94: Tips to Reduce Stress, Anxiety and OCD

Narrator 0:04

How would you like to improve your health and keep your family safe? You're listening to the Healthy Home Hacks podcast where we firmly believe in joining optimal health shouldn't be a luxury. Healthy Home authorities and husband and wife team Ron and Lisa will help you create a home environment that will level up your health. It's time to hear from the experts. Listen in on honest conversations and gain the best tips and advice. If you're ready to dive in and improve your well being and increase your energy, you're in the right place. All right, here are your hosts, baubiologists, authors, media darlings, vicarious vegans and avocado aficionados, Ron and Lisa Beres.

Lisa Beres 0:49

Today's episode of healthy home Hacks is brought to you by Susanne Adams Inc. For the woman that has a story to tell. She knows her path, her pain, her love her intuition, and her own unique magic can and will serve the world and powerful ways. This woman is you. You don't do anything halfway aren't excited to go all in this year and speak your soul on stages both big and small. Suzanne's TEDx talk has now reached over 3 million people. She's spent the last nine years mastering the art of speaking her soul and spreading positivity and inspiration far and wide. And she's on a mission to help those that are ready to do the same. Because you have a story to tell. Join Suzanne Adams for a transformational four days speaker soul masterclass, designed to catapult you into the confidence and clarity you need to rock the stage both in person and online. If you're desiring to share your soul in a more powerful way through speaking live, or virtually hosting workshops, your own or at corporations, then this is the perfect opportunity and conversation for you. Together, you'll dive into how to perfectly craft your story to magnetize any audience how to attract more abundance and speaking opportunities. Plus how to eliminate the fears that are holding you back on stage, Facebook and IG count as stages to head to the show notes right now for the link to sign up. This is the year for your story to be heard.

Ron Beres 2:30

Let's face it, most of us enjoy daily routine in order. You know when I wake up in the morning, brush my teeth and wash my face first put on my contacts, get some coffee, take that coffee, sit in the chair right in front of the fireplace. Meditate kind of focus on my day and what I want to create. But you know what happens when your desire for routine in order has reached an unhealthy level? Well, according to the CDC, over a quarter of a million of adults in the US have symptoms of an anxiety disorder.

Lisa Beres 3:06

And for some people, they feel anxious when something isn't done perfect as a Virgo I can relate. Or maybe they find themselves fighting irrational or unwanted urges to repeat tasks. These are symptoms of OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder, a chronic anxiety disorder where a person experiences unreasonable, uncontrollable or reoccurring thoughts followed by a behavioral response that causes anxiety. Today, OCD affects one in 40 adults and one and 100 children in the US.

Ron Beres 3:40

The average age of onset of OCD is 19 and a half years old, and males make it the majority of the very early onset cases, almost a quarter of males before the age of 10. In fact, the majority of adults who have OCD at some point in their lives also had at least one other mental disorder. 75% of sufferers experienced anxiety disorders, including panic disorder, phobias, and PTSD.

Lisa Beres 4:08

Someone who can relate is our guest today. He personally struggled with OCD and anxiety during his late teens and early 20s. Matt Kati is a licensed clinical social worker. And through his journey to recovery, Matt has developed a versatile and unique approach to OCD and anxiety recovery by combining personal experience with evidence based practices. He is currently the host of the OCD and Anxiety podcast, the director of the online platform restore minds and author of From Stuck to Unstuck newly released on Amazon.

Ron Beres 4:46

Welcome to the show. Matt.

Matt Codde 4:50

Thank you guys for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you.

Lisa Beres 4:53

Oh, we're so excited. Welcome. And we are so happy we met you for the first time and realize that this is such an important topic. There's not anybody listening who hasn't experienced some level of anxiety. And I'm sure a lot of people who have OCD or know somebody who does. And so as we talked at the top of the show, we're gonna get through how this is affecting so many people. And we're going to leave you guys with some really helpful tips and solutions, you're not left more stressed than when you got on the podcast.

Matt Codde 5:26

Yes.

Ron Beres 5:26

So Matt, before he joined us today, I had a flashback of my childhood of carefully walking only certain colored tiles of my mom's kitchen, just to make sure I didn't cross different ones, because that might have been bad luck, or whatever it might be, or skipping over them. And finally, after a while of doing that realized, Hey, why am I doing this? So Matt, please help us today?

Lisa Beres 5:47

Yes, yeah, you are skipping cracks when you're walking, right? Washing your hands too much. And I'm Matt's gonna get into all the symptoms. But Matt, can you explain to our listeners why you chose to work specifically with people who struggle with OCD and anxiety?

Matt Codde 6:03

Sure, yeah, thank you. And, you know, it's funny, because like we talk about, all of us have some relationship with fear and anxiety, right? It's part of having a nervous system and being human. And it's rooted in our very survival, when you really think about it. What happens specifically why I started working with people with OCD anxiety was when I was struggling myself, like we talked about a little bit earlier. You know, my first kind of experience was as early as about 10. Like you were introducing it in the show, I definitely encountered this early in life. And then it really got bad, right? When I was a freshman in college, obviously, I knew it was a problem, because I knew like everyone else that was at school wasn't experiencing what I was experiencing. There's a lot of misconception about what OCD is, because a lot of what we see is the compulsion or the behavior. And really, when you understand OCD, and anxiety, and how I try to conceptualize it for people is it really is a loop that we get stuck in, that's driven by fear. So for instance, like, what my experience was more was kind of just being bombarded with like, invasive and intrusive thoughts. And my behaviors would be things like, ruminating about it, or analyzing it, or trying to block thoughts or stop thoughts or do things to make sure I didn't think things. And so the typical case that most people, you know, identify as hand washing, right? You know, like Jack Nicholson is as good as it gets, if you guys are familiar with that movie. And what's interesting is like, you see these odd behaviors, but what we often don't see is what's really driving that. And so what's going on is the person is first experiencing some kind of thought, you know, for instance, like, what if I step on this particular tile, like, you just use your example, and something bad happens. So then they feel anxious, so they feel fear, and they avoid stepping on the tile, and then nothing bad happens. And they put together this idea? Well, because I didn't step on the tile. Nothing bad happened. So I need to keep doing that. Oh, so same concept of someone who touches the doorknob, what if I get this terrible disease, and they've washed their hands? Well, their brains connecting this idea of saying, well, because we wash your hands, and then we didn't get sick, there must have actually been a terrible disease, and I kept myself safe. So it's this loop of danger and safety that the person gets essentially caught in. And this can manifest in all sorts of ways. And it's not just applicable to what we would call like the OCD spectrum of disorders, but also for basic anxiety disorders, like the same person who has, let's say, what we would call social anxiety. They might say, well, I don't want to go to the mall. Because what if people laugh at me, so they avoid going to the mall, and keep themselves in their house. And so they don't feel so because they didn't get laughed at? They're like, Oh, well, I stayed safe by staying inside, when really, the big thing that we're really looking at here is, and this is what happened with me is that the more you feed fear in life, the smaller your life becomes.

Lisa Beres 8:51

That's powerful, you say that again.

Matt Codde 8:52

So the more you feed fear, right? By engaging in behaviors that reinforce it, the smaller your life becomes. And I obviously know this very much firsthand, because my life got incredibly small in a very short period of time. And I didn't know what I was experiencing, right? I just knew, well, I have all these stocks just flooded my mind all day, I feel anxious. And I'm having to do all this stuff, just to kind of like get through the day. So as that happens, you don't socialize, right? You tend to isolate. It's hard to pay attention in school, as you can imagine, so I wasn't doing well in school, and nothing was going well.

