that I think has helped the most is being able to sit with emotions and being like, I can survive it. So being like, okay, this hurts, this is painful, but I'm here and I'm with it, and I can get through this. That was a snippet from today's guest, Ariane Smith. We're talking all about thriving with mental illness today.
This episode isn't just for people who are living with a mental illness. Even if you're not, there are so many life lessons in here, it is pure gold. So keep listening. You'll listen to me throughout this episode.
A little bit stumped at times a little bit, processing my aha moments and realizations. Ariane opened my eyes. He helped me see things that I hadn't been seeing. And for that, I am truly grateful, and I hope he can do the same for you.
We're talking about thriving while living with a mental illness. What I love about that is that Ariane and I discuss that they are not mutually exclusive. You can be well and have a chronic mental illness, whether that's depression, anxiety, or anything else. Specifically, we're talking about how simply trusting yourself to get through things even when they're not easy and power you.
How many self-help messages and inversionally marginalize those living with mental illness? A liveness and a power of feeling rather than closing off our emotions? How happiness isn't always a choice. Why feeling broken is nothing to be ashamed of.
How you can completely be afraid and courageous all at the same time. How your pain can shape you in a positive way. And finally, how not loving yourself doesn't make you unlovable. Shake it off.
If you thought that, shake it off and stay tuned. Welcome to Head of Thrive. I'm your host Kate Snowwise. This is a podcast where people who are ready to step up and live a happier life.
It's for those of us who are dedicated to understanding ourselves and getting the best that we can out of this thing called life. It's a mix of psychology and modern spiritual thought, always with a focus on practical advice so that you can take it back and apply it to your own life. I don't believe we're here to merely survive. I truly believe we're here to thrive.
So let's get going. Ariane, thank you so much for being on Head of Thrive today. I am really looking forward to having a conversation and learning about you and your journey and what you're offering to the world. Yeah, I can't wait.
I'm so, so happy to be here. So can you start a little bit with telling us about Ariane, Ariane as a child and moving forward to who you are today? Yeah, sure. So my childhood was pretty formative because I actually experienced a lot of trauma as a child.
I'm a survivor of child abuse. So I don't actually remember as much of my childhood as maybe a normal person would, somebody who hasn't survived trauma. So that alone has actually been pretty formative for me. Really kind of recognizing that my sense of self is different than others and kind of navigating the world without the same memories of childhood that people often reflect on and can relate to.
That was something that really formed a lot of my journey and having grew up with some fear and some confusion and the journey to rewrite safety into my life, that was a really important thing is to really kind of as an adult reclaim the idea of safety and sort of like repairing myself. Can I come back a little bit there? Because as people or people listening who may not have experienced that kind of trauma and their childhood and you say your memories are kind of not necessarily there. Do you feel like looking back, you've just got whole portions of your life that you've kind of blacked out to be a survivor of trauma and how that affects your memories?
Yeah, definitely. So I experienced something called Dissociative Amnesia, which is basically there's like sometimes I experience small gaps in memory that still happen today. And then I also just have like years that are missing. Like I don't remember from I think around like age six to age 12, I have no memories.
Like there's like nothing that I remember during that time. Only things that people have told me and I've sort of like cognitively remembered what they've told me went on. So it's really interesting to kind of be like, oh yeah, I don't remember middle school or like, you know, I don't remember like these periods of time in my life that other people relate to and have experiences that they can relate to. And it's also impacted my relationships in some really interesting ways just because I like to think that something's relatable or normal in childhood and then I'll be like, wait, it's actually really trauma-informed.
So it took a lot to kind of sort of recognize that my worldview is very different because I grew up in a different environment. Like I grew up in something that was very impactful in a kind of scary and or very scary and formative way in that way. Does that make sense? It totally makes sense.
I kind of recognize it as being a protection mechanism, right? Yes. That your brain is trying to protect your wellbeing. So it literally is like, we don't need to know that.
Yeah, yeah. It's like, bye-bye. We're gonna put these memories in a box. And we're gonna lock them up.
Yes, exactly. You said that your memories, you don't have anything out to middle school. What was high school like for you, Arian? Yeah, so high school actually I have some big gaps too, but I have kind of a speckling of memories throughout my childhood.
Like I'll have maybe one or two kind of significant experiences that I'll remember. And one that I've had that was really consistent kind of throughout my childhood and sort of just evolved. And it was like this kind of safe space. So something that I was able to remember throughout this was this image that I would get.
Sometimes when I was dreaming, sometimes when I was just sort of sitting there, like I wasn't really meditating because I didn't know what that was, something like that. And I would just see this golden tree in this field. And it was just a super safe space. And ever since seeing that, that was my safe space to go to.
And it also really kind of aligned me with a lot of hope and a lot of compassion and a lot of spirituality and resilience. And that was something that was just sort of this vein throughout my entire childhood. And even though I couldn't necessarily handle all the trauma as well as I couldn't just grace through it and be totally fine after, this was sort of this consistent experience that really formed my life and it's still a symbol that I really hold onto today. So even though I don't necessarily have middle school or high school or like as a kind of complete experience, I do definitely like have that image.
And it was something that I really reclaimed especially when I went to college. And then I was like, you know, this is something that I relate to. I put it into my art, I put it into my work and started to really kind of form my sense of self around that image and around the emotions that came with that. That is so beautiful.
