 Every Monday, episode 52, not exactly a year since we started these, but 52 weeks is a year. So it's a year's worth of Monday live streams. Welcome everybody. Today we're gonna talk about a very, very common concern, a very common thought, a very common fear, and that is what if I never get better? So let's do the usual here. We'll put the chat overlay up so you guys can see what you're saying to each other, which is always maybe my favorite part of these Monday live streams is watching you guys kind of interact with each other and conversations I'm not even a part of. So hey B, what's up? Welcome, if you guys wanna pop in, just let me know that everything's cool. Billy, Olivia's here, welcome everybody. So today we're gonna go over, yeah, what if I never get better? I know it's a really hot topic. A lot of people have this fear, I totally get it. So we're gonna talk about it. What else can I ask you guys? How's everybody doing today? Where are you coming from? I know all the usual suspects. Looking forward to this from the UK. Hey Sarah, how's it going? Hola, hello Facebook users. I know you're in my Facebook group and I can't see your names because that's what Restream does. So if you wanna tell me your name and a comment, that's totally fine. But yeah, everybody wants to know about this one, right? What if, you know, what if I never get better? I totally understand. Ellen is here, what up? Clark, has it going? Oh, those are very kind words. Thank you. Hey, Jason, has it going? Billy, you're in Maine, I didn't know that. How cold is it where we all are? Well, here we are, hey, Kath. Yes, it is 100% true. It is getting cold. It's colder here in New York today. But what are you gonna do? It's fall. Well, you're probably not coming from the Southern Hemisphere because you'd be sleeping. Our Aussie and Kiwi friends are warming up now. They're going through the summer. Anyway, so let's get into this a little bit. I wanna talk about this because I know how afraid so many people are of this thing, which is the, you know, what if I never get better? I hear a couple of things. I hear, what if I never get better? I hear, I keep thinking that I might never get better. Hey, everybody, hey, Carol, what's up? Hello from Wales, hey, Robbie. So I hear those things. What if I never get better? What, I keep thinking that I'll never get better. It usually comes up when people are struggling, which I totally understand, right? So thinking that you're never gonna get better is not a crime. You're not doing anything wrong if you have that thought. It's really important for me to say that. Like people have that thought all day long, especially if you're struggling. I hear it for people who feel like while they're starting to make some progress, they're seeing some changes, which is great. And then maybe they have a difficult day or a difficult couple of days and they're feeling things again. And then that thought pops in and starts to grow. Like, oh my God, what if I, you know, I'm never gonna get better? What if I never get better? Sometimes what if I never get better? Actually snowballs into bigger things? Like what if this becomes XYZ mental illness? What if my anxiety becomes schizophrenia? What if my anxiety then becomes depression? What if my anxiety then becomes a psychotic break of some kind? So there are variants to I'll never get better starting from like, well, either I might never get better. I'll have to live with this for the rest of my life because you're frustrated at the moment. But sometimes it can also say, yeah, I might never get better and I'm even gonna get worse. So if you have those thoughts that's also really common, take heart. Like you're not the only person to be worried about that. You're not the only person to ever have that thought. It's really common, especially when struggling because we all know that this is really hard work. This is not easy stuff to do. And it's going to lead you to be frustrated. It's gonna lead you to doubt yourself, all of those things. Like you're gonna be angry, you're gonna get impatient, you're gonna get frustrated. I know I got all, I felt all of those things. So people ask me often, did I ever worry that I would never get better? And I'm always honest, I'm always honest with you guys. I never had that worry. Like I never got stuck in, I'm never gonna get better. I never got stuck in that. But that doesn't mean that I didn't get frustrated and impatient. I'm not a patient person by nature. Anybody who knows me personally knows that. I'm way better than I used to be. But I'm still relatively impatient and I like to get, like I like things to happen. But I had to learn to be patient with myself. I used to get really impatient. I used to get angry. I used to get frustrated. I used to get annoyed. I used to get a lot of those things. Sometimes I would get really sad, like it would wear me down that I was doing how to do all this work. But I never, fortunately for me, my own personal experiences, I never got stuck in what if I never get better? So people ask me that all the time. I like to share that because I do get ass all the time and I'm always happy to be transparent about this stuff. But when people do worry about what if I never get better? I think there's a couple of things to really look at here. Number one, it's a normal and natural thought to have when you are struggling, right? So if you're doing really difficult things and you're not getting the results you want, and I'll get to that in a second, which might be the result you want in the minute, in that moment that you're doing the thing or you're not getting the results you want on the bigger picture fast enough, if you will. Or often this is a sort of a manifestation of I've tried so many things, nothing works. I want this to work too and it's not working. That could be frustrating too, that could be upsetting, that could be discouraging. So when you run into that resistance, it's really natural to wonder like, can I do this? Is this gonna work for me? Am I ever gonna get better? And I think especially if you have tried a lot of different things, which is also really common. So let's acknowledge that for like, for you guys who have tried a million different things, a lot of programs, a lot of books, you've done all kinds of different things, trying to like, knock down your symptoms or make it go away or cope or manage your anxiety and it didn't really work out for you, then if you try something different, which might be the stuff that I talk about and other people that sound like me talk about, and it doesn't make fast enough change or you wind up kind of butting heads with the reality of how hard this really is, which I say all the time, then it's gonna be natural to doubt like, is this working or am I doing it right? Or can I actually even do this? Am I