Showing Up To Life
740 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★ - 7 ratingsA daily podcast for people who want to naturally reduce stress in their bodies and optimize themselves to THRIVE in their lives, and not merely survive.
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Episodes
EP 538: My Childhood Trauma: A Personal Story
June 26, 2021 22:46 - 40 minutes - 72.1 MBAs you know, I always like to write an email to convey some of what is included in the episode of the day. But today’s topic makes that, in some ways, more difficult. This is, in part, because today’s episode is all about my own personal childhood trauma. And that should serve as a trigger warning to you; although the stories I tell today are not very violent, they are potentially disturbing. So I will just let you watch the video: If anything I say today resonates with you, and you fee...
EP 537: How to set a Morning Intention (And why you might Want to try)
June 25, 2021 17:14 - 33 minutes - 59.9 MBI thought today would be a good time to take a little pause and talk about practice. Specifically, I want to talk about the most simple practices of them all. Setting intention is so key to mindfulness that it could be called synonymous. After all, mindfulness is not about stumbling upon random and chance moments of presence, as we all do at some point. Mindfulness asks us to pay attention on purpose; to pay attention intentionally. In today’s episode, I talk about the reason and the me...
EP 536: Authenticity Through Genuine Connection
June 24, 2021 19:02 - 31 minutes - 57.4 MBLast night, as I filled my car’s tires with air and my 12 year old daughter sat in the air conditioned car listening to her music, we witnessed someone experiencing road rage, blaring their horn at someone who failed to turn when the light turned green. Moments later, as we drove down the road, she asked me which car it was. And right after that, came the most profound and compassionate words: “But maybe he was doing that because he needs to rush to the hospital because someone he loves i...
EP 535: A Tragic Personal Story that Shows the Importance of Connection
June 23, 2021 17:33 - 33 minutes - 59.9 MBAs my Son turned 10 years old yesterday, I reflected on the old adages I constantly hear from parents: ‘They grow up so fast!’ ‘You blink and you miss it!’ ‘Where did the time go???’ As a mindfulness coach, I’ve told many parents that it’s not so much that the time went particularly fast or slow. In fact, time did exactly the same thing time has always done. The difference is how you paid attention to what was happening as it was happening. And it has nothing at all to do with how bus...
EP 534: Connection: What, Why, and How
June 20, 2021 17:15 - 31 minutes - 56.5 MBIn the beginning of today’s episode, I talk about how to be intentional and authentic on this Father’s Day (And any other holiday!) Many of us have grown up in relationships with our Fathers that aren’t reflected in the many facebook posts we’ll see today. And it’s ok to feel that way! As I mention in the episode today, in many ways it’s not your fault and you are by no means alone! I hope you enjoy the practice I offer to all you, like me, who are struggling through this day. In today’...
EP 533: Mindfulness and Spirituality
June 19, 2021 18:46 - 31 minutes - 56.5 MBIf you’ve watched many of my videos or certainly if you’ve attended any of my coaching sessions, you’ve probably heard me say: “I am not a practicing Buddhist and this is not a Buddhist course.” And that’s why I find it so perplexing that over half the people with whom I work as a coach invariably come back to me at some point and tell me how much my coaching has helped with their spirituality. In today’s episode, I go into this topic in some detail and offer some reasons for this phenome...
EP 532: Authenticity and the Weekend
June 18, 2021 17:40 - 28 minutes - 50.8 MBThis morning was one of the rare instances in which the planned topic for the day’s episode just didn’t resonate enough to actually go for it. The original topic was to be an honest accounting of some of the behavior and even abuse that caused me deeper trauma than I am often able to recognize. As I mention, if I get ten emails to [email protected] asking me to share this story, I’ll do it. But for today’s episode, I decided to talk about taking time off from the toil but not from ...
EP 531: Journaling For The (Emotional) Win!
June 17, 2021 16:40 - 31 minutes - 55.9 MBI am so happy to be back in the routine of journaling every day! For about five years or so, I journaled for about 5-10 minutes per day almost without fail. But I kinda considered it a luxury at some point and, as I got busier (I think it was a covid homeschooling thing), I moved away from it. At first, it was a day skipped here and there. But after a month or so, the journal stayed on the shelf. But as you’ve heard me mention a few times recently, I am dealing with some issues in my li...
