How to Thrive With Anxiety

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Transcript: How to Thrive With Anxiety

Season 7, Episode 19  | December 12, 2023

Jamie Martin:
Welcome to Life Time Talks, the podcast that’s aimed at helping you achieve your health, fitness, and life goals. I’m Jamie Martin, Editor-in-Chief of Experience Life, Life Time’s whole life health and fitness magazine.

David Freeman:
And I’m David Freeman, Director of Alpha, one of Life Time’s signature group training programs. We’re all in different places along a health and fitness journey but no matter what we’re working toward, there are some essential things we can do to keep moving in the direction of a healthy, purpose-driven life.

Jamie Martin:
In each episode we break down various elements of healthy living, including fitness and nutrition, minds and community, and health issues. We’ll also share real inspiring stories of transformation.

David Freeman:
And we’ll be talking to experts from lifetime and beyond who will share their insights and knowledge so, we have the tools and the information you need to take charge of your next steps. Here we go.

Jamie Martin:
Welcome to Life Time Talks, I’m Jamie Martin…

David Freeman:
…and I’m David Freeman.

Jamie Martin:
And in this episode we’re talking about learning how to thrive with anxiety. That might seem counter-intuitive, but we’re really excited to delve into this topic as we know that mental health diagnosis of anxiety is rising. It’s been rising for some time, and we’re really going to be talking with our expert today about what we can do with this and actually how working with our anxiety can actually help us enhance our understanding of our ourselves, and it’s something that can actually help us improve our own lives.

So, with that I’m going to hand it over to you, David, to introduce our guest.

David Freeman:
Yeah. We’ve got two Davids here. So, the guest that we’re going to introduce you to today is David H Rosmarin, PhD. He’s an author of Thriving With Anxiety: 9 Tools to Make Your Anxiety Work for You. David H Rosmarin, he’s an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, a Program Director at McLean Hospital, and Founder of the Center for Anxiety which provides services to over a thousand patients within a year, and in multiple states.

Dr. Rosmarin is an international expert on spirituality, mental health, whose work has been featured in Scientific American, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, as well as New York Times.

Welcome, David. How you feeling today?

David H Rosmarin:
I’m feeling a little anxious, I think. I’ve just been fine, doing great, just happy to be here. Thanks so much.

Jamie Martin:
Great. Well, let’s ground right from the very start and just talk about, you know, we hear this word anxiety, we hear about the diagnosis of anxiety. What is it actually?

David H Rosmarin:
Sure. Have you ever had a fear response where all of a sudden there was some sort of threat in the environment? It could be you’re driving and then like, a car is coming out of nowhere, or maybe you’re walking around at night and like, you’re oh, no, like if there’s, you know, like, a situation that you’re facing. So, that’s a fear response. It’s a very healthy response. Anxiety is the exact thing. The anxiety response triggers the fear circuit, you end up with adrenaline being released into your blood.

The only difference is that anxiety is not necessary. Anxiety is the one that trigger is not needed. There is really something lurking or some sort of situation, fear is when you actually need it and you go into action.

David Freeman:
I like how you framed it up, and a lot of people who are listening right now, just being in the health and fitness industry, we talk about stress that you can put on your body, whether you’re working out and you have a stress of I’ve got a deadline that I need to meet. So, when we look at the word anxiety and stress, what exactly is the difference between the two of them?

David H Rosmarin:
Yeah, that’s a good question. Stress is very simple to define. When you have 10 minutes to get somewhere and it’s 20 minutes away, that’s stress. It’s when your demands are exceeding your current resources. Now, that could be emotional, too, right? Like, I don’t have the emotional capacity to be able to handle this situation. That’s also stress. I don’t have the time, I don’t have the money, I don’t have the whatever it is. So, when you have that imbalance.

And stress and anxiety are similar because they both involve that cascade of symptoms, but there are some differences between the two. Truth is, you can fly with both, but anxiety more than stress.

Jamie Martin:
So, let’s talk a little bit about, you know, you’re talking about stress is a normal response to things. We think about like, you know, our hunter/gatherer days with, you know, we’re running away from the tiger or whatever it looks like. You know, that’s also true of anxiety like, this is something that humans have been dealing with forever, and yet over the past decade, and especially since, and even post pandemic we’re seeing a significant rise in diagnoses of anxiety.