Lisa Beres 9:27

So yours was internal, like someone looking at you wouldn't think.

Matt Codde 9:33

Yeah, well, and that's what that's something I was really good at and a lot of people are really good at is I was really good at putting on a face, okay, which actually is part of the problem too, because like, when something's physically wrong, like you break your leg, people understand that either Oh, here you have a broken leg. But like when something's off on a nervous system level, people can't pick that up usually, unless you've experienced it yourself. So they assume everything's fine. And if you talk and say everything's fine, they don't really know, even though internally, you're suffering.

Lisa Beres 10:02

Interesting.

Ron Beres 10:03

Do you have social anxiety? So were you scared to go in public?

Matt Codde 10:06

So when I look at anxiety, right, I see it as a spectrum of an experience, like when I work with anyone, and I talk about this From Stuck to Unstuck is I think one of the problems that we have is we try to categorize these experiences and separate them, right? When really stress stresses our resistance to something, and general anxiety, social anxiety, phobias, OCD, panic attacks, even PTSD and things like derealization, on the very, very high end of the stress spectrum, or the anxiety spectrum function, the same thing, they're all the same nervous system going into that fight or flight. Now the experience for the individual is going to be different. So you might get a little anxious before a date, you know, because you're like, Well, what if the state goes bad? What if I say something stupid, you know, whatever. But the same kind of thinking just intensifies into the different levels, if you will. So it's almost like, I kind of use like a scale. And it's like, general anxieties over here. And let's say like D realization, or PTSD is over on the other end over here.

Lisa Beres 11:03

Like autism spectrum.

Matt Codde 11:04

Wow. Yeah, exactly. It's a spectrum of an experience. And when you begin to understand that, what you really begin to understand, and this is like, North by journey, okay, I'm actually not trying to solve the feeling of anxiety, because that's not what the problem is. So most people, and this is where just the language we use, I think goes wrong, collectively, is we say, anxiety disorder. And that wording right there is really indicating that anxiety itself is a disorder, right? A lot of people so they say, okay, because I experienced anxiety, I have a disorder, when really how I tried to explain it to people, it's like no, when you get caught in the loop by engaging in behaviors that reinforce fear, it's the loop itself that creates disorder in your life.

Lisa Beres 11:48

They have a loop disorder map. They have a loop.

Matt Codde 11:51

Or even the loop is Yeah, creating disorder, right. And so as we fix the loop, the disorder in your life tends to resolve. And the good news is, is because the loop requires your behaviors, and needs, those compulsions or safety behaviors, if we are able to remove those that loop can't form. And really, that's the entire concept of the primary interventions that are used to really help people that are suffering with this, are struggling with this. And it's really about recontextualizing the problem and working at it from a higher level. Does that make sense? What I'm saying?

Lisa Beres 12:23

Yeah, for sure. And like, Ron, when you were trying to skip the cracks and the tile, can you continue to do that, obviously, would have that full blown, right? But you stopped.

Ron Beres 12:32

It was funny. I do recall as a young child doing that in different areas to like at the playground or on the sidewalk and just telling myself, Okay, well, I'm not going to do this anymore. So I kind of talked myself out of it. But then I just realized, Matt, you mentioned hand washing, and touching doorknobs. And I'm starting to think that I went from cracks and sidewalks to doorknobs and bathrooms.

Lisa Beres 12:51

No, I think you went from cracks to locking doors.

Ron Beres 12:53

Locking doors, and washing door handles.

Lisa Beres 12:55

Yeah.

Matt Codde 12:55

And it's funny, like, what's so funny is this like, are not funny, I shouldn't say. But what's so interesting to me, as someone who, you know, has the opportunity now to communicate with people in various countries is people that reach out, it's almost like the fears tend to manifest the exact same ways, even like cross culturally and cross like language barrier, which is always so interesting to me, because essentially, what's happening, and this is really, how I tried to help people understand is like fear is something that we experience internally. And when we don't confront fear internally, what we do is we project it on to things in our environment. So we see it as something outside of us, right? And so a lot of people will be like, Well, Matt, that doorknob causes me anxiety. And I'd be like, Well, if that was true, then if I touch it, then it should cause me anxiety, it should be a true like X causes Y. But because it doesn't cause me anxiety, what we understand is that when someone gets triggered by something, it's actually fear coming up within their system fear they already unresolved fear that they already have that they're storing in the system, because it doesn't happen for everyone. And that happens through their belief patterns and conditioning and all that stuff. Does that make sense?

Lisa Beres 14:01

Yeah, if you're a person that does a lot of like, spiritual work on yourself, clearing and you know, healing, you're going to be less likely, I'm guessing to even have this ever become a problem?

Matt Codde 14:12

Well, and again, just like anything, right, it's what causes the nervous system to really contract and to be like overstimulated is a bunch of stored emotion. And essentially, that's what we do is when we think in emotions, inappropriate to feel or, you know, like, don't feel safe feeling a certain emotion, we suppress and repress. So what a lot of how the work of this recovery process is, yes, first, we want to break the loop. But then we also want to teach people how to handle like, I generally call it as the energy that comes up because emotion is just energy in motion. And fear is just an energy level that we can experience as humans. So when you really get good if feeling the energy itself and not resisting it, that is really what allows people to really regulate their nervous system. And that's really what we're going for them. Does that make sense?

Lisa Beres 14:58

Yeah, that makes total sense. And I imagine that you've been very popular the last couple of years since COVID. Was like, fear on steroids.

Matt Codde 15:08

Yeah, it's funny. I remember putting out an episode, like April 2020, because I remember watching people fight over toilet paper at the store. And I remember seeing it like, okay, there's a serious fear issue here. Because when you're overtaken by fear, and this is the thing, when you aren't not conscious of what energy you're in, you will behave and convince yourself you're being logical, right? Because it might seem for someone who's like, well, that doorknob could be contaminated, it may seem logical to wash. But when that leads, just people, you know, again, washing for three hours in their day under like, boiling hot water to the point where their hands get blustery. It's like, you know, it becomes obviously worse. They're harming themselves. They there's nothing logical about that, right? Paradoxically, their skin starts to crack and make some more. Yeah, they're making. Yeah, and that's generally what happens when we aren't conscious of like, the energy that we're operating from.

Lisa Beres 16:01

That's so powerful. I mean, that really is because we talk a lot on this show about energy and just everything's energy, right? Healing is energy. And you know, when I think back to those visuals, and those memes you see on Facebook, now, you know, the people when going into the grocery store, like hazmat clear, remember, they'd have like, clear hazmat suits on and stuff, you know, you're like, really? I mean, if you're that fearful, if you think the world is that scary and that bad? Like, why are you even striving so hard to like, protect yourself? Like, it's just crazy.

Matt Codde 16:31

You said, it's so well, right? When you're that fearful meaning or you're that full of the energy of fear, and realizing that that's actually like, within, instead of confronting that fear, we project it outside of us and try to control our environment.

Lisa Beres 16:44

Yeah. So I guess you saw during COVID, I mean, even the people driving around by themselves wearing masks in their car, you know, they're still doing it, you still see it? I mean, so you really saw people's truth of their fears come up during that, you know, on a worldwide scale. So that was kind of shocking.

