Greg Voisen
Welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. And we have a returning guest coming back from all the way down in Del Mar because I'm in Encinitas. Not that far away. Dr. Steve Bierman. Good morning, Steve, how are you?

Dr. Steve Bierman
Hey, Greg, great to see you again.

Greg Voisen
Well, it's good to have you back on Inside Personal Growth, believe it or not, I looked it up. It was December of 2020. When you are on the show before podcast 831, Healing Beyond Pills and Potions. And for all of my listeners, in our blog entry, we're going to put a link to that as well. And I'd highly recommend getting a copy of that book. But today, today, we're going to be speaking about The END of WORRY. It's a little blurry because the cameras were a but the subtitle is “A Clinically Proven, 4-step Protocol for Ending the Worry-habit, Forever. And I will tell everybody like this is a very thin little book. It's not expensive, believe me, it's worth your investment. Go out and get a copy of this on Amazon. You get it there, you can go to Steve's website, which will put a link to that as well. So, Steve, you know, this world we live in today. I think for a lot of people, there's a lot of reasons, they can tell you why they're worrying. Right, and it can range across and you are basically a hypnotherapist as well and an MD and I'm going to let the listeners know a little bit about you from your website. He's received an undergraduate degree from UCLA, his doctorate from Northwestern University School of Medicine, after completing his family practice at UCSD worked 20 years as a board-certified emergency physician at Scripps Memorial Encinitas, my hometown, he founded two medical device companies and holds over 200 utility patents on various medical devices. As I said, he lives in Del Mar with his lovely wife and his dogs. And he has kids, and he's just a great guy, you need to go check out his website healing beyond pills.com. Healing beyond pills.com. So, Steve, I always ask authors, when I try to at least is like, what's the driving force behind writing the book, you know, that's the last thing you needed to do is write another book with everything you have going on in your life. And the topic is such, as I was saying earlier, it's a bit of a disease. Worry is a disease in society. What were you finding about the patients that were visiting you that said, hey, you know what, I need to make a little book so I can help people out here.

Dr. Steve Bierman
Well, you've got it, right. My patients basically drove me to write the book. Let me give me a little history there. And I think, set a context. You know, how you say, Greg, well, the worry is like a plague or a disease in our society. Yes. But not in every society. That's really, really important. There are cultures and I've never been in to where the the very concept of worrying the way Westerners traditionally worry, is unknown, unfamiliar. And when you describe it, to people in those cultures, they fall over laughing and said, Well, why would someone do that? It's, so we're taught this. And we're taught by our parents, or our church, or our culture, or, you know, the world we live in, teaches us to essentially misuse our imaginations. You know, the book begins, if you recall with ancient Chinese adage, worry, is a mis use

Greg Voisen
of imagination. Right? And I love

Dr. Steve Bierman
that, because it implies that there's a proper use for your imagination, but you ain't doing it. Right.

Greg Voisen
Well, what are the two cultures? Because I'm the Tibetan cultures, many of them that said It's the happiest place on earth. And obviously worry wouldn't what are those two cultures you visited that actually taught you that this wasn't part of their ingrained behavior?

Dr. Steve Bierman
Right. Well, I haven't been to Tibet, so I can't speak to that. But I've been in Indonesia on multiple islands and you know, Each island has in and of itself, a somewhat different culture depending depending on and their religion and history and, and so forth. So in amongst the Bali Hindus, although they do worry, it's not a deeply ingrained thing. It's an occasional or episodic thing. And I'm not talking about those that have intense western exposure. I'm talking about those who live in breathe, the volume Hindu way of life. And when you're out with those people in the more distant zones, talking to them, the way that we were is foreign to them and incomprehensible. Also,

Greg Voisen
it reminds me, just not that long ago, Dan Buettner was in here, the guy that's done the studies on living to 100. And he finds these remote areas. And I'm not saying there's a fallacy in this, but we don't particularly live in these remote areas, but he would go to Greece, or he'd fly someplace in Japan on an island, where people were living their longevity was, you know, far beyond what it should have been. And the culture that we live in, which is western world that we're seeing because of junk food, and all the kinds of stuff that's going on. Do you think that that's similar for this same epidemic that we're seeing with worry? And I'm going to say epidemic, because it really is in this society? It seems to be the Western world as built up that way.