You know, why is that happening? What is your take on that?

David H Rosmarin:
Yeah. We sure are, and just to quantify that a bit, you know, we’ve seen 25, 30, even 40 percent increases in anxiety over the last couple of years. I’ll tell you what I think is going on. Our culture does not recognize that anxiety is a normal thing. If you have a fear circuit, it’s a powerful process in your life that’s supposed to be able to save your body. I mean, every once in a while it’s going to go off accidentally. You’re going to have a misfire. Do you ever have your smoke alarm in your kitchen go off? So, I prefer that than having dead batteries when there’s an actual fire.

That’s the anxiety response, and we have to understand you’re going to get triggered sometimes and you’re going to have a misfire, you’re going to get the adrenalin rush. You’re going to feel hot, you’re going to feel sweaty, you’re going to feel difficulty breathing. It’s just a normal…it’s actually a healthy response and it means that your body can survive if it were attacked.

To your question, the problem is that we don’t get that education anywhere. So, when people start to feel anxious they’re like, oh, crap. Something’s wrong with me. I’m broken, I’m weak, I’m the only one who’s experiencing this. Now, if you’re having an anxiety response and you start to judge yourself and then like, catastrophize like, I’m never going to get out of this, what’s going to happen to your anxiety? It’s going to boost, and then you’re going to judge yourself more, and then you’re going to catastrophize more, and then your anxiety is going to get worse. And that cycle is repeating on hyper speed at a macro level across our society with catastrophic health consequences.

Jamie Martin:
Let’s talk about that. What are the health consequences of this?

David H Rosmarin:
Well, most of all, people’s mental and emotional distress today is through the roof. It’s one of the number one causes of disability. It’s very unfortunate, suicide is the number two cause of death in individuals under the age 35 today. It leads to things like, substance abuse which in certain areas of the population it’s more than 40 percent of individuals coping with it. I mean, these are not small numbers.

And I think at the end of the day it all comes down to not recognizing that anxiety is normal, it means you’re working, it means your body is healthy, and now that we’re experiencing anxiety we can accept it, and now what do we do with it? How do we turn it into something positive? We need to change our relationship with anxiety. That’s what has to happen.

Jamie Martin:
So, I want to just add one more thing, David, before you jump in. One of the sentences and one of the lines in the piece that you wrote for Experience Life and it’s coming, it’s like, panic does not impair our functioning nor is it dangerous. You know, that is something that for many people they hear like, well, wait a second, it feels that way. And again, that goes back to the fear piece. But I feel like, that kind of touching on what you’re saying here is like, this is normal. Again, and like, that’s what…this is a different perspective on how to approach it.

David H Rosmarin:
It is a different introspective but remember, it’s one that’s informed from, you know, two decades of experience with, you know, clinical and also research that I’ve been doing. Let me just unpack that piece about panic. Many years ago I had actually this patient who I think I even wrote about in Experience Life. He was driving and having concern that when having panic on the road he wouldn’t be able to control his car. I’ve never heard of a patient who crashed their car while having a panic attack. We’ve seen thousands of patients over the last 10 years. All of my colleagues who run anxiety centers, it doesn’t happen.

The reason is because when your adrenalin is pumping your field of vision grows. Your pupils dilate. You have better control of the steering wheel. Your heart is moving. What really gets people into trouble is when they’re inattentive on the road. If you’re distracted, if you’re texting, if you’re falling asleep, well, that’s a dangerous driver. But a panicker? I wish more people were panic on the roads. We’d have a lot safer of the time.

David Freeman:
Yeah. So, let’s go into it. You say like, in certain situations we can look at anxiety to be able to motivate and prepare us for appropriate actions to deal with challenges, and in your book you talk about harnessing anxiety rather than eliminating that as a symptom. Can you speak a little bit more of what that means?

David H Rosmarin:
Absolutely. When you feel anxious there’s a couple things that are happening. You know, we can use anxiety to increase our connection with ourself, increase our connection with others, and actually to help propel us forward to do what we really, truly want to do in life. But the first step is accepting that it’s going to happen. If we’re so bent on getting rid of anxiety, it’s very hard to actually harness it and to utilize it in a constructive way.

