Futurist(Mom)

nancy giordano: Welcome to the Futurist Mom, where today we're tackling something every parent and every person recognizes.

But few of us know how to address just how to cope with feelings of fear and overwhelm.

And in turn, help our kids do the same.

'cause while our children are navigating a world that moves faster than any generation before, traditional advice like just calm down or be brave isn't working.

In fact, it often makes things worse.

As a mom, I can say that it's absolutely true.

I have proof.

Hi, I am Nancy Jordano, a futurist author, and yes, mom of three who wants all kids to feel confident and well prepared to thrive in this fast changing, but I believe extraordinary future.

And today we get to talk with a real expert on the topic.

Dr. Mary Pro Roth is a Bios psychologist and fear researcher who believes we've gotten fear all wrong.

Instead of treating it as the enemy, Mary's groundbreaking work shows us how to transform fear into a tool for growth, courage, and resilience.

First generation college student who began her career at NASA's astrobiology unit.

Mary has dedicated her life to understanding how we do scary things, and importantly, how we can help our kids do them better.

Mary holds a PhD in psychology and three Master's degrees and has taught nearly 20,000 students at San Jose State University since 2007.

Her award-winning new book, brave New You Strategies, tools, and Neuro Hacks to Live More Courageously every day translates this cutting edge neuroscience into practical techniques.

Mary will share the science back neuro hacks that can help children move from feeling constantly triggered to calmly thriving tools that don't just help them cope, but actually rewire how they respond to fear and uncertainty.

Welcome to the Futurist Mom.

Mary, we're so relieved to have you here.

Hello, Mary,

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: in a mild

nancy giordano: that you're in this conversation with us, actually, a really needed conversation.

So I'm not just excited.

I'm relieved to have this conversation with you.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Excited to have this conversation with you, Nancy.

It's again, like you said, needed and I think a really unique opportunity to explore these big topics that a lot of times are not talked about and they really need to

nancy giordano: Well, and I mentioned it in your intro, but I'll just.

You know, emphasize the fact that you've got these three intelligences that are woven together an understanding of our biology and understanding of psychology.

And you spent time literally getting a master's in how to communicate the science to those of us who don't spend as much time with it as enticingly and as clearly as possible.

So I really appreciate that you're gonna.

Give us a, an example of how you do that because there are so many questions that we have around this conversation of fear and what it really, you know, does for us or against us.

There's a friend of mine who, once he's raised in the Christian science and he was taught that fear, the acronym is false Evidence appearing real.

Have you ever heard that before?

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: be.

Mary Poffenroth: Have, I have, and, and sometimes that's true.

And sometimes those fears are very real.

And to

nancy giordano: Right.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: them doesn't remove their power.

It just makes them worse.

And now you feel ashamed for being afraid of things like climate change and you know, ice and all of these things that we're having to deal with.

Mary Poffenroth: In the 2020s, like a global pandemic.

Those are very real fears.

And to say they, oh, it's just in your mind that's A not true.

And B makes the person feel just really dismissed and that they should just suck it up and not, you know, feel feelings.

'cause that's totally a healthy way to live.

Mary Poffenroth:

nancy giordano: Well, so let's just just back up and have this whole conversation.

What got you really interested in studying fear?

Not so much from your personal story yet, but just like from a curiosity perspective.

There's so many things you'd be applying as extraordinary intelligence of yours toward, but somehow fear really was the thing that.

Was most curious to you?

Was it just understudied?

Do you think that we just have such a misunderstanding of the role that fear, what it is and the role that it plays in our lives?

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Do you think it's really multifaceted for me and for me, there's.

A really hard.

Kind of answer to give, to pull apart my personal story with my professional one, because they're completely intertwined.

There's not really a stop and start point to who I am as a person and what I do professionally.

And you had mentioned, I have a very traditional background in biology and psychology and science communication.

Mary Poffenroth: But those things were always something that I felt were part of.

It's the same vertical.

Even though if you talk to many biologists and traditional scientists in chemistry or physics, many people still don't believe psychology is a science, and that's a different discussion altogether.

But for me.

I think that especially when looking at such a complex organism like humans, you can't just say, oh, I only am going to look at the physiology.

Mary Poffenroth: I'm only gonna look at the anatomy.

I'm only gonna look at.

wrong with our psychology, which is the traditional background of psychology, what was broken about us, and if you really want to operate within the kind of human optimization space,
you have to really understand and pull together all of these things because we spend every day that we're alive utilizing these different systems and they all interact with one another.

Mary Poffenroth: In terms of what drew me to fear as, and You know, conversely fear and courage as a way to study, is that wasn't really anything
that I could find around science-based tools that people could use with just everyday normal experiences of how we move through the world.

And a lot of the studies, a lot of the tools out there were.

Mary Poffenroth: In effort to help those that had a pathology of some kind, let's say a phobia or severe anxiety that is in a clinical setting.

I'm a nonclinical psychologist, meaning that I don't work with patients, but I work in human optimization and wanted to create a set of tools that I wish I had when I was growing up that I wish I had in college, and I didn't.

Mary Poffenroth: There was no discussion of these things.

They're definitely not in my household, not in any of my.

Schooling, whether that was K 12 or university.

And I think that looking back, I could have, and I feel like, you know, I've done a lot in my life being a first generation college student and you know, having the background that I idea that we can get into later.

Mary Poffenroth: I've done a lot of things that I really wasn't born to do and, but I imagine I could do so much more and have other bigger adventures if I had these tools when I was growing up or even in college.

nancy giordano: You know, so, because I think about the, the name of my company is Play Big.

I've been so influenced by Marian Williamson's essay

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Mary Poffenroth: Mm.

Yes.

nancy giordano: about not, it's not our fear, it's our greatness that we're sometimes most intimidated by, and that our playing small doesn't serve the world.

This whole idea about playing big, but really it's about getting fear.

Out of the way.

