Are you actually making your health worse?

Welcome to this episode of the #6 ranked stress podcast, where we explore ways to optimize stress and live a happier, healthier life.  In today's episode, Lindsay talks with Josie Warren who is an autoimmune expert focused on helping people reverse illness by letting go of emotional stress. Lindsay Miller, a stress optimization expert will help us explore how Josie's inspiring story and method can help us rethink stress & autoimmune illness. 

Segment 1: Josie's Story

In this segment, Josie shares her history with autoimmune disease beginning when she was relatively young. She talks about the impact it had on her and the ways she tried to manage it. 

Segment 2: Another Way

Lindsay and Josie explore the turning point that led Josie down a different path for working with her emotional stress and her autoimmune disease.  Josie shares how  in less than two months, this simple re-frame made her symptoms dissolve and fade away.

Segment 3: Emotional Stress unpacked

In this segment, Josie talks about her method for working with people and shares the potential for healing that comes when clients decide to address emotional stress. 

Segment 4: Takeaways

In this final segment, Josie shares simple steps for releasing stress and beginning to take better care of ourselves in a sustainable and powerful way.

Conclusion:

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Stress Nanny podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast platform. And don't forget to join us next time as we explore more ways to optimize stress and live a happier, healthier life.

Josie Norwood Warren struggled with autoimmune disorders, severe food allergies, a debilitating eating disorder anorexia, alcoholism, ADD, and anxiety and depression.
She was told by her medical doctors that each of her diagnoses was lifelong and that she just needed to manage them the best she could for the rest of her life. Josie felt crushed, like a lost cause and there was really no hope for her.  Seven years later, Josie is 100 percent healthy and no longer has any of her former conditions. “I feel fully alive not just surviving.” She is passionate and excited about sharing what saved her life with others. Josie knows in her heart that it is her calling to be a beacon of light to show the world that there is another way, that true healing is possible. You can connect with Josie through her website.

Lindsay Miller is a kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and  host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks  and playful laugh. When she's not playing catch with her daughter or  rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using  her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification  to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having  been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications,  Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression  wherever she goes. To sign up for Lindsay's weekly "Calm & Collected" News

Lindsay Miller is a distinguished kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not playing catch with her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes. To sign up for Lindsay's "Calm & Collected" Newsletter click here.

Transcript

Lindsay Miller  0:07  
You're listening to The Stress Nanny podcast and I'm your host, Lindsay Miller. I'm here to help you keep an eye on your family stress levels. In our fast paced lives, the ability to manage stress has never been more important for kids or adults. When it comes to stress, we have two choices we can decrease stress or increase our resilience to it. Here on the number eight ranked stress podcast, I interview experts and share insights to help you do both. When you tune in each week, you'll bring your stress levels down and your resilience up so that stress doesn't get in the way of you living your best life. I'm so glad you're here. 

Well, hello, thanks so much for being here. Today. I am excited to share this episode with you. I talked with Josie Warren. And she helps people realize how they're contributing to their own illness and stress. This is an interesting conversation. And I've had conversations like this myself and initially felt a little uncomfortable because the things that I realized or the insinuation was that I was making myself sick. And it's hard to sit with that thought. But ultimately, there have been a lot of powerful things that have come from conversations like this for me, so I wanted to share this one with you. Feel free to take it in. Know that it might sit a little bit prickly with you at first, but be open minded and see what you can take from it. With that on to the episode. 

Welcome to The Stress Nanny podcast. I'm your host Lindsay Miller and I'm so glad you're here this week for my conversation with Josie Norwood Warren. Josie is a stress expert. She has an autoimmune disorders, depression, anxiety and an eating disorder in her teens and 20s. After years of struggling with traditional therapy in western medicine, even becoming a licensed therapist and working at the Betty Ford Center, she was unable to solve any of her chronic health issues. Thankfully, she found the missing piece that led her to fully heal from all her chronic health disorders. As a former nanny, Josie is passionate about helping others with chronic health disorders heal and create fulfilling lives, especially adolescents and their parents. She is thankful for the gift of her past chronic health issues and lives in gratitude. On today's podcast, she is excited to share the missing piece with The Stress Nanny audience. Josie thanks so much for joining me.

Josie Warren  2:26  
Thank you, Lindsay. It's great to be here excited to share with your audience. And yeah, share my unique perspective. Thank you.