David Freeman:
I ended up doing a little bit of homework prior to this and it’s talking about different benefits of anxiety, and I kind of jotted a few of them down. It was talking about heightened alertness, motivation and productivity, problem solving and planning, self-preservation, high empathy and social awareness.

When you were talking about increased connection with humans, that stood out to me, and when we were in a situation of being somewhat isolated or not being able to connect with certain individuals, it probably created anxiety. I can speak from personal experience, I had anxiety of the unknown which kind of led a little bit into the fear piece. But when it’s listing benefits of anxiety, I think also what we’ve been conditioned to believe is anxiousness and anxiety is a bad thing.

David H Rosmarin:
Yeah. I mean, I think it even goes worse. The medical profession today, my profession, has actually pathologized it and turned it into a disease, as opposed to recognizing this is a human emotion. In of itself, anxiety doesn’t kill people. In of itself it doesn’t kill people. Now, our response to it might become catastrophic and could create a cascade and some very significant emotional and behavioral sequela, but that doesn’t mean that the actual experience of anxiety.

I’ve had patients doing exposure therapy where they’re facing their fears. They are like, retching. They are contorting their bodies. They are sweating. They are going through like, I would say extreme levels of anxiety in the moment. They walk out of session and they’re thrilled because they were able to . . . in the moment, that they were able to actually go through it. It’s hard to see, it’s hard to go through, and I push myself also to the limit at times like, if I’m going to task people to do this I better do this myself, right? I can’t stop there.

It’s so hard, but I kind of think about it like, lifting weights. If it’s not hard you’re probably not getting that good a workout.

David Freeman:
And then go a little bit deeper. I think what we’re taking for granted when we talk about like, true connection and when you have a session with an individual how intimate it is, and granted it might be somewhat of a controlled environment, you have so many different variables that this individual may be throwing at you. But when we talk about enhanced connections, I think we break down what that means by definition because some people might feel like, they’re doing some type of connection through let’s say, a social media versus that in-person connection and understanding the difference there.

So, when you say, or when you think of enhanced connection with others, how would you break that down?

David H Rosmarin:
Got it. You want to talk about interpersonal aspect of it? All right. So, the people you’re closest to in your life, are they also the ones who you opened up to the most?

David Freeman:
Yes. Well, I’m speaking for myself, yes.

David H Rosmarin:
Wife, mother?

David Freeman:
Yeah.

Jamie Martin:
Everyone will say the same to answer that question. The people you cry on their shoulder, they’ve seen you at your worst, they’ve seen you overwhelmed, they’ve seen you stressed, you know. They’re not seeing you like, all, you know, Instagram glam like, none of it. Like, you are a mess. You’re a total and utter mess with them, and what makes the relationship so great is that you’ll show them that side of you and they’ll accept you for who you are, and not everybody has this relationship I should say, and you don’t need that many, one or two.

But this is one of the key predictors of people being successful in life. Robert Waldinger is in my department, has written about this, about how loneliness, it’s so pervasive today and it’s such a critical thing, and anxiety, in some ways this is the core of it because if I’m shielding other people from my hard feelings and from my troubles, I’m never going to get close to people. You’ve got to learn to be real, and embracing the anxiety, going there, sharing it with someone, being real with them, it’s so hard showing that vulnerability but that’s the best way to moving a relationship forward.

Jamie Martin:
So, let’s just delve into that more, I mean, because how do we do that? I mean, I think part of what your book is about is like, these strategies, right? For helping people to actually learn to thrive with anxiety. And so, you know, I know we talk about like, there’s these ideas of knowing and accepting transcending ourselves and others, knowing, you know, our limits, too.

So, you want to just walk us through how do we actually learn to embrace anxiety and discover how it can enhance our lives versus detract from them?

David H Rosmarin:
Sure. There are a couple ways. We’ll start with the simplest. People who have been through anxiety or people who are going through anxiety often have a heightened sensitivity to the emotions of others, or recognize like, oh, that person looks really tense. And that’s a good thing. They’re able to impute from their own emotional pain and experience that other people are also going through their own stuff.

And that can greatly enhance our relationships. There you’re really using anxiety to thrive by instead of getting rid of your anxiety, allowing it to exist, letting yourself feel it, that conditions us to be more empathic, to be more open, to be more accepted, and more responsive to other people’s feelings. It can make you into a much better friend. Some of my best friends are like, super anxious and it’s great.

