 Hey there, welcome to the anxious truth Something a little bit different today. I'm actually on the north shore of Long Island on a beach with nobody on it And I promised that I would do a series of podcasts where I went to places that I used to be terrified to go to and I would record those Podcasts this is number three in that series So I just want to talk to you for a few minutes today about what it was like to be in a place like this when I was at my worst I Would have never come to this beach Especially this time of year where it's pre-season. It's a little bit of a colder day as you can see it's really windy I hope you can hear me and There's nobody here on this beach I mean, there's a few scattered people around but but I could count them all on one hand And they're all really far away. They're really quite far down that way and really far behind me So I walked the ways out into the sand to get to where I am now And I would have never come to a place like this because I am too far from help air quotes help At the time when I struggled the most with panic disorder and agoraphobia I was constantly really concerned that I might need medical attention and so driving here to this beach Through an area where my cell phone doesn't really get service Where there's nobody and where I'm far from a hospital or ambulance or EMT doctors medical attention Just any other human beings that could so-called rescue me would have been out of the question. I would have never done it Yet here I am now So this is what would have been a very difficult place to come to or really an impossible place to come to and I would struggle To come to places like this even with other people when I was at my worst like with my family And when you live on a place like Long Island, which is surrounded by beaches It's what we have on all sides of us It really tends to point out how restricted your life is because going to the beach and being on beaches and Being by water is sort of baked into what we do here. It's the way I grew up It's what I know and I was not able to do that for a very long time So I thought that today coming to this beach on the off-season with no one here when it's pretty much deserted And if something were to happen to me, I don't know if anybody would be able to save me was probably worth doing so If you are in that same spot right now and you find that your life is very restricted because of this sort of thing You are afraid to be too far from health too far from medical attention Worried that something is going to happen to you because you interpret being anxious as a medical emergency Or as being dangerous or as something you need to be saved from I get it because I used to miss out on all of this And it's beautiful because I was just too afraid to come here because I was afraid of my own body and afraid of my own mind But now I'm really happy to be here. It's actually it's a little windy today as you could tell but it's nice to be here recording I recorded I think last year of the year before I did one podcast episode on the beach And I really loved it and I thought oh, I'm going to come back here and do it again Just that I'm going to talk to you about why so long it was really really difficult for me to do this Not even really difficults. I would have to admit virtually impossible So again just to reiterate if this sounds like you and you find that your life is severely restricted because you fear that you Cannot be too far away from health When you panic or when your heart is racing or when it feels like you're going to pass out But when it feels like you're going to have a psychotic break and you think you need to be saved I hear you. I hear you. It used to be you too But the topic of today's podcast is not just that the topic of today's podcast is how do I stay recovered? People often ask me for tips like okay life after recovery. What do you do to make sure it doesn't come back? How do you stay recovered? And really the answer to that is that I don't do anything to stay recovered primarily because I don't have to do anything to stay Recovered now one thing I will tell you is one of the habits that stays with me post recovery Is that I always make sure to not go into avoidance mode? Listen even for people who are not anxious people who are not dealing with disordered anxiety life could be sometimes scary There are things that make us uncomfortable. There are things that we worry about there are things that we are afraid to do That's true. There are things that stress us out now I'm not going to tell you that I spent my day jumping out of airplanes or bungee jumping or cliff diving or things like that I don't do those things but Any time I am confronted with something that makes me a little bit uncomfortable After the the process that I went through to recover from an anxiety disorder I will automatically go toward that discomfort So if you want to know like what I do to stay recovered I might say that that's one habit that I am in sort of not even without even really thinking about being in that habit I tend to do I tend to go toward Discomfort and toward uncomfortable things and toward challenging things and to a certain extent I believe that maybe that does somewhat inoculate me and keep me from sliding backwards because we all to have a propensity to Slide backwards But the reason why I started by saying that I don't need to do anything to stay recovered is because the way I view Anxiety the way I view panic the way I view