Lindsay Miller  2:33  
Yeah, I'm so excited for it to Josie and I were just talking off camera. And we were saying how there's so much overlap in our stories. And I'm excited to hear hers because even though there are similarities, every story is unique. And there are so many different pieces of it. That kind of like help me wend your way forward. I think of it kind of like a treasure hunt, where you get different pieces that kind of help you sort out how to make it to the place you want to be health wise, stress wise, you know, and so I'm excited to hear what that looks like for you. So give us a little bit of background. I know I just did your intro, we talked about some of the things you struggle with. Talk to me about how those affected your life. Because I know in your bio, and on your website, you talk a lot about how like, it's really demoralizing to get told in your teens and 20s like, Hey, this is it the rest of your life? This is how it's gonna look.

Josie Warren  3:21  
Yes. Yeah, thank you for asking that. Lindsay. You know, for those of you out there who have been diagnosed with a chronic health condition, or maybe an autoimmune disease, it is kind of like a Death Note for me, someone sitting across so are you telling you, hey, you have this condition, and it's going to be lifelong. And so what you can do is what I was told is I can just do the best I can at managing it with the understanding that my conditions were never going to go away. And I started develop these kinds of chronic health conditions in my teens, I'd say arthritis and AD D are probably my first two. And And those were manageable for me, I didn't think much of it. But as the years progressed, and I started to get more problematic, autoimmune diseases and chronic health conditions like you know, Hashimotos, lupus, Ms. I started to really feel like that the life that I had planned for myself was a race. And then suddenly this pathway that I thought that I was going to be on of having a career and you know, hopefully a family and a home and you know, growing old with someone and and adventuring and travel and all these things that just I had envisioned didn't seem possible. And I started over time, living very much day to day, not seeing past the diets and the supplements and the medication and the things I was doing just to kind of survive, and I forgot what it really meant to live. And I'd hadn't realized how much of my dreams I had erased in those years until I got healthy and result are my conditions. And then all of a sudden, I had a future in a life again, and I had possibilities. And it was like the sun came out. So it really, when we have those conditions, from my own experience, it is like living under a very dark cloud where we can't see around us, and we can't see through it. And doctors and specialists, unfortunately don't know how to resolve those conditions.

Lindsay Miller  5:23  
Yeah, this thank you for sharing that. I think that the idea of the sun coming out is such a powerful metaphor, because in my own experience, I know, yeah, I can relate to so much of what you said, I was a little bit older, like in my early 30s. But I felt like the the things that I had seen for myself in the future that I had worked for was slipping away. And there were so many things that I realized I could be doing, that no one was suggesting no one was giving me you know, there were just there wasn't the support there. When I had doctors who are practicing, you know, and doing, they're great at what they did, but they didn't have the whole picture. And they didn't have the ability to help me access, the kind of resources that I needed. And the kind of resources like you're saying that would be effective, immediately, or, you know, within a couple of months, like there's just so many things you can do that change the trajectory. And then I love and can also relate to the part of your story where you're saying, yeah, it takes it took a little bit during that stretch to work through, like, figure the pieces out and understand, you know, you're doing diets and supplements and some things at first, and then you kind of found yourself in a place of a little bit more ease with it. And we're going to talk about that, like how, how you took it from this kind of like rat race of just trying to keep it together and do you know XYZ everyday so that you could just survive to a place where you could manage what you were, you know, what your body was manifesting in a much more easeful and sustainable way that allowed the space for you to then open yourself up to possibility and like, oh, I have I can access this potential. I don't have to be, you know, tethered to these diagnoses and the beauty the prognosis that I was given, you know, years and years ago. So talk to us about what that look like how you were in that space. You're doing all these diets, supplements, I mean, you just like spending so much energy just to have daily function. And then you get to a point where and I love how you call it. Like your stress awakening. Yes. And you just, oh, there's a different piece here. I can be paid attention to talk to us about that.

