Rob Hills: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Balanced Leader Podcast, where we tackle the ultimate challenge for leaders -achieving peak performance without sacrificing your wellbeing. If you are ready to lead with clarity, energy, and impact without burning out, then you’re in the right place. I’m Rob Hills, your leadership and wellbeing coach, and in each episode I’ll give you the insights, tools, and strategies that will enable you to thrive.

This week on the show, my guest is Dr. Jodie Lowinger. Dr. Jodie is a doctor of clinical psychology and anxiety mindset and resilience expert. She’s the author of the bestselling book, the Mind Strength Method: Four Steps to Curb Anxiety, conquer, worry, and Build Resilience. Our conversation today mainly revolved around anxiety, what it is and what we can do about it using Dr. Jodie’s four step method. [00:01:00] If you are someone who experiences anxiety or you know someone close to you who does, then you’re not gonna wanna miss today’s episode. It’s packed full of expert advice and helpful tips, and hopefully by the end you’ll be able to see how anxiety could actually be your superpower.

So let’s dive into today’s episode with Dr. Jodie Lowinger.

Welcome Jodie to the Balance Leader Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. I’m so excited to have you on the show today as an anxiety expert particularly, and there are so many questions I have for you. But before we jump in, can you tell the listeners a little bit about your background and why it is you do what you do?

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Yeah, with pleasure. Uh, my background is a combination of executive high performance and leadership development. So I, and clinical psychology. I started off, uh, doing a, um, bachelor of, of psychology. Um, ended up [00:02:00] doing really well in that and. With a view to doing clinical psychology. So I got the university medal for psychology.

Um, and then was, I had a knock on the door from PWC, from management consulting and uh, and I said, why not? I’m gonna try this interview and see how it goes. And I. Kind of, we could say the rest is history because it was, um, it was really a, a passionate calling in that direction. So I worked in corporate for many years.

I, uh, was in, um, many different industries, but predominantly change management consulting, leadership development, business strategy. Process redesign, you know, all of the things and the fabulous experience and opportunities you get in the management consulting context. And so was working with industries around the world and, um, building up some really fundamental leadership development skills in that space.

Then moved from PWC into Macquarie Bank. I was sort of, again, poached into Macquarie Bank and absolutely loved it. Once again, an [00:03:00] internal consulting role, um, and working on making high performers even better. And this is really what I do in a high performance coaching, in a leadership development context.

My calling and my passion was still. There to be nurtured in the clinical psychology space. And so after that I did a doctor of clinical psychology. I worked and trained at Harvard Medical School and Boston, um, children’s Hospital at the time, and honed my skills as an adult child and adolescent clinical psychologist, and did doctoral research in anxiety, worked and trained at places such as St.

Vincent’s Anxiety Disorders Unit, and really developed. A deep passion for helping people with anxiety. The reason is it really talks to my practical nature, my efficient nature. I like to get shit done fast, let’s say, um, and, and anxiety is really responsive. To the right. Practical tools, [00:04:00] very practical.

And it’s also built on a deep understanding of how we function as human beings. Um, and so that logical mind is really aligned to who I am, but also the capacity to impact lives quickly, um, in an anxiety space is what I really loved because you can get really good progress. Very efficiently with the right strategies.

Um, and, uh, you know, many people aren’t necessarily engaging in the right strategies. And so people in that context think, what’s wrong with me? Well, I, I’m, I’m unfixable. I’m unhelpable. But really I want everybody to recognize we are all helpable and, um, and I don’t say treatable. I don’t say fixable, I say helpable.

Um, coachable, uh, to enable us to flourish and thrive with the right tools. And so in that kind of dual pathway, I then set up my dual pathways in designing my own life. Had three children along the [00:05:00] way and, um, set up the anxiety clinic, which is a clinical psychology practice for adults, kids, and teens.

It’s now predominantly business under management because I’ve got a large team of psychologists and clinical psychologists, and it’s a, it’s just such a passion place. Uh, it’s such a labor of love. Let’s. Say, building the anxiety clinic. And then, um, I set up mind strength, high performance consultancy. And through these two pathways I developed the mind strength method, which is my methodology to help people, um, to flourish and thrive in their professional and personal lives.

