Good evening everyone. Hello, hello. Jenny here, how are you all?

Hope you're OK this evening. It's been the first evening where it's almost, almost still light outside my end. And because of that, the with the cops going back at the weekend with with Eva, we we never really quite Recapture that hour in the summertime, so, so she's still up and has been listening to lots of minions.

Well, my husband's been playing a dodgy minions tracks that involve fart noises. So if there's some shrieking and fart noises going on in the background, my deepest apologies. I don't want to put my headset in there because the microphone's not as good as my super snazzy microphone here, but I will do, if there's a lot of squawking going on.

So I hope you're OK, everyone, . Have we got a few you all got loads of people on tonight. Brilliant.

Hello all, nice to see you. So we have got a lot to cram into our hour this evening, so, I'm going to get going, straight away. So, somehow we've arrived at module 5.

I don't know quite how that's happened. It feels, feels like it's gone, gone really quickly even though the world has massively changed while we've been doing this. So.

We're at module 5 now, the cultivating confidence masterclass, and it's the 2nd of our mindset modules. So in terms of our 10 commandments of veterinary career mastery, just a bit of a recap of where we had got to. So in those 1st 3 modules where we were doing the researching section, so researching within ourselves, within our environment, and about the opportunities, we'd covered the commandments of know yourself, know your desires, design the life that you want, carve out the time to be working on that and thinking about it, and know your options.

And then last week or two weeks ago now, whenever it was, when we started the mindset, series, then the what would they be? Commandments 6 and 7 was practise authenticity. So that was sort of starting to introduce us to the Brene Brown type concepts in in terms of really starting to be brave enough to know yourself and be yourself.

And the 7th 1 was becoming flawsome, so. Understanding that all those things about ourselves that we don't like or we wish we didn't do or we want to change, there's imperfections of the cracks through which the light gets in, and they're a really important part of us, and they're also part of that shared common humanity and that we all have those, those parts. And so it's about owning them and knowing that you're still a deeply amazing human being, as, as well.

So we're now on to commandments 8 and 9. And so those are work on your limiting beliefs, hence the exercise that I got you to be starting to have a look at, and some of you have, don't worry if you've not done that yet. As, as I say, there's plenty of time to work through.

So we're gonna be working on limiting beliefs, and then commandment 9 is overcoming anxiety. So, before we dive into that, and especially with what we've all been going through in the last couple of weeks, then I am definitely gonna do our short guided visualisation just to ground us all into our session for this evening and to just help shift gears, and just help get that headspace and heart space where it needs to be. So if you, with this one, just you, it, it's, it's not really that woo woo, but it's just kind of like, you do need to, to use your imagination a little bit.

We're gonna be talking at one point about the centre of the earth and imagining some nice things. I know scientifically the centre of the earth is just a lump of molten hot rock, but just bear with me a little bit. If you, if with the guided meditations you do find them a bit weird, that's absolutely fine.

You don't actually really need to tune into the words that I'm saying. If that's not your thing, you can just let the sound of my voice relax you. But if you do like the guided meditations, then, then tune in and, and listen to that as well.

And either, either of those is fine. So as always, if you're listening to this on the replay and you're driving, hop me forward about 5 minutes for this one. And if you're not, then just start to settle yourself now where you're seated.

This is gonna be a short guided meditation. Just if you've been feeling a bit scattered, a little bit anxious or disconnected, and it's a lovely practise to just help you come back into your body and feel more connected again. So getting comfortable in your seat.

I'm just taking a moment, shift about if you need to. Breathe normally, but just begin to start to focus on your breathing, on that breath as it enters and leaves the body. And just gently, if it feels appropriate to do so, let your eyes just gently close now.

And with each breath in, I want you to breathe in relaxation. And as you exhale, Just letting go and breathing out any tension. So breathing in, calm and relaxation.

I'm breathing out, tension, stress, just anything you need to let go of from the day. And I want you to now imagine that you're standing in a forest. You have bare feet.

And underneath your feet there is soft moss. The moss is luscious and green. It's soft and slightly damp to the soles of your feet.

To really just imagine that now. Imagine what it feels like to feel that moss under the soles of your feet. Imagine yourself standing in the forest with the trees.

It's a beautiful day. And it's very peaceful. You can hear some birdsong.

Maybe the gentle buzz of some bees. And you're just feeling at ease in this place. And what we're gonna do is find our own roots.

Our own rootedness at this time. So I want you to imagine. That from the soles of your feet there are roots growing.

And these are energy routes. They contain the energy that flows through you. And that flows through the earth.

But they're also roots that can draw up the energy from the earth. So just imagine these roots growing. And as they grow, they push down into the earth.

They go through the damp moss. Through the earth that's all moist underneath. And they perhaps pass some other tree roots.

Maybe some rocks. Maybe some underground water. And your roots keep going, keep going.

And keep going deeper. And deeper into the earth. And remember that these are energy roots, so you can feel connected energetically to the earth as your feet grow your roots very deep into the earth.

And then just like the trees. These roots can draw up nourishment. They can draw up everything that you need from the earth to feel energised and calm.

And well right now. And as your feet roots go deeper into the earth. They connect with the very centre of the earth.

A beautiful shining place right in the centre of the earth. That's pure energy. And it's pure love.

And now you can be in energy exchange with the earth. Drawing up what you need. And sending love back down into the earth.

And so imagine these roots for just a moment longer. Imagine you're receiving everything that you need from the earth. And in exchange, you're giving your love.

Everything you need is here for you now. And when you're ready, You can just gently draw your energy roots up. Just until you find a comfortable level for connection.

A comfortable level for your groundedness. Your connectedness. And remember that you can do this practise anytime.

So anytime you're feeling scattered or any time you feel that you've lost your centre. To just come back into your body now. And back into feeling where you're sitting on your chair.

Imagine feeling that you've received all the things you need right now. And then you can just gently start to give your wrists a bit of a rotation, move your ankles, just wiggle your fingers. Open your eyes back up if they've been shut.

And then we're free to go about the rest of our evening session. OK, so I did think we might possibly be about to get a, a small person running into the room, just at a crucial moment, but, she didn't. So, yeah, see how you get on with that one.

As I say, it can just be, it's a little bit of an extension of one of the ones I've done before, but just really going into that, really grounding yourself down. So that can be one that you can do anywhere, anytime that you just feel like you, you need to re-enter yourself a little bit. OK, so, hopefully we're all feeling a little bit more calm.

Relaxed and ready to go. So, having just done something nice and relaxing, we are actually gonna start this session by talking about anxiety, because, although the session, we're definitely gonna cover the limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs can be really, really helpful for helping with anxiety.

So I actually just want to unpack the anxiety piece first, and then we'll get to the limiting beliefs section then. I was also gonna try and squeeze into this, originally, productivity is self-worth and fear of failure. But the, the fear of failure stuff will come out in the limiting belief section, and actually we tackled productivity and self-worth on the Q&A on Thursday and I did quite a bit on it then.

So, and I also just realised quite how much stuff there is to cover with the anxiety and the limiting beliefs. So, as always, this is a very inter interactive session. So do type type into the chat box.

Hi Gemma, nice to see you there. And, any questions as we go through thoughts, comments, please pin them over. OK, so I'm actually gonna start with a question.

So when it comes to anxiety. Who here would say that anxiety is an active issue for them? So, obviously we all experience it as part of the human experience, but for some people it only raise its head very, very occasionally.

For others of us, it is something that is part of our experience, or, or, or certainly part of the current challenges that you maybe feel are stopping you from moving forward, as much as you'd like. So who here does feel like, they're they're experiencing it fairly regularly? So A Eileen's saying yes.

