Eps 316: Teens, Therapy, and Mental Health with Dr. Melanie McNally

I heard one of your guests break it down one time and I couldn’t agree more: I think of courage and facing fears or new experiences. Joyful I think brings a sense of excitement or curiosity. So I think of Joyful Courage as facing new experiences with a sense of curiosity.

 

Therapy Bootcamp

 

I am so excited to share  this exclusive offer for the Joyful Courage community to you for Melanie’s Therapy Bootcamp starting April 4, 2022!

Therapy Bootcamp is for the Gen Zers who don’t feel like they know their real selves. They have a hard time getting motivated, lose track of their goals, and have no idea how to handle their feelings.

Therapy Bootcamp is an 8-week Bootcamp that includes video teachings, journal prompts, activities, and proven strategies- all on an app on their phone. They move through the program with 15-30 minutes of work each day. Not to mention, all bootcampers will have regular access to Dr. Melanie McNally for any questions.

Learn more about Therapy Bootcamp and grab your spot at destinationyou.net/therapy-bootcamp , Use the code Joyful at checkout and get $30 off tuition to the program.

 

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Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:03
Kay, Hello, my friends. Welcome to joyful courage, a conscious parenting podcast where we tease apart the challenges and nuances of parenting through adolescents. I am your host. Casey o'rourdy, positive discipline trainer and adolescent lead at sproutable, a company that represents not only the growth of children, but also the journey and evolution that we all get to go through as parents. I am walking the path right next to you as I navigate teen parenting with my own two kids here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, joyful courage is all about grit growth on the parenting journey relationships that provide a sense of connection and meaning and influential tools that support everyone in being their best selves. So I'm really excited. I have something to share. I have a new review up on Apple podcasts from fellow human, fellow parent in the trenches. It's titled Casey is so down to earth and humble. She speaks to all parents, and does not sugarcoat how tough getting through to young adult years is. She offers sound, positive discipline, tools and suggestions, and she knows it might not be natural to you, but she gives tons of refreshers and keeps encouraging you to try keep bridging that connection with your child. Casey has created a community of parents who can reach out to each other when things are difficult. I'm a huge fan of her show and very grateful to Casey for creating this podcast. Thank you for creating content that makes a difference. Ah, thank you, fellow human, for leaving that review. You too, listener can leave a review, and it makes a huge difference to the show. It makes a huge difference to the show. Thank you so much for being here. We are over 1 million downloads and 300 plus episodes strong, and you have taken us to the top 1% of podcasts worldwide. True story. I appreciate you, and now I'm super excited for this week's interview, and I know that you're really going to enjoy this show.

Hey everybody. I am so excited to welcome today's guest. Melanie McNally is a licensed clinical psychologist who helps Jen Zers become the superheroes of their life stories. She provides online support through teletherapy and coaching online programs and books that teach Gen Z how to build self confidence, manage anxiety and achieve their goals. Dr McNally founded therapy boot camp and app based pseudo educational service for Gen Z years to get therapy tools delivered right to their phones. Brilliant therapy boot camp is an eight week program where boot campers build self awareness and develop coping tools, all while being able to DM Doctor McNally directly, she's worked in the mental health field since 2005 and teaches the skills, strategies and tools that she herself has used and continues to use. Dr McNally lives in the forest of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with her husband and three dogs. You can learn tons more about [email protected] Hi Melanie. Welcome to the podcast. Hello.

Dr. Melanie McNally 3:20
Thank you so much for having me.

Casey O'Roarty 3:22
I am super excited to have you. As soon as your email came through and I read a little bit more about you, I thought, Oh, this is exactly someone I want to be having conversation with. So tell us a little bit about how you found yourself working with Gen Z.

Dr. Melanie McNally 3:37
You know, I really wanted to be able to provide the mental health support that I so desperately needed when I was a teen myself. You know, I grew up in a really dysfunctional home. On top of that, I had my own anxiety. I worried about everything, you know, from grades to swim meets to the stray dog in the neighborhood, like you, name it. I worried about it, and I didn't really know how to manage my anxiety. I didn't know how to manage the family stress at home. So I wanted to be a role model. I wanted to be able to provide mental health support to younger generations. So first, I got a Master's in Counseling. Then I decided I wanted to learn more, so I went back to school and got a doctorate in clinical psych. I've worked in the mental health field since 2005 and then specifically with youth, with tweens, teens and young adults Since 2013

