, what's the test for anxiety? Has anybody ever told you about a blood test or an imaging test? You go to your local diagnostic imaging center and say, need one of these x-rays for anxiety. No, there's no test.

imaging test.

All right.

So the idea is that because there's no way to easily diagnose this, that we should screen, we should ask people basically, are you anxious? Do you suffer from anxiety? That doctors and other clinicians, nurse practitioners, PAs, anybody who's dealing with patients should ask the patients so that we can uncover this. Why? The idea is if you catch it quote early, you can deal with it. So there are a lot of factors in that equation that may or may not be true. You know, can you... If you catch it early, can you improve it? I have no idea, nor do I think there's anybody else, but that's the premise. The point is that this government group that decides who should get mammograms and colorectal screening has identified anxiety as equally as important in importance to these medical situations. So it's a big deal. And one of the reasons I wrote Wisdom from the Aerial View is because once you discover the Aerial View, become comfortable

Once you discover the LPL, you become comfortable spending time in the LPL, you literally can crush your anxiety. Anxiety does to me. In fact, I believe that LPL is a false statement. It sure is. That is a big, statement. And if I were listening to this, I'd say, oh yeah, good shot, prove it. OK. That's what I was going to tell you. Let's prove it. Before we do, before you prove it, I have a couple of questions. Number one.

spending time in the Aerial View, you literally can crush your anxiety. Anxiety does diminish and in fact, I believe can go completely away. That's a tall statement. Now, that is a big, powerful statement. And if I were listening to this, I'd say, yeah, big shot, prove it. Okay. Well, it's, all right. Yeah. Let's prove it.

Just by being screened, if somebody says, you, do you feel anxious? Do you feel anxiety? I guess to me, if you're gonna be honest and you're in a doctor's office, most people probably say yes, because we're always sort of anxious in a doctor's office. That's number one. But number two, preventative task force, they said that that test as it is should be administered to people who are 60 years of age and younger. Why not older people? I thought it was 60, but either way, why that number? So older people and I'm an older person, we're not anxious, we don't have anxiety.

I think it was 65, wasn't it 65? Right.

I saw that also, I'm thinking, well, that's somebody arbitrarily decided, we don't have to worry about older people. you're, look, you, and again, I mentioned this probably almost every podcast that Enid has worked with the hungry and the elderly throughout her career. Sometimes they're both. And is very well acquainted with the fact that I think if I recall, the group with the fastest,

Yeah. Right.

rate of suicide, growing rate of suicide is the elderly. So you see, I do listen to you all the time. And I'm always impressed by your knowledge and your experience. And so yes, it's an arbitrary number. I'm going to choose to ignore it. You know, you're going to ignore it. Right. Because we know that people over 65 suffer from anxiety, experience anxiety.

Yes. Yes it is, yes it is. thank you, that's a good thing.

Absolutely.

So, you what is anxiety? We don't need to look up the definition. It's like, you know it when you see it, right? Some people have anxiety in situations. So they're about to meet somebody, they're going to have an interview for a job, they have to perform a task, know, situational anxiety. But a lot of people have anxiety that we used to call free-floating anxiety. Where does it come from? It just kind of shows up out of nowhere. For instance, you get anxious when you get on a plane.

Mm-hmm.