David Freeman:
You made a statement, right? And it was a be real, and when we go back to what social media has done is created this fabrication of…

David H Rosmarin:
Oh, yes.

David Freeman:
So, we speak on it a lot as far as how we will share what we want the world to see, but yet what’s really going on is not what we’re posting. So, maybe breaking down what being real means. I think it’s pretty straight forward, but how that can be somewhat fabricated through all these different tools we now have to kind of showcase to the world what we want them to see.

David H Rosmarin:
Yeah. I do think that the social, the active sort of impression management goes actually quite against this. Now, some people on social media I think have actually come out of their shells and really say like, hey, I’m struggling, and many people of note. Many people who are…look at Simone Biles. She’s not afraid to share when she has a bad day, and she’s also, you know, such a powerhouse and she’s incredible show of force. Look what happened last month. She’s been doing, you know, these incredible performances.

I think part of her secret strength is that she’s not afraid to be vulnerable and to be real and to say like, hey, this isn’t my day, and that doesn’t make me a broken or a failed person, it just means that I have to respect the limits of my body.

So, social media can be that way, but it’s few and far between that people are actually comfortable having a public persona that’s not perfect.

Jamie Martin:
So, part of that, I mean, you talk about Simone Biles and this all like, we don’t know her specific circumstances or what’s really going on deep for her, but like, part of her being probably real is knowing herself, and part of what you talk about is thriving with yourself, you know, thriving with ourselves, thriving with others, and then thriving with spirituality.

So, let’s delve into that like, to be real we need to actually know ourselves, right? First and foremost?

David H Rosmarin:
Yeah, and part of that is again, being comfortable with anxiety like, what’s really going on. Let’s get back to that relationship with yourself so . . . When people feel anxious, the first thing they do is like, I don’t want to think about this, I don’t want to talk about this, I’m going to distract myself, right? Like, pick up your phone and start texting people, watching things, maybe drinking or, you know, using substances or whatever it is in order to get that away from me. And inevitably it comes back and then you’re even worse off because now you’re really not prepared for it because the last time you just avoided it.

Part of anxiety is letting yourself experience it and like, what am I really anxious about? But you got to let it sit for a while before the thoughts actually materialize and you can make sense of it.

Jamie Martin:
So, with that in mind are there certain practices of you’re working with, you know, you’ve worked with thousands of clients like, in this phase of things and in working on this, what are some practices? Is it journaling, or what are some other things that people can do to get more comfortable with that?

David H Rosmarin:
With that thing, really? Go out and face your fears. If you’re afraid of something, push yourself a little bit towards that and let yourself experience that anxiety. There’s a case I talk about in the book, a friend of mine just called me up. He said, I’m terrified of heights, what should I do? You’re an anxiety guy. So, I said, great. Do you live near any like, large bridges with a big view down? He said, sure. I said, great. Go to the bridge, look over the side, and stay there for as long as it takes for your anxiety to go away on its own. He’s like, there’s no way I’m going to do that. That’s the last thing that I want to do. Are you insane? And I said, no. You know, you have to let yourself go there and you have to face it.

He called me up a year later having traversed the entire Golden Gate Bridge on foot while he was on vacation, feeling nauseous and ugh. But he made it. He made it to Sausalito. He made it to the North side, and the experience of it left him so much more resilient to face his anxiety the next time. But my anxiety is not bigger than me. I’m actually bigger than this. I can do this. But the more he was avoiding it, it was never going to go away.

Jamie Martin:
What I’m hearing there, David, and this is something we talk about. I feel like, almost every podcast we say it, it’s practice. You know, David and I, we talk about this in terms of the gym like, you have to practice and kind of put yourselves in those unknowns or uncomfortable situations.

David Freeman:
And when you think of fears, it’s usually derived through the unknown, right? Or even more so of not being in control. So, when you break those two elements down, I’m pretty sure there’s others out there, but I’m not a big fan of heights as well.

David H Rosmarin:
All right. Didn’t mean to…

David Freeman:
No, no, no. But I mean, I’m giving you an example of my son and daughter, they love height. They can get on anything, Ferris wheel, like…so, my fear of heights, I got on with them to kind of show them how, and that’s the beautiful thing that we talk about our kids will teach us so much more than we will ever teach them.