If

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Yep.

nancy giordano: there's that wonderful saying that says everything you want is on the other side of fear.

And yet I feel like we're very gripped by it and increasingly so, and we're watching it, I think trickle into our families and into our children's lives and into their sense of self younger and younger and younger.

And I think this is a, why this is a conversation at this moment in time is so important.

You're also a professor, right?

You work with college students and have for many, many years.

Are you seeing a shift in their how they.

Experience or feel?

Fear like is it, has it gone up?

Are they able to talk about it more?

Like what is the shift that you may have seen in working with students?

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Yeah, I think that in terms of feeling, it absolutely continues to ratchet up each and every year.

And there's those fears are, are changing.

They're, I feel, you know, like becoming a. More piled on than they have been in other years.

And just continue to pile these things on, on our students and our kids.

Mary Poffenroth: And we're not giving them any way to release that tension, to move through that tension.

We're just giving them more and more to be worried about, to be anxious about And in my kind of observations, I feel that that are in.

right now are more comfortable talking about these things than they were when I first started teaching almost 20 years ago.

Part of that I. think, is because they have this ability to connect to one another in digital spaces, but also on the other side of that digital spaces are making them more anxious.

nancy giordano: that's interesting, Right.

Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: they don't get to live in a nice little bubble of, let's say, You know, you you went to a, traditional university at 18 you are just living on campus and it's just you and your friends and your classes And it's hard.

Mary Poffenroth: But you're living in this beautiful little bubble, let's say in the early nineties where if it was something really big, it made it to the news.

But for the most part, it was local stuff.

It was worried about.

your finals and, worried about, oh, you know, what do I wanna do with my life?

and these, these normal things.

Mary Poffenroth: and now we get to experience fear on a global by minute type of thing.

And our brains just weren't designed to do that And we are overwhelmed.

We don't have like our just brain physically can't understand the level of Emotional strife and geopolitical struggle that we're constantly being bombarded with.

Mary Poffenroth: And if we don't have ways to deal with this, it's not, things aren't gonna get better for us health wise.

It's not gonna get better for us in terms of what we can do to change our world.

Because if we are in hyper vigilance, if we're an overwhelm, we just wanna stay in our blankets.

We don't wanna go out and change the world.

Mary Poffenroth: We're just trying to survive.

Mary Poffenroth:

nancy giordano: And the lack of control that children in particular have around it.

You know, you could decide if you're afraid of violence in your neighborhood, that you could decide not to go to the post office or not to go to a big concert or whatever.

You know, my teenage son at one point was afraid of going to movie theaters when so much of this stuff was going on.

But you can't, you know, kids can't say, I don't wanna go to school.

And so they have really figured out of, of some way, I guess, of metabolizing, you know, more about what's going inside their bodies than I do, but to somehow just like, you know, keep going forward.

I think we've developed, I'm sure all kinds of interesting coping strategies that we'll have to go back and examine, you know, 20 years from now.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth: Yes.

Mary Poffenroth: I know definitely and think about, energy is, is finite.

Not even children have an infinite pool of energy, and if they're having to devote so.

physical, emotional,

nancy giordano: Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: energy to things like worrying about active shooter drills in first grade.

That means that energy can't be put into positive things like growing, learning experiencing joy, truly playing without feeling that kind of low level fear.

Mary Poffenroth: 'cause fear is not just a You know, either a 10 or a zero.

It's, you know, it's on a continuum and, and what is that going to do to their development?

You know, like developing minds as they're not focused on expansion, that we are afraid, we're focused on staying small, staying hidden, and trying not to make waves, not trying to grow and expand and, you know, it'll.

Mary be something that our entire society is going to have to, to have to reckon with.

And I think that a lot of that, you know, the kids that were young when we first started doing active shooter drill drills here in the United States
I don't remember when that first started, but I wanna say that they're probably already either coming into college age now or, or just about and.

Mary Poffenroth: think we're, we're absolutely going to see the negative impacts of that.

Also on things like innovation, because if you wanna innovate, you have to be comfortable with risk.

And

nancy giordano: Right.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: to physically innovate, as you know, you have to have your prefrontal cortex engaged and online.

And that doesn't happen when you're in a fear arousal, if your amygdala's fired up.

Mary Poffenroth: Your prefrontal cortex, that is that seat of innovation just doesn't work.

And so how are we gonna come up with these new solutions to complex problems all of our brains are just stuck

nancy giordano: Right.

Oh my God, that's such a huge thought.

That's a really.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: mode.

Mary Poffenroth: Hmm.

Yeah.

Mary

nancy giordano: put an application together to be able to attend.

It was not choosing whether or not you could go or not go.

It was literally just a way of being able to ensure that people who were attending weren't doing it because they wanted to be there, not because their parents forced 'em to be there, or their teacher was giving them credit like.

We were gonna do all kinds of really, you know, interesting content.

We wanted to make sure that students, and this was middle and high school students were coming because they really, you know, had a, a natural curiosity.

We'd rather have, you know, a hundred really curious kids than 500 kids that were forced to be there was kind of our thinking.

And so we asked people to put together an application.

Over that period of time here, we saw less and less and less kids being willing to take an, you know, to do a, an, you know, basically an application to attend because of the fear of rejection.

And it became so acute that we started calling it something else.

And finally we just described it as an expression of interest so that it would be non-threatening for people to go because they just
felt like there were, and again, we're seeing this not only like the existential stuff that we're talking about in terms of in their.

Kindergarten classrooms or in their neighborhoods, but also like trying to apply for a job right now and getting constantly rejected and feeling that sense of, you know, I dunno, fear would be the right word, but I'm sure fear is a part of that, like feeling.

You don't understand the system and you don't understand where you fit in it.

And so you do, you start to see them play smaller.

Which is the opposite For a woman and a mom who wants the whole world to play big right now.

So I'm super again, grateful that you have taken the time to share your work and to write a book about it that we can all learn more from.