Casey O'Roarty 4:31
Well, I'm raising two Gen Zers, so mine are 19 and 16, and the listeners of this podcast are as well. So first, I want to say thank you for your service. So many of us have been my own experience, and the people that are in my community, the you know the quest, and I realize we're in a special time with this pandemic and everything but the quest to try to find the right fit, or any fit, for our teens, it's really hard. Hard. It seems like the demand is really high and the providers are seem to be few and far between. Yes,

Dr. Melanie McNally 5:06
everyone's kind of in overload. You know, we all have wait lists. We all have, you know, caseloads that might be a little bit bigger than we normally would. That's one of the reasons why I started developing some self guided tools to kind of give people that additional support if they can't get in to see a therapist. But it's definitely there's been, you know, the pandemic has brought on a lot of really big challenges for people, especially for youth. You know, if you think about the decrease in social interactions that happened, especially at the very beginning of lockdown, and that decrease in social interactions led to a change in a lot of relationships and friendships that teens have to now figure out how to navigate. You know, friend groups that were once really tight and had all these things in common might have really shifted dramatically throughout the pandemic, and that's tough to navigate. Plus, you know, they lost their independence. You know, teens were at a point where this is when they're supposed to really blossom and be going out in the world and doing all these things on their own. And at the start of the pandemic, everyone's just kind of shut in the house. They can't be as independent as they normally would. So they used all of these really unique challenges this time around. Yeah,

it's so interesting. So my younger child was in eighth grade when the pandemic hit, so like moving into high school, and he's really social, and it just broke my heart. You know that he had to start high school online, and I mean, he's also really easy going, which I'm grateful for. And then I have this other child who the pandemic actually brought everyone to where she's at. I think I've said this on the podcast before, we got her a shirt that said socially distant before. It was cool, you know, I think on some level, it was like, Okay, everyone else is staying at home now too, like, almost even the playing field for her. And it's just so interesting how, you know, depending on your kid and their temperament. And, you know, I mean, we could go on and on about, like, what it's meant for younger kids and what it's meaning for kids in college, but, yeah, it's real. That's what I keep trying to make sure. Because I'll hear from parents saying, like, well, I know we're in a pandemic, but it's like, no, no, we are in a pandemic like this is unprecedented, and it's real, and it has to be taken into account. So you've mentioned a couple things, when you think about specifically, like the teens, you know, the I mean, whatever the adolescents, right? What is coming up? What are you seeing the most kind of as patterns in the clients that you

serve? Well, one is not even related to the pandemic. It's just kind of a static thing that I just always see as a teen issue, which is adolescent narcissism. You know, where we went through this teams, and then all teams kind of go through it themselves, but where they feel like they are on center stage. They feel like there's a spotlight on them. Everyone's staring only at them. Everyone is thinking about them if they mispronounced a word in class, everyone's going home and thinking about that word that they mispronounced. Every teen feels that way, like they're on that center stage. You know, in our generation, it was a little different, because we didn't have social media to amplify that narcissism. God,

Casey O'Roarty 8:22
I did a lot of things that I am glad are not documented. Oh,

Dr. Melanie McNally 8:26
my God, you and me both and they, you know, but now, not only is that stuff documented, but also they are on center stage a little bit more. You know, I've had teens where they didn't authorize somebody to record them, you know, they fell asleep in class and someone recorded it and put it in their Snapchat stories, or made a Tiktok about it, and now all of a sudden, everyone's laughing at them. So there is a little bit more of a like reality to the adolescent narcissism that didn't really exist before.

Casey O'Roarty 8:57
Is that brain development, that adolescent narcissism? It's just a part of, kind of a heightened,

Dr. Melanie McNally 9:03
yes, it's just part of brain development. You know, we went through it as teens. You know, they're going to go through it. Their kids are going to go through it. That's just part of brain development, and eventually we grow out of it. But you know, what's a little different with them now is, because of social media, it does feed into it. It feeds into the belief a little bit more. So that's kind of like the static issue that I always see teams dealing with is feeling like they're on center stage, feeling like they're being judged, and trying to navigate that area. And then on top of that, the more unique issues that are related to the pandemic, with the loss of social interactions, the changing of social relationships. But I've also seen a lot of development of poor mental health habits where, you know, they relied on devices a lot more. Their lifestyles became way less active. And maybe initially that wasn't a huge issue, but it kind of morphed into just how they are on a day to day basis. So even though kids. Might be back in school now, a lot of those habits that they have have kind of stuck with them. So they come home from school, maybe before they used to go hang out with friends, or they had some extracurriculars. Well, maybe they're not doing those things anymore, and then we know a less active lifestyle or less exercise that that has a negative impact on our mental health.