Dr. Steve Bierman
Well, I, I, I'm gonna claim ignorance there. I don't know, broadly speaking. And I'll tell you why. This is the danger all doctors face. We work out of our tiny offices, we see an endless stream of people. And we begin from that to form our worldview. And of course, if if we formed our worldview from that, and that alone, everyone would be sick, everyone would be needing everyone that would be honest, everyone, you know, it says, view. So I don't know. The extent of the epidemic, what I what I do know is this, I wrote this little book, because as you suggested, after I devised this protocol and saw how, how stunning, really shocking, the results frequently are, I realized that there are certain patients, even if I take them through at a time or two, and run the four steps with them, they're still benefit to having it written down for them. And so I was constantly writing it down. And I just decided, no, I'll put this in book form. And to him the books out.

Greg Voisen
You wrote it down for me several times. I was one of those people, you know, but you know, you started this book off with two great stories, Louis on my gosh, I don't know who that guy was. But I don't know if you change the name to protect the innocent. would be willing to relay the stories to kind of set the stage because this guy, that was what I remember about jackhammering up the driveway and the water spot and I'm like, Holy mackerel, this guy has really got an issue. He's off a wall.

Dr. Steve Bierman
Greg, these cases even though they seem you know, wildly extreme and Lewis, his name was of course change is sort of at the outer extremity. Worrying he was a master, you know, a journeyman worrier. These two stories depict is really, really very common. And I'm getting emails from all over the world that books been out two and a half months, three months, and I'm getting emails from all over people having similar results. Let me tell you about Louis first, okay, and kind of kinda. So Lewis says, as you've noted, he's like a class, a worrywart. He could worry about anything, night and day, and so he didn't sleep well. And he found no peace in life. And even even when he retired from his corporate job, which required him to worry and bonus him when he worried appropriately and prepared for you know, downside scenarios, right, even after I retired from that, he could find things to worry about that no one else in the world could. And he presented to me in the office with atrial fibrillation. He didn't say, Hey, I'm worried or I'm a worrywart. Or I have, you know, fear of plaguing me. None of that. He came with a physical complaint as people often Do and it was atrial fibrillation they want to, you know, scar the inside of my heart can can what you do help me. That was his presentation. Now he was he was sent to me by his wife because she had watched him do this every morning. She's making coffee walks down a long driveway, picks up the newspaper. One morning, he's coming back and he knows the little dime size spot in the driveway and he looks around no rain. No sprinklers, can't figure it out, scratch his head walks back. Next day, he goes down now to nickel. Next day down and back. Now it's a quarter the spots getting bigger and bigger. And he's starting to realize, wow, something's really wrong. So he calls a plumber and the guy uses advanced equipment says yeah, you've got a leak underneath this slab, we're gonna have to blast up this concrete, fix the pipe. And then you got to get some concrete guys in here. All of that guy's done. What his wife didn't know was sidenote on the story was he set aside $7,500, which is what it cost him. He took that out of their account set up a separate account, in case it ever happened again. Went down and back. And every time he passed that spot, he'd stopped them down and touch the concrete, even on a bright hot sunny day. Walk back shaking his head. And at night he'd lay awake worrying about well, what if they didn't fix it right and, and the thing is cracking. And you know, sure enough, this and all the other worries he had compounded. And he developed atrial fibrillation. On some somewhere around the 100 day his wife sees him bending over touching the drive concrete once again. And when he gets in, opens his paper and reaches for his cup of coffee, she pushes the paper down and says, Ah, you're sick, you need to see. Yeah, that was my introduction to him. And when I as I talked to him, this is this is the part for clinicians to listen to. What you need to know is that worry doesn't always present. In fact, it rarely presents as someone saying, coming into the office and say, I worry all the time. Can you help me stop? In fact, I don't know if that's ever happened. People often say Oh, I have anxiety. And don't pretend you know what they need my anxiety because that word has a million meanings in our culture. Or I'm really fearful, or I can't sleep or so you have to go layer to deeper and say what's going on what's happening in your mind? What are you thinking? What are you imagining? And remembering that and this is the key, Greg, remembering that worry is a misuse of the imagination. What you're looking for, is how is this person using his imagination. And so I sent to Louis when I learned about all this worry stuff, always imagining downside scenarios, but never doing anything about it. Just fretting and putting money aside for you know, a rainy sidewalk