On the flip side, my son, the dark, right? That’s his deal, and it was awesome because it was literally last night he faced his fear, but through that example, the empathy that you’re talking about like, meeting them where they’re at, going through that experience and seeing, is just the power of sometimes having the person that you can connect with see that come, you know, full circle is pretty awesome.

So, I liked how you were talking about that the enhanced connection, the power of vulnerability, empathy, and sometimes seeing is believing.

David H Rosmarin:
I think what you’re trying to say, which is really interesting, is that the fact that you faced and dealt with your own fear of heights helped you to understand, empathize, and to coach your son through his fear of the dark.

David Freeman:
A hundred percent.

David H Rosmarin:
Awesome. That’s a great story.

David Freeman:
Yeah. And it’s wild because we process like, it’s just the dark, go turn on the light like, we’re approaching it from our personal experience, right? And I’m going to be 40 soon and the height thing, I can get on planes because I’m in an enclosed piece, it’s just about that Ferris wheel and seeing how I can see…

David H Rosmarin:
Yes. Yeah. It’s uncomfortable, and it might never be comfortable and that’s okay. You know, the question is, if you have to be in that situation and if you’re going to go and you want to push yourself a little bit further, that’s fine. There are opportunities that can come out of those exercises. The purpose like, so, I want to clarify. It’s not the white knuckle, it’s the whole way. It’s really to let go and to be like, I’m letting the anxiety wash over me. I’m not going to fight this, and at some point, you know, you might have the opportunity to do that more than you already have. You know, again, it’s like, working out at the gym, it’s like, running a new race, it’s like, a skill like anything else. Jamie, _____ 00:22:55, let’s go. You got to process.

Jamie Martin:
Yeah. Well, and just as you were saying that it feels like, you know, you’ve got to let go, right? And that means like, getting comfortable with the uncomfortable and you know, you might still have that feeling of anxiety but that doesn’t mean that it’s permanent like, one of the things that I think about when I like, this is temporary. I’ve had different phases as a parent where like, this phase is temporary. But also like, this feeling is temporary, right? Like, how do we like, from a mindset standpoint get comfortable?

David H Rosmarin:
Yeah. It is temporary, it does go away, and actually biologically there’s a process which gets released, a process that occurs called the parasympathetic in response. It occurs really to release the same time as the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous response activates your anxiety, your parasympathetic quells your anxiety. They get released at the same time, but the sympathetic goes really far really fast because you need to be able to like, get out of the way of a city bus or whatever it is.

The parasympathetic takes time to be able to take, but you have to just let it happen. Sometimes it’s 10 minutes, I’ve seen it be 30 minutes. Unless you’re fighting your anxiety, it’s not going to be more than that.

Jamie Martin:
I just want to follow up on that. So, there is some work that’s been done, I don’t know if you’re familiar with Emily Nagoski, and she has written a little bit about like, the stress response cycle. Like, you know, how when we have high-intensity stress one of the things, and this goes back to kind of our hunter/gatherer days is like, you have to complete the stress cycle, right? And that often means like, in the hunter/gatherer days we had to run away and when we found safety then there was that release, right?

So, part of the stress response cycle and completing that is the physical activity within in. You know, is there a way like, is there anything similar with anxiety that you’ve heard of like, where it’s like, to complete the anxiety cycle? Like, you have to get to the other side.

David H Rosmarin:
What I would say, you don’t actually have to do anything to get to the other side of the anxiety cycle. What you have to do is not do something. Don’t fight it, just let it be. If you fight against your anxiety you actually pump more adrenaline into your system. You are going to make it worse. Physiologically you are literally perpetuating your heart rate going up, your breathing rate’s going to increase, your muscles are going to become more tense because you’re fighting against a natural process. If you lean into it and you’re like, _____ 00:25:25 anxious? Three, four, five, ten minutes I’m just going to let myself experience it. It’s hard, but it goes away. The cycle will go away on its own. You really don’t have to do anything.

Jamie Martin:
Interesting.

David Freeman:
But lets’ talk a little about those who in the police force, the fire fighters, the military that do what they do day in and day out, and we talk about PTSD and the traumatic experiences that they may see. We’re talking about the everyday individual and they’re the everyday hero that we can look at, but how do you address that as it hits a little bit different I would imagine, and I’m curious as far as those listeners who might fall in one of those categories, how to approach that.

