EPISODE 5: Cultivating a Growth Mindset

ALYSIA: Welcome back to autoimmune adventures. Today we will be discussing cultivating a growth mindset. If you haven't heard that term, it is simply the belief that your abilities and your intelligence can be developed through dedication and hard work. There is nothing that you cannot learn. So join us as we provide practical tools to help you overcome challenges and embrace your failures as learning opportunities.

BECKY: One of the biggest things, I mean, everything pretty much about growth mindset is shifting your perspective. And so, in terms of autoimmunity, we need to remember that autoimmunity is a journey, not a destination. So a lot of times we want to look at getting cured or finding, you know, that, that miracle pill, or whatever you want to call it, for your disease, as a destination. But autoimmunity is a lifelong thing that you're going to have to deal with. It is not a destination. So, celebrate progress over perfection, and that means, yeah, we're, we're, none of us are going to be perfect. We're, none of us are going to be perfect. So you want daily progress. I think there's the good old phrase of just, even if you were just 1% better every day on one little thing, it will help you so that you can become healthier and happier.

STACY: I think perfection is something that a lot of us struggle with, because we want to be perfect and we just can't be.We have to think about the fact that in life, we're going to have setbacks. And there are a couple of ways that we can view any challenges that we have: they can be opportunities for us to learn and grow, or they can trip us up and make a mess of us. So, instead, if we look at our setbacks as stepping stones to get us where we need to go, then it allows for us to have that opportunity to grow instead of stagnate. And this is a chance to look at this as an adventure instead, or a puzzle to solve, not a problem to dread that will hold us back and keep us from finding joy.

ALYSIA: I think that the stepping stones can trip you up and that's okay. That's part of the, that's part of it. You know, that is part of the journey. Um, you can expect to get knocked down and you gotta get back up and use whatever it was you tripped on as a stepping stone or a launching pad to get you back on your way. Um, I think that by doing that, you really do embrace effort, and you embrace learning.

And we've talked about how important it is to educate yourself about your autoimmune disease. And that does take effort, and it takes effort every day to keep, to keep educating yourself, to keep learning how to manage your disease. So instead of focusing on, as Becky said, a destination, you know, "Oh, I will finally feel better, when I get this treatment, when I finally clean up my diet, when I..." whatever it is.

Um, look at this instead as a, as a marathon, a never ending marathon, actually. You're going to get tired guys. But this is about building. Growth mindset is about building endurance mentally. You will have to build endurance physically, um, and that is going to wax and wane with your energy levels, with your power bar. A growth mindset is going to help us remember that we have to manage our disease. There's not always a solution. Oftentimes, there's not a solution. Um, and so we instead we have to learn to manage.

BECKY: And one of the ways we can manage is to see some of the setbacks as challenges we have, um, those flares that we have of our disease, we could see them as opportunities. And that sounds like a really weird way to view them. But every time you have a flare, or you know, your, your disease is rearing its ugly head, if you want to say it that way., you can see...you can learn something more about your body.

If you're keeping track of things, if you're paying attention, you can say, "Okay, what did I do this time that made my disease flare.? Was it something I ate? Was it something I did? Did I, did I overdo it too much yesterday?" It gives you a chance to better know your body.

STACY: And that adjustment means that you get to embrace some flexibility. You have to be willing to adapt your approach to how you want to handle things, and as you learn more about yourself and your disease, you will know where you are allowed to be flexible and where you have to be firm with yourself. You've got to avoid a perfectionist mindset. It is not going to serve you on your journey. It's going to get in the way of you being able to find joy and enjoyment in the journey of autoimmunity, because we have a lot of hard things we have to deal with. And if we don't learn to be flexible with our time and our energy and our effort that we put into life, it will be significantly more difficult. The more rigid you are, the more difficult this will be. So you have to learn to grow and change and adapt.

ALYSIA: This is where I think how you speak to yourself comes into play, right? If you happen to have a perfectionist mindset or tendencies toward perfectionism - I myself definitely do - I found myself speaking extremely unkindly, um, to myself while I was going through the years of diagnosis, the years of untreated symptoms. And I, I was really mean to myself, and, I had an unrealistic expectation of how I should feel, how I should be acting, how I should be choosing things and performing.