the physical symptoms the way I view the thoughts are very different than the way They used to be viewed years ago and in last week's podcast. I believe it was last week's podcast I talked about or one of the podcasts recently. I don't remember I did talk about how you will judge Your anxiety based on how you feel about it today and when you project yourself into the future You think about it the way you are today So you will put the today version of you in the future and think there's no way I could ever not be afraid of this But that's because today you was afraid and back in the day I was afraid of it too, but the difference is I'm not that person anymore So I don't really have to do anything to stay recovered because in a way there's nothing to recover from Now I don't know if that makes some sense if you're struggling and you're in the thick of it right now That might might not make a whole lot of sense But I promise as you go down the road and as you work on this and as you continue to work the process It will begin to make sense to you. I promise it will Because in the end you're the one that's changing right I did talk about that pretty recently You're the one that's changing the anxiety is not changing the anxiety isn't going away The anxiety isn't getting any different you're changing and you're forming a new relationship with it And you just see it differently So I don't have to do anything to stay recovered because I have nothing I'm not afraid of anxiety anymore It doesn't occupy the same place in my life that it once did it doesn't have an influence on what I do It doesn't make decisions for me. It never factors into anything that I do if I got a phone call right now That said hey, why don't you hop on a plane and come to Colorado to visit me? I would do that or not But whether I did it or not would have nothing to do with how anxious I think I'm going to be or whether I might panic in an airport or whether I might be too far from home None of those things enter into my mind or my thoughts ever anymore So I don't really have to work at staying recovered at all because there's nothing to recover from I'm just not afraid anymore So if I have a panic attack alone on this beach, I know that it'll be over. It won't be nice I don't like it. I don't want to have a panic attack on this beach But if I did have a panic attack on this beach, I know that it would not be the ruin of me It would be really uncomfortable and scary and I would like it to be over quickly, of course But I know that it will be over and then I'll go about my business as best I can So it's really important for me to say that now. Does that mean that I never take care of myself? I don't I just run myself into the ground. I have no healthy habits. Of course It doesn't mean that I would like to think that I make my best effort to take care of myself The way anybody should probably take care of themselves regardless of their anxiety or mental health situation I'm I have terrible sleeping habits. I will freely admit that I'm working on that. I really am I promise I'm not making good headway, but I'm trying But I try to eat well. I exercise all the time. I meditate every day. I try to stay engaged with hobbies I try to maintain healthy relationships of my life. I do all of those things because they're just good for human beings to do Does that help me stay recovered? It probably does because it means that I'm able to keep my stress level Relatively low even during stressful times and it's gonna spike It'll just come back down again, and I didn't I think I do a really Reasonable job of managing my stress levels So I never get to the point where I'm so overwhelmed that my psychological flexibility and resiliency drops way down Because I will tell you what it would mean to stop being recovered or to have a relapse It would mean that I would experience some sort of psychological challenge in the form of a scary Physical sensation that I interpret somehow is dangerous or a scary thought or just general sense of fear or doom or Some scary thought that I used to have about death or existential problems or not existing anymore Or getting some disease or something like that I would experience what I used to experience and then I would choose to deal with that in the old way Now is everybody vulnerable to that? Yeah We are all vulnerable to that especially in times when we're under the gun And like I said our flexibility and resiliency might drop down a bit. We are vulnerable to that We are we are vulnerable to making choices to do things in the old way the way that got us in the hole The way that ruined everything the way that helped the disorder develop and get maintained So are my healthy habits now sort of keeping me out of that trap? Yeah, they probably are to a certain extent, but I don't do them for the purpose of Keeping the anxiety at bay or making sure I don't have a relapse I don't plan any of my life around making sure that I don't go backwards or keeping it from coming back I never ever think about that. In fact, this is the most I've thought about that in years and years and years Only because I get asked all the time for my tips on maintaining my recovery and I'm like, okay It's about time that I record that podcast episode so here I am. But otherwise I never think about these things I never say I really should sleep more or else I might be anxious I say I should sleep more because I don't like being tired and I am tired a lot so more and more that's