The Science of Stuck – With Britt Frank

Dr. Mindy
I here’s what I want to do is I just want to dive right into your information. Because you know what I really really resonate with the word stuck. So let’s start this conversation Brett with Why did you choose the title the science of stuck? And what is it about that word that is so appropriate when we just are not feeling like we have any forward momentum.

Britt Frank
So funny I mean I funny haha, but I started the project the science of stuck well before the pandemic, and then the pandemic hit and it became literally, we are all stuck. So I called it that instead of the science of mental health because snooze, no one’s picking up, right? Trauma, even fewer people are picking that one up. Regardless, where you fall in the spectrum of mental health challenges from I’m fine, okay, whatever, but fine to severe mental illness. Everybody knows what it’s like to be stuck either with your medical health, with your finances, relationships, career, whatever it is, everybody knows what it’s like to be stuck. And the science of mental health is the science of stuck. So I just reach a broader audience calling.

Dr. Mindy
So actually one of my first questions was gonna be like, how do you know if you’re stuck? Because I, you know, I’m an eternal optimist. And so I’m always thinking like, I’m just in a little bit of a snag right now, next week is gonna be better, tomorrow is gonna be better. And then you hit a point where you’re like, wait, it’s not getting better. Are there some telltale signs that we can look at the go? Yeah, you’re, you’re stuck, you’re not moving in the right direction you want to be moving?

Britt Frank
Yeah, well, the thing with a snack is you can um, you can like if you snag your sweater on something, you’re not sitting there now for ever with, you know, your sweater attached to the nail or whatever. So a good way to tell if you’re stuck is to get really honest with yourself and say, of all of the choice. Now granted, not everyone has the same type of choices. And if you’ve got medical conditions, you may be limited in your mobility and your choices. However, assuming that you have some choices, how’s life working? If it’s not assume you’re sad? There’s so much stigma around stuckness? And if we can just normalize it, like how do you know if you’re stuck? Are you feeling like crap? Are you doing things you want to be doing? We’re not doing what you say you want to be doing? Are you doing the things that you say you don’t want to be doing? Is your intention action gap the size of the Grand Canyon? Or do you follow through in what you say? And again, no shame we all get stuck. But how can you tell if you’re stuck? If we all got honest with ourselves, it’s pretty self. Yeah, it’s like, Are you are you stuck? Yes, you are. And that’s okay. So I get stuck, too. So let’s work it out.

Dr. Mindy
And yet, here’s what I’m also going to say is that I feel like sometimes in life, like, you’re like, your life is so close to you, you can’t even see it like you’re just you’re like, okay, you don’t even it takes for at least this is me, I’ve noticed that it can take a lot to pile up. Before I go, Wait a second, this is not working. So, you know, I think it we become blind to our stuckness sometimes do you find that?

Britt Frank
So yes, and yes, with a big and I’ll speak for myself, it wasn’t that I was blind, and I am a recovering drug addict. I have complex post traumatic stress upset, I’ve had obsessive compulsive disorder, I’ve had a lot of things. It wasn’t that I was blind to my sickness, it was that I really didn’t want things to be true that I knew were true. And there it is, well, that they I really didn’t want to go there. Even though a lot of my stuff was unconscious. I didn’t know till I was 28 that I had trauma, like what’s that? Never heard of her, but willing to get honest about ourselves with ourselves. And we go to that little small place of how’re you doing? If the answer is not, I’m awesome, you know, do all things considered? I’m using my resources, and I’m making my choices and I’m doing what it’s in front of me to do. If the answer is not that Then let’s assume that there are some stuck places that we and the thing about being stuck is that we get very myopic on the areas that are not working and we forget that yes, you may be very, very stuck in one area. But there’s six other areas where you’re killing it. And so we want to zoom focus just on what’s wrong, but take what’s wrong in the context of everything that we’re doing well, and then stuck is not as scary,

Dr. Mindy
huh? Oh, I love that. So the my other the other part of stuck that’s so interesting to me and just about happiness in general, is that I feel like we think happiness is a destination and once you get there, you’re gonna be like, I’m happy. I did it. I did it and what my experience has been in my own life. What I’ve seen with patients that I’ve worked with and my community is even the happiest life’s lives are messy and have down moments and have stuck moments. So if we’re just looking at a day to day period, where maybe in the morning, I’m like, I got up, I have my coffee, I went and worked out. I’m like, feeling amazing. And then all of a sudden noon heads, and I’m not amazing, something hits me, and I’m not amazing. And now I’m not amazing for I’m depressed, I’m anxious for like three hours. And then something else happens the afternoon, boom, okay, now I’m actually good again, like, how can we give language to what happy life looks like? Because to me, I feel like a really happy person. But I will still tell you that my day to day is very messy. I’m very up and down. And yet, if you asked me, I do have a happy life, I would say, Yeah, I have a happy life. Because that’s what a happy life looks like.