Sophie's saying yes for over, over a year, Nicky's like, Yep. Nikki's like, yes, definitely. Rebecca, yes, Louise, yes.

Nick McCornish, definitely, yes. Yes. OK.

So, and this, this kind of matches what I was seeing on the, on the. Questionnaires as well, so I know it won't be across the board for absolutely every participant, but for a good chunk of us it is either something that definitely it's an active part of your experience, or it may be something that you are likely to experience as you, as you go through this process. So, just sharing, a bit more of my own, the anxiety going in is one I know pretty well.

And I've actually sort of befriended it now and come, come to peace with it. But in terms of very, very briefly, with my own kind of journeys with it, Allie's saying, yes, it's my accident. Yeah, OK.

So it's been Almost like a bit of a PTSD thing, Ali, since that, that you've been experiencing, started to experience, anxiety. And that's completely normal response by your brain to, to a very difficult and scary, incident. And all, all of the future projections that, that can come with that in our minds.

So, for me, it it really started in childhood. As I've alluded to you before, I had quite a lot of difficult, challenging stuff happen. From quite an early age, both within my family and also with, with my physical health.

So in childhood, it manifested more as quite physical things like teeth grinding, nail biting, and then I'm a little bit of a walking cliche, really, because, in my teenage years I got quite badly bullied at boarding school, and so it morphed into a bit of an eating disorder. And then as I was sort of, saying last time. Once I hit university, university new graduates, days, then I was masking it quite a lot, with, booze and partying and, and that sort of thing, and just kind of trying to numb those uncomfortable feelings.

So it's peaked a couple of times, for me, really. Once was around finals. I was also in a pretty unhealthy relationship at the time, and I, at that time I was experiencing panic attacks, and I didn't really know what they were, so it was blooming scary.

And they got really, really bad at one point. I, I was barely able to leave the house. I've thrown up in the street with it before, and it, it, it was really, yeah, quite intense.

It then settled a bit after graduation. And just sort of grumbled away. And I managed to obviously be out and practise, do my internship, get the senior vet role at Vets now.

And I don't think externally people would really have known that there was anything going on, but, behind the scenes, I, it was a constant part of my daily experience and not very pleasant. And in my mid-twenties, it kind of peaked again. Actually, kind of around the time when I was really unsure of the veterinary niche and career and where to go with it.

And so at that time, It was just, it just morphed into like hyper anxiety, so I guess it would now be termed generalised anxiety disorder and it was just there all the time. So at that point, I also kind of have it in my family line if you like, so my mother was agoraphobic in her 20s, it's a lot, a lot in the female line of my family, so I had decided. A little bit similar, Rosie, to what we were discussing in the Q&A on Thursday.

I was just kind of like, oh, this is genetic. It's just something I've got. It's part of me.

I can't change it. I was, I didn't know about growth mindset, fixed mindset back then, but I definitely was a fixed mindset around, well, around a lot of things at that point in time, but especially the anxiety. I didn't really know any of the mindset stuff at that point.

So I just went down the standard route of being medicated for it. I was on and off beta blockers. So they treated the symptoms.

And I had counselling and stuff that kind of helped a little bit but didn't really make it go away. And then I changed, inadvertently changed how I was dealing with it, and then everything changed. So that was 16 years ago now.

And I would say it's still occasionally a part of my life, but the volume on it is turned so far down that it's not a problem. It doesn't stop me doing stuff at all anymore. And so I really want to share some of those tools and techniques with you.

I know just because stuff's worked for me doesn't mean it's gonna work for everyone, but to, to have struggled with it since childhood, all of my life, up to a point, and then changed how I was approaching it, learned a lot more about it, and now it being very, very, very manageable. If there's anything within that that I can share that helps anybody, even if it's just one person, I'm happy with that. Because what I've realised, about anxiety is that when it's either permanently or semi-permanently a feature for you rather than only very occasionally, then you kind of have to have a two-pronged approach to it.

So, one aspect of that is working on the internal aspect. So looking at how you're currently running the operating software of your brain. So that's one angle.

I'll talk about that a bit more in a second. But then there's this second approach as well, which is also looking externally at how you're living your life and how far out of alignment you are currently with who you really are and what you really want and what you need and what your hardwiring is. So, those are, those are the kind of the two-pronged approach.

So obviously, anxiety is not actually necessarily a bad thing always. It's a normal, needed safety response. However, some people's is dialled up way higher than is helpful, you know, as in it's being triggered in our modern daily lives in situations where it's not really needed and it's not very helpful.

So if it's really dialled up in a person. Then that will be a combination, yes, of some genetic hardwiring. There's, there's, you know, when you look at the evidence, that is definitely an aspect of it.

However, there is a massive amount of it. That is how we use our minds and our pattern thinking styles as well, which is great news because we really do have the power to completely rewire and retrain that part of our brain and how we respond to our own anxiety triggers. We can also, and this is the bit that CBT doesn't actually hit, we can actually remove some of those anxiety triggers.

So that's, that's another thing that I want to touch on this evening as well. So those of you who have had counselling or CBT or those sorts of things will already be aware of the, you know, the need to look at the operating software of your brain and, and change it where you can. So the way to tweak that, that you, you know, internally how you're managing your chimp.

If you like, is to optimise its level of calmness and, and that's by working on those unhelpful thinking patterns. So I'm just gonna dive into my slides now for a little bit, so bear with me while I do the usual shifting about. Da da da da.

So it may all go black, your end, I'm still here. Oh it takes just a little bit long for this and I'm always like, have I actually gone? But no, OK, so resume share.

Yeah, there's the budget. OK. So, let's just take you.

Over here. So hopefully now you're looking at my slide. OK, so.

The first part, let me just get to where I am in my notes as well, bear with me, people. Mm mm. Actually, I don't need them.

OK, so. So I'm, I'm quite aware that we are gonna have a range within this group. Well, for some people for whom anxiety really isn't an issue, they might have experienced it a couple of times, but it's not a part of their daily experience.

We will also have people where they are experiencing it, but maybe that they're early into their, their experiences with anxiety and haven't actually got to a stage where they've had therapy or treatment for it. And there will be people within the group who have have experienced it for a long time and have had therapy over the years. So.

You know, I'm, I'm kind of speaking to all, all of the group now, really, recognising that you will all be at slightly different levels with this. So that first part of the two-pronged approach, going within and looking at the operating software of your mind, the first thing is, knowledge is power here. It really, really is.

And certainly within the last decade, when I, when, so back in the late 90s, just coming up to the year 2000, . As I say, 16 years ago now, mental health was in mental health services were in a very different place, as was neuroscience knowledge. There has been so much stuff that's come out in the last decade or so that can really, really, really help.

So, if you're at a not quite needing therapy stage with it, then books and resources can be really, really great here. As I say, when I first started having panic attacks, I didn't know what they were. And as soon as I started to read about what they were and that they were actually a thing and that I wasn't using my marbles or actually dying, I remember just crying for ages going, oh my God, I'm not a fruit loop, this is a thing.

And therefore, there's a way through it, there's a way past it, there's a way beyond this. So these are all various ones that I've used, as I say, just because these have worked for me, doesn't necessarily mean they'll be the right ones for you, but they are ones of all of the ones that I've read that have been particularly useful. So the worry cure was very handy at teaching me about unproductive versus worry and about how to action productive worry and let go of unproductive worry.

I'm gonna talk about this one a little bit more in a second. Most people know the chimp paradox. You may have either read it or listened to it already, or heard of it.

