Intro

Vanessa Vakharia 0:04

Okay, guys. Hi. Welcome to another episode of Math Therapy. I'm your host, Vanessa Vakharia, and today's outline was written by David, actually. He wrote me an organized outline. He was like, "Vanessa, get it together. I'm gonna write you an outline. Just follow the outline." So I am not responsible for anything I say. That's not true. I am. Let's see what happens now that for the first time I have an outline written by David in front of me.

Texas Instruments giveaway update

Vanessa Vakharia 0:29

Update number one, oh my fucking God, guys. our Texas Instruments giveaway was insane. Okay? So in case you missed it, we are officially sponsored by Texas Instruments for the next few months. We are celebrating Texas Instruments Evo calculator, the TI Evo. It is stunning. It is gorgeous. She has so many cool features. Anyways, once a month for the next three months, we are giving away one of these calculators and this whole gift box that comes with it, and last week's episode was the first episode where we shared the giveaway, shared how to enter it, and by the way, every single month, there will be a different way to enter it. We got over 100 entries. It was insane, and we have picked the winner. We used a spreadsheet randomizer. Very nerdy, very cool. We have already replied to the winner with instructions on how to claim the prize, and it's so exciting. But, and also, I get how excited everyone is about this because I'm also excited about the entire thing. But if you didn't win, don't panic, okay, because we're giving away one Oh My Math Box each month for the next three months, so you'll have more chances. One episode in June, one episode in July. I can't tell you which one it's gonna be. You have to listen to the podcast every week to find out, and you'll know. You'll know because, well, at the beginning of the episode, we will tell you. Okay, cool. So stay subscribed. Listen every week so you don't miss a chance to win.