I have when you say this golden tree, I can picture it in my head. And I just want a beautiful glowing safe space. It totally makes sense to me. Yeah, exactly.
So moving into your adulthood. And you mentioned earlier, you know, there's been this consistent theme of creating the sense of safety. How did you or how have you gone on to create that for yourself? Yeah.
So reclaiming safety after trauma is tough. Like, you know, I'm just gonna go right up. It's really hard. I'm thinking that yeah, it's got to be incredibly difficult.
Yes, definitely. And it's not, you know, it definitely has been it has its ups and downs. And I'm totally still working progress with it. But I have to say the thing that I think has helped the most is being able to sit with emotions and being like, I can survive it.
So, you know, grief comes up being like, okay, this hurts. This is painful, but I'm here and I'm with it and I can get through this. And like that alone, I think is where the strongest sense of safety comes from. It's the sense of like trusting in yourself, where you can be like, it's not so much trusting that it's going to be easy, but trusting that you can get through it even when it isn't easy.
And how there's a sense of safety there because you start to believe in yourself and recognizing how that safety comes from within rather than from, you know, necessarily having a safe life around you. Does that all make sense? It totally makes sense. I'm just, I'm quite blown away by the conversation because that's a big topic, right?
Just thinking about how even when you're in a scary environment, how your safety can be found within you and learn to rely on yourself and trust yourself. I think that's something that everyone can benefit from, whether they're living with mental illness or not. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I feel like that tree really taught me that too.
That image was sort of this safe space within myself. And I kind of learned, you know, okay, I can always retreat into this area myself. I can always kind of go into my own heart and really kind of see like, okay, I'm safe here, like sort of hold myself from within. And just being able to do that really kind of taught me, okay, safety is something that I can reclaim by myself.
Like it's something that I don't need stable finances or no trauma to ever happen or, you know, no crime in the world or anything like that. It's like, you know, I can find this within myself and know that even in the face of uncertainty in life, there's something within me that's strong and able to handle it. Wow, I'm just really blown away by that because it's hitting my heart center. It really makes so much sense.
And it really ties into the fact that I consider where all spiritual beings having a human experience. And so when you talk about going back into that heart space and feeling safe there, that just it seems so real to me. Yeah, definitely. And the feeling there is so real, like it's just that unconditional love and that you can feel like within yourself.
Okay, so talking more, I'm like, where do we move on from there? But I do want to talk about the real world that we live in and stigma around mental illness. How do you see this playing out in society? And what impact do you believe that if there is stigma, how do you think it's affecting people who are living with mental illnesses?
Gosh, okay, I could talk about stigma for like four hours, but I'll keep it concise. There's so much that's out there in the world. And I think the biggest one is that, like, because of the stigma, you know, because of all of these various actors, like depression equals laziness or we should just be able to get over it or that we're dwelling on trauma or, you know, we're not moving on from our past, all of these things, it really kind of collectively forms into this message that says you're a burden for having a mental illness. And that's kind of like the overarching stigma or what every single like little message is telling us.
And it really says, you know, mental illness is something to be ashamed of where in reality mental illness is usually super adaptive. It's some way that we handle the stresses in our life or our experience of the world that allowed us to process it. Like depression sometimes numbs emotions that need to be numbed in order to survive. Anxiety is a natural side of flight response gone a little extra wild, you know, and it's just like normal things like that that really should be shamed because it's just like our body working the best it can and us managing that the best that we can as well.
I love the way you make something so complex seem literally so simple. You haven't asked for this. Where do you think these stigmas have come from? What has perpetuated the stigmas around mental illness?
Yeah, I actually just recently wrote a blog about this or a video. And I think the real thing that I've realized over the years has been the stigma really comes from people wanting to feel like they're less needy than others. I think that it's normal that like being needy, you know, having needs is something that stigmatized for all of us. You know, it's like if we set a boundary or if we say, hey, you know, I need to rest today and start going out or something like that, there's this kind of guilt and shame that comes with that.
And I think people naturally want to seem like they have less needs than other people. So they kind of pick out a group of people which tends to be mentally ill and disabled people and say, you know, these people have more needs. So they're like, they should be more ashamed or there's like, at least I'm not that needy or at least I don't have those needs at least I can function all the time. You know, whatever it is, it's kind of like this hierarchy of, oh, I'm less needy, I'm less of a burden.
And I think it's that kind of message that people have tried to create for themselves, trying to lift themselves up because, you know, self esteem is something we collectively struggle with, mental illness or not. And I think by trying to lift themselves up in that way, it's sort of created this comparison that has pushed people with mental illness down. It makes a lot of sense. Random thought for you, I have my mother-in-law staying with me at the moment and she's a retired doctor, a general practice doctor.
And we were talking about mental illness last night. And I think I may have been saying, I was preparing for this podcast interview. Yeah. And she said that in her practice, the majority of patients she saw with their for psychological reasons.
They were not there for physical reasons. And that blew my mind. I did not know how many of us are struggling. And it helped me understand why, you know, when you read about antidepressant usage and things like that.
But do you feel like mental illness is something that so many of us are struggling with silently? Oh, yeah, I think so for sure. I think the statistic is like one in four and one in five. That's like what I've heard.
But those are the people who are counted. Those are people who go to therapy and who have experiences where you can count that statistic. So I think there are so many of us that because of a stigma, we push it down. I really started to realize this when I actually just recently got a diagnosis, well, not too recently, but like a more recent diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder, which is a condition that used to be known like 25 years ago as multiple personality disorder.