And really, the dual pathways are to help people with anxiety, stress, low mood burnout, boosting confidence, smashing imposter syndrome, building resilience, and building wellbeing. Um. And it’s also a high performance methodology, so it’s really about mastering your mindset and being able to pivot into tools that will enable you to achieve your best version of [00:06:00] self, professionally and personally.

Rob Hills: What does a, an anxiety clinic do, and how does that differ from, say, the consultancy work that you do? 

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Uh, it’s a really great question. I suppose it comes down to the goals of your client and, uh, meeting the needs of your client and the skill base that you have. So if you highly trained in clinical psychology strategies, which is what my team at the Anxiety Clinic, I.

All are, is making sure that we, you know, ethics, integrity, and evidence-based practice are core to our values. Uh, it’s really embracing those clinical tools to help with mental health challenges and also to help people to flourish and thrive because they are really one and the same. Um, anxiety is a human problem.

I like to take it out of a clinical. Bucket, um, and talking about what’s wrong with an individual as opposed to thinking about this is part of our human experience and let’s enable [00:07:00] you to align to the things that matter most in your life and learn the clinical tools to enable you to flourish and thrive.

So this is my take on anxiety. Um, so in answer to your, your really fabulous question, it’s. Um, staying in your lane is really important. So it’s thinking about what are the tools that I have, what is my training that I have done to enable me to h help an individual at the highest level? And, uh, and then what is broader than that?

Um, as, as far as the goals that my. My clients or the anxiety clinic’s clients are working towards, whether it’s parents wanting help for their children and their teens or, or help for themselves. Mm. Um, it’s making sure you’re very goal oriented. You’re very client centered, and you’re aligning with evidence-based best practice.

Rob Hills: Yeah, amazing. I see in the background there’s the Mind Strength Method book and you mentioned um, that before. That’s around your consultancy as well. So for listeners, [00:08:00] the Mind Strength Method, four Steps to Curb Anxiety, conquer, worry, and Build Resilience. And I’ll link to that in the show notes so people can find it.

Can you tell us a little bit about what actually anxiety is and are there different types and is it different to nervousness, for example? 

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Yeah. Um, fan fabulous questions. Anxiety is our physiological reaction to threat in our environment, but our brain responds. So threat might be walking down a, a dark alley and, uh, and there’s somebody who looks a little bit, um.

Unpleasant, let’s say. Yeah. And so that’s, that’s real threat. Or you know, we always talk about the tiger kind of coming to pounce us and eat us alive. That they’re examples of real threat. And our brain is wired to respond to real threat to keep us alive. And this is the amygdala hijack that part of our brain that jumps into the sympathetic nervous system to set us up to fight or to run from [00:09:00] our, um, threat.

But our brain responds to our worry thoughts. Which comes from this part of our brain, our prefrontal cortex, as if they were a real threat. And so this is what anxiety is. It’s a response not just to real threat in our environment, but it’s a response to what we call perceived threat or our worry thoughts.

Um, and if we take it to a deeper level, fundamentally our worry thoughts. Are built around our discomfort with uncertainty ’cause, because uncertainty represents something that might be threatening to us. So as human beings, we are wired to want to have certainty and control to be able to predict and, and prepare ourselves for the possibility of something.

Happening. Um, and so really it’s our primitive survival instinct. It’s what we actually want to be grateful for, but what can happen is it goes into overdrive when it’s responding to our [00:10:00] discomfort with uncertainty. And so what we want to do is build awareness around all of this, and this is step one of the mind strength method and move into practical action to enable individuals to move out of the fight or flight driven thoughts, feelings, and actions, and realign to, um, assertiveness.

Um. Confidence values, values aligned actions in a business context, your mission, your purpose, your strategic goals, um, and emotionally intelligent engagement in a corporate space. So these are the tools of the mind strength method is how to move out of threat and realign to high performance habits in a high performance context, um, and recognizing in a leadership or in a corporate context.

Uncertainty is what tips us into, um, moving below the line, moving into [00:11:00] behaviors that don’t necessarily get our strategic goals met in the best possible way. So it’s how to bring ourselves above the line and really focus in on our business mission, purpose, strategic goals and actions. 

Rob Hills: It’s really interesting you mentioned the worry thoughts there.

