Befriend Your Anxiety: Stop Letting Fear Drive Your Life | E272

And, you know, you, um, work a lot with women in general, and you have a beautiful book that you've written.

Do you wanna talk a little bit about the thousands of women that you've worked with in Australia and why you think anxiety is so common among modern women and, uh, p- you know, uh, particularly working mums or working women?

Thanks, Alana.

Yes, I wrote Anxious Mums, and you won't believe it, but I-- I mean, it's true, so you will believe it.

[chuckles] But I'm really surprised that I received an email just yesterday from, from a, a film writer.

Uh, she's...

No, she, she writes and creates plays and performances, and she felt really She would like to reference the work of Anxious Mums, and the play that she's writing the script for is related to her relationship with her dad.

Her dad had some mental health troubles and, you know, sometimes as children growing up in a family where there is a mental health challenge, we don't understand it.

But she said the book really helped her, 'cause I wrote about, in Anxious Mums, I wrote about my own personal journey, but also my parenting journey in being an anxious mum, supporting children and raising children and running a family.

And she said it gave her a lot of compassion for her dad and what he must have been going through whilst he was parenting her and, uh, so that, that's really very special.

But it, it is a book that has touched a lot of hearts and really helped women to understand themselves.

And a lot of people write to me and say, "Your story is my story."

Yeah.

And that's because essentially for a lot of us, especially of my generation...

Are you a, are you a Gen X? I'm not sure when Gen X gets-

I think I am.

Might be, yeah.

It just wasn't talked about.

No.

It wasn't understood.

N- no.

And so it is...

Yeah, it's been a, it's a very special book.

I'm really, really proud of it, and it came on the back of writing Anxious Kids with a co-author, Michael Gross, and it just seemed really complimentary.

A few people have said, "When are you writing about anxious dads?" I'm like, "The dads won't read it." One of the things that is important for all of the listeners to know is that for us, anxiety, uh, for all of us, m- m- you know, male or female, anxiety is really normal.