The Quiet Warrior Podcast with Serena Low

74. The 7 Emotional Needs: A New Approach to Healing Depression with Dr. Ardeshir Mehran

• Serena Low, Introvert Coach for Quiet Achievers and Quiet Warriors

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Our guest today is Dr. Ardeshir Mehran, a psychologist, trauma therapist, and author of the bestselling book You Are Not Depressed, You Are Un-Finished. Dr. Mehran is disrupting the mental health field by offering a new perspective on emotional wellness, healing depression, and easing emotional suffering.

During our conversation, Dr. Mehran shares his groundbreaking research on the 7 Emotional Needs, which he believes are at the core of depression, anxiety, and other mental health struggles. These needs, when unfulfilled, create a sense of disconnection from ourselves and others, leading to emotional distress.


Key Takeaways:


  • The Power of the 7 Emotional Needs: Dr. Mehran explains how unmet emotional needs are the root cause of depression and anxiety, and how identifying and fulfilling these needs can lead to emotional healing.

  • Reframing Depression: Depression is not an illness, but a signal that something is missing in our lives. By addressing the core emotional needs, we can overcome this feeling of emptiness and live more vibrantly.

  • Introverts and Quiet Achievers: Dr. Mehran discusses how introverts and quiet achievers can unlock their true potential by addressing emotional needs like connection, self-expression, and belonging—without having to "fit in" or silence their voice.

  • Practical Steps for Healing: Learn how small, consistent actions—referred to as "micro actions"—can create lasting change and help us reconnect with our true selves.

  • The Importance of Reparenting: Dr. Mehran emphasizes the need for reparenting ourselves by healing past wounds and creating a nurturing environment for our inner child.


Whether you’ve struggled with depression or simply want to feel more connected to your authentic self, this episode offers empowering insights and practical advice for anyone looking to heal and grow.


Resources Mentioned:


  • Dr. Ardeshir Mehran’s book: You Are Not Depressed, You Are Un-Finished 

  • Follow Dr. Ardeshir on LinkedIn for valuable content on mental health and personal growth


If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review The Quiet Warrior Podcast on your listening app. Your support helps inspire more introverts and quiet achievers in our communities.


Connect with Serena:

Subscribe to The Visible Introvert newsletter for weekly tips and stories of how to amplify your quiet strengths without having to act extroverted.

Join me on LinkedIn where I actively share empowering ways to show up professionally and socially as my highest introverted self.



This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Serena Loh. If you're used to hearing that introverts are shy, anxious, antisocial and lack good communication and leadership skills, then this podcast is for you. You're about to fall in love with the calm, introspective and profound person that you are. Discover what's fun, unique and powerful about being an introvert, and how to make the elegant transition from quiet achiever to quiet warrior in your life and work anytime you want, in more ways than you imagined possible. Welcome, welcome to the Quiet Warrior podcast. Our guest today is a psychologist, trauma therapist, behavioral researcher and a leadership and team coach. Dr Adesha Mehran is disrupting the mental health field by delivering more effective practices to heal depression and to ease the emotional suffering of people across the world. He is the author of the best-selling book you Are Not Depressed, you Are Unfinished, and he's also the developer of the Bill of Emotional Rights, based on 30 years of research, coaching and clinical work. Dr Adishwar Mehran, welcome to the Quiet Warrior podcast. It is an honor to have you here.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, serena. I love to be with you and with your audience, and I'm sending greetings from sunny San Francisco, so it's good to be with you, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much, Dr Adesha. I first noticed your profile and particularly the title of your book, which intrigued me. You say you are not depressed, you are unfinished, and I wonder what that means in a time when we're very quick to label ourselves and other people as depressed or anxious and then automatically we think, oh, you know, I have this illness, I need medication. What are your thoughts on this?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thank you, great question. So right now the way we think about the so-called mental illness or mental struggles is very static obsessive-compulsive, anxiety, depression, you know, like bipolar. Once we get that, it almost seems like if we get a skin rash we want to put some ointment, some medication to make it go away. Ointment, some medication to make it go away. Even with men with a skin rash, a good dermatologist looks at it and looks to see is that a skin rash based upon the poison oak, or is it seasonal? Is it allergy? Why is it coming up? We know from trauma, lingering trauma. We have bad skin because you're anxious a lot.