Greg Voisen
contingency fund

Dr. Steve Bierman
never tapped, you know, it would have sat there forever. What you listen for is you listen for this misuse of the imagination. And then you say, Hey, um, how often do you do that? How often do you worry like that? Oh, all the time? What's all the time me? Oh, night and day, like at night? What do you worry about? Then they'll tell you at day where do you and once you get a sense that okay, this is a person who is plagued with worrying, a misuse of the imagination, then you can feel as I do, you can feel happy. Because this is a habit of thought. And as Pavlov way back in the 1920s 100 years ago, as he taught us, you know, these habits can be extinguished. You just need to run extinction trials. And in one sense, it's only partial, but in one sense, that's what the worry protocol does. It extinguishes the bad habit. And then it makes way for a new and more self rewarding habit. Namely the proper use of your imagination. Well,

Greg Voisen
I think you know, look, it's everyone who, who speaks with I'm gonna go to BJ Fogg and tiny habits Who was on the show not that long ago. There's the atomic habit guy as well, right? They're trying to get people to replace bad habits with good habits. Let's put it that way. Now, you actually distilled this down into something way better than a 300 page book. You literally have this protocol written out in however many pages it says plus practice worksheet. And you state that step one of this worried protocol is to rest your worry habit from the clutches of the unconscious and delivered up into the light of the conscious. You also mentioned that this is the most important step. And I underlined that in my show notes. That the identification, that being the identification of worried how do we bring awareness to our unconscious mind to creating worry gets disabled? And it's not so as you call an automatic, right? Because I think that's where you this, this first step really is a crucial step?

Dr. Steve Bierman
Oh, it's critical to the entire protocol. And I thank you for that, because that's a perfect question. The way you do it, when you're alone, by yourself without the aid of confidant of some kind or other is you have to exercise a certain degree of brutal honesty. And so you catch yourself experiencing, it may be a worry, something that's going through your mind, you know, you're picturing the concrete wet again. But more commonly, you have this sort of nebulous fear or anxiety. And you have to dig down within yourself and say, what's going on? What am I afraid of here? What's What am I thinking? Am I? Am I worried about finances? What am I imagining about my finances? Am I worried about this relationship? What am I imagining? You can't just name a topic and I go into this in the book, you know, oh, what are you worried about? Oh, I'm worried about my relationship. No, that's a topic. The topic is your relationship. The worry is what specifically, you're imagining, you're imagining some downside scenario, I'm imagining that I just get more and more frustrated, I can't get out and I get sick and die. Okay, that's a worry. We're gonna run that through the protocol. Okay. But you have to distill it down to you're using your imagination. It's, it's creating this scenario, a downside scenario. And the spin offs, the derivatives are anxiety and fear and distress and angst. A lot of professionals, they go right out, oh, I'm going to treat your angst, I'm going to attribute your stress, I'm going to treat your desk. And I would maintain not always, but commonly, they're treating derivative, emotions, derivative reactions that stem from this sort of kernel, the misuse of the imagination. So if you're doing exercise brutal honesty, and discover what it is, you're actually imagining, what's the downside scenario in your head, there may be many, when you start the work protocol, they tend to compound and you you'll end up initially with like, five worries, well, that's great. But you've got to tease them apart and run each one individually through the protocol. stuff. Well, you, you

Greg Voisen
you mentioned in the book, that's step two was identifying the fear. Now, when you put dot dot dot know, the real fear. And that to me is I think many all of us have fears of some type or another. The question is, is in the subconscious mind, those those are implanted, right? And you state the real fear gives rise to the worry, right? So you're asking people to go deep, to see what's actually causing it correct. So you give us an example of a real fear we might carry in this unconscious, that is like a real fear for us.