Matt Codde 17:01

Because, again, a lot of people, you know, we saw the spirit of fear, really just kind of take over, you know, what I mean? And we saw it being put out from a media standpoint, we saw it being put out, like, you know, I mean, you guys probably saw like, Hey, you're not allowed to come here, unless you have a certain card or, you know, we saw people fight. We saw violence erupts. And it came from fear. And this is why like, I remember making the episode I was like, hey, look like the real pandemic we have is fear we're experiencing and we're unaware of it.

Lisa Beres 17:32

Yeah. Most people. Yeah.

Matt Codde 17:33

And that's why when I look at, you know, that's stuck to unstuck, right, the whole point of that is really getting someone to recontextualize. The problem, as opposed to what their mind is telling them. The problem is, and seeing it as a problem of like this energy of fear that you get stuck in.

Lisa Beres 17:50

Yeah. And you know, it makes me think about, like, you know, all these whispers of this next pandemic in this, do you think the majority of the people that acted like, so extreme are going to go right back into that place? Or do you think they're looking back and gone? Okay, maybe I took it too far. And now I've learned from that, or do you think if the fear is still there?

Matt Codde 18:08

That's a great question. And I think it's just a matter of consciousness. Right? You know, and this is obviously a big thing that we, that I talk about with clients, and in anyone that I work with his consciousness is so important, because consciousness, our ability to at least be aware of our emotions, and thoughts instead of identifying with them. Right. So then on top of that, being aware of what we're experiencing, and what we're doing, and why we're doing it, for a lot of people, they especially something like the energy of fear, which is very magnetic, and very powerful. We can't deny that. And we've all been, I think, at some point, encapsulated by fear, and driven by fear, whether we knew it or not. And I think it was an amazing learning. Because, like, I know a lot of people who did things, one way or another, maybe cut relationships with people because of their vaccination status or not invest in vaccination status, right? You know, they could have, you know, just cut people from their life. And this happens politically too, right? You know, people will cut people for all sorts of reasons.

Lisa Beres 19:08

Because that person doesn't think like you, which is very ego, right? That's your ego. Your ego wants someone to be like you. Exactly. And so judging someone for their decision, because it's not like you, it has nothing to do with that person. It has everything to do with you.

Matt Codde 19:23

Yeah. And what does that do? It makes you challenge yourself and say, am I always right, and the ego white hates to be wrong? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. And I sincerely hope and mean, obviously, like, I'm not gonna say that by any means that I handled things perfectly in any aspect of my life, because it was always I think we were all going through a time where we were, there was so much uncertainty and fear. Now, when I was working through that particular period of my life, and I got COVID, like three times, right, you know, and so we made a conscious decision of how, you know, because we just had a baby and the messages that we were sending to her of like, what's this world really like? Is this a dangerous world, you know, and so that was a big way that we operated in our household. And I know I think it comes back down to the individual just like healing on any level, as you guys probably know, and believe the only person that can ever really heal themselves is the individual. And healing comes from within. And a lot of like you said, and it's really cool to hear you say that, because, you know, healing is oftentimes about getting yourself on a certain energetic state, right, like the healing, when you understand like the scale of emotions, or if you understand like, David Hawkins work or.

Lisa Beres 20:31

Rhetoric, consciousness, yes, yes, yes.

Matt Codde 20:34

Consciousness. Yeah. And so fear is very low. Right. And fear is a very low, you know, your operating.

Lisa Beres 20:39

All vibrational frequency.

Matt Codde 20:40

Sympathetic nervous system, where you move into states of acceptance of love of joy, you're in it, you have access to so much more energy in your body.

Lisa Beres 20:50

Yes, that's right.

Matt Codde 20:51

And that's why what the real paradox of heard someone use this analogy one time, and I just loved it is with fear, what a lot of people they're so afraid of feeling these lower emotions, that it's like they're holding on to this ledge, because they're worried that if they let go and feel them that they're going to fall into the pits of hell. And the paradox is, is when you actually learn how to feel them, and let go, you actually rise up, and you raise out of it. And what the paradox is, is so many people are afraid of feeling these emotions, like fear that they hold themselves in it, as opposed to by feeling it, you actually, like rise up out of it,

Lisa Beres 21:27

And let it move through you. Right?

Matt Codde 21:28

Yeah, sure, let your body release it and process it, like it knows how to do. And even from a very primal animal standpoint, I mean, we know animals know how to do this. Like if an animal is running away from a threat, and it gets to a safe of freedom, place of safety, it will shake, right and animal will shake and shake and shake. And what it's doing is discharging that excess energy in the body. So our bodies know how to do this.

Lisa Beres 21:51

Right? We were raised a lot of us to, you know, men not cry, man. don't be sad, you know, be tough. Yeah.

Matt Codde 21:59

You know, not just fear, right? But it's not appropriate to be angry, it's not appropriate to feel these emotions. And that is actually those beliefs are what caused us to suppress in the first place.

Lisa Beres 22:10

Yeah, I was an actress. When I first moved to California. I was taking acting classes in LA. And I had to have this really angry scene. And I thought it was like shouting and screaming like I was supposed to be in my teachers, like Lisa I bet you think you're like a 10 right now? And I said, Oh, yeah. And he's like, No, you're like, two, like, I had such a hard time even in an acting class, letting get into that state because I was raised not to be like that, you know, and be the good little girl and not get angry. Yeah.

Matt Codde 22:39

And from a nervous system standpoint, right. So if you just think about it, very big picture. So our two primal needs as people our authenticity and attachment to our caregivers. And this is from Dr. Gabor Matta his work and when the body says no, and he talks about the stress, disease correlation. And so if we ever believe that being authentic, will threaten our attachment will suppress authenticity for attachment. So we learn that suppression of emotion is actually a survival instinct early on in life, because we need attachment for so many years as humans. That's like if we know like angry, gets mom mad at me. Okay, I need to not be angry.

Lisa Beres 23:19

Yeah. Oh, interesting.

Matt Codde 23:20

Same thing with anything. Yeah.

Lisa Beres 23:22

Yeah, we have a friend who she's in the spiritual community. And she had two daughters, and they had a meditation room in the house, just turned one of the rooms into a meditation room. And when the daughter has had a meltdown, or anything, sisters are fighting, she'd say, go to the meditation room and just think about what is making you so upset. And then when you're ready, come out, and we'll discuss it and like, her daughters are just like great girls. And really well rounded. I'm like, Oh, my God, you have to be kidding. Every house should have a meditation room. Like our closet anything.

Matt Codde 23:53

Or this simple message that you're allowed to feel how you feel.

Lisa Beres 23:56

Yeah, that it's okay.

Matt Codde 23:58

Like that feeling that that spectrum of emotion that we all are going to experience that whole thing, maybe even in the same day. And that willingness to say, I'm not a bad person for this feeling. This feeling isn't me. It's something that I'm experiencing. And this is why like, Be okay with it. Yeah. And by doing that, though, that actually is what allows it to release as opposed to holding it in our body. This is why we talk about the concept of letting go. Right. What does that mean? Well, it means we're holding on something to begin with. Yeah.

Lisa Beres 24:25

And it reminds me of sometimes you'll hear about a couple and all of a sudden you hear this couple gets divorced and you're like wait, gosh, they never spot you know, you never heard Yeah, because they were probably suppressing lives. And all these issues are building up and they realized it wasn't working but they never like expressed it you know? So you do hear those stories.