Speaker 2:

Unfortunately, with our society and medical field, especially the traditional psychiatry, we see mental illness as static. What I found out? That if you look at the person and their struggle in the context of a person's life, the story of their illness becomes very dynamic, that we don't just get depressed and so that the solution is that let's heal the depression that we can eradicate that. The solution is that let's heal the depression that we can eradicate that that's why healing depression lasts a long time in years, medication, therapy and a lot of them. We end up tolerating that. But if you see it from a different lens. If you zoom out, you see depression happens in a very specific set of conditions. So does anxiety, so does obsessive, compulsive, adhd and so on.

Speaker 2:

And with depression, really, the core of that is that emotional needs, which there are seven of them. That really means people who are depressed. Whether you're a child, teenager, adult or a retiree. There are emotional needs that are unfulfilled, they're violated. You're not even aware of them most of the cases and your depression is a signal of needs unmet. The moment you know that what needs haven't been fulfilled, you can move toward fulfilling your needs. It's almost like you know if you have a certain health condition and you are not taking enough supplements or vitamins, the moment you start to take them on a regular basis, your health comes back.

Speaker 2:

Is the same thing with emotional needs and emotional needs basically what they mean. They need to be fulfilled all through lifetime, cradle to grave. Once we do that, we feel more fulfilled, we feel more alive, we feel vibrant and courageous. And unfinished means that's what real depression is that there's something wrong. I feel not alive, I feel that I'm dormant, and unfinished is actually a signal from you to you, saying that wake up, claim your life. Be the person you were always meant to be. Your soul is tormenting you so you can play big and bolder, versus playing catch up and defensive just to trying to get by, to adapt to the current environment. To get by, to adapt to the current environment.

Speaker 1:

So what I hear you say, dr Adesha, is that when we have that condition of depression or anxiety, it's actually us telling ourselves or giving ourselves clues as to what we need, and you mentioned seven emotional needs. What are these needs? Thank you these are these needs?

Speaker 2:

Thank you. These are the needs that are biological, that we all humans, throughout the culture, culture, history, religion, background, we are all wired around them. The very first need happens even like in the mother's womb, and then in the early phases of life, the first three years, is a need for attachment, secure attachment, connection, sense of belonging, that there are people that they know me, they hold me, they love me. And this is a need of connection, this need of connection, secure, unconditional connection that I'm loved, I have people who tell me I'm good, I'm worth it, I'm welcome to this world. When it's not which unfortunately for a lot of people, that need is unavailable because parents are busy, parents have their own struggles, there are multiple children, there's poverty, there's tension, there's transition. People come to this world but they do not feel welcomed emotionally. They feel that I'm just here but nobody saw me, nobody loved me, nobody stopped just welcoming me, looking at me, hearing me and just giving me admiration. So that's a sense that I feel I'm good, I'm whole. So that's the need of welcoming. The next need, a belonging. The next need is the need I call I'm boundless.

Speaker 2:

The moment we develop as children, language, and this is across cultures. We use language as a way to guide people Sit here, don't go over there. And we tell to young children including I raised a son don't be fidgety, don't use your hands, use your words, use your good words, don't be goofy, and so on. What we know from neurology we think, literally. We think and feel, even brainstorm, innovate, with our entire body. Some of you led to believe that only our brain, our wonderful brain, is the source of our creativity and logic and thinking. Source of our creativity and logic and thinking. We are one integrated being and very early on in our lives we basically dismiss body, anything below our frontal cortex, and body becomes a vehicle that moves us around, moves our brain around, and that's the reason we have pain in our body in our back, in our throat gut and in our chest and heart. We just think it's a pain. No, pain is a signal, just like emotions. So I'm boundless means you have a body integrity, you are in touch with your body. It's not about how good of a shape you are, but you're in touch with nature. There's a sense of aliveness in your body versus this sluggish, slow body. So there's that sense of attunement, you know, like sense of energy. When you talk, you bring sense of fluidity, energy. Then the next need which happens comes to focus around the age of three to six and then lasts through the whole lifetime, is a need.

Speaker 2:

I am complete that very early on, as part of the growing up, and parents, based upon parents' level of anxiety and control, and the household parents, start to use the language of control, shame, guilt. That's not good, you're stupid, you know. A good girl does this, a good boy does that. You know why did you do that? A language of guiding. We're trying to redirect energy For many people.

