We were SO honored to welcome our esteemed guest this week, Dr. Chloe Carmichael!

Dr. Chloe is a clinical psychologist and USA Today bestselling author who graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Columbia University, earning a BA in Psychology with departmental honors.  She holds a Masters and Doctorate of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology from Long Island University, which is accredited by the American Psychological Association and accepts fewer than 10% of its applicants. 

Her book, Nervous Energy: Harness the Power of Your Anxiety was endorsed by Deepak Chopra and called a “game changer” by Jim McCann (founder of 1800-FLOWERS). Dr. Chloe has appeared as an expert on ABC Nightline, CBS Inside Edition, and many other media outlets.  Dr. Chloe is also on the Advisory Board of Women’s Health Magazine (Hearst), as well as an expert contributor for PsychologyToday and MindBodyGreen.

Topics included:

🧡 Blending Psychology with Mindfulness, Self-Compassion, and Stress Management

🧡 Turning Anxiety into Productive Drive

🧡 Mindfulness and Self-Compassion in Daily Life

🧡 Unique Goal-Setting Strategies for Different Demographics

I'm so excited to be here today.

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Welcome, everybody, to our

podcast, Growing Good Humans.

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My name is Laura Barr.

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I'm the owner and founder of

Emerging Educational Consulting.

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We provide one to one mentorship for

parents and students from the beginning

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to end of the college application process.

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I always love to say we're in the

business of growing good humans.

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And what better way to do that

than to educate and inform and

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empower both parents and students,

which is why we're here today.

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With the amazing Dr.

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Chloe, I am so happy to

have you here today, Dr.

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Chloe, I found you on LinkedIn

and I became immediately fascinated

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with the language that you use.

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You are the author of the book that

I want to make sure I get it right.

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Nervous energy, harnessing the power.

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Of your anxiety, and one of the

reasons my eye was caught is because

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of this idea of harnessing instead of.

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Like taming it or getting rid of it.

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And so I'm really excited to have you

talk to my parents and students today.

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But before we do that, will you please do

yourself the amazing honor of introducing

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yourself and please give yourself all

the kudos you deserve as you do so.

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Sure.

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So Dr.

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Chloe Carmichael, clinical psychologist.

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I'm a PhD in clinical psychology.

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I'm also, as you mentioned, an author.

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So my book, Nervous Energy, Harness

the Power of Your Anxiety, is about

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how to unlock the healthy function

of anxiety., I'm happy to say I'm

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a USA Today bestselling author.

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I think it's a message

the world needs to hear.

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I'm also a wife and a mother myself.

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So your mission to really help families

and kids is near and dear to my heart.

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Yay.

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Well, let's just dive in.

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We had some questions ahead.

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And I, I think I want to go back

to that initial, notice that I

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had when I saw you on LinkedIn

and why, why this idea of harness.

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instead of tame.

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Yes.

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Okay.

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So as we all know, anxiety

disorders are on the rise.

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And I say all because I think even

people who are not psychologists are just

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aware, either they just feel it or it's

become such a media, you know, story that

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anxiety disorders are so much on the rise.

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And I think people are just so aware.

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You need to know that there is

a healthy function to anxiety,

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the healthy function to anxiety.

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is to stimulate preparation behaviors.

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And when we know that we're able to use

it constructively, when we don't know

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that we get, you know, anxiety about

anxiety, where we say, Oh my goodness,

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I'm anxious, I must have a disorder.

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And ironically, we're actually

more vulnerable to a to an anxiety

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disorder when we don't know how

to use anxiety in its healthy way.

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So that's why I love to teach people

that, you know, a person with no

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anxiety wouldn't even think to look

both ways before they cross the street.

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So we just need to learn how

to use it constructively.

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One of the things I noticed when I was

reading through your reading through

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your kudos is that experts like Deepak

Chopra have commented on that and you're

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really gaining a lot of attention.

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And I think you have some experience

with yoga and mindfulness and all of

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that, but I'm wondering if you can just.

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Jump right to the chase and give

us a glimpse into how, harnessing

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that nervous energy, how to do that.

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What are actionable steps

that people can do just today?

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Sure.