EP 530: Generosity and Interbeing
June 16, 2021 17:52 - 34 minutes - 62.4 MB“Often, when we say ‘I love you’ we focus mostly on the ‘I’ who is doing the loving and less on the quality of the love that’s being offered. This is because we are caught by the idea of self. We think we have a self. But there is no such thing as an individual separate self. A flower is made only of non-flower elements, such as chlorophyll, sunlight, and water. If we were to remove all the non-flower elements from the flower, there would be no flower left. A flower cannot be by herself alon...
EP 529: How Mindfulness Facilitates Intimacy (of all kinds!)
June 13, 2021 17:38 - 31 minutes - 56.4 MBWhen you read the word ‘Intimacy’, what images come to mind? If you’re like me (and many others) you might envision scenes of romance with some Barry White soundtrack in your mind. And, to be sure, sex is (mostly) an intimate act. But sex, in my opinion, and understanding, sits within the greater sphere of intimacy and does not define intimacy. In today’s episode, I talk about what intimacy is and what it requires. And I talk about how Mindfulness and Compassion practices can create the ...
EP 528: Compassion and Interbeing
June 12, 2021 18:00 - 28 minutes - 51.3 MBMost of us consider ourselves to be kind and compassionate people. We hold doors for people… We say please and thank you… We offer assistance where we see it needed. But at the same time, most people have two distinct thresholds that we refuse to cross with our kindness and compassion. The first threshold is in front of us, where we refuse to offer our compassion to people who have done harmful things to ourselves or other people. The second threshold is where we refuse kindness and co...
EP 527: Honoring Our "Small" Trauma
June 11, 2021 15:58 - 28 minutes - 51.7 MBI think it’s common for many of us to view the adverse experiences of our lives and minimize the effects those experiences have had on us as we compare our own experiences to those of others who seem to have gone through something much harder than we have. But while this is common (certainly true for me!), it is very detrimental to our physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing. We should learn to honor every bit of the difficulty of our lives as true and real for us, no matter how it compa...
EP 526: "A Punch is Just a Punch"
June 10, 2021 19:28 - 25 minutes - 46.1 MBDon’t worry, we’re not going to talk about fighting! The title of this video and the subject of the email is a quote taken from the person who was Bruce Lee’s trainer, and it’s resonated with me ever since a good friend told me about it a few years ago. What I really love about it is how it applies to mindfulness practices! In today’s video, I tell two personal stories of situations in which I was able to use the tool I needed to come back to a place of calm and compassion: If you would ...
EP 525: How Non-Judging Awareness and Self-Compassion Allow for Complete Honesty
June 09, 2021 14:54 - 26 minutes - 47.9 MBI think my story is pretty common, actually. I think most people grow up behind a sort of mask we wear to please those around us. For me, it was my compassion that I felt needed to be hidden so I could be a tough guy like all the men in my family. And over the years, that kindness, forgiveness, and compassion that felt so right to me, was covered up so well and so deeply that I came to forget I was hiding it at all. In today’s episode, I tell a story from Jack Kornfield that illustrates ...
EP 524: Forgiveness, Self Compassion, and The Decisions we Make
June 05, 2021 18:00 - 26 minutes - 47.2 MBSo much of the struggles we experience in life arise directly or indirectly from the decisions we make. And it’s not just the big decisions! As I often remind you, life happens moment-by-moment. And that means that the decisions we make happen moment-by-moment too. That is to say that the daily, seemingly insignificant decisions we make every day have consequences that ultimately become the struggles of tomorrow. In today’s episode, I talk about how forgiveness and self-compassion factor...
EP 523: Moment-to-Moment Forgiveness
June 04, 2021 18:48 - 28 minutes - 50.6 MBIn so many aspects of our lives, we tend to think of the completion of a process from which we move on. When we ‘learn’ something, for example, we feel like the process of learning is done and we can move on to the next thing. And this is something, I think, people associate with mindfulness and meditation as well. But even though there is a terminal point to learning about mindfulness - we have learned the practices, so we’re done, right? - there is also an aspect of ongoing practice tha...