Because I think that we can have a lot of and I do wanna delve more, I think into the, what we know and what we don't understand about fear and, and sort of dimensionalize it and pull it apart.

Because also as parents, we're carrying it and our kids, our kids are feeling it.

So even if their lives were perfect and they weren't facing all these things inside their classrooms or in their neighborhoods, they feel our fear around whether or not
AI is gonna take our job or whether or not we can trust someone with our data or whether or not we feel like the world is gonna somehow hold us well as we move forward.

So there's multi-levels of this that we've got to learn to better understand, better tease apart, and to create.

You know, pathways past or antidotes to which your work is very hopeful in helping us understand the role that courage plays in this encourage building and how we can improve our muscles around that and continue our practice of that.

So, what?

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: courage is a practice.

And,

nancy giordano: Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: coming back to that idea, kids.

coworkers, people that we don't even know know when we are in fear because of the power of our, our mirror neurons, that it is an evolutionary.

Advantageous way that our species has survived by understanding when someone else is afraid of something.

Mary Poffenroth: Because maybe we should be afraid of that thing because maybe they see something that we don't.

So if they're gonna run, we should run and it's something that we're not necessarily going to understand is happening.

But you, you feel it and you know it.

And especially if you know that person.

So even though as a parent you may be.

Mary Poffenroth: Telling your kids, no, I'm fine.

Yeah.

no, fine.

Totally fine.

They know you're lying

nancy giordano: They can feel well, they, they can feel you're lying.

Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Yep.

Yeah.

they could.

They may not be able to articulate it or pinpoint it, but if you are afraid and you're letting that seep out and you're not being honest about
it, not only do they know that you're lying now they're starting to lose trust in you in the same way with leaders to teams, because they.

Mary Poffenroth: They can't put their, you know, like exact pinpoint on what, but something, something's off.

And you're not telling them you are like, oh, no, no, no.

It's in your, it's in your imagination.

Nope, nope, nope.

Mommy's fine.

It's fine.

And of course not all topics are going to be appropriate to share.

Like not all struggles are gonna be appropriate to share with all kids, you know, in the moment.

Mary Poffenroth: But, you know, changing that conversation.

Around.

Even if it's not specific, you're like, oh, you know what, you're right.

You know?

Mommy is kind of dealing with a lot at work today.

I don't wanna get into it, but thank you for picking up that I am and not feeling great, or I'm feeling a bit nervous about stuff and that could be a really great way to open it up.

Mary Poffenroth: Like, you know, was there anything that you felt nervous about this week or today?

As like an invitation to also say, okay, yeah, you are right, you are totally right.

I, I am, I don't need to say I'm worried about AI specifically.

'cause depending on the age.

The kid might be like, what?

But an opportunity to be like, yeah, let's, let's share in this totally normal, not shameful way that our brains are perceiving threat in our world.

Mary Poffenroth: And if we can create a way to share back and forth, then it makes it safe to have those struggles in community, which that in and of itself will decrease fear.

nancy giordano: I think this is a lesson that I'm learning of, as I've mentioned in other podcast episodes before about this conversation
I had with my son about the things that he was afraid of recently, and I think that was basically the, the, the, the plea he had with me.

Which is not only does he want to feel understood when he is expressing that with me, but he does wanna feel closer to me.

Right.

That authentic connection that you talked about, that's so important that when we're able to feel like there's a safe place to be able to express
our fear and someone can hold it, or you feel like they trust you with theirs, that it does create a much deeper connection around all that.

So, I'm learning around it too.

You know, it's funny because I

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: We're all here

nancy giordano: just too much.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: right?

I

nancy giordano: it's funny 'cause on the one hand my daughter thinks that I don't carry a lot of anxiety, right?

I sleep really well.

I'm not a really anxious person.

I I'm a futurist, literally because I wanted to not be blindsided.

I wanted to be able to get ahead, you know, I'd rather just know what's coming and then learn to strategically navigate it than like put my head in the stand and be blindsided by it.

That's just become my coping

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Oh

nancy giordano: But I think that, you know, the reality is we all have our fears of different things.

And I did devote a whole year, my theme that year was on becoming fearless.

Like, how can I become less fearful?

And you have a lot of great guidance in your book about, you know, a building again that.

That courageous muscle is the way I would think about it.

Or like to try and take something on.

They always say like, do something one day, you know, every day.

That scares you.

But I think we need to get like more scientific about this, you know, what is helpful when our, you know, we're feeling it or our children are feeling it, what is not?

So one of the things I wanna do is, you know, make the distinction between fact versus fiction in fear.

Like, did we start breaking down?

Like, what do we know?

What have you learned about fear that we should know and understand better?

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: that's definitely jump into the the brain method, and that's a good dovetail of Has, has power.

And in my book, brave New You and for your listeners, if they go to hello brave new you.com, there's some free resources that they
can download, including the Rain Method and some of the Neuro hack quick win cards that we're gonna talk about a little bit later.

Mary Poffenroth: And within that language also, for me being fearless is kind of a point of contention because.

nancy giordano: Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: In my experience, that's really the only advice that we've been given in a big way on how to deal with our totally normal everyday.

of dread and being anxious, being nervous, being, you know, overwhelmed by whatever that is.

Mary Poffenroth: Because what I am afraid of is gonna be different than what you are afraid of.

Some of it's gonna be similar, but we have different experiences and just our brains gonna gonna work differently.

But that language of oh, be fearless, sends the message that that is even attainable and.

nancy giordano: Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: It's nearly biologically impossible you have physical damage to your amygdala because it's, it's just not possible.

Mary Poffenroth: Like it's really not possible.

So then when we say to people, be fearless and they're gonna fail.

Because they're not, they're going to still be afraid of

nancy giordano: All right.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: I'm,

nancy giordano: right.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: of stuff.

And then they didn't meet this bar, and that's the only recommendation or tools that they've been given.

Then they feel like a failure.