capable? What if I never get better? What if my anxiety is worse than everybody else's? What if there's something special about it where this won't work? I can't do it. Really common, really common, right? So the first thing I would tell you in that situation is to keep in mind that you're doing really difficult things and we care so much about the actual observable changes like if somebody else was looking at you and they saw the way you were living your life, not the way you felt, right? So forget that for a second. And I know that it sounds cold when I say forget how you feel, but you gotta kind of bear with me on this and put it into the context. If you take away how you feel and what's going on in your head and you asked a partner or a friend or somebody who could see you living your life, like does your life look different now than it did a month ago, a week ago, two months ago, whatever it happens to be? And that person could say, oh yes, I see you going toward things that you used to avoid. I see you not talking so much about how you feel. I see you not asking me to save you all the time. Like the people in our lives who see us and could observe us a little bit more neutrally would look and say, oh yeah, well I could see that things are different for you. But for you, since you're inside yourself, which we get, how you feel is so important to you, your fear is so important to you and your thoughts are so important to you, that you kind of discount that stuff. So sometimes you need that outside person, that objective view that says, well I see you though and you're different now than you were. Does that mean that you are in a constant, always uphill, never stumble, like never ask for reassurance, never say that you're afraid? No, of course not. Like it's a really crazy jagged line, they're ups and downs, they're good days in bed, we know that. But you will take how you feel and what you think as the measure of whether or not you're getting better when really it's what you're doing that leads the way. So if you're doing things differently, but they're hard to do them differently, that's okay, you're still doing them differently. So unfortunately in this situation, we say it all the time, how you feel is the trailing indicator of recovery. How you feel, the thoughts you have, that is a trailing indicator. We lead with the behavioral change, which is different than maybe somebody would have told you 20 years ago. 20 years ago somebody would have told you, oh we're gonna challenge your thoughts, we're gonna change your thoughts, we're gonna introduce positivity or gratitude and somehow that will make you feel different. No, we know so much more than that now. We lead with the behavioral change, which is really hard to do and really difficult because often you're not getting that immediate feedback from your thoughts and your emotions that tell you it's working, you're not getting that feedback. So it seems like, well, this isn't working. Yeah, but you literally are not doing the things that you used to do three weeks ago or three months ago and you're doing the things that you refused to do three months ago. I know you don't feel good today, I know you're afraid today, but that doesn't mean it's not working. So you have to really give it a second to back up a little bit and it's okay to get frustrated and to get disappointed and be angry or be sad and it's okay to have the thought, this isn't working, I'm never gonna get better. I get that, I get the frustration, I really do. But once you have that thought, allow it to be there, that's fine. And I think you have to take a step or two back at some point and say, okay, hang on a second here. I feel really shitty today, I'm terrified today, I'm having maybe intrusive thoughts that I haven't had in a couple of months, I had a panic attack and I haven't had one in weeks. So this all has me really jumbled up and I feel really bad right now, but everything in life is transient. My life really is different than it used to be three weeks ago or three months ago. Even if that difference is small because you're just in the beginning stages of it, I'm doing new things now, I'm trying a different way, I'm pointing in a different direction. So I'm gonna have to like, sort of lick my wounds and cry a little bit, which is totally fine. I'm gonna vent a little bit, I'm gonna ask for some support or a hug, totally fine, but I cannot continue to base everything on how I feel because basing everything on how I feel is what kind of got me in this mess to begin with, right? So keep that in mind. I think from a practical standpoint, that's one way that you can approach the whole what if I never get better thing? Like recognize why you have that thought, recognize the struggle in the process, recognize the difficulty and understand the habit of always judging things based on how you feel and what you think when really you have to try to judge things on what you're doing differently. Right, that's really important because I know that you want to make it feel different and as much as we talk about this really hard, so nuanced and so subtle, I want it to feel different. This morning on Instagram, I posted a quote from a book that I really love that talks about how it's really hard to say that you're being mindfully accepting of an experience if you're constantly scanning to see if your acceptance is working. It's really, really hard. So it sets you up for that conflict that says, oh, it's not working. Well, why isn't it working? Well, because I don't feel the way I want to feel right now. I demand to feel a certain way right now, but then you don't feel that certain way and you get caught up and see it's not working. It's not working. So it's so hard because you have to be willing to abandon that checking to see, is this working? Am I getting the outcome that I want? Well, the outcome that you want comes sort of on the sly as you do different things more and more and more. That outcome that you want just sort of like sidles into your DMs, like slides into your DMs. We can use all these silly joke analogies, but that is kind of the way it works. Like as you do the work, the getting better part kind of sort of sneaks in the back door and suddenly you notice like, oh, wait a minute, I am different, but I couldn't tell in the moment that I was changing or that I was getting better. So that's probably, you know, try to cover like, why does that thought happen and what can you do with that thought? The more brutal part of what if I never get better is the understanding that thinking that you'll never get better is not getting better. So for some people, the thought, what if I never get better? Or I keep thinking that I'll never get better. That person might absolutely see like, wow, look how different my life is, but they're having a hard