Matt Codde 24:45

Not to like but I mean that book by Gabor Maté, say like, When the Body Says No, it's just such a fascinating read. And I think he just does a great job explaining how those kinds of concepts like you're saying lead to long term problems.

Lisa Beres 24:45

Yeah. So this is really important. And it's interesting because this topic, you know, doesn't fall under a healthy home hack. But it does because a healthy home is at home healthy living.

Matt Codde 25:09

You need healthy people to have a healthy home. Right?

Ron Beres 25:12

Right. That's right.

Lisa Beres 25:13

Yeah. It's the spiritual side of like the physical unit, the mental spiritual mind, body spirit, right? We all of us have to be working together. And so yeah, this is like a really good.

Matt Codde 25:22

When it comes to OCD it's a systems problem when that happens, right? Like, it doesn't just impact the individual, the whole family is impacted? Well, because think about it, like a lot of times what happens is the family, and it's important for any parents listening who maybe children are struggling with something like this, or could be, the family actually becomes the compulsion. So for instance, let's say, someone has a fear of leaving the house. Well, if the family goes and accommodates and says, Okay, you stay in the house, I'll go get your groceries, I'll make sure you know, all this stuff. It validates the fear. And now the family is now essentially responsible for this person's emotional state.

Lisa Beres 26:02

They're an enabler, right? That's why a lot of extremely obese people that you see that are like 500 pounds, same thing, like someone's giving them the food.

Matt Codde 26:11

They couldn't do that without someone. Yeah. And we think that, because we're making them feel better today, that we're helping them. But actually, we always need to remember to prioritize someone's long term well being over their short term feelings.

Ron Beres 26:24

That's a great point.

Lisa Beres 26:24

That's great. Very well said. And this really is cool, because when I was kind of researching the show, I came across, of course, like the medications, the medications, I mean, this is how like, your typical doctor, psychiatrist is going to treat this. I'm really glad. Because how do you feel about the medications? Do you feel like you recommend them with your formula? Or you don't need them with your formula?

Matt Codde 26:46

Yeah, so as a licensed clinical social worker, right, I don't have my medication is not within my scope of practice, meaning I don't prescribe it, I can't speak on it. So what I say to people is this, like you always make your own decision on that. Now, from a personal standpoint, I see this as a nervous system, essentially, the nervous system is dysregulated, you're stuck in this fight or flight. And this fear, energy is continuing to just perpetuate. And some studies came out, I think, last year, and it was showing that, you know, with SSRIs, which are kind of the primary intervention, right, that's often presented things like Prozac, Zoloft and things like that. What's interesting is they, at least in the article that I read, and what alternatives send you over the article, maybe link it if you want to, well put it in the show notes. But the study was finding that the SSRIs were effective on a placebo level, meaning that they like equal, right, they would give people SSRIs. And the placebo was one of the biggest indicators on their effectiveness. And I have never seen someone in my practice, or when I work with people just take medication and actually achieve the results you're looking for. It's when someone really, again, removes the behaviors right through, you know, what we would call exposure response prevention. And really, why I promote the AAA response so much is because when we break that loop, the body innately knows how to heal, right, like when you cut your finger, you can put whatever you want on the body is what heals itself. And the same thing with the nervous system, your body wants to move, to homeostasis to normal to balance. And if we really understand that, the emotion is because we've stored it within our body. And our job is to process it and release it by doing the behaviors we're keeping it in. And this is when you recontextualize it for someone, you begin to understand feeling anxiety is not that it needs to be felt to be released. And it's a different way of understanding it. Because as long as we believe anxiety is a bad feeling or a disorder, the presence of anxiety, we're always going to do things to try to get rid of it and be resistant to it, paradoxically keeping us stuck in it.

Lisa Beres 28:49

Like attracting it, right? Law of attraction.

Matt Codde 28:52

I mean, just keeping the energetic loop going. It can become self perpetuating, eventually, it takes on a life of its own. And this is why when it comes to the meds, obviously, if someone uses them, I always recommend them as a secondary, you know, something to assist in the primary intervention of behavior change, and doing this the work that I know to be the most effective.

Lisa Beres 29:14

Or like try the least toxic method first, what is that? They use that going for the least toxic method of anything in your life? I think it's just a good rule of thumb right before you go run and get because, you know, medication has side effects.

Matt Codde 29:28

Well, yeah, and people have adverse effects, you know, often, like it's not uncommon, right, for someone who has OCD and anxiety to start taking this and the symptoms to intensify. So, you know, again, I'm not advising one way or another on it. What I am simply saying is what I know, and even from a research standpoint, the most effective intervention is the behavioral altercation behavior.

Lisa Beres 29:49

Because even with the medication, you know, obviously that's between you and your doctor, like you said, even with that you're not actually removing the problem, like a lot of medications for a lot of illnesses. You're treating a symptom, and so then you create a situation where you're going to be on this forever. And definitely you don't have an end end in sight.

Matt Codde 30:06

Exactly. And this is why we always go cause right causality, and you never go to because again, I mean, we live in California. I mean, I can't tell you how many young people that are taking their medical marijuana, right to treat their anxiety. And that's just what they do. And now, especially with these concentrated oils, and stuff, where it's 80 to 90% THC, and they're 16. And they're like, Well, I have anxiety over my math test. What are we setting up for the rest of your life? Like, I gotta tell you, math test are very small in the grand scheme of things, you're gonna have to encounter life.

Lisa Beres 30:38

That's a great point. Yeah.

Matt Codde 30:40

And then eventually, when the weed or whatever they use stops working, that's generally when they move into something more powerful.

Lisa Beres 30:46

Yeah, we did a show on ADHD, ADHD, with a friend who got caught up in that and became very addicted to Adderall. And that was Adderall, he became well, the same thing with in his case, he kept meeting more kept meeting more, because the feeling that plateau kept rising, he had to keep taking more to get that feeling again, and to the point where he became like a raging addict. You know, it had to have an intervention. And that a while.

Matt Codde 31:14

And this is what happens with compulsions, right? To some degree, we build tolerance to them, right. So what starts as a quick handwash, turns into hand washing with a little more so pay and washing more intensely, hand washing multiple times a day, I'm wearing gloves, it progresses because the fear just intensifies.

Lisa Beres 31:31

You're feeding it right? You're feeding it literally.

Matt Codde 31:33

And you build a tolerance to it. So it grows.

Ron Beres 31:35

I'm curious about getting back to what you talked about before, he did an excellent job of talking about the cycle that someone goes to that has OCD and how they go through this loop in their mind. And I'm guessing it's a lot of different words. Is there a trigger word that you say is the root of most stress? And people? Like is there some sort of word out there? That's a major trigger? Typically people you work with? Trigger word?

Lisa Beres 31:56

Yeah, wait, I'm gonna clap. It's this should should I got it on your pitch for the holiday stress should?

Matt Codde 32:02

Oh, okay is like, what's at the root of most fear.

Lisa Beres 32:06

Look out for the word should it's the root of most stress. The word implies, okay. Okay.