So I imagine a lot of people have heard of the amygdala hijack before where the, you know, you get really worried and um, you go into fight or flight. It’s interesting to hear that the prefrontal cortex is though driving these worry stories and that that particularly around control and uncertainty. And it’s such a hard thing for people who want to feel in control or feel uncertain, and that prefrontal cor cortex obviously is going, uh, into hyperdrive, and that’s what’s causing the anxiety 

Dr Jodie Lowinger: very much so, it causes the anxiety, but anxiety is just a word.

Anxiety is a word that talks to the many faces of what that reaction looks like, what that response to perceived threat looks like. So, you know, many of [00:12:00] my clients might experience. Let’s say, um, micromanaging as an example, you know, it clusters around our need for certainty and control or over checking, um, or worry at 2:00 AM right?

Or it might be short fused of frustration or lashing out, or it might be numbing our feelings with alcohol. Um, or, or, or some form of addiction, let’s say. Um. There are so many different representations of this that inhibit our performance in a high performance context, in a corporate context. And so building awareness for an individual, you know, I work with really successful human beings.

I work with CEOs of multinationals. I coach, um, founders of unicorns and, um, I coach people at all levels of the business trajectory, whether it’s high potentials or leadership teams. What. Really, I want people to recognize is that human behavior. [00:13:00] We overcomplicate human behavior and we think that we are actually more complex than we are.

We are, and that makes us feel like this is too hard. I can’t do this. Really, we want to take a step back from that and simplify things. And what anxiety and being an anxiety expert allows me to do is deeply understand our fundamental drivers as human beings, how we function in a. Corporate context. I work with Olympians as well, how we function in a elite sporting context.

Um, so it’s about mastering your mindset in order to enable you to flourish and thrive. But mastering your mindset and flourish and flourishing and thriving is contingent on knowing what. Flourishing and thriving looks like to you as an individual. It might be as a couple, it might be as a family, or it might be as a whole organization.[00:14:00] 

And so what we don’t wanna do, what we do want to do and how to do it, and step four of the mind strength method is really all about wellbeing or wellness and a framework around. Making sure your body and is, and you’re nurturing your physical wellbeing in order to give yourself the best chance of success, uh, with your emotional wellbeing and with your emotionally intelligent engagement in your day-to-day lives.

So managing and mitigating against burnout as an example or negative stress. Stress is not all bad, but we want to mitigate against negative stress and that worrying worry spiral that can kick in, especially when we’re tipping into burnout. And one of the most powerful tools in the mind strength toolkit is really looking after your body in order to look after your mind as well.[00:15:00] 

But there’s so many. Tools there that I, you know, as I, as we said before we started today, we could talk for 10 hours Yeah. And still have stuff to say. 

Rob Hills: Absolutely. Well, and it’s funny, there are so many threads that I wanna pull on at the moment, and I’m conscious that the listeners are going, oh, ask more about that.

But there’s like just so many paths. I’m interested, you talked about mindset there before, so why is mindset so important? I remember in myself, helper journey from like 20 years ago, people would say positive thinking’s no good because you can’t just, you know, say the same thing over and over again and expect some sort of different outcome.

But I’m starting to learn more and more that it’s about, and I, I use the analogy of changing the channel or the metaphor of changing the channel. So I, I start having these, these thoughts. And rather than focus on them, I choose to, to, to think about something else. So obviously it’s a mindset. It’s, it’s, as you said before, it’s the catching the thing in the, in the initial state.

So it’s that awareness piece, but then it’s going, okay, I need [00:16:00] to not focus on this and focus somewhere else. Is that right? 

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Uh, almost, um, a lot of, a lot of what you’re saying is fabulous, you know, um, it’s, it’s about taking yourself out of the boxing ring with your thoughts. Mm. And because when you’re in the boxing ring with your thoughts, you are keeping yourself in struggle.

You are keeping yourself in fight or flight. And you’re fighting your thoughts, so I shouldn’t be thinking about this. You know, that critical voice. I hate you, critical voice, I hate you, worry thoughts? Um, this keeps us stuck and or this whole concept around positive thinking or mantras, right? Mm-hmm. I should be thinking more positively.