that situational anxiety. Other people just wake up in the morning and their anxiety levels through the roof. And if you ask them what triggered that, it's just everything. It's overwhelming, right? Some people you can point to legitimate causes. I mean, not legitimate, but obvious causes like they have a sick parent or a sick child. They're poor. They're unemployed or they're afraid they're going to lose their job. All kinds of things that happen to people. So you go, well, that makes sense. That's worth being anxious about. But is it? Is it? Do we have to be anxious in those situations? And the immediate response would be, well, sure, it would make anybody anxious. But supposing I told you that you don't have to be anxious ever, that there's no situation that should cause anxiety other than maybe being chased by a bear in a national park. But generally speaking, that most of the things we encounter that we assume are going to instigate anxiety don't have to. And that there is a way to manage this and to control it. So what's my proof? My proof, and this is where I started on a lot of this, the investigations I've done on this over the years, my proof comes from my wife. Now there are other people like my wife in the world, but I'm going to use my wife as an example because I know her the best. I live with her. And this is a woman who never, ever, ever has experienced anxiety about anything. She's lost two parents. She's lost jobs. She's gone through a lot of things that many of us have gone through and yet never has anxiety. So here's a good rule of life. Other than a particular skill like pole vaulting or shooting a basketball, if one person can do something, then you should assume that a lot of people can do the same thing or that even everybody can do the same thing. So I used to make fun of my wife. think I've told you this, I used to make fun of her and tell her she wasn't normal because everybody has anxiety. There are other things she doesn't have. She doesn't have regret. She doesn't know what that means. She doesn't say, I shouldn't have done that. I should have done something else. She doesn't do that. There's no regret. She makes the decision. Bang, she moves on. Doesn't matter what happens after that. And like I said, there are other people like that. when you live with somebody and you know somebody so closely who can do this,

Yeah.

You have to stop and think, well, maybe I shouldn't be making fun of her. Maybe I should be emulating her. And the light went out on my head. If she can do it, why can't I do it? And full disclosure, you know me, I'm an open book. I believe in openness. I believe in openness because if you're not open in this world, you're going to miss tremendous opportunities, especially involving relationships. So I'm willing to take the chance of getting taken advantage of or somebody doing something bad to me.

Yeah.

and being open to everybody. So I'm going to tell you, I had terrible anxiety. And I'll tell you when it started, I probably was always somewhat anxious as a kid. I remember being anxious as a kid. But then when my dad passed away, I just turned 21, he'd been sick for about 18 months. And I had what can be described as a first full blown panic attack. I became tachycardic, dizzy, lightheaded, short of breath. I thought I was going to die. I was 21. This is within a few weeks of my dad's passing. They rushed me to the emergency room. Of course, everything was fine. I had another one not too long after that. I don't think I ended up in the emergency room again. And then I experienced six months of unrelenting hives. Urticaria is the medical term, but basically hives. Horribly itching hives. Can you imagine itching every single day? Now, I happened to be living abroad at that time. I wasn't living in the United States. had no access to any medical care. I couldn't even get Benadryl. I wouldn't even have known to get Benadryl. knew I was before I went to medical school. So here I was literally helpless against this onslaught of hives that literally drove me crazy. OK, so I'm going tell you this story because I've had panic attacks and I've had hives and I've had anxiety. So, you know, I was very anxious to find a way to control this like so many of us are. And the short answer is that when you learn to ascend to the aerial view and view the world from that perspective, it is absolutely possible to not only diminish your anxiety, but to eventually almost crush it, almost wipe it out. Now, there'll still always be moments. I don't want to be too dogmatic, but pretty much get rid of almost all of it. And we can talk about how it is I got there and how I believe everybody can get there.

is off. And the short answer is that we learned to ascend to the aerial... Enid (12:21.1) Yes, do it, please. Yeah. You're making me anxious.

Oh, so I have to go. do that another. No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding. I know. So who treats anxiety? Let's just talk about anxiety. So there are psychiatrists. And they're the only ones that can actually prescribe medications in most areas. Probably now some nurse practitioners can too, depending on the jurisdiction. And then there are psychologists who are not medical trained, but they encompassed. could be... clinical psychologists, they can be licensed clinical social workers, there are all kinds of people in the mental health field that will help you. So what tools do they have? So it basically gets divided into medication and some type of therapy, psychotherapy, cognitive therapy, some kind of therapy. Now here's an interesting thing. So cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, very well known, very famous. Probably, I would say...

cognitive.

probably the best of the non-pharmacological interventions, teaches people basically how to control their anxiety, basically arming the patient, almost like you're carrying around your own psychiatrist. You learn how to deal with the situation. You're trained, it's very mechanical training on how you deal with these situations. So when they occur, you're armed, you pull out the arrow that's appropriate from your quiver, you employ it, and off you go. and it works half the time. And about half the time it doesn't work. So why does it work half the time? And if my numbers are off, psychologists listening, I apologize if my numbers are off, but it doesn't work all the time. And I think it's about 50-50, but it doesn't really matter. A lot of times it doesn't work. Why doesn't it work? It's the same training, it's the same tools. Let's assume that the therapist who's employing this technique is skilled. Why doesn't it work?