So that is a particularly stigmatized disorder. And that one in particular, I realized, you know, it has this prevalence of 1.5% of the population, but it's so stigmatized that it's probably more like four or five percent of the population, which is like four times the amount of people with bulimia, you know, and these conditions that we know really commonly. So just to be able to see like, wow, because of the stigma, this is so such a like closeted disorder and the statistics are so much lower than I believe that they would be, especially, you know, if there wasn't that stigma and if people actually were able to talk about their disorders and their conditions that they deal with. Yeah, I'm with you because it just when she was talking about that, it just made me realize how many people are probably suffering quietly behind closed doors because they don't want to speak up and say, I'm struggling.
This is hurting. And yeah, I'm not really sure where to go from here. So I'm hoping that some of you feeling that way, may be listening to our conversation. Yeah, yeah.
And of course, it's normal to be like, to like have a hard time saying, you know, I'm hurting because I think the painful part there is not even just a stigma, but the idea that you have to validate your own hurt. And that means that you feel it more, you know, when you say like, I'm hurting and I need help, then you feel that you're hurting and that you need help and you feel those emotions. And I think it takes a lot of bravery and courage to do that. And it's not just to face the stigma, but it's also just to validate your own experience.
It's such an interesting point because I have to on my own journey of personal growth, I went through my twenties and I was pretty disconnected from myself. And when I say disconnected sort of disconnected from my heart center. And I have to admit that once I started getting more connected with my heart center, my pain was deeper, but so was my joy. Yeah.
And I all of a sudden, the range of emotions I was feeling were more I was really in tune with my emotions. And I wouldn't go back because it's actually there's something beautiful about feeling so much. Yes, yes, definitely. Yeah, I'm at this point now where I've been doing this feeling where I can try to feel more deeply for so long, especially with my mental illness recovery and with my personal growth.
And so now at this point where it's like, I'll see this mildly emotional thing on television and I'll start like bawling. It's like, you know, I have a sensitivity, but it's this absolutely beautiful, absolutely like powerful and transformative sense of aliveness. You know, that's really how we describe it as it's just like, you're so much more alive than you would be if you didn't feel that deep. Oh, I feel you like I can't watch more movies anymore because I'm like, these are just brutal.
And the fact that I used to be so numb to this is probably why we live in a world today because you know, well, we live in today because everybody else is numb to it. But I'm with you. I feel aliveness that's such a beautiful way to frame it. I really feel more alive.
Talking about advocating for people and thriving with mental illness, did this stem out of your struggles? How did you come together to create and cover your joy, which is your business? And we'll talk more about your online show. But where did this come from?
Yeah, so definitely, you know, my experiences were what gave the foundation for it, you know, being able to recognize that I've really been hurt by the trauma that I've faced and that I had a lot of struggles to overcome because of that and that I was able to overcome them and able to like continuously overcome them, like still being able to overcome them and being a work in progress and embracing that and recognizing that like, you know, I didn't have to be healed or perfect in order to inspire other people. And I started to realize that as soon as I embraced that message within myself, I started to just naturally have that message come up in conversations and in dialogues with other people and other survivors. And I recognized that all of a sudden I was like inspiring people and I just sort of came naturally. And when I was in college as well, I was a residential advisor in the RA.
And in that role, we kind of like sit down with people and talk with them and kind of counsel them sometimes, not like a therapist, but a little bit of that sort of guidance that mentorship. And when I was doing that, I realized that I absolutely loved it. That was my favorite part of the job. And my boss was this fantastic woman named Brielle and she just like blew me away all the time.
Like, she was just so fantastic. But she actually told me about life coaching. She said, you know, you're like a guru to me. She was like, we'd sit down and, you know, it was meant for like her to check and I mean, we just have these like really awesome emotional dialogues.
So she always taught me a guru. And she was like, go get some formal guru training. Yeah, exactly. So she was like, you should be a life coach.
And I was like, I have no idea what that is. So then I like, lift it up. And I started to realize, oh, this is what I have wanted to be. This is what I've done in my heart for so long.
Like, since I was a child, like the memories that I do have, I was always sort of like mentoring people in this way, like helping them see their own strength and their own potential by just like guiding them towards it, by just like pointing them out in them and showing like, hey, you got over this other thing, you can go through this too. And being able to communicate that message to people and make a living off of it, you know, being able to do this, like as my livelihood was something that just blew me away. And I was like, you know, I don't know a choice. Like, this is something that I have to do.
Like, it was such a strong, really value focused decision. It was just like, it was there in front of me and I had to grasp it. Oh, I love that. You know, that people are on the right path when they didn't have a choice, right?
You're like, it was, it was like a magnet pulling you in. Yeah, exactly. Being I think you're uniquely qualified in this space because you're someone who has overcome a lot of trauma as you put it yourself, someone who's living with mental illness and thriving. How do you feel that sometimes the self-help movement marginalizes people who are living with mental illness?
Do you think that happens? I do. Yeah, I do. And I think a lot of it is unintentional.
And I think that that that's important to your knowledge too, is that people in the self-help movement want to help people. Like, a lot of people come into it, not for the money, but for their heart. They really come into it because it means a lot to them to help other people. But I think that stigma is such a common thing in society that it's internalized, something that we all hold within ourselves and we don't even realize that we're stigmatizing things with certain phrases.
