Gretchen Hess: Lessons in Parenting with High Functioning Anxiety

I started to see a reflection of myself in the way that I responded, you know, it would upset me so much. I would get so frustrated by their behavior and it started to make me like, why, where is this coming from? Because I know she can't help what she's experiencing. But it triggered me. It made me upset.

Like I needed to want, I wanted to control it. I wanted to fix it. 

Welcome to This Way Up. We are bringing you engaging, informative, and inspiring conversations surrounding all aspects of mental health from the perspective of us as parents and caregivers. I'm Andrea Nenigian. And I'm Emmy Waters. When someone you care about is struggling with their mental health, this can be an incredibly stressful and challenging time.

So we're here to provide valuable resources to support you as you navigate this journey. 

I mean, I really appreciated today's guest Gretchen and her perspective in raising her kids and how she was able to reflect and see that she reacted a lot in situations when she was dealing with her kids that struggled with anxiety. Absolutely. I always love hearing anyone's story of vulnerability and that point you get to in life where you're able to stop, self reflect, and evaluate and choose a different response.

So, so much respect for Gretchen and her journey. Gretchen Hess joins us this morning and she is the founder of the High Functioning Anxiety Solution which is an intensive one on one mentorship program for women who are emotionally struggling to keep it together. She was forced to face that she had struggled her whole life with high functioning anxiety, which often stems from family dysfunctions, such as yelling, bickering, highly critical parents, alcohol or addiction, strict in control, or divorce.

She created this program after mentoring many women over the years who were also struggling, many who had grown up like herself in an alcoholic home or similar. Her passion is to educate women so that we can break these general cycles that are leading to anxiety in our children and families. Welcome Gretchen.

Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for joining us this morning.  Thanks. I'm excited to be here Yes. It's been a long time coming. So we are glad that you are here too. And today we actually want to focus, focus and how our anxiety can actually affect the relationship with our children when they're struggling.

So I would like to start off with what an understanding of what high functioning anxiety actually is.  Yes. So there's the big umbrella term of anxiety. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, about 63 percent of those people are actually struggling with high functioning anxiety.

And so, what we see often is this constant pressure to be perfect, to please others. You know, we're very fearful to let other people down. Which then feeds into perfectionism and then kind of can lead into procrastination, which is its own  Issue because that leads to more to do's and that overwhelmed feeling there's people pleasing this inability of us to say no Lack of boundaries falls into that where we Can't say no whether it's in work family with our kids or friendships.

We have this really inability to Put the brakes on something we will do everything we can to help other people at our own expense of physical or emotional exhaustion This constant worry and this was something for me for sure is this is what ifs, you know, I could never, I always felt fearful. I was always overthinking I would lay in bed in this hamster wheel of thoughts or ideas of either how the day went what I could have done differently or the to do list for the next day.

It was this constant mine that just doesn't seem to want to turn itself off. And then we add, like, self doubt in there, and the self doubt really comes from the lack of self worth. Um, of course, difficulty, you know, sleeping usually stems in there, you're either trying to fall asleep and everything's racing through your mind, or you wake up and you immediately start racing and you can't go back to bed because you're overthinking all the thoughts.

Gretchen, I always thought that was normal. I know. I'm like nodding my head. I'm like, yeah. Oh, you know what? Yep. Yep. That's exactly right. That's exactly how I felt or I feel. I think I'm much more calm now probably because  we went through so much strife. So I really know what anxiety feels like, but gosh, when I was, you know, full time working in the corporate world.

I mean, I had one mother tell me once, she's like, how do you keep it all together? You know, you do, you're, you're the team manager, you work full time, you have these two kids, you're always like put together. And I told her, I said, Hey, I said, you know that junk closet you have? I said, the door looks pretty, right?

I said, then you open up the door and all the shit falls out. I said, that's me. Absolutely. I feel like that's normal. I mean, I mean, did you feel like that? Yeah. I, well, common, right? I think it's super common. I think that, that most moms would be able to relate to that too. Right. I think, you know, when it becomes a problem is, you know, we may have one or two of these things and you can demand, you can manage, right?

