Anxiety can be difficult to manage, but there are many ways to work through it. Award-winning chef and New York restaurant owner, Missy Robbins, joins Dr. Emily for this Emotional Push-Up to talk about how practicing gratitude can act as an antidote to anxiety. By grounding us in what is true and positive right now, gratitude can bring us back to the present moment, helping to move us away from worrying about the negative things that may or may not happen in the future. Listen now for more on how to tap into the power of gratitude!

Thank you for listening! Staying emotionally fit takes work and repetition. That's why the Emotionally Fit podcast with psychologist Dr. Emily Anhalt delivers short, actionable Emotional Push-Ups every Tuesday and Thursday to help you build a better practice of mental health. Join us to kickstart your emotional fitness. Let's flex those feels and do some reps together!

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The Emotionally Fit podcast is produced by Coa, your gym for mental health. Katie Sunku Wood is the show’s producer from StudioPod Media with additional editing and sound design by nodalab, and featuring music by Milano. Special thanks to the entire Coa crew!

Dr. Emily:

Ready to break an emotional sweat? Welcome to Emotionally Fit with me, Dr. Emily Anhalt. As a therapist, I know that staying mentally healthy takes work and repetition. That's why I'll share Emotional Push-Ups, short, actionable exercises to help you strengthen your mental fitness. From improving your friendships to managing stress, let's flex those feels and do some reps together!

Hey there Fit Fans!

I am here today with the one and only Missy Robbins, co-founder of Grove House, chef and owner of Missy Lilia and Missy Pasta. Missy, thank you so much for doing this pushup with me today.

Missy:

Oh, so happy to be here.

Dr. Emily:

It's great to have you. And I'm curious, Missy, to the extent you're comfortable sharing, would you describe yourself as an anxious person?

Missy:

I wouldn't actually. I would say that until pretty recently, I didn't actually even understand what anxiety felt like or was. And over the last 10 months or so, have experienced anxiety in a way that I never have before that's due to circumstances in my life.

Dr. Emily:

That makes sense. So recently, maybe you've been experiencing more anxiety than usual.

Missy:

For the first time in my life.

Dr. Emily:

Wow. Well then maybe that's great timing for us to do this pushup together.

Missy:

When I saw your topic, I was like, Okay, this works.

Dr. Emily:

Well, I'm so glad to hear that the timing worked out. I know I definitely skew fairly anxious, and so I've collected all kinds of tools over the years to mitigate my worry. And I shared the best advice I've ever gotten for dealing with anxiety in a past episode. People can check out, Trust Your Future Self to hear the story behind that one. But today I wanted to talk about another tool that maybe it sounds a little bit trite, but I have found can be an incredibly powerful way to move through anxiety. And that tool is gratitude. I have found that gratitude can help in a huge way when we're feeling anxious. And this is because anxiety is a preoccupation with something negative that might or might not happen in the future. Whereas gratitude grounds us in what is true and positive right now. It brings us back to the present moment.

So sometimes when I find myself worrying that I might lose something that's important to me, whether it's a person or a job or a circumstance in my life, I disrupt this anxiety by focusing instead on how grateful I am that I have this person or thing or circumstance now. And not only does that take me out of a future that doesn't exist yet, but it also gives me comfort that if I ever were to lose this person or thing that at least I will have appreciated it while I had it. So Missy, I'm curious, what do you think about this idea of gratitude as a way to help us with our anxiety?

Missy:

I think it's pretty powerful, and I think it's interesting because also until pretty recently I didn't really have a gratitude practice. I don't know that I still have a gratitude practice. I think I've been better at practicing being grateful and in moments, and I'm not someone who has that daily wake up and write five things that you're grateful for. But I think I've gotten a lot better over the last several months of understanding what gratitude is and how it can work to make you feel more positive and how can it affect other people around you as well.

Dr. Emily:

That makes sense, although I would say practicing your gratitude sounds like a gratitude practice to me. So it sounds like you're on your way. And that brings us perfectly to today's pushup, which is all about feeling and expressing a little gratitude in order to bring ourselves to the present moment. So step one of this pushup, Missy, is to think of something that you are deeply grateful for that is true about your life right now. And maybe specifically it's something that you have felt some anxiety about not being true forever. So maybe you're grateful for a person you love, or maybe for a job you have right now that feels like a great fit. Maybe you're grateful for your pet or your home or your health. Health came up for me as something that doesn't last forever and that I am sometimes anxious about losing, but I have right now. So for those listening in, go ahead and press pause while you think of your example, or keep listening to hear what Missy shares. So Missy, what is it that you're feeling super grateful for that's true about your life right now?