Look at my life. You know, even gratitude. I’ve people invalidate themselves with this whole concept around I should be more grateful. I’ve got so much to be grateful for in my life. Why am I worrying? I don’t, I don’t have anything to worry about. Why am I worrying? Um, and, uh, I should be more [00:17:00] positive. So these should bes keeps us in fight or flight.

Mm. So in essence. It. The word acceptance is very powerful. It’s about accepting, noticing, observing, allowing. So this is mindfulness. Mindfulness is a really core part of the mind strength method and the mind strength method really is. Um, a compilation of evidence-based tools and strategies, you know?

Mm-hmm. Um, uh, built on deep science over decades and seven years of clinical training, dare I say. Um, but, um, bringing it back to this notion of positive thinking, that kind of. Tips us into self denigrating thoughts, which keeps us trapped in that anxiety spiral. So we wanna notice the thoughts, we wanna learn which kinds of thoughts are helpful and which kinds of thoughts are unhelpful.

So worry is an example of an unhelpful kind of thought, and we, we dig a little deeper to understand why worry [00:18:00] is the opposite of helpful, which makes it a little bit easier to get some distance from our worry thoughts and wrap them up and. And, uh, you know, use strategies to separate ourselves from them and, uh, realign to whether it’s bringing our focus back to the present moment, again, a mindfulness tool or, um, bringing our ourself back to focusing on strategic goals around what’s in our control.

So that’s a pivot out of problem solve, uh, out of worry into problem solving around what’s in our control as an example of a mindset tool. Um. Back your thoughts. Uh, back to your point around mindset. So mindset isn’t about positive thinking because we are not positive thinkers as human beings. It’s the positive thinkers who got eaten by the tigers.

That’s exactly right. ’cause they, they left the cave and they were like, Hey tiger, you are really, you are gonna be my friend. Right? Um, and so. Snap. Um, so we are wired for survival, which [00:19:00] means we are wired to notice our threats, but we are also wired to then get hooked in. It’s called hypervigilance. We get hooked in to our worry stories and it takes us down a path of towards.

You know, all sorts of a negative spiral and the byproduct in the behaviors that we engage in to try and stifle those sympathetic nervous system kind of feelings. But again, the good news is these are all really helpable and the helpable nature of it. And, uh, again, these are really central to the tools that I use to make.

Outstanding leaders, even more outstanding. Mm-hmm. It’s all logical built on neuroscience and practical strategies where we get those light bulb moments that say, oh, okay, that’s why I was doing it. That makes sense. That’s why I’m not an idiot. I was doing it for very logical reason. [00:20:00] This is why it’s unhelpful and this is why this pathway is going to be.

Incredibly helpful for me. 

Rob Hills: I imagine a lot of leaders have got to the positions they’re in because of things like hypervigilance, because of their, um, ability to, to scan the environment, to look for threats and to mitigate those threats. Does this happen that some leaders get anxiety later in life because they’ve kind of worn down their nervous system, if you like, um, doing all these great things, but that thing that served them so well when they were perhaps younger doesn’t serve them anymore?

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Reflection is powerful. You know, there’s lots that we can unravel with that. I talk to the double-edged sword of this kind of, uh, experience as part of high performance in many individuals. Uh, we could call it the difference between obsessive compulsive traits and OCD, let’s say, as an example. Mm-hmm.

It’s only a problem if it’s a [00:21:00] problem, right? And so if we are going to, uh, and so the differences that I use are things like fear-driven, hyper vigilance is around our struggle with uncertainty and our. Discomfort driven, or I’m gonna use the word fear generically, but our sympathetic nervous system driven need for certainty and control.

And that’s gonna tip us into below the line habits and unhelpful actions. And it’s also going to lead to an unsustainable pathway where people might tip into burnout, but at the, but ultimately it’s going to undermine capacity for peak performance or high performance. Mm-hmm. When we take it to a deeper question of what is driving your behavior at any particular moment, this is one of the most powerful or important questions that I use with my clients.

Am I being driven by fear? And if we take fear to a deeper level, [00:22:00] discomfort with uncertainty, um, um, or am I being driven by. Learning how to sit with the discomfort of uncertainty. Recognizing the discomfort is not going to go away. It’s about how we can make friends with uncertainty and establish a high performance toolkit around how to thrive in uncertainty.