I find that one really, really good. I mean, it's not really an anxiety-based book, but reading it, if you're someone who struggles with anxiety can be really helpful, because a lot of it is to do with that chimp part of our brain rather than the human part. So I found that one particularly good at seeing how the anxiety thing can play out in your interpersonal relationships with and triggers with other people, particularly.

And then rewire your, your anxious brain. I haven't actually read that one. I have to say, it's just that whenever I've looked for anything or when I've been looking for any books or audios around anxiety, it's always popped up.

It's got hundreds of, like, 4 out of 5 reviews, and I like the, the contents within. I I, I kind of didn't, but time this came out, I'd sort of cured, it was quite cured of, of needing to do it. But if I felt like it was rearing its head again, then I would go back and read that one.

I particularly like that one because of the title as well, with rewire your anxious brain. Because it is, I think, really useful to think of it as a rewiring process. I, you actively have to do something.

Rather than just conceptualising it. So if you want to get different outcomes, then you need to be willing to actually start doing some different things with your thinking and leaning into the, the discomfort of practising different ways of thinking regularly enough for long enough for it to form a new neural connection. So that means, you know, just putting in some regular.

Self reflection time. Now, this course will have been doing that for you. So, by, by needing to show up, interact with the Q&As, watch the webinars, do the exercises, that's, that's, that's making you do some self-reflective times and and thinking.

And that will be starting to shift your thinking. And I know from the feedback I'm getting from a few of you that, that that process is definitely happening or it, it, it, it can't kind of not happen if you're engaging and really putting the thinking in. So that's why I kind of set the exercises that I do to go with the modules to kind of get you to start actively being involved in this process.

So this one here, the how to master your anxiety, I actually, these authors have written two. Very good books. This is the How to Master your anxiety.

The other one is called How to Live Depression Fast. That's actually one I found more useful because I struggled with both, and, I actually found that the depression more like anxiety I could kind of wasn't pleasant, but I could still work through it and as I say, externally you wouldn't have known much. The depression I found harder to keep functioning through, so that, that the, the depression version of the book was, was for me I found really, really helpful.

And this led me to a a technique called the human Gives therapy, so it does talk about it in that book. . Human givens is it's really, really interesting.

It's a slightly more modern form of of psychotherapeutic help. So many of you will be familiar with cognitive behavioural therapy that says you have thoughts. Those thoughts generate our emotions.

So if we can look at our thinking patterns and change those, then we can change the emotions and feelings we're experiencing as a result, and that's definitely absolutely true. Where, so human givens has been, has been around for a while now, but, but CBT is like an old is, is older. Human Givens works on slightly newer newer neuroscience principles that shows that there is actually a step before, that, the, the thought process.

So it's called the APET model, APET. So the A stands for activating agents. So there's some sort of trigger that happens in our environment.

And it might not always be a verbal thing, it might be a sound or a colour or or a set of circumstances. There's something that triggers us. The P stands for pattern matching.

So our brains are like pattern matching organs, and our brain will, in a circumstance, it will go back through all your long term store memories and it will try to find anything it thinks it's seen similarly before. Quite often it pattern matches the stuff that maybe it's old, traumatic or difficult memories from the past and that are not the same as this current situation that you're facing, but your brain doesn't really know that. And so then the E stands for emotion because then you will get, you'll just experience the emotions, either positive or negative, that will be linked to that event.

And then that's where the thoughts come in. So we get the wave of emotion that we don't really understand. We're not even sure what's triggered it in, in many cases.

And in order to make sense of that, we then start to think thoughts, and those thoughts then create more emotions. So CBT comes in at the level where you've already started to have some thinking. Human givens can work on any of those three stages before that as well.

So. It's, it's a very, it's a very short term solution focused therapy. Most people only need 3 or 4 sessions, so it's not like the typical talking analytical therapies that go on for a long time and actually make you relive painful events, which has been shown to quite often make you feel worse.

So this is short term, 3 or 4 sessions is normally all you need. I ended up having 8 because I had a, a lot of very unhelpful programmes in my subconscious that needed weeding out. It's also very effective for PTSD type things or stuff that you, you don't have to, the beauty of this, you don't have to actually verbalise with your therapist difficult things, .

So, it, it's, it's, it's, it's just useful and, the, the website for you can find out more about it here on the website HI.org.uk.

So for those of you where you've had CBT and perhaps are still experiencing anxiety, then it may be worth, it's not usually very expensive, as, as therapies go. So it might be worth a trial looking into or at least reading one of the books and just seeing if it sounds like it might be worth checking out. Because if, with anxiety, obviously, we're all at different levels.

So sometimes just being, doing a little bit of self-study is all you need, and that, that is enough to kind of support you and make it back down again. Sometimes we do need some therapeutic help, and again, it, sometimes that can happen again a little bit further along the line, and that's absolutely OK as well. You want to speed up your process through this, rather than just battling through it on, on your own.

. So that's really taking some time to work specifically on your own internal, kind of how your brain handles, anxiety. And what we're doing here is we're not, again, we're not trying to remove it completely. You're just wanting to push your threshold up so that you're triggered less frequently and buy less stuff, and in a way where you then have more tools and techniques up your sleeve for dealing with it, as and when it appears.

So I hope that's making sense. The second prong of this two-pronged approach though. Involves then looking at your environment and how you're living your life.

Because you can optimise your brain function around anxiety to the peak it's ever gonna be. So you can just get that so that you're like optimised for calm as much as possible. And yet, if you're constantly surrounded by anxiety triggers in the way that you're currently living your life, you will still experience anxiety.

So Rene talks about this when she first, when she first discovered the shame vulnerability stuff in her research, she realised that she was super armoured up, really allergic to vulnerability, and kind of numbing her anxiety feelings with low grade amounts of everything, really. So fags, booze, overeating and constantly overworking. So.

She went to her therapist and said, Look, I'm not addicted enough really to any one thing to officially qualify for a support group, but I'm using kind of all of these things. And her therapist said, Right, you just need to stop them all in one go. So everyone was like, What, you're kidding?

Anyway, she did it, but, . She found it unbearable. It, you know, the way she describes it is feeling like a turtle out of its shell in the middle of a thorn bush.

Just, it just completely, it's so uncomfortable and just she was sort of saying to a therapist, I'm desperate for another shell. I can't, I can't deal with this. And the therapist said, Well, how about instead of getting another shell, i.e., keeping your life the way you're exactly living with it at the moment, and just keep trying to find better and different ways to deal with the anxiety.

Why not get out of the thorn bush? Like, look at your life and look at what are the thorns and actually remove those from your, from yourself instead of just trying to keep that the same and find better ways to deal with it. So that does mean looking at what the thorns are for you at the moment and looking at how you, you know, what could you or can you modulate around those.

So, for, for me, when I was in that stage, when I was looking at vetting, the, the particular thorns for me that were out of alignment with my hard wiring or my body or my mind or how I want to live, was 10 to 12 hour days, the, the, the weight of The pressure of life and death decisions, but that being linked into finance finances, that, that just pushed my buttons in in the wrong way. So those were things that were absolutely inherently woven into first opinion general practise. So the only way for me to move away from those triggers was to change how I was vetting.

And when I did that, the anxiety just like that was another factor to the anxiety moving away. So that's, but whereas for other people, and certainly other clients that I work with, actually, for some people, just working on the first pronged approach, as in modulating their anxiety and their response to it, and then finding the right workplace and working on their mindset and resilience tools and techniques is enough for them to then be able to really actually enjoy vetting and to feel OK. Whereas, whereas for me personally, a couple of my thorns were just so inherent to the way that I was vetting that I just needed to make a bit more of a drastic change, and that, you know, has, has worked really well.