David H Rosmarin:
Yeah, it’s a very good question, it’s an important one. First responders and company. I said at the beginning, we were talking about anxiety and the first thing I did was contrast it with fear. Let’s be really clear. If you’re in the military and you’re facing combat, you know, you’re a first responder, whatever it is, that’s fear. That’s not an anxiety response.

Now, sometimes people who have had a fear response and a perpetual fear response or an elevated fear response due to their work or due to their circumstances will take that with them later when the threat is not present. That’s where you mentioned PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder where it’s post trauma, they have developed a stress disorder without the anxiety where they’re responding where they’re not in combat, flash back, cold sweats, nightmares, even though they’re in the comfort of their own bed and you know, safe, they’re not in Afghanistan any more or wherever they were.

Now, that’s a normal response, and the first thing they do with vets or with folks who have been through trauma, you know, cleaning up whatever it is on the streets being an EMT or dealing with very challenging situations is to know that if you’ve seen that, if you’ve been through it, it’s going to come back to you. When it comes back as an anxiety, _____ 00:27:45 anxiety, what do you do? Do you reach out to your loved ones and say I’m having a really hard day? Do you have someone to talk to? Do you take it a little bit easier, or do you push yourself to the max, reach for a bottle, and do these other things in order to drown out that pain?

Do we erase the pain and use it to create connection, or do we try to shut it off? The shutting it off is what leaves it to come back with a vengeance and then you end up with very significant symptoms.

Jamie Martin:
And is that where we get into, you know, we mentioned the thriving with ourselves, thriving with others. Is that kind of where that gets to?

David H Rosmarin:
It’s both, and with regards to that, you know, a lot of vets come home from combat and they’re told by their superiors, don’t tell anyone in your family what you’ve been through, don’t talk about what happened, you know, what happened in the Army stays in the Army, just, you know, let it go and like, let it be there. I’m not sure that’s the greatest advice, and of course, you don’t want to give gory details to civilians. I mean, it can be triggering and traumatic to them, but at the same time to say like, hey, I’m really thinking about what happened on that day, there was a really tragic event that occurred and another one the other day, and you know, it’s really painful for me to think about. And to be caught by, you know, by the loved ones in one’s life, and those are some of the most curing, formative, positive experiences that not only help a person to recover from PTSD, but actually enhance their emotional intimacy with their loved ones. So, there’s a delicate balance there.

Jamie Martin:
Yeah. My husband is a first responder and so, I see a lot of this in the day-to-day and it’s been interesting, we’ve been together for a long time but just how over the years as we’ve had to work towards more of the communication and openness around that. I don’t need all the details, I don’t need the specifics to your point, but to be able to be there as someone who he can lean on and find support outside of himself, even outside of his peers is really important because, you know, they can sometimes commiserate with each other and it can make it almost, it feels like, it just feeds itself a little bit. But where it’s like, can you be support in another way.

So, whether it’s you’re a first responder, a healthcare provider after what happened through the pandemic, or whatever, a vet, like, how do you find those outside supports who you can lean on as well, and I found that to be like, it’s taken work, though. It takes work and practice to get there.

David H Rosmarin:
It’s very hard. Let me ask you a question. Your husband, he’s probably been through hell in his work and it’s good _____ 00:30:20, you know, you don’t know the gory details, it’s good. Do you feel closer to him and have more of a connection with him, or lose respect for him on the other side of that when he shares with you that he’s having a hard time?

Jamie Martin:
No, I feel closer to him. I feel like, I want to understand him and where he’s at emotionally. I don’t feel like, disconnected. I feel like, it brings us closer when we connect.

David H Rosmarin:
That’s always the response. And what about your best friend like, the fact that he’s struggling on one day, does it mean he’s not as much of a hero as you thought?

Jamie Martin:
No, not at all. It’s like, it means he’s human, right? He’s human and he’s coping.

David H Rosmarin:
No, no, no, right? I love the intonation like, no, what are you talking about? Usually people who are first responders, people who are vets, they come home, I can’t show that I’m having a hard day. That means I’m not a hero. Like, that’s not true. Hero means you went through hell and you brought it home with you and you still have to deal with it. That’s part of being a hero, and if that is struggling, good morning, you’re a human being. That actually is what makes you so heroic and usually it enhances the connection and respect.

