I entered a borough race and my anxiety had thoughts.

I had absolutely no idea what I was doing entering a borough race.

What if it's this simple and one of the reasons as a collective human struggle with mental health so much is because we make it so much harder than it needs to be.

What if it's this simple? You do hard thing. You survive hard thing. Brain updates old program.

Brain says, oh, interesting. Apparently, we do mountain borough races now, or whatever your thing is. But it's on you

to choose. What is your next challenge? What has been tickling that curiosity of newness of novelty?

Of what might I be made of? What could I be made of? What if I can do this? That's emotional

strength training. That's anti-depressant. That's anti-anxiety. Hello, welcome to the show. This is

Emotional Badass where Moxie meets Mindful. I'm your host, Nikki Eisenhower, life coach and psychotherapist.

And on today's episode, I'm exploring how new experiences can dissolve anxiety and depression.

If you've been hanging out with me for any amount of time, you know that I'm fascinated

by emotional strength training. Not inspirational, quote, heady emotional strength training.

Not light a candle, take a bath, journal about courage and manifest your brave self, emotional strength training.

I mean, the real thing.

The kind that makes you sweaty.

The kind that makes us face uncertainty and unknown.

The kind that gets you out of your overthinking head and into the beauty of your actual life.

When we engage a brand new experience, especially when it's a challenging experience,

afterwards we realize, wow, that's what I'm made of.

Last weekend, when I entered this burrow race last minute, yes, it's literally a donkey race, up a mountain.

I entered it as a complete novice.

And when I got there, there were actual other humans who looked amazingly competent, and like they maybe did this sort of thing, not just for fun, but seriously

...