Mary Poffenroth: They feel ashamed, they feel like they can't talk to other people because everyone else is out here being fearless and here's me hiding in my blanket for it.

And so it's, you know, it's just because like language.

Mary Poffenroth: Yeah.

nancy giordano: Unable to pull up my big girl pants 'cause that I just can't do it that day.

Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Poffenroth:

nancy giordano: I'm just thinking about these metaphors that we have around it.

Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Yes.

So my kind of part, part of my work is to change that conversation.

Mary Poffenroth: but it to change that conversation about making it acceptable to feel sensations of threat and fear to them both.

yourself.

'cause sometimes we just pretend like it doesn't exist.

And, and the people that are important in your life at minimum, and, and start to change how we navigate through those, those sensations So
that we have tools when those things come up in our life that are going to make us react in a way that is perceived by the amygdalas threat.

Mary Poffenroth: and, and it's.

One of the common questions I get is, you never feel fear now?

And I'm like, of course I do.

I'm human.

Like these tools, like we're gonna go through rain.

Mary Poffenroth: The rain method right now are absolutely going to help, but fear keeps us alive.

It helps us make good choices.

So it's just about modulating it, not just making it disappear because.

not, that's not really feasible.

But jumping into the brain method, which is going to start, and for those listening that are driving or walking to work or school you can definitely download this infographic as well as a tutorial video on that.

Mary Poffenroth: Hello?

Brave new you.com.

So if you miss a piece, don't worry.

It's all there for you.

No sign in.

No sign up.

So when we look at kind of also the language around fear in.

The scientific literature, this is referred to as clean and dirty fear, which I feel has a lot of problems with the way that

nancy giordano: That's such an interesting way.

Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: I just, I'm like, no.

Okay.

And, and part of that science communication piece is taking the science out of the journals.

Making it accessible and applicable to people's lives.

So, we're gonna start with removing that, like clean and dirty fear nomenclature.

And we're gonna talk about factual fear and fictional fear.

Mary Poffenroth: So start with factual fear, because that's a, that's a really easy one that's gonna be the moment, a shared experience of everyone that is around you and.

brain is gonna know what to do, right?

Whether that's where that kind of like fight or flight is, is gonna have action being applied immediately to deal whatever that threat is or to ignore that threat.

Mary Poffenroth: I put myself through university waiting tables and being a bartender.

So I use a lot of examples from restaurants and also.

Most of us have been to a restaurant, so one of my favorite examples is, let's say Nancy, you and I we're, we're having dinner, we're in
this really deep conversation about just the nature of life, and all of a sudden we hear this breaking glass, like a lot of breaking glass.

Mary Poffenroth: Us and everyone in the restaurant's gonna stop.

We're gonna turn to see where that, you know, what, what's coming.

Is that, is that something I need to deal with?

And if it is.

A couple of burly drunk guys getting in a bar fight.

Well then that's gonna be a different way.

to deal with it than a server just dropping a tray full of water glasses.

Mary Poffenroth: So we all react to it.

That's gonna be a shared moment.

We're sharing that reality.

If it is something that is a threat, like two guys in a bar fight that we need to, then let's say we have small children with us.

We're picking up the kids and we're leaving.

Yeah.

we're not, we're not dealing with that Then.

Mary

nancy giordano: Correct.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: that's gonna be an example of a factual threat to, to our safety.

And we're gonna, we're gonna deal with it.

Or maybe we're an off-duty police, police officer and we're gonna run towards it because we're gonna break up the fight.

Me being a five two female, Probably not gonna run towards the fight of a bunch of guys drunkenly trying to hit each other.

Mary Poffenroth: But, you know, hopefully someone in the room is going to need to do that.

And the other kind of fear is gonna be a fictional type of fear.

Now fictional fear doesn't mean that it has no.

Key nugget of fat, right?

Just like any good story that is fiction has those nuggets of truth, either from an experience that you have lived or an experience of other people, but it's not happening right now.

Mary Poffenroth: It could have happened in the past or it could be ruminating about a future that may or may not exist, and it's going to be a fear that is happening inside.

View in that moment.

Now, it could be a shared fear that as a collective, like, you know, everyone should be afraid around what is our planet gonna look like in 10, 20, 50 years due to climate change.

Mary Poffenroth: But in that second, are we all thinking about it exactly the same way?

Right?

Usually, usually not.

And so with the fictional fears, that's really where we have the most power to use these tools to navigate through them.

Because, and you know, like these are gonna be the most insidious ones that are gonna keep us playing small and impact our ability to thrive and, and grow and, and
change the world for better because we're constantly living in this fictional world that again, may or may not have a nugget of truth, but is, is ruling our reality.

Mary Poffenroth: And we're not actually staying in, in our reality.

So kind of deciding, you know, if you, if you ask yourself if this is a factual or fictional fear, you probably know it's a fictional fear.

'cause in a factual way, your body's taking over.

You don't, if you, the answer is you're gonna know the answer.

You don't need to really ponder it.

Mary Poffenroth: And, and so getting through the fictional fears is.

Really where the rain method is going to be powerful.

So for the first step is gonna be recognize.

So, rain is going to stand for recognize, assign identify and navigate.

So with recognize, it's kinda like in.

Poker, you have a tell if people can tell if you have a good hand or if you're bluffing, right?

Mary Poffenroth: recognizes just what is your body's physical tells for when you are in a mild to moderate fear arousal.

if we're in an extreme fear arousal.

If like, I kind of have the example of hot pepper sauce, right?

There's mild hot pepper sauce, medium and hot.

You know, when things are spicy, you know, you don't need to ask yourself, is this a really extreme fear arousal?

Mary Poffenroth: Nope.

You're gonna know it.

But it's that mild and medium is sometimes hard to pinpoint, especially when we're really distracted.

When we're busy, when we're overwhelmed with other things.

So knowing what your body does in.

Like that fear arousal physically can be really helpful.

So for me, I'm a jaw clincher.

a shoulder scrunch, like my shoulders will be up around my And those things are my two physical tells.