So. Another example of this would be if, you know, thinking about all the technological and digital inputs like emails and stuff that come at us at the moment. And if that was feeling really overwhelming, let's say, you might have two groups of people.

Group A would just go, oh my gosh, I'm the problem, I'm really crap, OK, I just need to, I need to stay on my emails until 11 o'clock at night, or maybe while I'm driving, if the lights go red, I can fire off a couple of others on my phone. Group B would respond differently to that and would say, right, I'm gonna actually stop all unnecessary emails. I'm just not going to respond outside of work hours, and I'm going to set that boundary quite clearly with friends, colleagues and family members.

So Group B know their own hard wiring, they know what they need in terms of rest and play and how they need to work, and they're aligning their home and work life with their values, and they set strong boundaries. So the shame gremlins that we that we need to let go of in order to do that are for, for women, it's what will people think? And for men, it's more man up and don't be weak.

So there is a gender difference really in how the shame triggers, show up for us with that. So that's just, you know, hopefully just something else to think about that it's not just about modulating your response to anxiety and it's not just about looking at your environment. You kind of, it, it's kind of helpful to to do both.

So I hope that's making some sense. Right, let me just have a. Right.

Let me see, can I come out of my Oh yeah, no, I can come out of my sides for a second. OK, let me just see. I've got so much to pack into tonight, so I've had to be really, really organised with with where I am, but I'm actually bang on time, which is good.

OK, so hopefully you can all see me again. So, before we move off the finally off the subject of anxiety, then another useful pattern recognition aspect to this. Is looking at how you what your particular style is when you're in anxiety.

So research has shown that we tend to respond in one of two patterned ways that are quite predictable. So we either can go into overfunctioning or underfunctioning. So over functioners tend to, when they feel anxious, they can become quite controlling, they will take over other people's responsibilities, they will feel like they know what's best, and they will probably talk more than they listen.

They will micromanage and just want to take charge and take control of everything. Often if you're an overfunctioner, then you will often have been the first born, or certainly the first born girl, if you're female. And for over functioners it can be, it's just easier when they feel anxious, it's easier to do than to than to feel.

Underfunctioners, on the other hand, tend to freeze and become gradually less capable or able, the more anxious they they feel. So, they will tend to ask more for help, even perhaps when it's not needed. Maybe they don't get as much stuff stuff done.

And underfunctioners can often be second borns or, or over, only children rather, and. So for underfunctioners, it's easier to sort of not show up or not take the risk of showing up than it is to feel. So it's kind of coming at it from, from two different sides.

So just thinking about that for a second. Do, I'll put that out there to you guys, can anyone recognise either of those thinking styles within themselves, and would you say that when you're feeling anxious, you're more of an over-functioner, or an underfunctioner? I'm an underfunctioner who wishes she was an over-functioner cos it kind of sounds more, more, more useful.

But I definitely underfunction, er, when I'm in, in anxiety. So Rosie's Rosie's definitely an over-functioner, Nicky is absolutely an overfunctioner. Louise's laughing.

She says, I'm laughing because you've described me exactly as an over-functioner. Rebecca used to be an overfunctioner, now an underfunctioner. OK, wow, that's interesting.

So you've actually actually switched. That's really interesting. Yeah.

Sophie, underfunctioner, I think I shut down and avoid. Yeah, I feel you on that one, Sophie. That's my my response as well.

Jackie's definitely an overfunctioner, so yeah, has to go into right control, do stuff, take over, take responsibility for absolutely everything, . And it's, it's funny, you get this dynamic where when there are, because we all do, usually one or the others, when there's generalised anxiety in the workplace, the overfunctioners overfunction, and they take on responsibility that isn't really theirs as well. And then then the underfunctioners underfunction even more because the overfunctioners have taken stuff off them, then the overfunctions are feeling all frustrated because they feel like they're doing everything.

And then the underfunctioners feel really, like, yeah, it's so, it, those two responses play into each other as well. . Catherine's saying, I'd say underfunctioner, but I'm the first born.

Yes, I don't think it's, it's across the board. I think it's just a generalisation, Catherine, so you're more of an underfunctioner. Aileen, overfunctioner.

Nicola, at work, underfunctioner, outside, over. OK, so you're diff you've got different sorts of responses to anxiety, depending on where that anxiety is showing up, Nico, that's really interesting. .

Other, Nicola, I think I vary depending on the situation. OK, so both Nicola's quite similar actually. And who else is around, but usually under functioner, I think I'm also a first-born Catherine.

Yeah, so it's not, so it's not necessarily, across the board. So with, with, the way it can work with birth order, some, so it's not, like I say, definitively with birth order, but often with first born children or, or in, in a row of siblings then. They have had to, they may have had additional responsibility placed on them that wasn't really theirs, as in, keep an eye on your sister so she doesn't drown type sort of things.

Whereas only children or or second or lower down in the sibling order. Tend to maybe have had more stuff done for them, and so they kind of been raised to, believe that they can't handle things as as effectively. So, so that's kind of where the first born, not first born thing can come in, but like I say, it's, it's not across the, the board.

So, OK, so that's interesting, and most of you then are, are recognising that you do have one of those patterns. This can be really useful, because, Nick was saying I, I find I defer to authority very quickly, so I think that influences, yes, so where there are people who are stepping in it then makes it easier to just say, OK, well, they've got that, that's I can, that's, yeah, that makes sense. So awareness, as we said on the Q&A the other night, I think it's, it's really, really, it's the first step to anything and it's, it's just having an awareness and being able to give it a name.

And recognise it, really, really helps because then you have that moment of mindfulness of being able to recognise your inner pattern and then think about what you need to do. So for overfunctioners, frustratingly for them, and I know this is really not what you're gonna want to hear, you actually need to do less. So not taking on.

Additional responsibilities that aren't yours. And yes, that means that sometimes plates will fall and other things, because, but it's about not, it's about doing, it's about almost being less than you are able to be, because if you over function and you take on everything, you're going to start not functioning properly, and also you're by, by being so very, very busy, you're not feeling the feelings it's a way of numbing the feelings of anxiety. But underfunctioners, we need to actually recognise and step up and realise that we don't need to underfunction, that you can handle stuff, that you're more capable than than able and that you can, you can push through those feelings and still show up and still take responsibility and take accountability.

So neither solution is easy, at all, but it is just having an awareness means that, you can start to just recognise it and think about it a little bit more. This happened to me in the summer when I was on my camper van holiday, and I thought I'd got my timings for my September talks all done. And I knew I didn't have to have my sides until the 1st of November.

And I'd completely forgotten about the notes that, that had to go with the sides. And while we were away on holiday, I get this email from vets now saying, need all your notes, like, 0, yeah, I think I had to like 4000 words by this Friday, and no, there's no extension on the deadline. And I immediately started to feel myself going into under functioning mode.

And just going, well, I can't do that because I'm on holiday, and when I get back, I'll only have 4 days, and I'm really slow at creating content, and I would need about 3 weeks for that. And I'm like, God, I can't do it. I'm gonna be the only speaker that doesn't have any, and off down the rabbit hole I went, and, and started to feel myself going into under functioning mode.

But because I know this, and I was able to give it a name, and I'm able was able to know that it's a patterned thing. And it doesn't necessarily mean it's the truth. I could go, ah, OK, I'm under functioning.

Right, I don't need to do that. I can step up. What can I do?

How can I make this easy? How can I tell myself a different story? Could I get something to them by Friday, even if it's not perfect, even if it's not amazing, could I get something to them?

Yeah, I could. What am I gonna need to do? I'm gonna need to relax my need for it to be how I perhaps would have wanted it to be.