time getting out of the loop of having that thought. What if I never get better? What if I never get better? So to a certain extent, you have to accept the fact that what if I never get better might feel really important? Like, well, of course I would think that because I'm trying to get better. And it's okay to think that but when it goes beyond what is reasonable in terms of assessing your progress and becomes just a repetitive thought that then seems like a prediction, that's a little bit of a different wrinkle on this. So being afraid that you'll never get better or thinking that you'll never get better is not equal to never getting better. And in that situation, what's difficult there is when that happens and you see that, the answer to that is, well, the best answer to that thought is no answer but action. So it's really helpful to say, well, I keep thinking that I'm never gonna get better. Okay, well then the best thing to do in that situation is to actually go get better, which I know sounds ridiculous and circular and like, what the hell is he talking about? But sitting and latching onto that thought and just sitting there and playing it again and again and again and trying with thinking to convince yourself that that's not true is like any other repetitive or intrusive thought. If you try to argue it with other thoughts, it rarely works out. So you might have a little bit of both. You might just have sheer frustration and all of that stuff, impatience and all the emotions that come and recover. You might have that and that causes the thought what if I never get better or the fear, totally fine. Or you might have it just as a recurring thought that you know doesn't match reality, but you're just stuck with the thought that I might never get better. And then you can make the mistake of just grabbing onto that thought, hanging onto that thought and trying to get rid of it or solve it with other thoughts. When the best approach to that would be, well, let me go do a thing. Not compulsively, but if you feel like, well, I can't stop thinking that I'm never gonna get better. Well, then go and repeat a really small exposure. One of your first challenges, go do that. That that would be better than frantically pounding on a keyboard and the Facebook group or on Instagram, trying to get somebody to tell you that like, tell me that I will get better. I keep thinking I won't. Well, a better way to do that is to say, I am really struggling with this thought right now and it's scaring me. What can I do? Well, what you could do is like, go repeat one of your early exposures. That to you is easy now. Go repeat a win. Those could be really helpful tools as opposed to just trying to argue with the thought what if I never get better, which sometimes could just be an intrusive, repetitive, irrational thought. Doesn't matter. That thought, and this is where it gets a little bit brutal sometimes, the thought, what if I never get better may be the most important thought to you, but it's really no different than what if I vomit to a metaphor or what if I have a heart attack to somebody with cardiophobia or what if I have to stay home alone and I can't handle it to somebody who's monophobic, right? So it doesn't matter. In the end, I know you think that that's the most important thing, but everybody's thoughts are really important to them which I think you'd understand. So just because you think this thought is a special thought and is somehow well, of course it's all about recovery. So this thought is important. Just know that other people that don't have this thought that are afraid of other things, that plague them will tell you that their thought is clearly very important too. So it helps to put a little perspective on that, to understand that when you're a fear and your anxiety makes you the center of the universe to look around and say, well, that person's struggling with this and this person's struggling with that and we're all in this together. We're living a shared experience. I guess my fear isn't the center of the universe. Like it's the same as everybody else's fear and we're all here doing it together. So that's a good way to go too is to try to remember that like, I know how important this is to me personally because I'm emotionally attached to it. It's my own thoughts, but let me look around me and see what I see. Like, oh, we're all struggling in some way. All humans are struggling in some way anxiety disorders are not, right? So I think it's really important. So that's kind of the what if I never get better? Now, before I go into the comments here and we made some questions, but I would ask by show of hands how many people were hoping that when you came onto this video today, which is entitled, what if I never get better? That I was going to give you a guarantee that you will get better. Like just by show of hands or a wave or a comment, how many people were hoping that what this video would be about is Drew will tell you how to guarantee to get better. I bet quite a few of them. So quite a few of them. Anyway, I know it's never what you want it to be. I wish it was, I really do. Yeah, see, thank you, Jax. I appreciate you being honest about that. I think a lot of people would be like, oh, good, he's gonna give me total guarantee that I will get better. And nobody can ever guarantee anything in life, right? Me, but I knew he wouldn't. I guess those of you guys who know me enough know that that's probably not gonna be a thing. Know nothing in life is ever, ever, ever guaranteed. That's the thing that drives some of this in a big way. Yeah, but what if I'm the one? But what if I'm the one that can't get better? Well, again, all of the stuff I just talked about for 17 minutes applies. Like how is my life different than it was? Your life might only be different, only because you've decided I'm gonna do this now. That's different. That's different. If you live for a year and a half with essential, I'm gonna go through my usual litany, you guys can make jokes. If you live for a year and a half with essential oils, weighted blankets, cold water, men, safe people, snapping rubber bands and avoiding everything and hiding on your sofa, then just not doing that anymore is a huge change. That's a giant change. It's just sometimes before you go down the path of recovery, you literally have to turn so that you're facing the path of recovery. And if all you're doing right now in the very beginning is turning to face, that's a change, man. Like you get credit for that. That's a change. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. All right, so think about that. Let's go into comments and questions and let's see what we have. You guys always have good comments and questions. The last few weeks, man, you've been on fire. So let's see. I'll put some of them up on screen here. We'll do it. This was an early one. Welcome. Will you ever really get rid of the residual feel or is it just like you just turned the volume down and you always have like a white voice in the background? I think I understand what you're saying here. I cannot, I can tell you my experience and the experience I think of my recovered friends and in my Facebook group, there's many of them. There are people in this room right now with you guys that I think we call themselves 90% recovered. There is no residual fear. There is the propensity to possibly feel anxiety. That's true. I might have an anxious day tomorrow. I don't know, maybe, maybe I'll be anxious later. I don't know. But so there's no residual fear that just sort of lurks around there always in the background, ready to bubble over into panic. That took a long time for it to finally die out but experience seems to be mine and many other people that I'm aware of will tell you that, yeah, that took a long time to finally dissipate but it does ultimately go away. So no, I don't believe that you are doomed to a life of just constantly living with like, today might be the day that it fully boils over and I go back to where I was. I don't have that experience. I don't live with any residual fear of my anxiety. I'm actually not afraid to be anxious anymore. So there is no residual fear. So sometimes that is there always white noise in the background is, will it always be waiting to get me? No, because if you don't think it's getting you anymore, like I accept that I might have a panic attack right now. It could happen right now. But I wouldn't say, oh, it caught me, it got me. I kind of don't care. So like, then is it white noise in the background? No, it's no noise in the background because I don't care if it happens or not. It's really subtle. And when you get there, you'll start to understand. But it is what it is, which is telling you nothing, other than you have to keep going and allow all these experiences and see the change as you go. I wish that I could say it better than that. I'm a little bit at a loss for words on that sometimes. Oh, the Channel Islands, we got people from all over the place. I dig this. Daniel, let's say what Daniel has to say. I bet this subject is one of the primary triggers for the anxious community. Yeah, I think for a lot of people, it is a big trigger. The fear that they'll never get better, almost for some people, at least for some amount of time, becomes the primary driver. So we know that the primary driver usually is now I'm afraid of how I feel. I'm afraid of my thoughts. I'm afraid they're going to make me do things that I want. I'm afraid that I will panic. I'm afraid that I will die, lose control, whatever. Sometimes this, I don't know if I'll ever get better, really then drives those other things too. So you're always scanning for the presence of how do I feel now? How do I feel now? How do I feel now? Not because you're afraid necessarily of immediate danger from it in that mode, but you are looking for signs that, oh, see, I don't feel right today. There's my proof, never getting better. If I do not have a completely anxiety-free day today, that is proof that I'm never going to get better. So that's really, really common. It's really, really common. So let's scroll down. I'll try and get to everybody. Time is it? Okay, little time. Oh, this is great. Viola, once I thought I'd never get better, but I am. I was, it was strong for a while. I get it. I really get it, Viola. Thank you for sharing that and sharing your experience because it can be really strong. That fear that I'm never going to get better can be really, really strong, really strong. So thank you for sharing that. I can't get better. Okay, so I'm not sure where that comes from, but okay, I can't get better when modern technology doesn't work and companies are totally incompetent. Well, I don't necessarily deny that that's true. Technology sucks. It causes more problems than it's worth for us sometimes, but I get it. Sometimes you just need to vent. I get it. It sounds like you're having a tough day. I hope it gets better. It's hard to find courage in hoping you literally feel physically sick 24-7, dude. Okay, I'll put this up on the screen. I'm sorry, I can't see your name because of restream. I feel you. I do get this. I get this. But you have to remember that part of this is I am literally physically sick. That is correct. The very first thing I ever said into a microphone in the Anxious Truth podcast was anxiety is physical. Anxiety disorders are cognitive. So the fact that your body is expressing this anxious state is correct. Like that's not physically sick. That is feeling the effects of fear and anxiety and uncertainty and mental stress, which is normal. Like human bodies express it that way. So part of this, this becomes a really sort of meta-cycle. I feel this way. So therefore this feeling is a disaster that I cannot handle. So therefore I will judge this as I am hopeless and there's no point in trying to find any courage. So you gotta insert, that's a wheel that just keeps spinning. So you gotta find a spike and jam it into those spokes to stop that wheel. And the spike that you would jam into the spokes is usually at the point where you declare disaster because of how you feel. Like I would say that's the point where you, that's where you stop the wheel from spinning so you could jump off. If how I feel is automatically a disaster and that's just the way I'm gonna insist that it is then you're right. You stay stuck in that cycle. But it's declaring that feeling a disaster repeatedly and repeatedly and repeatedly that gets us stuck. So I do understand how it feels. I completely get that because I felt it too when everybody in the room has felt that. But just understand how that becomes a self perpetuating cycle and where you can stop that wheel from spinning. You gotta find a way to jam a spike into those spokes to stop the wheel. And that would be the place. Hello Northern Ireland, how are you? This is good, thank you Bessie. Always good comments. It's important to give yourself some grace and accept the times when you are just in the trenches. So much of this work and Bessie, I really appreciate this like I said is just slogging through the mud. It's just slogging through the mud. That is a hundred percent true. None of this is glamorous. None of this involves the typical poses, serene yoga poses and victory on the top of the mountain. None of it does. Very little of it does. We have moments of victory like that but so much of this work is just tedious slogging through the mud to learn these lessons little by little, little by little to make change. So yeah, in those moments, you gotta be patient with yourself because it is, it's literally just slogging through the bog, being bogged