Josie Warren  7:30  
Yes. Yes. And I love what you shared, Lindsay and I wanted to be clear to to the audience. I mean, and like many out there who possibly are struggling, I mean, years of diets, supplements, medications, I my immune system was so shot, I was on plasma infusions, because they said that I couldn't survive. And if I were to get some kind of illness that it could kill me that my immune system was so messed up. And it was so many 10s of 1000s of dollars spent, you know, different protocols, different diets, I was eating about five foods by the end. And what happened to me is I actually got to a place that I realized nothing I was doing was working, the supplements were not working, my diets were not working. And the medication was clearly not working. Because I felt awful. I continue to get more autoimmune diseases. And thankfully, I realized that because then I led me to a place where I was able to have my kind of my health and stress awakening. And that's a organization that I actually work for now, here in Denver, Colorado, called a new life center. And I was told that they have, they would be able to help someone like me who doctors have no explanation for. And so after getting so sick, I had to leave my career. And, you know, contemplating moving back in with my mom, I decided, okay, I have nothing to lose. Let me come here and see what they have to say. Because every functional alternative and Western medicine doctor, were all telling me basically some version of the same thing. And so when I came here, I sat across the the desk from my now mentor, who is someone who himself used to have autoimmune diseases. And he looked at my big fat stack of paperwork,

Lindsay Miller  9:18  
like huge medical files. Oh

Josie Warren  9:20  
my gosh, I bet. Yeah. I mean, I have over the years, eight conditions and a bunch of other things and all the medications and like the 14 supplements a day it was on and the weird food I was eating and all the things and I was ready to answer anything that he could throw my way because I thought I knew pretty much everything at that point. And he asked me something that no one had ever asked me for. And it really is what changed my life. And he looked at my paperwork and he looked at me and he said, Why are you doing this to yourself? And the floor dropped for me And I knew he was right. And at that moment, I had my health awakening, which was the root cause that I was looking for all that time. I was the root cause. And then when everything made sense, and it was actually something I knew, deep down, just no one had even thought to ask me, where's the knee in all of my conditions. And all the while I was developing all of these autoimmune diseases, and had all these conditions, and everyone was paying all this attention to me, and I was doing all of these weird diets and supplements and seeing all these healers and people, me and how I felt about myself and my emotional state was a serious problem. And it had been growing and building ever since I was little, the turmoil inside of me. My, my inability to handle life was very obvious to me. But it was a fact that I hid for myself and everyone around me. And I knew that I had to be the root cause for why all these conditions happen. They weren't just random. It wasn't my genetics. It wasn't the toxins or the foods or what my family did or didn't do in my upbringing. I knew it had to be me, and to have someone be so blunt and tell me that, that there's a cause and effect with autoimmune disease. And the cause was me, was what I needed to hear. And I had to sit with it for a little bit. For Absolutely, but I knew it was truth. And I said, Okay, this is this, this is different. So I joined their clinical study they were having for chronic illness, where I learned how to resolve the turmoil and the stress, we might call stress that lived inside of me, which was my dialogue and how I was interacting with myself, which was was actually the driving force, I was actually the driving force of my autoimmune diseases. And when I actually stopped focusing on all the foods and the supplements, and all the just really the distractions, and actually turn the light to myself, then my body actually began to heal, my body moved from a sympathetic state to a parasympathetic nervous system state, just kind of simple signs of what happens. And my immune system went back to normal functioning, and I no longer have any of my autoimmune diseases, chronic illnesses, and better better than that I don't have to do. I'm not any diet supplements, regimens. I'm just a normal, happy, healthy woman now. But I just had to fix me. And I had to learn to deal with my emotional state and handle life, which was my solution for every chronic condition. And that's actually the approach that I take with all my students now. And all the adolescents and adults I work with, and they are all able to resolve their conditions to without diets or supplements or medication or other types of symptom management.

Lindsay Miller  13:00  
That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. I think there's so much power in shifting that perspective. And I think also, for anyone who's listening right now, there also is a bit of you mentioned, you spoke to it, like it feels at first, like a bit of a What am I the word I'm looking for is like a jab, right? Like it kind of strikes you. Because you hear that and you think, like, Wait, well, I can't, you know, like, no way it's not me or, you know that there's just like a knee jerk reaction. Sometimes that can come when someone talks to us, like you said so bluntly and says, Hey, like, what if, what if this is mostly you? Like, what if, what if you change the way you treat yourself or live your life and that resolves it? And in my experience has been interesting, because I think that there's a hesitancy sometimes to sit with that discomfort. Right? Like, I remember the first time a doctor told me that and I was like, What are you talking about? You know, like, you are crazy. What are you What are you talking about? And then I think like, the more you like you said, sit with it. And then you're like, oh, you know, I guess there is a problem if the body that I'm inhabiting rec doesn't recognize me as a safe space, you know, like immunity like that's its core. It is like attacking us. But yeah, like attacking like I am, I am the problem. Like, oh, maybe yeah, maybe the way I'm using this body is not the like you said, allowing my immune system to recognize life and you know, me a safe space. And again, like the implications of that are widespread and we're gonna get into some of those but I love like your bravery to sit in it and engage with it right off. It took me a little while to be a little bit more open to that. Right condition of healing. But I love that you're just like, Yeah, send me yet. Let's do the clinical study. Let's do like, I'm ready to go. And let me let me just like figure this out.

