The Brave and Balanced Fundraiser

Calm the Chaos, Challenge Distortions with Kelly Hint

• Erin McQuade-Wright

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How cognitive distortions drive fundraising anxiety—and a simple progressive muscle relaxation practice to shift your nervous system back into ease, clarity, and authentic confidence.

Ever feel like you have to be “palatable” to donors—like you need to shrink, mask, or perform to succeed? In this episode, Erin sits down with Kelly Hint, LMHC, NCC, and OCD specialist, to unpack the difference between cognitive dissonance (the body-level discomfort of not being your authentic self) and cognitive distortions (the anxious thought-loops that fuel perfectionism, catastrophizing, mind-reading, and the “shoulds”).

You’ll hear how these patterns show up in fundraising pressure—like tying your self-worth to results, assuming a “no” means you failed, or believing you can’t be fully yourself without losing the donor. Then Kelly guides a progressive muscle relaxation practice you can use before donor meetings, after tough interactions, or anytime anxiety takes over—helping you release tension and regain steadiness.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

  • Common cognitive distortions that drive fundraising anxiety
  • Why uncertainty triggers the mind to “fill in the gaps” with fear
  • How the body holds stress—and why job changes don’t automatically reset it
  • A step-by-step progressive muscle relaxation exercise (quick, practical, and repeatable)

About Kelly Hint: Kelly is a licensed mental health counselor in New York, a nationally certified counselor, a nationally certified clinical mental health counselor, an OCD specialist, and the author of Kick Ass Coping Companion.

Find Kelly:

  • Book: Kick Ass Coping Companion (https://a.co/d/7slRbZ7)
  • Therapy: KellyMHint.com
  • Coaching: CoachKellyHint.com
  • Podcast: The Hint Hive: Amplifying Women’s Voices

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Speaker

Welcome to the Brave and Balanced Fundraiser, the podcast I wish I'd had during my 15 years as a professional fundraiser. I'm your host, Erin McQuade- Wright. This is your space to breathe, realign, and reconnect with a part of you that chose this work for a reason. Together we'll explore tools and practices that help you show up less stressed and spread thin and more grounded, brave, and on purpose. I'm so glad you're here.

Erin McQuade-Wright

If you've ever walked into a donor meeting feeling tight in your chest, like hyper alert and really convinced that you gotta tone it down and not be too much or too honest, or too you, this episode is for you. Today, I'm joined by Kelly Hint, a licensed mental health counselor, OCD specialist and author of Kick Ass Coping Companion. We talk about the gap between who you really are and who you think you're supposed to be at work, what that does to your nervous system, and how it fuels the mental loops that keep you stuck, catastrophizing, mind reading, perfectionism, and the relentless shoulds. I should do this, I should do that. Kelly is gonna guide us today through a progressive muscle relaxation exercise that you can use anywhere today before a donor call, after a hard meeting, even standing in line at the grocery store to release tension and interrupt anxiety's false sense of urgency. It's gonna cool your nervous system right down. You'll walk away with language for what's happening inside of you, and a concrete tool to come back to your body so you can fundraise with more steadiness, more ease, and more truth. Let's dive in. One of the themes that I've seen in my coaching clients, whether they're in the for-profit sector or the social sector. Is that they wanna live with more ease and freedom in their bodies and live their life from a place of alignment with who they truly are. And if that sounds like a vague or nebulous description to you, I get it. Believe me. So maybe the best way to describe this feeling of alignment that I see people going for is by shining a spotlight on what it's not. I see the opposite of alignment as this gap between who we are and how we feel we're expected to show up. So there's who I truly am over here, and then way over there is who I'm expected to be. And in my experience, the bigger the gap between those two, the more likely we are to hear this type of story in our head. Like, I can't be myself here. I have to wear a mask or act like a different person in order to keep my job. And I am here to tell you that that gap takes energy to manage my friends. It can look like people pleasing. That was a big one for me. It can look like hiding out. Hello. That's me as well. It can also look like having big emotions and not letting them out so they come out sideways, like road rage or blowing up at your kids. Not so much me, but. I get it. But you know, the good news is when we can get curious about our stories and fears and patterns, we can start to upgrade them and bring in more of that ease and freedom that everybody wants. So my guest today, Kelly Hint, is a licensed mental health counselor in New York, a nationally certified counselor, a nationally certified clinical mental health counselor, an OCD specialist, and the author of a book titled Kick Ass Coping Companion. I love that title. Kelly is an expert in those stories. We tell ourselves the feelings, those stories kick off in our bodies, and today she's gonna show us, teach us how to work with our bodies to calm the inner chaos so that we can rewrite our harmful stories if we feel like it's time for us to do so. So Kelly Hint, welcome.

Kelly Hint

Hello. Hey everyone. I'm Kelly. Um, I'm so excited to be here because actually working with women is one of my specialties. I work with lots and lots of anxious women in my practice, both my therapy practice and my coaching practice. And so helping women navigate this is really, really, really one of my passions. And as you were talking, um, what you were describing that difference between. Who you really are, like on the inside, and then who you feel forced to portray yourself as in the working world. That's cognitive dissonance. That's something that, uh, it's a term I use a lot in my practice. Um, and it's the difference between your authentic self and who you are portraying yourself to be. And a lot of times that comes from cognitive distortions that we have in our head. And these are the things that I work with my ladies on, is challenging some of these cognitive distortions.

Erin McQuade-Wright

I met you, Kelly, the for the listener. We are new friends. We went to our first podcasting Woohoo. Conference together. Yes. And it was so perfect because I was walking in. And I was by myself, and I was walking into the orientation session and I was just really being conscious of staying open. Who am I supposed to talk to here? Who am I supposed to get to know in this room? And somebody was walking near me at the same pace as me and I said, oh, one of us said, are you going this way? Oh yeah, it's over here. And. I just loved that interaction. Kelly, because you were vulnerable, you made a choice to say, I feel a little bit anxious about walking into this. Mm-hmm. I haven't been a podcaster before. I've been a therapist before, but not a podcaster. Yep. And it just felt like such a warm. For you to show your heart like that. And I was like, oh, this is a person I can be vulnerable with. And so I, I wanna thank you for how you showed up in that moment, because you gave me permission to be vulnerable and, and have a little anxiety myself. And when, so I knew that I wanted to have you on the podcast someday. So I'm really happy, happy that we're making this happen. Uh, but I hadn't been aware of this term. Cognitive distortions. So I, I had heard of cognitive dissonance before and it reminds me of something that I've shared on the podcast before, but I'll share with you. When I first got an executive coach in my fundraising job, they had me take an analysis that that looked at the gap between how I was and how I felt I needed to show up. And she was. Delivering this, the results of the report to me. And when we were on Zoom and when she said, okay, we're here to go over the, the results of your report that look at the gap between how you showing up and how you think you should be showing up, and just saying that sentence was hit a sore spot with me. Mm-hmm. And I burst into tears and. I, because that gap was huge, Kelly, that gap was really huge. I had been hired by one supervisor who when I said yes and started, he announced his retirement the next day, and then I had somebody else who I was reporting to who had not hired me and didn't, I think. Didn't like me very much, and that was a huge gap. And so I found myself in this session with this coach, first time meeting her, and I was blown away by how the emotion was right there under the surface. I had such a big story about I don't belong here, and what she taught me. Was two things. Number one, I had that big story and number two, never meet somebody intellectually when they are in an emotion instead. So she was not able to meet me emotionally and say something like, I can see this is a tender subject for you. Let's slow down and take a breath together. Or, I see that this is, this is tender for you. Mm-hmm. Tell me more. Tell me, tell me something about what's happening for you. What do you notice right now is going on? None of that. She just said, well, that doesn't make sense because this isn't even a report where other people are reporting about how you're showing up. This is just about you and you. I was like, lady,

Kelly Hint

wow,

Erin McQuade-Wright

this is not a good example of coaching. For me to get right off my first experience. But it was a tremendous example of coaching. I'm so happy that it happened today because I, that's a great baseline to work from, and I knew that I didn't wanna do that. So

Kelly Hint

yeah,

Erin McQuade-Wright

cognitive dissonance and cognitive distortions. What's the difference between those two?

Kelly Hint

So with cognitive dissonance, excuse me. Um. You know, it, it's funny, it, it's more about who you are, who, who you want to be, and the, the space in between there and also who you're showing up as. So. To kind of back it up a little bit, um, when we met, I was experiencing a lot of cognitive dissonance myself, because I am a feminist and I was walking into an unknown and I had a choice to make, do I show up as myself and potentially alienate all of the people around me? Or do I try to fit in? So a cognitive distortion that could have entered my brain would've been, nobody's going to like me if I show up as myself. So the dissonance is me not being able to be authentic. It's me being someone else that. Other people expect of me. So there's dissonance there. There's a discomfort because I'm not showing up genuinely and authentically. And then the distortion in my brain is I can't show up as me because they won't like me. So it, it's a fine line, but it's like one is a thought and the other is almost like inexperience.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Yeah. So the dissonance I'm hearing you say is a feeling in the body and the distortion is a thought in the mind.

Kelly Hint

Yes. Yes.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Is that right? Okay.

Kelly Hint

Yep. So when, I don't know, I think we saw each other day one.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Hint

I can't remember, was I wearing the shirt?

Erin McQuade-Wright

I don't remember what you were

Kelly Hint

wearing. Okay, so that was all part of my dissonance. I walked in, I decided that I was gonna be me. I was just gonna be me. I wasn't gonna put on any heirs. I didn't care if I fit in or not, because that's the cool part of the journey that I've been on. I, because as women, we are socially conditioned to be a certain way. And so a lot of women have tons of cognitive dissonance because they're trapped in who they are versus who society expects them to be. And so. We have a much higher rate of cognitive dissonance because of this, because of our social conditioning. And so I've been on this journey of trying to be myself for a long time, and then let me tell you, I hit menopause and I stopped caring about everything when it came to how other people thought of me. I'm like, here I am. Like me, love me, hate me. I don't care. So I decided. You know what I'm showing up at this podcast conference as myself and I wore a shirt that said they didn't burn witches. They burned women.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Hmm.

Kelly Hint

Because that is one of my. Passionate areas about women throughout history, women were labeled as witches and burned at the stake if they were simply healers or midwives, or didn't fit in a box. Let me tell you, Erin, I have never fit in a box. I've tried. I have doubled myself over five times trying to fit into a box and I don't, so I wore the shirt.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Hmm.

Kelly Hint

And I saw all these people around me that are like, oh my gosh, they're wearing all kinds of shirts that are definitely not in the same vibe as me. But I got real confident real quick. I used my therapist skills and I challenged my cognitive distortions and my people found me. And, and that's the thing that I want every person listening to this, your people will find you.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Yeah.

Kelly Hint

Push through those cognitive distortions that we'll talk about and push through that dissonance. What, where is the dissonance? Where are you feeling it in your body? What is it telling you? Why are you acting in a way that is not authentic to you? That's where the, the work can be done and the growth. And let me tell you. Like I said, your people will find you and it's amazing when, when you show up 100% as yourself. That's why I was able to say to you, I'm really kind of anxious right now. I've never done this before because I decided to show up as myself and push through that discomfort. That's where growth happens sometimes. Um, there was a time when somebody. Tried calling me out on social media because I was expressing an insecurity of mine, and they said, well, that's not very empowering. I thought you were supposed to be an empowerment coach. Guess what? Empowerment isn't the absence of anxiety. It's doing the thing anyway. It is pushing through that anxiety, despite those uncomfortable feelings. You're going and you're doing it anyway. That right there is empowerment. So I, I hope that anyone listening will remember that message. It's okay to have these feelings. It's what you do about it that is important, and don't let it stop you from accomplishing what you're trying to accomplish.

Erin McQuade-Wright

That's really beautiful. I didn't know all of that was going on.

Kelly Hint

Yes,

Erin McQuade-Wright

we were meeting and walking in tandem and I probably didn't see your shirt because we were side by side.

Kelly Hint

Yeah, we, that's right. That's right. So that's

Erin McQuade-Wright

interesting. But yeah. But, but I wonder about those. Cognitive distortions. You know, you were talking about how women have been socialized to show up and what is acceptable versus what is not, and I think there, because my audience is mostly fundraisers, what comes to mind for me is. A cognitive distortion that I had, and there were probably 10 or 20 of 'em that I had, but one that rises to the top in this moment. When you said that I thought of it, it was, I can't lose the donor because I'm being me. Mm-hmm. Right? So I need to be palatable to that donor in order for them to give to my cause. That I'm passionate about and that my performance is being measured upon. So there's almost like this, um, what would it be to cause something to become invisible? I Visibilization effect of. I need to make myself as opaque as possible so that they can see mm-hmm. Through me to the mission that I'm raising money for. And let me tell you the bad behavior of donors that I encountered. Some of them were just perfectly lovely people, but I experienced. Inappropriately being touched. I experienced racist jokes I experienced, you know, PE donors are people. Mm-hmm. And often they are people who have reached a status that. Almost, um, protects them from being questioned or protects them from being challenged in a way that would cause them, you know, we bump up against each other as humans. Mm-hmm. We, we bump up against each other and. In the best case scenario, our rough edges are sort of blended down by impact with other people and other, and other persons saying that really hurt. And you were like, me. How did I hurt? And they say, this is how. And you go, oh, I'm gonna be aware of that moving forward. Like that's just a basic human interaction. And I think sometimes when we ha, when we achieve a level of wealth or status, we can kind of miss out on that bumping up against each other. And I think. That's for, I think it's for everybody to grow and evolve and chase down that their own evolution with their own curiosity. But for the fundraiser that I'm concerned with in this conversation, I wanna just highlight the cognitive dissonance or the cognitive distortion 'cause it's happening in the head that I have to remove me. In order to make my request for a donation appealing to this donor. Mm-hmm. Does that sound like a cognitive distortion to you?

Kelly Hint

Yeah, and, and I, I feel like it is a blend of some of them.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Hmm.

Kelly Hint

Um, and, and I think. As we, as I go through some of the specific cognitive distortions, I think you're gonna be able to piece out where some of that is coming from. Nice. Like the one of it's kind of funny because one of the, the biggest. Um, cognitive distortions that I've dealt with personally myself is catastrophizing.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Hmm.

Kelly Hint

And I know so many women who do this. Um, I, I work with women in fundraising also. Hmm. Um, and there is an incredible amount of pressure on them. And so the catastrophizing happens when. They start saying things like, if I don't seal this deal, I'm gonna lose my job. If I don't wow this donor, that's it. I'm done. My career's over, I'm gonna meet this donor. And again, in, in this just these few statements, there's so many distortions happening, but catastrophizing is the one where. A broken nail, you might as well have to have surgery. Right? You're, you're taking a small thing and blowing it right up. I do it all the time and I have to challenge myself on this one a lot because it's kind of linked with perfectionism also. That's another common distortion that a lot of women struggle with because again, when you're talking about societal expectations of women. We kind of have to be damn near perfect and we have to work twice as hard as a man to get the same level of respect. And that is not to bash men in any way, shape or form. They are just as much harmed by societal expectations as women are. Um. But we tend to express them differently. So we've got that catastrophizing, we've got the perfectionism and then there's the, the all or nothing thought patterns, the dichotomous thought patterns. Um, everything's black or white, yes or no. There's no room for gray. There's no, maybe actually, we kind of see that in society right now on a, a political. Standpoint, right? Yeah. You're either this or that, but there's a lot of people who are like, no, I don't fit into that box. Yeah. And so it goes back to the dissonance. Stop trying to put me into a box. It's not yes or no, it's not black or white. Sometimes it's maybe, and the work to be done is around living in the gray area, accepting the maybe. So I'm not quite sure how black or white thinking. Would come into play in the fundraising aspect because I, I don't know, I'm not familiar enough with that industry.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Yeah, I mean, I can answer. For me, it was the rollercoaster ride of I'm doing well because I got the gift. Or I'm doing poorly because I didn't get the gift. Okay. So on any given day, I could be either black or white, up or down. Okay. And it completely took, I was, I learned later when I became a coach that I was giving away my power. I was completely outsourcing my power to my fundraising results. Mm-hmm. Well, guess what? Not every donor is supposed to say yes. Not every event is going to be a success, you know? Yeah. And, and sometimes things don't work out because they're not supposed to work out anymore because it's time for us to not do this event anymore. But I was outsourcing my power to whether I was, uh, succeeding or not on a, on a micro level. And that is exhausting.

Kelly Hint

Yeah. And, and again, it, it goes back to that, that dissonance. I have to do this or else it, it's almost like attaching your sense of self-worth to your accomplishment.

Erin McQuade-Wright

100%. I could tell you the names of the people who would be fired if I wasn't successful in my campaign.

Kelly Hint

Yep.

Erin McQuade-Wright

I knew them. I, you know, they were my friends. Yep. And it was extremely. Upsetting to think about. Failing, and I think I was using that to keep myself alert and moving forward and being productive. Yeah. But what I didn't know is the tremendous cost to my body of working in that way. I thought, because I did it, I pulled it out in one really hectic fundraising year where a major source of funding fell through and I went and found money elsewhere. Donations were up 30% that year. I, it's a huge jump and it's not, but it's not sustainable.

Kelly Hint

Yeah,

Erin McQuade-Wright

I thought

Kelly Hint

so. I

Erin McQuade-Wright

could go to that well once and I could go to it again and again and again. Yep. No, I got sick after that.

Kelly Hint

Exactly. Because your body said, whoa, hey. This is not okay because you've, you ratcheted up that expectation. And this is where also another cognitive distortion called discounting the positive that can come into play. So say you kicked butt, you did everything amazing for this one campaign and. Then you start thinking about it later and you're like, well, yeah, but I didn't do this. I didn't do that. And you start just ignoring all of the good. And you're focusing on so that, so that it also goes into mental filtering. So mental filtering and discounting the positive. They're like BFFs because with mental filtering you're just focusing on the negative. That's it. In the situation, I didn't get a donation from this person. Um. But you got an overwhelming donation from another person, but you're just discounting that. So that's where the, the mental filtering and discounting the positive, they go hand in hand with that. Um, and it's unfortunate because it. You're minimizing your accomplishments, and then you're setting the bar so high, and then anxiety. Oh, anxiety. She's a miserable wench. She is going to grab onto that and leave that bar so high that you can't accomplish it again, because all anxiety needs is a little teeny, tiny piece of reality, and the reality is I hit it once. I should be able to do it again. That's what anxiety will tell you every day of the week. For me, some of my anxiety surrounded my kids, so I would think that if they didn't return a text message, oh, clearly they were dead.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Why

Kelly Hint

would I think that? Because. Women have lost children before. Parents have lost a child. That's all anxiety needed to take onto that single, teeny, tiny fact that didn't even apply to my own life and ran with it. And so that's what's going to be happening with the people that you work with in fundraising. That one little thing, that one little piece of reality anxiety will grab onto that and magnify it. It'll catastrophize it. I think anxiety's best friend is catastrophizing. Because that's what happens and, and it's awful and you end up feeling it in your body.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Yeah, and I think this right here, Kelly, what you just said is so much, I mean, this is like a slow the world down kind of moment for me. Mm-hmm. Because this is one of the reasons behind why. There is such an incredible churn rate in this profession. 16 to 24 months on average before we find another job that is not normal, that is, that is profession wide, 16 to four months. And what if we were jumping ship to find another job based on the feeling of dissonance in our body?

Kelly Hint

Mm-hmm.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Not realizing that that's an inside job.

Kelly Hint

Yeah.

Erin McQuade-Wright

It doesn't go away. When we change jobs, we carry our dissonance with us because it's part of how we are making sense of the world and how we are making sense of our circumstances. I mean, does that sound

Kelly Hint

Absolutely. Well, in, in trauma, there's, there's a book called The Body Keeps the Score.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Yeah.

Kelly Hint

And that is it. It's a blueprint. It's a heavy read. Um, yes. You know, very, very heavy read, very technical. Um, but. The, the overarching summary is your body's gonna hang onto that. And so you're in this position, your body is absorbing all of the negativity, and you leave the job to go into another job, and yet your body is still hanging onto what happened at the first one. So it carries it into the next, and I, I see this happen with people who. Who are not, not even in that field, but who job hop because they're miserable constantly. They're the, and I'm not blaming this on them. Work environments can be horrible, but when you keep taking pieces of this little teeny, tiny pieces of trauma or discomfort or anxiety, and you bring it into the next position that you're in. You've still got the baggage and, and that's where the inner work needs to be done so that you start the healing process so that you can show up as your true, authentic self for each and every position after that.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Yeah, and I just wanna thank you for that. I agree. It's not blame that we, we are, you know, doing this to ourselves. I. Really think this is tremendously good news because it is an inside job. Mm-hmm. We do have power over that. We don't have power over what other adults choose to do. Including, yeah. Bad behavior at work that sometimes, you know, needs to be called out and it is the problem, but also we get to control how we. React how we respond. Mm-hmm. The meaning we make of it and where we choose to work. And what I'm hearing you say is that getting wise to these patterns, these distortions and the dissonance that's happening in our body can actually help us to not be hijacked by them because we're seeing them as. Here's a story, here's a sensation. Rather than this is the truth, this is toxic. So I must leave.

Kelly Hint

Mm-hmm.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Um, and I, and I, I like that you mentioned the body keeps the score. It's on my nightstand right now. It is a challenging read. It's taking me a lot of time to read that book. I found it really. Helpful, some of the things that, uh, Bessel VanDerKolk is writing in the book. I also found it illuminating that I don't know the details, but that he himself has been accused of some improper behavior in the workplace and that. That there is another book that I read and really liked from a woman of color perspective that is. V fairly new. It's called, uh, what My Bones Know by Stephanie Fu, and it's a look at Complex PTSD, which is very unknown. It's not even in the, the DSM

Kelly Hint

mm-hmm.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Yet. And it's, there's a lot of misconceptions about it. But she, as a person who has experienced this complex pt, this C PS PTSD has. Taken us through this book on her own journey, um, of, of. Discovering the, the programs that are running in the background, uh, the stories that she's been telling herself, how her anxiety shows up in her body, and then some of the modalities that she tried, like EMDR, like breath work, like talk, the therapy, all kinds of different things that she tried. So I recommend that book. For people who are curious about what we're talking about, some of the things we're talking about today and how it shows up in the body, and, but the, but the big point that exists in both of those books is that the body traps this, this stuff and keeps it in there, and if we don't address it. Like I was saying earlier, it comes out sideways and we can be really convinced that somebody else is, is the problem, but really our outsized reactions to things. Mm-hmm. That's a good indicator that there's something inside that's asking to be felt and be met with compassion. And we don't always know how to do that. That's why some of us choose to work with a therapist or with a coach. Mm-hmm. To really understand what's coming up for us and how to deal with that.

Kelly Hint

Yeah, absolutely. And, and I always encourage people to explore coaching or therapy options because you don't have to go through this alone. And I think sometimes people view seeking help as weakness, especially. Very career driven, perfectionist people, they, they don't wanna take help from anyone. They think that they can figure it all out on their own, and guilty as charged. I'm one of them. I did the same thing and then the first time I experienced therapy I was like, oh, hey, this is my time. I get to talk about me. This is weird. I almost didn't know how to do it at first because I was so used to. Putting my needs aside and just go, go, go. Being very driven and you just keep pushing through it. Well, if you keep pushing through it, your body is going to react because your body hangs onto it. That's why the rate of autoimmune diseases in women far, far outnumber the autoimmune diseases in men.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Yeah. Ooh, heavy. What are some of the other cognitive distortions that you see in your practice?

Kelly Hint

Um, I, there's, now this one may sound a little weird, mind reading. Um, it's not actual mind reading. I'm not talking about people who have psychic abilities, but I hear this all the time, even directed at me. I'll have someone say to me, well, I know what you're thinking right now, and you think I'm being ridiculous. No, you don't know what I'm thinking. You actually don't. And so we do this a lot. We look out into a crowd if we're feeling very insecure about something and oh, they're, they're looking at me, they, they must be thinking, I look awful. Or you're standing up giving a presentation to potential donors and you're looking out at the crowd and you're like. They, they hate this. They absolutely hate it. They hate me. I'm a failure. I'm not going to be able to do this. I should probably quit my job right now. Right. That, that whole loop in the head. Yeah. So a lot of people engage in that, that mind reading, that fortune telling. Right. The fortune telling looks like, oh, I'm gonna give this speech and it's not gonna make a difference anyway. You don't know that. Yeah, that is not factually based. That is your insecurity or your anxiety or your emotions talking, and they are cognitive distortions. One of the things that I like to do is thought challenging with people when in my work as a therapist, we dissect all of these cognitive distortions. We identify them. We dissect them. We play some reality testing games. Sometimes it's fun. Sometimes they get mad at me because I'm like, no, that's actually not true. But yes it is. I just know it is. No, no. You feel this. You are feeling this in your body. Your body and your mind are not in alignment right now. Your anxiety's lying to you.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Hmm.

Kelly Hint

Yeah. And then the, the one that I see an awful lot is the shoulds. I should have done this. I should have done that. I should look like this, I should do that. And I tell people when, when they're in session with me and they start that, I'm like, stop. Should all over yourself.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Yeah.

Kelly Hint

It's not healthy. Don't do the shoulds. Like, let's talk about what you want or don't want. If you wanna go there, but not shoulds because should is a past tense. You can't fix it. You can't do anything different. So if you feel that you've made a mistake, well look at that. That's okay. Look at that. Okay, I made a mistake here. So learn from that mistake and move forward. But the whole, the regret in, in the shame associated with the shoulding, that's, that's not going to get you anywhere.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Hmm.

Kelly Hint

And like along those lines is that, um, another distortion is emotional reasoning when you are allowing your emotions to reflect reality, like. I feel guilty, so I must have done something wrong. I feel embarrassed. So my performance must have not been great at all. So the emotional reasoning, reasoning, that needs to be worked on a lot of inner work there also. And of course, I think. One thing that could absolutely be applied in the field of fundraising is the personalization and blame distortion. Mm-hmm. So this is where you're taking responsibility for things outside of your control or even like. Blaming others for your feelings or allowing them to blame you for feelings. Mm-hmm. And not everything is in our control. Like the donor who didn't donate, right. This, the, the person you were going after for that big donation, they've donated 10 times before and you feel you've got 'em in the bag and then no, they decide not to donate and, and it's all of a sudden you personalize it. It's my fault. Yeah. I, I didn't do it. That person could have had a catastrophic financial event happen in their lives where they can't afford to donate, but yet you are taking it on as your responsibility. Like you had some sort of control over that. So I think that would probably apply a lot in, in your field.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Yeah. And what does it give us, Kelly, when we make it about ourselves that they didn't give. And we make it mean something about us. What does that give us to do that?

Kelly Hint

Well, it it, it's a way for anxiety to assign blame because when we don't understand something, our brain is gonna fill in the gap. Kinda like with memories, memories can be faulty because there's holes. Not everyone has a perfect memory and so. Your brain will try to fill in those gaps. In this scenario, your anxiety's gonna fill in the gaps. The reason why this person didn't donate is because I screwed up even if there's no evidence. And what it brings to you is a sense of reason instead of not knowing, because that's the other thing about anxiety. Anxiety does not like uncertainty. It wants answers. So it will make them up if it has to. And if you can point to something and say, I'm the reason why they didn't donate, then you try to fix yourself and make it happen next time. So there's this false sense of control still. Yeah. I'll just do better. I'll be perfect in that way. They'll say yes next time, or the next person will say yes.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Yeah, and I think for me, there was a misunderstanding that if I stayed really vigilant to what I was possibly doing wrong, that the outcome would be that I would do better, that I would not. No, uh, possible donations would escape my awareness. I would be able to pick everything apart and see it before it was coming. I wouldn't miss anything. Yeah. And if I didn't miss anything, then I wasn't dropping the ball. And if I wasn't dropping the ball, then I was safe. And if I just sort of lazily went along. Missed opportunities, then I could get fired for not being on the ball enough. So, to me, anxiety and being alert were so close together that I, I think I got them tangled up and anxiety felt like I was doing a good job at fundraising.

Kelly Hint

Mm-hmm. Exactly. And, you know, I, I feel like. This also kind of ties in with this, the, the fallacy of control, that that's another cognitive distortion. And this is very similarly like personalization and blame. Um, you believe that you're either responsible for everyone's happiness or you're completely helpless over your own life. So there's this mistaken sense of control. Either you have it or you don't. You can control all the surroundings around you or you just have no control, and I might as well give up. So kind of back to that all or nothing, if I can't do it perfectly, I shouldn't do it at all.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I recognize myself in that as well.

Kelly Hint

Yeah.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Which is why podcasting is a really good form of medicine for me. 'cause I know for a fact that I'm not doing it well and I'm still doing it, you know? Yes. I'm not doing it as well as I will be five years from now, but I'm still doing it and I'm allowing myself to be new at something. I'm allowing myself to learn something and just learn it on the job and be okay with that. And it's, it's, it is feeling very vulnerable, but it's good medicine.

Kelly Hint

It is, it's it's muscle memory. That's why athletes will stand, like in basketball. They'll stand at the, the free throw line and they'll just keep shooting baskets over and over and over, and pretty soon their body just does it. Because they're so used to it, they create that muscle memory, which is why therapy and coaching is so good for working on anxiety because eventually you will develop muscle memory and you'll stop with those negative patterns because you're learning something new. Yeah. One of the cool. Pieces of, um, imagery that I used to do with my ladies, um, when we would talk because they, they would say, why, why do I, why can't I just get this? Why is this always such a struggle for me? And I would say, well, 'cause you're learning something new when you're walking in the snow. Because I live in New York, so we, we've got a lot of snow dumped on us lately, right? So it was always my favorite to use the snow metaphor. If you're walking down the sidewalk that is shoveled, it's a nice shoveled path. It's an easy walk, right? Well, now I am, as, as your therapist, I am now telling you, no, you're gonna get to that same spot, but you're gonna climb a snowbank instead. It's hard work, but guess what? If you keep climbing that snowbank over and over, you're gonna wear a path down. So it, it, it's, it's your neural pathways in your brain. You are actually rewiring your brain when you start to do things differently. And so you have to keep repeating it over and over and then eventually, like with me, my anxiety driving in the snow, I used to death grip the steering wheel, and I would forget to breathe and wonder all of a sudden I'm having a panic attack. Why is this happening? Well, duh. So eventually I got to a place where. I was doing things differently and now I get in the car and I drive anywhere no matter what the roads are like, and I'm fine. No anxiety, no panic attack because I practiced enough. And one of the things that I practiced was progressive muscle relaxation. And that helped me because like we were talking about, when your body is hanging onto anxiety. You've gotta do something to get rid of it. And progressive muscle relaxation is a fabulous, fabulous tool to use because you get to take control of the tension in your body. And I think that is fabulous for all US Control freaks out there who are riddled with anxiety.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Awesome. I haven't, I haven't heard of this before. So yeah, I would love for you to teach me.

Kelly Hint

So,

Erin McQuade-Wright

and the listener can do this at home. They can do

Kelly Hint

it along with

Erin McQuade-Wright

us.

Kelly Hint

Yes. Okay, great. So I, I will walk you through a progressive muscle relaxation exercise. This is actually one that I have written in my book, so I'm just going to read through there. So the very first thing that you always need to do before doing any of these exercises, make sure. Because progressive muscle relaxation is physical, so don't do anything that's gonna hurt you, please. Um, so you find a comfy spot for progressive muscle relaxation. Sitting is the best because we're gonna be working all kinds of muscle groups, and if you're laying down, then you're not gonna be able to do the neck and shoulders, which are my favorite parts. So,

Erin McQuade-Wright

okay.

Kelly Hint

So definitely seated. I'm setting up. Yes. Alright, so start by taking a nice deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. One more time. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Now we're gonna start by focusing on the muscles in your face first. You are going to raise your eyebrows as high as they will go, and then you're gonna notice the tension in there. And now go ahead and slowly release your eyebrows, allowing them to fall back naturally into place. And notice how it feels to release the tension. Now you're gonna go ahead and scrunch up your nose as if you smell something really gross. Hold that tension and notice how it feels. And now go ahead and slowly release the tension and pay attention to the contrast between tension and release. Next, you're gonna smile as big as you can, keeping your mouth closed, and then hold for a count of five. Feel the tension in your cheeks and maybe even all the way out to your ears. And now slowly release and feel that tension just easing. And now go ahead and open your mouth as wide as you can comfortably do so hold it. Notice the tension around your lips. Your jaw down into your neck. And now go ahead and slowly release and enjoy the sensation of relaxation. Now we are going to move to my very favorite part, the neck and shoulders. Gently lean your head back and look up at the ceiling until you can feel gentle tension in your neck. No need to squeeze your neck to create the tension. Just simply tilt your head back until you feel it. Notice that tension, and now slowly bring your head back to its original position and feel the release. And now you're gonna tip your head forward looking down again, just until you feel the tension. Hold it. Feel that tension in the back of your neck, and now slowly bring your head back to position and feel the release. And now you're going to shrug your shoulders as high as you can, almost as if you're trying to touch your shoulders to your ears. Don't hurt yourself on this one. Just hold it. Really notice that tension. Where is it? What is your body saying to you right now as you're squeezing those shoulders and now ever so slowly let your shoulders sink back down? And now we're going to do that one again because it's my favorite. And we often carry our anxiety right in our neck and shoulders. So go ahead, bring your shoulders up. Try to touch those ears, hold it, feel that tension. Remember, you are in control. You can release this tension. Go ahead, slowly bring your shoulders back down. Feel that release. You are in control of the tension in your body. Now we're gonna work our arms. Take both of your hands and clench them into fists as tight as you can without creating pain. Notice where you feel that tension now. Go ahead. Slowly release and feel the tension leaving your hands. Now bring your hands and forearms up as if you're flexing, making a big old muscle. Squeeze a little bit to feel that tension in your biceps. And now go ahead and slowly release, allowing your arms to float down gently to your side or your lap. Noticing that release of tension. Now we're gonna stretch the chest and back. Sit up straight and pretend that you're trying to touch your elbows behind your back. Hold it. Notice the tension in your chest as well as in your back between your shoulder blades. Now. Go ahead. Slowly release. Feel that tension melt away.

Erin McQuade-Wright

That's my favorite.

Kelly Hint

Mm-hmm. That one feels good too, doesn't it? Now we're gonna move down to the stomach. Go ahead and clench those abdominal muscles as if you're doing a situp. This should count for exercise. Hold it, and now slowly release and notice the difference between tension and relaxation. I'm doing some of these too, along with everyone. Mm-hmm. Now it's time to give our butt a little bit of attention. So go ahead. Squeeze your butt muscles. Again, not to the point of pain, just tension. And notice it. Where are you feeling it in your butt? Maybe the back of your thighs. Now. Go ahead. Slowly release and enjoy that feeling. And now finally, we're gonna finish up with the legs. So first tense up those upper thighs again, not to the point of pain. Just squeeze your upper thighs. Notice where the tension is, and now go ahead, relax. Savor that feeling of releasing tension, and now extend your legs straight out. Notice the tension in the back of your legs and your knees. Hold it, and now slowly let your legs and feet sink back to the ground. And now with your feet on the ground, slowly and very, very gently, we don't want foot cramps. Lift your toes upward with your heel, still touching the ground. Gentle tension here. Not anything too big. Now go ahead and slowly allow your toes to sink back down to the floor and feel that relaxation. And now take a moment and reflect on how your body feels. Are you relaxed? Are there still areas of tension? If there are. Feel free to repeat this section. Go back, listen to it again until you get rid of all of that tension in your body. And when you're ready, you can open your eyes and come back to the podcast. Beautiful. So Aaron, how did that feel in your body?

Erin McQuade-Wright

It felt really good. I especially loved the chest lifting and elbows touching behind, uh, or approaching each other behind. That felt really good.

Kelly Hint

Yeah,

Erin McQuade-Wright

and yeah, it feels lighter. It feels more buttery. Mm-hmm. Inside my body now, so thank you for that.

Kelly Hint

Well, and I feel like the, the areas where you connected most, that that's your clue, where you hold your tension. Yeah. So you probably hold a lot of yours in your upper back, you know, because even when I do that, there's, there's a release in both my upper back and a little bit of my neck too. So that, that part is great. And then, then the shoulder shrug one. I love that one because I carry the majority of my tension in my neck and shoulders. And you know, the, the purpose of progressive muscle relaxation, it's twofold. It is to take control of your anxiety, to take control of the tension in your body, but also to release it, to relax. I have done so for anyone who gets overstimulated in the grocery store. Oh my gosh. Me walking into Walmart is a nightmare. Like it just too much energy, too much light, and I immediately feel tension. You can be standing in the line at the grocery store and run through some of these exercises. You can squeeze your toes in your shoes and nobody's gonna notice. I mean, if your butt's a certain way to the counter, you could do some butt scrunching too, and release tension that way, you know? And. I, I think that one of the great things about progressive muscle relaxation is you can customize it to whatever you want. There are times when I'm just sitting at my desk and I will lift my shoulders up to my ears and hold it and then relax, and that's all I do, and that's all I need. So. Again, anxiety makes us feel out of control. This is a way to take control back, take control back of your body, of the tension in your body, because there are times when we feel like we are in control of nothing, especially if you've just had a, a bad interaction with a donor. That your body gets all tense and Oh, yeah. And you feel like, I can't, I, I can't do this, I can't do anything. Right. I, I'm in control of nothing. Yes, you are. Take a second, run through some of these exercises and, and you'll remember that you are in control, just maybe not of some of the things you wanna be in control of.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Hmm. That's beautiful. Thank you for giving us that practice that we can return to again and again. And it's, and it's, it's so simple that we can remember

Kelly Hint

mm-hmm.

Erin McQuade-Wright

How to do this on our own. You know, it's just tensing up and then releasing that tension. Yeah. And doing that over the big muscle groups of the body. And it seems like that's a real. Moment we can give ourselves some of that freedom and some of that ease that I really keep hearing that people are looking for. And Kelly, I just wanna thank you for being with us today, for sharing your wisdom with us. And I'd love to ask you how people can, uh, get in touch with you, how they can follow what you're doing. You read from your book, where can they find that?

Kelly Hint

So my book is available on Amazon if you search, um, kick Ass Coping Companion. Um, I wrote the book because my, the, the people that I work with would forget the coping skills that I taught them. And so I decided, you know what, I'll just put it in book form and, and then, then they'll have it. Um, so it's not a replacement for therapy, but for people who have done therapy that don't. Need, you know, the actual therapy piece anymore, but need to brush up on their coping skills. That's a, a good resource. Um, if anyone wants to check out either of my websites, there's some resources on there. Um, my therapy website is Kelly m Hint. Com. My coaching website is coach kelly hint.com. Um, on the coaching site, there's, um, I have a blog on there also. My podcast links are on there. I have, um, a YouTube channel, so like you can follow me on social media either, uh. Coach Kelly Hint, or Kelly m Hint, LMHC, either one. I have so many social media profiles that I don't do a whole lot with, but I have 'em.

Erin McQuade-Wright

What's the name of your podcast?

Kelly Hint

The name of my podcast is The Hint Hive: Amplifying Women's Voices.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Beautiful.

Kelly Hint

It's a feminist podcast for women. Um, and eventually I will also be bringing in guests. Now that I've got the video aspect going, I released my first video episode last Friday.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Excellent. Look at you pushing boundaries, doing things, doing it scared. Yes.

Kelly Hint

Yep. Yep. The, the, you know, the, if we wanna be empowered, we gotta push ourselves out of that comfort zone.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Beautiful. Well, on that note, um, I'll, I'll thank you again for being here. And Kelly, thank

Kelly Hint

you for having me.

Erin McQuade-Wright

What an honor it was to have you. I appreciate you very much.

Kelly Hint

Thank you so much. Right back at you.

Erin McQuade-Wright

Before you go, here are five takeaways to carry with you from this episode. Number one, cognitive dissonance is the body's. This isn't me signal when there's a big gap between your authentic self and how you think you must perform. Your system pays the cost. Number two, cognitive distortions are anxiety storytelling engine, catastrophizing, mind reading for. Fortune telling and shoulding can feel like insight, but often they're just fear trying to manufacture certainty. Number three, anxiety hates uncertainty. So it invents. Explanations, personalization, that sounds like it's my fault, they didn't give, for example, can create a false sense of control. Naming that pattern loosens its grip. Number four, your body keeps the score. So regulation isn't optional. You can change jobs and still carry the same nervous system strategies with you into the new job. That's why this is an inner leadership practice, not just a workplace problem. And number five, progressive muscle relaxation is a portable reset button. Tense, then release, especially the shoulders, neck and upper back. It's simple, effective. It's free, and it reminds you, you are in control of the tension in your body. If this episode hit home, share it with a fundraiser friend who's been living in overdrive, and if you wanna practice these tools with support so you're not white knuckling your way through your donor work, I'd love to connect with you, look in the show notes for a link to connect with me. Until the next time, keep showing up with courage and keep coming back to your body.