EP 522: How to Hear Our Inner Voice
June 03, 2021 19:09 - 27 minutes - 48.4 MBThere are really two main ways in which we can interact with our inner voice: We can become caught up in our inner voice, blindly obeying it without any awareness. This will tend to look like what we call ‘The Monkey Mind’, when the thoughts and ideas just bounce around your mind like a monkey jumping around a room. Or we can become very aware of the inner voice (aka our thoughts and storytelling mind), but treat it with fear and apprehension. This opens us to many maladaptive coping mecha...
EP 521: Where Does our Inner Voice Come From?
June 02, 2021 17:45 - 27 minutes - 47.9 MBAs I mentioned the other day, we all have this inner voice; this mental chatter going on all the time. It’s not a ‘voice’ that you necessarily ‘hear’ in your head, but instead, you can think of it as the way you think. This inner voice can either be supportive, or harsh and doubtful… It can be kind and loving, or cruel and mean… It can look for solutions, or place blame… But how did it all begin? In today’s episode, I talk about the origins of your self-talk residing in the programming...
EP 520: Learning to Hear Your Inner Voice (And why it's so Important)
May 30, 2021 19:07 - 28 minutes - 26.1 MBWe all have mental chatter running in our minds from the time we are very young until the end of our lives. This inner voice, if you will, can be optimistic or pessimistic… It can be supportive or blaming… Kind and compassionate or mean and cruel… Whatever quality our particular inner voice possesses will determine the kind of actions we take in our lives. A supportive inner voice makes you take a chance on something, while a blaming inner voice will make you talk yourself out of even t...
EP 519: A Peaceful Mind is a Powerful Mind
May 29, 2021 18:12 - 27 minutes - 49.6 MB“A peaceful mind is a powerful mind.” This was a delightful and meditative message printed on my teabag a few days ago and it resonated so loudly with me. So I use today’s episode to explore this concept and how it aligns with so many concepts of mindfulness and compassion: If you have any questions about any of this or would like to learn some of the simple practices to make your mind more peaceful and, in turn, more powerful, I invite you to claim your free coaching session here: https...
Ep 518: The Importance of Understanding, Part II
May 28, 2021 17:20 - 31 minutes - 56.7 MBLast week, I talked about the value of understanding the people and circumstances around us. I explained how understanding is synonymous with love. But today, I want to talk about a different kind of understanding. This understanding is the ability to see how our mind and body work together. In today’s episode, I explain all of this thoroughly and deeply: And, perhaps most importantly, I explain in today’s episode how this understanding of the process of our mind, leads to the understan...
EP 517: How to Let Curiosity Replace Judgment
May 27, 2021 16:28 - 28 minutes - 51.8 MBI used to wake up almost every morning with the same feeling. Always run down and tired from all the busyness and stress I was experiencing; always exhausted from overthinking everything, I would wake up with a feeling of dread. I dreaded the low energy of the day… I dreaded how difficult it would be… Even before I got out of bed, on many mornings I would long to just fast forward to the moment when I was right back under the covers and going to sleep for the night. This led to an endle...
Ep 516: Seeing the Signs When We Operate From Fear
May 26, 2021 17:50 - 28 minutes - 50.9 MBAfter taking almost two full days off for the first time in nearly three years, I learned a lot about the importance of idle time. It got me thinking about a client who hesitates to take time off, even as she is overworked at her demanding job, for fear that some emergency might arise for which she will need the time. In today’s episode, I talk about how this kind of hoarding - whether time, materials, or money - can be a sign that one is operating from a place of fear: If you feel like y...
EP 515: Understanding our Positive Triggers
May 24, 2021 17:58 - 18 minutes - 33.2 MBIn many episodes, I mention the value of understanding and recognizing our negative triggers: those common words, actions, or circumstances that trigger our emotions and/or our stress response. But this, of course, only represents half of the picture! What about the positive triggers? In today’s episode, I talk about the value of positive triggers, when we can use them, and how to weave them into our mindfulness practice: I also make an exciting announcement concerning some regular days ...
EP 514: The Importance of Understanding
May 21, 2021 19:10 - 31 minutes - 56.5 MBZen Master Thich Nhat Hanh talks about planting lettuce. If we plant lettuce and it doesn’t grow, we don’t blame the lettuce and yell at it, expecting some change to occur. If our lettuce won’t grow, we try to understand why. We check how much light, water, and fertilizer the lettuce receives and determine, with our understanding, whether an adjustment will help the lettuce grow. But when we encounter circumstances and people in our daily lives who don’t treat us the way we think we shou...