And this is where you have to say, "How would I treat my sister, if she were going through these struggles? How would I treat my spouse if they were going through these struggles? How would I treat my child if they were going through these struggles?" And ask yourself why you wouldn't treat yourself that way.

So if you can let go of that perfectionist mindset and adopt a growth mindset, you are going to find yourself suddenly empowered. When you realize that your ability to learn is limitless, that - and it, this applies everywhere in your life, but especially, it's especially effective when we're talking about taking care of your body and your mind, right?

You are the only one that can control what your thoughts are. You are the only one that can control what your emotions are. And if you don't believe you can do that, that's maybe where you should start changing the way you think, because I...I really do remember though, as a child, when my brother and I fought, like, you can ask Becky and Stacy, my brother and I fought like cats and dogs, and we could barely be civil with each other for a number of years. And I remember my mom saying...I would say, "Oh, he just made me so mad! He did this and it made me so mad."

And I remember my mom saying, "He can't make you mad. You are choosing to be angry. That is a choice you are making. That is your emotion. Those are your thoughts."

And I remember as a child, not understanding that concept. And the interesting thing is this many years later, it is still a difficult thing to wrap your brain around, but we are the only ones guys. Nobody else is controlling your thoughts. Nobody else is controlling your emotions. It is on you to do that.

STACY: Very true.

BECKY: One of the good ways to do that is to change your narrative, and instead of...instead of thinking like she was talking about anger, recognizing, for instance, that anger is actually a secondary emotion. If you're feeling anger, it's really because you're either annoyed, or you're sad, or you're embarrassed. And if you can change your narrative and recognize what emotion you're really feeling, it actually makes you easier...it makes it easier to deal with. Similarly, when you're looking at things and lifestyle changes that you need to make to be healthier with autoimmune diseases, changing the narrative is another way that can help you.

Instead of looking at 'losing' things, because a lot of times when you have autoimmune diseases it's very easy - like for instance, with lupus, it was easy to look at it as, "Oh, I can't have garlic anymore. I can't go out in the sun anymore. I have to limit my physical activities, so I don't have a flare." And it was easy to look at 'losing' things. Try instead to think of it as 'releasing' something.

ALYSIA: It's, it's saying, I recognize that these things or these actions or these foods or whatever it is, these patterns of my old behavior, they're no longer serving me. There was a time where they were serving me, whatever purpose it was, but they are no longer serving me. They are detrimental to my health, and I am releasing them and choosing to find something better.

ALYSIA: Yeah.

ALYSIA: And it's hard, it's hard because when something has been good for you or, or, or fine and healthy and easy for you, and then all of a sudden it's not, that's a hard thing to recognize, it's a hard thing to be able to release those...instead of, instead of losing them, say, "I am releasing this, and I am finding other things that will serve me now."

STACY: One of the other things that we can do is we can have affirmations. And what we mean by affirmations are positive things that we can put into our mind so that we can manifest them in our lives. I like to think of affirmations as food for my mind, so when I feed myself good food, my mind works better. When I feed myself good thoughts, my mind is happier.

So, how you talk to yourself really matters. It is one of the most important things that matters. The things that you focus on are what you're going to get out of life. If you keep telling yourself that your life is miserable, guess what? Your life is going to be miserable. If you start to tell yourself, "I have a life of beauty. I have goodness in my life," even if you are in pain, you will still be able to find the beauty. You will still be able to find the goodness. There are days where it is hard. I will openly admit that when I'm in a full on lupus flare and I wake up and I'm laying in bed and I think I just want to roll over and go back to sleep.

If I sit there and I tell myself, Oh, I feel like crap. I feel like complete crap. Then. Yeah, I am likely to roll over and go back to sleep. And if that's really what I need to do, fine, but if instead, I tell myself, I have all these wonderful things I'm gonna do today. I have loaded my day with great things that I'm excited about, then I can, at that point, determine what my body thinks about it. But my mind has to be in the right place, so that I can hear my body and then give it what it needs.

BECKY: I had a stint a couple years ago where I was a teacher at an after school program, and I was the supervise... supervising teacher there. And I had to make the decision because of my health that I was not going to be able to do it the following year.