Josie Warren  15:10  
Yeah, thank you. I had, I had to Lindsey because I got, it got too far for me, I played with fire for too long. And when I started getting more problematic conditions, it wasn't just oh, this is fun, I get to be taken care of anymore. This was oh, this is scary. This could actually like end my life early. And then I had to see what am I, I gotta stop I'm, I'm kind of like addicted to how I was treating myself and how, how unhealthy I was handling my life, I needed someone to come in and say you need to stop, you need to change. It's your body, my body. And when we have an odd immune disease, this is my perspective. Our bodies is attacking itself. It's learning how to attack itself, because it's picking up on us attacking ourselves. It mimics how we interact with ourself. And then we wonder why we get autoimmune diseases and why we can't handle our life or why we're so chronically stressed. It's us. And that's a really good thing. I want people to know if they're shocked and say, oh my gosh, it can't be like I'm saying you have to know it's 100%, then you can actually heal. And the wonderful thing is that knowing that it's us, then we can fix us. And that's what I did. That's what I teach my students when we think it's our environment, that's the scariest most out of control experience that's out of our locus of control out of our change. And we can't do anything about that. Thus, we have our conditions lifelong. If my conditions are simply coming from me which my experience they are, then I fix me and I heal.

Lindsay Miller  16:51  
Yeah, I'm glad you brought up locus of control. I was wanting to touch touch on that during our conversation, because I think that, again, at least for me, and for the people that I've seen and worked with the the shift from external locus of control, like everything is outside of my control to internal, like, it takes a bit. It takes support. And it also takes bravery, because it does feels a little scary at first right to be like, wait, we wait, like, I have to reverse this train wreck. Like

Josie Warren  17:23  
I I created the train wreck? No, no, in my family.

Lindsay Miller  17:29  
Yeah. And now it's my job to like, send it back and the other direction. And. And I think that, like the work that you do, and just the space that you provide, to kind of assist people on that journey is so valuable, because one of the things that I think is imperative, when you start to take that like sense of control and make it internal, like, Okay, I have control over my life in so many massively huge ways. If you're not used to thinking that it feels overwhelming, right? Like, it's super scary. And that's where it can be so helpful to have somebody kind of there who's walked through it. And like, I know, I know, I know, this scary part is going to last for just a bit, and then it's going to start to feel like, whoa, I'm amazing, you know, you're gonna start to really, like build the momentum. But yeah, that juncture between going from thinking everything's outside of our control to realizing all the myriad things that are in it, it's, it's a

Josie Warren  18:23  
lot. Yeah, I love that. And yeah, that's really, it is the process of healing from autoimmune and chronic illness is the journey from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system, which is actually the journey of moving from an external locus of control, which is feeling like our world is happening to us to move into an internal locus of control, and realizing that I am in control of my life, and the choices and decisions I make in it. And I always just like to tell people, it can feel scary, but actually, it's kind of empowering, because it's just realizing that there's another pathway that we'd never knew existed. And we've never been taught of how to live life, where we're actually in the driver's seat, and not living in the passenger seat anymore. And it's really I find for people to cross over. It's just learning that there is another way of living life, like we just haven't been taught. So that's why all I do I teach education. It's about educating us to live life in a way where our choices and decisions matter, and that we are fully in control and responsible for our life and thus can also be fully in control and responsible for our health and healing, as well.