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And yes, I will say when I learned that

Deepak Chopra had endorsed my book, I just

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about hit the, hit the roof because I was

a psychologist or I was a yoga teacher

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before I became a clinical psychologist.

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And the book actually has a

chapter on mindfulness, looking

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at it as metacognition, which

is thinking about your thoughts.

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And I think that's what caused Deepak

Chopra to, you know, get involved,

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which I'm eternally grateful for that.

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but as far as practical ways.

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There are actually nine practical

techniques in the book, because

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again, that's the whole point is

that the anxiety is supposed to

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stimulate preparation behaviors.

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There's things that we are supposed to do.

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So, for example, you know, suppose

that you, you or your child, you

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know, it's just really nervous about.

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Making that first list of schools that,

you think you're going to apply to and

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so just even the thought of sitting

down at your computer and starting to

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build that list, you just feel like lots

of butterflies in your stomach, right?

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So we then want to think about, okay,

and Instead of, fighting that, how

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can I use that energy and how can

I take care of myself with that?

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Right.

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So maybe that means that you invite a

friend or family member to sit down with

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you at the computer so that you know

you're not alone if you know that that's

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the Stumbling block place for you because

your mindfulness metacognition clues

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you into that then you can have someone

come with you and maybe have them have

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them be your, scribe to write down as

you look through the websites and you

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say, okay, yeah, I think I'll apply to

school a and School B, not school C, yes,

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school E,, have them write it down so

that you're not doing everything yourself

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and you can just put that energy into

looking at the school since that's the

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most important step that you need to do.

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It's interesting because, obviously

in our practice, we're working

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with high levels of anxiety, and I

think, it's the unspoken and spoken

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pressure of getting in to colleges.

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One of the things that I notice,,

we provide some of that mentorship,

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and I think we do reduce, I always

say we provide a process that is

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simple, deliberate and joyful.

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And this idea that, like.

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Harnessing that anxiety because

we have specific tasks and we're

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mentors, not just consultants.

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Right.

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But I will say one of the things

that I see the most debilitating for

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our students is when anxiety turns

into high levels of procrastination.

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Is there, or do you

have, is there something.

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around that, that you can speak to for us?

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Yeah, definitely.

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So the to do list with emotions is another

technique from my book that is actually

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very helpful a lot of times for people

who are struggling with procrastination.

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So in that one, what we do is we

think about what's on our list.

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And the emotion that goes with it.

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And then we layer in a self care plan.

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So, for example, suppose that

it's on your college prep to do

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list that you need to write an

amazing personal statement, right?

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So, all of our students

are doing that right now.

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Yeah.

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So if you look at that and you know

that, you know, what comes up for you

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is apprehension and fears of not being

good enough and all kinds of other stuff,

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then, you know, your self care plan is

that you would say, okay, I'm going to go.

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Yeah.

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Maybe take my laptop out to a place

that always makes me feel really good

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and really secure, you know, it could

be like your, your favorite park, or

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it could be your favorite restaurant,

you know, and maybe over a really great

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meal or at your, you know, spot in the

sun, you would say, okay, I'm today, I'm

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just going to write down a list of five

or 10 things that I think I may want

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to include in that personal statement.

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I'm not even going to try to write

the whole statement or anything.

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I'm just going to start with a, you

know, random list of five or 10 things

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that I think I might want to include,

but to beat the procrastination piece.

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You would entice yourself by pairing

that anxiety provoking activity

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with something that's going to be

really pleasurable and soothing.

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Again, for me, when I wrote my

dissertation, I wrote the bulk of it at

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really nice restaurants and bars, right?

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Because I was just, I reached a point

with it where I just did not even want

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to be staring at that screen anymore.

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But I certainly did want

to go to a nice restaurant.

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So I would kind of bribe myself by taking

my laptop and just having a little rule

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that I wasn't allowed to order anything

until I had it on and connected to

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the Wi Fi and had my file open and,

you know, was beginning to work on it.

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Oh, I love that.

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Let me say it back to you.

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So somebody has a feeling

of procrastination.

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And they're not getting stuff done and

the question would be instead of like

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you're lazy or you're not motivated

or you don't really want to do this

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anyway is more asking the question

like what are the feelings that you're

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having when you think about that?