’cause that’s the nature of the world that we exist in and move forward. So when you’ve got, let’s say this ANSI amygdala or a predisposition to a need for certainty and control, it often drives us. It drives us to making sure that we can be the best that we can be. Um, and this can also be that double-edged sword of anxiety.

So, um, you know, anxiety, the underlying element of anxiety is oftentimes this deep care factor. This, uh, wanting [00:23:00] everybody, I. Everything to be safe and well. Remembering that it’s the protective instinct at play. And so we want to recognize the inherent strengths in individuals who experience anxiety.

Deeper sense, and this is a generalization, but you know, I’ve got a lot of, um, cases in point, deeper sense of empathy and an analytical mind, a, a deep thinking mind, a a, um, heart that wants to. Do well, make sure the organization does well, make sure my team does well, um, make sure my family does well, and, uh, but we don’t want to be shackled by that.

That leads us to, I must have certainty in order to make sure, um, that nothing bad happens in moving forward. So we, we move out of that and we realign to the tools to embrace your values of [00:24:00] care, your values of high performance and achievement, let’s say, or whatever it might be that are your values and what the high performance habits are around that.

So an example might be moving out of passive because when we have a discomfort with uncertainty, we might avoid. You know, we talk about our comfort zone. We might place more. We might stay in our comfort zone. We avoid taking steps out of our comfort zone, so. Avoidance is one. We move out of avoidance and we move into learning how to take steps out of your comfort zone.

But in a communication context, it might be learning how to move out of being passive, how to move out of being aggressive because their representations of the fight or flight and move into assertive. And what does assertive look like? What does assertive feel like? Um, there’s, there’s so very much I could talk to, to all of these points.

You know, when I’m, I do, uh, a [00:25:00] large amount of my work as a keynote speaker and as a workshop, um, facilitator working with leadership teams. And, um, it is about, I. Trying to give as much value as possible in a short amount of time. But, uh, there’s lots that we could talk about Rob in that space. 

Rob Hills: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. And it’s, it’s interesting I’m reflecting on my own, um, situation, and I’ve mentioned this on the podcast before, but I. Um, I, uh, experienced anxiety and one of the defining moments for me was around Covid when I decided to leave my safe 23 year career in the public service and go and start my own business.

And one of the things you said then about uncertainty and control, I had a plan and, you know, talk about analytical, um, thinker. I had a plan from A to Z and back again of all the different things that could go wrong if I was to start my own business. I did not have a plan for covid. So, and I think that was perhaps the catalyst for starting, you know, I, I’d, I’d experienced sort of, [00:26:00] um, low level anxiety before, but this really shook me, I suppose.

But it was really interesting you say around the need for uncertainty and control and, uh, just reflecting on my own situation, I know that probably other people feel that as well. That there is this uncertainty and they can’t kind of, you know, grasp it or, or fix it if you like. 

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Yeah, completely. Um, and, you know, COVID is a, an example of being thrown into absolute uncertainty, as you say.

Mm. And it, and a lot of people tipped into burnout in that context of uncertainty. Um, the reason it was such a high contributor to burnout and anxiety was, you know, when I’m talking about burnout, there’s a lot of, there’s cer, certain clusters, mindset is a. Key contributor to burnout because the sympathetic nervous system is putting us into, uh, burning our adrenaline, uh, burning our serotonin reserves, burning our energy.

So, um, mindset is fundamentally [00:27:00] important. Mastering your mindset to mitigate against burnout, but also context. So it’s, it’s actually lesser. That sense of working long hours, it’s more about what, how are you working those long hours? Are you in that flow state? Are you in dopamine and serotonin when you are working?

Um, or are you otherwise? But in Covid, the reason it was such a burnout contributor was this notion of context where no matter. No matter how hard I, I, I try, no matter what incredible plans I’ve created, the context is not allowing me to engage in them. So the context is out of our control, and that is. A situation where in a, in a normal business context, sometimes people are working in business context where maybe the expectations exceed capacity or the role exceeds capability or, you know, whatever it might be.