Only half. Yeah, okay.

It doesn't work all the

I think the reason it doesn't work is the person on the other end, the receiving, the patient doesn't really believe that he or she has the capacity to make it work. They haven't yet been convinced that they are powerful enough and strong enough. And the truth is everybody has all the tools necessary. We just haven't appreciated it. We haven't been taught some of the most fundamental things about life that we've already talked about in this podcast. And one of them is that you are in complete control of how you feel. So this is the Viktor Frankl concept that we talked about previously that Viktor Frankl, to repeat those who haven't heard the previous podcast, I can't imagine why everybody would miss an episode of this podcast, but perhaps they were sick or something happened. They couldn't listen. Who knows? But Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist who, Jewish, and doing the Second World War, was imprisoned in a German concentration camp and experienced all the horrors one would experience in a concentration camp.

Maybe, maybe, yeah, yeah.

but decided that he was in control. The one thing the Germans couldn't take away from him was how he interpreted the situation, how he felt about the situation. And so that's how he was able to make his way through there and eventually be liberated from the concentration camp, go on to have a continued career as a psychotherapist, wrote some books. Probably the most famous is Man's Search for Meaning, which if you haven't read, you should absolutely read. Okay, so he taught us this. But when you think about it, That's also not good enough. Okay, Viktor Frankl says you can do it. Everybody has the power to do it. But you might wonder, well, how do I know I have the power to do it? And I'm going to explain to you why you have the power to do it. And this is again, something we've talked about previously. Any event, any situation, any occurrence, we assign a value to it in our minds. In other words, no event, no situation, no interaction between people. has any inherent value. In other words, it's not a plus, it's not a minus. It has no value. The value is assigned in our brain. We decide, this is a pleasant experience. Or we decide this is a frightening experience. Or we decide this is an anxious experience. It all happens between our ears. So no matter what we see happen on TV, across the street, in our house, at work, it's not intrinsically good or bad. It only becomes that when we process it through our brain. And you and I talked recently about Dr. Ellen Langer, who's a very famous Harvard psychologist, wrote many books, started, really began the era of mindfulness. And she would say the same thing, exactly the same thing. If you read her book, she would say that no event or situation is of any intrinsic value. It's whatever value we put on it by our interpretation in our brain. Two things, one is your brain is doing all the work. It's seeing the event or hearing the event. It's then processing and assigning a value to it. Good, bad, frightening, scary, anxiety provoking, right? That's all happening in your head. And as Viktor Frankl told us, then once you've processed that, you get to decide how you want to deal with it. It's all in our power. So people think that the external world is causing us anxiety. Never, never.

It's with, within.

Anxiety is generated within, right? Just like happiness we talked about is generated within based on our accomplishments and our relationships. Anxiety is generated within. It's not something that's floating out there like a virus that if you inhale it, you're going to get sick. It's not COVID. It all occurs between our ears, in our minds, because A, we assign a value to every event. We can decide whether it's scary, happy, frightening, blah, blah. And then after that, we get to decide how we wish to react to that.

then, after that, we get to decide how we wish to react to that, whatever is manufactured. So let's say you decide something is scary. But you don't have to panic, because now step two is I get to decide how I feel about it. And so what I do, because I still have moments when I get anxious, way less than I ever did before, because I've gotten much better at this, but I will say the following words. I will say, I'm.

whatever we've manufactured. So let's say you decide something is scary, but you don't have to panic because now step two is I get to decide how I feel about it. And so what I do, because I still have moments when I get anxious, way less than I ever did before, because I've gotten much better at this, but I will say the following words to myself. I will say, am in control of how I feel. I'm in control of how I feel. I might say it 10 times during this particular episode. And then I remember, yeah, this is all manufactured in my head and I really am in control of how I feel. This is the idea we talked about when we talked about sticks and stones, that there's no such thing as a microaggression. You get to decide how you want to react to everything. It's the same thing with anxiety. So you don't have to be anxious, even if you're confronted with a frightening or troubling situation. You actually do get to decide this. This is...

