 This week on the anxious truth we have some new music for the podcast and we're gonna be talking about why you got to do your Exposures and meet your challenges even on the days when you don't want to do it. So let's get at it Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the anxious truth. This is episode number 266 of the podcast We are recording in July of 2023 in case you are listening from the future I am Drew lince a lot a creator and host of the anxious truth if this is your first time here The anxious truth is the podcast and the YouTube channel like it was all things anxiety anxiety disorders and anxiety recovery So if you've stumbled upon us for the first time today, welcome I'm glad you here, and I hope you find it all helpful or useful in some way And of course if you are a returning listener or viewer, welcome back Glad you here as always this week We're gonna talk about a very common anxiety recovery mistake that gets made in this community all the time And that is if you have decided that you kind of want to get better the way I talk about getting better You want to do exposures? You want to meet your challenges? You want to stop avoiding you want to face your fears? That's really awesome But one of the more common mistakes that I see people make is Waiting till they have good days or better days Before they stop avoiding before they face their fears before they meet those challenges before they do those exposures And while I can understand why you would do that That's not terribly helpful because the most progress you will make Because the greatest lessons you will learn comes on your worst days when you feel like you shouldn't do those things So we're gonna talk about that before we do I want to remind you that the anxious truth is more than just this Podcast episode or this YouTube video. There are two hundred and sixty-five other free Podcast episodes and YouTube videos that came before this one. I've written three books and anxiety and anxiety disorders There's a ton of free social media content I have a bunch of really useful courses and workshops that I've been developing over the last six or eight months All of those things can be found on my website at the anxious truth com So I urge you to take advantage of all the resources popping over to the website. That's the anxious truth com Check it all out And if you are using this work on a regular basis in your recovery You're digging it I'm helping in some way and you want to find a way to support the work in some formal way All the ways you can do that are at the anxious truth comm slash support and as always Financial support buying merch buying a book whatever it is always appreciated But never ever ever required and any way that you can find to support this work Even if that just means hitting like on the YouTube video or subscribing to my channel Writing a podcast review so other people can find it. Thank you so much. I appreciate the support and the encouragement So let's get into today's topic If you are listening to me and you have been engaged in the process of trying to face your fears now or do exposures or go toward your Challenges stop avoiding face your fears all of those things. That's really awesome You're doing some brave work and you're doing hard things for you, which I think is great You're doing something difficult, but you're doing it for you, and I think that's great But you may also be stuck in a loop where you kind of wait until you have better days Days where maybe you don't feel so anxious. Maybe you feel a little better You feel a little jazzed. Maybe you're a little enthusiastic You're maybe a little more inspired that day And then you break your avoidance cycle and sort of venture out and tentatively try an exposure or try something You're afraid to do and listen if you are going out and Meeting that fear and trying to meet that challenge and facing your fear and you're not avoiding I don't care if you are waiting until the good days to do it. I love that you're doing it You got to get the credit for the fact that you're taking some forward steps It is way better than just sitting on the sofa. So kudos to you if that's the way you're doing it It's a fine way to start But you may be trapped in that cycle where you do those things on the good days But then if you feel like you're having a bad day Maybe your anxiety is a little higher or you're feeling tired or stressed Or you're just feeling a little weaker and vulnerable and you're afraid you might be triggered So that's a day where you decide I don't want to overdo it. I'm not going to do my exposures today I'm going to take a rest day. I'm going to retreat. I'm going to hide I'm going to avoid because I don't feel so good. You're kind of short changing yourself in your recovery again Let me be very clear if you are starting by venturing out on the days where you feel a little better And that's the way you're starting. That's totally okay because most people would do it like that I've often said that I would rather see you do exposures with safe people or safety devices Then to not do them and the same logic applies here I would rather you wait till you have a good day Or a better day where you don't feel so bad and then go out and try to meet some challenges or face your fears on those days Then to never do it So it's okay if this is the way you've started and it's okay if you're kind of doing it that way But at some point you will find that if you only wait for the good days To meet your challenges face your fears and do your exposures You will find that maybe you're not making progress and you might be tempted to say I don't understand I'm doing things now, but nothing is changing Here's the rub with that when you do it that way and you only Do the scary things the hard things the challenging things you only do your exposures Whatever it happens to be if you only do those on the days when you feel like you should or you feel like you can then you are Reinforcing your brain's mistaken belief that when you feel anxious or you're afraid or you're worried or you're feeling a little bit weaker or less Capable your brain is going to tell you to retreat because you can't do it And if you do retreat you are reinforcing the mistaken belief that drives the disordered state And that kind of stinks so it's not like you're making this huge horrendous like you know It's terrible mistake. That's just like a recovery crime But what you are doing is you're you're not really giving yourself the best chance to move forward on a consistent basis And if you're finding yourself sort of frustrated or stuck because well, I'm doing the things But nothing's really working and nothing's changing and I don't feel any different and I don't I'm still really afraid to go out Yeah, that could be because you're waiting for the good days and on the days when you don't think you should go out or you Don't think you should do an exposure. You don't think you should do your PRP homework, whatever it happens to be Because I just shouldn't do it today. It's gonna be too much. I might get triggered You're forgetting the the reason why you do the hard things. We do exposures. We face fear We meet challenges. We do our PRP homework if you're working with a therapist and you're in the OCD world We do that to be triggered Right always remember that the purpose of the of the exposure is not to try to do something without being anxious or uncomfortable The purpose of the exposure is to intentionally get triggered. We want that We want that because we need to practice moving through that triggered state that anxious state that that frightened state that uncertain state Recovery is all about