Britt Frank
I don’t know who coined this phrase, I did not make this up. And I wish I could attribute credits. So if you’re listening, and you know who said those, please let me know. But you know, happiness is the ability to hold multiple truths at the same time, or mental health is the ability to hold multiple truths. I mean, Marsha Linehan, who created a method of therapy called dialectical behavior therapy talked about that, more than one thing can be true, I am happy and I’m sad, and I got my shit together, and I’m a hot mess, and things are working and things aren’t working. So if we can live in the discomfort of contradictory, but equally true truths, that’s where happiness lies. But we all want it and I get this to be neat and clean. If this is going wrong, therefore, I cannot be happy. If this is going, and it works. On the flip side, too, right? If this is going right, who am I to feel sad, and we make space for one reality to be true at a time. And that’s not how humans are designed. happiness and health and mental health specifically, are the ability to hold multiple truths all at the same time. And that’s really hard to do, because we’re never taught how so I have a lot of compassion for the dilemma. But the other thing is happiness is you cannot have happiness without wholeness. And I’m talking about again, emotional, psychological wholeness, if you’re fit, you’re we’re in physical bodies that get sick, and things break and things don’t work the way I’m talking about our heart mindspace. If we want to be happy, we have to be whole. But wholeness means The Good, the Bad, and The IQ. And most of us are taught to seek goodness, not wholeness, because goodness kind of gets rid of the icky parts of ourselves that we don’t like and the things that we’re not proud of. But a whole human is beautiful, and gross, and awesome, and terrible, and messy and fabulous, all at the same time.

Dr. Mindy
So do you think we would be happier if we just every day we just say it’s, you know, it’s just going to be a day of all the things we’re just I’m just going to experience all the things. And if we had a different expectation going into our day, or a different expectation of what we’re dry, why we’re driving ourselves trying to find happiness? Do you think it’s in the expectation that we can start to unstick ourselves or start to change ourselves because we now aren’t searching for Nirvana, we’re not searching for perfection.

Britt Frank
So and I want to I always put a big disclaimer on my work when I say this, because some people genuinely are not able to access happy because of oppression because of lack of access to things like clean water, and a safe place to live and in a food or if you’re living in a war torn country, that well, there are certain circumstances that make it all but impossible to access at least environmental, you know, people who are like happiness is a state of mind. I’m like, Yeah, it’s really hard to find that when you don’t know if tomorrow your whole family is going to be not alive. Yeah. So assuming you have your basic needs met, assuming you have access to resources, assuming that you have some choices, then happiness is not someplace we find it is, you know, what is that if you ask people, What does it feel like to be happy, it’s being content. It’s being grateful all those things that get sort of shined up like you should be happy and you should be grateful. I find a lot of happiness in my ability to own when I’m pissed off. I find a lot of happiness in the freedom to be sad. I don’t have anybody gaslighting me all day every day anymore telling me you feel this, you think this you didn’t see that this is true. That’s not true. I think happiness is found in the freedom to own our experience without having other people imposing their wills upon us.

Dr. Mindy
Wow, that’s so well said. So well said I was just actually talking to a friend this morning saying who was feeling a lot of anger. And I was like, you know, for me, anger can be clarity. When I get angry. I’m like, Oh, okay. I know exactly what I don’t want. I know, I know. Exactly. I want the opposite of this feeling. And I have the clarity to express myself. And when that anger shows up, I and so there is a positive upside of negative what we perceive as a negative emotion.

Britt Frank
That’s why I don’t even like this idea of PA Positive thinking and negative thinking like my thing is, let’s go to realistic thinking. Because if you’re only thinking positive, you’re denying the reality of pain. But if you’re only thinking negative, you’re denying the reality of resources. So I don’t like gratitude journals, because they ignore the reality of the things that bother you. So instead of doing a gratitude list, let’s just take an A truth inventory, here are some things that are awesome and that are working well that I’m grateful for, here are some things that are really, really messed up. And here’s some things I’m sad about, that will produce happiness a lot faster than, you know, just be happy, be grateful. Like, it doesn’t work. So negative emotions are they’re not bad, they’re just uncomfortable. So instead of positive and negative, I like how about comfortable and less comfortable, because there’s no such thing as a bad emotion we need I mean, I don’t like shame, I don’t think shame has a whole lot of benefit to our lives. But generally, happiness, sadness, fear, even anxiety, even the things that we don’t particularly care for have a function that keep us alive, you know, we xiety We would have always been eaten by tigers, I don’t like it, but we need it. So comfortable and less comfortable is a better framework, in my opinion.

Dr. Mindy
I love that. That’s amazing. So let’s put this in context of health because we have a lot of people who listen to this podcast that are on health journeys. And, you know, it’s interesting after working with 1000s of people over the years on taking them from a very unhealthy place to a place of health, I’ve learned two things that are very consistent to every healing journey. One, we have to stop looking at health as a noun, it is not a place you’re going to it is a verb, it is an action you’re going to be doing. And then the second thing is you will get stuck, you are just set yourself up. Now you’re going to have some periods of momentum, you’re gonna have some periods where all of a sudden, you feel like you’ve completely lost momentum. So go into your health journey already knowing that. Now my question to you is when we hit that snag when we hit that stuck, like, we’re going along, we’re losing weight, we’re getting fit. We’re like, all the things we’re doing seem to be working. And then one day, they’re not working. And they’re not we’re not moving forward. And then we start to blame the doctor, we blame the medication, we blame the diet, we start looking outward. What can’t what tools do we have? What can we do in that moment? I would call that stuck. What do we do in that moment, to be able to move beyond it? Because what my experience has been, and I’ve said this to so many patients like hang in there. Because on the other side of this, it’s something really, really cool. So let’s just work through this snag right now. What tools do we have in that moment?