Dr. Steve Bierman
Let me make a distinction from between a patient coming in and saying, Hey, I feel fearful, I'm afraid this isn't gonna work out or that bad thing is going to happen. These are the derivative fears that I'm referring to and anxieties and so forth. In the same book, the book by the way, is by Philip Dunn. It's called The Art of Peace. Where he quotes the Chinese saying, worry is a misuse of the imagination the next sentence and now Since as I'm behind every worry is a fear. So I'll say this to a patient, once we've identified the worry, step two, identify the fear, I'll say, what's the fear? And the first thing, the first thing that comes out is always, or at least, almost always a screen. It's a fear. And you have to acknowledge and accept it. But it's a screen, your unconscious is present. And it's protecting you as it, as it always does. And then in front, the big fear that that lies below. When I first started doing this, Greg, I was hesitant. I was a little, you know, definite, dare I say, No, the real fear. And what I learned to do was acknowledge what they've said, Yes, I understand that you're afraid. A second example from the book, okay. I understand that you're afraid to go on a vacation because you might get sick. This is one of my patients. And then I would just look at them and say, what's the real fear? And I have never had a patient. Say, I don't know what you mean, there is no real fair, I told it to, you know, because it's underneath, and they know it. And so you watch them sort of absorbed into themselves. And then they come out. And this patient, for example, said, Well, I guess the real fear is that I'll be all alone, nobody will want to be with me, because I keep getting sick on vacations. And I'll just, I'll just be alone and helpless. And there it is, you know. So there's a way of dealing with these deep fears that almost all humans have, we have them in different measure, depending on early childhood experience. But look, everyone when they were a child, they three month old, before they had the concept of object constancy, you know, it was just a world of sensations on assembled. When say, Mother went away to answer the door or do something in the kitchen, and she stayed away longer than anticipated, and you couldn't hear her smell her or see her. There's a moment when you realize, well, holy cow. I got nothing here. If if that, if that being doesn't return, I'm dead, which you are. The good news is that now you're really confronting that fear. You have survival skills, you have communication skills, you have locomotion, you have all the things you didn't have back then. So it's still a fear, look at it. But if you look at it with wise eyes with adult eyes, it's smaller. It's just like the chairs we sat in, in elementary school. They're smaller than you remember them go back and said,

Greg Voisen
Yeah, yeah, I they are smaller. Definitely.

Dr. Steve Bierman
Your closet. And once you run the worry protocol, you know, 1520 times you the beauty of this. And what I love is, you'll see what all the common human fears are. We all have. And anytime you want to the closet and see your wardrobe affairs Be my guest.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, well, you know, this is a four step process. And I did mention to you before we started, I went, and I looked at through the looking glass, but you said in step three, you say is a plan. And I think again, you say the first steps critical, actually, all four steps are critical to get through to actually overcome the worry. And you you describe it as a detailed sequence of action to be taken in the event of a downsides if a downside scenario occurs. So like the guy who puts a $7,500 away? Can you speak with the listeners about the questions you would prompt us with to help us create a detailed plan?

Dr. Steve Bierman
That's another great question. Read. Thank you for that. So step three, is plan the downside? Notice I don't say think about or imagine or envision. I'm saying plan and like you said, a plan is a detailed sequence to actionable series of events that you couldn't do in the event the downside occur. So the first question is, what is the downside? And that's very simple. The downside is the worry comes true. So if we were to take Lewis with the driveway, okay, Louis, here's what happens. You go down there one day and there's a you know, patch of water and you have to redo everything. I want you to tell me, how do you feel? Who do you share that with? If anyone? What do you say? Hear smell, see? What do you do? And he'll tell me. Okay, what next? And next? And with each of these exploring the sub modalities of sentence, you know, who do you hear? Oh, I hear my wife saying, what do you what do you smell? Oh, I smell the concrete, being like, you know, you, you make a very detailed plan. And what generally happens is two things. One, there's no fun in that. It's you're planning the downside, it's miserable. And for some people, it's especially miserable. But we want that, because that's a negative reinforcement ultimately, on the worry, it's, it's, it's the electric grid, why would you, I'm not gonna let that worry up. If this is what I got to go through every time it comes up. So it it works to negatively reinforced the worry. And also does it sorry, no, I

Greg Voisen
was gonna say it's kind of the if net if then scenario. You know, when you're asking these questions, because I asked you, what would you ask us the prompts to get us to go down that road to create that detailed plan? Right? Is kind of the AFN. I think one of the other ones, too, and I know it's not part of your protocol. But I remember, one of the authors used to say, is it true? Is it really true? So ask yourself, Is it true? Is it really true? Because you're really, most of the time telling yourself something that a lot of times isn't true? That makes sense?

