Jenny Taitz
speaker
303 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard 30 Mar
Jenny Taitz’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Mar 2026 with 1.
Appearances
So it's like you go to sleep and you start telling yourself, I need to go to sleep two hours ago because I have this important meeting tomorrow morning. That is going to make you feel probably more tense emotionally. and revved up and then who wouldn't start scrolling on their phone. And so just noticing like, what is the arc of my emotions?
What are the ingredients that are creating anxiety for me in this moment or sadness? Sadness doesn't just happen to you. We co-create sadness. We think sad thoughts. We act in ways that perpetuate sadness. But if we can take a step back and notice that our minds are full of like spam, a lot of the content in our mind is not necessarily useful or true.
And if we choose our behaviors, like it sounds very simplistic, but behavior real activation, like helping people create a schedule that's full of activities that are pleasant and also give you a sense of accomplishment. You don't just want to be sitting around basking in the sun. You also don't just want to be on the Stairmaster for hours.
You need like a good mix of activities, but doing that works as well as antidepressants for a major to moderate depression. And I'm not against antidepressants, but I just want people to have a whole host of things. So we manage our emotions by noticing how we're co-creating them and changing our behaviors and we're
And so one of my favorite tools all around, regardless of the emotion, is the skill opposite action because any emotion you want to change, you're angry at someone and the intensity isn't helpful for the situation or it's not in line with your values, giving them the benefit of the doubt and being a little nice.
I mean, we think that acting angrily is somehow cathartic, but that's actually pumping up anger. That's what I would do as a couples therapist or what I do with my individual clients. You hate your spouse and you want to criticize them endlessly and be aggressive. mannerist interpretation and plan like a secret caring gesture.
Like, can you get this awesome coffee for the person and not have any expectations or start counting? Like I did this.
Yeah, both things are true. It's stresses like that cycle, but our emotions, the behavior that we're engaging in is creating the emotion as well. And so if I feel really ashamed, that's not just out of nowhere. It's thinking thoughts about not being enough and then acting in ways that are hiding. You go to the party and you're on your phone the whole time. No one's going to talk to you.
Then you really feel like you're not worthy. Yeah. And so our response to our emotion amplifies that emotion, but also our response creates the emotion. Oh, what a wicked cycle. I think a lot of people have this idea that just changing your behavior isn't really going to do much. That's superficial. And I just want to say a couple of things. We do this all the way.
And so it's not like I'm being nice and thinking resentful thoughts. It's like all the way. And it's not just helping this moment. But if I have negative core beliefs, if I have beliefs from my childhood that I'm not lovable, the only way to change those beliefs is to transcend them. them with my behavior to create a new narrative. And so this isn't just, oh, right now I'm like acting opposite.
Or as some of my clients would say, like the George Costanza approach, it's like, no, actually you're creating a new reality and feeling like you have agency in your life.
I love AA. I don't know if you're allowed to do this, but when I was working at the Bellevue thing, I used to go to meetings there. Well, there's open meetings. I dragged a client there also, and I was like, this is so great. He was looking at me like, we're leaving. I'm like, no, no, no, we're staying. We're staying as long as this goes. I hope this goes for hours.
The notion of a book on stress is such an irony because who has time to read when they feel like they don't have time in it? And so the book is almost like a cookbook. Resets is kind of the equivalent of urgent care, what to do in this moment if you feel really flooded. And if your problem in this moment is your mind is really ruminating or doing those things, we have mind resets.
We have body resets, which will also help your mind. And then behavior resets to change your behavior.
A mind reset is even just...
like spam that are just simply unhelpful and 90 of people report having intrusive unwanted thoughts so if you have a repeated unwanted thought like i'm a loser because i don't have plans on saturday night not a super helpful thought to think and so if you could sing that thought to the tune of do you believe in magic it automatically loses its grip yeah well because it's silly i don't have plans on saturday i'm a piece of shit okay takes away its power
I get my best ideas from my clients. They're like, what are thoughts to the Hathaway song, What is Love? And then with the Saturday Night Live clip is even better. Do you know what I'm talking about? No. I think it's Jim Carrey is in a sketch singing, what is love? Baby, don't hurt me. Baby, don't hurt me.
Okay, so if you swap in instead of what is love, what are thoughts?
Is that it? Yes. I mean, that's one of the options you have at your disposal for ruminating. Because again, a lot of us have the same content that's just been there for ages. That's not serving us. That we take very seriously. Like I wouldn't sit there and respond to spam emails or answer robocalls. But why are we doing that with our thoughts?
But they create real feelings. Like if I told you to think about a cockroach while you're ordering avocado toast, it's going to make you lose your appetite. Like they really affect your physiology. And so if we could even just see like any thought in the middle of the night, is worth singing.
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