Matt Codde 32:11

I see what you're saying. I see. Yeah. So really, like when it comes to fear and anxiety, again, because it's generally founded in beliefs to begin with, what really causes people most resistance to things, whether it's feelings, or thoughts or experiences is this underlying idea that something should be a different than how it is, right? So that's really, a lot of what I talk with my clients about is not looking out for the word should in their life. So for instance, let's just say, I go outside, and it's raining. And I'm like, well, it should be sunny right now. Well, now I'm in conflict with the fact that it's raining. And now it's raining, I think raining is causing me to be upset when it's really my belief that it shouldn't be raining. Okay.

Lisa Beres 32:54

Oh, God, don't we do that? I mean, we do that as humans like constantly. Right?

Matt Codde 32:58

Right. Well, because we're fighting with reality. So when I think, Hey, I shouldn't feel anxiety, it's actually my belief that I shouldn't feel it. That is the problem. And that's what causes me to resist it, and then causes me to do behaviors that perpetuate it. And, and so the idea that we know how things should be, is oftentimes the major root of most of our conflict in life, to be honest. Yeah.

Lisa Beres 33:21

And that's really powerful. I think that's very true. And there's that saying, if you're living in the future, you're in worry if you're living in the past, and regret is really the only place you really are trying to get to and should be as the present to the present moment, because that's all you really have.

Matt Codde 33:36

What's the only thing that's real. And this is really, from a nervous system standpoint, I think we talked about it a bit. But you know, one of the things that I like to teach people is really seeing the nervous system like an internal stoplight, right. So you have when you're in green, you feel safe being here, you feel safe, conversing, talking to people. So most of the energy is actually in your face, it's up here because you're socializing. When you feel fight or flight, you're actually going to feel most of the energy in your chest, because that's where it's activating to pump blood and all that stuff. And then red is down in your stomach where you literally freeze. That's the immobilization. So if you think green, yellow, red, right, from a nervous system standpoint, what's happening with people is they're really getting stuck in yellow. And by doing this work of challenging the fears, in releasing a lot of the fear, you move back into green, and then you feel safe being like right here right now.

Lisa Beres 34:29

Right? Yeah, that's a good technique. And speaking of techniques, can you kind of explain a little what you have coined the AAA response as a method?

Matt Codde 34:39

One of the challenging things that I had in my own journey, which was a long journey for me, but part of what because I didn't even know what I was experiencing.

Ron Beres 34:47

Well, now you look very young. How long was the journey?

Matt Codde 34:50

I mean, given that it was about 18, you know, when it really kicked off in a really bad way. I mean, I'd say it was a good 10 years, you know, from where I felt like I was really in a state of recovery, where I really developed a certain level of, I know what to do with myself, you know what I mean? And then feeling safe being present all that now, there's definitely this like uphill trajectory, right? So things got better and better and better and better, but it really was, you know, a good four years of me being stuck in the loop without anyone ever telling me.

Lisa Beres 35:19

I was gonna say, did family and friends notice it? Were they like, hey.

Matt Codde 35:22

Definitely do. And even I was going to like therapist and trying to get help. But no one ever told me was funny. You and I got the official like diagnosis is I went to Mariners Church.

Lisa Beres 35:33

Oh, that's where we go. Do you go to Mariners?

Matt Codde 35:35

And I was going to Iraq harbor at the time, but then Mariners, they had a college group there, but I was going, and I would have people pray over me, right for help, because I was just suffering, you know, and I didn't know what was wrong. And this woman, you know, I swear, some kind of divine intervention, you know, looked at me and was like, Hey, I think you have OCD, in my conception of OCD was the hand washing. And I'm like, Well, I don't I don't wash my hands. That like four year period before then it was just me being stuck in and that was really a turning point on the journey. I actually, like give a shout out to her in the book, just because I was like, I hope I see her again one day, because I was like.

Ron Beres 36:11

Amazing, but you know, maybe she's an angel. Right?

Lisa Beres 36:14

I know, look for her next time I go to Mariners.

Matt Codde 36:17

Or something like that. Yeah, it definitely happened.

Lisa Beres 36:20

So you had gone to therapists, psychiatrists?

Matt Codde 36:23

No one had ever diagnosed me. They're like, I think you're just anxious, you know, and this and no one ever gave me any, you know, again, what would they throw? They threw meds at me. Right? You know what I mean? Like that was the primary solution that was presented, or things like don't worry, which is not helpful. Yeah, it's like telling someone who wrestled with alcoholism, like don't drink, you know, it's like, okay, yeah, thanks. Yeah. Like, they haven't thought of that. But anyways.

Lisa Beres 36:49

Oh, you're a AAA response method.

Matt Codde 36:51

Yeah, so AAA, so because the solution was to break the loop, right, which in breaking the loop meant not engaging in any behaviors, the thing that gets most people caught is doing the mental behavior. So the ruminating the mental worrying, the mental analyzing all of that, that's, I'd say, that's probably most people's, like 80% of their behaviors. So the thing that keeps people stuck is all the stuff they do in their mind. So the Tripoli response was kind of a process that I started to like, and again, I didn't call it this at the time, it was like, What do I need to do to make sure I don't do any behaviors that keep this loop going? It's like, instead of like, don't do these behaviors, it's like, what can we implement to make sure that doesn't happen. So the process is, from a thought, a feeling and behavior standpoint. And so the first A is to agree and disengage the mind. So the first part is, and even then, is understanding this idea of consciousness, like we talked about earlier, you have to do this from a higher state of consciousness than the mind, you have to be the observer of the mind before you can even do this. So this is where things like meditation, you know, being able to diffuse from the mind is just a skill set to learn. So the first is the green disengaged, and like, okay, yeah, whatever, and disengage the mind, finding the energy in the body and actually releasing your resistance of actually allowing it and then attach. So like, you're familiar with Hawkins maps of consciousness, anger is actually higher than a state of fear when it comes to energy, or aggression. So by moving into a more aggressive state, and inviting the energy to come up, inviting the experience, you don't want to happen, that actually you're able to feel fear from a level of anger, if you will, right. So you can move up into a higher energy to address the fear. And so and then doing the opposite of whatever the fears telling you to do. So by doing those steps consistently, you can essentially make sure you're not engaging in any behaviors that are going to perpetuate the loop. So that's what the AAA response, the whole philosophy is, we want to implement a solution that someone becomes so good at doing that they eventually do it unconsciously. Like I want them to just do this without even thinking about it. So we know on a 24/7 level, they're not engaging in compulsions that are going to make the loop worse.

Lisa Beres 39:06

Right? So say we have an example of an extreme hand washer, because we keep bringing that one up, and they come to see you and they're like the type that see, you know, getting their hands raw. I'm sure I know everybody's different. But what would be an average of like, coming from like a real extreme example of getting healed with this process?

Matt Codde 39:23

Yeah. And so this is a really good question. So I always have like two goals for my clients, ever. Anyone that comes to the program, it's number one, we want to get you to the point where you're subclinical meaning you're taking the assessment and you score in a way that you can't get a diagnosis. So like, that's always go one is subclinical. And so they have the Yale Brown, obsessive compulsive scale and we want to get the person to below where like someone who didn't have it would test.

Lisa Beres 39:48

Okay, there's a free quiz. Do you have that on your website?

Matt Codde 39:51

You know, if you if you typed in the white box to Google, it would pull it. It's an assessment for OCD and anxiety. So is what they're using to assess and what they measuring though, is most of the behaviors that people are engaging in. So when we really treat it from a behavioral standpoint, we can see a significant reduction in behaviors, which will drop the score. So the first thing is to get someone on subclinical second thing is to get them to the point where they have a conversation that says, Hey, Matt, I was calling on you, but I never want to talk to you again. You know, because we want someone to feel so equipped with the skills that they're their own therapist. They're their own healer.