Casey O'Roarty 10:28
Well, and it's interesting too, because it does feel like this generation is more open to talking about mental health, you know, even if it's a hashtag, right? And I'm curious what your opinion is, if that, and I'm thinking, maybe no, like, does that translate to like moving in the direction of healing their mental health? Because I remember when my oldest was, you know, just starting high school, and was adamant for at the start around I'm depressed and I need medication. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up. Like, I'm not anti medication, but there's a lot of things for us to work out before we get there and, you know, and now the tables have turned, and I'm like, Do you think maybe medication would be useful? And that's not what she wants. So it's really interesting, but I'm wondering about that. You know, there does seem to be this more open dialog, but is that translating to a willingness to do that mental health work?

Dr. Melanie McNally 11:30
It's interesting that you say that, because I talk about this a lot with a lot of the parents that I work with, that awareness doesn't necessarily mean action, yeah, just because teens might be aware of their mental health issues, they might not be willing to act on those things, they might not be willing to put in the work. So I have noticed there's definitely an increased awareness. You know, teens now, they're aware of symptoms of depression, they're aware of anxiety, they are aware of all kinds of mental health issues that I never even knew existed when I was our age. But sometimes that awareness can work against us, because then all we do is we talk about it, and we kind of perseverate. We think about it, we dwell on it, but unless we're actually willing to do some work and to create some change, that awareness isn't really that helpful. So I do see that sometimes teens are aware, but they're not necessarily willing to do the work. And so that's where I kind of come in, where I'm trying to get them to shift just a little bit, to build, you know, better habits, to develop some tools that they can start to implement, so they move out of that awareness stage and start to move into action stage.

Casey O'Roarty 12:42
Yeah, there's this identification with it too, right? And I was having a conversation with a young person recently who was noticing a lessening in some depressive symptoms, and she actually said, I don't want it to go away. It's become such a part of who she is. What about like, some tools for us? Because my go to with my kids, and I realized this is absolutely a learning edge for me. Okay, I do not like to be with their discomfort. Hello. My name is Casey. I can't deal you know, my daughter and I went through DBT, and it was super powerful and amazing. And one of the biggest things that I learned is when I go into fix it mode, when I say things like, Well, I don't color an adolescent narcissist, although maybe I'll put that in my back pocket. But when I would say things like, you know, everybody feels like this, it was really dismissive, where I thought I was being really helpful, I was actually being really invalidating.

Dr. Melanie McNally 13:41
Yeah, it's a fine line, you know, where you have to kind of walk that balance of, you know, you want to listen, you want to validate, and no matter how normalizing their experience actually is, or, you know, it's very typical. You know that most of the kids their age are probably going through that. To them, it doesn't feel that way. They feel like, yeah, they're the only person who's ever experienced this, and we don't want to invalidate that. We don't want to take that away, because all that's going to do is just kind of shut them down. So it is kind of a fine line of listening to them, letting them share, letting them vent, you know, talking about, you know, gosh, that sounds really hard. What did you do about that, and then even asking, you know, for some clarification. So okay, now, do you want me to still listen, or do you want to kind of move into some problem solving here? Do you want some of my opinion and then seeing what they want at that point?

Casey O'Roarty 14:35
Yeah, that she has taught me that big time. And it's funny, because sometimes it's just like stepping into the room and lobbing something at me, and I'm sitting with it, and I'm looking at her, and I have to say, Do you want me to respond to listen, to validate what's happening here? And, you know, and she'll be like, Oh, kind of roll her eyes and walk away, which is fine too, right? But it's been really nice to begin to develop a ripple. Around how we communicate with each other, over our needs, and then anxiety. So like you said, adolescent narcissism is kind of this, like foundational thing that we all went through. They are going through anxiety. Seems to, I don't know if it's become watered down or more prevalent, because it feels like everybody's talking about their anxiety, and we can't all have anxiety. Like, do we all have anxiety? Or what's going on? Help me, Melanie, I'm not anxious. I don't think I'm good.