Reflecting on my meltdown 2 weeks ago

Vanessa Vakharia 1:50

Number two, now that we've gotten that out of the way, what we're really going to be talking about, the heart of this episode is actually a follow-up, a debrief on what has happened since I recorded what can only be titled my meltdown episode. It wasn't actually called my meltdown episode. Let me actually look up what it was called so you know what I'm talking about. It was called Why Smart People Still Feel Out of Control and What to Do About It. It came out May 7th, so a couple weeks ago, and in that episode, I, like, low-key, high-key ha- like, not a full meltdown, but I was really spiraling. I was really spiraling about feeling out of control and feeling disorganized. That was kind of the heart of it. You should go listen to the entire thing. The link is in the show notes. Um, and I basically use, like, math therapy strategies to talk me out of my anxiety spiral, and I've gotten a lot of incredible feed- I mean, first of all, let me just say, The reason we recorded it is because David forced me to because he was so annoyed at, like, the spiral I was in, and he was like, "I can't hear you talk about this anymore, so if you're gonna keep talking about it, please just pull the mic out, and record an episode." And I was like, "What?" So I did, and I wasn't really, like... I, I was like, "Am I really releasing an episode where I, like, live, IRL just, like, start spiraling?" but we did, and I felt, I felt weird about it. Like, I was like, "I don't know if this is really gonna land," and this was definitely a, like, let me just trust my producer, AKA my best friend David, on this. and I'm really glad I did. N- honestly, listening back to it, it was, it, I felt very cringe, but it was worth it for the comments I got. Because so many people reached out to me to be like, "That is exactly how I have felt so many times," or, "That's exactly how I feel," or, like, "So many people feel this way," or, "All of my friends talk about this all the time." And I'm going to say I got those messages from people who I would consider very organized, so I was kind of, like, surprised. It really felt while I was recording that episode that my inability to feel organized was, like, a personal failing, and I, ugh, you know, I think this is why- I'm so happy that we're having so many conversations around math anxiety. Just to flip the switch here for a second, although I will say my meltdown was kind of related to math anxiety because it all started with me spiraling about my taxes, which by the way, so many people messaged me to be like, "The exact same thing happens to me with my taxes." Actually, I wanna read, okay, this is a math teacher, a math podcaster, and she says... Oh my God, Vanessa, I'm 100% like you when it comes to taxes. Thank you so much for making that episode. My husband always asks me how I can have a mathematics degree, come from a family of accountants, and still fuck up our taxes every time. I mean, I don't actually, but I do 100% stress the F out about them and have crazy anxiety over it. Glad to know I'm not alone." So here's actually the crazy thing about this. It's so funny that she's like, "How do I still fuck up our taxes every time?" Right? But, and then the next sentence she's like, "I mean, I don't actually." But it doesn't matter 'cause the... Well, it does matter, but it's like the feeling is the thing, and this reminds me so much of math anxiety where k- where kids will be like, "I just make mistakes every time. I can't get it right every time." Like, this kinda thing. And then when you pause to be like, "Well, is that true? Have you never gotten a right answer?" This is something I call the choose again method, by the way, championed by Gabby Bernstein, where you actually interrogate your negative self-talk to be like, "Wait a second. Is that actually true? Can I pick a t- another thought to replace that thought with that is true?" So in this case, "I fuck up our taxes every time" might turn into a thought that's, "I don't actually, but I am stressed every time." And you can see how that second thought has so much more power than the first thought, which is a, a thought that just shuts you down. Why are you ever gonna do your taxes if you fuck them up every time? But if you're like, "I don't fuck them up, but I know I stress out about it," that gives you an opening to try again, to try to get help. With math, if you're like, "I never get anything right," well, why are you gonna bother trying? Whereas if the thought changes to, "Well, sometimes I get things right, but even when I do, I'm really stressed," there is an opening to actually keep trying. Anyways, okay. This was-- I'm gonna tell you who this is because she has a podcast. this is Kristen, Modern Math Teacher podcast. That's the person who sent me the message, so I just wanted to share that. So part of this is, why I'm so happy I talked about it, I know it was in a very public forum, but why I think it's important to talk about these things, is because it reminds us that feelings are not facts. I'm gonna say that again. Feelings are not facts, right? Like, again, going back to what Kristen said. Hi, Kristen, by the way. Thank you so much for letting us use you as a case study. Um, this idea of I feel like I fuck up my taxes every time." The fact is that I don't, right? And that, and sitting in that really changes things. It doesn't necessarily make the feeling go away, but it certainly takes the temperature down. It takes the charge out of the feeling because now you're like, "Ugh, this feeling feels icky, but I do... a part of me knows it is not rooted in truth." And for me, hearing from you guys, like, that validation of like, "I feel this way, too." Like, there are lots of people that feel this way who you, Vanessa, would consider organized. That took the charge away from me being like, "Oh my God. I feel disorganized. I'm such a hot mess," to being like, "Okay, I feel disorganized, but objectively, my life is not a mess. My taxes, I, I didn't, I didn't fuck them up." And other people feel this way tru- too who are organized, so the fact that you feel disorganized does not mean that you are disorganized. The fact that you feel that you're bad at math does not mean that you are bad at math. And that is why I always say the emotional component of math learning is so important, because it is not always rooted in ability and technicality and skill. It is not always rooted in the actual math doing. It is rooted in these feelings around it that have to be addressed. Okay. Anyways.

3 things that broke my panic spiral

Vanessa Vakharia 7:53

I also wanna share three things I did after the episode that helped, because I am now coming to you in a state where I'm no longer in the spiral. I'm actually pretty chill. I mean, chill, I don't sound chill, and like, I'm never really, like, chill. But I'm like, I've definitely... that whole organization piece is, like, in the rear view mirror. I feel fine. You know what I mean? I'm still s- I still have the general... I think I always have the general, like, "Oh, I'm kind of behind, and I've got so much to do, and da da da da da," but it's a very different quality than the panic I was feeling when I recorded that other episode on May 7th. So here are three things I did. Because I think these are relevant to any form of anxiety and very relevant to math anxiety, because math anxiety is just another form of anxiety. So while I'm listing these things, I'm gonna try to tie them into how I would u- Because, you know, the truth is, I wrote Math Therapy from a place of knowing so much about math anxiety, helping so many students through math anxiety, research on math anxiety, and my own experience with math anxiety and other anxiety. You know, every time I, uh, do a talk or talk to somebody or do an interview, everyone usually is like, "Oh, interesting," like, yeah, this is about math, but, you know, this can be applied to anything. And so I'm gonna actually try and go through these and even, like, share how, how either this strategy came out of the classroom or how I would use it in the classroom or with someone with math anxiety. Okay.