Britt Frank
I love that so much. So the first thing is, Are you stuck or are you tired? Because I think that we should be maintaining these steady state levels of energy. And I’ll speak as a woman who menstruate my cycle is going to come with fluctuations in mood fluctuations, I have a paid flood, like my husband knows I have a pink candle that I like when I’m luteal. So he knows I will cry at everything. So if there’s something pressing, perhaps wait five to six days, and then I’ll be less irrational and, and so learning to not fight the cycles, but lean into them. Because we’re supposed to have cycles of up in cycles of down our central nervous systems are designed with a gas pedal to go and with a brake pedal to stop and with an emergency brake to do hard stop, if necessary. But if we treat ourselves as if we’re supposed to nail it, and hit the goals and keep it at a steady state of rah, rah, we’re gonna fail. Because that’s not the reality of the human brain. I don’t understand why we’re designed this way. But it’s not like I didn’t design the brain like that, with whoever did. But you’re designed to be cyclical. And often what we call stuckness is just the part of the cycle where we need to rest and slow down and attend to slow, and that’s just not sexy or fun or Instagrammable. So well,

Dr. Mindy
well said, you know, and you and I didn’t chat a ton before we just launched into the podcast, but, you know, that’s my passion. My book that’s coming out as fast like a girl is all about when to lean into fasting, when to not when to lean into keto, when to not like that ebb and flow and I will tell you as a 53 year old woman, that the more I’ve understood my hormones, the more I’ve given myself permission to feel the whole spectrum because my hormones demand it, you know, if you look at estrogen, estrogen wants you to verbally process estrogen wants you, you know, to go out and mix a little estrogen with with testosterone and estrogen wants those two together are gonna be like, Let’s go conquer the world. And progesterone when she comes in is like, hey, hey, guys, let’s just chill out on the couch. So I just want to you know, sit here, watch a movie and eat some ice cream. I love that you light a candle. I love that I am. That is brilliant. We used to

Britt Frank
hate having a period and we are taught you know, if you’re if you identify as a menstruating human, we’re taught that this is a terrible thing that’s happening to you. And I have a lot of compassion on people for whom that luteal phase is brutal or the you know, whatever phase is uncomfortable and painful. But we’re not taught that if you lean into I don’t enjoy. And I’m actually luteal right now. So we’re gonna get off this call. And I’m gonna ruminate on how I set things wrong. And then I’m going to cry. And then my job is in the fridge. And I used to beat myself up for that. But again, there’s so much beauty and power and wisdom into listening to the cyclical needs of our body. And I can fight it anyway can be like, No, I’m going for a run and I’m going to eat a salad. It’s like no bitch, you’re not you’re going to eat a cheeseburger, you’re gonna eat your mousse, you’re gonna watch your stupid shows. And that’s, we might as well enjoy it, because you can fight that. But I experienced when I fight the cycle parts of myself, they win anyway. So why not make peace instead of being at war with our own cyclical nature. And again, you don’t have to be adminstrator to relate to this, there are cycles where you have more energy. It’s just I don’t know when this is going to air but right now is we’re talking it’s December, the December month is not the time to try to launch a business or like jumpstart your efforts, because we’re all juggling demands of the holiday season, and everyone’s fatigue burnt out and exhausted. So we want to work with our cycle. Dare I say, man, and enjoy it and light a candle when you’re a little off.

Dr. Mindy
This is my this is my whole this is like my whole thing. Like, I really believe that if you’re menstruating woman, and like the week before your before your period comes, just frickin enjoy it it is it give yourself that chance to sit on the couch and not be a human doer. Just enjoy the fact that progesterone needs cortisol down that it needs glucose high. So your cravings for carbs are warranted your your desire to say no to everything, your aversion to people around you like this is all about who you are. As a woman. This is absolutely natural. And there’s something kind of like, cool about it. i This is a totally random thought. But have you been watching the new Netflix series Wednesday?

Britt Frank
I binge watched that, like I couldn’t I was I’m so depressed that it’s over. I watched that in two days. Yes.

Dr. Mindy
Oh my god. So what I love about it is there’s a Wednesday and all of us and she shows up about a week before our period. And she just wants to be like tell everybody to just back away. And yet we try to be like her roommate, you know the little cat gal. And we try to we write we try to be like all Pauline, but that But that woman I forget her name, she’s shows up to the first part of your cycle. She’s not necessarily showing up at the end of your cycle. So I love that you saw that show as well and saw it that way as

Britt Frank
well. So important. And again, you know, when I’m ovulating I am Wonder Woman like I will 18 hour a day I will run a marathon I will build my business and yours while holding space and I’ll shower and floss. You know, the things that we ignore when we’re energized tend to show up during that luteal phase. And I know this was this wasn’t really a talk about this. But you know, we’re just going here. This is one of my favorite things to work with people on because it’s again, I don’t like cramps. I don’t like feeling depressed. I don’t like feeling like the whole world is over. And I have no place like the existential blackness of it all. But you know, anything that I’m not dealing with any pain? And again, yes, there’s I’m not a physician, there is a physiological component to this whole game. So I’m not suggesting just lean into your shadow side and you want to cramps. I’m not saying that. So I don’t want to get any DM saying that. And you know, from the psychological side, any pain points that you’re not attending to when you have high levels of energy, and your cycle will demand your attention when you’re not. And when we medicate away the symptoms in an effort to stay steady state. We don’t listen to the wisdom like there are things I’m sad about that I don’t want to be sad about. And when I’m ovulating I don’t bother being sad about but right now I’m gonna be sad about them.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, oh my gosh, you totally speak my language. The other thing that I would say that we isn’t highlighted enough and I’m just gonna go down this path because since we’re on that PMS time, is the fact that our actual menstrual cycle is like a shedding of the old it’s a detox. And we don’t I mean, I’m almost completely into menopause. Now, as I have had this awareness there’s this part of me that’s like, I wish I’d really realized this in My 20s and 30s, like that moment in which you believe you’re shedding not just toxins you’re shedding, you have the ability to shed old thought patterns, you have the ability to shed what’s holding you back. And if you look at that week before, as everything’s building, building, building, you’re agitated, you’re not feeling so good. Embrace it, and then the shed comes, and now you get to release it. There is something very cathartic about that for women, don’t you think?