And [00:28:00] sometimes the worst bully is the bully inside our own mind. But, uh, these are some of the things that contribute to burnout at an individual level in a, in a normal context as well. Hmm. It’s very different when I’m doing keynotes on burnout. It’s very different from the classic conceptualization of Yeah, just work less hard.

Right. Or work life balance. Like what a I I I do tend to swear. I’m sorry, Rob, but I That’s okay. What a, what an ArcHa, what an archaic concept I was. I’m no longer gonna swear what an, what an archaic concept, this whole notion of work life balance is. But what we wanna do is make our life purposeful, design our life, and make sure.

We are mindfully engaging with the things that matter to us when we are carving out boundaries and time around the things that matter to us. So quality trumps quantity. Mm-hmm. When we’re talking [00:29:00] about. Managing our life and mitigating against burnout. It’s making sure that you are, um, being quite purposeful in the things that you engage in in life, and that’s up to you to choose what is important to you.

There’s no, it’s not. It’s not anybody’s right to, to judge around what people choose in their personal values. Um, and then it’s designing your life with purposeful action around that. 

Rob Hills: Yeah, that’s amazing. And I think intention obviously feeds into that piece and mindset as well. And I think for people who are thinking about their own situation, and I’m, I’m starting to do this with myself just based on our conversation, is really go back and go, what is important to me?

Why? And I loved your question before and I’ve gotta find it on my page of notes. I. What is driving your behavior? And I think, you know, I’m gonna sit with that one for a bit ’cause there’s, uh, there’s a lot in that. So thank you for that. 

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Um, step two of the mainstream method is all about this. It’s about clarity of [00:30:00] your values.

I’ve got these, um, I. I created these values, values cards as part of the toolkit for the mind strength method. And step two is about, you know, we wanna build awareness around what is unhelpful. We wanna build awareness around what is helpful and in a corporate context. Um, it’s recognizing values and we don’t have to call them values, we could call them behaviors or rules of engagement or whatever we want to call them.

Um. Is, uh, a fundamental strategic tool in business. I like to say values drives culture and it’s culture that drives performance. So I, when I’m working with organizations and leaders, it is about building high performance cultures and building high performing leaders, recognizing we are all leaders no matter where we sit in an organization.

But. To [00:31:00] miss the culture piece and jump straight to what we do, um, or our KPIs or our, um, you know, technical stuff, uh, as you well know, um, is, is really missing. The most profound piece in what drives high performance in an organization. So growth mindset and psychological safety. These are fundamental tools for ourselves as human beings.

You know, we can be the most un psychologically safe with ourselves because we’ve got this punitive, critical voice that tells us we are not good enough. Yep. Right. And tells us we have to be perfect in order to be good enough. Yep. The concepts around psychological safety and a growth mindset are absolutely essential.

Um, both to manage and prevent anxiety, but also to build high performing leaders. 

Rob Hills: It’s great. You’ve, you’ve mentioned, and one of my questions was around the, the, uh, mind strength method, and you’ve already got 2, 3, 4 out of no, three outta the four. [00:32:00] So first step was awareness. Second step is clarity of values.

What’s the third step in the mind strength method? 

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Yeah. So first step is awareness around what, um, what we, what we wanna move out of. So the fight or flight driven thoughts, feelings, and actions. Mm-hmm. Second step in a corporate context is awareness of our values, our mission, our purpose, our strategic goals, and our strategic actions.

Um, and uh, the third step is the toolkit. How to move out of one, how to realign to two. And step four is. A whole wellbeing program around how to build high performing, uh, a sustainable high performance, and recognizing that in order to master your mindset and thrive in your professional life and your personal life, you, you must be looking after your wellbeing as well.

Um, you know, sometimes I’m working with my clients around. Sleep. You know, often, uh, clients engage with me because [00:33:00] they’re having trouble sleeping. Um, and it’s, and sometimes this is not a sleep problem. Often this is not a sleep problem. Mm-hmm. Often it’s got nothing to do with sleep. It’s typically, um. A worry story around performance.

Um, that’s oftentimes what drives sleep problems. Anyway, I could talk for hours on that alone, but Yeah. Um, but, but everything is helpable and that’s, that’s a really, the, the key take home message. 

