Ep 253: How to Clean Up a Mental Mess

Dr. Caroline Leaf, author and clinical neuroscientist, shares
wisdom from her years of study and practice helping kids develop
healthy minds. She offers us practical tips on what parents can
do to help their teens build mental resilience for years to come.





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Full Show Notes


It will come as no surprise to parents up and down the country to
hear that we are in the midst of a mental health crisis, and it
is our children and adolescents who are bearing the brunt of it.





Every generation faces change, experiencing something completely
unique and different to the last - whether that’s technological,
political, socioeconomic or something else entirely. Change is
life’s constant companion. However, when the pace of change
accelerates but we do not adapt our methods for managing life’s
chaos along with it, our mental health suffers.





The model our society has in place for managing mental health has
remained largely unchanged over the last 50 years and it is no
longer keeping pace with our mental health needs. This has left
us in a mental mess; one that is felt most acutely by the
youngest members of our society.





A change in approach is long overdue, and if we want our children
to rise to life’s challenges today, we need to adapt our own
thinking so that we can equip our kids with the tools they need
to thrive now.





To learn what we can do to help our teenagers manage their mental
health and find peace of mind, we’re talking to Dr Caroline Leaf,
author of How to Help Your Child Clean Up Their Mental Mess.





Caroline is a communication pathologist and cognitive neurologist
who specializes in helping people to see the power of their mind
and find mental peace. With over 40 years of research and writing
in this area, she is a best-selling author of 19 books, has a
top-rated podcast, and currently lectures at academic, medical,
corporate, and religious conferences around the world.





In our interview, we’re talking about the impact our mind has on
our brain, body and lives and how managing our teen’s mental
health starts with managing our own.



The Mind Is Not The Brain


When we talk about the mind and the brain, we often use the two
words interchangeably. But the mind and brain are not the same
thing, says Caroline - they’re separate. It is our mind that
actually processes life. The mind translates life to the brain,
and the brain responds on a neurochemical and physical level and
directs the bodily response. 





In the study of psycho-neurobiology, Caroline explains, we look
at how the mind changes both the biology of the brain and the
body, and how this mind-brain-body connection impacts us and
influences how we show up in life.





If we look at how a person is showing up, how they are
communicating, how they are feeling in their body, we can read
the signs that tell us the story behind them. Then, Caroline
says, we can help that person process the story in a very
organized and sequential way to understand its source,
reconceptualize it, and influence how it plays out in their
future.





Because stuff has happened and will happen, Caroline says, and
you can’t change that fact. So, what we need to know is what is
happening inside of our minds and what we can do to manage it.





Caroline describes her system, which she calls the neurocycle, as
the cyclical process of how life becomes a part of us and how we
can, in turn, influence life. She explains that we are all
constantly neurocycling and we’re either doing it well and
managing, or we’re not and it’s messy. A messy mind means a messy
brain, messy body and a messy life. 





But over the last 50 years, this mental messiness has been
reduced down to a set of symptoms to diagnose, medicate and
ultimately eliminate. Ignoring the complexity, the massiveness of
a person’s unique story, Caroline says, does not help to clean up
this messiness. Symptoms are just the tip of the iceberg. 





Experiencing a mental mess is okay, she says, so long as we read
the signs and do something about it. We need to take the time to
understand our mind-brain-body connection and how we can better
manage its impact on our lives. Helping a person manage their
mind is absolutely something we can teach ourselves and our
children, Caroline says.



Helping Your Teen Manage Their Mind


What does managing your mind even mean?, Caroline asks. In the
episode, she shares a simple example of how an everyday
interaction can turn into a behavioral pattern and spiral into a
messy situation if both a parent’s and a child’s mind isn’t
properly managed.





Say something happened that really threw your teen for a loop at
school. They come home, throw their bag down, and get frustrated
or snap at you. And as a parent, you react to their bad attitude,
letting your emotions rule you in a way that can lead to
immediate conflict. Let’s say that this happens on a continual
basis, and your child starts to withdraw to avoid the conflict
and stops communicating with you. So, you take the child to a
psychiatrist, who diagnoses them and gives them medication and a
label like clinical depression or ADHD.





That is not mind management, Caroline says. What happened in that
example is just spiraling into more and more of a mental
mess. 





Managing this messy situation starts with the parent’s mental
health. If we could put a policy in place to help the mental
health crisis that we are in, Caroline says, it would be to work
on helping parents to help themselves first.





When a parent hasn’t managed their own mind, it impacts their
child. Children, especially adolescents, Caroline explains, will
look at the level of distress you feel about their distress and
feel even worse about themselves. As parents, in trying to
protect or connect without regulating our response, we may
unintentionally make the situation more messy.





In the episode, Caroline explains the five simple steps you can
take to manage your mind if you find yourself facing a difficult
situation with your teen. By taking these steps, you can rewire
the network that your response comes from. Your neurophysiology
shifts to one that you are empowered to control, Caroline says,
and you can say the right thing to your child and they can learn
how to respond. That is mind management.





Life is not going to be perfect; you cannot insulate your teen
from everything. But, Caroline says, bring the five-step process
into your lifestyle and you can not only manage your mind but
teach your teenager how to manage their own too.



In the Episode…


We have a fascinating episode today with Caroline! In addition to
explaining the mind-brain-body connection and her five-step
process to manage it, we also talk about:





The oxygen mask principle

How to manage your reaction to distress triggers

Empowering our teens with critical thinking skills




Thanks for listening! If you want to hear more from Caroline,
check out her website and follow her on X as @DrCarolineLeaf.
Don’t forget to share and subscribe, and we’ll see you next week!