EP 513: Making Practice Playful
May 20, 2021 18:39 - 28 minutes - 26.4 MBAnything we can possibly learn, we learn in two distinct and specific ways that actually use completely different circuits of the brain. First, we learn through knowledge. This would be the guitar teacher showing you how to make a basic chord. But that knowledge doesn’t mean that you can actually play that chord. In order to get to that point, of actually playing the guitar chord, we need to apply the other kind of learning. This learning is only achieved through repetitious experience....
EP 512: Understanding Triggers
May 19, 2021 17:51 - 26 minutes - 46.8 MBIn this podcast, I talk often about the need to see the emotions as they arise. However, in the face of Anger, or any big emotion that hijacks our day, it is always beneficial to understand the emotion and what triggers it. When we learn to recognize the triggers that cause these big emotions, not only can we see them coming more effectively, but we can also adjust our relationship to the triggers themselves. This is the key to living life on your terms and not on the terms of your emotio...
EP 511: Avoid This Pitfall on Your Path to Growth
May 18, 2021 17:22 - 29 minutes - 51.6 MBRam Dass — ‘If you think you are enlightened; go home for Thanksgiving.’ I love this quote as much for its wonderful humor as for its wisdom and brilliance. Because of the historical subcontext within which many people in our lives hold us, as we change through the practice of Mindfulness and Compassion exercises, those around us don’t always see our change and, when they treat us as ‘the same old us’, it can be triggering. Like majorly triggering! In today’s episode, I describe this phe...
EP 510: Can we Learn to Love Our Failure?
May 17, 2021 15:45 - 31 minutes - 55.9 MBAt the heart of the work I do in mindfulness and compassion is the concept of non-judging awareness. And this concept of non-judging awareness is at the heart of how we handle adversity and personal failure. As children, most of us are taught that failure is ‘bad’. And we carry that understanding of failure through our entire lives. What happens when we judge failure in this way is that we see failure as a personal shortcoming; we identify with our failure so much that we become overwhel...
EP 509: How to Integrate Your Anger, and Why You Might Want to.
May 14, 2021 18:19 - 39 minutes - 36.2 MBAs you deepen your awareness of your body, emotions, and thoughts, you come to an important realization, as it relates to Anger: It is rooted very deeply in our ‘programming.’ On first glance, this might seem like bad news, but it’s not! In fact, it’s really awesome news!!! Seeing the roots of our emotions in this way can free us from the sense that it’s all somehow our own fault. That our Anger is a kind of flaw. Seeing the roots of our Anger in this way allows us to embrace Anger as t...
EP 508: I Can't Even Remember What it Was Like...
May 13, 2021 18:20 - 26 minutes - 47.5 MBOne of the most profound realizations I came to in my own mindfulness journey is how hard it is to even remember what life used to feel like. And it’s even more impactful when I consider how, back in those days, I never could have imagined any other way to live. But Anger is like that. Anger makes us see things inaccurately. And Anger takes away our outbound filter. The result? It’s a life that feels like mayhem 24/7 with no way out. In today’s episode, I describe the way out, as illus...
EP 507: Evidence That Humans are Wired for Kindness, Empathy, and Compassion
May 12, 2021 16:49 - 29 minutes - 53.6 MBEven if you haven’t read the book, you’ve probably heard and seen references to the dystopian world of a bunch of kids who were stranded on an island with no adults. The book is called Lord of the Flies and it has stood for a half century as a realistic view of the inherent greed, ambition, and violence we all possess as Human Beings. In today’s episode, I relay a story of six real kids who found themselves on such an island, stranded for 15 months, but things turned out much differently: ...
EP 506: Learning to Let Go
May 12, 2021 16:43 - 35 minutes - 64.5 MBOne of the most common aspects of life for those of us who struggle with chronic anger is the feeling that we must control the circumstances around us. We do this because we know that if we don’t people and situations will piss us off. Am I right? But here’s the thing: We can’t control the people and circumstances around us. Not really, we can’t. And when we lose control, we get angry. And when we get angry, we lose control even more. Can you see how this can spiral out of control? Have...