But some of the really common ones that you hear are like, choose happiness, you know, the idea that happiness is a choice. And for people with depression or mood disorders, it's not, you know, happiness is an emotion. And it comes and goes, even for those of us without mental illness, it comes and goes and it ebbs and flows and it's not a constant thing. And it's not something that we can just choose.
We can't just be like, oh, I'm just going to be happy today. It's not that much in our control. I think that we need to kind of reframe it as joy is something that we can seek and something that we can choose. Like the sense of aliveness that we're talking about earlier and the sense of emotional depth and empathy and love and compassion and all of these other things, those are what we can choose.
Those are things that we can decide to walk towards. But happiness is an emotion that will come and go. And it's an emotion that's often very fleeting for those of mentalness. So that's like one of the ways that I really think of the self-help movement stigmatizes mentalness and kind of tells us like, oh, you're just not trying hard enough.
You're just not choosing happiness hard enough. Oh my gosh, I am just sitting here like floored. I'm looking out my window and going, wow, how how about like how true is that? And I'm probably someone who has been guilty of not seeing that.
But happiness is 100% an emotion. And I have family members very close to me and friends who are living with mental illnesses. And you're so right. They can't just wake up one day and sometimes happiness isn't there today.
Yeah, yeah. Instead, it's like, okay, well, I'm going to choose self acceptance. You know, or something like that. I think that's kind of what I've always told myself is like, all right, I am not feeling happy today.
So I'm going to cut that. And like, that's the choice is to choose to accept the emotion that's in front of you, not to just try to like brush away and change it's not good for you anyways, you know, and mental illness are not if you're like innovating an emotion you're experiencing, but you're not really being present with yourself in your life. Right. And I hear you.
It's like when I was disconnected, it's like you can you can bandaid up anything and pretend it's not there. But you really that's not doing you any good in the long term. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
And that's I mean, there's so many ways in the self-help movement. And one of the messages that really kind of gets me to and like one that really marginalizes people with mental illness is the idea that we have to like fully love ourselves before we can be loved by another or love someone else. And that's one that I think like you look at it on the surface, it logically makes sense. You know, it's like I said, yeah, okay, like if you're not living yourself, you can't love others or you can't be loved.
But self-love is something that is a process for all of us and especially the best of mental illness. And really in my book, what I've come to understand is that you need to be working on self-love to really kind of embrace love in your life. You know, it needs to be something that you want to feel like you need to be wanting it, but that you don't need to necessarily be perfect at loving yourself. You know, you can still have a loud inner critic.
You can still be struggling to care about yourself. You can still, you know, be struggling with the idea of love itself or rejecting it in certain ways. And you can still experience love from others. And you can still give love to other people.
Like I don't think that loving yourself and having love from outside of yourself are mutually exclusive. That is such an important point because I know that so many people listening to this podcast right now are going to feel some sense of relief having heard you say that, right? That even if I don't 100% have the self-love thing down, doesn't mean I'm not worthy of the love of another. Yes, exactly.
So powerful. I want to talk about how I found you. So I found you in a group that we're in together. We both did a program called B-School.
If you guys want to look it up, it's by Marie Folio. And I found you in our B-School group. And then I immediately kind of jumped over to your website and saw your show Aryan inspires. It is amazing.
Everybody, this is Aryan's online TV show where you go into these beautiful little snippets and ideas around how you can thrive with mental illness and how you can take care of yourself. And I was immediately mesmerized. I watched a few episodes in a row and I was like, this guy gets it. This totally owns the space and was incredibly impressed.
Can you tell me a little bit more about your weekly TV show? Yeah, definitely. So I've always loved video and it took B-School to push me into actually doing it. Because I always feel more natural, like public speaking or in front of video and being able to show my face and talk at the same time.
Sorry, we can't show your face. So if you guys want to see Aryan's face, go down and cover you in joy.com. But keep going. Keep going.
Yeah, definitely. So yeah, so one of the one of the big things for me was kind of like taking that stuff and being like, you know, this is something that I really wanted to do and just figuring out that I wanted to do it enough and that I could allocate my time to make it possible. Because I edited it all by myself. I don't have any help making the videos, which takes a lot of effort.
But my thing was that I stood by the mission behind it so much. And really the mission is like a slogan that I kind of say in the beginning of every video, which is really making the personal development field more inclusive for those living with mental illness. Because I recognize that, you know, there's so many gems out there. There are so many beautiful ideas that people have.
And yeah, they're so often framed in ways that exclude those mental illness. And a lot of my clients, a lot of people that I've talked to have described that. How it's like, you know, they have to do all this work to kind of dig away and get the gem that's within the other messages that I told. So I was like, you know, let me do that work for other people.
Let me pull that gem out and frame it in a way that's now accessible for people with mental illness. And you know, how can I really communicate that message in a way that still retains that original gem, you know, this popular concept that is so helpful, but in a way that is now accessible for everyone listening. So it's great. And when Ariane says he edits it himself, I'm blown away because it's incredibly professional.
So the fact that you are like a jack of all trades, like you can do everything is awesome. Do you have a favorite episode of all the ones you've recorded so far as they won that you stood back and went, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I mean, I like a lot of them. Like, I definitely proud of the work that I put out there because I really stand by it.