Missy:

First of all, it's really hard to pick one thing. I'm lucky to have a lot of things to be grateful for all of the above that you just named, health, jobs, profession, whatever. I think most important is the support system I have, just amazing friends and family and I think that is the best.

Dr. Emily:

Yeah, that's always a wonderful answer. And I do think it's quite a beautiful privilege in life to have a support system. So, that's a great one. So step two then of this push at Missy is to capture this gratitude. So that might look like writing it down, recording a voice note of yourself talking about it. It might be sending a text to the people in your support system that you're grateful for them. It might be taking a photo of whatever you're feeling grateful for. So for those listening in, think about how you might capture that in this moment. Missy, what about for you? How do you imagine you might capture this gratitude?

Missy:

I think definitely by sending notes to the people that I'm grateful for. And again, that's not something that I was ever really great at, or used to, or understood the impact of on other people or on myself and how good that can make someone feel. And I've done it a lot recently in a way that I've never done before, very expressively, vulnerably, and that does make you feel good, but more importantly makes other person feel good.

Dr. Emily:

Yeah, I like that it goes both ways. There's a beautiful echo chamber of love and gratitude there. So, that sounds great. So the final step then of this pushup is to think about how this can help us the next time we're feeling anxious about this thing. So I know for example, with my health, when I'm worried about losing my health, I can instead shift to how grateful I am that I have it right now. And that brings me back to the present moment. And I think to myself, at some point when my health inevitably goes, I will know that I was really grateful for it when I had it. I will remember this moment. I will have written it down, I will have taken a picture, whatever it might be.

So the next time you're feeling anxious about the future when it comes to your support network, you can remember this moment and you can look back on how you've captured it. You can take out the voice note or photo or message as a reminder that you took the time to be as present as you could with what you have. So Missy, what do you imagine that might look like for you? If you imagine the next time you're a little worried about the future, how can you look back to the notes that you sent or look back to how you've captured your gratitude to bring yourself to the present moment?

Missy:

I think it's thinking about those moments where that support system was really effective and important and really helped you through a time or was there for you, and really think about those moments and think about how important it was to lean on those people at a given moment.

Dr. Emily:

I love that. And it just occurred to me that I'm asking you to capture your gratitude and here we are on this podcast that's going to be recorded and out there. Maybe this is a great way to do it. Would you be up for expressing gratitude to someone from your support structure and then they'll have that to listen to and so will you.

Missy:

Sure. I'm going to express gratitude to my friend Julia, who I speak to almost every day and has been an incredible, incredible friend, listener, just an incredible listener. That's it. Without any judgements, without any opinions, just plain listening. And that is a really impressive skill that a lot of people don't have, including myself. So I'm always grateful to her for that.

Dr. Emily:

I love that. I imagine it'll mean a lot to her to hear it. And also the next time you find yourself in a future spin, maybe you can listen back on this and say, Oh wow, I was really present and appreciative of the love and support that I had, and that's a beautiful thing. So that's our pushup for today, Missy. I know gratitude can feel to some people like a silly thing to focus on, but there is a lot of research out there showing how transformative a gratitude practice can be. One company I worked with years ago started something they call 'GratiTuesday,' where every Tuesday everyone on the team would put one thing or person that they're grateful for into a Slack channel. And I just love this idea. And so essentially I decided to make today 'GratiTuesday' here on Emotionally Fit. So Missy, thank you so much. I am grateful to you for flexing your feels and breaking an emotional sweat with me today. I'm curious, how did it feel to do this pushup?

Missy:

It's good. It feels good. It's a good reminder of how to take care of yourself and how to take care of other people.

Dr. Emily:

It's a little thing, it's a quick thing, but often those are the things that we forget to integrate into our daily life. So I appreciate you showing everyone how it's done.

Missy:

Absolutely. Happy to do it.

Dr. Emily:

Thanks so much.

Missy:

Thank you.

Dr. Emily:

Thanks for listening to Emotionally Fit hosted by me, Dr. Emily Anhalt. New Push-Ups drop every Tuesday and Thursday. Did you do today's Push-Up alongside me and my guest? Tweet your experience with the hashtag #EmotionallyFit and follow me at @DrEmilyAnhalt. Please rate, review, follow and share the show wherever you listen to podcasts. This podcast is produced by Coa, your gym for mental health, where you can take live, therapist-led classes online. From group sessions to therapist matchmaking, Coa will help you build your emotional fitness routine. Head to joincoa.com, that's join-c-o-a.com, to learn more. And follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @joinCoa. From StudioPod Media in San Francisco, our producer is Katie Sunku Wood. Music is by Milano. Special thanks to the entire Coa crew!