Dr. Melanie McNally 15:39
Well, first, when we think of, you know, youth, I don't know if you saw the report that came out of the end of 2021 from the Surgeon General, talking about like the youth mental health crisis, but it was actually like a collaboration of data collection from some different agencies. And one of the things that they found is that depression anxiety has doubled during the pandemic for youth. But we also know that mental health issues were already on the rise in the US prior to the pandemic, and that data was collected by looking at, you know, emergency room visits, hospitalizations, things like that. So we already knew the numbers were going up, doubled during the pandemic. So we know that there is a really big increase in anxiety for youth, and that it might not just be a term that people are kind of loosely throwing around. You know, youth, they're exposed to an onslaught of information, like information overload. I don't know if you ever watched Dave Chappelle, but he had this great line one time when he was talking about kids today, it's like they experience 911 every day with the information that they're consuming. You know, if you think of climate change, you think of social injustice, you think of gun violence, they are constantly getting exposed to that information, and a lot of that feels really powerless. You know, they're watching these things happen and feeling like there's nothing that they can do about it. And then on top of that, they get bombarded with image after image of people who are using filter upon filter of highlight reels. So it's images where they're already really happy, or everything's going great. And then on top of that, they're super filtered. They

Casey O'Roarty 17:25
got great lips, great skin, luxurious hair, yeah, long

Dr. Melanie McNally 17:29
lashes, everything's great. So they're getting exposed to all of that. And sometimes they know, like there's filters and these are highlight reels, but those images, they get into our subconscious. And so even if we know on a rational level, okay, this is filtered, it still affects us. So they're getting the onslaught of all the information, they're getting all these filtered images, and that makes them feel like they're not doing enough, they're not popular enough, they're not smart enough, they're not good looking enough, or whatever. So that's definitely going to contribute to some really negative mental health that would include anxiety

Casey O'Roarty 18:10
well. And I want everyone who's listening right now to just pause for a minute and hear what Melanie is saying, because, I think, because, you know, I'm a Gen Xer, so I can hear this, but I don't have any memory to go back to think about how did this feel to me as a 16 year old, everything that you just said, and that matters well. And I also want to talk about, okay, well, then what? Right? But you know, I think it's really important for us to just sit with the reality of the experience that the Gen Z kids are going through, because it's not something to shrug off. It's not something that is a small impact, that is the water that they're swimming in. And so thinking about that, oh my god. Like, I don't want everybody to get depressed. Don't get depressed people. We're going to support each other here. But I guess my first step is like, how do we discern between okay, I've got a stressed high schooler and I have a kid. We need a team. We need support. How would you support parents in like, differentiating between the two and knowing when not only it's beyond what they can do, but it's also like getting those kids and again, it's that conversation around willingness to be willing to step into like a therapeutic model or a boot camp, or even, you know, or something that's going to support them and feeling better, giving them hope that they can feel better.

Dr. Melanie McNally 19:33
How do you kind of make that difference between, is it kind of typical worry versus anxiety? And one thing is, we always have to look at, is it helping them, or is it hurting them? Because we know that a certain amount of stress is actually good for us. It's a motivator. You know, if I'm stressed out about an exam, I'm going to be motivated to work a little bit harder, to put in some extra studying. I might join up a study group and ask my parents to quiz me, but if it crosses that line into hurtful territory. Where I'm not sleeping, or I have such a bad stomach ache on the day of the exam I can't go to school, or I sit down to take the exam, and my mind goes completely blank. Now it's crossed into that hurtful territory. So we always want to consider, is the stress or is the anxiety? Is it helping them, or is it hurting them? And with teens, we also want to look at how is it impacting their functioning, and we want to look at their functioning socially, academically and physically. So how is it impacting their social functioning? You know, is my teen so anxious about what other people think of him that he won't go to a party, or he won't audition for the school play, even though he really, really wants to be in it. Okay? That's impacting him socially, so he probably needs some support there. Or is it impacting them physically? You know, is my kid constantly having stomach aches and headaches or those vague physical health complaints that you know you've gone to the doctor for that are like, oh, there's really nothing there. Or maybe you notice, like, gosh, they always get a stomach ache on Sunday night or Monday morning. Then we know, okay, this is kind of moved into that realm of hurting them, and they probably need some support. Same thing with academics, you know, is it impacting their ability to pay attention in class, to do well, to participate in class, or their grades declining. And so then again, you know if it's helping or if it's hurting, and so if it's kind of crossing that line from helping to hurting, then you do want to start to think about getting them some mental health support, and that could be talking to the school counselor, getting them in some sort of support group at school. It could mean reaching out to your local therapist. Psychology today.com, has a great therapist finder directory, where you can put in your zip code and filter it and all that. So you know, there's different resources that people might want to explore that way. Okay,