Lisa Beres 40:27

And they can use that.

Matt Codde 40:28

Yes, exactly.

Lisa Beres 40:29

And if it comes up if it rears its ugly head in a different way, right? Yeah,

Matt Codde 40:33

Sure. And I never want someone to feel like they're reliant on me, or anyone for that matter, because I might not be there one day, you know what I mean? It's not a justice to the person. Those are always pretty much my second and primary goals for people is to get them back in their life.

Lisa Beres 40:47

Do you think like in the traditional like Western medicine, does it do you see this happen where they treated somebody and the person got rid of, say, their hand washing? And then it did wear itself as a different thing?

Matt Codde 40:59

Oh absolutely. Well, because again, if you don't address the fear, and you address the symptom, right, like the thing they're projecting on, that just latches on to something else. And I've seen people totally bounced from intensive, intensive intensive about different things to fit different things. And there was like, you know, there's a word and like this therapeutic practice called lifers. They're just like people who say things like that, where they're like, Oh, they're a lifer. Or they're just, you know, I don't obviously believe that I don't think they need to be but and like we said, this is a spectrum of experience. But I mean, I have seen very radical transformation happen, because what matters is not what it like, sure you they need to learn the right thing. They need to go through the right education need to put the right tools in place, all that needs to happen. But what really determines someone's success, in my opinion, by and this is always kind of what I'm looking for. When someone applies for the program. Is this person, someone who takes responsibility for their health? But is this someone that says like, hey, I need to get myself better? Or are they saying, hey, you need to save me? Because if it's a you need to save me, it's tough because then it's, I'm supposed to do the work for you.

Lisa Beres 42:02

Yeah, they want the quick fix.

Matt Codde 42:04

Yeah. And so the responsibilities a big thing, but then also their motivation to get better. And so a lot of what we start with is like, what's going on in your life, that you're really ready for change? And because the average time between someone on setting right with the symptoms, like you said in the beginning of the episode, Ron, you know, 10 years old, 19 years old is kind of average onset. The average time before someone gets help is usually seven years.

Lisa Beres 42:33

Yeah, I read something like that. I was shocked.

Matt Codde 42:36

And in Australia, I just learned it's actually like 17 years, because we have people.

Lisa Beres 42:40

They don't realize it's an actual issues.

Matt Codde 42:42

Again, think about it. So let's say someone has scrupulosity, which is when OCD becomes religious, right, which is like a form I had, right where they get afraid of let's say, What if I get sent to hell?

Lisa Beres 42:52

Oh, I see. Okay.

Matt Codde 42:55

You know, what if I committed the unforgivable sin? Did God really forgive me? So where do they go? They're gonna go to churches. They're gonna go and say, Hey, I need to do more work at church. I need to pray. They're not going to think OCD. I wasn't thinking OCD. You're gonna think the problem is whatever the fears latched on to very interesting. So a lot of people are coming to like Catholic mass, and confessing and confessing and confessing as a compulsion. The priest is actually offering reassurance and making them worse, thinking that this is scrupulosity.

Lisa Beres 43:28

Give us some crazy OCD, or burly, maybe common ones that you see a lot that anyone listening who might have a child or themselves that might, because I wouldn't have even thought about that one. Yeah.

Matt Codde 43:39

Well, I mean, that's a really common one, actually. Right screw up a lot. I mean, I get a lot of people. I mean, obviously, I experienced it, right. One of my fears was like, What if I get possessed? Oh, wow. I remember that. And it was like, I saw some movie about it. And I was like, Well, what if that happened to me?

Lisa Beres 43:53

Oh, yeah.

Matt Codde 43:57

Was like, I don't even think I saw. I saw like a preview.

Ron Beres 44:04

That was the wrong commercial to watch Matt.

Matt Codde 44:06

Right. But when you're filled with fear, and you have so much carried on, again, it can latch on to anything. So when you'll see you'll hear people say this, almost every story and every case I've ever worked. The person can tell me the day that this started. It's like I read some posts online. Someone said something to me in a conversation. I heard about mold in biology class, and it just spiraled. So when it comes to like common themes, you know, a big portion of them are like I said, the intrusive thoughts and the intrusive thoughts generally fall into three main categories, right, it's usually related to harm sex and religion. And it's generally like, what if I became a serial killer? What if I snapped and like, drove my car off a bridge when I was driving? What if, you know like so these kinds of thoughts are like what if, you know, because then it won't happen because they'll read a story about a mom that cursed her children are something like that. And it's like, what if that happened to me? What if I became a pedophile one day? It's always usually like categories of people that do things that would essentially get ostracized from society. What if I grabbed the policeman's gun when he was standing next to me? And again, you're gonna find that the common traits, people would never act on these things they're in a are not congruent with who they are. They're this fear, right? Of like, what if that happened? And then like I said, with God, and religion, and this is I've seen it in most religions, you can imagine, I've even seen like atheists, the thing where someone might even not logically believe in it, but get caught in it. You kind of have those intrusive thought categories. And then you have the contamination is big, but it's not just germs, it can be, again, environmental contamination, right? It can be emotional contamination, right? It can be like, Well, like I remember, I had one case where the person had a panic attack in their house, and they didn't want to go in to the house anymore, because of the energy of panic was still there. And or, like, someone didn't want to drive on a street, because that street reminded, you know, something. And then there's obviously like, perfectionism.

Lisa Beres 46:07

I was gonna say, so is are a lot of perfectionist more susceptible.

Matt Codde 46:11

Well, again, seeing this is like, I guess I would reframe the whole statement, because it's not to correct it's more perfectionism is the behavior that is at the end of the cycle. So the thought is usually well, what if I get fired if this email is not perfect? So out of fear, they upset like compulsively review and review and review. It protect them from getting fired?

Lisa Beres 46:35

Yeah. Okay, that makes sense.

Ron Beres 46:37

Oh, I see.

Matt Codde 46:37

So perfectionism is what we see on the outside, but a lot. It's that fear energy underneath that we're always looking for underneath.

Lisa Beres 46:44

I did not know this.

Matt Codde 46:46

I mean, I'm just trying to get off the top of my head here. But hit and run and driving, obviously, are huge. So someone will have, like the fear of what if I hit someone when I was driving? And I don't remember, right. And so they'll like drive back and check. And then I remember totally having someone else I was looking down the window, and the person was supposed to meet me in the office. And they just kept looping the building, because every time they came around, it was like they had that thought, well, what if I ran into him over that time? And then they just kept looping and looping and looping?

Lisa Beres 47:17

And that's debilitating?

Matt Codde 47:18

Oh, yeah. It can really get to the point where it's very debilitating.

Lisa Beres 47:22

Yeah. Like it's rolling you. Oh, seems like it takes over your life so much, right? It's the decisions. It's not you. It's this energy like this fear energy, like you said.

Ron Beres 47:32

It sounds like part of your AAA response when you're going back initially talked about in the first part where you have to be the conscious observer to what your thoughts aren't right? Yeah, I know, one thing. I'm not saying that I had any of this, but we all have different degrees of anxiety, right? So one thing that always told me was that whole thought process about we are not our thoughts. So like, anytime I have thoughts I don't like I'm like, Okay, I'm not my thoughts. I'm just the observer of my thoughts. Sure. It always for me, internally seems to correct my course of what I want to do for that. Yeah.

