Do me a favor, share with me your first, last
name, where you're located, and what you do.
Dr. Deborah Mandel, I'm a licensed psychologist,
and I already love you because we just had a
little chat before we started this. And you're
such a loving and warm person. That melts my
heart. Thank you for having me on your show.
Tell me more about what you do. Well, that's
a great starting point because I really do love
to help people as best I can to find the positive
in life because that's so challenging for so
many of us. And one of my sayings, and I hope
I can say this, but it's turning chicken, S -H
-I -T, into chicken salad. I know we have the
lemons and the lemonade, but I so love the idea
of taking adversity and turning it into strength.
And that is my message. So survival, victim,
so many of us have had, many of us have had incredibly
challenging situations in our life. Truly. I
mean, if we look back on our histories, we find
that, I mean, I can cry for people all the time.
Yeah. That there's so much pain in our backstory.
And there is so much love in our backstory if
we look for it. Because unless we grew up in
a home where there was just absolutely no love
at all, if we can turn that as adults into finding
the ways in which we were loved and not just
the pain, we have so much more hope for ourselves.
And that's what's hard for people. And that's
what I try to do. So my message is take victimhood.
to survivorhood. And I don't want to be a survivor.
Survivor is like being in a, still in a prison.
I want to be a thriver. Thriver is opening up
the door to being able to live life to its fullest.
And that's what I, that's my message that I really
want for people. And how long have you been a
psychologist? Oh, I don't want to age myself
too much, but yes, decades, decades. Well, I
started very young. I was 21 when I got my first
client, actually. Well, actually, I started even
younger than that because I volunteered in lots
of different agencies to help. What you said
was so important because... you're talking about
a narrative that we all have, right? The narrative,
the story we want to tell about our lives is
what defines us. So if we can redefine the narrative
to some degree, we have a chance at having a
different future. And that's really hard for
people to understand. So I myself grew up in
a family that was challenging, very challenging.
I can tell you the details or I cannot. It doesn't
matter because it was challenging. No communication,
difficulty abuse, we would call that. People
would have been reported at this point. I can
tell that story or I can tell the story of, wow,
my parents loved me the best they could. And
I know that's hard for people because we want
to stick with our wounds. We want to stick with
the experience of how was I hurt? Because we
want to tell our story. Yeah. If we can tell
our story in a different way, we have a chance
to have a different experience. And that's so
important, I believe. Yes. Yes. And it takes
some time, too. It takes a lot of patience to
do what you do. How do you take care of yourself?
Sometimes well, sometimes not so well. That's
a great question, right? I think the things that
we need to pay attention to in our self -care,
most importantly, is breathe. So much of our
lives we forget to breathe, and that's where
our anxiety comes from. So let me tell you a
little bit about anxiety. Anxiety is the perception
of danger when there is none. Fear is the same
body experience. but it's the experience where
there is danger. So we live in anxiety so much
of the time, which again is the perception when
there is no danger and then we forget to breathe.
Yes. Because we're in fight, flight or freeze
mode. And we don't want to remember to experience
that, which we have right in our fingertips,
which is breathing. So first order of business
is whenever I'm stressed, I try to pause and
say, Oh, I need to breathe. I just need to breathe.
Secondly, I think if we, if we're able to exercise
is so important. I know it's, it's overrated
and underrated. So I'm not saying obsessively
or compulsively exercising, but I'm saying get
up and. do something. Sometimes with depression,
we don't want to do anything. We want to sit
in our hole and die. We don't want to get up
and do anything. But if you can get up for two
minutes, just do it for two minutes. That's what
I say. Get up and move for two minutes. It's
amazing. Oh, I love that. I love that. And I
know that that was a pretty off question, but
it's I've learned that you have to take care
of you so you can take care of others. And it
just also says that you too are human as well.
But I love that. I don't think that I've ever
heard the definition of anxiety like that. The
perception of danger when there is none. It's
often usually like a little bit more complicated.
And I really hope that the listener is truly
understanding what that means. You know, when
there is none, that's the key word to it. So
when you began this in your 20s, tell me about
your vision when you first started. Oh, and my
heart, you know, I will probably shed a tear
here is that I really just want to reach people
to help their hearts. That is my soul being is
I want to help people thrive. I want to help
people get out of their story and into a new
story that helps them be better for themselves
and then better for others. That is totally what
I'm about. And I don't do this well most of the
time, by the way. I do not want to sound like
I'm the guru who has this going on all the time.
No, it's my journey also. It's all of our journeys.
Every day we wake up and try to have a better
story for ourselves. Thank you for being here
today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to
Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing
your reactions as these episodes continue to
move forward. This is going to get more and more
fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show
and thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a vision pro yourself.