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And it's making me feel like I need

to pull out my old feeling wheel.

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I haven't used it in a while

because I think sometimes even

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naming like you said apprehension.

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I think I can imagine many of

my students not using that, but

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that's what they actually feel.

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So I'm wondering about pulling that

list out again for my students, right?

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What is it that you're feeling?

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Let's create a self care

plan around that feeling.

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How can we move to the next step?

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And then always pairing it with some

kind of pleasurable event or a reward.

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Right.

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I think also breaking it down into

the tiniest possible pieces, right?

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Because again, when we think about, and

I, I went to Columbia, which, you know,

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I mean, I was just extremely nervous

as you can imagine about that process.

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And then applying to PhD programs

in clinical psychology, they're

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like, they're literally more

competitive than med school.

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school.

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So I was extremely nervous myself,

you know, about all of those things.

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And one of the things, to your

point about procrastination is that

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we can feel very daunted by this

giant task of saying, okay, I have

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to write an essay that's good enough

to get me into this amazing program.

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That's very daunting.

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But what if we break it down and

say, okay, well, one day I'm going

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to just simply write five or 10,

points that I might want to include.

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What if the second day, my only job

is to write an introductory paragraph.

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And even if I scrap it later, that's.

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But if I just bring it down to

that one level , another thing

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that can be helpful is to actually

depersonalize it a little bit.

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I know that sounds funny about like

a personal essay, but if you can

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imagine that your job, that you're

not doing it for yourself, but like

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it's actually your job to write

this little essay for somebody else.

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And so that somebody else just happens

to have a lot in common with you, but

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you pretend like you're writing it and

doing all that work for somebody else.

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For a lot of people, that actually

takes the pressure off because they

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like doing things for other people.

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They like helping other people,

but like tooting their own

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horn feels very daunting.

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So sometimes that's another little way

to just depersonalize it a little bit.

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Oh my gosh, I really am going to,

I'm going to add that to our toolbox.

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So not only go through what we just

went through, but then say you, if you

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depersonalize it, you might not have

as much emotion, that same emotion

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because you're thinking about doing

it for somebody else, like your best

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friend, you know, that kind of thing.

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I love that.

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I want to go back to this idea of

like mindfulness and self compassion.

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All of those words are

pretty big buzzwords today.

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What is your opinion or do you have

any experience you can give us to

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help guide students to apply some

of these techniques in ways that

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they won't roll their eyes at us?

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Well, tell me, tell me what

makes them roll their eyes.

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Maybe that would be a good place to start.

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I think, I think one of the reasons.

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Many people may roll their eyes is

because it has become kind of cliche

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buzzwords like practice mindfulness

or show, you know, self compassion.

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It all sounds so much easier when

you say it than actually to do it.

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And so I don't know.

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I just feel like maybe it just doesn't

feel cool to some kids and students.

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And yeah, so I think with mindfulness

in particular again, it's just

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it's gotten to be such a buzzword.

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A lot of people think it means,

you know, just being present

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and being in the moment.

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Which, you know, for, for a lot of

people, that's, it kind of falls flat.

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But if we think about mindfulness

as metacognition, which is, thinking

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about your thoughts and having

a sense of, really what's going

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on with you in any given moment.

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So that would be saying, okay, I'm

aware that when I sit down to write

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that personal statement, I go into

people pleasing mode, or I go into

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self comparison mode, whatever it is

that you have that awareness about

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yourself that you get into, then you're

empowered to start , course correcting.

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So then you might say, okay, well, because

I know that I Spiral down into like the

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comparison mode about, well, gee, did

I go to a developing economy and help,

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female entrepreneurs to build a water dam?

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You know, no, I didn't

do that or whatever.

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Then you would just mentally make it.

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off limits for yourself to think about

anybody but yourself, during that time,

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and maybe even set like an egg timer for

20 minutes and just say, okay, for these

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20 minutes, I'm just going to think about

myself and what I bring to the table.

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And when it comes to the

self compassion piece.

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I actually think that's

a really important one.

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And I frankly think it's a justified

eye roll for a lot of people because

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what they have been taught about self

compassion is that it means just basically

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giving yourself Pollyanna happy talk.

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And that's really not helpful, right?

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So in my book, I talk about a

technique called thought replacement.