EP 505: How to Love and Befriend Your Anger
May 10, 2021 17:55 - 31 minutes - 57.4 MBOne of the most common sources of emotional struggle, like chronic Anger, lies in our relationship to our emotions. Most of the time, we experience an emotion and we automatically react to it. Because of the nature and behavior of our emotions, this is not an effective approach. You see, when we feel beholden to react to big emotions like Anger, we don’t examine or contemplate the potential consequences to our reactions and this invariably sets up a cycle. We react to an emotion… That r...
EP 504: Trying to Control The Circumstances Around us Leads to Increased Anger and Stress
May 07, 2021 18:59 - 30 minutes - 54.5 MBOne of the most effective tools we have to process and resolve anger in our bodies is acceptance. Let me explain what I mean. If I get stuck in traffic while on my way to pick up my young child from school, it is certainly a problem - and possibly a serious one! And in that moment, I have two choices: I can resent the traffic and fear the consequences, allowing myself to lose control and succumb to the stress and anger arising in me and ultimately hijacking my nervous system… Or, I can ...
EP 503: The Only Person we Can Control is Ourself
May 06, 2021 18:05 - 31 minutes - 29.3 MBOne of the more frustrating and damaging aspects of anger is the way it changes our perception both internally and externally. In other words, Anger gets us coming and going! In today’s episode, I talk about how this works and how it can set up a negative feedback loop: https://youtu.be/KdKIZtftmOc The good news is that we have the power to transform that negative feedback loop; that vicious cycle, into a positive, virtuous cycle. But there is only one way to do this. And it has nothin...
EP 502: What's The Difference Between Anger And Rage? And Why Does it Matter?
May 05, 2021 21:01 - 31 minutes - 55.6 MBMany people - myself included - tend to conflate Anger and Rage, resulting in an important misunderstanding and confusion that can hinder our well-being and ability to be functional in this world. Where Anger and Rage are similar is in that they are both emotions. And as emotions, Anger and Rage serve specific and valuable purposes in our bodies and minds. As emotions, Anger and Rage are also impermanent. But where Anger and Rage differ is an important thing to understand. In today’s ep...
EP 501: Are You Addicted to Anger?
May 04, 2021 20:11 - 29 minutes - 27.6 MBIf you’ve ever survived a fit of rage or extreme anger - they’re not actually the same, which I’ll talk about in tomorrow’s episode - you know the feeling. That feeling you have after the episode is over. You feel your body calming back down and there’s a tingling, almost euphoric feeling you get in your body. For those of us with chronic anger issues, this feeling is as good as we ever get to feel! The feeling comes from the release of various happy hormones in our brains and it happens...
EP 500: How Our Expectations Fuel Our Anger
May 03, 2021 17:29 - 34 minutes - 61.8 MBMany of our emotional reactions, but anger especially, are influenced more by our internal circumstances than by our external experiences. This explains the extreme difference in my reaction to the two different retail experiences - the pet store and the polo store - I shared last week. The thing is that we can’t control the kid at the cash register, or the line of people in a store, or the weather, or the pandemic. And if we try to control all of those external circumstances, we set ours...
EP 499: What Does an Apple Tree Know About Kindness and Compassion?
April 30, 2021 19:05 - 31 minutes - 57 MBI am getting so excited about the course I’m offering in a few weeks from now: Anger, Transformed!!! I’m excited to help people to understand, befriend, and transform the powerful emotion of Anger that has a way of interfering with our lives and our happiness. One of the concepts we’ll be covering is the way kindness and compassion are very effective antidotes to Anger and its sources. But what happens when compassion and kindness are refuted or ignored and someone does something to hurt ...
EP 498: I'll SEE it when I BELIEVE it...
April 29, 2021 19:55 - 31 minutes - 28.7 MBAs you’ve heard by now, I’m offering a new 12-week program called Anger, Transformed, that will start in a few weeks from now. If you’re interested in learning more, there’s a link below with which you can book a free phone consultation with me to explore whether this program might be right for you. Why am I focusing on the emotion of Anger? Well, for one thing, I suffered from Anger for many years and I know first hand how it can take over one’s life and damage one’s health and relations...
EP 497: How Anger Camouflages Anger
April 28, 2021 17:22 - 27 minutes - 49.2 MBI’m still reeling a bit from that story I told you yesterday! Oh my goodness!!! And, of course, that is just one of so many different stories I have that are almost exactly like that one: I feel slighted, I get tense and feel stress in my body, and I lash out at someone, saying things that embarrass me tremendously, then I spend days in shame and guilt. Then, as I am trying to resolve all of this guilt and regret, life shows up and triggers me again and renews the cycle. In today’s episo...