So, let me ask you, is it somewhat like a meditative mantra? I'm in control of how I feel. I'm in control of how I feel. Do I sit back? Do I take deep breaths? Do I just

It sounds so simple, but it is immensely, immensely powerful, probably the most powerful thing we have in our armamentarium.

Say that to myself. I'm in control of how I feel. Tell me the physical process of getting into that aerial view. Tell me.

I will. So what I love about you, among many, many things, is that you take something I say or something you hear and you immediately parse it into pieces so you can help yourself and the listener put it together. That's a great skill, by the way, that you have.

Well, I'm trying to, and I'll tell you why, it's not even a skill, it's something that I need to do, it's revelatory to me. Because I need to be able to figure out how to stop the anxiety, how to be more, I'm in control of how I feel, and the only way I can do it is by piecing the pieces together. So I'm no genius, I'm just someone who's very anxious all the time, and I don't wanna be. It's very hard living our lives that way, so.

I think

Well, very smart, you're very insightful, you're very thoughtful. I don't need to spend the whole half hour complimenting you, but I could. But let me just preface it by saying everything we talk about in this podcast, especially in accessing the aerial view or dealing with anxiety, takes practice. Nobody's going to get it. Nobody's going to shut off this podcast and go,

Thank you, that's the end of the show. Okay. That's a good one, good.

I'm I don't have anxiety anymore. Nobody, right? But what you should learn by the end of this podcast is that it is possible for 100 % of the people, right? If you're listening to this, you have the ability to control your anxiety. So I'm probably going to get letters and phone calls from psychologists and psychiatrists saying, you're minimizing this horrible thing that affects so many people. Okay, you're entitled to your opinion, but I'm not 12 years old. I've taken care of 100,000 patients. I've been around, you know.

All right.

People can either believe this or not. It's totally their choice. They understand that I'm here to help them. And I'm telling you, this works. It takes time. It takes practice. So let's break it down. The first thing you have to do is believe it. So because 50 % of cognitive behavioral therapy patients fail, I believe it's because they don't believe it. Great. You've taught me all these great tools, but I don't believe I'm good enough. It's like I say, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to take you out to the basketball court for a couple hours, two days this week and two days next week. I'm going to show you how to...

Yeah.

shoot the ball and dribble. And then by the way, you're playing in the NBA next week. Well, nobody's going to believe they can play in the NBA next week after four hours of training, right? They don't believe it. So a lot of people don't believe, even if they're trained with the necessary tools like cognitive behavioral therapy, that they actually can do it. They don't believe they can shoot those free throws and dribble and play defense. They don't believe they can do it. They don't have that confidence. So first you have to get the confidence. So where does the confidence come from? It comes from the fact that Everything we see and hear has no initial value until we assign it a value. Good, bad, happy, sad, frightening, whatever. We assign it a value. Our brain assigns everything a value, no matter what you see out there. If you see somebody hug somebody and then tears flow, you're going to assign, you're going to say, somebody said something to that person that probably made them sad. Maybe they're the relationship that's breaking up. Maybe they gave the person bad news. Now in your brain, you're concocting a story and it's all in your head. But that person could also be saying something completely differently and that patient is crying because there's an onion in their pocket. You have no idea, right? We're assigning everything a value. Nothing you see, hear, touch, smell, whatever has any value until your brain places a value upon it. So you are manufacturing

maybe they gave the person bad news. Now in your brain, your concoction is stored and it's all in your head. But that person could also be saying something completely differently and that patient is crying because there's an onion in their pocket. You have no idea, right? We're assigning everything a Nothing you see, hear, touch, smell, has any value until your brain places a value upon it. So you are manufacturing the event in your head. You're signing the value in your head. So the outside world has no ability to do that. The only person who can do that is you. You see something, you hear something, you decide what value is signed. That's very powerful. You're in control of that. You don't realize it because it happens automatically and invisibly. You're in charge. The next step is to say, how do I want to react to it?