down, you know? So let's see here. Oh, this is good, Robbie. Let me put this up on the screen. It took me a long time to accept that I might have this for the rest of my life but now I believe, I can't answer that, that I can turn this huge boulder way me down to a paddle in my shoe of minor inconvenience. Excellent, excellent, excellent, excellent. What's interesting is the point, it took me a long time to accept that I might have this forever. And we talked about this last week and that, oh, I just have to learn to put up with it episode. If you go back to last week's live stream, we talked about this. It's the accepting that you could deal with it forever that turns it into the pebble in the shoe ultimately. And, ugh, like makes my head explode and I wish it wasn't that way because it's so paradoxical but that is the way it is. I'm sorry, I just gotta kill this. I can't take that call. Yeah, so that's very true. But it is that first part, like I have to accept that I could handle this forever. I don't want to, but I have to, I could handle this if I had to, I'm handling it. That's what starts to make the change. So good comment, thank you. Symptoms are really hard to ignore. Okay, I'll put this up on the screen. Ignoring is different. You could not ignore these if you tried, right? So you couldn't, you can't ignore it if you tried. I did a podcast episode on this. If you go to theanxiesttruth.com and just search for the word ignoring, you'll see a podcast episode that I did. I think it was entitled, are you ignoring your anxiety or are you trying to ignore it? If I gave you a million dollars, you could not ignore this. You will feel it, it will impact you, it will be scary, it will be disruptive, it will be all of those things. You're just bringing that with you. That's different than ignoring. So be careful about that because I would never tell you to just ignore it. Like it's gonna come with you. Ignoring means, oh, I can pretend it's not there. No, you can't, you can act like it's not there, but clearly it's there and you will know that. The benefit of these experiences that we have is that we do things while it is still clearly there. So it's not ignoring, it's acting in defiance of, it's acting in opposition of. That's not ignoring because you're still gonna feel it. Feel it, okay? So it's really important to understand that it's not like ignore, I know this is subtle, semantic to a certain extent, but just be careful about, oh, I have to ignore. You don't really have to. You have to take it with you. That's what I would say. Oh, let's see here. Totally agree. You guys are loving this. Let's see here. Ah, it's just really great. I always like to put the winds up on the screen. It's always nice to share these. Last week I went to Disney, three months ago I was unable to leave my couch other than to panic. Good job, Dapatha. I hope you enjoyed Disney. I'm not a, don't tell anybody, but I'm not a Disney fan. But Disney is such a milestone for so many people that I'm really happy to hear that. That's great. Love it. I used to scare me. Put this on the screen. This is good. That used to scare me when I would hear you say you never thought you wouldn't get better because I thought I was different and I really wouldn't get better, but here I'm getting better. Thank you, Viola. Okay, so this is a really good point. I never struggled with the thought that I would not get better. And I've told you that at the beginning of this video. But it highlights a thing that says, well, I didn't have that thought and I got better. Here's somebody who did have the thought and also is getting better. So just having the thought is not a predictor. Or a lot of people will think, well, because I can't shake this thought, then it must mean that I'm not gonna get better. So this is great. Thank you so much, Availa. I appreciate you throwing that out there. Okay, we'll throw this up here. Little TMI maybe, but that's all right. Last month I was crying and throwing up and tomorrow I'm traveling to London. Great job, Lisa. Great job. I don't know how that goes. I hope it's a good trip for you. When people, we put these up on the screen, by the way, know that these are not, this is not somebody saying, hey, I completely recovered in three weeks. I have, we've talked about this at one point. I've probably known less than five people of the thousands that I've dealt with that have had that kind of turnaround. So these are people generally speaking. I'm gonna speak for you guys, Tabitha and Lisa Marie, who are in the process of it. So like, hey, now I can go to Disney or I can go to London and I might struggle here and there and I might have some anxious moments but I'm doing it anyway and I'm learning lessons from it. So I hope I'm paraphrasing you guys, you too, correctly here. Try not to put words in your mouth, but... Let's see here. When you feel like it's gone, you're okay. Rolling back to anxiety. Okay, let's see here. I'll throw this up on the screen. Isn't it exciting when you watch me read the comments? How boring is that? How can I ever feel better after having meaning of life thoughts? Well, everybody has meaning of life thoughts, right? These are, that is a common human experience to question existence and reality and why am I here and what's my purpose. Totally normal, just that in an anxious and sensitized state those questions become huge and like unsurmountable and anxiety producing and full of terror and fear because whereas now I would, I'll sit with a cup of coffee with you and talk about that stuff for hours. I love it. There's no answer. There's no answer to any of it, but whereas in a non-disorder state you might actually enjoy those things and like to play with those really big concepts that are sort of almost beyond our comprehension. Since they're beyond our comprehension when you are in an anxious, sensitized state we're always scanning for threats. Unanswerable questions are huge triggers. An unanswerable question is like kryptonite for an anxious brain. It will send you down a spiral where you keep trying to solve the unsolvable. But as things overall get better what I'm trying to say here is it's not the content of the meaning of life thought which is really common to have, I had those. I was crippled by thoughts of existence and annihilation and death and dying. It's not the thought because I still think about those things now. The thoughts didn't go away. I just have a very different relationship with those things now. So know that it's not that you have to solve the meaning of life or solve death. You don't have to solve that at all. You just have to get your relationship with your own body and mind back into line and then those questions become questions like they are for all of us. Sometimes disturbing, sometimes anxiety provoking sometimes a little bit