But I think the one that really stands out for me is the one called authenticity self love and feeling broken. But it's this one that kind of talks about how like, you know, we all question ourselves that when we're feeling broken, like when we feel like something really bad happened, whether it's a breakup or trauma or mental illness or whatever it is, that we all at some point in are like a broken. And I think that we often question like, can I be authentic, can I be real, can I be genuine when I'm feeling broken? And in this video, I talked about how you can be like, and how just accepting the fact that you are feeling broken and how that's nothing to be ashamed of.
And it's this place where you can rebuild yourself even more authentically, you know, or you can reshape yourself just like a self there, be able to form yourself in that way. And I think that just being able to say like, that's authentic, you know, that you can be authentic no matter where you are in your journey of mending, in your journey of healing, in your journey of recovery. That's just such a powerful message. And when I was recording the video, it just like, flowed out of my mouth, like I was just like, wow, this is just coming so naturally, like so much from my heart.
So I think that would really stand out for me. So, Ariana, when I kind of really something sits with me well, and you can call this kind of like a crazy heart thing or something. But I get tingles and I just had full body chills. So we will link to that in the show notes people.
So if you want to like straight after this podcast, go and watch it when it's live, you will just go to the show notes and you can find it. How did you find the courage to do this, Ariana? How did you find the courage to talk about your own pain to be a leader in this space and to stand up in front of the world and say, I am here advocating for us all to thrive. Yeah.
So so courage is something that I definitely have like a mixed relationship with because I think, you know, I'm a fearful person, I PTSD, I have like these trauma fears, but at the same time I have this like strength within myself that I really call courage. Like I'm both afraid and courageous at the same time. That's like how I would really describe myself. And I think because of that, I've never really been too afraid to share the pain that I experienced, the struggle that I experienced because I kind of just recognize, you know, everyone feels it in different levels from different circumstances.
But like every single human being knows what it's like to hurt. And I think that pain has had this taboo, had this stigma around it. And honestly, I'm just kind of sick of it. You know, I'm just kind of like, why is this stigmatized?
Like it's something we all feel and it's something we all experience. And I just kind of want to lift that silence off of it. And you know, I just kind of did this naturally. I just was like not afraid of talking about my pain.
And sometimes, you know, people were like, okay, you overshare a little too much. Like I would get that comment. But at the same time, sometimes I would get comments that people were like, your blog saved my life. And when someone told me that the first time, I was like, wow, like I just, you know, I got chills.
I think I started crying. Like I was just so moved that being able to talk about my own pain in a way that was, was framing it as like, you can get through this, you know, this is something that can inspire you that can shape you in a positive way. Being able to do that and recognizing that my work could have saved someone's life really like, I mean, it still stuns me. Like I get emotional to talk about it like right now.
And I think that that's like a courage that is never going to leave me because of that sort of comment. Like, I can save one person's life. And if a thousand people criticize me, it's still worth it. And I think it's that that really, really matters to me.
Yeah, it's so worth putting yourself out there. And you can push aside any fear because you know that you're helping people make some sense. You've got my little mind thinking so hard as we're calling us. I just feel like I'm going to have to re listen to this episode multiple times because I feel like this conversation is changing my paradigm, you know, changing the way I think about things and making me more aware, even as we're recording it.
So I can't wait to listen back. I'm glad I'm glad. My little brain is like, tik tik tik tik tik. I just, I think there's so much to it though.
Like you said, we all experience pain. That is a universal emotion. So why are we not more comfortable talking about it? Yeah, exactly.
Because it's nothing to be ashamed of. It's like, you know, we wouldn't shame ourselves if we like, cut our hand cooking or something like where it's like, how that hurt. Like we could swear, we can like, you know, like, stomp over to the bathroom and put a bandit on it. Like, you know, we could like express that.
But when it comes to emotional pain, it's stigmatized. And I think that just by talking about it and being like, Hey, you know, my authenticity includes the pain that I'm communicating that message, I think is so powerful. So I, yeah, I'm gonna have to go back and think about this hard. I, this is this conversation.
I might have to have you back for a second episode in a bit. What's up? What's up? What's up?
Some more thoughts around this? Ariane, I ask everyone like a bunch of intermission questions. And these are just some fun questions to get to know you a little bit better really. I always love this section.
So I'm gonna hit you with them right now. All right. Are you a morning person or a night person? Definitely morning.
That was so quick. Can you tell me how that plays out in your life? Yeah. So I definitely like, I have energy and creativity in the morning.
I'm not the type of morning person who's like, before dawn. But by the evening, I started really tired. So I'm definitely like not a night person. So by default, I'm a morning person.
It's kind of like, it's a default sitting. I love it. Yes. Perfect.
What is currently sitting on your nightstand? Yeah. So whenever I hear that sort of question, I'm always like, Oh, it's probably supposed to be books, but I never have books on my night. I don't read before bed, which is a strange, like, you know, different thing.
I think about me. I think too much when I read. So I actually just have, you know, glass of water, some like peppermint essential oil that's in my self-sleep and a lamp. That's my night side table.
I like it. Peppermint makes you sleep. I thought it was like a stimulant. Yeah, usually, but for some reason, like peppermint, like peppermint tea, I heard like makes you sleep.
And then I started drinking that before bed a couple times. And I was like, wow, this scent actually really makes me kind of like sleepy and sort of like a safe kind of sense. Yeah, I hear you. I'm a pigment tea junkie.
Love this stuff. It is so good. What is your favorite self-care activity? Okay, definitely like a bath with some candles and like a room of therapy.