I mean, we all have moments of overwhelm. We all have moments, you know, around Christmas time, we might extend our boundaries or things like that. Right. But when it's chronic, when it becomes really every day, when it becomes. physically and emotionally taxing, it becomes a problem. I mean, it's just kind of like any disorder, right?

I mean, it isn't a problem until it's a problem. But for many, many years, I mean, I know I've traced these things. Part of my healing, part of the healing in my program is, you know, tracing back to these original roots. Like where did these behaviors come from. And I've had them since I was a teenager and they've grown and exacerbated as my, you know, as education and career changed and having children, you know, your everything changes, our responsibilities change.

So some of these things became much more pronounced in my thirties and forties when I was having children and where it became a problem was when You know, you hit this emotional point where you're not functioning really well. You're losing your shit all the time. And. That's not okay. Um, I thought it was normal because I kind of got, I was raised in a home where my dad lost his shit pretty regularly.

So I didn't really think anything was wrong with that. To be honest, I thought it was pretty normal until I realized that like, no, that's dysfunctional behavior. Like we don't have to behave that way. We can remain calm, cool, and collected even really through the most difficult situations, which that was something that I was not familiar with.

And then the physical, I mean, there's a whole physical aspect, I think, too, with high functioning anxiety when we've carried it around with us for many years. I started to feel like I had chronic fatigue, I, you know, I would be in my doctor having all the labs run, looking for thyroid issues, and all kinds of issues.

You know, I would really be, like, hobbling along, feeling horrible, and, um, I knew I thought something had to be physically wrong. And after I really started to work on healing myself, my energy levels came back. My health came back now, not to say hormones can't be a part of this whole, you know, hormones and thyroid. 

It's going to say that's a big part. It is. It's still a big part because like in my case,  And I don't want to get into the whole hormone aspect too much, but  I had been running with high functioning anxiety since birth. You know, the dysfunction in my family,  the bickering, the yelling, the arguing that didn't just start when I was 15, but that was from the day I was born on, I'm sure.

And so, yeah, I mean, are my, would my thyroid, would my, my adrenals, would, you know, would the, my hormones potentially be off? Of course I spent 20, 30 years in fight or flight. you know, in this kind of survival mode. Yeah, you get to that point where you're labeled or you're considered high functioning because you've practiced and become so skilled at it that, yeah, then it's, then it's a question of just because I can, does that mean I should, you know?

Exactly. You just know how to balance all those things. What was the, what was the tipping point for you? What made you finally address it and say, this is this,  I need change. I think there were two points for me that, you know, like in my healing journey, which were really helpful. Number one is just dealing with, as my children were growing up and going through their own anxieties and having some of those triggering meltdown moments where they're just, um, yeah, struggling.

I started to see a reflection of myself in the way that I responded, you know, it would upset me so much. I would get so frustrated by their behavior and it started to make me like, why, where is this coming from? Because I know she can't help what she's experiencing, but it triggered me. It made me upset.

Like, I needed to want, I wanted to control it. I wanted to fix it. I find high functioning anxiety and codependency.  Are very intertwined in many, many ways. And so that's where, like when I said, I wanted to control it, I wanted to fix it, that's, those are more codependent type behaviors that kind of get enmeshed with all these other things.

That was kind of my first indicator. And I realized at that point too, that my tone of voice, that was the first time I had really come to realize that my tone was part of the problem. Like. Because I was so, I was trying to be so mindful of my reactions that I became really aware of how badly I had been reacting for a really long time, whether it's tone, whether it was, you know, moms have that look,  we can just give the look and the kids know, well, I guess I could do that, you know, and I didn't even know I was giving a look. 

So that was one area. And then the other area where, where I found is my husband, my ex husband and I, now, um, when we went through our divorce, you know, kind of hitting a real emotional rock bottom there, really made me realize and take a lot of accountability for my behaviors. You know, we both had role, there was, it's 50 50 in the divorce.

You know, we both had our own family. We both brought our own anxiety issues, honestly, to the table and in hindsight. And I always. Speak with about this is that, you know, sometimes we really need to heal ourselves before we try to heal the marriage. Had I had the skills that I have today, I definitely think the marriage, even if he did nothing, I do believe the marriage could have been saved just by how I have learned to react and respond to my own inner feelings.