fearful sometimes exhilarating and fascinating and interesting and compelling. They can be all of those things again. Right now they're only scary for you but that would change. That would change. Let's see here. I'm struggling. I'm sorry, Jen, I know, but this is really hard. Okay, I'll throw this up. We'll talk about this a little bit. So Jennifer, I'm really sorry. This is a crappy, crappy, crappy situation. And as much as I'd like to tell you I have a solution for the exact situation you're in right now, I don't other than to confirm that that's really bad. But when we are hit with really big life challenges, anxiety provoking events like this maybe the end of a relationship, this infidelity, even new relationships could be stressful. There's good stress too, right? Marriages, divorces, new relationships all relationships breaking up, new jobs all jobs that you're leaving, moving buying a new house, moving house having a child, graduations like these are really big life events when we get hit with those life events some of which are happy but still stressful there's good stress too some of which are really emotionally taxing bad stress, negative stress our anxiety often will get amplified thoughts get stickier we lose some of our resiliency and our sense of self-efficacy begins to drop a little bit so it's normal to feel like you're struggling with anxiety because you're probably struggling with anything big any big physical sensation any big emotion any big anything becomes a trigger to like I feel I'm afraid of how I feel and so it becomes more of a disaster than it really is so generally all I can really say is it's I'm sorry that you're going through that but give yourself a little space and know that it's normal to be triggered by those things because you're gonna feel a lot of big emotions right now and often anxious people do not like big emotions can't handle them they trigger everything becomes anxiety one of my early podcast episodes is why is everything an anxiety trigger? And I talked about that that was like one of the first 10 episodes I believe but that's really common big emotions boom everything ultimately becomes fear disappointment fear anger fear excitement fear sadness fear jealousy fear like every emotion within about 18 and a half seconds becomes fear for people like us so just just know about that because it's a thing so give yourself a little break that's gonna happen let's see here the distance is really important here eventually you'll get to the point where you can start to look at anxiety with some distance that are sharing it with a magnifying glass all day staring at it this is a really good comment by Aurora listen to Aurora because she's right distance is one of the things that changes stuff and when we have these experiences that we talk about all the time and we engage in these activities we talk about all the time we're actually putting a little distance between us and the and the fear and the anxiety and the certainty so that they still matter to us but with distance we can see them to be less the disaster that we think they are when we're glued to them up close all the time so we're making a little bit of distance and that distance can make all the difference in a big way so that's a really good comment thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you Trent but please don't use that hashtag hashtag over Ken that stuff makes me crazy that's not cool I'm not I'm not that but thank you for the kind words I appreciate it let's see here I'm a horrible at accepting that but Penelope Cruisify what's happening I think sometimes I've been dealing with this for my whole life that I wonder what I'm doing wrong when I got it I get it I think I get that a little bit let's see here I'm going to keep scrolling sorry sorry sorry it's going to be okay in the end Martina you really I'll put Martina up on the screen because I'm watching your comments go by and there's a lot of good stuff here thanks for learning about it and accepting it it's so hard sometimes and I cry a lot I want to put this up because of the crying and thank you for sharing that crying is okay but it's going to be okay in the end that I cannot tell you how huge that statement is it's really hard I cry a lot some people are criers not a crime if you are a crier let it rip go ahead and cry but it's going to be okay it is there is a really some of the essence of recovery is right in that statement it's going to be okay I'm really scared right now I'm convinced that my heart is about to stop but I've been through this before and I'm learning that I can get through it every single time and it's going to be okay I'm not okay right now I'm not saying I'm okay right now but I know that I'm going to be okay that's a big deal it's really a big deal it doesn't matter if you think you won't get better oh this is good again for you guys who have not listened to Kathleen's episode of my podcast you should doesn't matter if you think you won't get better as long as you're putting in the work the brain training is still being done behind the scenes that's what happened to me anyway and it's that is representative for most people you just have to be willing to learn you have to be willing to do the work knowing what the work does like the work is not to make you feel better the work is not to learn how to drive again the work is not to learn how to stay home alone the work is not to learn whatever how to eat different foods the work is to learn how to navigate through the feelings the internal experience is what we care about so if you open yourself up to that I'm going to be afraid I'm going to be uncomfortable I'm going to be uncertain and what and I can learn from that then that is what changes things that is what changes things okay this is fair Christina wants to know what if it's at night late at night you can't turn out and no I'm not telling you although I do know people who have built this this habit not really the best habit with a literal jump out of bed and go running or go walking immediately when they get anxious that's not a good habit sometimes if it's at night and you're sleeping you're going to have to sit with that feeling you can get up you don't have to lay in bed and ruminate on it but maybe you don't want to go out driving or go outside or do an exposure that's totally fine you can't always find a way this is important and this is a really good question thank you Christina for asking but you can't always find a way to feel better or think differently you can't it sucks but there's truth in that sometimes we can take steps that might change our our point of view that might teach us something that might change our mental state that's true other times you just have to accept that you know sometimes I'm just going to doubt this I'm going to have to sit