And if I have like flower petals, which is very, very rare, I never have that, but that would be like my ideal is like this very luxurious bath. So like some pretty rose petals on the top. Yes. I've got a perfect picture.
Like I can see the cliche. I've totally got it. Oh, yeah, no, exactly. As close as I can get to a cliche the better.
Do you have a favorite book or a book that's really impacted you, Ariel? Yeah, I think like, I mean, I definitely enjoy reading and I've had a lot that like a little pieces have impacted me and I love like self-help books, especially. And I think too, that really impacted me the most. And I think it was because I didn't have to dig as much for those gems too, was the Art of Happiness, which is like a dialogue with the Dalai Lama.
It's a very popular book, really fantastic. And also, Brine Brown's The Gifts of Imperfection. Because I think Brine is really like, she's really upfront about shame and pain and like all those things that I really resonate with too. So I love her work.
So why? I'm such a fan of Brine Brown and The Gifts of Imperfection. Always on my list of favorite books. So you're right, she does talk about those emotions that are sometimes harder to talk about, right?
Yeah, she's so real, like because of that. And I think that's why she's like so impactful for so many people is because she's real about it. Because she's like, yeah, I hurt. Yeah, I feel ashamed.
Like, yeah, I'm embarrassed, you know, all those things. Yeah, she so is. All right. So and Adele Llam is book, I'm gonna have to look at one up.
I haven't read it. Really good. Do you have a favorite wrong turn in life? And when I'm in wrong turn, I don't really like the label.
I really need to change the question. But a detour, something that like you look back and you're like, I took the long route there and the lessons were so worth it. Hmm. Yeah, so I thought about this question like a little bit before the call.
And it was surprisingly hard for me to come up with an answer because I've sort of just had this like intuitive guidance, you know, this kind of let me go. But I would say probably the most, the best way that I could answer the question was what the most difficult decision was for me. I think that was actually leaving college before graduating. So because I knew that that was going to carry some stigma with it, you know, and to be like, you know, I left college because I had PTSD that was really difficult, you know, and it was hard to study and my grades were great, but I just decided to leave, you know, and that I experienced trauma law at college.
And I think making that decision and being like, you know, I'm going to become a life coach, I'm going to become an entrepreneur that doesn't have a degree. You know, I think that was at least not this point, you know, I'd love to be out in the future. But not right now. I think that was a tough decision, the right decision, like, and I definitely don't regret it.
But it was a really difficult turn to make. Oh, I like that. I mean, I don't tell I might reframe this question. What was the most difficult decision that you've ever had to make?
Yeah, I like that. Thanks, Ariana. I might steal it. What is one thing in your day that you can't do without?
Definitely sleep, which is probably like a little bit of a hot answer. No, it's not. Do you know, it's one of my hobbies. And when I first met my husband, he asked me what my hobbies were.
And I said reading self-help books, eating and drinking with friends and sleep. And he told me sleep was not a hobby. And I was like, okay, yeah, it is. Yeah, exactly.
And like, gosh, if I don't, like, I just, I've never even like, I don't pull all nighters. Like, I never did that in college. I like, I love my sleep. Like it is essential for me.
And like, occasional nap, if I need it, you know, it's just like, that is such an important time for me to just rest and recharge and reset. Oh, no kidding. Seriously, if I coulda spare day, you know those questions where people say, what would you do with your dream day? And I'm like, well, I'd read some self-help books, they're not taking nap, they're not going to have to dinner with some friends.
And I'm like, you know, go to beat early. I'm like, oh, this is a whole round of sleep. Oh, okay. The last question here is a little bit heavier.
How would you describe the soul? Yeah, gosh. So I'm a very spiritual person. So like, the soul is something that I'm, I really like feel, you know, it's something that I feel in other people that I feel myself and, you know, I think it's really hard to put into words.
But if I had to describe it, I would say that it's really like potential, you know, that's what I see the soul is. It's just this like a well of potential as well of love and of consciousness and of free will and of expanse. And just this like really bright medium of like co-creation, how we can really like co-create our life so we can, we can sort of rise up from this thing within ourselves, our soul and experience and co-create our life. Ah, ah, ah, yeah, I feel.
Yeah. Um, talking through spirituality is, do you think it's something that having a strong sense of spirituality and connection? Is that something that has helped you overcome a lot of your struggles? I think so, definitely.
Yeah, I think that like without the spirituality I had as a child, like those moments of that safety with that tree, which, you know, I don't know if it's the tree of life that I'm thinking about or if it's just associates to that, so that idea, but that's what it felt like it could just felt like there was something within me and around me that was watching out for me. And I think that sense of faith, both the faith that was mirrored within myself and towards something that's out there, you know, whatever it is, like that is something I believe in. And I think that's really helps to remind me of my strength in times where I needed it. Like it was just that idea of, okay, love is here, love is around me.
And like through that love, I can find some strength. So talking about your golden tree, which I just love, did you grow up in an environment where sort of religion or spirituality was encouraged or was there something you just found within yourself or by yourself? We were Catholic when I grew up, but not like very strict. You know, we went to church, but that was like regularly, but that was pretty much it.
And then I think, like I have like a vague recollection that when I was like 10 or 12 or something, I like debunked the Bible from my parents. I was just kind of like, you know, either things in here that I don't really agree with and start church and I totally respect religion and Christianity. And like there's a lot that I've drawn back from that. But I really kind of went into this period of like self-discovery with spirituality where I was like, you know, I don't like the messages that I grew up with in their entirety.