Wow. That's so responsible to say.  It's hard, it's hard for a lot of women to take ownership, right? We have to look at ourselves and take ownership for the stuff that we have messed up. We're not perfect beings. I certainly wasn't a bad being. I mean, I, you know, I don't, uh,  I don't, I was just doing what I knew.

I was, you know what, you know, you know what you were raised around.  You know, I know what my family of origin looks like. They're, you know, my cousins, my aunts and uncles, other friends. So we try to mirror those things, but it doesn't always mean that what we're doing is right. We can learn to do better.

Yeah. And when you take that accountability, you're also modeling new behaviors. That's the key. That's also healthy for your kids. It was very helpful for my kids. Definitely. I always think it's great when you can find some in any kind of conflict where you see where you participated maybe in a negative way.

And so now you're taking accountability for your behavior. I always flip that around and feel like it's such a positive. Absolutely. To me personally. Cause then I feel, and maybe this is going to, lean into my control issues, but then I feel like I'm in control of something. I could work on that. If it's part of me and something I need to change, I find it really empowering because now I could affect a positive move forward.

Yeah, absolutely. Because we can only control ourselves. I mean, and that's one of the things when women start in my program, they're trying to put their fingers in everybody else's plate when we can't even control. We can't control our children. I mean, within reason, right? I mean, we can't at the end of the day, they're going to do what they're going to do, especially when they move into, you know, we have adult children.

So we understand that.  We can't control their decisions actions behaviors any longer and you're right. It's empowering I mean, that's that's very true I hear that all the time from women after they've completed my program how empowered they feel To be able to take control of themselves their own emotions their own feelings and I don't you know control has such a negative Connotation and it can be negative when we're trying to control everybody else that is negative But taking control of yourself is not a negative thing.

It's an empowering thing You Well, that's what I was just going to say, Emmy. You said, you said, maybe this is kind of a control on my standpoint. I don't think of that as being controlling. I think of that as being responsible and being  respectful of somebody else, right? I mean, it really is. True, true, true.

Yeah. One of the reasons we wanted to talk to you was because we have had conversations in the past about when things were really, really tough,  if we could have gotten an outside perspective of what, how we were responding to our kids anxiety. And like you had mentioned a little earlier, it was triggering for you.

And I think at least I can only speak for myself, but  I was so  And I was so  just caught up in making sure that, I mean, honestly, I was terrified. I was terrified. And I don't know how that impacted because I know my kids felt that. I know they did. Even energetically, I think they feel it. It's in the air.

Right. That's what I'm saying. Even if you didn't give the look, you can just feel the tension. Yes.  Do you give any Advice or anything to parents in how to recognize that before you get into it so that you're prepared if a crisis comes up and when you're in the middle of it, to being, how do you pause?

Right. I think the very, like I a hundred percent agree with what you're saying when I think of being in the thick of things and  you know, number one, when our children are hurting as mothers and parents were hurting. I mean, and we're many of us are natural caregivers and fixers  and rescuers, which again ties into some of the codependence.

So sometimes having a child that needs this help brings back.  that trait in us to even a higher degree, which then creates other relationship dynamics to go awry like with spouses and stuff. You mentioned this earlier and I just want to get, I want to wrap my head around it. You've said that it's codependent to me.

Wanting to help my child and to get them better or to protect them from hurting seems more like motherhood. Like that's my responsibility because they're young, they're developing. It is to some degree, but so many of us, especially like for myself, I took it to the end degree. I mean, I was up all night researching, banging my head against the wall, getting more and more information, giving them the best care that I could possibly give them.

But still that's wrong. No, i'm i'm not saying that's wrong where it's wrong is when you get to that point And then you still You're still hurting like you can't accept like for me that maybe I have to back up. I get what you're saying Yeah, you can't let go on wanting to control what's coming. I think I finally had to accept the diagnosis I had to accept the behaviors  and when I learned to accept That this is this is what it is You  So when I was doing all that research and fixing, it's because I wasn't coming from a place of acceptance.