Do.

you know what your physical tells would be when you're kind of in a fear arousal state?

Hmm.

nancy giordano: I think longer like existential fear, like a deeper fear, like dread maybe really is goes like into my solar plexus.

Like that's when I know that something's like really intense.

But I think that the mild one I'm, I'd have to think about more, probably just get snappy.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: yeah, yeah.

It could be like, you just feel like you have a short fuse.

Some people will have the classic, you know, sweaty palms or dry mouth.

Sometimes people will get digestive upset, will just

nancy giordano: Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: you know, like the, there.

There's so many physical tells, kind of just, and the only way you really know yours is by starting to just be curious about what your body does pretty regularly you are, let's say, under stress, because most people are gonna call a fear arousal, just stress.

Mary Poffenroth: And we wear this stress badge of courage, like, oh my gosh, how are you?

I'm so stressed.

Me too.

And then we get to high five and say that we're all really stressed.

When, but actually

nancy giordano: So sad.

That's so true.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Arousal, right?

It's stress is a fear arousal, But, we don't like to use the F word.

And that, you know, the f word is fear.

Mary Poffenroth: 'cause it's easier, it's safer, it's perceived as less of a moral failing if you say that you're stressed.

Mary

nancy giordano: that I get snappy, I really do think that that is mine, but it's less physiological and more emotional.

So is there, there, there must be something also physiological going on at that moment, but it, I'm, I'm paying attention more to this,

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Mm-hmm.

nancy giordano: of it.

Like, I'm just curious 'cause I really don't know the physical, but I can really tell you that when I get like really like super defensive or snappy, it's because I'm afraid.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Yeah, And you're probably also perceiving people's reactions to, let's say, your tone or being cur you know, we always have that other, seeing the.

Reflection of other people's reactions to what we just said.

Internally, you're like, what?

That wasn't, I didn't even say anything bad.

Mary Poffenroth: And you're like, whoa.

Okay.

So that's gonna be an expression of it.

Maybe you're feeding off of other people's.

So next time that happens, just kind of see what's happening physically in, in your body that, you know, could you feel some tightness around the shoulders?

Are you kind of, you know, sensing a kind of increase in your heart rate at all.

Mary Poffenroth: it would be interesting.

Now this is going to get more data driven, but if you wear like a, you know, like a a smartwatch in those moments when you notice that, oh, I just, I super snapped at somebody because I didn't wanna have this conversation.

And then you go back at, if you timestamp it like, oh, that was six 30 on Monday.

Mary Poffenroth: Can you see a spike in your heart rate?

nancy giordano: Yeah, that'd be interest.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: I once.

I once talked to somebody and they were saying that when, like even mild or moderate kind of fear reactions, they, can feel their heart like pounding against their chest.

And it's, it's something that is really over and hard for them to miss.

So they know, you know, and that comes back to like the getting curious about these things that they know if that's happening, they have to stop and ask themselves.

Mary Poffenroth: Okay.

Like.

is this coming from?

Like why, why am I so anxious right now?

'Cause a lot of times we just push through.

We don't,

nancy giordano: I was gonna say, and actually.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: about it.

Mary

nancy giordano: this, I'm gonna take you off track for a second because I know we need to go through the rest of rain, but the locus of control and feeling like you
have a very internal locus of control versus external, I'm sure that has to be somehow, you know, calibrated along this physiological expressions of fear, right?

I have a deep sense of, of a locus of control to the point where it's probably delusional.

That I think that I can control a lot more than I probably think that I can, but as a result, I am less attuned to some of the physiological like super sensitive reactions that I know other people who are very much more externally threatened.

By things absolutely feel very clearly in their body and can talk to you more and probably heart rate and stomach and all those things like happen more.

So, you, you can either dive into that or not.

But I do think that that is an interesting other angle to this, right?

How much that there's a whole thing about what you can control and what you can't.

And I believe I can control way more than I probably can.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Poffenroth: that's you actually that this is a great place.

We'll come back to the A part, but in the identifying 'cause there's gonna be power in pigeonholing.

I'm gonna talk about what that is in just a second.

But if you take all of the human fears that are gonna be part of those fictional fears, they generally fall into a bucket of either not feeling enough, like they're, they're not enough or.

Mary Poffenroth: Fear of losing control and the details will change, but that, you know, those are those two very generalized ways to define human fictional fears.

And in coming back to, you know.

how you express things physically versus how you are emotionally reacting to them or how you are behaving in reaction to something.

Mary Poffenroth: they're all just data points, right?

They're, they're connected in the same system and we all express things a different way.

And, and some people don't externally express ever because maybe they.

a life experience where masking was the way to survive, So your brain early on and throughout your life has gotten messages.

Mary Poffenroth: How do we best survive?

For some people it was, this is how I was raised, you.

Present a happy, perfect smiley face to the world.

No matter what is happening internally, you, you hide that you, you like, like Elsa, you like shove it down.

you

nancy giordano: Yeah.

Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: world and, and you're always happy, smiley.

Mary Poffenroth: 'cause that's what people want from you.

And I got messaging early on that that was safety, that was love.

To express externally, any dark emotions of fear or anger or sadness, was not allowed at at all.

And so I just masked

nancy giordano: Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: and pretend like everything's perfect

nancy giordano: Well, and I think you had an extreme, well, I was gonna say you had an extreme version of it, but I think that hits home, Mary, for everybody who is a
parent ever, because there are definitely moments, this goes back to how we react when our children are fearful and giving them the space to be able to express that.

Because I think that our natural inclination, it's not necessarily to go as far as the did in your family, but is to try and, like I said with my son, like, try and talk them out of it or try and push them out.

Like we want the, the, that the inclination comes from a. A loving place, even though it's doing it the exact opposite way.

Right,

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: we don't want people that we love to feel pain.

We don't want them to suffer.

nancy giordano: right.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: them to.

Feel the good stuff.