And one of my sweet first grade students, who I just loved, came up to me and she said, "Miss Becky..." you know, it was the end of school year, she's like, "Miss Becky, are you going to be here next year?"

And I had to tell her that I was not because I had to take care of some health issues at the time. She just looked at me, based on what she had seen...she just looks at me and she's like, "What are you talking about? Your health is amazing!"

It was very innocent. She had no idea, but like, it's become almost like a little private joke for me. My husband knows about it too, cause I told him when I came home that day, and I was laughing about it. And so every time I'm having a really hard day, but I don't say it to myself, my husband will just look at me. He's like, "Your health is amazing!"

And it really does actually, you know...I can laugh about it. And if nothing else, even if I'm genuinely having a really bad day, it still gets a laugh out of me. And it makes me just a little bit better.

ALYSIA: That's so true. Out of curiosity, do you guys have other affirmations that you regularly tell yourself?

STACY: I do. Every morning when I wake up, I say, "Today is going to be fantastic. I can't wait to tell this day, how things are going to be!" I get, I get my attitude on and I have to do it while I'm laying flat in bed before the pain hits. You know what I'm saying?

ALYSIA: Yes!

STACY: I have to be like, totally, quietly laying in bed in a comfortable position, and then I say, "Today is going to be amazing.!," or "I am going to rock this day! I am going to just be phenomenal in every way." And I tell myself that, and then I painfully roll out of bed. I have to get my mind in the right place.

BECKY: Honestly, I don't know...I don't always have necessarily specific affirmations, especially like first thing in the morning when it's hard to get out of bed. I think having something to look forward to, or something that is a responsibility. Sometimes you don't always necessarily look forward to it. For me, as you've heard me talk about, I love my little farm. I live on a farm, and even though I have my son who still lives with us and my husband who could help, I actually try to do the morning feeding with the animals because it's before it gets really hot, because that is actually something that helps me get out of bed. I know there are animals outside that are depending on me, and part of my morning affirmation is going to feed them. And honestly, I do stupid things like sing songs to them while I'm in the barn, and do whatever and just try to enjoy being with them. And that puts a very positive spin at the beginning of my day.

ALYSIA: I love it. There's so much power in how we speak to ourselves, right? I have a couple of mine. I've told you guys already my, my, "I can do hard things." That one really encapsulates a whole lot of stuff you have to deal with, um, in, in life and in autoimmune disease.

Another one that I have been using a lot, it's a little lengthier, but I tell myself "I am on a lifetime endeavor to be happier and healthier. It is a never-ending journey. I'm never done, because there is no destination. It is simply a skill I am developing."

So as we kind of talked about, I mentioned earlier, you know, really only we have control over our thoughts, and as Stacey just said, um, what you think about, what you dwell on, what you allow to occupy your head space is going to manifest itself in your life.

A wise man named Dieter Uchtdorf once said, "If we seek reasons to be angry, to doubt, to be bitter or alone, we will find them. However, if we seek joy, if we look for reasons to rejoice, we will find them. We rarely find something we are not looking for. Are you looking for joy? Seek, and ye shall find."

So, I think that is perfect when you're managing your disease. And this is the key, managing your disease, right? If we don't change our, our patterns of thought, that's one more way our disease is managing us, right? I mean, it's not just the physical aspect, it is the mental aspect.

BECKY: So along with that mental aspect, there is actually, it's very important to recognize that grief is real and that's that, that is okay. We're going to naturally grieve the loss of our previous health, um, which, which is real, and we have to deal with that and recognize it. We shouldn't put it on a back burner and pretend it's not a thing. Um, like we talked about, we're not about toxic positivity here. We want to recognize that some of this is very hard.

And if, especially if you were a very active person. Um, and I don't even consider myself, like I don't think I was very athletic per se before I had my autoimmune diseases, but I was definitely active and outgoing. A lot of the things that I love to do, a lot of the travel, the exploring, um, I can still do them, but it is on a much more modified level than it used to be, and it is okay to grieve that. And recognize that grief is...any kind of grief, whether it's loss of a loved one or loss of physical abilities, or honestly, mental abilities, because that's also a real thing, um, with autoimmunity, grief is an ongoing process. It might be more intense when it first happens, but just like the journey itself is going to be a lifelong process, and managing our disease is a lifelong process, so is dealing with the grief. You're going to be okay for days on end, and then sometimes something's going to happen that just makes you really sad, and you're going to feel that loss more intently, and it is okay. You need to allow yourself to feel the grief, so that you can deal with it, and that it will not destroy you or define you, but you can move on from it

ALYSIA: And the grief can be a little tricky, right? Because it's, at least for me, it felt very much like my body was betraying me. Did you guys feel like that with your disease?