Lindsay Miller  19:34  
I love that. It's such great metaphors in there too. And I totally agree that like, the education is the key piece. I was talking to somebody the other day, just a friend of mine, and we were talking about some stuff her daughter's navigating. And I was like, have you looked at alternative ways to manage this? Have you looked at some of the different things that are in control because it was like this spiral of helplessness happening? That was just perpetuating itself, you know? Anyway, it was it was just so interesting. And I love that moment every time, you know whether it's with a client or whether it's with someone that you know, just know, where they're like, Wait, this isn't the only way. And like you're, like learning is so powerful Well, and that's where talk to me about this in terms of like the Western model just so we can give like a comparison, like when we go to experts, like, what is the disconnect? Because you're saying, like, I, you are seeing so many experts, and you're thinking like, I have all the pieces, like I've seen so many doctors, there cannot possibly be a piece of this puzzle that I have, you know, not come across yet. And then you sit down and you realize, like, oh my gosh, like, there's actually a massive piece that has been missing this whole time. So what is like, where are experts experiencing a disconnect, and I mean, I, I have friends who are doctors, I love doctors. I think that's that's it great. And I also think that a lot of people aren't looking for that kind of medicine yet. And so that's not what's being practiced. And I think that as the more of us that kind of are looking for it, the more there'll be a market for it, the more doctors will be able to practice it, because I think a lot of them would like to address the root cause also, but talk to me about right now, what's the disconnect?

Josie Warren  21:13  
Yes. That's a great question, Lindsay. I, and again, before I say this, yes, doctors are important. Specialists are important. They're really good at what they're trained at. Yeah, you know, but unfortunately, they don't have a solution for chronic illnesses and autoimmune diseases. That's why they are called chronic health conditions, meaning they're saying these are ongoing conditions, we don't have a solution for and from my experience, that are an even this is I found this to be true in an alternative and functional medicine additional to Western, everyone has been so ingrained in this one way of looking at the problem. And the problem is they're looking at the body. They think that the malfunction in our body is the problem. So they go and try to treat the different kinds of malfunctions. So let's say you have a leaky gut, they're gonna go in and going to say, Okay, you take these supplements and do this bloodwork and do this cleanse. Or let's say you get diagnosed with Hashimotos. And if you see someone an endocrinologist, they're going to put you on levothyroxine, which is a thyroid medication. Or maybe you see someone that's more alternative, and they're going to do more, or a nutritionist, and they're gonna say, Well, you know, you have MS, you need to go on the AIP diet and autoimmune protocol, diet, or gluten, you need to be gluten free, or you need to be sugar free. We're they're working on the symptom, or not working on what's actually going on. The real question is, why has my immune system gone haywire? That's the real question. It's not why do I have hair loss? Or why do I have a leaky gut is? Why? What is this all really coming from? And when you look at the body, you'll never find a solution. So that's where they get lost. In my perspective, they can't, they're in a dark room with no lights on looking for different things. Meanwhile, the body is always in a state of disrepair, so it's gonna continue to throw out more symptoms. And we'll be doing that for the rest of our lives, continuing to do symptom management. So what I realize is, they have to realize they have to get out of symptom management and start to question, why is the body malfunctioning? Because our bodies were born healthy, they're born to be adaptive. They're born to be able to handle toxins and bacterias. And pathogens, why is this person's body not able to handle it. And they have to realize that autoimmune and chronic illnesses, they're not a disease of the body, they're actually a disease of the mind. And that's where they have everything. That's where they don't understand. And that's where that's where I come in. And that's where our perspective is, is that it's actually a disease of me, and my mind, and my emotional state, that is the driving force that creates the malfunctions in my body, that creates the immune system that goes out of control that creates me getting stuck in a fight or flight state, in the sympathetic nervous system. It's coming from me and how I in my mind in perceiving and understanding life, and no specialist, alternative functional or Western or doctor is ever looking in that place ever, for as a as a as a resolving for chronic conditions. So they're telling us that the best we can do is remission, which to me is very sad because I want people to know that no, actually the best we can. There's a step beyond that which means actually our body goes completely back to normal functioning, immune system back to normal functioning and we never have to do any diet supplements or medications again, to maintain that, and that's called Healthy. And that only happens when we look at these as a disease of the mind, not a disease of the body.

Lindsay Miller  25:09  
Thank you for that. Talk to me about that shift that you kind of walk people through. And maybe this is part of coping skills, but like, what, what do you find are the, the key patterns that come up, when you are making the shift? And I, you know, the phrasing, like moving into parasympathetic dominance. That's something that I think is so big. And I think it's gaining attention, but it's not nearly as prevalent as what we need it to be, you know, like in our society. So talk to me about that. Talk to me about some of the key patterns you see. And then how you shift those patterns so that people can move from fight or flight into just that steady, mellow. Melo, like body can repair and adjust and adapt space.