The, the joy And the elation and the wonder of the world.

And see it, you know, even just like with friends or with partners that I don't, want to protect them from those things, but of

nancy giordano: And what they perceive to be as a now fear like Right.

I It's fine.

Could you say fictional versus factual?

And I just realized as you were saying that for me it's like a now fear versus maybe a narrative fear.

Right.

We try to recategorize it for people or like let them know there's not really the a threat and trying to talk them down for what they think might be a, you know, a very existential.

Like real, like now kind of fear.

And I think if anything we take away from this conversation, there's, you know, we're, there's so many more things we could talk about and we will talk about for the next, like 10 or 15 minutes.

But I think the, the key takeaway for me would be to encourage parents to create space for their kids to be able and for themselves, right?

To check in on their own and go through the rest of the reign framework.

But to practice that also with their children and just even creating space for it.

Then developing the capacities for being able to navigate it, I think would be a really big thing.

You know, brain A Brown got us all in touch with our vulnerability, but I think that this moment in time of really getting in touch with our fear, and the
other thing that we didn't touch about in the beginning, which also is just thinking about is every media outlet is working over time for us to be afraid.

Right.

Every social media post, every news outlet, every, you know, thing I get from any candidate that wants me to give them money.

Like it is all, all, all programmed on fear So not only do we have the real world around us that we're trying to navigate, but then we're getting all of this other pressure putting around us.

So I think that this.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: what

nancy giordano: around what's happening to us.

I think it's super, super important.

So I'll get you back, back to back to Mary, just.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: I love, like having a framework for things because I think that many people, parents, especially, they.

They don't wanna do a thing until they know they're gonna be perfect at it for their kids.

And that stops them from doing the thing at all, because they're never gonna be like, no one's gonna be perfect at everything.

Mary Poffenroth: It's just, it's just not gonna work.

And so having something like, oh, here's a framework, which is why, you know on the hello Brave New you.com, people can just download this as a PDF and just.

just walk through it with, with their kids.

And you don't have to feel like, oh, I need a PhD in, in this.

Mary Poffenroth: Just, you know, be, be unafraid to stumble.

Right?

Because I think that fear of just seen as imperfect to those that We love our ability to have those radically honest conversations.

'cause we would rather feel like they see us as perfect than come to the reality of.

doing my best.

I'm just,

nancy giordano: We wanna feel like we can protect them at all costs.

We, I, I guess I feel like less of that I need to be perfect, but more that I want them to feel safe and I want them to feel protected.

And I wanna feel as though that I'm creating that safety for them.

But ironically, by ignoring it, I'm creating less safety.

So I think that is the, the key thing.

So when you walk through rain, can you tell us what the four letters are again, to recognize.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Versus recognize.

And then next would be assign.

So the assign is, is a re-imagining of politic's, emotions, wheel, but just with words that could be used to talk about and describe a fear, arousal experience, and the reason why you wanna just choose one of these words.

And, on the hello brave newu.com.

Mary Poffenroth: You can download it as a jpeg.

So you have on your phone as well, and you wanna choose just one word for the sensation you're feeling in that moment.

And people will fight me on this sometimes 'cause they're like, there's like four words on here that I could use.

Like, no, no, no, no.

Just one.

Because our brains through the act of pigeonholing, through the act of just categorizing and putting things in boxes, brings a sense of control to the amygdala, to calm the amygdala down.

Mary Poffenroth: Our brains love to feel, even if it's a lie in control of our chaotic world.

And having just that one word that you're choosing in the moment many times can completely knock that fear spiral, like out of, out of wherever you were going.

But if it doesn't, you know these are meant to be.

Okay.

recognize.

Ooh, all right, my body's telling me that something's going on.

Mary Poffenroth: Now I'm gonna get curious with the word assign.

I'm gonna choose.

say dread, right?

And this might be, let's use the kids as an example.

My, my goddaughter, she is in competitive gymnastics, and she's like really good.

But right before a big competition, she's, she loves it, she's excited, but there's also some dread happening because of all of the things going through her mind of, oh, am I gonna win?

Mary Poffenroth: You know, like my teammates, am I gonna let them down?

And, and.

So just giving that one word in that moment and making it okay.

Right?

You're like, yeah, you can both be excited and worried about tomorrow 'cause you care, you wanna do well and it's okay to have the space for both.

You love being with your friends and you love being on the mat.

Mary Poffenroth: But also it's kind of scary because all of these different things and that emotions can sit together and having that ability to just choose one and talk about it, I think can be really powerful with kids.

Then continue with that pigeonholing.

We talked a little bit about identify, but, okay, so you said, let's use that example with with Madison, you know, she's feeling, feeling dread about the big competition.

Mary Poffenroth: It's, you know, regional finals and like we can then talk about, okay, so if you had to just choose one bucket.

Just one.

Now, there's complex fears that sometimes we'll have a little bit of both, but the point is just to choose one in this, would you say that is that fear of not enough or fear of not being in control?

Mary Poffenroth: And in this example, now, there's no right or wrong answer, but if I was.

Putting my Madison hat on, then I would probably say that it would be fear of, of not enough that, oh, I'm not good enough to be, you know, on the state team, or I'm not good enough to be on the mat, or I'm not good enough at the rings.

Mary Poffenroth: Whatever kind of messaging is happening in her head at the time, and by calling it out, by categorizing it, you take away some of the power.

when the fear is nebulous, when it kind of just is fluffy and hanging around and we're not really able to talk about it or name it, 'cause language has power, then it has more power over us and it continues to snowball.

Mary Poffenroth: But.

having these terms and being like, oh, okay.

Yeah, that's just how my brain works.

I'm not broken.

My brain is just being a brain and I'm not the only one because look, it's on a card.

In fact, all of humans experience these things.

So I'm not being weird, I'm not broken, I'm not, you know, doing anything out of the normal.

Mary Poffenroth: My brain is just trying to keep me safe and I'm helping my brain feel safer for something that I know is gonna be safe.