Rob Hills: That’s a really interesting point around sleep. So I’m someone who, uh, wakes up raring to go in the morning.

So I have this sense of anxiety before I even start thinking. I think, unless I was thinking in my sleep, I’m not sure. But is it something that perhaps people are going to bed thinking about that is causing this on awakeness? Or is it just something that has become so ingrained in the neural pathways in the brain that it’s just a habit now?

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Uh, it could be all of the above. Any of the above or all of the above. Right. Um, and, uh, [00:34:00] so, uh, to, to your question, it’s. This is why awareness is so important as one of the most fundamental pieces is working out what is contributing to the problem. Um, before we actually find a solution to that problem, we have to, um, take on a bit of an investigative approach around that.

But, um, yes, worry. Can be wearing at a conscious level and at a sub subconscious level. You know, as, as you as I have no doubt, you know, our sleep goes through different cycles. Deep sleep, lighter sleep, um, rem sleep, um, and then towards waking up. So our mind, our active mind when we come into these lighter sleep states, if we are.

If, if our mind is still worrying around things, then it can tip us into complete wakefulness and then the worry kicks in and it maintains our being awake state. Uh, so there’s points in time through the night [00:35:00] where we worry it might be worrying before we go to sleep, or it might be waking up, sometimes it might be 2:00 AM three, 4:00 AM 5:00 AM waking up in that state of heightened cortisol as you described.

Um. The heightened cortisol is actually part of what happens to us as human beings. Cortisol is designed to assist us in waking up, so it is a common experience to have that state of cortisol when we wake up to wake up in this sort of more stressy state. And so how you, again, how you take action and respond to that is.

Is important. It’s about purposeful action and recognizing key messages around you are worth it. Often we stay stuck because we just don’t take the action and we don’t lean in to saying, this is something that’s been challenging me for a long time, but I just exist with it and I don’t do something about it.

Um, so. [00:36:00] There are really powerful strategies to help to master your mindset if worry is a contributor, and moving, learning how to move out of worry and, and respect your mind that it wants to get it. It wants to have control. It wants to problem solve, it wants to protect. And it’s, how can you move that into strategies and ways that work for you?

So you taking control of worry rather than worry being in control of you, and how can you do that in order to, to enable you to get a really good night’s sleep. 

Rob Hills: Now I realize I’m gonna ask a really difficult question here, but I’m thinking of the listener who’s sitting there going, you know what? I, I do suffer from a bit of anxiety.

What is probably your number one tip, if you can gimme one. If it’s more than that, that’s fine. That you could sort of give to that person where they can go, okay, I can start [00:37:00] to make a difference. Now, I know that’s really broad ’cause it depends on the person’s situation, but what’s, what’s one of the tools that they could have in their toolbox?

Dr Jodie Lowinger: I think that. To understand anxiety is fundamentally helpful, uh, as, as one of the really one of the most important tools in their toolbox. So understanding anxiety is super helpful. Understanding that anxiety is a really helpable experience and to seek out the help that you need as opposed to suffering in silence because you are worth it.

Um. You are helpable. So I think that’s one of the most, the key messages as far as that. Um, as far as your question goes, Rob. 

Rob Hills: Yeah. Thank you. That’s great. I’m gonna say I failed as an interviewer again because I’ve got through like four questions out of all the questions I had. So maybe one day we can get you back on the podcast to ask a few more.

But what’s one question I didn’t ask today that maybe you’d hoped that I had, and if I did ask it, how would you have responded? 

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Um, [00:38:00] maybe a question around, um, I. Why I like to conceptualize anxiety as a superpower, um, because really, you know, anxiety is our. Care factor, as I mentioned earlier, and you know, your case in point, Rob to, I mean, you can talk to this.

Rob Hills: Mm-hmm. 

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Uh, would you consider yourself a kind, caring human being? 

Rob Hills: Yes. Yes. I would. 

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Have you oriented yourself to roles historically that a dedicated to making a difference in society? 

Rob Hills: Yeah, and look, before we got on the podcast, we talked a little bit about my background and, you know, um, you know, air Force, a FP, even starting this podcast.