Jamie Martin:
Yeah. It’s just finding, I think, they need to have that kind of feeling like, they’re safe to be vulnerable as well like, you’re a safe place.

David H Rosmarin:
That’s true. That’s true. For those spouses of first responders and vets are, I’ve found they’re, you know, they’re _____ 00:31:42 usually.

Jamie Martin:
We try. I will speak for myself and the community that I have support system as well.

David H Rosmarin:
Good for you.

Jamie Martin:
One thing that we kind of…building on this, too. So, you also have this concept of thriving spiritually with this, and I would love for you to speak to that because I know you’ve done a lot of work in the mindfulness and mental health space as well.

David H Rosmarin:
Yeah, happy to. David, you had some — pass over you.

David Freeman:
No, no, no, no. All I was going to say is I think…and once again, to each its own, I think Jamie’s natural response would be that nurturer, that carer. When it is male to male, we’ve been somewhat conditioned to be like, I can’t show that side, right? And I’m not justifying it, but I’m also going back to, I use my dad, for example, in the military 22 years. I never really saw the emotion. The first time I saw emotion was when I graduated, right? That’s the first time I ever saw emotion. So, to see that my whole life and to hear what you just said like, you don’t talk about it, you don’t, it’s just eye opening.

But if you’ve seen that over the years and people have been conditioned, it’s almost like, you start to emulate that same behavior. So, I think what Jamie said was powerful. It’s almost like, that nurturing capability as far as for most females like, it’s there. When it comes to males it’s almost like, you suck it up or, you know, you don’t show it. So, I’m glad you’re saying use this platform, take in all that you’re saying right now that if you’re a male listening, females as well, that it’s okay to show that vulnerable side and break down those walls.

David H Rosmarin:
Yeah. It’s a great thing to show the vulnerable side and it’ll transform your relationships and love with intimacy and connection in ways that you couldn’t even imagine. One of the best tools to build a relationship is to learn to be vulnerable and to say what’s really on your mind and heart.

David Freeman:
Yeah. I’m thinking about like, the spiritual piece that we were about to go into.

David H Rosmarin:
Yeah. Happy to do it. First of all, you know, I want to say that when I came to McLean Hospital, and this is in Eastern Massachusetts, doing clinical work, I did not expect that more than 50 percent of our patients want to speak about spiritual matters and treatment, and that’s what my data has showed. And I’m also very fortunate to be in an academic environment that takes this matter seriously enough to be able to innovate and do research on this topic. So, this is really my academic portfolio and something within the med school I’m very blessed to be…I really consider it a blessing to be in a forward-thinking department that, you know, able to go there and come out of that.

So, I’ll tell you this. Human beings who want to actualize their potential, their unique human potential in this world. If you have a dream and you are going to pursue it and you’re going to get there, you got to be out on a limb. You got to take risks, you got to work hard, and you’re going to face anxiety. You’re going to face anxiety. You’re not going to know what’s happening next, there’s going to be lots of uncertainty. David, you mentioned before the word uncontrolled ability, right? So, when you’re trying to push to new level in your life like, it’s very clear I’m not in control like, one thing is clear in you right now is, you know, I’m going to do my best but like, at the end of the day like, it’s just not happening.

Now, that’s like, a universal human experience. When we’re really pushing we’re going to feel uncomfortable. Striving with anxiety means that we’re used to feeling anxious and it doesn’t get in the way of achieving what we want to in this world. I’m not going to let my discomfort stop me from being who I really am, and that to me is a spiritual striving. I think for many people it’s a spiritual striving, that’s the language that I would use there. That’s one example of striving with anxiety, spiritual, I think.

Jamie Martin:
I love that. What did you say, spiritual, you said he called it spiritual…

David H Rosmarin:
I called it a spiritual striving. You know…

Jamie Martin:
Spiritual striving.

David H Rosmarin:
And I think for a lot of people they would use that language.

Jamie Martin:
Yeah. Oh, that’s interesting. Did that tie back to purpose, you know, like, when we’re deeply connected to our purpose?