Britt Frank
I could not love where this conversation has detoured into more. And because I get super woowoo with my cycle, like I go to really weird places, but I’m also a clinician, and I’m a trauma specialist. And I recognize that in my lane, some my woundedness is off putting to some people so fine, I can make a somatic justification for what we’re talking about. Because anywhere, you know, our central nervous system doesn’t speak the language of logic. That’s why you can’t think your way out of stuck. It needs sensation, it needs movement, it needs visual, we need to touch things and see things and hear things and smell things. So what we’re talking about is very somatic, you know, when you actually can see the physical release and the physical discharge from your body that cues your brain into oh, we’re on a cycle, we’re not lost in space spinning on this rock orbiting the sun. It’s very grounding. Again, it’s not always pleasant. But I’m pleasant does not mean unhappy. Like you can be happy and uncomfortable. Just like I used to be a drug addicts. I was very happy when I smoked meth until I wasn’t so feeling good does not mean the thing is good. Feeling bad does not mean the thing is bad. So you just get the binary of good bad off the table altogether and go, what’s the function of this? What is this trying to tell me? What is my body trying to communicate? And how can I partner with my system? Is I was at war with my body for decades until I understood this.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, so many women are and if you know, if I was to give stuck another name, I would give it resistance. And so and I think that like when I you know, I’ve processed a lot of anger in my life. And when anger shows up, I’ve learned Oh, okay, anger equates clarity. But when I would start to look at anger and be like, no, no, you’re supposed to be happy. You’re supposed to be happy, you got to put on a happy face. Now I’m stuck because I’m in that resistance. Just like if the week before your cycle you’re like, but I’m supposed to be go to all these parties. I’m supposed to actually do this incredible workout at the gym, and I’ve got this Spartan Race around the corner. Like if if you’re if your body is saying no, and you’re pushing through, there’s a resistance, and that’s where stuck starts. Would you say that stuck and resistance are very synergistic?

Britt Frank
Oh, yeah, I think they’re completely the same. You could also say stuck is income incongruence stuck is this integration, I mean, anywhere we’re out of alignment with our physical body, we’re going to have symptoms, anywhere, we’re out of alignment with our emotional truth, we’re also going to have symptoms. And then as someone who struggled with mental health stuff my whole life I can I have a lot of compassion on the pain. But again, there’s wisdom to the symptoms and are trying to point towards a problem or towards an injury or to something and again, I don’t enjoy, you know, I didn’t enjoy OCD symptoms, I did not enjoy depression, and I didn’t enjoy addiction. However, they were all pointing me towards an injury that I had left untended and neglected, because I didn’t want it to be true. So when we resist what’s true for us about us, then we’re going to feel like shit, you’re you might feel like shit anyway, especially if we’re talking medical issues, like we have a chronic illness, you’re gonna feel shitty, but then emotionally, like dumping on yourself is going to add unnecessary shitty to your shit pile. Like, let’s just feel the shitty that is ours without adding to it.

Dr. Mindy
Right? We’re just again, if you look at the cycle, like how many of us just bitch about the week, I feel horrible. And there’s this and I’m craving chocolate and craving carbs. And I shouldn’t be I’m on a diet and I can’t even be on a diet anymore, because I’m craving all these things. And then we start to internalize that and that’s one of the big things that with my new book I’m trying to do is just break that up and just be like, No, this is who you’re supposed to be. This is why I love the Wednesday character. I’m like, you’re supposed to be the Wednesday the week before your parent. That’s exactly how you’re supposed to show up. You just haven’t given yourself permission to be her

Britt Frank
when to accommodate it. And not everybody can if you’ve got five kids and a sick parents and a difficult marriage and financial issues. It’s really hard to carve out the space to accommodate the cycle. So but it to whatever degree you’re able, it’s like you may not be able to take a week off of work. If it was up to me, you know, the luteal phase, we’d all go away and just sort of grade and just like be running around naked in the woods or whatever. But if you can’t do that, what’s the next best thing? Can you skip the workout that was gonna be the killer, can you you know, and again, people get so worried they’re like, Well, if I just let myself do whatever I want, I’m going to end up completely addicted to sugar. And I’m going to end up a drug addict and I’m going to destroy my life. And it’s just not true wouldn’t listen to authentic whispers of the body, even if they say, and sometimes, and I’ve had an eating disorder. So even now, the impulse to binge before my period makes parts of me really anxious, like, oh, like, does this mean this is starting up again, if we’re listening to the, to the body, it’s, I’ve never seen it where it takes us down a dark path, like yes, a few days ago, I was a monster, and I ate every single thing in my kitchen. And I probably consume 10 times as many calories as a typical day. But then the next day, I didn’t feel shame, I didn’t feel the urge to repeat that I’m like today’s not. Today, we’re gonna take a little walk, just a little one, not out of shame. But just because it felt like I want to move today, I don’t want to sit today.