Josie Warren  25:59  
Yeah, that's great question. So some of the patterns I see is, well, first, I'll just say that, whether it's an adolescent, whether it is a teacher, whether it's a lawyer, or whether it's a retiree, if it's someone that has a chronic health condition, like let's say chronic pain, asthma, migraines, or it's someone with an autoimmune disease, we're all the same kind of people. We're all if people have the same kind of fabric in the same kind of cloth, or all people I found who were just born into this world, not well wired to handle life. So when life happens and stressors in life happens, we're, we're not well attuned and accustomed to handling it in healthy ways. So what I have found in everyone I work with when they come in, and how I used to be, and I'll speak for for just using I language is, I was very emotionally, up and down. Although I pretended like I was fine. Anyone would have said, Oh, she's great. And I was a total mess on the inside. I worried about things that hadn't happened yet. I criticize myself and others, I was always nitpicking myself and wanting to be a little bit different or a little bit better, always worried about what was going to happen next, getting caught up easily in world events or events in my family or events around us. That's what we do. Just as some examples. When we're autoimmune chronic illness people, it's just kind of our nature, we don't handle life well. Because inside of us, there's a lot of emotional upheaval and turmoil that we've created by that constant, beating ourselves up thinking there's something wrong with us wish she'd be with someone else, always feeling like there's something missing in us. Not never happy, always feeling like there's just some one more thing I could get that would be that missing piece. And unfortunately, that's created really unhealthy, or really unhealthy ability to handle everyday events of life. So I think first for for kind of that process, Lindsay, someone first has to realize, oh, it's the reason I feel the way I do, which is what's causing my conditions. It isn't the world around me. It's not actually my kids. It's not my husband, it's not the world events. It's not what happened when I was 16. It's actually me now, and how I feel about myself on the inside. So my experience is coming from inside of me, it's not happening outside. That's an internal locus coming from me versus external happening to me. And I always like to tell people example of flying on an airplane, you know, we've all flown on airplanes. And just to illustrate, it's not our life, we think about the different kinds of stress responses, people can have to the same flight. You go on a flight you survey, you can see someone's got a bad barf bag out there. You know, someone might be taking Xanax next to you another person, like maybe he's just really nervous and as you know, has their their book or you can see them sweating a little bit. There's other people who maybe like my sister are napping already, and it hasn't even taken off yet. There's so relaxed. So it's not the airplane, right? It's not our life, it's us and how we are responding. And that's what we are in control of. And if we can get a hold of our emotional state and learn how to feel good about ourselves and in and resolve the turmoil that lives inside of us. Well, then we're going to be able to handle our life. We're gonna feel good about ourselves. Our life's gonna look completely different. It's not going to feel stressful. We're not going to be wanting to like run away from the kids and get a divorce right away and move to Bali and do the you know, eat A love thing, we're going to realize we want our life that we have. And the beautiful thing is the body picks up on this and will heal and self repair too.

Lindsay Miller  30:08  
Thank you for sharing that. That's so that's it's such an interesting, like dynamic. And I, you know, like with, with reflection, like the simplicity of what you just described, you know, like, there's like an inherent simplicity to it. But the tricky part is like the day to day modifications, right, and like, retraining and re kind of just like, read us that reorienting ourselves to stress to life events to you know, someone near us struggling to conflict to, you know, all those different things play, play a role. So talk to me about like, as people are recognizing this, and I know, for me, one of the first things I go to is kids, like if we're, if we as adults are struggling with this, like, how can we make it so kids are, you know, not so how do we kind of stem the tide of this external locus of control earlier, rather than later?