become a thing and it's like okay So this is gonna prompt me to try and change my sleep habits But it has nothing to do with feeling anxious or afraid or like oh, I'm not getting enough sleep So my anxiety is through the roof. I never think that I never think that I should make good food choices For my mental health. I mean my physical health certainly helps to buoy my mental health There's no doubt about that, but I don't make those choices Specifically to try to manage my mental health or keep a relapse from happening or going back to square one So how do I sum this up? It's a relatively short episode that I just wanted to ought to bring you to this place to record This is a place that I was once unable to come to to record Especially by myself, but I really wanted to kind of go through that. What do I do to stay recovered? What do I do to make sure that I don't relapse? What do I do to make sure that I don't go back to square one? What do I do to make sure that it doesn't come back? I do nothing because The it that you are so worried will come back one day doesn't exist There is no it for me anymore There might be anxious feelings. There might be fear. There might be discomfort There might be physical sensations of stress or anxiety or distress, but there is no it So it's very important for me to say that what do I do to keep it from coming back? I do nothing to keep it from coming back because there hasn't been an it in my life for a very long time So that's it. It's a relatively short episode this week. I don't have a whole lot more to say about that I just let me recap quickly. So I'm not misunderstood. I am a big fan of healthy habits I think everybody should take care of themselves Everybody should take care of their body. Everybody should take care of their mind. Everybody should take care of their emotional health Their spiritual health. You should do all of those things. Everybody should do that but I am not a fan of those things specifically Because of what that it's good for anxiety or because it's a recovery trick or because they're anxiety shields I don't think that at all I just think that those are things that everybody should do because it does help us live You know a more productive life a more fulfilling life a less encumbered life Like it gives us choices. It gives us freedom take care of yourself because it's a smart move to take care of yourself You get one life. You get one body like take care of it So I am a fan of those things But I am not a fan of those things just to maintain recovery or to achieve recovery or to stop anxiety for happening None of those things. So yeah, I have a lot of healthy habits I will continue to have a lot of healthy habits But I do them just because they're smart choices They have nothing to do with anxiety and they have it in a very very long time I used to have a lot of habits that I would tie to anxiety But I learned a very long time ago that they had nothing to do with my panic attacks So they had nothing to do with my recovery at all and toward that end I will leave you with something a little bit cheeky Listen, I know a lot of people in this community who are kind of proud of the fact that they got recovered and have stayed Recovered on a steady diet of chocolate, you know, cola and cigarettes And that's true. Those people do exist and they are living those lives fueled by chocolate cigarettes and cola You know hamburgers mcdonald's like I know a lot of people that almost view it as a badge of honor that they have terrible diets They don't exercise they don't meditate and they recovered and they are still recovered today So there you go the proof was in the pudding in a way and I always enjoy when those people speak up I'm not sure why sometimes they get so passionate about that. That's fine. You live your life any way you want But that's that's the deal in terms of like recovery habits and staying recovered and especially for me There's nothing to maintain the recovery. Is it recovery anymore recovery was a process Recovery isn't really a state that I live in. I just live. I don't have to live recovered. I just live So thanks for listening to me. Thanks for coming along to the shores of Long Island sound with me I hope that the sound is okay. I'll probably have to rig it a little bit when I get back to the studio and play with it so you can hear me, um I don't think i'm going to do a uh next week or going to talk about I don't know we're going to talk about next week As usual but I will be back for another podcast. I don't know where I'll be Maybe I'll just be back in the office to do what I can't really tell just a quick reminder If you're watching this especially if you're new to the podcast if you're watching on youtube Hit the subscribe button like the video leave a comment twice a week at least I circle back to youtube and answer my comments If you're listening to this as a podcast on spotify or apple podcast or some platform that lets you rate or review the podcast Leave me a five star rating Maybe write a quick review if you really dig it because it helps other people find the podcast And then other people get the help that I am trying to provide to as many people as I can And that's it. Thanks a bunch. This is this episode of the anxious truth because I don't even know what episode number this is Thanks for hanging out and I will see you next week Remember keep moving forward because every step forward you take counts no matter how small it is. See you later