A lot of young people who are coming to me for therapy,

whenever they had any kind of normal human distress, they thought that meant something was wrong with them. Fluctuation in your mental health is a normal part of being human. Why is it the set of standards we set for ourselves so different to the ones that we have for other people? Often these people are the most able to be compassionate, but it all goes outwards. But the people who are just highly self-critical.

Every other sentence is something negative about the self.

And what you do is you get people to access the feeling of compassion that they have for

other people.

For example, if it was you, I might say, imagine that you're...

Dr. Julie Smith is a clinical psychologist and international best-selling author.

Her first book, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before, has sold over 2 million copies. She has over 10 million followers and shares insights from therapy that we can use in our everyday life. What's the problem with trying to feel better? A lot of the struggle with difficult emotion is the fact that we're unwilling to have it and we tried to push it away. We were in Afghanistan. When I was working on that ward, I actually had a number of guys say they wish they'd had a physical injury instead. Coming back with a physical injury and being called a hero or coming back with a mental health problem or PTSD, they felt that whatever they had seen or had to do or been part of it, they should be able to cope with that.

The absolute assumption that this should be easier and I should be able to deal with it. And then if I don't, I'm going to judge myself harshly for that. And so I used to do this thing in therapy of people where... Drinking a new tonic a day will make a man very rich. Will you be that man? Probably not. Will I be? Hopefully. We created Sonic with one thing in mind to help you lock in.

So whether you're making up an excuse, man very rich. Will you be that man? Probably not. Will I be? Hopefully. Recreated

Sonic with one thing in mind to help you lock in. So whether you're making up an excuse to where you were last night to your girlfriend or you're lying on your CV or making up a new sickness to get the day off work, it's nothing better to use that new tonic. Head to newtonic.com. Check it out. What's the problem with trying to feel better? Well, in some ways I spent my whole

career trying to answer this question. And so I'm clinical psychologist, as you know, and I spent

about 10 years in the NHS and then I don't know how many years in private practice and then

making content. And part of the reason that even started making content was really about that

question. So I had a lot of not only young people, but a lot of young people who were coming to me

for therapy. And they thought that something was wrong with them. So whenever they had any kind of

normal human distress or maybe they were having lots of emotion because life was

difficult at that point. They thought that meant something was wrong with them. And so they were

coming to me and assuming I was going to do something to them to kind of fix that. And that fixing

that meant feeling better, like taking away any negative emotion that they didn't want to have and kind of

allowing them to have all the lovely emotions that they want back. And I think part of that work

was educating those people to say fluctuation in your mental health is a normal part of being

...