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And so for example, if, if somebody sits.

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down to write their personal

essay and they just start

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thinking, Oh, I'm, such a loser.

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I don't have anything to

bring to the table, et cetera.

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And then someone says, Oh, well just,

you know, use self compassion where

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you think to yourself, I'm the most

fascinating, interesting person.

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And I'm so intelligent and any

college would be lucky to have me.

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That falls flat, frankly,

because it's not true.

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And people know it, deep down inside.

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So when it comes to thought

replacement, what we do is we make

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sure that we are overriding those

irrational negative thoughts.

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With statements that are actually true,

so they're not aspirational statements.

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And again, as a yoga teacher, I was

certainly understand about affirmations

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and aspirational statements, and

there's a time and place for that, but.

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Psychology studies have shown that when

we go too far in those aspirational

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statements about just saying any

college would be lucky to have me.

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I'm the best candidate in the whole pool.

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It actually makes us insecure because on

some level that metacognition awareness

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level, we are aware that That we're saying

things to ourselves that are probably

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not entirely rational and true either,

which only makes us more insecure.

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So we would want to come up

with true thought replacements.

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So we'd want to come up with

statements like people with a GPA and

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extracurricular profile like mine have

been admitted to this college before.

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So I do have a chance.

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Right?

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That is a thought replacement that

you could say to yourself when you

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want to start spiraling into like

irrational negative self talk.

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And it's better than what some

people call self compassion, which

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is, you know, irrational happy talk.

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But in my view, it's true self

compassion when we can say things

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that are actually true and accurate

and designed to help us move forward.

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Wow.

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That is priceless.

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Thank you.

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it actually reminds me of, I spent my

early days as an early childhood educator

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and I got my degree in New York City at

a, at Bank Street College, which was a

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very brain based, I know Bank Street.

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You do.

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I love that place so much.

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And so from early on in my career,

I learned the distinction between

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praise and encouragement and

really what you're talking about.

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We try to teach parents

from an early age, right?

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In my parent education programs, I've

tried to teach Parents, the difference

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between praise and encouragement.

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But what you're talking about is

the difference between praise and

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encouragement in self talk, which

I have never heard that before.

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And it is so brilliant, right?

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Like we would expect, when a student is

doing well in school, I say to parents

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to say things like, wow, that effort

you have put in is really paying off the

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goals that you set are really coming.

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to fruition as opposed to, oh, I'm so

proud of you for getting A's, right?

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That would be the difference.

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And so what you're saying is, is that in

the state with, with this, we hear this

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talk that isn't very nice in our heads.

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We do self talk and we,

Replace the thoughts.

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The thought replacement is

rooted in what's real instead

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of just that kind of ooey gooey.

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Oh, you're so wonderful.

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You're so beautiful.

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You're perfect.

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Just the way you are.

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It's just that's just such

tremendous, tremendous advice.

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Any other thoughts for parents

around that praise versus

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encouragement for teens specifically?

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Yeah, I, I think that's a really good

distinction, you know, that you're

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making as well for the way that

parents talk to their kids as well.

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And so maybe even just normalizing for

them the fact that, that, that they do

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have anxiety and, you know, for the parent

even can tell a story about a time when

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the parent himself or herself was anxious.

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But but that they got through it.

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, frankly, I think a lot of people are

very comforted as well, just to know

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that there is a healthy side to anxiety,

which is to stimulate preparation

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behaviors and that it actually oftentimes

signals that you are investing.

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Did in the outcome of something, if

you were indifferent and you didn't

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care about college, you wouldn't

get anxious thinking about it.

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So to even, you know, talking to

your child and to be able to say,

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you know, I, you can tell 'em, I,

I heard a psychologist talk about

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how there's a healthy side to

anxiety and really what it means.

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You know, is that you care

a lot about this goal.

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So that's a wonderful thing.

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So, let's even list out all the

reasons why you care about this goal.

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Because you, you know, want to learn how

to work with animals, because you want to

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be a veterinarian or, , whatever it is.

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And before you know it, you might

even find yourself with a few

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talking points that could actually

end up in your personal statement.

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You never know.