in that doubt and that uncertainty you can't help it now you might plan something for the morning like you know what I'm not going to sit in this all day tomorrow but for now the best I can do is accept that I feel and think a thing right now but I can handle feeling and thinking not easy not easy let's see here let me put this up really quickly I can't picture the future you don't have to picture the future I can't picture going out and shopping and socializing okay of course you can't picture it because you're terrified to do those things so how could you ever picture that this is this is not fair to yourself you do not have to picture that future at all you can build it without picturing it conceptually you know what it looks like because you just said the words out so shopping out socializing so you know from a structural standpoint what that future looks like but you can't get an image of it in your head that doesn't mean anything that literally means nothing so you build that image you build that because you know what it looks like but you build it and then you picture it so this is one of those key things we don't believe it until we do it it doesn't you don't get it until after you do it you can't see it until after you do it so I'm going to call you out on that one not you but I'm going to call your brain out on that one that's not fair to yourself you don't have to be able to picture it to get better that's not in any way shape or form or requirement so if anybody's laboring under that misconception I can tell you flat out that is wrong of course you can't picture it you're terrified to do it I don't want to jump out of an airplane so I really have a hard time picturing myself doing that so that's something I really want to do let's see here okay let's throw this up real quick here I'm going to comment I'm going to challenge that my veins fold thing really quickly um I'm so angry with myself for not being able to do this seems so easy it is it seems so easy on paper I see a thing that I say all the time all the time it is a simple plan but really hard to execute but you know you're not going to just do it like we do this in little bits at a time so it's okay Jack's like you're not supposed to be able to say oh I heard this guy say this on the internet so I'll just do it I mean let me just let me just do it now and just get it doesn't work that way it's it's incremental it's you're doing stuff while you're afraid like and I can't bring myself to do it often is I'm trying to find a way to get it like so it clicks so that I can go do it but it doesn't click until after we do it so give yourself a little break because you're never going to get yourself to feel like you can do this until after you do it again one of those things that that I hate but it's true um oh we're already answered Penelope sorry about that I did not see that um you don't have to picture it that's 100% true oh I can't believe you came back with my matter over mind quote from an old podcast episode that's true one of the podcast episodes that's very unsung that I actually am kind of most proud of is the one that's called matter over mind so if you want to listen to a podcast episode that might make a difference to you listen to that one it's it's not mind over matter it's matter over mind that's what we care about oh let's see here I'll go back to that that's a good comment about intuition let's see here I'll throw this out here because this is the I don't know what to do at night thing I don't know what to I don't know what to what to do in those moments often that is because there's a belief that says when I am scared I must have some thing to do to eradicate that but do I do now what should I do now when I'm scared or what should I do now when I have a thought well part of this is is recognizing that propensity to say oh I as soon as I feel something that I don't like or that's scary to me I have to find a thing to do about it but really you don't sometimes you can engage in life while you're while you're scared sometimes you just have to be scared like it comes in all forms but just be careful of that that demand that like oh I have to have a way I have to have a thing to do tell me what to do well what will the doing accomplish oh it'll make me feel better aha see see the trap there um um I just saw a grease belly garage in his hag thing Bethany if you're watching let's see I know you are um I'm gonna scroll down a little bit here he bought the phone court and nothing hey I I hope you guys are enjoying my silly little fake sponsor things in the podcast these days I know Dr. Magic Fingers he steers us wrong every time right let's see here Viola's killing it in the comments if you guys are checking out what Viola's talking about it's awesome I thought it was a special one that this method wouldn't work can't seem to accept my feeling of anxiety with white knuckle through everything I do unfortunately this is where and I wrote about that today in the anxious morning I wrote about just do it it's that letting go it's that ultimately letting go like I can't accept my feelings let me throw this up real quick here and we're gonna run at a time in a few minutes so I'll try to get to the bottom the best I can here still 80 people here I can't accept my feelings of anxiety I white knuckle through everything I do so the question was question there is how what is not accepting it look like so I'll give you that to think about this week tell me what not accepting is because and I use this analogy the other day too anxiety isn't like a steak that you order at a restaurant and you order medium and it comes well done so you could say I don't accept this and you bring it back and the stake that you don't like disappears in anxiety when we say I can't accept it okay then don't but it's still here so I posted a quote from I don't remember which book it was it was on my Instagram the other day and I talked about that like oh I was from the antidote by Oliver Berkman and he talks about that like I can't have to come to peace with the idea that I don't have to accept it or not accept it because it's here no matter what I do so I can't accept it or I'm not accepting it is almost a moot point when you look at it that way I'm not accepting okay but it's here anyway so ask yourself well since it's here anyway and my refusal to accept isn't changing that at all what else can I do well I can let go I can try to let go because none of what I've been doing to not accept is changing this at all it's here it is a fact that it is here so you don't get to not accept you don't get to not not accept that we do that right we don't get to not accept anxiety it's here whether we accept it or not so instead of thinking that acceptance changes that fact consider that acceptance is a thing that informs a different reaction