I was still trying to fix it. There is no cure. We know that. You mean fix the other person, fix your kid or you mean fix yourself? Yes. Fix my kid at that point. Like I wanted to make, you know, mental health and OCD and anxiety and all these triggers and all these uncomfortable moments for her. I wanted them to go away.

I mean, who wants to see their child struggle  and work and I was giving her the best. I was reading and doing all the best I could do, but that still wasn't enough. And at some point I really had to just accept that. And when I did accept and I wasn't, I didn't feel like I was fighting something all the time.

It was like me against this and I was going to find a way to get her better. And I did. I mean, she found a way to get herself better through treatment and care, right? And me managing it as well. But. There was a part of acceptance that I just, I, we have to accept it is what it is, that mental health issue that we're facing.

It is what it is. We can't, we can help it. We can improve it. We can't make it go away. I mean, I don't, I don't think there has been that yet. I don't stay up onto it, but it, you know, once you have it, you have it, it doesn't go away, but I think I was putting so much, as you said, the word energy. My energy was so focused.

On this negative aspect,  which I mean, I know healing doesn't sound negative, but in our minds, we're just trying to fix them, fix them, fix them instead of love them, love them, love them. At the moment for who they are, their experience that they're going through, there is this energetic wall. When we're not accepting the reality of what's going on.

And I know so. And then they're exhausted on top of it because you spend all night running your wheels, trying to fix your child or find a cure. So do you think then between healthy and not healthy is when you're taking  ownership that you can't fix the child. So then it becomes more about you and your inability to fix them versus I'm helping them to get through this issue or this problem and I'm doing the best I can, but I'm not going to be hard on myself or take that internally as something that I own.

Yes, absolutely. That was very well, you know, you said that perfectly, you know, it's not a personal, I think we internalize it as a mom. I felt very much a blame. I know that might not be the right word, but I internalized it. You know, we take it very personally when our children are hurting because we want to fix it.

Yeah, because we've got one job and it's to keep them safe and comfortable. Yeah. So yeah, it makes sense. Right. But accepting that this is something we can't, I mean, we can help, you know, we can, we can support them. We can do all these things that are, that are helpful. But I think for me, it was that acceptance that, that was a really big breaking point for me is realizing like, I have to accept this for what it is and I'm going to drive myself crazy  otherwise.

Yeah. And then it impacts the rest of the family. Oh, yes. Doesn't it? Ever. Yes. And all the kids feel it. You know, that's, you know, I have four children. So, you know, they all had the impact, you know, they all feel the impacts of their mother being, I wasn't able to be present with them, you know, I, in hindsight, I can, I can own up to that.

I mean, I was, I was barely hanging on by a thread emotionally myself just because my own childhood stuff that I was bringing into this. And then I having my own children have their own stuff. You know, it piles and piles and piles and then to be able and then when you do, when you're in the thick of a mental health issue and you're, you know, really trying to help one particular child out of four, you know, it's, it's a slippery slope because those other ones, there's only so much of the pie of energy to go around and, you know, in some cases you might have a really supportive partner, And that makes it, you know, maybe a little easier.

In my case, I didn't have a very hands on, you know, he, he was busy. He was, he had his work and did his thing. Um, he was the financial provider, but to be in the trenches 24, 7 with four kids, and then one that is struggling or two,  actually all four were struggling to be honest, at some level, like with something, because it passes on.

I mean, anxiety in a family. It doesn't just affect one person.  Curating these valuable conversations is really about our shared passion for promoting mental wellness. Behind the scenes, however, there are some platforms and systems we utilize that cost money that help bring these episodes to you. If you found value in our conversations and feel inspired to support, consider making a donation, whether it's the price of your morning cup of coffee or more, your contribution directly supports our ability to keep connecting, sharing and growing.

Please visit our website at this way up podcast. com to support this community. We thank you and we appreciate you.  So looking back, looking back, I know that I've tried to look back. Or Emmy, maybe you too, if you could look back and you could change something about how you responded. or manage the situation, what would you tell yourself?

I mean, I'd like to know from you too. We've never really talked about this. Yeah. I don't know that I had outward behaviors to talk to my kids, but I don't think I had outward behavior that was recognizably chaotic or anxiety related, but my internal fear was, I mean, I was just scared all the time, but I think at the base of it all, we're all coming from a same instigator.