I'm gonna have to release the belief that I'm so at creating content because. That's not a truth, it's just a belief. And I need to think how I can make it easy for myself.

And, I did fire something else, and, and as a result, I've now changed how I write my notes for all presentations, so something really useful came out of it. But it was being able to catch myself under functioning and call it, call it out for what it was, and then think, right, I don't need to do that. I can do something different.

So whether we overfunction or underfunction, often in and of itself can be a shame trigger. So I feel a bit of a sense of inadequacy that I'm an underfunctioner, and so it, so it's, it's then you can use your self compassion skills as well because it. Like recognising that it's a thing, means that you can then use the self compassion techniques that we taught last time to go.

Nothing wrong with me. I'm not inadequate. I'm just a normal human being with a normal brain, and I can not be judgmental on myself, and I can find a way through this.

So I hope that that is, it doesn't fix it, but it's just a useful thing to have an awareness of, and to then start to think about next time you're finding yourself in in in that those sorts of situations. OK, so I want to move on now to the limiting beliefs section. And again we've got quite a lot of stuff to cover here, so I'm just gonna jump back into my slides briefly and do the whole slide shuffle, jiggery pokey.

It's cos I need to see my notes, otherwise I could make this a bit quicker. Right, come on. OK, so back over there.

What do you need? Da da OK. Take you over here, right, OK, so hopefully that's back into the slides again.

We have our turtle, so. How beliefs work. So, as I say, I know not everyone will have had a chance to have a go at the exercise yet.

That's absolutely fine. We have actually touched on limiting beliefs a few times to a few of the modules, so it's not all going to be completely new. But basically, I just want to very briefly recap how the belief system works physiologically in our brains.

So our brains receive 400 billion bits of information. Per second coming at us from all of our five senses. We, we're constantly bombarded.

So the reason that we don't go insane with that amount of inputs is that we only pay our brains only pay attention to a very tiny proportion of that information at any one time. And it throws much of it away by a brain process called selective filtering that happens in the reticular activating system in the thalamus of the brain. So you'll all have experienced this.

If you're thinking of changing your car and you've thought about a particular make or model from your research, you suddenly start seeing them everywhere as you're driving around, whereas you weren't doing the day before. That's because the day before your brain was filtering it out and then it's filtering it in because you're actively, it's been in your consciousness. So our beliefs work in exactly the same way, via this filtering process.

And so it's easy to think, if we look at the the slide, that our beliefs sort of happened this way around. So we, we observe the world, something happens, and this is kind of how they go in when we're in childhood. So we observe the world, we come to a conclusion, and then we form a belief.

And to an extent that's true in our childhood. However, as we start to grow up, this, this process actually predominantly works the other way around. So, we, we form beliefs based on our culture, our upbringing.

Our parents' views, what the world tells us about ourselves at that age, and we, we create our set of beliefs. They then act, like I say, like this pair of glasses. So we then are filtering everything through that belief philtre.

So then what happens is, while we're out and about, in the world, events happen and they're coming through our belief philtre. So we say, I believe I'm not good enough, or I'm inefficient, or I'm an anxious person. And the brain goes, OK, right, well, I'm going to look for evidence of that because your brain wants to come into alignment with your beliefs.

It wants to make you right. That's just how our egoic sense of self works. It wants you to be correct.

And so what happens then is that we don't, we, we're not looking at the whole of the evidence. The only evidence that actually makes it through our reticular activating system is evidence that matches that belief. So then we do see the evidence that we're not good enough, or we we interpret a situation and we only see the bit that tells us we weren't good enough.

We don't see all the other evidence that might contravene that. And so then that deepens that belief and then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So.

And, and it's easy for that to feel a little bit worrying, thinking, oh my God, do I need to be frightened of my thoughts? And absolutely no, you don't at all, because this, that works for positive beliefs. So when you believe something positive, your brain is looking for evidence and wanting to come into alignment with that, and you can use that fact to shift and change your beliefs.

So just like anything, they're not set in stone. so the, the, and we really, really can change it. So before, if you think back in history, before Roger Bannister ran the 4 minute mile in 1954, it was believed generally that it wasn't physiologically possible for a human being to do that.

They actually thought that you would die if you did that. It wasn't possible. And then Roger Bannister did it, and as soon as he'd done it, those people started being able to do it because they went, Oh well, it's obviously possible because he's done it.

So then they believed they could do it, and so then they did it, whereas before, nobody was doing it. So it really is possible to change even very, very long held, beliefs. This also links in with the growth mindset stuff as well, so it's, it's the first stage is realising you have beliefs, that they're not truths, they're just your beliefs, which may or may not be true, and that they are like this pair of glasses.

The second thing is then linking that in with the fixed mindset versus growth mindset stuff and realising that just as we're not fixed in our ability to speak French or play the piano, we're not fixed in what we believe to be true about the world or ourselves. But if, if you are currently in a fixed mindset about your beliefs, and you really genuinely believe, I don't think I can change mine. Maybe that's possible for others, but it's not possible for me.

Well, guess what? Nothing will change. But we know physiologically that this is not the case and it's not true.

So, when you choose to remember and know and allow for the fact that the growth mindset is real, then you can unlock that potential within yourself and you can start to shift and change your beliefs as well. Now, the, this, this, the, the little story about growth mindset that I didn't get a chance to, to tell last time. Is, was, when I was first doing all this growth mindset stuff at Vet Dynamics, and we were learning about it from Alan.

There was one of my practise owners, Harold from Lime Trees, that he came in one session to Vet Dynamics, and he was saying, Oh, I like this growth mindset stuff. I've taught myself to whistle. And he spent basically he couldn't whistle, and he spent 2 weeks teaching himself how to whistle.

And I was a bit like, Oh my God, how, well, that's not really groundbreaking, you know, that great, you can whistle now, but it's not gonna help you run the practise. And I was a little bit kind of cynical's the wrong word, but sort of a bit like, well, it was great, but a bit pointless. And then it just got me thinking of, Oh, OK.

Well, I wonder if I could apply that to myself. And I'd always I'd always wanted to learn how to crack an egg with one hand. Or actually, more to be true, I'd always said I can't do it.

I think because I tried it a couple of times and squished the egg and made a right old mess, and went, oh God, I can't do that. And so I thought I would take inspiration from Harold and I just thought I would test this growth mindset thing. And, I spent two weeks practising how to crack an egg with one hand.

I feel a bit embarrassed telling this story now. Actually didn't take me 2 weeks. It took me about 4 goes, but.

Because I, because I'm a recovering perfectionist, and I, because I was a fixed mindset about just about everything back in the day, I was, I, it, it normally back then, if I tried something and I wasn't immediately brilliant at it or very good at it, I would lose interest or just say I can't do that, and I wouldn't put in in the effort. And so the egg cracking thing just showed me that that black and white thing of I can't do that was just, well you just don't really tried, really given it a go, and actually it was very easy to learn to crack an egg with one hand. And, but having proved the growth mindset concept in a very small manageable way, I, it, I was then like, 00, it does work.

It's not just a thing in a book. And so if you want an easy introduction into this, you might try and do something like Howard did or like I did, and find something silly like that, like playing the harmonica or learning to juggle with three balls, or I don't know what it is. .

And just see if over the space of 2 weeks, you can teach yourself something that you've always said, I can't do that. Because it, it, that it, it just can be really helpful to prove that you can, just as if you want to learn to speak French, you need to be on Duolingo every day practising your, vocabulary. Or if you want to learn to play the piano, you have to do your scales.