Dr. Mindy
So in that point, I think what you did is brilliant. And that’s something that I’m really wanting a lot of women to start to see is that if you can give yourself permission knowing and this is why knowing your cycle is so important. Or in for postmenopausal women, knowing your hormones and which hormone is coming in, at what time is that if you give yourself permission to say, this is how I’m feeling today, I’m gonna lean into it, I’m actually not going to resist it, I’m not going to have guilt, I’m not going to have shame. And then let’s see what shows up tomorrow. Often tomorrow, you’re like, Okay, let’s go that I’m fine, I’m better today I can move or to your point, there is no better. But you know, we want to move in a different direction, it’s when we create that resistance, when the shame when the guilt when we start beating ourselves up, that now you’ve taken that one day that through you a lot of turbulence and you’ve turned it into a turbulent week, you’ve turned it into a turbulent month, you turn it into a turbulent life. And so much of that is just embracing these moments where we are not the perfect human doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman, do you feel like that will help us overcome it, if we are in just embrace that that period of all the Yuck, I don’t know what other way to say it. You know,

Britt Frank
and a lot of people, myself included, have really profound trust wounds from early childhood or from life or from whatever. And, you know, when I was in my eating disorder, I was always cycling up and down, you know, I would restrict, and I would go more the anorexic side, and then I lost my period for years, and then I would binge eat and then do that. And I was up and down and up and down, you know, significantly and my poor body was just sort of, and I didn’t trust that I could feed myself in a way that was reasonable. And people don’t believe me, but it’s been about maybe five, six years that I’ve had this relationship with my cycle and with food, my body size hasn’t changed. You know, even when I like there are times where it’s like, okay, probably need to, you know, maybe be a little bit more mindful than usual. But we can trust the wisdom of our bodies. But that is so offensive, and so on. There’s no grid for it if you have a trust to own. So I tell people, you’re not going to believe this. I’m like, maybe try it and see, if you try intuitive whatever intuitive eating or listening to your body cycle demands or whatever. If it doesn’t work, then go back to I mean, your way clearly doesn’t work. But like if you’re that distrustful of this, give it a shot and 30 days, you’re not going to do that much damage. So it’s it’s so it’s like building a relationship with another human, this relationship between our emotional selves and our physical selves. And it takes time and baby steps. And a lot of times what we’re asking our bodies, you would never expect to your car to go cross country on a quarter tank of gas. But we do that to ourselves all the time. am I setting appropriate expectations for my body? Am I working with it? And it’s really hard to trust that that works because culture, diet, culture, pop culture, the wellness industry all tells us You can’t trust yourself. Right? You have to weigh yourself every day. And you have to count and there’s nothing wrong with that as a tool. I mean, doing things like that is great as a tool while you’re relearning. But to be you know, I got rid of my scale years ago. I have no idea. I did too. Yep. And the doctors. I’ve been shamed in medical offices when I’m like, I need you to weigh me backwards. And they’re like, why? I’m like, because I have an eating disorder. And it’s helpful for me that’s like, what are you why? How about cool? Yeah, we’re taught we can ourselves. But again, it takes practice and time and relationship building, but it’s amazing how much more happiness and contentment and peace we have when we’re not at war with the things that we walk around experiencing our humaneness in.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah, the freedom in it for sure. Where does motivation come in to this because I heard a quote this summer that I was like, oh my god, there has never been a more true statement. And here was the quote you Don’t need motivation, you need momentum. And once you get some momentum, then it you just are naturally motivated. That that was the the way that I interpreted the statement was like, and that’s just another version of stock. So where does motivation fit into this? Especially when we’re like, okay, I get I’m supposed to be messy. I don’t get that there’s highs and lows, but I still want to fit in my skinny jeans. And I still want to look good when I go out on that date on Friday night. Okay, so but I need the motivation to start to lose weight, how do I get there.

Britt Frank
So I like what you just said, because it implies I have to feel like it for to do it. And that is so not true. Like, there’s plenty of things I do every day that don’t feel like doing. So if I only did what I felt like doing, I probably wouldn’t get a lot of my life done. But the so I agree with what you said, the way I like to teach and write and work with motivation is this, you’re never not motivated this idea that sometimes we’re motivated. And sometimes we’re not as a total myth, we’re always motivated. It’s like your brain is either motivated to do what you want it to do work out meal, prep, whatever, or your brain is motivated to conserve energy to protect your image to preserve the homeostasis of you know, when you get healthy and fit, and you have a partner who’s not, that is going to be incredibly disruptive. And I’ve heard often enough behind closed doors that people are actually worried if I get healthy and fit. I’m going to end up wanting to leave my family and I don’t want to leave my family. And that is a tricky secret that lots of people think and no one will say. So it’s not. Why are you so unmotivated? And it’s not how do I get motivated? The right question is what’s motivating you. Now, if you don’t want to get off your couch to take a walk, it’s not because you’re unmotivated, it’s because your primary motivation is comfort, some days that’s appropriate. If you’re luteal that’s appropriate. If you’re ovulating. Or if you’re in a up phase of whatever cycle you find yourself on, then I would say is comfort really, serving your highest good is comfort as motivation is that working for you. So maybe we need to find a different motivation. But the human brain is never not motivated. It’s either motivated to go this way or it’s motivated to go that way. So if we can switch the way we think like you’re motivated, you’re plenty motivated, you’re motivated by preserving your family because you think you’ll leave it if you get help. If you get happy. You’re motivated by saving money. Because if you don’t launch that business, you’re not risking financial resources, which I get, but you’re never ever not motivated. You’re always motivated.

Dr. Mindy
So interesting. Okay, so do you think you can achieve a goal that you might have for yourself? And stay comfortable?

Britt Frank
Comfortable? How?

Dr. Mindy
Ah, good question. I’m comfortable. Yeah, just emotionally, like just keeping yourself in a state of, well, let’s use fasting as an example. Because my, this is what my my community does is that, you know, let’s say you get up and you eat breakfast. And you have heard me talk about how great it is to push breakfast back a couple of hours. So you want to do that, because you know that it’s going to have this metabolic upside for you. But you get an hour into it. And now you’re physically uncomfortable. And your body’s yelling at you. And now you’re in a dilemma. You’re like, Okay, well, but I want the goal of losing weight. Because I I know that’s possible for myself, but I’m really uncomfortable right now. So do you have to push through that comfort or discomfort to get to the other side? I mean, that has been the old pattern of me to say yes, that’s what you do. But then there’s this new version of thought that I have, which is, I don’t know, I think we really make things a lot more difficult for ourselves, and we need to make them.

