308 | if your mind is always on & overthinking... (what I would tell my younger self as a therapist with anxiety)
episodePreviously titled “308 | if your mind is always on & it's exhausting...” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 2, 2026
Free & Well: Break Free From Anxiety & Overthinking & Feel More Confident With Mental Health Habits, Nervous System Healing & Christian Based Practices
15 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 1 month ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why does the host believe anxiety isn’t about stopping thoughts but changing the relationship with them?
Hey, hey, friend, welcome to the podcast. I'm so glad you're here. I'm here with my morning coffee and okay, I'm so excited. I'm so excited to talk to you about this topic today because this is something that Genuinely has just been such a game changer for me. And it's something that we don't learn growing up. Like I didn't learn these things growing up. I went through grad school, literally realized in grad school, oh, you have anxiety. I was in my early to mid-20s when I realized that. And then of course the grad school that I went to was very focused on like it was a very western focused as in you know, really looking at the mind, really looking at psychology, which is amazing and I love that. And then
I started to fall in love with it it it just felt like something was missing. I felt like something was missing when I was working through my own anxiety. I was like, there is a missing link here. This isn't working in the way that I feel like it should be. Like that more should be happening. And so I then started to explore. Other approaches, more somatic approaches, bringing the body in, learning about the nervous system, and it just started to all click together. And this is also when I really started diving more into my faith again and integrating that into my work as well. Hey friend, welcome to the Free Mill Podcast. If you're tired of feeling anxious and all the overthinking, if you're ready to feel more calm and confident to start trying new things and being more of your true authentic self, this is the podcast for you.
My name is Devani. I'm an anxiety therapist, confidence coach, and yoga teacher. I'm here to help you use faith. yoga and mental wellness to create daily healthy habits, start feeling more confident in your own skin, and creating your best life. Grab your iced coffee in your journal. Let's go.
How did the host discover that the mind is just a ‘thought‑generating machine’?
And started doing a lot more faith journaling and bible journaling and bringing that into like I was just working on this personally. Personally, I was going through one of the most difficult, most anxiety ridden seasons of my life. And I was trying to figure out how how to reduce my own anxiety while I was also a therapist and so started exploring all these things in my own life to work through my own anxiety and One of the pieces one of the pieces and what I wanted to share with you in today's episode is why some of us feel so exhausted all the time. Like why It feels like And I'm only gonna speak for myself here. Like in this season, I realized like, oh my gosh, my brain, my anxiety is so high, my stress is so high.
I feel exhausted all the time. And what I will tell you is that for me, one of the biggest changes that happened for me that was so impactful was realizing that my mind was on all the time. My mind was constantly thinking, analyzing, challenging, questioning. And I remember learning in a training years ago Just this concept that our minds are literally just thought generating machines. Like that is what our mind does. Our mind just creates thoughts and then more thoughts and then more thoughts and then that's literally what our mind does. And if I look back on this season of my life when I was in my mid-20s, really deep in anxiety. That was something that was so huge and pervasive for me was my mind was just constantly going.
But here's the difference, okay? Is my mind was constantly on, my mind was constantly going, and I let it. I let my mind be in the driver's seat all the time. My mind would throw out some wild kookado idea and I would just roll with it. I'd be like, Wow, what an idea. What an idea. And then I would question it and I would think about it and I would analyze it. And then I would have this battle in my mind because I'm like, this seems like a kook-ko-doo idea. But maybe since my mind told me, maybe there's some truth here.
What realization helped the host see that not all thoughts are helpful or valuable?
I don't know. Maybe there's a reason my brain just told me this. Dev, here's the reason is that your mind literally just creates thoughts. And something that I tell my clients all the time is I'm like, you know, our mind is a thought generating machine.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why does the host believe anxiety isn’t about stopping thoughts but changing the relationship with them?
0:01–2:36
2
How did the host discover that the mind is just a ‘thought‑generating machine’?
2:36–5:26
3
What realization helped the host see that not all thoughts are helpful or valuable?
5:26–7:11
4
How does the host differentiate between ‘mind’ and ‘self’ and why is that important?
7:11–9:06
5
What is the stream‑and‑leaves metaphor and how does it guide choosing which thoughts to engage with?
9:06–11:26
6
Why does the host describe mindfulness as the key practice that shifted her anxiety?
11:26–13:28
7
What is the Calm Audio Starter Kit and how can it help listeners regulate their nervous system?
13:28–15:21
8
What actions does the host encourage listeners to take at the end of the episode?
15:21–15:24
Speakers
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