Casey O'Roarty 21:59
and the assumption there is, look at these resources. I found you, and they are like, great, let me go engage in that, right? And I think that's kind of, oh. The second layer of this is we're already worried, and then we're navigating the resistance. How do you make them go to therapy? Melanie, how do you make them I remember literally thinking to myself, like, I can't drag her. Like, how will I, you know, yeah,

Dr. Melanie McNally 22:30
you definitely can. It won't be helpful. You've got to find wherever your buy in is. So if they're complaining about a particular friend issue, and maybe that friend issue isn't even your main concern for them. Maybe you're just concerned in general. They're just really anxious, or they're always tense or always irritable. Then you know what go with the friend issue. It seems like you need some help, like I'm noticing you're having a lot more friend issues lately. I can't help you with this. You know, this is out of my realm of expertise or so, let's see if we can find somebody who can help. So finding, if there is, like, a little buy in point where you can get them, where they're like, Okay, this is something that I do want help with. And then from there, you know, hopefully with the therapist, they'll start to kind of work on that one issue, but then it'll kind of develop into the bigger picture, because that's what we're trained to do. We're trying, you know, we have people come in all the time where they're saying, Oh, it's just this one problem, but you know that that's really kind of the tip of the iceberg. And so that's kind of what we're there to do, is to figure out what are the bigger issues, what's at the root of this, and helping them kind of figure that out too. But it's also important to try and find somebody that they connect with, and if you can empower them to be involved at all in the search, whether it's looking at websites together, or if they're going to make the calls themselves, so they feel like they have some say in all of this, you know. And as a last result, to always tell parents, you know what? Just tell them to give it three sessions, if, after three sessions, if they feel like this is a total waste of their time and they hate it, then they don't have to come back. But usually, you know, within one to two sessions, that's enough to kind of get them finding some value in it. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 24:15
I know, like for me, in my experience, it was also the energy that I brought to the conversation, and I noticed at the start it was like, will you please do this? Like, you know, it was kind of almost pleading style. And you know, as the stakes felt higher and things really were falling apart, I know that I can think back to just feeling that sense of confidence in my body as well as I talked to my child and said, You know what? This is happening, all of these things are going on which are not healthy and not serving you, and so we're gonna find someone to join the team. It wasn't, I will make you right. It wasn't like, super authoritarian, but it was this. Confident authority. You know this is happening, and I love you too much to sit by and wait for you to jump on the bandwagon. We're going. Another thing I noticed, too, and that comes up as I talk to parents, is there's this idea that I've heard, well, my teenagers totally got her therapist wrapped around their finger, or she's totally duping her therapist, and I'm curious, as a therapist of teens, and we actually had that experience too. I remember my daughter's seeing someone, and she came home and said, I get to go to every other week. And I was like, what? Like, who thinks that's a good idea, you know? And then in talking to the therapist, like she hadn't taken my daughter very deep for all intents and purposes, look like everything was fine. So I'm curious, as someone who works with teenagers, and I get that, like, skills vary depending on the person, but are they that good at duping the therapist they

Dr. Melanie McNally 25:53
can be? You know, it kind of depends, and it depends on, like, their own motivation for therapy, yeah, if they find value in it, if they don't find value in it, then absolutely they can everything's great. They can gloss stuff over because they just want to get out of there. They just want to end things. You know, I found that it's helpful to have some level of parental involvement. I don't want parents to involve, right?

Casey O'Roarty 26:19
We're a nightmare. I don't blame you.

Dr. Melanie McNally 26:23
Well, then it's the confidentiality issue, or they feel like now the parent, so I don't want them super involved. But I do like to get updates from parents. So I do like to have parents come in, you know, maybe once a month, where they're updating me on what's been going on, so I can get more of a big picture, and I can see because, like, if, like, with your daughter, if she's kind of presenting one picture to the therapist, and then you come in and you're like, Oh heck no, this is not what's going on at home at all. That's helpful clinical information, and that's really great to use in a therapy session. And then if I find that that's happening like consistently, where I'm constantly getting two different stories, then at that point, I really involve the parents, and I make it where we're bringing the parents in almost every session, because then I start to feel like I can't really trust the teen and what they're telling me. And so until we can get to a point where there's some trust and I really know what's going on. I need that parental input just to help the team with their own mental health. Otherwise, it's kind of like, what am I doing here?

Casey O'Roarty 27:29
What do you think is happening for those kids? I mean, you mentioned they're not really on board with it. So it's like path of least resistance. Say what I think you want to hear, but what else sometimes comes up for kids that are just resistant to doing their personal growth work. I mean, doesn't everybody love personal growth? Come on. I have to remember, I'm kind of an anomaly too.