Britt Frank
I love it so much. And again, it’s this myth of comfort. You know, I was at the gym this morning, and I didn’t feel like it was cold, and I was up late and I really didn’t feel like it. And I’m at the gym doing the things and you know, I’m like, I am so uncomfortable right now. I would be so much more comfortable at home in bed. Okay, but how true is that? Because it takes it’s really uncomfortable. Feeling unfit? It’s really uncom feeling unwell. It’s really uncomfortable feeling like when I walk up a flight of stairs, I’m out of breath. I smoked for 20 years, so it was really uncomfortable not doing it. And there’s this myth that it’s more comfortable over there. It’s like it’s again, if you’re willing to get honest with yourself, you have two versions of uncomfortable pick one you know not everyone has the choice some people genuinely don’t have that option, but assuming you can. This is hard. This is hard fasting is hard. Not having your goals met is hard. Choose your heart which hard do you want to pick me being at the gym doing burpees at seven in the morning was hard but me feeling like shit all Day because I did it would also be hard. But as soon as we whisper to ourselves, it’s so much easier not to it’s like, that’s not true.

Dr. Mindy
Oh my gosh, do you know that? So I used to be an emotional eater that was my whole life like, had a bad day mom, my mom taught me you know, cozy up next to me, you get some mother’s love, you get some warm food and everything will be good. So I learned that eating was was soothe was soothing my my emotions. And then one day I had this realization that there was this whole aftermath that happened after I ate the wrong foods. That was so traumatizing to my brain. And it was the guilt it was the shame it was like, oh my god, I can’t take that back. I already just ate it. It’s I don’t love living in my body. At that time, I really carried 30 pounds extra weight. And I was like, I just, I don’t love this. So I came up with this little phrase that I would call the 32nd rule. And the 32nd rule was when I would look at a piece of food, I would say, okay, so it’s gonna taste amazing. For 30 seconds, you’re gonna get a hell of a dopamine rush. And then you’ve got the aftermath. And then you’ve got to deal with the brain that comes after that. And once I could tag that aftermath to the behavior that looked so enticing, that I wanted to do, it actually totally changed the way that I looked at these hurdles that were showing up for me with specifically nutrition. So, yeah, are there things like that we can do in that moment? Because I love this idea of you choose your heart. But if I’m sitting on the couch, and I know I need to go work out? It’s like, I don’t know, like, you know, which hard both hards seem seem equally uncomfortable. How do you choose your heart?

Britt Frank
You can only lie to yourself, or you can only like when we lie to ourselves, you can lie to yourself forever, like, Oh, I’ll do it tomorrow. No, you’re not. I will start next week. No, you are. You can only be radically honest with yourself so many days in a row before you get sick of your own crap. So if you’re honestly saying it’s hard for me to lay here and not workout, and it’s hard for me to work out, and I’m genuinely looking at the reality of both parts, you’re not going to stay stuck. This stuck happens when we lie to ourselves about this is easier than that, like no, it’s not ask a heroin addict in the middle of a withdrawal, how comfortable they feel like I think we can all agree, not being high on heroin is a good thing. But when you’re retching and puking and sweating and shaking and having psychological tormentors plus physical horrors happening, it sure as hell doesn’t look very comfortable. But when we understand that, that is the cost of this, it’s when we lie to ourselves that we get into trouble. Nobody is going to stay stuck on a couch that is getting honest with themselves by saying I’m more motivated by comfort right now. And I understand that the cost of this comfort is this versus this. No one stays stuck when they have that type of self awareness. And

Dr. Mindy
I love that. Okay, where does dopamine fit into this? So a lot of the behaviors that we do that don’t benefit us are because there’s neurochemical drives us. And one of the things I’ve learned about dopamine in the last couple of years is it’s never satisfied. So just when you get something, it’s like, okay, that was great. Now let’s go do something bigger. So where does our neuro I, we’ve talked a lot about hormones. But where did the Where does dopamine fit into this in the sense that oftentimes, we think we’re stuck. We feel like we’re not moving in the right direction, because the minute we hit a goal the minute we we, we get an upside, we want more of that upside. So we go searching for more and more and more. How do we work with this neurochemical,

Britt Frank
it helps to know that that’s a thing. You know, like, I didn’t understand how the neuro chemicals work. I didn’t understand that when you date and have sex with people. Your brain is on spring break mode, and it’s having a chemical cocktail party, and it’s getting drunk as high as fuck, and like there’s a lot happening there and your serotonin leaves the party, which is why you upset like, I didn’t know any of

Dr. Mindy
serotonin leaves the party and dopamine, like I roll this now.

Britt Frank
Yes, I have a graphic I’m working on. It’s really funny. It’s like serotonin is running out the door, which is why you obsess your amygdala is passed out on the floor, which is why you don’t have a danger. Maybe don’t do that again, and like your norepinephrine and your dopamine are going. So then you can tell yourself when you’re like more faster, harder. Wait a minute, wait a minute. What again, what’s true here? What’s true here is that my brain is on a reward, repeat cycle, because that’s how it’s designed and it think it really thinks for me doing that line of cocaine or eating that fourth donut, or spending that money online or whatever is going to make make me happy. Okay, how true is the thought I’m thinking is a great little stop gap between impulsive behavior, we want to widen the gap between our impulse and our action, because we want to shorten the gap between our good intentions and our actions. But we want to widen the gap between our impulses and our actions. And this is where we can remember what’s true. What’s the cost? How good is this going to feel? What price am I going to pay if I choose this?