And then the fourth is gonna be navigate.

And this is, on the card box breathing, like the Navy Seals box breathing is gonna be the example given, but really any of the quick win neuro hacks can be switched out for this fourth step.

Mary Poffenroth: And what I tell people is choose the ones that work best for you that you enjoy, to create your own little toolbox of neuro hacks that.

If they're easy to remember, if you know that they work and you know that it's going to be something that is going to impact your ability to navigate through these sensations, then you're gonna use them in those kind of high.

Poffenroth: Intense types of experiences.

None of my neuro hacks or anything that anyone would need to ingest anything and they're nothing that needs special equipment.

So they're really good for families to kind of play around with, which is why, you know, I love play.

You also love play.

'cause it, it helps us learn.

Mary Poffenroth: It helps us experience the world.

Even big scary stuff like, like fear can be kind of a scary topic in and of itself.

If we're playing around with it, then it's not so scary.

That's just

nancy giordano: I know your cards are very friendly, these beautiful cards around it.

So in the last few minutes that we have together, we didn't get a chance to really dive into, but can you just even describe what a neurohack is for people who aren't in this space all the time?

It sounds like a, like, we don't know what that word is.

Right.

But it's a way to be able to, to,

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: so,

nancy giordano: yeah.

Go ahead.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: A lot of people probably have heard like biohacking, which can mean a lot of different things.

You know, biohackers are people trying to.

Optimize their, their human experience.

There's many ways to do that and there's many ways to optimize the human experience with, with neuro hacks.

Mary Poffenroth: Some people will go heavy on the tech side.

With Neurohacking, I go on the non-tech side because I want it to be accessible to everybody.

And the technology around, especially let's say, decreasing fear or in the clinical setting, a lot of that technology is super expensive or Just not accessible to, to most people.

Mary Poffenroth: and I like these to be things that I can have people play around with in the room during a keynote or workshop that they can do immediately.

And you know, a couple of my, my favorites and so what I recommend for any of the listeners, just, and there's gonna be some of these cards that you can download at the hello Brave New You, and just play around with them.

Mary Poffenroth: And see, you know, see if they, if they work, if they

nancy giordano: Just teach them.

I think that that just is part of our normal thing.

Like I open and close every keynote by taking a deep breath, and I love the fact that you teach box breathing, which again, not everyone is familiar with.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Yep.

I love box breathing.

There's many different types of breath work.

Tools.

I like to have one that's easy, otherwise I'm not gonna remember it, especially if I'm in a high stress environment.

So yeah, we could do a quick round of box breathing and I'll give some quick neuro hacks, um, before we end the session today.

Mary Poffenroth: So, you know, with box breathing, I'm sure when you are leading your.

Audiences.

It's always kind of funny when you're doing it on mic because you're trying to talk through while holding your breath.

It's gonna be kind of funny, but yeah, so just thinking about a box, having four sides and you're just gonna take, you know, an inhale of the count of four.

Mary Poffenroth: So 1, 2, 3, 4, and

then you're gonna hold that breath for a count of four.

1, 2, 3, 4. Then you're gonna exhale for a count of four.

1, 2, 3, 4, and then you're gonna hold that breath for a count of four.

And then you just repeat as many times as necessary.

And a lot of these I really like because no one knows you're doing them, that you can do them

nancy giordano: That's true.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: and

nancy giordano: Yeah.

Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: you go in on stage before or during a presentation or during an exam, that, you know, a lot of times exams have so much anxiety for students that,

nancy giordano: Even before you react to somebody, you get an email from someone.

Right.

And you just before you react.

Yeah.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Yep.

So, a couple more that I really enjoy.

So this one's called the near and the far you can use a pencil or your finger.

But , just take your, your index finger, point it up towards the sky and bring it directly in front of your nose.

Mary Poffenroth: And right now, without.

Hurting your eyes.

'cause sometimes people will try to force their eyes to look at the finger too much.

So no eye string here.

So gently you know, your, your finger's right next to your nose, gently trying to focus on that finger.

Of course it's gonna be too close for you to actually have it in focus, but you're just gonna keep trying to get your eyes to focus on that finger pointed up to the sky.

Mary Poffenroth: And you're gonna move that finger away from your face and you're gonna take that finger as far away from you as possible.

And then at some point it becomes one finger.

And then you're just going to slowly bring that finger back towards your face.

And depending on where it is, then it's gonna start to kind of go wobbly.

Mary Poffenroth: Wobbly.

It's gonna turn into two, it's gonna be out of focus, but that is the point.

here we are.

Tapping into the brain's ability for convergence and divergence vision.

So there's a couple reasons why this is going to help calm down the amygdala.

, First is, if we think about the evolutionary advantageous behaviors that we have had, if we can focus in and out on something not close to our face in a slow movement, then we're not scanning for danger.

Mary Poffenroth: So if our brain thinks, okay, we're not scanning for danger.

It must be fine.

It's fine.

Also it's an ocular kind of reset,, where just like with, the EDMR type of things that you can have done in a clinical setting the eyes.

Obviously very close to the brain, in fact, they're attached.

That it is allowing for us to tap into those things in an easier way than in a nonclinical setting that is just giving you that reset that your, your brain's going to help to calm the amygdala and allow you to, you know, bring yourself back online.

Mary Poffenroth: now I know we're running out of time, so I wanna do just one more.

That is one of my favorites that is going to access the vagus nerve, the longest cranial nerve in the body and.

When our vagus nerve is activated, it is going to tell our brain, okay, amygdala, we can, we can it down a notch.

We can, we can calm our breathing, we can decrease our heart rate.

Mary Poffenroth: And there's a, you know, quite a few ways to activate the vagus nerve.

This is just gonna be one of them.

So if you take, I'm just, I'm right-handed, so I start my right to left, but it doesn't matter which way you do.

So I'm gonna take my left hand.