Speaker 2:

They grow up and they think they are not good enough. We see this in grown-ups, we see in teenagers, and they feel that, oh, I don't feel good about myself. Guilt, which is very dominant in adults, means that I did something wrong. Shame is that there's something wrong with me and shame once we have that. That is the core of self-esteem, self-appreciation, self-acceptance. So we grow up. Many people, almost all my clients there's a lingering aspects of they didn't feel they're complete, that their parts of them is still unformed or literally deformed in terms of I am hurting and this is like 45-year-old business executive. So I am complete. The work is, as parents, we give conditional love and then also unconditional love, but we don't try to control, try to redirect that. There's a healthy self-esteem developed.

Speaker 2:

The next need is the need I matter. We humans are social animals. Nobody gets sick and nobody gets healed by themselves. So by the time we leave the safety of home we are always around other people, other kids, neighborhood kids, school, later on in colleges and workplaces and communities. This is a part of need being respected, honored, included in the community. You're in Case in point. For many years I worked in corporate America and I would see somebody enters the conference room. Nobody would turn around, have eye contact with them, call their name. Hey Barbara, hey John, come here, good to see you.

Speaker 2:

We did that with people in position of power, leader of the group, but there were a lot of people who felt invisible and they are quiet people and a lot of times they were not even nobody asked their opinion. They were on the organizational chart but nobody knew who they are. The need of matter that people know you, they know why you are here, they know and respect and value and they welcome your opinion and nothing is done unless you have an input to that and it's one of the needs that, especially in in our society, that divisions coming up. You know, this group, that group we create in conditional sense of I matter that people who are like me, first of all, people who are different than me, different religion, culture, you live uptown, you live downtown. We start to judge people good enough, not good enough.

Speaker 2:

The heart of why matters that you're in this world, you're in this community. You matter, you have rights that's the reason I call it emotional rights. That is bestowed upon you by the nature of your birth. Parents don't give it to you. Teachers, politicians, mayors, so on. You matter. Teachers, politicians, mayors, so on. You matter by the time you start to do.

Speaker 2:

Next need is I make whether, as a kid, you're drawing, you go to school, you go to work, everybody in this world is doing something the whole notion of vocation that you're doing something, you're good at something, you have hobbies and you have pursuits. The question is, what you're doing? Is that your area of passion, area that makes you come alive? For many people, especially in the world of work, work is a trade-off. I work in this role because to get money, to get health benefits and retirement, because I have a family to take care of, but we numb ourselves to soulless jobs.

Speaker 2:

Year after year, gallup organizational survey, they, they survey American active global workforce. We know in America every year up to two-thirds of the workforce, active workforce, they are disengaged. Two-thirds that really is a radical, shocking number. We know from also research from Gallup, from Columbia University. In these disengaged teams they are higher rate of depression and anxiety. So when we work in an environment that we do the work eight hours a day but we don't feel this is my work, we literally get depressed. It's like almost energy going wasted. We feel hopeless, we feel stuck, we feel soulless.

Speaker 2:

The question is, if you're feeling depression, anxiety, feeling burnout and you feel going nowhere instead of trying to go fix your head, I need better training program. I need to go exercise, better diet. Ask a different question Are you in the right place? Are you in the right place? Do you feel courageous? Do you feel what you're doing, you're in flow? When you're in flow, you're in love. That work feels like an act of love and devotion and creation.

Speaker 2:

The next need I call it I am, I am is by the time we become, like you know, early in our preteen when we meet with other in a school or other teenagers or young people and we try to express ourselves. This is about sharing your inner conviction, what you believe in, what are your hopes, what are your expressions, and share them in a way that matters to you, in a way that has the energy or ideas. They have, the energy and emotion and creativity of your beliefs. Very early on, we're all taught how to share our ideas in a way to fit in, to be listened to, to have our point come across. And what happened? We have our point come across and what happened? We started to all sound alike. We get a good PowerPoint, we go to the speech to coach we even have coaches for presence, so we start to all come alike.

Speaker 2:

The act of leadership, presence or presence in general is less about how you present is. Are you sharing what you believe in? Do you know what your beliefs are? I am, and this actually becomes quite a very visible experience for women in the business world. The way I came across and I observed this was about 12, 13 years ago and I noticed many female leaders when they hired me for leadership presence they wanted to be promoted to a higher level that they had certain quality of tightness around their neck, their jaws back, the shoulder being a back pain, and as their voices were come out and there was almost like as if they were talking underwater, there was a sense of monotonous delivery. And I would ask him about it.