the event in your head. You're assigning it up. Not in fact, you're assigning the value in your head. Okay, so the outside world has no ability to do that. The only person who can do that is you. You see something, you hear something, you decide what value is on it. Okay, that's very powerful. You're in control of that. You don't realize it because it happens automatically and invisibly, but you're in charge. The next step is to say, how do I want to react to it? I can get upset.

get upset, can pitch a fit, I can throw a chair, or I can just accept it. Now, the last part is the area. In none of this works unless you appreciate the area of view. Will you then have practiced being in the area of view and seeing your life and the world in totality, where all time is visible, you're the disinterested observer, you're the person holding the book in their hand, reading about your story, but you're not on the page.

I can pitch a fit, I can throw a chair, or I can just accept it. Now, the last part is the aerial view. And none of this works unless you appreciate the aerial view, where you then have practiced being in the aerial view and seeing your life and the world in totality, where all time is visible, you're the disinterested observer, you're the person holding the book in their hand, reading about your story, but you're not on the page. being the protagonist of the story, that's when you're in the street view. When you remove yourself and you understand that life is finite, life is limited, everybody's story ends exactly the same way, cycles repeat, don't take any of all too seriously because no matter what you do, your life is going to end as well everybody else's, societies will come and go, it's all transient. The fact that it's all transient doesn't mean it's not important, it's very important because the point is, aha!

Yeah.

Now that I understand how the world works, what's my role in it? And we've discussed the fact that our role in it is to prepare, to prepare for whatever comes next, to make that evolution from inward focus to outward focus, from selfish to selfless. Okay, once you put all these things together, then you see that you can become that disinterested observer at any time, and therefore you're immune to the anxiety, to the stress, to the angst. You're just watching it. As a disinterested observer, you're just observing it. I'll give you another example. You have a friend who you've been friends with a long time, and you have an argument about something relatively important to you or to her or to him, and you get upset. Then maybe you don't talk for a week or a month, or maybe you don't ever talk again. It happens. But then you've become acclimated to the aerial view You understand that everything is interpreted in your brain. You understand what life is all about. And then you get back to that person. And then a month later, you have another argument. But this time, you don't care. A, you could be wrong. You understand that your friend could be right. You could be wrong. It doesn't matter that these things are totally unimportant, that you don't have to react. You're in complete control of how you feel. And you go on, which is how we talked about how you deal with the political situation where people like you who are

But this time, you don't care. A, you could be wrong. You understand that your friend could be right. You could be wrong. It doesn't matter that these things are totally unimportant, that you don't have to react. You have complete control of how you feel. And you go on, which is how we talked about how you deal with the political situation where people like you who are insane about what's going on in the country and there are people like me who go, I don't worry about it. It is what it is. It'll work out. Life will go on.

It's saying about what's going on in the country. And there are people like me who go, I'm not worried about it. It is what it is. It'll work out. Life will go on. It'll evolve. Whatever happens, happens. I don't get, I don't have to react the way other people react. I choose to, because I'm in control of how I feel. I know what the world is. I know that the world, that there are going to be cycles. I know that presidents will come and go, societies will come and go, you know, we'll go to the left, we'll go to the right, we'll go back to the center, whatever. I know what's going to happen. I'm in the aerial view. I've seen the whole story. I can look at the history of the world at all of time and realize how little our time on earth is a little fraction of a fraction of a fraction of time it represents. And so I'm able to remove myself and not take it all that seriously and focus only one thing I need to focus on. How am I doing? How am I doing? Am I preparing? I treating, am I judging people favorably?

judging people favorably? Am I caring about others? Am I turning that camera from myself outward? So that's the key to anxiety. Once you turn that camera outward, away from yourself, what are you anxious about? You're not paying any attention to yourself. You're focusing on the other person. But don't just think, let's talk about something that. that's very important.