Josie Warren  31:11  
Yeah, well, I love that because, and I know I can speak to the people out there, it can probably feel very overwhelming of like, oh, my gosh, I have to change how I am at work, I have to change our game at home, I have to change volume when I think no one's watching. Most importantly, I have to be better, I have to stop all those things that I've been doing. And of course, we can get overwhelmed. And then we don't do anything at all. And then we just keep spinning around. And so I like to tell people, please know that this is actually very, very simple. It's such a simple process, that I actually teach it to very young children. And I modified of course, but I teach it to young children and to people who are like 75, and everyone in between. And first off, if you're out there, and you have kids, and you're like, Yes, I need to teach my kids how to handle life differently, you need to stop. And the first step is actually you need to change. And I say that with a lot of love. But I guarantee but 100% guarantee, you will see no changes in your children whatsoever, and will never be able to implement anything in them. If you're still a mess. If you're still not handling your life, well, if you're still spinning, if you still have that turmoil, and are still beating yourself up and struggling on the inside, day to day, so our children are a mirror to us. So if you have a child that is highly stressed, you have a child that throws tons of temper tantrums or is acting out, or is has behavioral issues. Please note, they're just showing you what's going on inside of you. And that will not change if we focus on them. First, we have to focus as the parent on ourself. And I'm also saying this as someone who was a nanny for five years and lived intimately with families seeing the ins and outs every day. And parents would always wonder why do they listen to you? Why are they calm with you? Why and then the parents would come down and the kids would go crazy. Let's because I was handling myself and dealing with myself and my emotional state. That's why they were picking up on that. So I'll share with you the very simple tip, I guess you could call it a tip or tool that you can use with children. But most importantly, you have to use it with yourself first. And the problem is, is we have never learned how to parent ourselves as adults. While we're trying to parent our kids, all the while we're not parenting ourselves. And we know it in parenting herself means doing what we know we need to do, even and especially when we don't want to do it. And so what the problem of why we feel so have so much turmoil and insight because you might be asking, well, if it's me and my emotional state, why do I have so much turmoil? It's not your upbringing, it's us. It's the fact that we have never learned how to take care of ourselves. And even though we're adults, we have are living with a grown up child that lives on the inside of us that wants to do what it wants to do when it wants to do it doesn't want anyone telling us how to do it, or what to do or when to do it. And as long as we have that grunt that child on the inside of us, our children are always going to act out. So we have to learn to parent ourselves first. And the way you do that, is you pick one small thing. One small thing to parent yourself on you don't pick like I'm going to lose 20 pounds. Don't kick like I'm going to go do intermittent fasting now or I'm going to stop, you know, maybe smoking or I'm going to stop sugar. No, you're going to pick one tiny small thing that you know you need to do. You're not doing something very small, like every night before you go to bed that all the dishes are out of your sink and they're put away. Or maybe you're someone who doesn't wash their face So you decide you're going to wash your face. Or even this one, maybe you're someone who comes home, and you throw your shoes on in a corner instead of putting them away. And those shoes create a pile. Every day you put your shoes back where they belong when you come home. Or maybe you're someone who doesn't make your bed, it's okay, I was used to be someone like that, too. So, every morning, you make your bed, and you do this for a week. And you're gonna know that as you're doing this, expect that you're gonna have temper tantrums, just like your kids do. Because the child inside of you doesn't like the structure of this, it doesn't want to be told what to do that's good, and supportive and healthy. And so you've got to love yourself through these temper tantrums, you're going to have, which is going to be you ignoring it, telling yourself you don't have time, saying you forgot, you know, just flat out forgetting falling asleep on the couch and not being able to brush the teeth or wash the face, or whatever it is, you might pick, and do it for a week or two. And find out what happens. And what you're gonna find is that you're going to learn that you're cared for, you're going to learn to feel good about yourself, and that you're worth doing the small, tiny thing for and then all of a sudden, you're going to notice you're going to be doing other things in your house, like that pile of papers will suddenly disappear. Or, you know, you're gonna get dressed in the morning, instead of seeing your pjs long term. Or you're gonna realize you don't really need that extra cup of coffee, but it's all going to happen naturally. So starting with something small, then snowballs into the big things, you have to build the muscle with the small thing. And then you start to feel good and capable and competent and proud, just by doing one small thing. And that actually resolves all that old inner turmoil and chaos and drama and pain and emotional turmoil that's going on inside of you, which was really only happening because you weren't taking care of yourself. And you were kinda like, the kid whose parents went out of town for a month, they just felt like a mess. So when you start, you know, we all know, we all have your word, that kid or had that friend, when you start actually being a good parent to yourself, you heal, whether that's emotionally which happens. But also if you have a chronic health condition, then your body calms down, slow down, you can handle life, you feel good about yourself, your body moves from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic, and begins to heal. But also, if you have kids, guess what they're picking up on, you caring for yourself and parenting yourself. And then they start to calm down on the inside. And then they start to parent themselves. And you can practice this with children, maybe it's something like they start to do their toys, after you know, before naptime every day, or you have some kind of structure there. But please, no, you can't do the kids unless you're actively doing this for yourself and practice it and are understanding it, and are learning to parent yourself. So you have to do you first. And that's why all the kids I've worked with, they actually listen to me. And they trust me. And they're calm around me and they care and they can hear me because they know and they can feel I am parenting and caring for myself. So parents be a parent to yourself. That's the solution for for your your stress, your child's stress, and any kind of autoimmune disease or condition that you have. And that's one of one of the main principles that I teach. And if that's all I taught and really focused in with someone on that, and they got it and they did it, and they did it for themselves. That would be all they need.