Speaker 2:

What it became evident that these is where people who, early in life, they were told you need to fit in. So trying to make your voice fit in the room so that other people can hear you, be a nice girl, be a polite girl, raise your voice up to certain level, but don't go higher, don't show your emotions. So become very flat as a way to communicate. For men it's the other way around. For men, they become very strong, very dominant, they overshoot, so almost they miss. You're talking to people, you're not giving a declaration.

Speaker 2:

So I am is about where is the melody of your world, of your belief and sharing that. Once you do that, you feel come alive. You literally feel elements of your depression lifted because you're owning yourself, owning your story. Because you're owning yourself, owning your story. The final one, which comes to full view late 20, mid 30, is the need, emotional need I call eyesore. Behind me there's a poster on the wall and, serena, you can see. It is right. There is a quote by Maya Angelou and it says there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. An untold story. Eight billion people on this earth. There are eight billion stories. We all have our stories. We all have an inner vision, inner belief, inner journey of life. We all have it. For many people, that was me for a long time.

Speaker 2:

We just go along, you know, go to school, go to college, get a job, get married, have kids. But we never knew what our story is. Once we know our story, we literally become unstoppable. We become strong, we become powerful, we become courageous. And you will see, once you know, that your depression will turn to energy, you will not be depressed, you will be pissed, you don't want to waste time anymore. So all those seven needs they play at different times in life, but usually there are two or three of them that are more dominant, based upon the life stages that create energy pulsations for us.

Speaker 1:

Wow, dr Adesha, that was like a whole lecture by itself on the seven emotional needs and I think there's a lot for people who are listening to dig into and really reflect on.

Speaker 1:

But I wanted to spotlight a couple that I think would be particularly relevant to our listeners who are women, who are introverts, who are quiet achievers at work.

Speaker 1:

I was looking at, I was reflecting on what you said about I am and how it relates to authentic self-expression, and you talked about women leaders having a certain tone of voice or perhaps undershooting, I think was the analogy you used and the idea of holding back the idea of that childhood conditioning, even though we think I'm a grown woman now, I'm 50, I'm not a child anymore, I have permission to speak and I have earned the right to be in this room and at this table, but still, for some reason, we hold back that inner picture of being the good girl, of needing to fit in, to comply, to get that metaphorical pat on the head and be told we are wonderful, we're doing well, but don't overstretch yourself, don't aim too high.

Speaker 1:

That, I think, is where a lot of quiet achievers are stuck at, and you mentioned, I think, depression. In a sense, it is like being stuck in life, isn't it? It's like you don't have the energy, whereas the opposite of it is. When you said you don't want to waste time anymore because you know your story, you get angry at, say, injustices or the way things are, and that gives you a new energy to do something about it, as opposed to feeling I'm helpless, I can't do anything about it, I'm just giving up.

Speaker 2:

That's right. That's right. This is great. The question is like I'm an introvert, very extreme introvert. The question is you can be introvert and be powerful, be very strong and know your base.

Speaker 2:

For many people they use introvert but what it really means is that I'm shy, that I don't feel comfortable, I feel uncertain about myself or what I need to do. Shyness, it really is about going that I'm not complete, that there are elements of me that they are not good enough, that I will be judged I'm hesitant to bring. So what women who they want to do this work and they want to basically own the power comes down to a way of connecting three of the emotional needs is I belong, I am and I'm complete. When we feel we are hesitant to own our voice, our power, what is also going on? We feel isolated, we feel alone, we don't feel we belong at the table, to the people around the table, I'm an outsider. So once we have that, we just feel hesitant to take our space, share our opinion, to push back, to argue, you know like, be assertive, we become, go to this mindset of appease and please so, which can be a trauma response.

Speaker 2:

So what I pay attention to, especially as a listener is that what are the quality of relationships you have? Do you feel you're accepted, you're loved and you're connected with the people around you? Number one. Number two to what extent you're carrying the burden of you're not good enough. That you know one of the things you see in many women they work so hard than their male counterpart because they feel they need to prove themselves. These are early programming that I need to do even more work, more reports, more outputs, that sense of I'm not good enough, and the way it shows up is a brain and body that never settles down, like some of my women clients. They would call and say that it's 11 o'clock at night. I've already done the report, my presentation is ready, but I can enjoy it and I wake up in the middle of the night and I still rehearse it, I still analyze, reanalyze, because I'm just worried that it will not be good enough. So a sense of that having trust in yourself when you do your good work you're done.