Am I caring about others? Am I turning that camera from myself outward? So that's the key to anxiety. Once you turn that camera outward, away from yourself, what are you anxious about? You're not paying any attention to yourself. You're focusing on the other person. Wait, let me just put it, that's really important. Turn that camera, when you're anxious, turn that camera around, recognize that it's not about you. It's about what you're doing in this world to affect change and helping other people. Once you do that, anxiety starts to slide right down that slope.

Okay, but if something's happening in the moment, there's a piece of this whole thing that there's a spontaneity factor. In other words, if something's happening now, and I'm getting anxious about what some person is doing to this country or whatever, just something, we're having a fight. Okay, fine. Okay, but I have to spontaneously say, I'm in control, I'm in control. In other words, have to, there has to be...

Mm-hmm.

Okay, let's stick with that, that's fine.

some part of me that says, stop, I've got to do this now. But if I'm in the moment, how do I stop it?

Okay, here's what you say. First, it'll get easier as you practice it. It's gonna be hard when you have never done it and it gets natural when you do it for a long time, right? Practice, practice, practice, right. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice, right. That's what it is, right? So first thing you say is, A, none of this is all that important. I don't have to worry about the entire world, because that's not my job. My job is to turn that camera away from me and focus on others.

Right?

to make that evolution from selfish to selfless and with that we're focused, to prepare for what comes next. That's my job.

But, but, but, but, but, okay. If I'm going from inward to outward and I'm focusing on everybody, if that's my purpose, then I'm looking at the world and saying, I'm worried about the world. I'm worried about the next person. I'm worried about somebody not getting fed. So how do you reconcile that?

No, no, why would you worry about it? Just do something, do what you can about it. But worry has no, let me tell you, worrying, my wife taught me this, nobody ever gets better worrying. Nothing ever gets better from worrying. Leave the worrying out. You say, okay, what do you do? You take care of other people. You feed people. You help the elderly. So you don't have to worry about it. You just do what you can. That's it. There's no reason to have the worry. Anxiety has no value. It doesn't add a thing. And remember, A, everything's processed in your brain. B, you have complete control of how you feel. Create your own mantra. For me, it's, I'm in control of how I feel. It's not very creative. Pick your own, right? And remember that the world outside is not your focus. Your focus is what can I do to make the world better by focusing on other people? So the rest of it, you cannot control, nor do you have to. Are you worried about supernovas out in the universe? Are you really worried about a star exploding? Are you worried about the solar flares? I mean...

Okay, okay. The rest of it you cannot control, nor do you have to. Are you worried about supernovas out in the universe? Are you really worried about a star exploding? Are you worried about the solar flares? I mean, no, you can't do anything about those things. Forget it. Nor can you do anything about most things that confront us, except how you react to it, how you feel to it. And as you practice this, you understand, A, it doesn't matter, in the sense that you can't control it. That's not why you're here.

You know, no, you can't do anything about those things. Forget it. Nor can you do anything about most things that confront us, except how you react to it, how you feel to it. And as you practice this, you understand, it doesn't matter in the sense that you can't control it. That's not why you're here. You only get a hundred years if you're lucky. The universe is 14 billion years old. What possible effect could you have in hundred years of something that's 14 billion years old? Nothing. You can have no effect on it.

You only get a hundred years if you're lucky. universe is 14 billion years old. What possible effect do you have in a hundred years of something that's 14 billion years old? Nothing. You can have no effect on it. The only you can effect is the people in front of you, the people you can interact with, how you can help them. You can't deal with any of this. If you see a war raging in Sudan, we don't even hear about it. We hear about Gaza, we hear about Ukraine, we don't even hear about Sudan. There a lot of other scourges in the world. You don't even know about it. You're not worrying about it because you don't know about it.