STACY: I did.

ALYSIA: It was, I developed a, a bit of self hatred during those years and that was hard to get over. I was so angry at my body. I was so angry that it was doing what it was doing when I...there's, there was just no rhyme or reason behind it.

And that self hatred is, is seriously toxic. It's seriously, seriously toxic. You've got to root that out. And a lot of times that self hatred, um, can be linked to past trauma.

STACY: I would agree. Trauma is something that has to be addressed, guys. Um, we talk a lot about autoimmunity and I know this isn't strictly on the auto-immunity train, but it does not change the fact that when you are put into a place that is going to compromise you mentally and physically, anything that has happened in your past that is real trauma is going to come up. When I was diagnosed with thyroid disease, it was really hard on me, because I'd watched what it had done to my mom, and because it caused my miscarriages, and I really had a rough time with that.

Well, it was all this trauma that I had dealt with. And then our mom died in 2020. And when our mother died, that trauma caused a wave into my life that ricocheted everything that had happened in my past back onto me, because I hadn't addressed it the way that I should. So trauma has to be dealt with. And if it's not something that you can work through yourself, you need to seek professional help.

You may need to seek professional help to deal with your autoimmunity, and I'm not talking about physically. That's obvious. I'm talking about what it does to you mentally to have to completely downshift your life and completely change how you do things. It's traumatic, and it has to be addressed. So some people are lucky enough to just have that like bright shiny spirit, and that sunshiny attitude, and an ability to recover. And I've been that way for much of my life, but after 8 miscarriages, losing our father, losing our, our mother, and losing my 2 mentors who were my secondary parents, I was a disaster. And at that point, I had to go and seek help.

ALYSIA: I love that. I love that you were willing to, I mean, I don't love that you experienced trauma. We all, we all have some kind of trauma, but I love that you got to a point where you recognized, "I need help." And that is a whole other way you have to ad...to advocate for yourself. It is, and you might have to advocate for yourself with yourself when it comes to mental illness. Um, and maybe it's not even mental illness. Maybe it really is just learning to process the trauma, and trauma doesn't necessarily have to be something in the past. The trauma, I mean, we're having physical trauma to our bodies through autoimmune disease. We all have things, traumatic things in our past, but let's just talk for one second about the trauma that might still actively be happening in your life.

If you were in toxic relationships, um, if you are in compromising positions at work, I mean, there are a million different traumas that can be happening to you right now. Those need to be addressed as well. If you are, if you are living with trauma daily, you're never going to get healthy. And that is going to be a tricky thing for you to nail down.

But while you are, while you're working on that, um, don't, don't forget about your mental health. The struggles are there. The struggles are very real because as we've mentioned in previous episodes, we are going to be more prone to mental illness. If you have autoimmune disease, we're going to talk, we're going to talk a lot more about this in the future, so I don't want to spend too much time on it, but don't ignore it. It is a real concern and getting help sooner rather than later is going to help you. Feel better mentally, and it's going to help you work on changing your mindset to a growth mindset.

BECKY: I think in another important thing to note, and we will try to have some resources in the comments and stuff, is that a lot of times, unfortunately, either people don't have insurance or sometimes, um, insurance doesn't always cover mental health as well as it covers physical health. And so there are a lot of, like, free resources. toll free numbers that you can call, counselors that you can speak with, and bring in whatever you can, because we recognize that not everybody...if you don't have the insurance coverage or something like that, that might not be a financial option for you. So know that there are also options that are not going to hit your pocketbook, as it were.