David H Rosmarin:
Sure. Sure. I think, you know, this is really where I should be using my effort, using my unique strength. What does the world need that I have to offer? If we’re doing that we’re going to be uncomfortable. There’s another facet here which is that at the end of the day like, how much control do we really have over our lives? Like, we don’t even talk about it, admit it a whole lot, but you know, I see a lot of climate anxiety these days, climate change anxiety, and a lot of it is kind of based in the real perception. There’s not a lot that individuals can do.

Now, can governments and corporations, yes. And should We? I mean, you know, you can vote and you can, you know, do whatever you’re going to do, but at the end of the day there’s certain aspects of life that are just like, beyond my pay grade like, I’m big, you know, and the world’s this big, and that’s actually a positive thing. And if I let myself embrace the fact that I’m not that powerful and accept the anxiety, that can really help foster things like, humility and not being a jerk and taking things in stride and being more accepting, and a lot of virtues that can come out of not fighting against our true lack of knowledge and control which at some level exists.

Jamie Martin:
Is there anything we haven’t covered that you want to make sure our listeners know about kind of, you know, your concept like, this idea of thriving with anxiety, and really the proven-out nature of this.

David H Rosmarin:
If I have one, you know, summary point it’s not to be afraid of your anxiety. I think that’s the reason that we’re so anxious today is because anxiety makes us anxious and it shouldn’t, it’s a normal response, we can use it to thrive, it starts with acceptance, and there are many tools that we can use once we’ve done that to improve our lives and to thrive.

Jamie Martin:
Well, we have one last final question that always toss it over to David because he calls it his mic drop moment. So, it’s one question we didn’t put on the brief for you to know.

David H Rosmarin:
Now I’m really anxious.

David Freeman:
All right, here we go. In all the years in your line of work, what has brought you the most joy in this space?

David H Rosmarin:
That’s a mic drop moment. I’m going to follow my own advice and be vulnerable and tell you that I think this has transformed my own experience with my own anxiety, and I certainly live working in a demanding academic environment, having offices which service, you know, over a thousand patients a year. It’s tough, and there are definitely challenging moments, challenging days, challenging weeks, months even, challenging years, and I’ve been really blessed to have the technology and to have the tools, which I learned in order to help other people, but honestly, I think I’ve been the biggest beneficiary of all.

So, I think I am naturally anxious and I’ve certainly had opportunities to thrive in my own life. Yeah, to me that’s a blessing I never expected.

David Freeman:
Well, we appreciate that vulnerability and sharing that with us.

David H Rosmarin:
You guys got me to open up, how about that.

Jamie Martin:
You know, we’re all dealing with something, right? And we all are trying to navigate in our own unique circumstances so, we appreciate that as David said. But we want to let people know where they can follow you, stay connected with you so, you have your website, dhrosmarin.com. You’re on Instagram, Tik Tok, YouTube, X as dhrosmarin as well. Anywhere else they can find you?

David H Rosmarin:
That’s probably pretty good.

Jamie Martin:
Very good. We got it, we got it. Well, we’ll make sure to link to where they can buy your book and all of those things as that’s coming out. We’re excited to have a feature with you coming up here in Experience Life as well so, thanks for contributing here with us on Life Time Talks, and also to the magazine.

David Freeman:
And thank you.

David H Rosmarin:
Thank you. Appreciate the conversation.

David Freeman:
Thanks for joining us for this episode. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts on our conversation today and how you approach this aspect of healthy living in your own life.

Jamie Martin:
And if you have topics for future episodes you can share those with us, too. Email us at lttalks@lifetime.life, or reach out to us on Instagram at lifetime.life@jamiemartinel, and @3b30, and use the hashtag lifetimetalks. You can also learn more about the podcast at experiencelife.lifetime.life/podcast.

David Freeman:
And if you’re enjoying Life Time Talks, please subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like what you’re hearing, we invite you to rate and review the podcast and share it on your social channels, too.

Jamie Martin:
Thanks for listening. We’ll talk to you next time on Life Time Talks.

Life Time Talks is a production of Life Time, healthy way of life. It is produced by Molly Kopischke and Sara Ellingsworth, with audio engineering by Peter Perkins, video production and editing by Kevin Dixon, sound and video consulting by Cory Larson, and support from George Norman and the rest of the team at Life Time Motion.

David Freeman:
A big thank you to everyone who helps create each episode and provides feedback.