The only thing you can affect is the people in front of you, the people you can interact with, how you can help them. You can't deal with any of this. If you see a war raging in Sudan, we don't even hear about it. We hear about Gaza, we hear about Ukraine, we don't even hear about Sudan. There are a lot of other skirmishes around the world. You don't even know about them. You're not worrying about them because you don't know about them. And even if you did know about them, you couldn't do anything about them. That's not your focus. Your focus is turning that camera from me, from yourself outward, to helping other people.

And even if you did know that and you couldn't do anything about it, that's not your focus. Your focus is turning that camera from me, from yourself, outward, to helping other people, to becoming that distance observer and recognizing that these things are not relevant to you. You don't need to be anxious about it. You do the best you can and you don't need to be anxious. All right, I'm gonna ask you this. I'm gonna get somewhat personal with you. And that is a patient comes to you. You've done a mammogram.

to becoming that disinterested observer and recognize that these things are not relevant to you. You don't need to be anxious about them. You do the best you can and you don't need to be anxious.

The woman you have discovered, she has breast cancer. You, you're a doctor. You have to tell that patient you have breast cancer. So that person, how does that person not feel the anxiety, the utter fear that you have just really given to her? What does she do?

Okay, so if you told me today that I had pancreatic cancer, oay, I wouldn't panic. I would just go, okay, I'm on page, I thought I had 600 pages in the book. Turns out I only have 501 and I'm on page 500, right? Okay, that's my life. My life, that's the length of my book. Fine. You know, every moment exists in its entirety by itself. Every moment is equal in life. You know, people, somebody the other day was lamenting that we were talking about getting older, right? You're not getting older. You're just, you're on page five heart instead of page 20, right? Embrace that moment. Embrace every moment. It's just part of your story. Now, as a doctor, I would say to them, and I've done this a thousand times, unfortunately, right? And I always say the same thing. I tell them the truth and I say, look, everything's treatable. This is not the end of the world. And I give them as much positive, advice as I possibly can to get them through that initial shock. But in the long term, what I really want to say is that this is part of your story. I don't know how it's going to end. Odds are because of your diagnosis, you're going to be fine and you're going to live another 50 years, which is usually what happens. But at that moment, the first person, the woman thinks, I'm going to die tomorrow. First they tell him, hey, you're not going to die tomorrow. There's a good chance you're not going to die of this at all. There's a process you're going to go through. And then if I was there,

Of course, of course.

personal, I don't want to say therapist, somebody who spent time with them, I would help them understand the aerial view, help them understand how we're in control of how we feel. And there's no need. It's just part of your story. It's no different than any other part of your story. Remember, when you're the disinterested observer holding the book in your hand, you can then see that the protagonist is going to go all through all these things from the day throughout the course of his or her life. Every page is equal. know, no page is more important than another page. They're all equal. It's all part of our story. That's not why we're here. We're here to make that evolution during that time to change the camera from focusing on ourselves onto others. And when you do that, you can't miss. It's a happy life, guaranteed, without anxiety.

Thank you for this. Thank you for this. This is great. This is why You're considered, I'll tell everybody listening, one of the best doctors in America. You've been rated that here in DC, in the DC area. And it's true because not only are you a tactician, you're a mensch. You understand, you have compassion, you understand the bigger picture. And that is, I'm doing this podcast because I'm learning from you. I'm learning to stop being so inwardly focused and to understand my purpose. I know we run out of time. Have we not? But I want to end, I read a quote from a professor of medicine, John Kabat-Zinn. I hope that's how he pronounces his name. And I thought to myself, that sort of encapsulates a lot of this. And it's very simple. One sentence he said, you can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.

We have run out of time.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Right.

So, yeah, so we'll end on that note. Thank you.

Thank you. And we remind people that they want to send us any comments, questions, go to send an email to question at wisdom from the aerial view.com. That's all one word. Question at wisdom from the aerial view.com. We'll be happy to entertain any questions and we'll even bear your criticisms. Anyway, thank you, Enid. Thank you everybody for listening. Bye.

Thank you, Mark. Appreciate it. Peace.