Dr. Mindy
And so do you? Are you a believer with dopamine that if you achieve a goal, that the best thing to do or you hit a new level of like excitement about something you’re doing the best thing to do is just to calm for a moment and realize that the higher you go, the you know, you’re gonna have a dopamine hangover the next day, do you believe in dopamine hangovers? And if not, what can we do to overcome the dopamine hangover, because I’m going to put myself in the category of the dopamine hangover is real

Britt Frank
optimal? Yes, the dopamine hangover Israel. However, I don’t like the calm when you hit your goal. Because what happens is we hit the goal, we do not acknowledge it, we do not celebrate, it will take zero time to install it as a win in our system. And we’re off to the next thing. So instead of calming down, don’t calm down, don’t seek out what’s next, make the celebration to the level of absurdity. Like my husband was a naval officer. And so he’s very clean and tidy. And he’s very buttoned up. And like, I remember he was so confused. The first time I celebrated like putting my laundry away the same day that I walked, like I made it from the machine to the dryer to the closets in the drawers. And the same day. If you’ve ever had depression, you know that that’s when I ordered DoorDash doughnuts. I put on music. I was having a party. And he’s like, What the hell you just did your launch? And he’s very supportive. He was just confused. I’m like, no, no, I need to install this as a win in my system. Dopamine itself isn’t the problem. Because when I’m celebrating, I’m still getting dopamine. It’s the treadmill of I need more, and I need more. And I mean more. That’s problematic. Having the dopamine hit of I’m awesome. I did the thing go me. But what did we do? We hit the goal. And we’re like, Yeah, well, I ran two miles, but it’s not like I ran 10. Or well, yeah, I mean, it’s not like I you know, can manage whole 30. When we minimize our wins, we interrupt the natural feel good chemicals that we actually want. So the dopamine hangover is from higher, higher, higher, higher, but when we encode our wins mindfully, then they have sticking power, because then I’m not as driven to hit the next thing, because I’m too busy celebrating this thing and telling myself you go poker.

Dr. Mindy
Amazing. So do you celebrate the little things, too?

Britt Frank
Oh, yes, it’s like something maybe that was a yes, we have the good candles and the good plates. It’s like, light the good candle, use the like, if I’m gonna order pizza, I’m putting it on China. And I’m getting a goblet out because I am going to celebrate. And again, it’s not just a woowoo thing. Celebrating is a somatic brain hack that stimulates both our sympathetic activation and our rest and digest. So when you celebrate, you’re teaching your brain that it’s safe to be in your body. It’s safe to be in your life. And so celebrating isn’t this woowoo rah rah just like, you know saccharin, like Lahti kind of thing. It’s a really powerful physiological way to hack your system. So celebrate all of I mean, literally, I put my clothes away. I ordered doughnuts, and I danced Go me.

Dr. Mindy
Oh my god, I love you. Where do you live? Can we be best friends? I just love the way you approach this. This is this is just amazing. And it has me you know, there’s been so much about dopamine recently, there’s been a lot out there because we’re living in such a dopamine rich environment. And I’ve been really thinking a lot about dopamine because women over 40 as estrogen goes down. Estrogen actually satisfies A serotonin and dopamine receptor site so it will initiate your ability to access dopamine and serotonin. So what does that mean for the menopausal woman? Like where How is she now if she doesn’t have estrogen to activate that she’s got to be find other ways to really bring serotonin and dopamine up to the forefront? And I feel like dopamine has gotten a bad rap lately.

Britt Frank
Yes, it’s not that dopamine is not bad. First of all, it’s one of our brains chemicals. It’s good. But you know, if you’re online and you’re, you know, click click, click scroll, scroll, scroll, you’re getting these little hints of dopamine that are lying to you like, oh, wait, no, those are my friends. It’s like, No, those are not your friends. Those are fictional characters on TV. So the dopamine is not usually the problem. It’s the the stories we’re telling ourselves about what you know, they’ve done lots of studies where When you share about what your plans are going to be like, here are my health plans and my fitness plans and my New Year’s goals. When you share your plans, you get a hit of dopamine. But then you use up all your energy talking about it instead of being about it and doing about it. So don’t talk about it, be about it, because you need that dopamine to execute, not just to share. So it’s sort of like, I don’t want to say bad dopamine and good dopamine, because that’s not true. But if you can think of it like, are you getting dopamine in a sustainable way that’s going to help you or are you getting dopamine in a hacky way that’s ultimately not going to service you. But dopamine is not the problem. It’s a problem that can’t too much dopamine is a problem that’s been linked to psychosis and schizophrenia. And so dopamine is not the like the be all end all chemical, it’s again, what’s really going on here.

Dr. Mindy
Do you think as women we are we don’t give ourselves permission enough to celebrate and for fear, we’re going to look like we’re bragging? You know, we I feel like we often kind of dumb our ourselves down, not just around men, but in general, you know, when we see a woman who’s like, look at me, look at what I accomplished, she might genuinely be happy for what she’s accomplished. And we project Oh, she’s conceded. Why is she being so confident? Do you? How do we change that for women?