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Before I met with you, I was actually on

a FaceTime with my son, who is 22, who

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has his new job, and he's very excited

and also anxious about the future, so he

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is actually a follower of you also, Dr.

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Chloe, because I've been able to tell

him those things, and it has been very

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comforting to him to hear that his

level of anxiety can be used towards,

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towards bettering himself in some

ways, but then also the voices in

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his head are, well, what if I fail?

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And one of the things I know

you talk a lot about is how

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the value of goal setting.

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And so how do you juggle this idea of

like setting goals, reaching goals?

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If you fail your goals, how does that?

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triangulate?

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Well, so that's an interesting one.

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So first of all, you know, if you,

if you do fail to meet a goal, then

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the most important thing to ask

yourself is, is what went wrong?

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You know,, to not really it again.

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I mean, unless that what went wrong

is t some kind of a innate and W.

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N.

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B.

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A.

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And you know,

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for this.

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You know, there do.

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It's never gonna happ

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Then, believe it or not, I could even

turn that into a positive because I

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could say, wow, maybe that's a liberating

me to start deciding, you know,

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what would be the right goal for me?

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Because what was it I was

seeking out of this endeavor?

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Is it that I like team sports?

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Is it that I like fitness?

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How else can I get those needs met

and stop banging my head again?

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you know, this wall if the failure

really is that kind of a failure.

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On the other hand, if it's

one where you say, Oh, I see.

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I actually just need to learn more

like, Oh, I got into the rounds of

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interviews, but then I, you know,

, blew it in all of the interviews.

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And so what that tells me is that

I need to do a little bit more

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interview prep for next time.

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But the good news is, is that

also means I've got the goods to

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get into the interviews, right?

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So you have to notice and celebrate

what's working, what got you up to the

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point at which the failure occurred,

and then continue to ask yourself,,

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what more can I learn from this?

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Because you have to remember.

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We look at, say, Steve Jobs or

the founder of Hershey's or, you

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know, one of my great friends, Jim

McCann, the founder of 1 800 Flowers.

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He loves to tell stories about all

the times that he failed, right?

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So we have to get it out of our heads

that, like, successful people don't fail.

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That's not true at all.

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The difference between successful

people and non successful people

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is that successful people get

up and keep trying again, right?

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So even if you do fail, that

should not become a non.

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starter.

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However, we also want to make sure

that that fear of failure doesn't

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block us from putting our energy

into working towards success.

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So another technique in my book, nervous

energy, harness the power of your

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anxiety is called the zone of control.

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And so what we do in that one is we look

at a broad goal, like,, say, getting

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into college, and we divide it up into

all the components of things we can and

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cannot control., and so one of those

random things that we just cannot control

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is, you know, what if there's just too

many students that are fit my profile

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exactly, and just basically almost by

lottery, I just don't get in, right?

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That's something that's

beyond our control.

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So we put that in the zone of

non control and we do not allow

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ourselves to think about it.

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Now it's hard to say we don't

allow ourselves to think about it.

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It's like saying don't

think about pink elephants.

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You have something to pivot onto and

Instead, so that's why you have to also

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have your zone of control written out

so that when you feel tempted on the

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zone of non control, you're not just

saying, don't think about that stuff.

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You're giving yourself something

else to go onto instead.

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It makes it a lot easier to control

your thoughts when you kind of

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dangle a good shiny object in

front of yourself to go onto.

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Chloe, Dr.

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Chloe, these are just incredible tips,

and we will take them in our practice

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and in my own practice, sharing with

my mentors in the IECs that I coach,

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and then also with our parents.

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I will make sure that in our

information section, we have a link

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to the book where people can purchase.

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The book and maybe your LinkedIn profiles.

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They can join us

following you on LinkedIn.

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And I just really want to thank you

so much for your time and your work.

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It's made a difference in my personal

life and my own family's life.

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For those of you who want to continue

following our podcast, please take some

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time to, like this episode and maybe

share it with a friend and just, please

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incorporate these tips and, and I promise

they will make a difference in your life.

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Dr.

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Chloe, thank you.

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Thanks, Laura.

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And people can go to nervousenergybook.

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com as well if they just want to see more.

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Perfect.

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Have a wonderful day and

we so appreciate your time.

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Thanks.

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Okay.

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Bye.