Dr. Melanie McNally 27:51
You know, sometimes it can be like this fear of being broken, and they're afraid, you know, if they open up too much, that all of that brokenness is going to be exposed, and they fear that there's something really wrong with them that can't be fixed. So it's kind of like, if I don't show that to you, then I don't ever really have to deal with what's going on inside of me. I don't have to face it at all. So I found that that's one of the biggest issues, is that they fear that there's something so wrong with them, like that could never be fixed, that they're just trying to kind of protect that area.

Casey O'Roarty 28:32
Well, that hurts my heart, my heart, and that, you know, reminds me too, like, you know, there's an opportunity there to bring compassion to what might feel in the moment, like defiance, like not wanting help, right? Yeah,

Dr. Melanie McNally 28:48
sometimes that's why therapy can be a really slow process, and sometimes parents can get really frustrated because they feel like it's not really going anywhere. But it might be because of that, where the kid isn't necessarily lying or misrepresenting information, but it's just that they're not opening up yet. It's taking some time, and the therapist has to kind of be patient. They have to work at the kids pace. I mean, I remember before I was 100% online with teletherapy, and this is actually before the pandemic. This is actually what made me want to go to teletherapy. Is I had a kid that I was meeting with every week, really resistant to therapy, really guarded. I mean, she came in like she hated me, she swore at me, she didn't want to be there. Every session was an absolute nightmare. Usually ended early with her storming out of the office. Well, she ended up finding me on Instagram. I have a professional Instagram account, and she found it in one single DM, she shared more with me about what was going on in her life than she had in those three months where I'd been meeting. Her face to face, and I realized that having that screen between us, it took away the vulnerability. She wasn't ashamed, she wasn't embarrassed. It just completely opened up the door for our work together, and this girl is now thriving. She's incredible. She's, I mean, one of my absolute favorite clients. I love her, but it took that, you know, she needed that little barrier between us, and that kind of made me realize like, oh wow, there's actually a lot of value in teletherapy, because it takes away that vulnerability, right?

Casey O'Roarty 30:36
And on one hand, that can feel like, Oh my God. We have a generation of kids that can only communicate via screen, or we can think about it, oh, my God, we have this tool to make it slightly easier to get the help that they need. So I really appreciate that

I was working with a client a couple days ago who was sharing about how she really struggles with not taking her daughter's anxiety on as her own. And I get that, you know. And she even asked me, in your experience, how are you with your daughter's over anxiousness, you know? And I remember thinking to myself, like, oh, like, part of it is you live through it. People like, keep it together as best as you can, and know that everything is temporary and in the moment. What tips do you have for parents to stay and I love the mantra of fiercely committed, because we're not just abandoning our kids. How do we stay fiercely committed while also being lovingly detached to the anxiety, to the mental health shitstorm that can show up? How do we do that? Yeah,

Dr. Melanie McNally 31:50
you know, this is something I have to do a lot in my sessions, because I'll have people come in really anxious, talking really fast, and I can't get pulled into their anxiety. You know, your neurons are real, right? Yeah, it'll drain me. You know, I'll be exhausted every day. My husband will never want to speak to me. I'll be a mess. It'll be awful. So I've had to learn how to really kind of manage that anxiety so I don't get pulled into it. So I actually have three things that I do. The first thing is I immediately slow down my breathing. So when I notice that somebody else is highly anxious, I will start to just slow down my own breathing. Because what happens is, as social creatures, we naturally match the breathing of the people around us, and so if someone's really anxious, they likely are breathing very rapidly. And subconsciously, we don't even realize that we're doing it, we're going to start breathing really rapidly too, and then that might trigger a whole physiological response of anxiety and panic inside us. So the first thing I do is I just slow down my breathing. The second thing I do is I ground myself, my favorite little grounding exercise. It doesn't take away attention from anyone else. I just focus on feeling my feet on the ground without actually moving a muscle. So I'm trying to feel my feet like I'm trying to feel my toes, but I'm not wiggling anything. I'm not moving anything. So that's just a way to kind of ground. And then the third thing I do is I repeat inside my head their anxiety is not my anxiety. Their anxiety is not my anxiety, so the breathing, the grounding and the mantra kind of help to just keep me so I'm grounded. I'm not getting pulled into their anxiety, and now I'm in a much better place to help them navigate whatever it is that they're going through. Do you have

Casey O'Roarty 33:39
kind of like, any go to one liners like you ground yourself. I love that you said, feel your feet on the floor, because I talk about that a lot. So here you are in front of your teen, who's like, and you're doing the work, and you're maintaining your calm nervous system. Do you have any suggestions on, like, something I love just having something easy in the back pocket. Like, sounds like it's really hard for you right now. Or can you tell me more? Or, like, what are kind of some of the go tos that you would suggest to parents?