1) mythbusting & factchecking

Vanessa Vakharia 9:19

First thing I did was myth bust. If you guys know my book, that's actually the first step of math therapy, the first M of math therapy. There's five Ms. The first one is myth busting. It is busting the myths you hold around your beliefs. So in my book, I talk about myth busting the fact that there is such a thing as this person who can do math, right? Like, how do we bust that myth? How do we get that out of someone's head so that they can see themselves as somebody who does math? And then there's so many other things you have to bust, right? There's so many other myths that you have to kind of, like, bust in order to make that true for you. And myth busting is really just fact-checking. So the first thing I did is, it's kind of funny, like, this is, this is really, like, aligning with what Kristen said here. The first thing I actually did was I spoke to my accountant. So I, I don't have an accountant because, as you know, in my last episode, I was like, "So if anyone's an accountant, please contact me." No one has contacted me, though. I'm really looking for an accountant. I spoke to an accountant for my business, my tutoring business. Anyways, I spoke to him. He doesn't do my personal taxes, but I was like, "Can you just take a look at what I've done? And, and let me-- can I ask you some questions?" Because so much of my spiral was around just, like, I, there's things I didn't understand around taxes, and I think when we don't understand things, we create stories, right? Like, that's kind of what happens is we don't understand things, so we either create stories about how those things work, or we go into fear mode, right? Like, "I don't understand how this works, so I must be doing something wrong." So I spoke to my accountant and actually asked some questions, and he actually explained in a very kind and informative way and a way that did not make me feel dumb. Thank you so much, Vincenzo, if you're listening. He's definitely not listening. Um, I actually asked him to come on the podcast, and he was like, before I even finished the question, he was like, "Nope." Anyways, so now I had some actual facts. I wasn't just assuming that my finances were a mess. I had some actual facts, and was like, "Honestly," like, "yeah," like, "this looks fine." And also There aren't that many hard-- like, there aren't many- that many ways to do this. Like, I was like, "But should I be doing this? Should I be declaring this as this? Should this be in this category?" And he was like, "That's actually not how it works." Like, he explained some things I really had not understood, and really de-escalated me. Like, I was like, at the end of it, I was like, "Oh," like, maybe there's a couple things I could do differently next year, but I'm not doing anything, like, crazy wrong." And, "Oh, I didn't realize the system worked in this way." So that was really helpful to just fact-check, myth bust, right? Like, myth bust the idea that, like, I'm doing all this stuff wrong, and, like, making up how things work at the CRA or the IRS, if you're American, or where- whatever, whatever. And this is, to me, really like clarifying something for a student. I remember when I was, like, at the height of my failing math, the thing that got me was quadratics. I had no clue. I was like, "It's this crazy fucking thing. I have no idea how to do it. There's like 5,000 steps." And I remember when my friend Emily actually tutored me. She was my first, tutor. I remember she, like, demystified it for me, I think it was, like, factoring quadratics or it was the quadratic formula. She was like, "Find A, B, and C, plug them into the quadratic formula." And I was like Oh my God, this is actually quite simple. It just felt like such a mess 'cause I didn't understand it, and there was these, like, X squares and this parabola, and like, that formula, the quadratic formula looks fucking insane, right? You're like, "Oh my God." But I... Like, she just taught me step by step how to do it, and it completely took the temp- turned the temperature down, and I was like, "Oh, wow," right? So that to me is very similar to, to me talking to my accountant. The second thing I did to myth bust how I was feeling, this was a big one, guys. I surveyed people. I surveyed people who I considered very organized people who are on top of shit, and I surveyed them about their to-do lists. That was my obsession if you recall. I was like, "I don't have the right to-do list system," like, da, da, da, da, da. So I asked people. I was like, "What to-do list do you use? How do you organize yourself?" Okay. Here's what I learned. I thought there was, like, some miracle, like, solution to all of this. Like, s- people were gonna be like, "It's this app," and like, "This is how I use it." No. Person number one, okay, my friend Lee, she was like, "I just put things in a Google Calendar." I was like, "What do you mean?" She was like, "I just put the things I have to do in a Google Calendar, and every day I write down the three things I'm gonna do that day." And I was like, "Okay." My friend Carrie, honestly one of the most organized people I know, she was like, "I write things down. Everything is handwritten." I was like, "How, how are you doing that?" Like, handwriting, like, what if you have to change things around? This did not seem to be a problem for her. She was like, "I write the things down. You know, they're next to my computer, and I have them written down." My friend Johnny, he was like, "I use the Apple's native, Reminders app." Like, no one actually that I talked to used a crazy app. I'm the one with the crazy app. I've been using Trello. I have, like, 40 lists I'm, like, reorgan- Like, it didn't really seem that way. Like, no one had this magical fix, like, you know what I mean? And so here's what I realized. Every single person had a different method, but every person had one thing in common, and that thing in common was every single one of them, every single one of them was like, "And every day I look at that list, I maybe reorganize some stuff, and I write down the top three things I need to get done that day." And I was like, wow. Okay. So here's what's happening. Here's what's happening. It's not actually about the tool. Like, I have a tool. They all have a tool. It's about using the tool properly. This actually reminds me... Holy shit, I did not think I was gonna make this connection. This reminds me of my interview with Curtis Brown from Texas Instruments if you haven't listened to that one yet, that is called Oh, This Will Change the Way You Think About Calculators with Curtis Brown. That was April, in April, April 9th. This reminds me of that because we were talking about calculators in this way of like, people wanna hate on the calculators or like... You know what I mean? And be like, "Oh, calculators are responsible for kids not knowing math," da, da, da, da, da. And the whole thing of that episode was like, it's not about the tool. You can actually have a calculator and get all the math wrong. If anybody, teaches trig, you know this, right? I've had students get answers to an entire test wrong because their calculator was in radians instead of degrees. Like you, if you know, you know. You know what I mean? Like, you can, or you can get a million things wrong by not using brackets, and your calculator, you have one of the versions that doesn't have BEDMAS on it. Like, do you know what I mean? This is what I learned. I'm like, I have the tool. I don't need to be spending more time looking for a new to-do list app. I'm not using my tool properly. And guys, I have to be honest, I'm still not. Like, for the first couple of days after I learned this, I was like, all right, get up in the morning, look at your list, reorganize things, move, you know, prioritize, pick three things to do. I did it for two days. It was amazing. I stopped doing it, and now I'm like, oh God, I'm like so off track. What am I supposed to be doing? And it's like I'm just not using the tool properly. And I think that is also really so... Like, the lesson there is crazy because it's like students have the tools. They have their Chromebooks. They have Desmos, like whatever, and so then they feel kind of dumb because they're like, "Well, it's not working," and it's, it could be because they don't know how to use the tool properly. You know where I actually think this comes across the most? Is in the concept of studying, right? Students will be like, "Well, I'm studying." Like, "I'm..." You know what I mean? They're studying, and then they don't get the results they want, and then they're like, "See? I can't do it." But then you find out that their version of studying was reading the notes over and over again or doing questions and never checking the solutions, so they never knew they were doing the questions wrong. And you're like, oh, you're doing the thing, but you're not doing it in an effective way, and if I could just show you this tweak, that would change everything. But there's nothing like feeling like you're doing the thing and not getting the results you want. And for, in my case, I was like, I have this to-do list. It's so... Like, I add the things to it. I have them organized by date. And it's like, yeah, but I wasn't using the tool effectively. So myth-busting all of that was so helpful, and can I tell you something else? Every per- every one of these people I talk to were like, you know, I also feel disorganized. I also feel like I'm juggling stuff, and like, I don't..." You know, they were like, "I don't always get everything done on my to-do list." And I was like, oh, okay, so it's not a personal failing if I don't get everything done on my to-do list. It's not a personal failing if you make some mistakes in math class, right? Like, I think we just have this assumption that other people do these things to perfection. Okay, so that was the first thing I did, myth-bust the myth of the tool, myth-bust the idea that everyone else has a better system than me, myth-bust the fact that because I didn't understand all my taxes, I was doing them wrong, myth-bust some of my actual beliefs about how taxes work.

2) don't just organize - prioritize

Vanessa Vakharia 17:50

Step number two was organize, but more importantly, I prioritized. I did that for a couple of days as you just know, right? Like, I was trying to incorporate prioritizing as more of a routine, this daily routine. That is the key of what everyone told me, and I have to say, I've fallen off the wagon there. But when I was doing that, it really, really did help, you know? So there was that piece. And then there was also the piece of I get in the habit of, like, something might not be a priority, but it's easier to do, so I'll do that thing instead, being like, "Oh, well, I'm doing stuff on my to-do list." But then I end the day stressed because I haven't done the one thing that I really needed to get done or wanted to get done that was hard, right? Like, I do find that even if I do, like, 10 tasks, but I don't do the one thing that I'm really avoiding, I feel uneasy, right? And it's like, this is like classic to-do list psychology. Like, you're supposed to, like, put this thing on the top of your list that's like, "If I get this one thing done today, I'll feel amazing," right? Or like, like all these other people, put their top three things they really wanna get done. This is exactly like math to me, exactly. Because students will do questions. Again, they'll study, they'll do all these questions, but they won't do the ones that they hate or that they're really avoiding, and then they still don't get that feeling of accomplishment or confidence because they kinda know in the back of their heads there's this thing lurking that they don't understand how to do. So, like, I think this is a really good method, especially if you are, you're still assigning homework or you want students to do practice problems. Maybe we could actually... That would be cool. Maybe we could treat our, our assigning of practice to students this way. Like, teach them the skill of being, like, put the top three problems on your list that you will feel amazing if you solve, and then put everything underneath that, right? As opposed to being like, "Here's a sheet of practice problems. Just work through them in order." Like, teach them how to prioritize what would be mo- most important for their self-efficacy and skill building. And so that, I think, was, like, kind of a big deal for me to realize, and I'm still working on it. And I remember I listened to this episode of Mel Robbins, and she was talking to, I can't remember. I really can't remember. I'll get David to put it in the show notes. She was talking to, maybe it was Seth Godin. That name rings a bell. and he said something like, "You know, everyone dies with a to-do list." And I was like, "Oh my God." Right? It's not like people, like, at some point in their lives are like, "Well, yeah, all right. I've got nothing else to do. There's nothing else on the list. Like, I guess I'm done." No. We live full lives, and we're constantly coming up with ideas and more things to do. Like, we replenish our to-do list the second it's empty. So to remember, like, we're always gonna feel that way To some degree, that we're not done everything, and that's a good thing. I think that's actually a gift to be like, "Wow, there's so much I wanna do." It's more about taking away the feeling of guilt of not doing those things and being like, "Yeah, there's so much I wanna do because I'm a human being with ideas." Like, cool. Like, awesome. Whatever I get done is great. You know what I mean? And of course, there's things you have to get done, but most stuff I realized on my list, that was another thing about prioritizing. Like, as soon as I wrote or recorded that meltdown episode, I went to my list and was like, "I'm moving everything that is not essential to a non-essentials list." And it was hard. I'd be like, "Oh, but I really wanna... Oh, but it'd be so cool if I did that. Oh, but..." It's like, yes, but is this essential? No. And once I... Like, I wanted to get my friend a gift. I'm like, I, oh, but it's actually not essential. It'd be nice if I got her a gift, but it wasn't essential. So I moved everything to that list, and when I saw the essential stuff left on my list, I was like, okay, I have space for maybe five more things. Then I could go to the non-essentials list and move a couple things over that I really wanted to do. But to keep being like, I only need to look at the essentials part of my list, and only if I have time do I look at the rest, that was important.

3) lower the pressure & get to work

Vanessa Vakharia 21:26

Okay, so step number one, the first thing I did was myth bust. The second was organize, but more importantly, prioritize. And the third is I released the pressure so I could actually get to work. This was a huge deal. I was spiraling. You guys heard me. I was spiraling. I could not do anything. All I was doing was moving shit around on my to-do list. That's all I was doing, moving shit, moving shit, moving shit. Like, it was like I couldn't actually do any of the things on the list. And I released the pressure. Like, first of all, I vented on the podcast, and I have to be honest, like, that is the thing that for me, like we're all different, but outer processing is the thing for me that helps me clarify. Like, some people clarify through journaling. Actually, side note, guys, this is really important for me to say. I used to be the most prolific journaler. I have, like, literally boxes of journals from, like, high school onwards, you know what I mean? Like, I have so many books, and I, every time I try to journal lately, I have to stop because my hand hurts, and the other day, I went to write someone a birthday card, and 30 seconds in, like, I c- my hand hurt so much. And you know what I realized? My hand hurts because I don't ever engage in the act of writing, so my hand muscles do not know how to do that task anymore. How fucked is that? It's been that long since I've written something that my hand hurts after th- 30 seconds. And so, like, that means I have to start... like, I, I, I felt like that was very disturbing to me. Like, I was like, this is actually messed up. So I really, I don't wanna add this to my to-do list, but I really do think I need to practice writing for, like, 60 seconds a day and start building up. It's like going to the gym for my hand. I'm not committing to doing this. I'm just telling you. Anyways, okay, the point is- That my, like, outer processing for me is so essential. Like, you guys heard probably in that meltdown episode, why smart people still feel out of control and what to do about it. I s- was de-escalated by the end. I was really a lot calmer, and for me, outer processing is really the thing. It's releasing that pressure. And for others it might not be, like, start chatting live on a podcast. It might be chatting with a friend, journaling, using a productivity app, an AI assistant. Like, whatever will help you get those feelings out. I mean, I love talking to a friend and, and hearing that reflected back. Like, even surveying people and telling them how I felt really, really helped me, and it really, really took the pressure off so I co- actually focus on the task at hand and see things more clearly. And in Math Therapy, I call this de-escalation, right? Like, we know that when we're in a state of anxiety, when we're in one of the four trauma responses, fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, which I was in many of those, right? Like, I was, like, teetering between, like, flight and just being like, "Fuck this, I don't wanna do anything." Like, freeze, not being able to do a thing. Fight, like, literally being so pissed off and angry that I was this way. Like, when we're in one of those, we can't actually do the thing we need to help ourselves. So for me, outer processing really helped take the temperature down. That's why one of, like, my biggest things I suggest in Math Therapy is when a student or a person is just like, "I can't do this. I suck at this," is just being like, "Hey, hold on a second. Like, do you really feel that way? Like, tell me why." Or, "Did you h- have you had, like, bad experiences in math?" Or, "Can you remember a time when you didn't feel this way?" Helping somebody else engage in conversation is so helpful for them because clarity often comes as they are talking, right? It doesn't come from us telling someone. It comes from them revealing to themselves how they feel. And that's also why Math Therapy journaling is such a big deal for me. Like, as you guys know, I have, like, pages and pages of journal prompts. Maybe I'll make those available at some point. If you guys want them, text the podcast if you're like, "I would love a journal prompt," and I'll find a way to make those available. Right now they're just available if you have my book, but I can just make a link available. Anyways, journaling, talking, that kind of stuff is so important for so many people to release the pressure, right? Often when we talk it all out, we're like, "Okay, I can kinda see more clearly," or at least I feel seen and witnessed. I think that's honestly probably a big thing for me, is, like, why I like talking to people so much more, whether it's a friend or whether it's on the podcast. There is something really, really validating about being witnessed in your anxiety, of having somebody else see you hear you, acknowledge you, validate you, right? And even better if someone can relate to you. In trauma-informed education, we talk about this a lot of like students needing to be witnessed often. Like, if a student is acting up in class or they're exhibiting off-task behavior, often they really do need to be witnessed in that, right? Because e- even though it can be really distracting to the class, to have a conversation with them about it, to say, "I acknowledge that something's going on with you," like, you know, that kind of idea can really, really be helpful to someone's healing. So just throwing that out there.