Matt Codde 48:02

Well, yeah. Even just noticing that right. You know, because so many people again, they're, they're caught in that illusion, that paradigm. Right, I thought this, that's what I think, as opposed to the thought is something that is they experienced, and I mean, I think like, you know, probably the most transformational works, or at least the people that introduced me to these concepts would have been Eckhart Tolle and the power of now and then also Michael Singer and the Untethered Soul, like two phenomenal works. And that whole concept was a huge part of my own recovery, and even becoming introduced to that idea. And that's where, you know, what I always aim to do is to try to incorporate a lot of different aspects of different philosophies into this because it's like, I think, one of the problems is, is that we get trained, whether it's okay, if you go into the medical route, or become a medical doctor, you get trained from a biological perspective, where it's like, energy healers don't, they're on the other side, where they're only the energy. And then it's like, then you have the therapists that are like, I just know, CBT, or I just know cycle analysis. One of the great things about the time that we live in is we have access to so much stuff. And I think getting one track mind and like my profession, or my thing is the only way to go about things, you lose access to so many things that you can supplement your processes with. Right, and that's why obviously, I mean, I've ran residential treatments, I should say, I've worked in residential treatments and intensive treatments, right, where we're doing a very intense therapeutic process intervention in a very short period of time. But one of the things is is that I just have this fundamental connection to you know, again, a more spiritual aspect of things as well as belief and incorporating aspects of energy healing aspects of you know, like things to do with the body and I try not to get so one track minded on things and letting go the ego of like, well, my ways, right?

Lisa Beres 49:56

Yeah, different things will work and resonate with different people.

Matt Codde 50:00

That's why consciousness is such a cornerstone of a lot of the stuff that we do. Yeah.

Lisa Beres 50:05

So important. You don't hear people talk about that. With OCD. It's definitely this conversation has like, so expanded my mind. You know, I had an OCD perception that was just doing a task repeatedly. I didn't know it was so much in the head. And I didn't realize those thoughts could be so debilitating. And like you said, How many people do we know that are suffering from that? But we don't know.

Matt Codde 50:28

Well, yeah. Because what they you know, most people, right, they suffer in silence for fear of shame of even telling you what's going on in their mind. You know what I mean? Like, that's oftentimes so the biggest relief that I see someone have is when they sit there and tell me what's going on. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's totally normal.

Lisa Beres 50:42

Right? And you have been through it.

Matt Codde 50:44

In the context of this, because their fear is, why do I keep having this thought pop up of like, what if I become a serial killer? I love people, I don't want to hurt people. And it's like the see something online, like, have something happen. And the fear just catches it. And this is where we started seeing cases of like Covid OCD, like the OCD just latched on to Covid, as you can imagine. But that wasn't a thing, prior to 2020. And that's because the fear can really latch on to anything. And when you understand that, if you don't work at it from a fear perspective, you're going to create a situation where the person might get better around the theme, and then latch on to something else. And this is why I don't agree with that model, and very much like to work at it from that energy perspective of really releasing the fear at its deepest level.

Lisa Beres 51:32

Yeah. So for people listening, because I know this current younger generation is really stressed, right? I mean, I get press releases and read so much that they have a lot of pressure, more. So we've got technology, we have social media pressure, you know, a lot of worldly events, there's just, they've got a really tough time. So for anybody listening, who's got kids that are struggling with whatever, that could be symptoms, what are some signs and symptoms The parents could look out for? That their kid might be OCD. Yeah, or severe.

Matt Codde 52:06

Yeah, OCD, anxiety, isolation would be the first thing that I would ever you'll see. Because again, it's just a nervous system thing, right? You know, like, people tend to disconnect when they aren't in green. So isolation is always one of the first big things you want to start to pay attention to where it's like, some reason they're not coming to dinner, or, you know, it's like, I feel like I haven't seen them in a while, you know what I mean, they're not hanging out, they're going in the room a lot. And being by themselves. Isolation is definitely something that you'd want to pay attention to, you know, generally, when someone's doing something, and they're in the energy of fear, you can sense that. So paying attention to kind of like the energy that your child is operating from. So for instance, if they're studying, and they're studying in this real anxious, fearful state, and like getting stressed out about it, understanding it's not studying that's making them stressed, right? It's this underlying fear of like, what if I fail? What if I get a bad grade, all this stuff that's going to cause them to bring that energy into what they're doing? You see, so a lot of is going to start in this what if fearful thinking in from a parent's standpoint, again, and this is where I've actually changed my perspective on this as of recent, you know, I mean, you guys talk about, right, healthy homes, right. And that's the central message. What we have to realize as collective as a society is that, especially in America, we don't prioritize health. And what I mean by that is, when you look at the industries that are at the top of the game, you're gonna see the escapism, and distraction. So for instance, if you see alcohol, why reason people drink out of escape, their feelings are just plain, plain and simple. They don't like how they feel I want you know, and then tobacco, right, same thing, you know, entertainment, sports. And this is why social media is not the cause of stress and anxiety, it's that it's used so much as a distraction from the emotion that the emotions I believe, are just storing up. And this is why what most people do with their emotions is again, suppress or repress or escape. Right? And this is why the industries that offer escape, I think, are so explosive. And because it gives people this opportunity to not be with themselves. Like the worst thing for most people would be say, Go stay for hours in a room without your phone or anything like most people that would cause them to freak out. You know what I mean? It because it's like we're so used to this distraction and then all of a sudden, when you don't know this is why like, I don't know if you saw like Aaron Rodgers going on that darkness retreat, the brilliance of the darkness retreat or like the 10 day silent retreats that are offered, is it all it does is take away your distractions and everything naturally comes up.

When you say darkness, meaning like actual dark?

Like put in the dark. Dark Room. Yeah. No, I don't think he's this for 10 days, but there's like 10 day silent meditations where you can't talk for 10 days. I don't know how long the darkness retreats are.

Ron Beres 55:00

He also did that herbal treatment to what is it called? And I heard something about this. Do you think that herbal? What's that herbal?

Matt Codde 55:07

I don't know about that one, you know, to be honest?

Ron Beres 55:09

Well, I think it was almost like a natural trip you went on to right?

Lisa Beres 55:12

I don't think I'd like a dark retreat. I like the silent retreat, that would be cool.

Matt Codde 55:17

When most people talk about how intense like 10 day silent retreat really is, because we're talking and interacting is one way that you know, like, you have to confront everything. And with darkness, you take away your ability to see, you're just fully in here at that point. And that's why I've never done either of those. Like, I understand the philosophy of it of having actually, like, the stuff we need to confront is already here. A lot of work on yourself, it's not about changing outside of you. If you think the problems outside of you, you're always going to try to change something outside of you and correct your environment. And it's not going to be fruitful, because you're always going to be there. Right? The same thing, like when someone's like, well, you just bounce from relationship to relationship relationship. It's like, what's the common thread here? Right?

Lisa Beres 56:04

Exactly. When you start to see patterns, I always say that, if there's patterns, then you've got to start looking at yourself, right?