Our kids are hurting, whatever shape or form that is, they're hurting. That is the worst possible thing as a parent to watch your kids hurting. So I would just say, you know, if we were like to whittle this down to a note, into a pattern that we're all going to dissect and examine, we are as moms in this intense feeling of discomfort and what we do to In response to that is all the difference.

You know, do we respond in an anxious way? Are we super fearful? Are we immobilized? You know? And I think that's where someone with high functioning anxiety, like myself, like I know my, I know I was already wired that way before having kids. That's where it comes out really strongly where for you. You know, your experience may not have been so overwhelmed and fearful.

I mean, there's going to be some of that regardless. I'm not saying you didn't feel those things, but where it became elevated to a problem, you know, for me, I really, I would get angry. You know, I felt angry when, Because I couldn't control and help her like I felt angry. Yeah. And that came out in me and that comes out in a lot of women with high functioning anxiety and then they're yelling and they're yelling at their spouses and they're yelling at their other kids who did nothing.

That's high functioning anxiety. That's when it becomes dysfunctional when we can't control. that aspect of our behavior. And it doesn't have to be, I mean, I wasn't screaming at my kids 24 seven or anything, but still really, even any yelling at this point, I think they're starting to realize is so detrimental to our children.

So, well, then it makes it so much scarier for them too. Correct. That was my, my concern. And when I looked back, you know, then I was trying to control things, but I look back, my fear was being passed down to them. So even though I tried to hide it, you know, I tried, you know, but they felt it. They felt it. So then you've got this fear on top of it.

And then they're like, Oh, maybe there really is something wrong. And it's like, well, wait a second. We're, this fear is coming from a place. Cause I worry about you, but we're going to get through this. is vastly different than fearing, just picking up on my fear, right? Yeah. And we do. We're admitting fear.

Like I mean, it's that energy, you know, like if it's in there, if we're wired from the standpoint of fight or flight or fear based, we are emitting that energy and children. I picked that up in my, that's how I, how this generational cycle begins. I picked that up in my early childhood from my own family.

And then I was carrying that same thing on, um, that same fear, that anxiety, the fear deep inside that is energy. So you're spot on with that. So, if we now know, the three of us, how we felt, how we reacted, and now we've had time to reflect and think maybe we would have done X, Y, or Z, what would we want to tell the next group of parents that are going through?

What, I mean, like literally, what would you, how do you coach someone to do or feel anything else? I don't know if I would have said this before three minutes ago.  I was sitting here thinking. about how I communicate with my kids now, and I'm just very open about everything. And if I could go back to when, you know, my son was 11 and my daughter was eight,  I would say, I am scared, but I know that we can find help and we'll figure out a way to make this more comfortable.

But I think I would own up to being scared instead of trying, and I don't know if I'd say scared or just say, I don't, I don't know what the word would be, but I think that I would own up to that so that I didn't feel like I was having to hide it, but then I would also be able to take control of my own emotion there.

I think if I just said, Hey. Yeah. We got this though, because inside I knew we had it. I knew that we were going to do whatever it took to make things better. Whatever better meant. Yes. Right. Yep. We were going to do that. So I think if I would have openly acknowledged that, and again, not in a scary way, I don't, I, I yet don't know how to say it, but I, I think I would have owned that piece of it.

So you think you were holding everything in, trying to act like you had everything together, but it's just like steam spewing out. Yeah. And I think that, I think that then it would have also validated to them  that it was scary. I mean, they didn't, I mean, we all know that. It is scary. It is scary. Yeah, it can be.

How about you, Gretchen? Maybe I'm, I mean, I'm not a psychologist. So, I mean. Me neither. I'm just a mom of four who's been through it.  But I think,  just a mom of four who's been through it. Still going through it, you know, still in the, not all of them are grown up yet. But  I think in hindsight for myself, because I know that I can make the connection to You know, these patterns have been, were with me for a really long time.

It just didn't become problematic until I had children and chaos really ensued. Life got really difficult. I would have wanted to heal, you know, at 20, you know, as soon as I realized, like I grew up feeling anxious, like I was in fight or flight. I was this constant perfectionist, um, this person. people pleaser.