Lindsay Miller  38:29  
That's really powerful. Thank you for sharing that. And for those examples. It reminds me of the broken window theory. Be familiar with that. So Rudy Giuliani when he was the mayor of New York, when he was like a big crime problem, there was a lot, you know, just so many things to kind of manage, and it fell out of control all of it. And he's like, okay, the way we're gonna start to address this is we're gonna fix the broken windows in the subway. And they were like, What are you talking about, like subway car broken windows are the least like worrisome thing, like we need to be, you know, worried about like the shootings and the gang activity. And we need to be, you know, just adjusting these really large scale massive out of control problems. I knew was like, No, Malcolm Gladwell talks about this broken window theory, but he was like, No, we need to address the small thing first, because it sends a signal ever to anyone who steps into a subway system that we care for our subways. So we care for our subways. Like if we care for our subway cars, we definitely care about the kids on our streets. We definitely care you know what I mean? And so I love that. Yeah, just reminded me of that, you know, as you were talking because I think, for ourselves, especially as parents, it's so powerful that you shared it. It's so easy, so easy to be like, I can put that aside I don't need to worry about that for myself. I'm gonna focus on my kids and my focus on life at work, you know, whatever the thing is, but to really like address the broken windows when it comes to our self care, like I realized Just the other day, I was like, Okay, you need to make a rule for yourself that you don't wear clothes that are stained or have holes in them. You know what I mean? I was like, it seems like a really simple thing, right? But I was like, you know, I had socks like holding the bottom or like a T shirt, you know that I really loved that like little stain right here from cooking. And like, over time, those small things, they do send a really big message, you know, and whether it's the way we think about ourselves, whether it's the way we care for ourselves, like, addressing those tiny things. I love that so much, and taking care of our own, like broken windows, in terms of our self care. And I love that you're saying don't start with cleaning up crime in New York, right? Like don't so you can say no, don't start with how to have enough energy to get through your day. Start with making sure you have a good pair of shoes. You know, start with making sure you know, like you said that, like you have some clean dishes. Start there. Make your bed. Let that let that carry you. Yeah, that's such a such powerful insight. Josie, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you recession, talk to us more about how people can find you.

Josie Warren  41:08  
Yeah, so like to everyone out there to know. So my website is the Hashimotos fix.com. It will be in the show notes. But please know, while I work with Hashimotos, I work with all autoimmune diseases, chronic health conditions, and I work with most all ages as well. And one of my passions is working with adolescents, in addition to all you adults out there. And what I teach is a 10 week program that teaches people how to move from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system by resolving the chaos and the drama and the stress that's inside of us. So that we can learn to live healthy, productive lives. I just teach people how to do life. And we have to realize that we are the root cause. And when we do that, the body heals itself repairs. So you can find me on my website. And also, if what I shared today spoke to you you have a question maybe like, brought something up that you don't agree with? That is great, too. I love hearing from everyone. You can also find me at Josie. That's J O S i e at the Hashimotos fixed.com. And yeah, just know that your health conditions can be resolved. And that's when I'm very passionate about teaching people and we are the answer to do so.

Lindsay Miller  42:26  
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks again for being here.

Josie Warren  42:29  
Yeah, thank you.

Lindsay Miller  42:31  
Well, what did you think I know Josie and I are both curious about your take on this episode. And whether you had any insights or observations that came to you as you were listening. Again, I know this can be a conversation or a topic that can be uncomfortable. So let yourself sit with it for a day or two and see if anything else kind of comes to you as you're sitting with it. And also know that it's super empowering, to take this perspective, because when we realize that things that are in our control, we also realize that there's a lot in our control to change or fix. And that is a powerful place to be. Thanks again for listening. 

You've just finished an episode of The Stress Nanny podcast. So hopefully you feel a little more empowered when it comes to dealing with stress. Feel free to take a deep breath and let it out slowly as you go back to your day. I'm so glad you're here. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for your support. It really means the world to me. If you're new, I'd love to have you follow the podcast and join me each week. And no matter how long you've been listening, please share this episode with someone who is stressed out. If you enjoyed the show, would you please do me a favor and go to ratethispodcast.com/thestressnanny and leave a review. The link is in the show notes. I'm so grateful for all my listeners. Thank you again for being here. Until next time!

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