Dr. Steve Bierman
Well, it does. It's the that's slightly different from what we're doing

Greg Voisen
it, but my point is you have in the book, you have these questions, because I went through all of this. And the questions are there. So for my listeners, definitely get that because he helps you create this detailed plan. That's what we're talking about. Then you also have this video. That you had where? You, you? You the readers watch this, and they answer 50% of the questions. Yes. While shaking their head. No. And they answered the other 50% of the questions with no while shaking their head. Yes. And I actually did it. I sit there and went or like this during your video. What's the purpose of this step? It almost seemed like a little bit like Gestalt therapy to me to a degree go, you said, Hey, have one chair over here. But you said the purpose of the step as well. is keep your tongue as still as stone. No, I'd never heard that one before. So explain this. While I nod my head. Yes. While you're answering a no. And while you're answering, you know, I'm nodding yes. Because it does catch you kind of off guard.

Dr. Steve Bierman
Okay, well, so what we're talking about here is what I call the intermission, you do step one, identify the worry, step two, identify the fear now, the real fear. And then step three is plan the downside, which most Warriors don't do, it settles the issue, you have a downside plan. Now we need to create some space between that misuse of the imagination, the worrying, and what's to follow, we need to open up the possibility of a new way. And so the that's the purpose of the intermission, there's three steps and they they're their sequence, they they don't overlap. The first is you get out of the chair and get another turn, look back at you. As you were planning the downside, look at that person. And tell me how do you feel about that person? What do you see what and generally when you do that, you create some dissociation and the patient or subject will say, Yeah, that's really sad, man, I don't want to be that guy. And that's a miserable way to live. I feel really bad for him. So you get a little distance. Okay. Then we go through the looking locks. And as you said, your readers can go through that with me on YouTube, just Steve Berman through the looking ones. And what that does is as you're doing this, yes. No, exercise. It is do two things are happening. It's D potentiate. ing all that went before it's sort of wiping the slate clean. And then it creates this enormous sort of internal confusion, which I call a fertile void. Right? You create this fertile void, where all the worry stuff is is deep potentiate it. And now we have this open field laying fertile and ready and what will we plant there. The next thing that you do is you anchor that fertile void that you achieved going through the looking glass, which you only have to do once. If you do it right, you anchor that by immediately after, after having done it, take two deep breaths, and then drop your tongue as into into its place and your mouth as still a stone not a flicker, not a flicker, not a twitch. And that will take you don't think you can do it in 10 seconds, that's going to take you minutes initially, later, you can you can knock it off in a matter of seconds. That's your anchor that returns you to this fertile void whenever you need to. Okay, and you will subsequently so you don't have to go through the whole intermission. Cuz that takes only seconds. Now, you're ready. Okay. I go back to their chair. And I say okay, now you're back in your chair, drop your tongue still a stone. Remember, that? wipes away everything that went before? Okay. And then I say try, just try to worry, the worry that you had, keeping your tongue as still as don't try. And of course, you know this from my other book, but try implies an obstruction and implies they're not going to be able to or if they are, it's going to be enormously diminished, which it is. And that gives the worrier a sense that, wow, there actually is a state, there is a state in which I almost can't worry. And so hope aren't in that moment. And then we go to Step four, we're

Greg Voisen
on step four, is planning intend the upside, we already planned the downside. Now we're going to upside, that's the step four. And he mentioned that the upside plan should be a detailed sequence of events, including experiences, a discard described in multiple multi sensory modalities. Pay it taste, touch, feel all that, oh, this is reaffirming the positive outcome of our worry. How does the feeling of describing out we want to experience the positive? Remove the worry in our lives?