You have to create new neural networks, and that takes, practise. And it's just the same with the, the belief stuff. So yeah, so fixed mindset and limiting beliefs keeps you stuck and passive and you can actually transcend both of those.

So I'm gonna come out of my slides now. Hopefully it'll stop sharing then. So I want to look at the examples of some people's belief statements that you've sent me through, those of you who have had a go at this.

Let me just make sure everyone's still there, yeah they are. So I'm keeping these anonymous, but just some of the beliefs, self, self limiting beliefs of people who have tackled the exercise that are coming through are things like, I don't think I'm good enough, or don't have enough to bring to a situation to make my plans work. And just as straightforward as well, I'm not good enough.

I'm not good enough is often the root limiting belief that a lot of, you know, a lot of our limiting beliefs. And then another version of that, I'm not a good enough vet, especially a terrible surgeon, and the only reason that I'm kept on is because no one likes doing out of hours work. So that's a really potent one, that's just not gonna feel very great, none of them are not very good ones do, to be honest.

Another one, I'm always going to have to struggle with my mental health. I can't escape my genes and upbringing. I will never be a happy, relaxed person.

And they've also added, which is bloody annoying, as I thought I'd got a handle on that in CBT over the years, and I feel you on that one. And hopefully some of this stuff we've talked about a little bit tonight may may have, helped a tiny bit of that. So, another one, I'm scared of trying because I will fail and people will find out that I'm a terrible person slash friend, vet, partner, mother, you know, insert role.

And what, you know, what you see with these is black and white thinking. So not just, I'm scared of trying because I'm worried I might fail. I'm scared of trying because I will fail.

It's, it's a foregone conclusion on just I will fail. The same as I will never be a, a, a happy, relaxed person, that the, the brain, the chimp part of our brain doesn't really do shades of grey. It does black and white, and they feel really powerful.

. Another one, I am inefficient and a more inefficient, a more efficient, sorry, organised person would always be able to do more and do it better. So this particular person, was feeling like, even if they had a blank clear day in the diary, they would get to the end of that day and then just feel like they've not got enough stuff done, and that someone else would have got way more done in that time. I don't know what I'm doing.

This is from someone who's running their own business. Mine from a few years ago, so this is the point at which I was in the hyper anxiety state actually, when I was at Bets now, in the early days. This one's a beauty.

Life is a constant struggle, and if you do not keep a close watch on what might be around the corner, everything you have could crumble to nothing in an instant, and when things do go wrong, you won't be able to cope. Play it safe at all times and do not take any risks. Mm.

You can imagine how life was sort of working for me when that was running the show in my subconscious. So I think the first point really with these is that doing this exercise, often our limiting beliefs do sound quite kind of drama queen-esque when you get them out in black and white. That's completely normal.

The other thing is it doing this exercise can bring up all sorts of a range of feelings, all of which are OK. So sometimes it can be quite upsetting or demoralising or a bit depressing, or just emotional when you actually write it down, especially if you try and say it out loud. Sometimes it can actually trigger a wave of self compassion in terms of going, wow, no wonder I find things hard sometimes when that's what my subconscious is telling me.

So sometimes it can trigger compassion. Sometimes it can trigger sort of actually a, a release or a relief of going, oh gosh, it's, it feels really good to have acknowledged that and to, you know, I kind of knew it, but to get it out in black and white feels good. .

Because the thing is, these are operating in our subconscious without, with, you know, when when it's just in the subconscious, it's affecting things, but we're not really able to do much about it. As soon as you bring it up into the light, as challenging as that can be at this in the first stage of the exercise, it's then something you can work with. It's then something you can apply that brilliant, critical, rational, logical, analytical part of your mind to, and you can start to pick it apart.

And the idea with this is not that we're trying to completely remove it or get rid of it. You don't need to do that. It's you and it wouldn't really be possible anyway.

You can't actually prune or remove or disconnect a neural connection. Once they're formed, they are always there. And it's a part of you and it's a it's an important part of what's got you to where you are now, so we don't need to or want to necessarily get rid of it completely.

But if you, what you want to do is not have that running the show. So what, rather than thinking about trying to disconnect or remove it, we're just thinking about trying to stop using it actively and start to wire in new neural connections and use a new and different neural pathway that if you practise it regularly enough, that will just take over as the way you view yourself, and you won't have to kind of so work so hard to kind of hammer it into place all the time. And your old limiting belief will still be there, and at times of extremist, it may still well get poked and raise its head, but not anything like as much as it is doing now.

So really it's like imagining a root in the garden. I don't want to just try and pull it out because it will snap and then it will just grow back. But what we do want to do is, is poke about at the sides of it and loosen it just so that you can see past it and you can see a different perspective and allow a different reality to, to start forming.

So what we want to do with these, and the second part of this exercise, the first thing, once you've got, got that belief out, is starting to look back and think, right, can you trace it back? Can you, is it something you've always believed, or can you think about when it maybe started to appear? Many of the not good enough beliefs, or the feelings of inadequacy, quite a lot when I'm doing this 11 to 1 with clients, it will be something from their childhood and something that the, the conversation normally goes something like this.

This sounds really small, but this thing happened to me at school, and it might just be a teacher saying you're average, or it might be just one comment from someone that teased you in a certain way that that. You know, it, it, when you relay it as an adult, it might not sound very much, but you can see how to a child's brain, they would absolutely internalise that as I'm not good enough, or I'm inadequate, or I'm rubbish. And so, a lot of those, a lot of those beliefs do come from, sometimes it can come from inadvertent use of shame-based parenting techniques from very loving parents, but who just didn't know not to use shame as a tool.

The same with teachers, and one or two comments or instances is enough. Sometimes you'll know for definite what it is. Like I know for me that 3 years of really serious bullying at boarding school gave me a lot of negative self-limiting beliefs.

So it's, it ain't, it ain't rocket science, in, in that, you know, if there's a bigger incident, . So what we can do with these things, when you find them, the first thing is giving yourself compassion, allowing yourself to kind of in a way go back and soothe that younger part of you person, and imagine giving yourself or the things that you wish you'd heard at the time, or that you can now go back as an adult and almost imagine reassuring that old part of you that, that, you know, with adult eyes, you can see that that wasn't the case and that that that that child was not being inadequate or any of the any of the things. The other thing that can help here is starting to look, because the belief philtre will then only provide you with evidence of where that negative belief is true.

Your critical thinking mind can start to say, right, OK, well can I look for some evidence at all at times that it hasn't been true. So I'm thinking here of the person whose belief was I'm not a good enough vet, especially a terrible surgeon, and the only reason that I'm kept on is because no one likes doing out of hours work. So I would imagine that for that person, when they think back over the whole of their veterinary career, that they would probably be able to find some evidence of cases that weren't a total disaster, that have gone well, of client interactions that have resulted in a thank you.

Or a card, you know, the, the evidence, I would imagine, will be there, because this person hasn't been struck off and does hold down a job. And as a former veterinary employer of 52 clinics, and also working with vet practise owners for 4 years at that Dynamics, I can tell you, if a truly terrible vet will not be kept on, as in someone who's Incompetent, doesn't know enough clinically, doesn't have the skills, is not very good with the clients, will not be kept on just because it fills the space in the rotor because it's so much more trouble than it's worth. It really is.

It would be better to run on locums or shut the house down. I have, I have dealt with some. Challenging Betsy, you've done not very great things and, and so, so basically there will be some evidence there that contravenes that, and it's the same for any of the other beliefs really that you, you can start to just, just look for even the tiniest bit of evidence of where that perhaps isn't across the board always undeniably categorically true, or there's times when perhaps it it, you know, it hasn't been, .