ALYSIA: I think so too. There are limitless resources that are available for free, but you do have to seek them out, and you have to weed out the weirdos because there's going to be weirdos out there. Um, and then we're going to have some really bizarre suggestions. And, and honestly, some of the weirdos are harmless. I mean, some of them are harmless. And if, if there's a placebo effect or what, whatever, I have, I really have zero judgment for that. I have zero judgment for that, because if that is going to help somebody in any fashion, I see no harm in it. If it is not, actually, if it's not eating into your finances, if it's not eating into your time and your personal energy, do you know what I'm saying?

There are, there are some strange things out there. There are some very logical things out there. Utilize your public library, read books, listen to podcasts, follow doctors. I mean, there's a million things you can be doing on your own. But if you are in a position that you can get professional help, by all means, do so.

BECKY: Develop resilience. And I know that's almost a buzzword these days that gets thrown around a lot. But it is important that we have to learn to bounce back from challenges and try to have a positive attitude about it, because none of us - nobody in this world - is going to escape challenges, but those of us with autoimmune diseases are going to have frequent challenges every day, some that not the average, that the average person won't have, and so we've got to learn to develop that resilience like Alysia was talking in her episode last week, about, to keep going, to just keep moving forward.

And sometimes that means you're making positive progress, and sometimes that just means that you're making it through the day. Obviously, we want to make positive progress as often as we can, but there are days with autoimmune diseases that making it through the day, we have to learn, learn to, as we said, redefine the narrative, because sometimes making it through the day is our positive, because of how hard things are.

So to develop that resilience, have a commitment to yourself to find solutions to the things you can find solutions to, and don't be discouraged if you have setbacks. See if you can change your approach, you've got to learn how to let go of something that you have no control over.

Remember there are, like we always talk about the big six. And as we're talking about growth mindset, your thoughts, those are the things you can control. And that's what you need to focus on. Because when things get crazy, and we're stressed out, and we feel like the world's falling apart, having just that one thing that we recognize, that we do have control over, actually gives us some solidarity and a bit of an anchor to make it through the crazy stuff.

ALYSIA: Yeah, I think that's super important. And I think that this is like, it's, it's really a choice, right? You have to make this choice, "Okay. I'm going on this journey." As we've talked about being dropped at the foot of the mountain and being forced to climb it is like, you know, autoimmune disease, you're, you're going on this journey. You have to go on this journey. You don't really have a choice. You can choose now to be...to try and make the best of this journey, to try and learn how to navigate your trails and your obstacles, um, with a good attitude and with a mindset of, "I'm going to learn, and I'm only going to get better," and you have to look at these obstacles... as any kind of I mean, they're uncomfortable, right? These problems that you come across, whether it's physical problems from your disease, mental problems, emotional issues. The discomfort that you're feeling from those is a sign to you. It is a trail marker. Discomfort in any form is a trail marker that is, hey, this is an opportunity. This is an opportunity for growth. This is opportunity for learning. And so when you look at those...I know it sounds crazy to just be like, "Okay, I feel like absolute garbage today. What am I going to learn from that?" You know what I mean?

But if you do the big six and you're keeping, you know, and keep a track, keep track of your symptoms. Um, when you do come across those, it's, I promise next time something like this pops up, you're going to go, "Oh, I remember what I did last time. I learned from that."

I learned from that discomfort that nothing tastes good enough to go ahead and eat a piece of pizza. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not going to do that again. So you can learn, you can grow, you can change. And I think the three of us were very blessed with parents that taught us that growing up. And so adopting a growth mindset, it feels very natural to me. I have numerous friends that I know and love, people that are going through health issues that don't have that, especially people that have had, have trauma that hasn't been addressed. They don't have that. They don't believe that they really can grow, that they really can learn to do better and to change.

BECKY: One of the best things I think my friend who was working on growth mindset with her daughter [did], she was showing me some of the things that they were doing, and it was, it was a special program that was done on a child's level, which was great. But one of the things that I took from it that I still remember, and I guess, like, like you said, I hadn't thought about it before, but I guess it is actually one of my affirmations is that when so often we can make excuses when there's something going on and we're like, "Oh, I can't do that." And the idea is, I can't do that, and then one word changes it all, you say, "I can't do that yet." And, um, and granted there are probably, you know, we're going to talk about limitations in autoimmune disease too, but what we're talking about here is the things you can control, not the things you can't. You know, if you are literally physically out of commission, you can't control that, but you can control your thoughts.