I like pieces, but not the entire thing. And then I started to kind of piece together different religions and different faiths and sort of figure out what the underlying feeling was. And that really became my spirituality, like as I grew up and from what I remember, like it was something that I just sort of started to feel myself in the different messages that had been told to me, both in terms of personal growth, because I think there's a lot of spirituality there and in terms of religions and kind of realizing the underlying spirituality that's behind it, rather than the dogma, like that was what I pushed away from as dogma. And I went down into it into the spirituality.
Oh, I hear you. When people ask me that question, you know, what's the difference between religion and spirituality? One you feel and one you understand, I mean, spirituality is a feeling. It's a you can't even really describe what it feels like to be connected to your own soul or really very in tune with your spiritual self.
You really just have to experience it. Exactly. So slight decoration. So I feel like we have spoken a lot about how you got to where you are today, your journey with mental illness and living with mental illness and how you found the courage to step up and lead others in the space.
I now want to talk about what you see in other people. What in your opinion are some of the typical struggles that people living with mental illness face? What have you seen in your clients, your audience, and also noted within yourself as the mountains that you've needed to climb and that you the mountains you see other people climbing? Yeah.
So I mean, mental illness comes with a ton of challenges. Like, I think that first, you know, everyone with mental illness has the symptoms that they have to deal with, which vary from person to person. I'm not going to dive in every symptom. But I think that the real key, the thing that I've seen no matter the symptom that the person has experienced, no matter the illness, is that balance has been a real struggle, kind of finding the balance between taking care of themselves and seeking their dreams and goals, finding that particular balance being like, okay, how do I not exhaust myself so much by taking care of myself?
Like, I can still do things I want, but also not focus too much on things that I want that I neglect taking care of myself. And I think that's a really tough balance to find. And I think that's one of the biggest struggles that I've seen. And also the balance between not getting too much to others and not getting up to yourself.
Like, that's, I mean, that's one that branches that way beyond people with mental illness. But that's a huge conflict that I've seen is this idea of am I giving too much to others? Am I not giving enough to others and kind of exhausting themselves in that process? That was a really big one.
What does thriving while living with a mental illness actually mean to you? How would you describe this? Yeah. So, so honestly, I think that the real shift for me when I went to kind of seeing myself as surviving with mental illness, to thriving with it was realizing that having a mental illness does not mean that you're unwell.
Like it really like being unwell and having mental illness are not, they're not equal. You can be well, you can have wellness and have a mental illness, which I think is a really kind of foreign concept. You know, it's something that you think like, oh, you have an illness, they can't be well. But it's kind of like someone has a chronic physical condition.
No, you can still have wellness. Your version of wellness is just going to be different. You know, and it's the same with mental illness because not all mental illnesses are curable. There are some that are really chronic or very persistent or some that people don't choose to find cures for, you know, or they choose to just navigate in a different way.
And I think that recognizing that is really important because it allows you to accept yourself, you know, and allows you to say, like, okay, I'm not going to think that I need to cure myself in order to have wellness in order to thrive. It's rather like, okay, I can find my own unique unconventional version of wellness, unconventional version of thriving right here. And I think that it's when you seek that, whatever that means for you individually, when you seek that, then you're thriving, then you're starting to walk that path and you're starting to really do like, you know, I can drive with this and as soon as you decide that as soon as you see that, then you're on that path. Gosh, I'm glad I asked you that question because I just, that is so real and true.
You can have a chronic mental illness and still be well. They're not mutually exclusive. Wow. You know, what does truly embracing ourselves mean to you?
Yeah. So I mean embracing ourselves has so many facets to it. But this is something that I really learned actually a lot with the decision identity disorder and that diagnosis because I realized, you know, I have multiple identities that I kind of juggle with. And we all have different facets of ourselves, but you know, because a little bit farther on that spectrum with a decision identity disorder.
But one of the things that I realized is like learning to embrace the really problematic parts of ourselves, I think that's the real key is being like, being able to like hug and respect our inner critic and our inner child and the hurting parts of ourselves. And like where we can see our inner critic as someone who's ultimately trying to help us, you know, it's ultimately a voice that's trying to say like, you know, don't make a mistake because it could harm you or it's trying to caution you against something that hurt in the past. You know, and that's really what it's trying to do. So I think embracing ourselves means really accepting those parts and really putting in conscious effort and work to see what they're trying to help us with.
Like how really asking ourselves this question is, how is this part of myself the part that I'm struggling to accept and embrace? How is this helping me? How is this trying to help me? And if we ask ourselves that question, then I think that we get this new lens, this new perspective on how to actually embrace it for what it is and to really kind of then guide it towards, you know, having the same intentions as you.
So maybe trying to help in some way, but not quite doing it in a way that you like. So then you can be like, okay, inner critic, like you're trying to protect me from this so protect me in this way. And you kind of like almost coach it towards towards what's the most helpful there. Oh, so interesting.
You know, I'm currently reading Shannon Kaiser, she's a self-help author, she's got a new book coming out called The Self-Love Experiment. And I've been super lucky to read an advanced copy and I'm halfway through it. But she talks about that exactly as you kind of put it in the book a little bit about that willingness to accept the parts of yourself that you may have labeled as difficult or unlovable and how that is self-love basically. And how we've got to stop fighting against ourselves and not accepting those parts of ourselves.