I'm gonna make an L with my thumb and forefinger.

And then with my right thumb and forefinger, I'm gonna make kind of like a pi I'm going to not like the, you know, flabby, fleshy bit in
between your thumb and forefinger on your left hand, but more of the meaty bit, that kind of valley that your thumb and forefinger make.

Mary Poffenroth: Go ahead and just massage that.

Now.

You don't need to dig in real hard 'cause you don't wanna leave a bruise, but enough where you can feel that pressure.

And through the radial nerve, you're activating that vagus nerve.

And this is in.

Traditional Chinese acupressure called the Heu Meridian.

But to just give it something fun to remember I call it pinching the valley, this is one of my favorite ones that I do all the time.

Mary Poffenroth: again, because it's something that you can do anywhere that you are feeling like, okay, I just need a little bit of, of stress relief.

And this is one that I feel immediately and, and with these different neuro hacks, you know, play around with the ones a low kind of.

Low to medium stress environment and see the ones where you start to feel a difference.

Mary Poffenroth: For me, I mean, I feel a tingle from the top of my head, like down my spine.

When I do this one and I I feel com you know, like I feel a sense of calm and, and just, that's why I love the cards.

'cause they can be literally in your back pocket for the ones that work well for you.

nancy giordano: So don't share your point in any moment.

I was taught that one, the pinch the Valley, since I was a little kid.

Actually.

I went to a doctor when I had migraines when I was really young and they couldn't figure out other ways to help.

And so at some point it was just like, pinch this.

So I was taught that.

Never understood why.

I would, should be doing that to try and help calm my, whatever, myself or my head down when I was facing the, the onset of a migraine.

So, I, maybe that's why I can sleep so well now, Mary.

'cause I've been doing that since I was eight.

I've been pinching the hell out of that valley over the course of time.

But I'm like, when I saw your cards, I'm like, wait, that was really real.

I thought that was just a doctor who didn't, you know, didn't know what else to do, and was trying to gimme something to distract me.

And didn't realize it was, I've been neurohacking all this time.

Who knew?

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: I love it.

Yeah, and it's, it's,

Many of these kind of like tricks that a lot of this knowledge isn't.

Easily accessible or is through just a physician or a clinician when you go to have a problem addressed.

And, and many times in modern medicine, because we've created a system where doctors only have 20 seconds to be with each patient, they're just prescribing 'cause it's the quickest way try and alleviate pain and suffering is with.

Mary Poffenroth: A pill or with a prescription.

Instead of, you know, having these different ways that not to, you know, be anti-big pharma, that's definitely not what I'm saying.

But there's many other ways to navigate life's challenges than just, Oh.

you come to your physician or your clinician with a problem.

Well, HMOs are only giving me 10 seconds with you, so how can I help you

nancy giordano: Right, right.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Poffenroth: 10 seconds.

Okay, great.

Bye.

See ya.

And, and even

nancy giordano: Hopefully these are now okay.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Poffenroth:

nancy giordano: Sorry.

No, I was gonna, I was hoping that Chatt PT has got your library or library these things, because I'm imagining my daughter or others who are in that moment, right.

And don't, to your point, have time to talk to their physician or don't even know, you know, who they would go to.

But it's like, I'm feeling all these things, like I would like this to be in the, you know, the nomenclature and in the understanding of how it navigates in real time.

Things that feel overwhelming or things that feel dreadful or things that feel scary and whatever.

I mean, I love the, the dimension of all the words that you have, all the things that we could feel but I would love to think that it shows up now more and more in common wisdom that this is available to us.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: And that's kind of The goal of, of my work too, of how can we.

Make it more acceptable and less shameful to both feel these things, but also talk about them and, and exchange tools that like, oh, I really, I found this new tool.

And one of my favorite things is when people come up to me after, you know, a session of some kind and they're like, oh, have you ever heard of fill in the blank?

Mary Poffenroth: This worked like you just did with me.

you're like, oh, when I was eight I was taught to do that and it helped so much You know, it, it's such a powerful community position to be in when we can start pooling our knowledge and, and finding new ways to move through this normal human experience.

nancy giordano: The work that you're most passionate about right now is going out to audiences and going into workshops and helping people really hear this knowledge and hear this wisdom from you directly.

Right.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: Mary Poffenroth: Yeah.

Yeah.

I think, that I, I really.

Truly enjoy doing live audience stuff.

And I'm able to bring that sense of play into a topic that a lot of people shy away from just like I said, f words in your people's repertoire.

fear is a really scary one.

It's one that people stay away from just even the word.

Mary Poffenroth: Self, and if I can make it fun and playful in addition to something that is gonna be educational for them, but also something that they can take back
to their families and their teams and, and the people in their world, ripple effect I think is one of the most powerful types of outcomes that I hope for my work.

nancy giordano: more and more intense because of some of the, the escalation of experiences that are happening around us and the
pace of change that's happening, and because of the incentive structure that we have in so much of our media right now to prey on it.

So we have got to develop more sophisticated understanding of it and much better tools around it.

And to your point, much less shame and silence around it and be able to talk about it both to ourselves with more distinction and with each other, with more compassion, I think is a really huge part of this.

And then the appreciate again that you've got both the rain method, which is about recognize a assign identify and n navigate.

And then you can go into a lot more detail about this on your website and in your book.

And then the neuro hacks that you give us to be able to, to, you know, every day have those both in our, our mental and in our physical pockets so that we don't feel
as though we'll be taken under by it, but that we can actually face the world with a lot more calm and be able to hold space for others that are learning this too.

So I'm hoping teachers pay attention to this.

I certainly hope, again, that families are paying attention to this, but I think that if we can get much more deeper our understanding of
this, we'll all be able to navigate the world and be able to do, to your point, the last thing we want is people who are not innovative, right?

And the people who are afraid of being to play too small.

So thank you so much for digging in deep and helping people play bigger.

Mary, I really appreciate you.

Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D.: you, Nancy.