Dr. Steve Bierman
Well, first, let's define what we mean by plan the upside, what is the upside? What is the positive? The upside is, the worry does not the thing you're worried about the negative imagining does not occur. And instead, something positive occurs. You don't pick on the trap. You have a wonderful trip and everyone loves your company. She'd find another spot on the driveway. The driveway stays dry, and you decide that you're going to use the money and take your trip. Wife on the trip she's been asking for to Italy for the last 30 years. Which is actually what what happened atrial fib went away. He got happy they went to Italy. Great. That was great. So you define first of all, the upside, and there's the you know, you're using your imagination. So there's an infinitude of potential upsides. And each time you run the protocol, you may have the same or you may have a different one, it's up to you. Then you plan it as we did before, like you said detailed actionable sequence of events. You plan it, but you it's it's it's like an itinerary, where you're actually saying, Okay, first I'll do this, then I'll do that. I'll share with him, I'll hear that she'll say this, I'll taste that. But you have all this planning done. And then once you've got this lovely plan of an upside, because the word did not occur, then you push your intention into it, meaning that you've laid out this upside. And now you look at it and say, Well, damn, I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna make that happen. And our whole lives. Think about this, Greg, this will be hard for you to remember but I'll put the challenge to it. You were literally you were laying on your tummy. You didn't know very much about the world at all. And you decided to lift your head and you worked on it for days and eventually you could lift your head you intended it Action followed. But that wasn't enough. Then you decided, hey, I'm gonna rollover and you, you intended it, and the action followed, then you wanted to set you intended it the action followed stand, walk, run, jump, all these things that part of our life is this series of intentions, guiding actions, we have that established pattern all of us within us. And so when you make a detailed plan to the upside, and then intend it, at actions will follow.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, it's a logical process that you've created. The end of worry, it's definitely very logical. The other thing is in the back of the book for Steve has given you plenty of places where you can just put this in a copy or if you want, and make you know, copies of these worry protocols, and then put them at your death because he has the four steps. So what I'd like you to do in kind of closing is go through the steps again, tell the listeners, how the protocol works using neuroplasticity, neuroplasticity, Pavlovian conditioning, and neuro linguistic programming. And also, you you have instructions provided for the yes, no, or we should say the intermission up at YouTube, we'll put a link to that for the for the listeners, so they can go there. And then what are the kind of two or three things you would say, could really help people by getting the book following the protocol. And you already gave us a couple of stories from the beginning from Louis and Laura on all these people that were having issues. But on the back of the book, I just want to say to my listeners, there's people here with little testimonials are saying this book changed their life. So definitely go out and get it. So what are those four protocols again? And why do they work? So? Well? Yeah.

Dr. Steve Bierman
Well, first, let me say that reading the book won't eliminate your worry doing the book will eliminate worry. Perfect. The next thing for everyone to know. And I confess to you, Greg, this came to me early on as a total shock, because I should have thought of it but I didn't want to it takes a lot of energy to worry night and day, doesn't it? You know, I mean, you're really spending energy. And it's a fair question to ask what happens when that energy freeze up when the habit of worry is in fact extinguished? What then happens, and for your listeners, I would say that is what you have to look forward to the discovery of where your energy will go as this worry, habit dissolves. The steps are simple, but they have to be applied as best you can. Each and every time you catch yourself worrying. And you'll spend maybe a total of say 10 hours in your life. extinguishing the worry habit with these four styles, and what will return to you as hundreds or 1000s of hours of freedom and control and creativity. But you have to do this step, step one, identify the worry. Remember, it's a misuse of your imagination. Step two, identify the underlying fear. No, not the first one that comes out under that the real fear, then look at it and hang it up in the fear closet. Step three, plan the downside. The worry happens. That's the downside. Now plan it and don't don't rush that. Make a real detailed plan that's actionable. Take a breath. If it's your first time to do the whole intermission and go to YouTube work with me on THROUGH THE LOOKING labs. If it's your second, third or fourth or 40s. Then all you need to do is take two deep breaths, drop your tongue, keep it still as stone stone to more deep breaths and then plan the upside. The worry doesn't occur, something good occurs, decide what that is, and make a detailed actionable plan for that. And once you have done that, look at that plan behold what what you can imagine and intended intended. And I tell you that for some people, Greg, this takes, you know, a week or two. It's never one longer than nine to 10 weeks and that was Believe it or not, that was Louis. Since then, if you do this diligently, you Say, Okay, I'm going to invest some time now for benefits for the rest of my life. If you do this diligently for most people, and in less than six or seven weeks, you will be a different, better, happier, more controlled and creative person guaranteed?