Speaker 2:

You're done, know when to let go. Accept that so that I belong, I'm complete. And the next one is that how do you own your space, your arena? And one of the exercises is and in fact, katy Perry, the pop singer. She has a song Roar. I play that in my therapy session with my clients and I would ask them show me your roar song.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't matter what you say, but project your voice like as if you're a lioness and you want to show your roar. A lioness and you want to show your roar. They hate it initially. The reason is their voice was conditioned always be in such a level that you don't annoy people, you don't alert people, you just stay as a good girl level and I tell them no, whoever told you that? They didn't see your power? Project your voice and the reason you do that. Your body remembers that. Your body takes notice. We can be strong, can be big, and you inherit this full power. So, practicing, I am, I belong and I'm complete. You go to really becoming from them. You can still be very introvert, but you become a very powerful person. You own your space.

Speaker 1:

I felt like you were talking to me specifically when you talked about that song by Katy Perry. Just last week I was at this two-day conference by Dr Bessel van der Kolk, the author of the Body Keeps the Score, and one of the exercises we were asked to do was to speak our name out into our hands. We speak our name out into our hands, just cup our hands in front of our mouth and say our name In a room of 500 people. The comment from the facilitator was why is it that so many of us have difficulty saying our own name out and hearing it in our own voice? Just hearing our voice, you know, being mirrored back to us? We're not comfortable with our voices. We're not comfortable even with hearing our name.

Speaker 2:

That's right. That's right. That's right Absolutely. And part of that we talked about early childhood development, which actually there's a pendulum swing in the field of psychology is happening about earliest stages of life. That is called when the mother or primary caregiver holds the baby in her arms. There's a process called mirroring, that you hold the baby in your arm and you're calling the baby's name, like Serena, John, lucas, what you're doing, the baby says this is my name, somebody says my name, and the way they say the name Lucas, serena, the strength, the power, the resonance, you, your brain, remembers that this is me. That's how you shape a sense of inner strength.

Speaker 2:

There are many children grow up. They don't have a resonance of their being seen, being addressed and being invited. Serena, how are you, sweetie? They want to see you. Just you know, like stroking your face and validating that. So to that, dr Bessel van der Kolk, what it means. We don't have an inner resonance, our name being welcomed to this world. And that's the work we need to do as adults. Basically, we're reparenting ourselves, we're reprogramming a neurological response. But this is me, this is my name.

Speaker 1:

I'm here, I have the rights and I reclaim my space. I love that description of reparenting ourselves because I think a lot of us listening to this episode would be reflecting on all the times in our childhood where we didn't feel welcome, we didn't feel included, we didn't feel seen, we didn't feel heard, and some of that is still lingering in the body. And then it shows up in all kinds of ways when we are out in the world, when we are in our professional capacity, and we think that was my childhood, it's done with. I'm grown up now. But then it plays out again and again in different ways. And when we hold back we don't show up fully, we don't express ourselves authentically, we don't let people see who we really are. We show them a little bit. We curate a lot, we filter a lot, we put up the mask to keep ourselves safe a lot. We put up the mask to keep ourselves safe and so people don't really see the full extent of how amazing, how courageous, how resilient, how creative, how resourceful, all the things that we are. We just show the world a little bit because we are afraid.

Speaker 1:

You mentioned the shame, the guilt, that sense of I'm not good enough in myself. I'm not complete, so therefore I always have to be doing something more. What is it that I need to do more, you know? Should I work harder? Should I present myself a certain way? Should I go to more courses and learn to develop my executive presence and my charisma? Should I speak louder? Should I go for elocution lessons? So we keep trying to look outwards to fix for the solution, maybe the medication, even.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, absolutely. Serena. Something important to mention we feel bad when we try to be more vocal, more assertive, you know like, show our good part and bring our inner talents, which we know we have, to the world and we just go just a bit and we get apprehensive, we get tongue-tied, we get anxious and we fall back again and we say, oh, it didn't work. I need another training, another book, another therapy sessions. No, here's what's going on In our body, in our nervous system, which is the entire nervous system. There's no such thing as backspace, delete of our emotions. Once we have emotions that, especially if they happen early in life, they're there forever in our system. What we need to do is create new emotions so that, when there are different situations, our nervous system and our behaviors have alternative pathway of creating response. And the way we do that, the journey of growth, is journey of restoration, that if we haven't experienced something fully, that we know what it looks like, we cannot wing it. We can think about it, do it, but our body feels weird, it doesn't feel natural. So we need to create naturally joy-based, reinforcing types of behavior. And the way we do that we want to practice a stronger way of being more assertive, bolder, more boundaries, expressing love or disapproval of people around us. The way we need to do that, we need to practice it. We need to practice in small doses. Literally got to be small in a way that feels good and real for us. We can't judge, and that's the reason a lot of coaching they go to a client and I've done this. You know I'm guilty of the same thing. Give a client a big, thick binder of 360 degree feedback your strengths, your developmental feedback. Let's set goals and come up with the action step for next week. People come back. They barely touched anything and we think they are resisting. They are not following through, they are procrastinating. No, no, no To do anything. You pick one action and you practice it in a small dose. You just don't go create action plans, because by having data doesn't mean behavior change. We need to actually do it. So we have what is called body memory. This is what it looks like For me to project my voice. You need to actually project your voice. How did it feel? Oh, it feels anxious. I feel weird. All right, take a deep breath. Take a deep breath, do it again. Do it again so it starts to feel more natural. Hey, I like this.

Speaker 2:

You create body memory, then the next session you make it even bigger, you bring more color, you bring some powerful words, you bring some assertive words. So you create, create body memory. So we need to create body first, brain, second behavioral change. Most of the therapy these days cognitive behavior therapy or coaching is based upon brain first, body next. That, scientifically, is incorrect. What we know from neurology brain follows the body. If you want to do something big and bold we haven't done we need to bring the body into the conversation, help expand it, help get comfortable with being something daring, something cool, something bold, and we find joy in it, and then we will do it. So bring your body, bring your being into the conversation.

Speaker 1:

So what you said was body first and brain second. Yeah, because we've been conditioned to think that the brain is superior. Anything that comes from the head is good. Therefore, more research, more evidence, more data is superior. Anything that comes from the head is good. Therefore, more research, more evidence, more data is better, but you're saying there's a disconnect. The body actually leads.

Speaker 2:

It leads. The reason is this is evolutionary, as we're developing as a species and then as we come to this world. We perceive things first through our body, when brain is still being formed. What does it mean? The way a mother holds the baby, the calmness of the mother's presence, the way mother breeds, the way mother is available for as long as the baby is there, that sends the signal of safety. I'm welcomed, my protection. So the way we hold the baby, your parents love it. But what we're actually doing we're creating an armor of protection around the baby. Almost the baby feels like in the womb again. So as we do that, the brain cells start to open up and make connection that I'm safe, I'm welcome. Our brain knows that through the body sensations.

Speaker 2:

Later on, words, if the words is atone, is gentle, is respectful, can be very firm and critical. Brain thinks that I'm learning and it's a safe environment. So brain always looks to body. Am I feeling safety? Am I feeling the trust? Am I feeling connection? So those again, you know safety, trust and connection. Brain opens up. If we don't, brain goes to fight or flight and becomes very getting work done, becomes very tense. So create an environment that we feel safe, connected and trusted brain opens up. So that's the work we need to do For our introverted warriors. Do you feel a sense of safety in your body? Do you feel a sense of connection to people around yourself? Do you feel a sense of trust? Those are essential for you to show up bigger and bolder. If not, bring the work to you first, otherwise, whatever you do will not last long and it doesn't feel good.

Speaker 1:

I like that you mentioned the importance of feeling good, because that phrase can sometimes be used to make something seem insignificant or trivial.

Speaker 1:

Oh, it's just about feeling good. You know feelings, and so feelings are to be discounted. They're not as valuable as what comes from the brain, but we are holistic beings, as you mentioned at the start of this conversation. So all of us, all parts of us, need to be on board and need to be integrated and functioning in a healthy way, because what affects one part affects everything else, and I like how you have summarized what we need to do. For those of us who are parents, there is that element of looking back to see where our early childhood conditioning has affected us and therefore affected the way we project ourselves and the way we parent, and so we need to parent our own inner child, as it were, that younger version of ourselves, attuning ourselves to our children in a different way, unconditionally welcoming, bringing safety, because we know it affects them, and that has to start from from the womb or even before because the child is absorbing everything and their and their brain development is affected by how they are feeling, whether whether they feel safe.

Speaker 2:

That's right. That's right. This is so good, serena, what you mentioned. This morning I was at my local gym. I go there several times a week to work out. It's my way of staying healthy.