Success loops are really good and useful here. So that's where you can, and, you know, the question I asked at the end of the questionnaire about what's the thing you're most proud of having achieved. And although it was quite difficult for people to answer, most people could come up with something.

And so, you know, quite often just getting into that school can be one of the things that people are most proud of having achieved. So successfully there would be then you're having two columns and the first thing you do is thinking, right, what did I have to do or overcome or push through? What were the actions I had to take to make that thing happen?

And then when you look at the actions you had to take, you can think, OK, well if I had to take those actions, what attribute or skill, whether that's resilience, persistence, . Tolerating uncertainty and building relationships. What was it that obviously had to happen for me to be able to do that thing?

And then that list of attributes are all attributes that you have demonstrated at least once, and so they are absolutely definitely still in your toolkit. And so success loops are a really, really nice way of just if you if you're going that, no, there's no evidence that contravenes that belief, do a success loop and you will find a few things. And just want to find a few things as well.

Don't, don't argue the case for your limitations. Want, want to feel better about yourself is a good start point as well. Then on the exercise, you'll see there's a couple of other useful questions that just help amp your motivation to want to change, really, which is looking for, What's it cost you holding that belief?

What do you tend to do or not do when you believe that to be true? And then thinking, but what ways, why have I let that belief stay in place? What, how does it somehow benefit me?

Does it mean that I then actually can stay below the parapet? I don't have to put myself out there. I don't have to take risks and therefore, I don't have to risk feeling like a failure or experiencing lack of success or anything.

So often we're not, we're not daft, we, we allow those beliefs to stay there because the brain is perceiving some sort of benefit from it. And understanding that is another important part of being able to say, OK, well, I have a choice here now. Do I want to leave that in place, or do I want to, am I willing to stop limiting myself in that way and start to move past it?

Because a big problem for many of us, another core belief that we can have is that . And it links to that pattern matching part of the brain is that we, we have this belief that my future experiences will mirror my past experiences. So what has gone before is the absolute predictor for what will be to come.

And you can understand why that belief is in place because of the pattern matching thing, but it's absolutely not true. What, what has happened before has been habitual repeated patterns that have got you to where you are now. And looking around you, not everything around you is terrible and bad, so it's got you a really long way.

But if it's holding you back from where you want to go, then you will need to. Step into a slightly different or altered version of yourself, as in, as in, you know, we get, that is something that we can choose to move the needle on. So every single day when you wake up, you get to choose again, you get to choose again and if it doesn't work.

Out that day you get to choose again the next day. And that will always be available to you. So if you don't feel ready to do that now, it will still be available to you, in the future.

So, what's been true in the past is not a black and white accurate predictor of what you're capable of moving forward. So if we're ready to change that, then the, the first thing to do is start to craft a replacement belief. So, imagining that belief philtre, you've identified the smudge on the front of the glasses and gone, right, OK, I don't really want that.

I wanna, I wanna rub that out and put something else in that's better. So we want to create a, a new empowering belief that's going to feel better and just open the door towards possible change. .

But it's, it's also about doing it at a rate that feels OK, so. Let's have a quick drink. Once you've found your limiting belief, there's several ways that you can start to kind of, imagine, imagine the creation of your new limiting belief, like a lump of clay, if you're gonna be a sculptor.

And to start with, you can just splat it down and then gradually tweak and work it into shape. So the original, the first kind of splatting down process could be to completely flip it 180 and think, right, what's the total opposite of that? Usually it's way too much, it sounds farcical and it's way too much of a jump to go straight from the 180 pivot, sometimes it's not, but in many cases, especially if you're just starting to teach yourself this process, that the full 180 pivot is just too much.

So, but it's a good start point to say, right, OK, how can I just soften that slightly, change it a little bit so it feels a little bit more believable. But your new belief will always feel a bit like, you know, it, it, it, you're not there yet in your head. You haven't started to gather the evidence to make it true.

So it, it does feel a bit discordant when you write a new belief. That's OK. That's showing you you're along the right lines.

But it does need to be a belief that on a very, very good day, when you're feeling super, super positive, you could believe that that could be true for you. So you want it to, you want it to feel good when you read it, even though you're not gonna believe it at all immediately to start with. So try the 180 pivot.

You can also just say, right, if I want to create a different reality and I want to get different outcomes, what do I need to believe? What would it be helpful for me to believe? And who do I want to be?

So that highest vision of myself, who would I like to be? So here, we can, I can just hop back in, and obviously, I haven't gone through all of you sent your beliefs in. I've not done the 1 to 1 work with you, so I might not have these exactly nailed, and they need to be in your own words anyway.

But examples of some pivots. So, starting with the top one, I don't think I'm good enough or don't have enough to bring to a situation to make my plans work, can become. I am intelligent, capable, and persistent, and I can find flexible, adaptive ways to reach my goals.

So, so that's recognising that you can have a goal, and there's not necessarily just one way to achieve that, and that you can be flexible and adaptable, rather than saying, I don't have what it takes. The I'm not good enough one can become I am working on increasing my level of self acceptance and self belief. So if the absolute pivot of I am enough, I'm good enough, feels way too much.

Recognising that this is something you're working on can be a really good start, so I'm working on increasing my levels of self-belief, is a good start point. I have much to offer and I enjoy finding places to give. I'm not a good enough vet, especially a terrible surgeon, and the only reason I'm kept on is because no one likes doing out of hours work can become, I make a valid contribution as a vet, particularly through consulting, and I'm a valuable and important member of the practise team.

And again, if that's too much of a stretch, you can pull it back a little bit, but that's kind of where you want to be getting to. I'm always gonna have to struggle with my mental health, that one can become. I allow myself to increase my capacity to experience and appreciate being happy and relaxed, and I do not need to be anxiety free for this to happen.

I'm able to flow with the twists and turns of my mental health just like breathing, and I'm working on releasing my resistance. So a bit of a longer one there, but that was, it was quite a longer belief. The beliefs can be short, they can be longer, it's whatever works for you.

And again, like I say, these might not feel exactly right because I haven't, we haven't talked about it 1 to 1, but it's just, they're just a bit of an example. We had two people who had very similar ones. I'm scared of trying because I will fail and people will find out I'm a terrible person, or I'm too scared to leap or try in case I make a mess of it and I'm not good enough.

Those two together are quite similar. So, that could become, I'm working on increasing my levels of self-acceptance, and I honour myself for being brave enough to get in the arena when I feel able. I choose to know that I'm strong enough to learn and grow while I'm in there.

There is no failure, only feedback. Those sorts of things. The, I'm inefficient and a more more efficient organised person will be able to do it more and better.

Again, without going 1 to 1, it's a bit difficult to know. So possibles could be, I'm as efficient and effective as I, as I need to be, and my strengths, my strengths lie in XYZ because it could be that this person has many, many strengths in other areas. It just might be organisation and efficiency is not top of the pile, and that's OK because their strengths are in other areas.

And I give myself permission to rest and play when needed. So sometimes that feeling, sometimes the reason that When you have a clear day and we sort of fart about and we're not very efficient, we don't get stuff done because actually we're never giving ourselves proper down time to rest and play. So the brain is kind of actually just wants to to zone out and we don't give ourselves permission.

So perhaps if you gave yourself more rest and play time, you would feel like you could be more efficient and productive. So that's an idea. Or another, another flip there would be, I'm working on my time management skills and I give myself permission to rest and play when I.

Mm. I don't know what I'm doing, can become for this for this person who's running their own business, can become, I can think critically and get support when needed to figure out what I need to know. I don't need to have all the answers before taking action, and I trust in my ability to grow and learn as part of this process.