to it maybe that helps maybe that helps no no no no no even if I don't get better I might as well learn to no no no no guess what I got from this is that is even if I don't get better well I'm only gonna try and get down to the bottom because there were other comments I want to get even if I don't get better I might as well learn to live with my anxiety instead of living life to cover it up okay well that's a big deal right that that's actually a really big deal no it certainly shouldn't be trying to cover it up that makes it worse for sure but what you care about there is define live with and I my assertion in all of this would be it's not live with like I I learned to live with it so it just stays with me forever and it's always feels this way it's the fact that I can handle it and I think that's important I can handle it I can navigate through this live with it means oh well I'm just gonna feel terrified for the rest of my days and that is a disaster but if that's what I got then that's what I got there's a level of accepting that that gets you to where you want to be that's true but in the end it's no no no I I have to learn to navigate through and at the other side of this not just live with it keep going here I'm gonna run out of room I'm gonna run out of time in a few minutes let's see here mentioned a metaphobia I panicked to sort of yes let me throw this up here I panicked disorder and a metaphobia more common together than you think I would say would you say that thought what if I'm sick is no important I would say that so I would a hundred percent say that the thought what if I'm sick is is not important now now as an a metaphobe you're probably thinking are you f-ing kidding me of course it's important of course it matters vomiting is the worst possible fate that any human being could ever encounter in the recorded history of mankind on planet earth I know that a metaphobes are the toughest not to crack because you will immediately say well that is the worst fate and it does happen to people so no drew you're not right it is the worst possible thing that can happen it's not like every other fear and I would say that it is really difficult especially if your panic attacks could lead to vomiting as they do for many people because there's tummy upset that comes with anxiety and fear it's really really hard to resolve things like panic disorder and agoraphobia if one possible outcome of being anxious or afraid is vomiting and you insist that you must be a metaphobic because there's no way to get around that so yes in the end the fear I'm not telling you that you should welcome it but I'm telling you that a metaphob will say for whatever reason loss of control I don't care what it is this is the worst thing that could possibly happen I can't let it happen that is not correct people vomit all day long every day there's there's 7 billion of us I love doing these statistics with 7 billion people in the world I would lay a bet that there are at least 700,000 people vomiting right now so what does that tell you right so think about that so yeah the thought is the same but only if you accept that a metaphobia is a thing that you can work on and get better from and that means that yes you have to accept the fact that the fear of vomiting is a little bit irrational so let's see here I'm going to scroll down to the bottom here a video on stoicism I will do that at some point you know May I will totally do that all right let's see here I'm going to scroll down to the bottom late again wow there's a lot of comments all right I'm going to try and catch up with some people who yes and you're going to have to start to listen to the podcast or read the book because I see you in here frantically like what do I do what do I do how to get better avail yourself of the resource for sure because I can't tell you what to do in a video in one video there's a lot there's more to it okay and yes there is an audio book so let's see here let's scroll up somebody had mentioned where is it where is it where is it the hag thing okay this is the one I wanted to get to I think picturing if something will go to bed was a safety and coping mechanism for me for a long time trusting my intuition but it was never my gut it was my anxiety and fear of safety this is such a good freaking comment and that's why I wanted to find it thank you so much for posting that trusting my gut I need to have a good feeling about this I have to make sure I have a good feeling what is my intuition what is my gut telling me about this if I feel good about it then I can do it I don't feel good about it better not do it that's super important one of my favorite podcast episodes I ever did is called why trusting your gut is a bad idea it's a little bit of a rant which you guys come to expect from me but check that one out it might speak directly to what you're talking about here like ooh I have to check I have to check my my gut how do I feel about this not a good feeling don't do it but your since when is your gut right people hate when I say that people hate when I say that it's just but since when is your gut guaranteed to be right like oh you know my intuition intuition is this because right now in the situation that we are in you got to flip the bird to intuition because your gut is steering you epically wrong every day so at least for now you got to get rid of intuition and gut feeling and you got to go against it maybe when you're back to a normal state and feeling better maybe you can go back to intuition and gut feelings but for now you got to flip the bird to intuition and like no no no you're steering me wrong every damn time dude I'm not listening to you anyway I am out of time I went a little longer than I thought I have another thing coming up in about eight minutes so we got to go anyway you guys have been killing it lately with the comments and their discussion I dig it and put the spike up on the screen this has been today's topic of course we'll come back again next week don't know what we're going to talk about we'll do maybe we'll do a Q&A I don't know what we're going to do like maybe we'll do what our philosophy at some point I dig that I maybe we'll do one I don't know if you guys want me to do this we can trace a path from the Stoics through Buddhism Taoism we can trace a path directly to Claire Weeks if we want to and right through all that the pioneers are cognitive behavioral therapy and all that stuff so maybe we'll do that next week or one of these weeks we'll talk about that maybe a little dry no we might not get such a big audience that day that's all right I'm headed for big audience anyway so thanks for coming by appreciate it we'll be back next week do I have to tell you about anything no I think we're good you guys don't need plugs you know what I'm doing see you next week