EP 496: A (Very Difficult) Personal Story of Anger Transformed
April 27, 2021 18:11 - 29 minutes - 53.1 MBAs I gear up for my new course - Anger, Transformed - that launches in a couple of weeks, I will be talking a lot about anger here in this space. One common characteristic of anger is loss of control. We lose control, physically, when we experience rage, but anger itself takes away some of our control in the form of poor judgment and assessment of our actions. In other words, anger tends to trick us into thinking our words and actions are socially acceptable, even when they’re not. In to...
EP 495: The Difference Between Anger Management and Anger Transformation
April 26, 2021 18:08 - 30 minutes - 28 MBIf you google the word ‘Anger’, you will see a cascade of websites, blog posts, and articles fill your screen. A very high percentage of these results will surely include the term ‘Anger Management.’ Of course, anyone who has experienced uncontrolled anger in their lives knows that there is a huge value in learning to manage this tumultuous emotion. But I say that trying to manage anger, once it’s reached, or even approached, the level of rage is nearly impossible. So not only will this ...
EP 494: Anger Transformed... to What?
April 23, 2021 18:26 - 30 minutes - 27.8 MBAs I prepare to launch my new course, Anger, Transformed, in a couple of weeks, I’m having a great time nerding out on the research about anger, how it works, what causes it, and what it does to our bodies. It’s truly fascinating stuff! And, unsurprisingly, I see tons of similarities between stress and anger. One really interesting similarity between stress and anger is how many people experience these chronic states and don’t even know it. Even though they don’t see their anger, people ...
EP 493: Why Letting Go Can Seem So Difficult (And How to Practice This Vital Skill)
April 22, 2021 18:56 - 34 minutes - 62.1 MBAs I work with people from all walks of life, one question I get a lot is: “But how do I let go?” And it’s a tricky question! Tricky because in some ways, letting go is the most effortless - and therefore, easiest - thing we can ever do! But in today’s episode, I talk about why this super easy and effortless act can be so difficult it seems impossible: As I explain in the episode, just like with anything we’re trying to learn, it’s always best and most effective to start small and slow. ...
EP 492: A Personal Story of IKEA Rage
April 21, 2021 20:04 - 32 minutes - 58.1 MBMost of the time, we don’t ‘see’ our anger until it’s in that blind rage level that hijacks our day. In fact, many people never really ‘see’ their anger at all! They see the troubled relationships… They see the poor work performance… They see the damage done to the walls of their homes or the bumpers of their cars… But they don’t necessarily see the anger itself. And that’s not a mistake! That’s how anger is. It’s like an operating system: It’s just the way life works. And because o...
EP 491: Impermanence, Non-Identification, and Self Regulation
April 20, 2021 17:55 - 34 minutes - 62.3 MBAs I’ve talked about so many times, the practice of mindfulness and compassion, as I teach here on the podcast and in my private coaching practice, offer amazing, real world benefits. People use mindfulness to improve everything from their golf game to their sales numbers. From household budgeting, to healthy eating and weight loss. From relationship repair to stress reduction. The list literally goes on forever. But just like the awareness itself, in almost every instance there is much...
EP 490: What is Meta Awareness and Why is it Valuable to You?
April 19, 2021 18:30 - 32 minutes - 59.1 MBWhen people talk about the benefit of mindfulness practices, they usually mention any number of amazing benefits: You hear about stress reduction… Or about better sleep… Or better work performance… I mean, you will even hear about the benefits mindfulness practices have on one’s spiritual practices… I’ve heard every one of these and many more! But the benefit of mindfulness practices you don’t hear about too often is the benefit of meta-awareness. Meta-awareness is just a way to descr...
EP 489: Why we Worry
April 16, 2021 19:10 - 32 minutes - 58.2 MBThe first thing I want to point out today - and this is super important - is that your tendencies towards whatever emotional reactivity you experience is not your fault. The same applies to your worrying mind. It’s not your fault. Just like the rest of the programming, we undergo through those first seven or so years of our life, the worrying and emotional reactivity are learned responses over which you have had little or no control throughout your life. Yes, you have personal agency and...