Speaker 2:

There was a woman next to me hadn't seen her before and after the workout. We were starting to talk and she told me she's a marketing leader in this community. Her son goes to this school. My son went to for high school and I told her about my. I'm a psychologist. I asked her about the work that I do and she said can I ask you a question?

Speaker 2:

I said I know my parents. My mother especially, was diagnosed with ADHD. I know I have ADHD. My two teenagers, a boy and a girl, they have ADHD. So that's genetic, you know, I've been told. Is that correct? I said no, it's not. Adhd is not genetic.

Speaker 2:

The ADHD is a learned developmental behavior. That the way we and I said. The ADHD, the heart of that, is a brain that never found enough secure and a stable connection. It's the brain that is still trying to find a landing ground. Is anybody seeing me? Is anybody loving me? Where is the security? Predictability, safety come up. Predictability, safety come up.

Speaker 2:

And I shared with you that what we know from the research, especially from the trauma psychology, that the heart of ADHD is anxiety. It's an anxious body trying to find stability. And once you, dear neighbor, you arrive at yourself with a different way of resetting the term. Clinical term is resetting your nervous system, so you're less anxious, you're more tolerant of yourself, you're more connected. You literally will see your brain, your ADHD brain that has been very hyperactive, distracted and struggling with executive functions, calms down, you have focus, you have longer attention span and once you do this, you can work with your doctors, you can literally come out of medications.

Speaker 2:

And that's the work I've been doing with a number of teens and adults that they had come to accept that I'm ADHD, I'm biodivergent, I can go through whole life taking medication. No, it's a body that never did and finished developmental growth. And once we change which we can our children will be different. We sit in a different home environment. Be different. We sit in a different home environment, so we can this is going to the field of generational patterning we can change what we learn from our parents, or children have a different experience growing up.

Speaker 1:

I feel, dr Adesha, we will need to have another conversation with you, because you've just started talking about ADHD and how it is learned and not genetic, and you talked about generational patterning and how we can, in a sense, break the cycle by changing the way we are so that our children can change, and that's going to give a lot of hope to parents who are listening to, parents who are struggling at the moment with so many issues the influence of social media, the school system, children's developmental needs, the way children cope and parents' own struggles, and some days it can just feel overwhelming.

Speaker 2:

It is and you use the term hope. As a psychologist, I get frustrated with psychologists that the answer when somebody shares I'm depressed, anxious, obsessive, compulsive, so on, is that you need medication, you need treatment and you need to see certain hours of therapy. We forget to explain to our clients what exactly is depression, what is anxiety, what's really behind this, beyond symptoms? Because once you understand why we act and feel the way we do, once you understand the new science, the journey of healing is restoration. We literally is reverse engineering. Depression can be reversed, anxiety can be reversed.

Speaker 2:

The ADHD, obsessive, compulsive, these they do not need to be lifelong patterns. What will happen those patterns, especially if they develop early in life? They will always will be there, but we can learn, noticing. How do we go to that distracted mind, practices to reset it, reframe it and come out of it again, so we can do self-manage rather quickly and then when that happens, episode of coming out of it will be faster and we stay in that deeper. The reason this is important for those who read my book I struggled with depression for so long.

Speaker 2:

So did my mom, dad, my grandparents, my brothers, sisters, and I had come to accept that I will die with depression as a part of me when I healed myself based upon seven emotional needs. So people ask me so, arashir, you're not depressed anymore? I still have to tell them I'm not clinically depressed anymore, but I know depression and I know when I go to a depressive mood, versus being depressed, that always means there's something going on. I'm playing small, I'm not solving some life problem, I'm ignoring a conversation with a colleague, with my spouse, and basically it means I'm ignoring things. So I'm becoming to a victim mode. So when I see that I catch my breath, I go take a nap, go run, play around with the golden retriever and come back and face what I've been avoiding. Once you do that, that depressive mood dissipates and I use that depression anxiety as a signal that, arash, you're not doing living, you're just being victim, you're just avoiding. So there's hope, massive hope for people who struggle with the so-called emotional struggles, and you can come out of it.