Dr. Melanie McNally 34:16
Yeah, so things to say to the kid, yeah, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 34:19
because it's hard to not say anything, and then there's lots of things to say that are

Dr. Melanie McNally 34:24
not useful. Yeah, no, definitely. So saying something like you said, you know, tell me more, or that sounds really hard. It depends on their mental state, though, if they're so amped up, where you might first just need to kind of focus on calming them down and just helping them regulate. You know, you might need to first just say, okay, you know, let's just slow down our breathing a little bit. We're going to talk through this, and I'm going to listen to everything you have to say, but let's just first kind of calm ourselves down a little bit, and then once their breathing is a little bit more stable, and they seem like they're in a better place. So they're not crying, then it's just kind of like I really want to hear what happened today, or I really want to hear what's bothering you so much, and just kind of opening the door for them to be able to share whatever it is that they need to share. Yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 35:12
So what that reminds me of when I worked with elementary school teachers for a long time with positive discipline and specifically, always right around kids who've been exposed to trauma, they seem to be the kids that are having the hardest time in the classroom and helping teachers understand the behavior they're seeing as the tip of the iceberg, and under the surface is really where the meat is, that we can make some long term impact. And one of the things I remember, and you reminded me of this as you talked about those kind of three steps, is we used to say, regulate, relate reason. So what I'm hearing you say is there's that regulation piece when they're totally spun out to support them, in slowing down the breath, in feeling their body and coming to a more regulated state. And then, as we see the opening, relating with them in validation and curiosity and tell me more. And then as they continue to de escalate, then there's a place I'm using the word reason, but I don't really mean like, and no, you can reason with them more. I just mean when they are fully regulated, that's when that prefrontal cortex comes online and they have the tools to be more logical. But those other times, like, that dysregulated brain, like there's no making sense of their experience until they get de escalated, yeah,

Dr. Melanie McNally 36:46
100% I mean, even as adults, when we're in a place of high high emotion, you know where amygdala is really kicked in, where we're either in high panic, high anxiety, really intense sadness, that part of the brain, the amygdala, that's kind of amped up there, it doesn't have access to language. It doesn't have access to logic and reasoning. So trying to use reasoning and logic when we're in that high emotional state is not going to do anything. That's where we just need to kind of self soothe. Or if you know, if it's your team, you can actually help them with soothing. And that might mean, you know, sitting next to them and kind of doing a nice, gentle, kind of rocking back and forth, something that has, like a natural calming rhythm to it helps a lot with that self regulation. And then, like you said, once they're self regulated, then you can go into using logic and reasoning, because now that part of their brain that has access to language, that part of their brain is online, but when we're highly dysregulated, no, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 37:54
that's what I loved about those three Rs, regulate, relate, reason like that's the path. Then, depending on who your kids are and what's going on, you might need to stay in different areas for longer rather than shorter, but regulate relate. Reason, I think, is such a helpful tool to remember with our teens that are having a hard time.

Dr. Melanie McNally 38:17
Definitely, that's a good one.

Casey O'Roarty 38:20
What are a couple of other tools? And you've mentioned a few that parents can use and teach their teens for managing anxiety when it does start to create a problem in their lives. So you've mentioned breath and feeling our feet and our own self regulation. What other tools do you