My idea behind the podcast is to help as many people as I can, 

Dr Jodie Lowinger: a hundred percent, and I’ll put my hand up to say I experience anxiety as well. And it is my superpower. It’s been my superpower throughout my life, [00:39:00] but it is a double-edged sword because it, it comes, uh, it has challenges as well. Mm. Um, it tips us into that, um, perfectionism as an example, or imposter syndrome, which is part of perfectionism.

Um, and. Which is the byproduct of wanting certainty, um, and various stories in that. So, uh, I will put my hand up and say, hell yeah, it’s my superpower. I have got a big heart that wants to change the world, and it has also enabled me to, um, move it into, uh. A mission to help people on scale, to create a world where every person can manage anxiety and thrive to help high performing leaders because they then go on to help whole organizations and, uh, to help, uh, educators in schools because they help whole school communities to help parents, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So I have. Been lucky to [00:40:00] have to cultivate the opportunities, I suppose to align to my values in designing my life, um, professionally, uh, as well as personally. But that hasn’t always been easy. And the anxiety sure as hell hasn’t always been easy. But that’s really talking to that, why might I conceptualize anxiety as a superpower?

Um, that’s a generalization. It’s not. Um. It’s not always the case, but it certainly is the case in a lot of situations. And for those of you who are nodding your head out there, who can relate to some of this, start to ask yourself, are you looking after yourself? Because people who experience anxiety oftentimes value, kindness and compassion.

And oftentimes that kindness and compassion is directed outwards and not necessarily directed inwards. Mm-hmm. So. Leaders out there who are listening to this podcast episode [00:41:00] think about are you taking time for self care because, uh. This is really what we all deserve as human beings. 

Rob Hills: That’s an amazing response.

Thank you, Jodie. And I think that reframe, I really like it. And uh, you know, I think I can get on board with thinking about myself as a caring person who wants to make a difference. And I guess if I didn’t care, perhaps I wouldn’t be experiencing these feelings. So. Um, it’s pointing me in the right direction.

A hundred percent. 

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Absolutely. Right. And well done you on, on taking the bull by the horns and doing the, the tough stuff by red. Redefining and redesigning yourself, um, in your professional trajectory. That’s I. Absolutely fantastic. Um, just another point around neuroscience and um, Rob, that I’d like to cover, um, we talked about the worry pathway as one of the pathways to that hijacking amygdala.

1. But there’s also the brainstem pathway. Uh, you know, neuroscience is what I embed all [00:42:00] of the tools and the strategies that I, that I work on in helping my clients to master their mindset. Um, the brainstem pathway often talks to traumatic life experiences, which can lead to that hijacking amygdala as well.

And trauma doesn’t have to be. Uh, what we might consider big T trauma. It can be something that’s happened in our earlier life experience, um, that perhaps created some, uh, enduring worry stories. Uh, so what anxiety clusters around these pockets of uncertainty and in a corporate context, in a corporate high performance context, it’s sometimes it’s typically performance anxiety.

Or social anxiety. And sometimes these things can stem from traumatic life experiences that happened in the past. Health anxiety is another area of uncertainty. Um, but. For those of you out there who have [00:43:00] experienced perhaps a traumatic life experience in the past, so many people in society have, um, this might be one of the factors contributing to the, um, that care factor that you have now, a need for certainty and control because uncertainty might have represented some really challenging things for you.

In the past. Um, so yeah, just shedding some light on that particular pathway to anxiety as well. 

Rob Hills: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, thank you Jodie. This has been a fantastic conversation and as you said, we could really go on all day, but I’m conscious of the time if people wanna connect more with you and find out more about what you’re doing.

How can they do that? 

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Yeah. Um, connect with me on LinkedIn, connect with me through any social media channel, uh, or otherwise. My website is Dr Jodie D-R-J-O-D-I e.com au. Or if you wanna email me, um, [email protected] au. I am, I [00:44:00] am in the process of writing my. Second book I’m about to launch, um, a co-authored book as well.

So there’s a few things that are coming out imminently. Yeah. Um, uh, and, uh, but if you wanna engage me, uh, as a keynote speaker or as a facilitator or as a coach, um, yeah, feel free to reach out. It’ll be an absolute joy. 

Rob Hills: That’s amazing. Thanks so much, Jodie. Appreciate it. 

Dr Jodie Lowinger: Take care everyone.