I doubted, you know, like, and it's interesting because on the outside and, you know, I didn't think I had self esteem or self worth issues. I mean, I was successful. I had a business. I had a career. I had great family.  To me, self esteem can be faked, but self worth is what's inside at our core. And that's the part that is usually hurt in us.

But I do wish I would have, I wish I would have recognized these symptoms in me earlier. Um, and I wish I would have recognized the fact that I came from a home that wasn't, I mean, it's a great home. I grew up in a middle class family and my parents were wonderful people. They loved me very much. I even had a horse.

I mean, what more could I ask for? Right? A girl and a horse. You had the pony. I had it all. So I did. I mean, I had a great, my family, I loved my family. I still love my family. I don't have to hate my parents or be angry at them for, You know, their generational dysfunction as well. But I do wish that I would have realized that this bickering, this yelling, the stress, this frustration, this irritability, you know, these feelings of overwhelm or something that I could manage, you know, that I needed to come to terms with and get some support and health.

So I learned how to break that cycle because not having those tools. I'm sure they fed into the anxiety of my children. They are already predisposed. They had two parents. I had high functioning anxiety. Dad had some issues as well. I mean, our whole family line does. I can't come from alcoholism. So obviously there's mental health issues on that side.

So when we look genetically, our kids were already predisposed. And then they're put into the environment where we didn't know how to manage our own emotional. regulate, you know, we weren't emotionally regulated ourselves. Now that you have all this realization and, and knowledge and awareness, how have you shifted your parenting style or how have you shifted how you react to different behaviors in your kids?

Yeah. I mean, the interesting part is, I mean, I, I've been blessed. I have really good kids overall, but you know, I I'm calm. Like I can't even, if I yell now, which doesn't happen, it might be like a yearly. I, and I, it's not even yelling. It's raising my voice. It's just such a different level of the way I respond and react.

I don't really react anymore. I respond. How did that change? How did you get there? Awareness. You know, when you start to realize that you are reacting in a moment. I had learned and had to work myself to the point where I could step away Use grounding techniques whatever I needed to calm down and then I could respond and then that plays into boundaries I sometimes had to tell my kids the answer for right now is I don't know I will let you know In 30 minutes or tomorrow or whenever I feel like that was something I never even had in my vocabulary To be able to have that kind of dialogue with my kids that hmm I didn't have to I don't know.

Yeah, and then I don't have to jump up and fix it at that moment There's very few things in life that need to be resolved  in that moment. And most things are best left.  To, you know, as I always tell my clients, when our emotions are running high, our logic is low. We hear that from all the, you know, all the top people out there in the world.

And it's true. If we're emotionally dysregulated or we're in the fight or flight or feeling anxious or fearful or kids are meeting, making us mad, that is not the time to react. We need to bring ourselves back down and create a response to that behavior. And so that's the difference in me. You know, I think so many.

Parents that have children who have struggled,  they spend all of their time and their resources on their kids, making sure that their kids are healthy, making sure that their kids are taken care of. Yes. And getting back to your question, Emmy, I know we've, you know, full circle. The other thing I would tell myself is go get yourself some help at the same time because there's only so much. 

Thank you. Thank you. But I didn't do that. I thought that my job was to give them help. Yeah. Don't stop peddling. Yeah. But I needed to rest and I needed to go get help so that I could better help them. Yeah. I would totally agree with that. Just taking care of yourself, which sounds so  basic. But you feel like if I stop for one second, I'm less than or I'm not doing everything I can be doing because it does take so much.

Finding something to laugh about would have been super healing too or that's where I think that's where having a community or having friends that you can relate to and get some levity and yeah, just.  Laugh. Humor. So healing.  I eventually had to learn to laugh at myself, you know, and I do. And even today I do.