Speaker 1:

I think that is the single most beautiful empowering message from our conversation today, dr Adeshia, and I really want to express my appreciation for the way you've articulated what is it that we are going through, why we don't have to suffer silently or just accept a lifetime of medication as the only solution. What are some of the practical things we can do? I love that you emphasize the importance of practice, because that means there is something we can do and it doesn't have to be a big thing. I like calling it micro actions for my clients, because the actions themselves can be too overwhelming when you've been stuck for a long time. But micro actions, if I can scale it back to something I can do right now, today or in this moment, something really small, really achievable. If I can do that, then I can do the next thing, and then I can do the next thing and I can build my capacity, and it doesn't have to be all at once and it doesn't have to overwhelm my nervous system so I can exert some control.

Speaker 1:

I still have that autonomy and I think that is very empowering, because we don't choose to be victims. I think we unconsciously become victims and we assume that that's how we will always be and that's how we always feel. But what you're saying is, no, we can reset, we can re-regulate ourselves, we can re-parent ourselves. So there is so much that we can do as parents, as guardians, as carers, as educators, as people who are just interested in human nature and being better versions of ourselves, I think. So I've loved this conversation today and your seven emotional needs the healthy version versus maybe the current version that we are in, and we can see the gap, we can see what we need to be, and it sounds to me like it's like a journey home to our true selves.

Speaker 1:

I think when we were children we probably had a greater recognition, though we didn't have the language for it. We had a greater recognition of what that felt like. But as we grew older and we started getting distracted and pursuing external objectives a lot more, we lost that connection back to ourselves.

Speaker 2:

That's right. I love that, serena. You mentioned about journey coming home. That's right. I love that, serena, you mentioned about journey coming home. One of the hobbies that I have, I love to restore old wood furniture. So I go like through the summertime there are garage sale or people who throw away old furniture some from decades ago and old furniture when you get them. Over the years they've been put layers of wax, varnish and paint and I really slowly, with different solution, with different sanding, I just remove everything that was put on the furniture, on that piece of oak wood that from 1920 as a way to make it look beautiful. But once you take all the things that they were unnatural, you see this wood, this door, this chair. It is beautiful as it came, was made from the original tree.

Speaker 2:

To me, healing is the same thing Through the early life, conditioning the people we grow up with, the language, the emotional, good girl, bad girl, duties, don't do that. We get a lot of layers of things that they made us not be ourselves, that they made us not be ourselves, that we feel when we actually have mental struggles, we feel caged. We all feel there's a part of me. I don't even feel it. The world doesn't feel it, but I feel it. I feel it in my body. I just feel that I'm suffocating.

Speaker 2:

The work is get rid of everything that was put on you of irrational expectation, the language, the labels, the burdens, so that you get to reparent, recreate the you for today, for this day, what I'm talking about. We don't even need to go and spend a lot of time. How did this happen? Early life experiences, the journey, and this is the work that you know Basil Van Der Kolk talks about the journey of creation. Reparenting happens right now, today, where you are, what are you sensing? What feels real? What feels is extra layer. Sensing what feels real, what feels is extra layer.

Speaker 2:

Start to own and recreate a joy-based, a tiny part of you that feels real. And it feels real when you do something real. You know it, you feel it, it feels ah, this feels good, this feels like, this feels effortless. So that's how we recreate a new reality right now. And the good thing is we can do it over and over. There are many times when you do this journey things don't go well. I wish it was better, longer, felt, more, joyful, Good. Take a deep breath, do it again. Do it tomorrow, do it again we can always practice again, thank you so much, dr Adesha.

Speaker 1:

So, for those of us who are listening, I encourage you to buy the book. You're Not Depressed, you Are Unfinished. It's available on Amazon. Look up Dr Adesha on LinkedIn, where he's very active and always sharing quality content on mental health, mental wellness and how we can reparent ourselves. And if you've enjoyed this episode, rate and review it on your listening platform as well, so that the Quiet Warrior podcast can get in front of more introverts and quiet achievers around the world. Thank you so much, dr Adesha Mehran, for joining us today. Thank you so much, serena, and thank you so much, dr Adishan Miran for joining us today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, serena, and thank you so much for your listeners and I wish you well. There's always hope. Accept hope. Don't accept that if you have a struggle, it's not a death sentence or life sentence. There's always hope.

Speaker 1:

I'm so grateful that you're here today. If you found this content valuable, please share it on your social media channels and subscribe to the show on your favorite listening platform. Together, we can help more introverts thrive. To receive more uplifting content like this, connect with me on Instagram at Serena Lo Quiet Warrior Coach. Thank you for sharing your time and your energy with me. See you on the next episode.