So interesting. Yeah, exactly. Being told illnesses that I see my clients most often living with, and I see a lot, I really do, probably anxiety and depression. Yes.
Do you experience the same thing? Do you see that a lot? Anxiety and depression? Yeah, definitely.
I mean, statistically they're two the most common and then also like I definitely see it. And I definitely get a lot that a lot of my clients have that with something else. Like I myself have experienced depression and anxiety as well as PTSD and DID. Like those are conditions that I've experienced collectively.
So yeah, I see it a lot. Do you have any tips or ideas that you might share with your clients? Because when I was watching your TV show, Ariane and Sirez, that's what I loved about it is that you have these amazing, simple, clear ideas that you communicate so well that can really probably empower people. So have you got any ideas of things that people could do if they are struggling with anxiety or depression or both?
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think that the first thing that kind of goes like, you know, hands down that I would say is don't feel like you have to stop the anxiety or the depression that you're feeling. You know, just like be okay with it being an experience. Like it's something that's not going to last with that intensity forever.
And that's the number one thing. But you know, I love giving like practical tips to like things that you can do that empower you to actually handle a symptom or something like that. So with anxiety, you know, panic or anxious episodes or panic attacks and things like that are terrifying and you know, there's something that I experience and something that I really don't like experiencing. Like they are not fun.
So one of the tips that I have and I made a video on this too, like in depth with some techniques, but really one of the tips is like a forward fold. So you know, the yoga pose where you kind of like bend down and touch your toes, like it's that sort of gesture or you can sit down on the ground and touch your toes. But basically anything that gets that bend in your torso actually presses on this nerve cluster called the solar plexus. And it presses on that nerve cluster and actually tells your brain like, okay, you're going to down regulate, you're going to calm yourself now, like it triggers the opposite of an anxious response.
It triggers a resting response in your body, just a quick pressure on that area. It's kind of like how weighted blankets work, but that forward fold posture does the exact same thing. So I've actually just like almost had a panic attack and just bent over into that forward fold posture and it just stops. Like it's just it just goes away.
So that is like such a handy and valuable technique. It makes sense to me because you're basically telling your body we are not in flight of fight mode because we are getting into basically like a folder position. We would not be doing that if we were in flight or fight mode, right? It's like override.
No, stop. This is on there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's just the way that you can tell your body like, hey, hey, calm down.
Like it's like, okay, we're going to fold. We're going to breathe and like, you know, my animal body just relax. Yeah, exactly. Do you have any tips for people with depression?
So depression is something that, you know, I've had for a really long time, but I really feel like I've kind of broken out of past like a year or two. And I think the real key for me was journaling because what I experienced at least with my own depression and everyone experiences it differently, but what I've experienced with her is that depression kind of like clouds emotions, like it's sort of like this protective little layer over some really painful motions that kind of numbs us from those. And journaling gives us the safe space to start to tap into those emotions. Like we can start to write down like, yeah, I'm hurting today or we can start to validate it or we can get some anger out or whatever it is.
And slowly I realized every time I was getting more and more in tune with my emotions as I was journaling. And by doing that, I started to feel more vividly. And when I was feeling more vividly, like we were talking about earlier, then that depression just started to break. It started to be like no longer necessary.
So sometimes I'll experience, you know, depressed periods when something that'll happen. And that's totally normal and totally expected. But it's, it's like not the same sort of numbness, the same sort of painful detachment that that like depression is the condition had before. And I think it was really journaling that helps me a lot with that, especially keeping it routine, like doing it at the same time every day, just right in the morning, because that kind of made it feel even safer.
So it was an even safer place to write down those emotions and to validate them. That's so interesting when you talk about kind of like that layer of cloud or something kind of clearing is how I picked it in my head. Oh, this is being so much fun. I want to ask you one final question.
What do you think are some of the most important things that people are living with a mental illness need to hear? Yeah, I mean, there's so many messages. I wish I could just like tell every person individually, I could just walk up to them and be like, you know, like, you know, like here to use, but this is like what I really think is it's so important to know that you deserve love, like to know that you're not a burden for having this mental illness that you're not weak, that you're not powerless, and that you're not incapable of doing the things that you want. You know, it's not it may change how you go about doing those things.
It may alter ways that you handle your life or challenges that you face, but it's not going to stop you. And I think it's really recognizing that like it's okay to have down days, that it's okay to have days when you struggle, but to know that that doesn't mean that you're failing, that you're letting yourself down, that you're not worthy of love or that you're a burden and I think just to validate that, you know, no matter what state you're in, no matter what emotion, no matter what symptom, no matter what episode you're in, you're still worthy, like you're still worthy of that love. Finally, if you want to keep up to date with Ariane, if you want to continue to benefit from his motivational and super practical messages of hope, you can sign up for an e-course that he has, which will automatically join you to his community. Head over to his website and cover your joy.com and you will see where to go from there.
Or if you want a quick and direct route, you can check out the show notes for this episode. We talked about journaling in this podcast episode. If you would like 21 journal prompts to start you on your journey of self discovery, that is a freebie over on my site. So if you head to www.thrive.how forward slash free, you will be able to put in your details there and my system will immediately flick you back with the links to download that PDF.
Super fun. I'll be back next week, as I am every Friday. Until then, keep thriving, beautiful people. Keep thriving.