Greg Voisen
Well, it is a simple and rapid process that people can use. And I got to thinking, and this is kind of off the wall question, but you know, a lot of people go to bed at night, and they wake up in the middle of the night. With with this Do you Have you ever counseled anybody on using this worry protocol as a result of like insomnia, or they're, they're just like, they're so worried about things, everything that they need help, they basically have to go to a psychologist and try and figure out what's going on? Could this worry protocol kind of help prevent them from that?

Dr. Steve Bierman
Absolutely. So it Do we have a couple minutes here? Yeah. So let me I'll give you this real quickly. First, I would say that insomnia, it's a giant topic, of course, and you have to rule out certain other things like sleep apnea, etc. So we should all be watchful for the sort of a array of possibilities. But when someone wakes up at night, I said, Well, when you wake up, what happens? What are you doing? Oh, I'm worrying? Well, what does that mean? What are you? What are you worrying about? Oh, I'm worrying about finances, I'm going to tell you about a particular patient. This a patient who had for most of our listeners, really no financial worries, per se, I mean, money in the bank house paid for a business that she didn't love. But that was cranking out handsome income. But nonetheless, she was thought to in her childhood. And so she worried night and day, constantly waking up in the night worrying about finances. And so for her as an example, let's get to the worry protocol, and run that protocol every time you catch yourself worrying. Now, she, she realized, the hopefulness in this little four step procedure, even though it's simple, and it seems too good to be true. She she saw the glimmer of hope and said, Well, if all I'm going to need is, you know, a couple of weeks of doing this, I'm doing this. And so she went hard at it, and really did a good diligent job. I went I walked her through it twice. And then she was on her own. Let me tell you what happened. About seven, eight weeks later, she came into the office all smiley, bright, looking, you know, much different, much more light. And she said, Oh, I've got some great news. And I said, Well, what's what's the great news? And she said, Well, you know, that word protocol has changed me. And I talked to my husband made a decision, and we're closing down our business

Dr. Steve Bierman
call on me. I thought oh my i hope this works out. So we're okay, I got it. You're You're shutting down your business. What are you going to do? She said, I'm going to do what I've always wanted to do my whole life. What's that? Said I'm going to be a painter and make my living as a fine art painter. Wow. Which you know if you think about it, there's there's obvious risks there as there are for any artists any artistic pursuit, there's always rest. But she had done the worry protocol. She was using her imagination properly. And she went for it. Let me tell you this. A, this is not the only patient I've had that's become an artist in different ways. Musical writing, creative, acting, singing. I've had multiple multiple people paint, porcelain art. She sold her first Are you sitting down Gregg. She's held her first painting first painting $20,000 Oh

Greg Voisen
my god. She must have been really good. Spectacular.

Dr. Steve Bierman
She's on a roll. And I think one day I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we didn't see her in New York Museum of Modern Art. She's phenomenal. That's

Greg Voisen
a great story. You know it. It reminds me, Steve of I don't know if I'm sure I shared this with you. But Richie Davidson works with Dalai Lama. And I think this comes to calming the mind. You know, everyone talks about mindfulness and meditation and we've done hundreds of interviews about that, but I really Going back to Wisconsin last year and going to the mindfulness Institute there. And I think for people listening, really, if you could take this worry protocol to just calm the mind. In other words, because what's happening is you're running the sequence in your head over and over and over and over again. And it you have to do something to stop it. And a lot of times, just sitting and meditating doesn't do that. Although it will calm the mind. The monkey mind is going crazy. Like you wake up in the middle of the night, you got financial worries, whatever it is, this protocol I know because Steve's use it on me works. Right? He's used on me numerous times. So I'm gonna recommend that everybody, go get the end of worry. We'll put a link to it. Steve, it's always a pleasure having you on the podcast speaking about something that you know, there isn't one soul on the earth out there. Out of the 8 billion people that are anywhere over, let's say 18 years old that couldn't use this. I'm not certain that little kids have all that worry. But as we get older, we seem to make them up. So thank you so much. Namaste to you. Thanks for being on the show. Always a pleasure.

Dr. Steve Bierman
Always a pleasure on this anti grind. Thanks very much.