Dr. Melanie McNally 38:34
have? You know, just even thinking of really good daily mental health habits, making sure that parents are modeling those habits, but also that they're kind of enforcing some good mental health habits at home. So we want to think of like the foundational aspects of good mental health. We've got sleep, diet, exercise, social support. Those are foundational. So without a good amount of sleep, we are way more likely to be anxious or irritable. So we want to make sure that, you know, parents are getting enough sleep and that the teens are getting enough sleep too. For diet, we want to make sure that the food that we're consuming is fairly balanced and healthy. You know, we don't need to be counting calories or counting carbs or anything like that, but we want it to be fairly balanced and healthy, so that we know that they're getting the right amount, that they're getting a decent amount of protein and carbs and all that stuff. You know, exercise, we have to think of daily movement. We know there's so much research to support that exercise is really good for mental health, and so we want to promote good daily movement, so parents have to model that each day. But then also encourage their kids to get outside, go for a walk. Did you do anything active today? If you notice that their anxiety is really high? And then for social support, making sure that they are having exposure to positive. Positive social interactions. So that doesn't mean just, you know, comedy on somebody's Instagram post. It means actually maybe FaceTiming, if you can't, you know, get together for whatever reason, or actually going and hanging out face to face with friends. But then even thinking of just other good tools to implement, to have on hand where you're using them yourself, and you're teaching your kids how to use them, whether it's like yoga, if it's journaling, doing something creative. Those are wonderful tools for managing anxiety, and those can be fun too. So it doesn't have to feel like work. It doesn't even have to feel like you're saying, Oh, we're managing our mental health right now, or you're really anxious. It's just more of, oh, you know what? I just bought some clay. Let's start seeing what we can sculpt and then practicing some daily gratitude. We know that gratitude is really good for mental health. So if it's a day when maybe the team comes home, their anxiety is really high, maybe that night at the dinner table, everyone goes around and they say three things that they're grateful for from the day. And the only caveat to that is we want it to be specific. It can't be like the house didn't collapse or I'm still alive. We want them to come up with three specific things that they're actually grateful for. You know, my teacher delayed the Spanish exam, or my friend saved a seat for me at lunch. And that trains our brain to start looking for the things that are going right each day, as opposed to the things that are going wrong.

Casey O'Roarty 41:39
I love that one, that gratitude one. And if you're like me out there listening and family, dinner has gone completely out the window. I just want to say you don't have to sit around a table to do gratitude like this, like I'm thinking in the car, I'm thinking before bed, like don't get I'm just talking to the listeners here. Melanie, don't get hung up on it has to look a certain way, because, you know, we're all doing the best we can with the tools we have. But I love, I love that gratitude piece and the modeling so, so important. I think just being able to pause for a second because so many of us spend so much time worried about our teens mental health, that we forget to take stock in what's actually going on for us and what we can be doing for ourselves, so that we can be in a good head space to be supportive of our young people. I love all of this last question that I ask everybody. Melanie, which you know, what does joyful courage mean to you? I think I heard

Dr. Melanie McNally 42:38
one of your guests one time, kind of break it down. And I couldn't agree more, where, you know, you think of courage and facing fears or facing new experiences, and you think of joyful and I think of how it brings a sense of excitement or a sense of curiosity. So I think of joyful courage is, you know, facing our new experiences with a sense of curiosity, as I

Casey O'Roarty 43:04
listened to you say that I'm thinking, it's like cannonballing into the personal growth and development pool. That's the visual I just got. So talk about where people can find you and how they can follow your work and share a little bit about your boot camps.

Dr. Melanie McNally 43:19
First of all, my website is destination. You.net and you can find a bunch of information there. You can also follow me on Instagram. I'm at Dr Melanie McNally there. I have a therapy boot camp. So it's an app based therapy psycho educational program for Gen Z years to build good mental health tools. And it has daily exercises and activities. It's eight weeks long. The next cohort starts, April 4. I'm directly involved in each cohort for the duration of the boot camp. So if you're interested in that again, you can just go to destination, u.net and you'll find all the information there about that. And then I do have a free guide too, for the parents, for your listeners, where they can help their teens with problem solving, and they can get that at destination. U.net/free

Casey O'Roarty 44:08
guide, awesome. We will make sure that all of those links are in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here. It was so nice to meet you and to have this really important conversation. Yes, thank

Dr. Melanie McNally 44:20
you so much for having me. It was really fun.

Casey O'Roarty 44:29
All right, thank you so much for listening. I love this community. I'm so happy to bring you conversations that matter to you. We have some really fun things coming up on the podcast and beyond. Are you on my email list? If not? Go to be sproutable.com/teens and get signed up now to stay up to date on all the things. You'll also get seven tips over seven days to support you in nurturing stronger connections with your tweens and teens. If you feel inspired and you haven't already, do me a favor. And head over to Apple podcasts and leave a review. We're working so hard to stand out and make a massive impact on families around the globe. Your review helps the joyful courage podcast to be seen by even more parents. Thank you to the team at sproutable for your back end help, and chris at podshaper.com for your stellar editing. I'm so honored that all of you listen each week. We are all doing the best we can in the moment that includes you. Have a beautiful, beautiful day, and I'll see you next week. Bye.

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