I mean, because I'm like, am I kidding? Like what am I thinking or whatever? And you do, you laugh or I think about the way I would have responded to something. I'm like, holy cow. Like it's comical almost, you know? So, I mean, yeah, we all take ourselves too seriously. We do. I don't.  You know, and you're so right about the rest and that sounds so cliche, but I was the kind of woman that my kids woke up at 6 a.

m. and I would, they would, they would go to bed for sure. I always put them to bed early because I really, really valued my evening, my downtime. And this is also a common trait with high functioning anxiety because that was my time of calm cool collected That didn't mean I sat and watched tv or did something that was beneficial to recharge me That's not at all what it meant It meant I still did my to do list, but I still did it with a different level of peace So I might have been cleaning the kitchen, you know, but that was somewhat soothing to me But let's face it, that's not self love.

Going to the grocery store alone isn't self love. That's true. That's not filling our cups. Right. You know, I, I didn't do it. I know, I know, I know.  I spent years, and many of us don't, we're so in the trenches caring. And fixing and needing, but we're not putting ourselves like, how do we fill our cups? I mean, I would feel guilty if I exercised Yeah, that is such a good point because I I think then you're we're just talking about A matter of perspective at that time because there's a time in life Especially when your kids are really young and you do get to go to the grocery store by yourself.

That does seem like the best day ever. It does. Does Target count? I mean, I get the grocery store, but if I can just roam Target aisles, doesn't, isn't that self love? Yeah. But it is a good point. That is not, that is not filling your cup. That is a break. That might be,  I don't know, some, some moms right now might be arguing and say, I would, I would kill for that opportunity.

But, but yeah, what we're talking about is. Real healing. Real mama time. Yes. And I did kill for that opportunity, but it didn't fill your cup. It doesn't fill you as a person. It just gave you a break. It was your time to check out. Yeah. Yeah. It gave you a break and it gave you something not to, not to think about.

Correct. Yeah. And that's not, that's not, it was more of a distraction. Yeah. And that's what we find a lot too, with like high functioning anxiety is, you know, you're going to go towards, and that's really what that was for me was  checking out. Going to the grocery store isn't filling your cup, it's disengaging from that little bit of time.

So, you know, it recharges your battery a little bit, but it's not filling your cup. It's just like eating, you know, exercising. If we're trying to squeeze exercise in, that sometimes is more of a distraction. Um, if some women will do a lot of reading or, you know, video gaming or TV, you know, having that glass of wine, those are, those aren't really filling our cups.

If they're not used properly, they're Checking out, right? Yeah. Having a glass of wine with the group of women might be filling your cup socially, right? Having a glass of wine at home Alone just because you you're feeling stressed or tense. That's checking out That's disengaging.  So that's not helping.

Yeah I know that if I were, you know, 12 years ago listening to us say these things, I would have been calling bullshit. Like I would be saying, are you kidding me? I can't leave, you know, there, I, I can't, um, take off for an hour, you know, all these things. I know, I absolutely know. There, there were, there's a timeframe there, there's no way in hell I was going to work out.

I would have just been like, Yeah. Yeah. No, screw you. You don't understand. But you did say something earlier that I can't let go of because I want to hear more about this.  When you can't leave, there are, you mentioned grounding techniques. There are little moments to inject. A pause even piece that could then lead to more Sustainable healing possibly if I understand what i'm guessing what you're going to say.

So what would you say about those grounding techniques? Yeah, I mean absolutely. I mean, I think the first part And and anything is acknowledging right? We have to know that there's a problem that we have to know we're reacting Right, and we know we need to learn we have to step back and when you know that recognizing in the moment recognizing in the moment And I think that's It's a huge piece because It took me too long to recognize that there was a problem and then of course Second of all like yeah, we can't always go away.

Like I couldn't leave either I had four kids and I I was 24 7 mom So I understand that getting away and have we didn't actually have extra a lot of extra money for babysitters and things like that So I didn't always get away but support, you know, I think I grew up in a generation still i'm in my 50s and so I think Like, my parents never got therapy, counseling, any kind of support, um, there's plenty of support groups out there that you can even do now online after COVID.

Almost everything's virtual too. So there's so much support that we can get just to be able to connect and to work on ourselves even in small snippets each week. So we don't have to be, I just think a lot of us just shut down. We don't, the problem is as women, we don't often want to ask for help, right?

We can fix it. We can do it ourselves. I'm going to do this and we don't think, well, how can I ask for support? How can I ask for help? So that being said, I'm going to get off that soapbox because that's the number one thing I wish I could have done because I couldn't, I didn't, I was not someone who would ask for help.