Matt Codde 56:10

So with kids with parents, it's like, yeah, patterns of isolation patterns of repetitive behavior that this just seems doesn't make sense. Why are you washing your hands? Right? When you wake up in the morning, you know what I mean, in a lot of times, to be transparent, you can just see it on someone's face. Like, if we step out of everything, I can spot someone in mental distress really well, because obviously, I know it personally. But it's like, you can usually just see it in the face. They don't have like, the energy is not here, right? It's in here. And our ability to not just take what people are saying, and actually pay attention to nonverbal communication, and just body language and just facial expression like that's most of people's communication. So it's kind of a lost skill, because most of us, again, are locked into our phones.

Lisa Beres 56:55

Like even a digital detox we're talking about, you don't have to go dark. But I digital detox, oh, man is a really good thing.

Matt Codde 57:02

And again, I'm not like promoting either of those things. It's more like just understanding the philosophy of like, when you want to confront your stuff, it's here to confront. It's not like there's so many people that talk about like these extravagant treatment ideology. It's really not. I mean, for the most of us, like we can do the work throughout our day. In fact, the trigger is just that. It's you're having an over emotional response to an event. And the reason that's happening is because your motion Withings coming up.

Lisa Beres 57:27

Yeah really powerful man.

Ron Beres 57:29

A wealth of information.

Matt Codde 57:30

I know that Oh, yeah. Hopefully, we're not talking too long.

Ron Beres 57:33

Oh, it's perfect. It's perfect.

Lisa Beres 57:34

The last question. Well, if this goes untreated, someone doesn't recognize it, or have health and never get to the root. Can it lead to suicidal tendencies? Like, do you find a lot of these people get depressed?

Matt Codde 57:47

Yeah, absolutely, I'd say the primary. And this is oftentimes what you're first going to be presenting with, right? Because like I said, the person's not going to come to you, and say, I have OCD, unless they do all their own Google research. And they find that out. And that's kind of why a lot of my work exists is to really help just bring awareness to what's going on. So that's always cool to me, when someone's like, Oh, I found that video you put in it made sense, because that's what I was experiencing. And they find it within let's say, a month of first onset, it's like, well, to cut that seven years down, that seven year average is great. So absolutely. What tends to happen with OCD and anxiety is the secondary symptom is depression. But like I said, when you go to your doctor, and you tell him, you're feeling depressed, if the primary cause is the OCD and anxiety, treating the depression isn't really going to be effective, because we're not like, essentially, your body's moving into that immobilization to really get you out of the fight or flight. So the paradox of the treatment is by we have to go and actually confront the OCD and anxiety in the secondary symptoms of depression, almost always alleviate on their own.

Lisa Beres 58:55

Wow.

Matt Codde 58:55

Well, because they're secondary. It makes sense when you think if you have an infection in your arm, and you get a headache, if you treat the infection, the headache goes away. It's the same kind of thing here with That's why you always need to understand what's primary, what's secondary.

Lisa Beres 59:07

Right? I'm wondering, there's gonna be a big percentage of the population being misdiagnosed for just depression, when these things are driving that.

Matt Codde 59:16

Yeah, and this is why it's not that they don't have depression. It's just that that's not primary. That's not primary. Yeah, that's a huge thing. Because obviously, I was in an extreme state of depression. And absolutely, like with depression becomes total normal, you know, to have the thoughts of not wanting to live because ultimately, we're in that state you don't, one of the hard things about the loop itself and dealing with something like this is if you don't know what you're experiencing, and you don't have a hopeful path ahead, and you're just like, Am I just gonna live like this forever? You know, it's easy to lose hope for your future. Right? And I think that's why we work hard on trying to get the messages to people is something you can't overcome. But it really you're saying though, it's also something you can't ignore. You can't just put this aside and say, You know what, I'm just going to become a workaholic and do Adderall and take, you know, Ambien to sleep and, and just medicate and escape and escape and escape, because eventually, when that stuff all comes crashing down, you're still going to have to deal with this. And this is why I think, like we're talking about as a society, when we don't prioritize health, and we prioritize, let's say, productivity or output, or who can grind harder, or a lot of the messages that are seem to be pretty central, we justify doing unhealthy behaviors today. And that leads to long term issues, when people realize that mental health truly is a practice, just like physical health. And the reason mental health is so common is because we have terrible common mental health practices that we all engage in.

Lisa Beres 1:00:47

It's so taboo. I mean, you think of mental health, and you think of like someone in a mental health institution.

Matt Codde 1:00:55

Reading at breakfast on the street, right, like, right, but again, we all have mental health. And so when you start realizing that your state of your mental health is a result of the practice, you're engaging in, much like your physical health, and we have physical practices that lead to physical health good or bad.

Lisa Beres 1:01:11

Yeah, we don't talk about mental health you right, it's really not discussed it.

Matt Codde 1:01:14

But then when you understand that, that whatever your state is, is simply a result of practices you've been engaging in, when you start changing your practice, you begin to understand it, you can change your state over time.

Lisa Beres 1:01:26

So cool, I love it. This was amazing. We can talk to you for two more hours, at least. We're like light bulbs. Well, guys, and if you're listening, there is always okay, no matter what you're going through, there's always light at the end of the tunnel, and just know that, as I say, there's always a way out, right? Like in the movie when the guys like in this building, and there's no windows and doors, and then somehow the helicopter comes through. Right? Yeah, there's always a way. There's always a way out.

Matt Codde 1:01:55

And I think the central message, you know, if I may share more personal is like when you set your sights and intentions on recovery, like, there are forces beyond you that will help you like that woman at the church.

Lisa Beres 1:02:06

I had goosebumps when you said that?

Matt Codde 1:02:08

No, no. I mean, when you decide that you're going to recover, and you're gonna get better. Like, it's not just you on this journey. I fully believe that there are interventions that happen that are beyond our perception, and for the good. And like that woman that talked to me that day, changed the trajectory of my life.

Lisa Beres 1:02:25

Wow, powerful.

Ron Beres 1:02:26

And you've never seen her since Matt, you know, you've not spotted her again.

Matt Codde 1:02:29

I couldn't even tell you what she looks like.

Ron Beres 1:02:30

Okay.

Lisa Beres 1:02:31

It was an angel.

Matt Codde 1:02:31

Because my state of the state I was in but I think that's the point is like, and this is the thing that I think everyone should understand is one conversation with someone can change the course of their life.

Lisa Beres 1:02:40

Oh, yeah.

Matt Codde 1:02:41

In realizing the power of that.

Lisa Beres 1:02:42

I smile, smiling at a stranger. Someone was having a horrible day. Yeah, just the smile. Yeah, let this be a reminder to be kind like practice more kindness. I think the world could use a lot more of that.

Matt Codde 1:02:54

But there's always a solution out.

Lisa Beres 1:02:56

Always a solution. Thank you, Matt. Thank you for being with us. Today. Guys. You can learn more about Matt's incredible work at Restored with a D restoredminds.com where you can join his program or work with Matt one on one. And don't forget to check out his new book from Stuck to Unstuck on Amazon.

Ron Beres 1:03:15

And thanks for being with us today. Friends. We'll have all the links in the show notes at Ronandlisa.com/podcast. Join us in two weeks for another episode, and get ready to uplevel your health. Bye, take care.

Narrarator 1:03:34

This episode of the Healthy Home hacks podcast has ended. But be sure to subscribe for more healthy living strategies and tactics to help you create the healthy home you always dreamed of. And don't forget to rate and review so we can continue to bring you the best content. See you on the next episode.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai