 Hey, I'm Drew and you are watching or maybe just listening to the anxious truth the anxious truth is the place where we talk about anxiety and anxiety disorders and how to recover from those things today We're gonna answer a question that I get asked all the time Is the anxious truth this podcast my books and all my social media content? Is it a program? Is it a method? Is this a program for anxiety recovery? Well the answer might surprise you because it both is a program and it isn't a program depends on how you look at it So why don't you grab a cup of coffee or tea or whatever you want to drink and let's talk about that Okay, so is the anxious truth this podcast my books and all my social media content is it a recovery program This is an anxiety program. This is a method. We're gonna talk about today We're gonna answer the question because you get asked all the time and it's an interesting answer because it both is and Isn't depending how you look at it, but hey, we have a new sponsor on the podcast I won't tell you about this is new for us and it's it's been a long time coming today We are sponsored by dr. Magic fingers anxiety phone Chargers their phone chargers, but they're for anxiety and I think somehow there's good vibes in the plastic And they come through the metal prong so if you if you plug your phone in to dr. Magic fingers anxiety phone charger You get happy and you feel better and your anxiety just kind of goes away It's really quite amazing and we come in different colors like this is the green one. I think this is for health anxiety I'm pretty sure so yeah, dr. Magic fingers anxiety phone chargers. That's our new sponsor on the anxious truth check that out Anyway, the anxious truth is not sponsored by dr. Magic fingers phone chargers It's only really ever sponsored by me So all of the stuff that I do is on my website at the anxious truth calm And if you want to find ways to get more information or help from me You can find books there and webinars and videos and a lot of free stuff too and a morning newsletter and all that good stuff And if you want to find ways to actually Contribute and support the work by maybe buying a mug or a t-shirt or buying some books or just making your donation You could find all of that there at the anxious truth comms to go check that out And hey, if you've already read some of my books and you dig them Maybe head on over to Amazon to write me a review because it super helps me out in a big way So thank you so much, but thanks to dr. Magic finger. Anyway, that was kind of fun to do so today we're going to talk about the idea that the anxious truth my podcast and Content that sounds like me that I think this holds true not just for my content for but for content That sounds like mine. Is this a program? Is this a method? Is this steps? Is anybody doing the anxious truth and if you followed me for any length of time You know that I really just cringe when people say that I don't like that I don't like when people call it Drew's method or the Drew method There's anybody I need to find a therapist that follows the Drew method or Drew's teachings like ooh It just kills me it makes the hair in the back of my neck stand up. I don't like that. I Don't like it because they didn't invent any of this. I talk about it all the time I'm just really good at explaining concepts that are in wide use beyond just me I didn't clearly didn't make any of this up and I say that all the time But I understand why people might look at it as a method and I've even been confronted like clearly This must be a method. This is a method isn't it? No, it's not a method and I'm so adamant about that But let's really kind of dig into that and answer the question now If you subscribe to my morning newsletter the anxious morning Which you can find on my website at the anxious truth calm You'll know that we're talking about this topic all this week But it's important enough or I just kind of wanted to sit with a cup of tea on a Sunday night I just chat with you about it for 15 or 20 minutes and sort of fill in the gaps because there's a limit to what I can do in these morning newsletters But if you haven't checked that out you can go check that out So is this a program and the answer really if I'm forced to confront it is that well It kind of is this kind of is a program, but that depends because I'm gonna tell you it's both a program And it's not a program and let me tell you why it depends on the scale that you're looking at it It depends on that the level of magnification that you want to put on this So if we look at it in there the readers digest version if you want to just click out of the video The readers digest version is if you look at it on the long term on a big scale Recovery that might take months or a year to achieve then yeah I'd probably have to say that what I do looks a whole lot like it's a program So maybe it is But if you look at a very small scale and you zoom in to the moments that are measured in seconds or minutes And those are the minutes those are the moments that I know you guys care most about because in those tiny moments those are the moments when you are most anxious and most afraid and Feel most like you're on the edge of snapping or dying or passing out or something horrible happening to you in those small Moments those are the moments most important to you those are the moments where you are really looking for a program But that's the most those are the times when it's not a program So is this a program is this a method is this the Drew method? Well, it's definitely not the Drew method, but is it a method in a program? It is if you look at the long term But it's not when you look at the very small scale in any given moment That's measured in seconds or minutes the programmness of this begins to fall apart So let's talk about that. What do I mean? And in the morning newsletter? I talked about the idea I use an analogy of building a house, right? So if you're going to build a house, you will have to follow a method or program to build a house You might get that from a contractor or an architect, but there are steps So if you look at the fact that from an empty piece of property to a house that you actually can live in Might take months or a year to build depending on what's going on There will be a program. There'll be a method. There'll be steps that will be laid out for you I have to buy the land. I have to clear the land. I have to design the house. I have to make blueprints I have to hire contractors. I have to schedule them. I have to get building materials There's all kinds of things that you would follow you would follow with steps to learn about building a house What do I have to do and then how do I do it and what order do I do it? What are the concepts here? What are the overriding principles of building a house? So sure is there a method there? There's definitely a method there. Is there a method to recovery? Sure. I mean when I wrote The Anxious Truth, which you that's the book that you can find on my website at theanxistruth.com I literally subtitled it a step-by-step guide to understanding and overcoming anxiety, panic, and agoraphobia So step-by-step guide sure does sound like a program or a method, doesn't it? So I'll have to plead guilty there. Is it a method? Yeah If you want to know how to understand this and what the concepts are and what the principles of recovery are And how you'd apply them on the long term to get from maybe lost confused Always anxious, panicky, stuck in your house, gripped with health anxiety, whatever it is To a recovered state where you now have sort of a healthy normal relationship with anxiety and fear Again, not that we make it go away because our goal is never to make it go away, right? This is in fact probably, if you look at it that way, this is a program It's a program not for feeling better, but a program for getting better And if you follow the rest of my content, you'll understand what that means I can't go into it now, but sure, there's a lot of programmeness there It has all the hallmarks and characteristics of a program or a method So that's true, I would have to say that if you look at it that way The anxious truth, the podcast, the social media content, the books and everything else Is a program, it's a recovery program, it's an anxiety program Fair enough, I'll take that I'll still hate it when you call it Drew's program But I'll have to admit, there's a lot of programmeness on the long, on the large scale You zoom out, the 20,000 foot view sure looks like a program But you don't care so much about the 20,000 foot view You do, because that's what gets you started if you're pointing in the wrong direction And you're relying on Dr. Magic Finger's anxiety phone chargers to get better Or weighted blankets or whatever it happens to be And that's not working for you Then yes, you do need a program that gives you the 20,000 foot view Teaches you really what's going on Why those things aren't working for you and what you have to do So that's important But really, once you get and start to move in that direction And start to move forward And you start to go toward doing these scary things Surrendering to your fear, allowing willfully tolerating, accepting, floating You know all the words by now You don't care about the big picture You start to care about smaller and smaller slices of time Because those are the moments Not measured over months, but measured in seconds and minutes and hours That's those are the moments where you experience the most anxiety, fear, Uncertainty, vulnerability All of those things The sense of doom and catastrophe is very intense Over the course of very small slices of time Again that are measured in seconds or minutes or hours maybe And so while you might want a program And you need a program to recover That's true And I can give you a program And people like me can give you a program that works on the large scale Over long periods of time You really want something programmatic and Techniques and tips and tricks And hacks and specific techniques and instructions and steps That you can apply in those small moments Very tiny slices of time Minutes at a time And unfortunately that's where the programness does begin to fall apart And I'll explain this So if you go back to building a house This is what we talked about in the morning newsletter That program to build a house will Encompass a bunch of different activities that will have to happen Over those six or eight months or 12 months while your house gets built One of which is driving a nail In the morning newsletter I use the analogy of driving a nail And if you ask me how do you drive a nail I would tell you well you're gonna have to get a piece of wood And get a nail and a hammer And you hit the nail with the hammer until it's in the wood And that's it That is the program That is the method That is the tips tricks techniques and hacks For driving a nail Like I don't have any more instructions That I can give you about driving a nail At some point While building a house is a thing that might take you 12 months to do Just like recovery might be something that will take you months to do In the moment The tiny moment of 30 seconds 60 seconds two minutes Where you are driving nails one by one I don't have any more program to give you I have no more instructions to give you on how to get a nail into a piece of wood Well if we move that over into the recovery sphere When you are super panicky Because you just had an intrusive thought about harming your children Or you're in a panic because you see a spot on your arm And you're convinced that that means that you have metastatic melanoma And now you're in a panic Or you're just panicking because you can feel your heart racing and you're breathing heavy In those tiny little moments where you're most afraid This is where you want something programmatic Give me tips give me techniques give me tricks Give me more instruction be more specific Drew And I hear people say that all the time But this is where you will hear things like let go In clear weeks parlance it would be float except right In Josh Fletcher parlance it would be tolerate or willfully tolerate And the word I use all the time is surrender You're going to have to let go and surrender in that moment And people are struggling with that because just like if you've never driven a nail before It can be really hard to learn how to do that well Right carpenters take years to get really good at that So you'll be bad at driving nails You'll just have to practice it and get it wrong and stumble And figure out how to do it better and do trial and error Well the same holds true with the tiny moments of recovery Where you're looking for more instruction So people who are struggling with surrendering and letting go And allowing and accepting this horrible fear And these worst nightmares that they're trying to hold at bay And letting them actually happen to learn that they don't Or that they can handle these negative experiences And don't have to be afraid of them When people are struggling to do that And the only instruction I have for you is to let go Like let the worst happen go ahead When people say well it feels like I'm going to go crazy And I say well go ahead and go crazy That's I'm out of words That's the limit to the amount of instruction I could give you for that tiny slice of time Where you want the most instruction But really the most instruction in what makes things look very programmatic And methodical in nature is when you look at the large scale And then I have a lot of instruction for you So the anxious truth is an almost 400 page printed book Because there's a lot of instruction that you can apply Over months to get you pointed in the right direction And doing the things that you have to do But when it comes time to do those things that you have to do Well things get a little bit dicey Because I don't have a lot of instruction And nobody does for the tiny slices of time Right I can't say that enough So is the anxious truth a program? Well it is on the large scale Just like you would follow a program method for building a house Is the anxious truth a program for how to surrender as part of getting better No, just like the program for building a house Isn't a program for driving a nail Which you would do as part of getting your house built So it's programmatic If you look at it from the 20,000 foot view It's decidedly not programmatic and not methodical And not systemic and not heavy on technique And specifics and steps When you're in the tiniest moments Which unfortunately are the ones that I know you care about the most So when you want the most instruction It's when people like me have the least to give you Our instruction is designed to get you into that moment Like okay you have to put yourself in that moment But once you get in that moment The program breaks down I have no more program for you So this comes up most often in the community surrounding this work When people just continually ask for more But how, but how, but how There's no more but how I can't tell you anymore how to drive a nail Just like I can't tell you anymore And how to be brave or how to surrender It's a thing you'll just have to do and try So really and truly The instruction that you're asking for Is the doing, the experience itself instructs you And that's true in driving a nail And it's also true in fully letting go At the peak moment of panic When you think you have to hang on And you don't It's the letting go in that peak moment That experience, having that experience That is what instructs you for the next time Just like driving that nail and maybe bending it Or getting it wrong Or missing the nail altogether Instructs you for the next swing of the hammer So I wish I had a program That took you all the way down To the tiniest little slivers of nanoseconds And told you exactly what to do And what to think and what to say And how to breathe and how to hold your hands And how to do everything If I could give you instruction And how to hold your body Where to be in time and space What to say, what to think How to breathe, what to do exactly To make you surrender And have those productive experiences I would tell you that But it doesn't exist And this is a dilemma that I have That anybody that sounds like me has That any behavioral, cognitive behavioral therapist has At some point we can give you a lot of instructions But sooner or later it comes down to the fact That you just have to do the things Even though they are difficult for you to do And scary for you to do So is this a program? Sure, it's a program Is it a program? Hell no, it's not a program But it's definitely not Drew's program I cannot stress that enough Like I just, I want to circle back on that Because none of what I'm talking about Or writing about is anything that I invented I am not special There are a lot of other people That are talking about the same things There are a lot of incredibly well qualified And trained and educated and experienced Clinicians, therapists, counselors Who are using the things that I talk about all the time I'm certainly not the only person On social media talking about these things I just happen to be really good at talking about them And presumably really good at encouraging people Or powering people or explaining this In lay terms And I'm thankful for those gifts I guess But I didn't invent this So even if you do want to call it the anxious truth program Know that it's not anything that I invented And understand that the program-ness Of the anxious truth will break down When you are faced with that moment Of maximum fear and discomfort When your job is to let go There is no program to teach you how to do that Only a program that gets you to that moment That you've been avoiding for so long So that is my little spiel When it comes to sort of the programmatic aspect Of the anxious truth Is this podcast, is my books, my Facebook group Is all of this content, is this a program Is this a method, is this a recovery program Sure, it's just not a program That teaches you how to actually surrender That you got to do on your own So I hope this has been helpful And I'm going to wrap it up here We're at about 18 minutes As far as I really want to go today Again, this topic is something that I also covered This should be a Wednesday when this podcast episode came out In the very same week on Monday and Tuesday The anxious morning, the morning newsletter Also covers this topic If you want to read those or listen to those Because there are many podcasts You can go and check that out If you have questions or comments in this You can always find me in the Facebook group If you're a member of the Facebook group You can comment on this YouTube video If you're watching on YouTube I'd be more than happy to engage with you guys We'll talk about this a little bit more If it's something we want to talk about more in the future Maybe we can do this in a live stream or something like that I'd be more than happy to engage with you guys And that's it So that is the end of episode number 229 If you want the full show notes in this episode I would tell you to visit my website At the anxioustruth.com slash 229 I got a list on my headphones to make sure I have this right And you know that this is over because There it is, music That is Afterglow by my friend Ben Drake It is the music you hear at the beginning and end Of every one of these podcast episodes Ben wrote the song a couple of years ago Inspired at least in part by this podcast Which is amazing to me and he lets me use it And I'm so thankful for that You can find him at bendrakemusic.com If you're watching this video on my YouTube channel Please subscribe to the channel Like the video, leave a comment And turn on the notification bell So that you know when I upload more videos And tell your friends about it If you're watching If you're listening to the podcast On Apple or Spotify Or some platform that lets you rate or view the podcast Leave a five star rating And if you dig the podcast Take an extra two minutes And maybe write a good review So that other people can find it And we can reach out and help as many people As we can together Which is really why I do this to begin with So thanks for coming by I appreciate you guys spending your time with me A Sunday evening with me And giving me your attention I will be back next week with another podcast episode Maybe sponsored by Dr. Magic Finger I don't know I do not know what I'm going to be talking about next week But I will be here And remember as always This is the way