I didn't know how to do that from my upbringing. Yeah. Same. So now I know when my needs, now I know my needs, now I can ask for help when I need it. I can set boundaries, but I could not do that going into this. So that would be one thing, be get support. And then number two is, yeah, for like, some of my favorite things when I really became aware of my overreacting at the moment, or when I start to feel really stressed and triggered when my daughter was maybe going through a trigger is, you know, just like something as simple as box breathing.

So I'm sure you've all heard of that. And like, I would try to think of something positive, um, like, this is going to pass. Like, if you know she's going, like, child's going through their crisis, right? Like, you know it's not going to last forever. So I'd breathe in, this will be over soon. And you know, I would let it go on the out breath.

So visually kind of imagining that shift. The other thing that is helpful is I think a grounding technique, and this is the same exact technique most of our kids are taught. Which is, what are five things that you can see right now, right? So you, you, you know, you pick out the color, you pick out the shape.

We do this, we ask our kids to do this. Why are we not asking ourselves to do it? Why are we not doing it with our kids? And that's how I started to heal. I started doing this stuff all the time with my kids. You know, you're hearing, what am I hearing right now? What do I smell right now? What do I taste? 

What can I touch? What am I touching? What do I feel? You know? So we go through those five senses. That gives us time to kind of re regulate ourselves. And if you're doing it with your child too at the moment, then that's great too. Yeah, that's a great one for kids. You know, I always like to look at the silver lining in a lot of things.

My mom always makes fun of me for that. She's like, Oh, Andrea is bringing the sunshine in again. Um, but I think our kids, and it's not just Any kid that's had anxiety or anything, I think the kids of today are so much better prepared than we were, because I know at the schools, they're teaching them these techniques.

It's becoming, you know, it's, it's becoming common practice. And I think our kids, have gotten even more practice on it, right? So I think moving into the future,  I am so, I don't, relieved. I don't have a fear anymore because I know my kids have got these techniques nailed. Like they're going to go out into the world and when they're feeling anxious or upset, they're going to be able to identify the feeling that they're having.

They're going to identify that they can handle it. Right. And I just, I'm very excited for them because it took me a long time to learn how to manage those internal feelings and separate the reality for what it is versus what's going on in my own mind. Yeah. Well, people weren't talking about it as much either.

Yes. Real quickly, let's talk about what services the High Functioning Anxiety Solution provides. So I have a really unique program that I've created that is very intensive. The once a week kind of model doesn't work so well because you feel great, you go in, you might do some talk, you might do some therapy.

Nothing wrong with therapy. A lot of women will do therapy while they're doing this program or they've already done therapy and then they're doing this program. So there's nothing wrong with therapy, but it's once a week usually if you're lucky and some people it's only every two weeks or something and you know, you walk out and you feel great and then all of a sudden you go home and you walk into the chaos.

And you're right back to where you were, and you have nobody to support you during the rest of the week or whatever. And then by the time you get back to your therapist, you forget to tell her all the stuff that transpired during the week. And you don't even have time. It's 50 minutes.  With the High Functioning Anxiety Solution, It's a very intensive program where women get to work with me daily.

We're in contact daily. And typically they're in contact with me a lot more at the beginning of the program because their emotional regul dysregulation is higher. And at towards the end of the program, I'm hardly hearing from them cause they're managing their, they're managing themselves totally well on their own.

Um, but. I'm able to step them through emotional regulation skills and kind of rewiring the brain in real time as things are happening versus having to wait a week to deal with it. Um, we set up for 12 weeks, there's 12 different learning modules in it. And then the 1 on 1. I do 12 one on one coaching sessions during that period that are one on one and private, and then they also have access to me throughout the week as they need, as life throws curve balls until they learn how to manage themselves and learn how to respond versus react.

That's the big one. We're always working on how to respond versus react. Yes, yes. Respond versus react. If we could sum up the whole podcast.  I would say that's it. That was it. There's the title. You don't even have to worry about it anymore. How do we,  how do we respond versus react to a child who is, you know,  who's struggling?

Yeah. Gretchen, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate having you on. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. 

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