Britt Frank
So I mean, you and I would have been burned at the stake as well, we probably were. Right. So let’s start with we have a patriarchal system that for hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of years has punished us for owning our power. So there’s the Amen system, culturally, it’s the be small, be good, you know, be nice, don’t be too loud, don’t take it too much space. So there’s that then there’s this culture of narcissism where we see people that are so overinflated, we’re like, oh, if I celebrate my wins, I’m going to become that, like people who are genuinely full of self esteem and self awareness and are not assholes, like those people actually don’t think highly of themselves, they think low of themselves. So we don’t give ourselves permission at all. Now, the judging of other women, and by far, women are heart so harsh on other women, when I see someone online who’s crushing it, I will admit, I have jealous parts that come up my imposter syndrome, the parts come up, and it’s like, my job is to withdraw my projections and own them. So if I see someone who I’m like, at a vicious and who she thinks she is, I’m like, okay, my jealousy is pointing towards a desire, what is it about her that reflects what I actually want or a quality that I think I’m deficient in? And then what are my choices, I have girlfriends who are very conscious of their projections. It’s so great when we can say to each other, oh my god, I’m so happy for you. And I just want you to know that I have a part of me that is like super jealous, and I am managing that part of me. So you don’t have to worry that I’m going to vomit it on to you what a gift we can give each other when we can withdraw our projections and tend jealous just like anger points towards clarity and injustice. You know, jealousy points towards our authentic desires expressed jealousy is harmful, but the feeling itself just information.

Dr. Mindy
Yeah. Oh my god, I just love that. One of my visions for women is that we all cheer each other on. And we have to we have to stop comparing ourselves to each other. Because when one woman wins, you win. Like yes, you need to start to look at every woman’s win as your win and if you don’t see it this way go to Instagram now go scroll through your Instagram and every woman on that page that’s winning you got to you got to in your head be like amazing stat is so cool, because if you want what she has, you got to get into the vibration of where she’s at. And the minute that we start to say, oh my god, well, she’s a bitch or she she’s doing that and she must have done something wrong to be able to achieve that now we pull ourselves out of that vibration. And I also want to point out I love the language you used there is a part of me you are not saying I am that is critical and I think we can all benefit from that there’s a part of me right now that doesn’t want to get off the couch. There’s a part of me right now that feels jealous of what my friend is able to do but it is not me.

Britt Frank
Yeah. We learned that we’re these mono minded beings and it’s like we all know part of me knows I should get off the couch and go to the gym and part of me is like no I want the ice cream and the TV. When we can approach us I mean every complex system is made of parts a tree one tree is made up of branches and bark and leaves and roots and somehow we think that as complex human beings we’re just one thing our personality is made up of lots of different parts Part of me is happy part of me is sad part of these jealous part of me wants to like kill and part of me is the good girl. All that wants to people please. And again, happiness and health other than having your basic needs met and being safe requires us to hold multiple truths at once, including the multiple realities inside our own systems. I’m not fully jealous, I have a part of me that’s jealous. I’m not fully anything. It’s we are a complex system of parts and sub parts and how marvelous that is incredibly good news.

Dr. Mindy
Amazing. Oh, my God. Well, Brett, I just love this. I, you and I, on the next day, this was such an unexpected surprise for me today. So I’m going to end on two questions, or, yeah, two questions. And then I want you to tell everybody where they can find you. So our theme this year, every every season, we have a new theme. And our theme this year is self love, and AI. And what I’m trying to do is highlight for women in general, and we bring both men and women on this on this podcast, as guests. Like what it looks like to have a healthy feeling of love towards yourself. And part of that is embracing the things that you are really good at. So here’s my two questions. One, do you have a self love practice where you give back to yourself, and two, what are three of your really kick ass superpowers that you you want to own and you’re excited that you have.

Britt Frank
So I do ridiculous amounts of self love. And I don’t even like to think of it as self love. I like to think of it as parts love, because there’s so many parts of me that receive love differently, like my inner child parts, like snacks and hugs and naps and my teenage parts like loud music and like, you know, retail therapy and hanging out with their friends over long lunches or whatever. So I have a lot of practices that I do very consciously to approach my system as a parent would a child, a competent parent would a loving parent would to a child. So I have family meetings and I have practices and I have rituals. And I have a therapist and I I do a lot of that. And again, you can’t do it if you don’t give yourself permission. So a great mission granted. And then what was the other question three?

Dr. Mindy
superpowers of yours? What are your three top superpowers?

Britt Frank
So I may have gotten my sense of empathy born in the fires of trauma Be that as it may, I’m pretty empathic and I can meet people and nothing shocks me because my story is so sorted. So my sordid story is my superpower because I bring on whatever you got, it’s not going to shock me or ruffle my feathers. That’s number one. Number two, I’m good at synthesizing. I hate the whole academic jargony let’s make this completely inaccessible to everyone who’s not us. So I’m really good at taking complex ideas from very smart people and making them like understandable for the rest of us. Another one of my superpowers is I am a kick ass inner mother to my inner child.

Dr. Mindy
Oh my god, that was so good. That was so good. I love the way you phrase things. Amazing. So, okay, well, I can talk to you for hours. I just am so grateful for you to pop on here. And where do people find you?

Britt Frank
This was so unexpected for me too. And like we’re talking about PMS and magic and like inner chili. Hell yes. Like

Dr. Mindy
like you have to. Like if you and I were out, like you know having drinks or out like having lunch. These are the kinds of conversations I love having with women and we just happen to have an Art Podcast.

Britt Frank
really frickin like yes, if we had food here, we would be going for another three hours guaranteed. So what do you hear? Oh, yeah, it’s a podcast so so my new book The Science of stuck is available wherever books are sold. So buy it, share it, read it, review it. It’s a really easy Driver’s Ed manual to what we’re talking about anxiety depression, burnout, procrastination, addiction. It’s like here just the bottom line so you don’t have to read the entire stack sitting on your nightstand collecting dust. And my website is science of stuck.com and you can find me on Instagram at Britt Frank and Britt has to TEKS