And being physically out of commission would be really easy to say, "But I can't control my thoughts because I am so, you know, this is so horrible, I just can't do it." You can't control your thoughts yet, and it means either you need to practice more, or if you genuinely are having trouble with that, that is where you get professional help.

ALYSIA: Yeah, you can't control your thoughts yet, but you can learn how to. That's a growth mindset. I can learn how to do it. I can learn how to do whatever I need to do. But on that note, when you're learning to control your thoughts, um, a very, very helpful practice. I would say almost a mandatory practice when you are learning to control your thoughts is meditation and specific meditation.

I think all meditation is generally good for you, but this meditation is a kind of meditation where you sit. And you do nothing. You close your eyes and you do nothing but focus on your breath. You don't have to breathe deep breaths. You don't...you just breathe naturally, right? You just sit and you focus on your, on yourself breathing.

And every single time your, your mind wanders to something else, you bring it back to your breath. And you'll notice, it's really hard to do guys. It's really hard to do, but you can learn and you have to practice. You have to practice and you don't beat yourself up. You know, if you're, if your mind starts wandering about what you're going to make for dinner or what the kids are doing, whatever, be like, "Oh, okay. Bringing it back to my breath."

It's practicing, taking control of your thoughts. And there's, I don't know a lot of other ways that are quite that effective in, in practicing that

STACY: I mean, if you feel like you're really struggling though, you can seek the support of a guided meditation. I think that, uh, meditation is...everyone thinks well, not everyone. I think a lot of us see the value of meditation, but I think there are a lot of people who think it's a little froo-froo or a little over the top. And the truth of the matter is, all that meditation is, is allowing yourself a quiet space to center in and, and, and to, and to think, because sometimes in the middle of all the craziness in our lives, we forget to just slow down enough that we can actually cope with what's happening.

ALYSIA: Right.

STACY: Therapy tells you that when you have trauma, you have to address the trauma, but then you have to give yourself some time to heal. So when we're in the middle of a flare, or in the middle of something, that's really upsetting us just sitting and focusing on our breath for 3 or 4 minutes can clear our mind enough that we know what we need to do next.

ALYSIA: Yeah, exactly. And like, like you were saying, or was it Becky was saying earlier, um, when you recognize what that is, that you need to address, um, that, that emotion that you need to address, you do that first, after you've become mindful you, when you take that time, like Stacy just said, breathing, focusing on your breath, you recognize what the emotion is you're feeling.

And then you process that emotion, right? Simply being able to, to stop, take some breaths, focus on what you're feeling, focus, or focus on your breath, focus on what you're feeling, label that emotion, and then deal with it, process it, heal from it. And this is not a one and done situation, right? And, and oftentimes, as Stacey said, you're going to need to seek support, especially if you've had trauma in the past.

STACY: You shouldn't be ashamed to ask for help, whether it's from a therapist or a doctor. If we don't understand what our disease is doing, then it's time to go and talk to our doctor. If we're struggling and feeling like we're alone in the world, it's time to find a support group. If We're having a rough time. We need to find our friends that we know will listen to us when we're having a rough time so that we can vent and then like release that from ourselves.

And sometimes meditation, we have to be our own best friend. I say this all the time and I know it sounds really ridiculous, but you have to be your own best friend. And that means you have to learn to take care of yourself, so meditation helps with that.

Now, with that said, you have to have your tribe. So as Steve Jobs once said, "If you want to go fast, go alone..." We, especially people with perfectionism think they can tackle everything on their own and fix everything by themselves, okay? This is not one of those times, because "...if you want to go far..." you have to go together. So as he said, "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." And this is why we will all do better when we are on a journey together.

So remember, going slowly, but steadily is going to help you from burning out. It's going to keep you in a healthy state of mind and a happier place where you are able to think in terms of growth mindset because growth doesn't have to happen fast. It just needs to happen. It's about the direction you are going, not the speed at which you are going.

BECKY: Absolutely. And I think that, um, with the support, I know all of us here, that we hope we can be part of your support system on your journey. If you have questions or topics you would like us to discuss, please be sure to comment below and don't forget to like and subscribe and visit us at autoimmuneadventures.com.