So it's giving yourself permission, you don't need to know it all. You can, you can learn as you go along and it's OK that you don't know what you're doing. Don't let that stop you from taking action.

. My flip, so my one from Life's a constant struggle, it could all come crashing down. I won't be able to cope if it does. My flip to that was quite a big one, but then I, I quite like all the positive stuff.

Life is a constant stream of well-being and amazing things. I choose well, follow my heart, and as and as I learn this process, my innate abilities support and guide me at every level. So that was a big jump, but I kind of liked it and I liked the sentence, so.

So hopefully I'm aware we're 10 minutes over, but we're nearly there now. So hopefully listening to some of those flips is, is giving you a little bit of an idea of the sorts of things that you can do. And then in terms of how to bed them in, you don't have to force it too hard.

It just, just literally having identified what the limiting belief is, even if you did nothing more, if that's the only bit of the exercise you did, having an awareness of that will already start to shift and transform it. It just, it just will, even if you did nothing else. So anything else you do on top of that is a bonus.

It's about being really realistic about the time frame. You're literally physiologically rewiring your brain. That takes time.

I pick a big belief like that, and I chip away at it slowly over 12 months. Just, I just do one big one a year and I work consistently on that. I nip off all the smaller ones on a daily basis, but a really big meaty one, like I'm not enough, I would tackle that slowly and gradually over a year.

So the first step to bedding these in is just starting to to not argue the case for your limitations. So, so the first step really is to try and stop verbalising your negative belief. So try and catch yourself.

Usually you'll do this retrospectively, to start with, you'll, you'll say, oh God, I'm really rubbish, and then go, oh. I just said my old belief. Eventually that will morph to being able to catch yourself when you're about to say I'm rubbish or I'm not creative or I'm a bad parent or I'm a whatever and just go.

I can't quite say that that's not true for me yet, but I'm not gonna verbalise it. I'm just not gonna have that's not part of my self identity anymore and I'm working to, to release it. So just trying to stop saying out loud negative things about yourself.

And it's also then release, when those thoughts crop up, when you retrospectively catch yourself having done that, it's about really leaning into the self-compassion stuff we did last time and just release that thought, release and let it go without judging yourself for having it and just reach for even a slightly better thought at that point. When that's not possible, deploy the self-compassion weapons that were used last time in terms of self kindness, knowing that we, these are things that we all find challenging, and you're not labelling yourself as, oh God, I'm crap at doing the limiting beli stuff, you know. When you do feel able, the way you know this is working, it's usually sneakily, retrospectively, several months down the line.

So what will happen normally is, you will not, you will not feel any different immediately after doing this process. You'll be like, Well, that's interesting, don't feel any different. Cause you, cause you're thinking the same way you've always thought.

But as you gradually start to practise your new thoughts. It will change, and then a few months down the line, normally about 4 to 6 months, you'll start to see the first signs, you'll do or something or not do something or say something and go wow. I wouldn't have done that 6 months ago, and that's when you know it's working.

So, and then, then it's like triumphant of, oh my God, this shit actually works. And it's brilliant. And then you're like, Oh, well, now I know it works.

I'm really, really gonna know that it works, and I'm gonna do more of it. But you almost have to, like the cracking the egg thing. You've always got to prove the concept to yourself first, then you will lean into it even more.

So, massive celebrations when you feel able to do it. Guided meditations really help with this, . Writing your affirmations up and sticking them where you'll see it, having them so they pop up on your phone.

I have mine dotted around the house, that it really does help. Listen, read and watch stuff that cements in your new belief. I've said that over and over again, all the way through the course, and also keeping a new evidence journal.

So we want that belief philtre to start gathering the evidence that That you that you are capable of, that you do know what to do, or that you can handle it, or that you have been happy and not and not felt anxious today, even if that was just for an hour. So with your, with the journal, you can just spend a couple of, minutes at the end of the day going, right, is that what evidence can I find today? Or maybe Maybe you do it once a week and look back and think, right, over the last week, can I see any evidence that con conflicts, contradicts the negative belief where I can see that actually, I have felt quite good or done something good.

Because then your brain, like Amazon goes, Oh, you liked that, did you? Here some more stuff like that. It will speed up the, the rate at which your brain starts to gather evidence for your new belief.

Oh, I told you there was a lot to squish into tonight. So I hope that all makes sense. Some of you may have tried some of this before, so what would be really helpful for me now, just before we finish up, is, hit me up with what's been your biggest kind of standout takeaway from tonight.

So what's resonated, was it something within the anxiety piece? Something we did with that or has it been something from within the the limiting beliefs thing, so just a couple of bits of feedback really . What's been your biggest take home from from tonight just before we finish up, and I'll have a glug of my drink while I wait.

So, mm mm mm, Rebecca says beliefs are not truths, yeah. Absolutely. Beliefs are just beliefs, and they're definitely not necessarily truths, but they feel like truths, absolutely.

Other Rebecca, the importance of gathering evidence to support the new belief, yeah. And it's, it's weird, once you've written the new belief, your. Your brain will automatically start gathering the evidence and suddenly a comment, a nice positive comment from a from a colleague that normally you would have just gone on there that it wasn't nothing will land and you'll go, no, actually, that was a fair bit of praise.

I'm gonna let that one in. And that's, you know, your brain will start doing that for you as well. Louise, the limiting beliefs, trying to flip them and don't be scared of what that sounds like and give it a try.

Yeah, absolutely. It always feels a bit ridiculous when you first do it. That's when you know you're actually along the right lines.

Nicola, flipping the limiting beliefs in mini step, mini steps, yeah, absolutely. You just want to recognise, just a little bit of a shift is, is, all it takes. That's the beginning, and you can always build on that.

So you don't have to flip to the absolute, it's all clouds of unicorns and rainbows in one go. Rosie, to find a lot of people with the. Yeah, to find a lot of people with the I can't cope, not good enough stuff, nice to feel seen and not alone.

Absolutely. Isn't it though? Like, that's the shared common humanity piece right there.

We all slightly feel not good enough, either or, you know, a lot of the time or that that pops up. It it's just, yeah, it's part of the human condition. And it is nice to know that that is something that we all share.

Yeah, good, really good point, Rosie. Nicky, overfunctioning in response to anxiety fits in with the current limiting belief as well, yeah, absolutely. Katherine, I think the ends are functioning in response to anxiety.

OK, so that's been quite illuminating for people then being able to recognise your your pattern, and again, knowing that you're not on your own, that that's you, you're a normal person with a normal human brain. You know, we're never our modern lives, we're not designed to live the pressures of our of our modern lives with our stone Age brains, so they do the best they can. .

Nicola loved the success loops. Yeah, God. The first time Alan Robinson did a success loop with me, I bawled my eyes out.

It's because I didn't know what was coming. He'd not told me what it was. So he just said, think of something.

And I thought of my undergraduate research project, and he said, What did you need to do? And I went, well, I did this, this, this, this. And he said, so.

You have these and as he started to read them out, I was just like, whoa! Yeah, it hit me really hard, that one. So love the success leaps.

I'm gonna try and stop arguing the case for my limitations. Brilliant. Excellent, that makes me happy.

Ali, that I am an underfunctioner and that success loops sound like the way to go. Brilliant. That's great, thanks guys.

It's, it's really interesting seeing what stands out the most. OK, that's fantastic. Well done.

Sorry, we've run over a little bit, but this one was always going to be a bit of a, a meaty session. Now, before I let you escape, I just need to bring Rich back on because, webinar that have got an amazing offer, not like an amazing thing they're doing in response to the COVID-19 situation at the moment. So, Rich, over to you.