Outro

Vanessa Vakharia 26:13

Okay. Wow. We did it. I went through the things. I'm at, 30 minutes here, but, you know, David's probably taken some stuff out. So just to recap, those three things, myth busting, organizing and prioritizing, releasing the pressure so I could actually get to work. I do honestly feel so much better, but I will say the thing, the fourth thing, and the way I'm gonna end this episode, the fourth thing I did is I booked a vacation. Guys, I'm serious. I booked a vacation. I have not been on vacation since I went to Bali last March. I've not even taken a two-day vacation, so I'm really, really, really, really so excited. I'm going away for a week, and that means there will be no episode next week. However, however, and I have to tell you guys something, so when I book vacations, I only have one rule, okay? And my rule is, is I'm not allowed to do anything productive. Like, I cannot produce anything because, like, this is my... Right? I'm not allowed to be looking at my to-do list. I cannot be answering emails, like, unless they're urgent. Like, I'm actually gonna try to be really strict about this. It's one week, right? Which I'm nervous about, but I'm also like, I know I need it so badly. So for that reason, there is not gonna be an episode next week, but, but, but I actually have really, really exciting news. So a couple of months ago, I did this top-secret thing with Imagine Learning. It was the coolest thing. They literally showed up to my tutoring center. They flew here from Scotland, from Texas, from other parts in the US. A group of like, I can't remember how many. It doesn't matter. A group of them flew here, came to my tutoring studio so that I could give their host, Lauren Keeling, live math therapy for a three-part series they're doing on math anxiety. Guy, this is not a regular pod- Like, I love our podcast. Our podcast is great. This is next fucking level. Like, if you listen to, like, Serial or Wondery or, like, True Crime, that is what their podcast is like. It is unbelievable. It is a tale. Like, and it's a three-part series, okay? So the first episode drops- It dropped yesterday. Okay? So that kind of sets the stage, and at the end there's a little trailer for next week's episode, which will be clips of, it'll be, like, a big chunk of me and the host Lauren Keeling doing Math Therapy. But there will also be sound bites and parts with Deborah Peart, who we love, the Mather queen, and a therapist, Emma Fogel, who was one of my first students. So it's gonna be an epic episode, and it drops next Wednesday. So, like, if you wanted your Thursday fix of Math Therapy, you could just wait till Thursday and download it then, or you could listen to it on Wednesday. So it's the Imagine Learning Podcast. It's called Heart Work. I'll put the link in the show notes so you can actually catch up on yesterday's episode so you can be ready for next week. And at the end of it all, they are going to be releasing, we're gonna be co-releasing a full video episode of me giving Lauren Keeling straight Math Therapy for 40 minutes. Guys, I'm telling you, this thing is a masterpiece. They were at my tutoring center for literally eight hours. Okay? Like, they flew to Toronto. They were there for eight hours. We did so much fun stuff. It is like a, it's a true production. Someone needs to give us a Netflix show. I am literally manifesting that into the world. Okay, so we'll be taking next week off, but you're gonna go listen to Heart Work instead, and then we'll be back the following week with another interview. I've got a couple of interviews banked that are just incredible. And remember, another Texas Instruments giveaway will be coming in June, and I'm doing a bonus Texas Instruments giveaway on Instagram in a couple of weeks, so make sure you're following me @themathguru. Oh my God. Guys, thank you all for listening, for all the encouraging words about the podcast. It means so much to see how many of you are listening, to hear how the podcast is helping so many people. It just, it's helping me, so thank you guys so much. And thank you for the h- hundred-plus of you who texted the podcast to enter the giveaway. You now all know how to text the podcast. So text me. Text me, tell me what you loved about this episode. Tell me what you wanna hear an episode on. Like, I am always like, "Ugh, like I wanna do solo episodes, but I don't know about what." So if there's something you'd like to hear me talk about, let me know. I love you guys so much. You rock. You can find the link to text the podcast in the show notes. You can DM me at themathguru on Instagram. Have an amazing week. Take some time for self-care, even if it's five minutes or an hour or a weekend or a week, just make sure that you don't end up like me two weeks ago. And thank you guys so much for being a part of my weekly healing.

Outtake - Gemini season

Vanessa Vakharia 30:50

Today's episode is a quick episode to say hello, Gemini season. May 21st. during Gemini season, we're up, we're down, we're all over the place. we are celebrating the twins. We are celebrating duality, and that's why this is gonna be an, a mishmash episode, an episode... Okay, that was not in David's outline, by the way. That was ad lib in case you were wondering. David was not like, "Talk about Gemini season."