those experiences and learning from them. We're learning that we're capable We're learning that we can handle it. We learned that we've always been able to handle it We learned that we're stronger than we ever gave ourselves credit for We're learning that we're braver than we ever gave ourselves credit for and those are the experiences Those are the lessons. Those are the things that build recovery It's not about learning to not panic or not have scary thoughts It's about learning to panic and have scary thoughts sometimes intentionally so that you can work on moving through those things more productively and In a healthier way in a way that ultimately brings anxiety and scary thoughts and symptoms back into like a regular place A normal place in a human life But if you only do those things when you're sure that you won't be triggered Then you're kind of missing the core principle of why we do this So unfortunately what this is all going to boil down to and what's going to be a relatively short podcast episode today is That it is most valuable in recovery to do those things on the days when you feel like you shouldn't do those things On the days when you feel like you shouldn't do them on the days when you feel like you can't do them on the days when it feels like It's a little bit too much You're a little too fragile a little too weak and you might get triggered if you do them Those are the days that you have to do them now It's okay, especially early on as you're kind of getting to lay in the land here lay the land It's okay to say well my plan today because hopefully you have a bit of a plan You're not making it up as you go along and by the way This is one of the reasons why I talk about making a recovery plan when I wrote the anxious truth the book the recovery guide I did a whole section of that book there's a lot of words in that book about making a recovery plan and one of the reasons why I say that you Should make one to the best of your ability not everything can be planned But to the best of your ability is we don't ever want to make up recovery as we go along Because it feeds right into today's podcast topic if you make it up as you go along an anxious mind will always Tell you to wait don't go out today today. It's not a good day. Don't do it today It will lead you right into the trap that I'm addressing today When I say you have to do the things Even on the days when you think you shouldn't because you're not having a good day You're having a bad day if you will if you have a plan that says on Wednesday I'm gonna go do my driving exposure at 10 a.m. If you can be that detail. That's great Then Wednesday at 10 a.m. You do your driving exposure. It doesn't matter if it's a good day or a bad day You do it now. I understand that sounds really difficult like man Like I don't get a break here like is it have to be that way? Why are you being so aggressive about this? I'm not being aggressive to be aggressive. It's not about that heck the new music at the beginning of the podcast Notwithstanding this is an aggression for the sake of being aggressive or hardcore or being a warrior or like being alpha It has nothing to do with that We have to do the things on the hard days because that's when we learn that we're capable of doing hard things Even when we think we can't when we have the most doubt That's the best time to actually prove that doubt wrong if you will in simplest terms So having a recovery plan which I wrote about in the book and I've talked about many many times on the podcast and in social media Post is important because the plan tells you what you're going to do Now on a given day You may scale that plan back a little bit Especially as you're sort of new to this and if you're breaking the habit of only doing exposures on good days And you're gonna start to do them on bad days. I understand that you might scale back a little bit on the on the bad days I get that it's not that common for people to just say, okay Drew said to do hard things on bad days and you just dive right in and Some people can do that most people can't so if your plan is I gotta start driving And I'm gonna drive five days out of the next seven and I'm gonna do four laps around my neighborhood And that's my practice for the week on the day that you feel like oh my god It's impossible to get at the door for example. I'm using driving as an example whatever your challenges you apply that in your situation, but If you're gonna scale it back a little bit that day to sort of accommodate the fact that you are terrified It's okay to start that way again If you're new to doing exposures and meeting challenges and and facing fear on the bad days You might scale back a little bit on what you think you want to do a little bit a little bit But you don't want to scale all the way back to the point where you just don't do anything you wait and you hide and you hope feel You hope to feel better tomorrow Because not only are you kind of short changing yourself and not allowing your brain to have the experience as it needs To learn the lessons of recovery, but you're also gonna feel a little worse the next day Now I'm not saying you're gonna feel worse from an anxiety standpoint, but emotionally that retreat begins to take its toll So when you are so desperate to get better and you feel somewhat committed to the recovery process But you back up on the bad days and only do the work on the good days You can wind up in that situation where you start to feel bad about yourself Especially if it's one of those things we're like, oh, I feel like I'm sort of getting the ball rolling This is awesome. I've been out or I've been doing exposures I've been breaking my avoidance cycle mostly in the last week This is great more days than not and then you wake up and for whatever reason your brain is in high gear And you have a lot of scary thoughts or your anxiety symptoms are raging that morning And you retreat and that turns into a day or two of retreat the emotional impact of that And I know this because I've been there can be Significant on back to square one. Nothing's working Here I am and then you feel bad about yourself because you avoid it again when you know you shouldn't so Make a plan as best you can Then execute that plan as best you can no matter how you feel which I wish I didn't have to say that But I do have to say that because if you do it that way you can avoid that negative harsh self judgment I'm failing. I'm too weak. I did it wrong. I'm back to square one. I ruin my recovery. I can't do it Especially if you're listening to this podcast and you've read my books and you know all the material already And you know that avoidance is the worst thing for you When you give in to the avoidance and only do your your heart things on the easy days when you're feeling good You will know you're avoiding and then you're in that rock in a hard place. I want to do exposures I want to face my fear. I want to get better. I like this idea But I'll only do it on the good days Which means you do hard things when they're easier to do and then when you don't do them and you avoid Then you start beating yourself up because you know you're avoiding you shouldn't that's not fair See how you're you're you're trying to serve two masters there I want to serve the recovery master, but I also want to be able to rest in retreat and avoid when I feel bad Can't you can't have both we got to pick pick one and go with it as best you can Again, all of this is always you do the best you can but you really do have to make the effort to do the best You can if you do in that and you're willing to learn the lessons that those experiences teach us Then I know it's cliche, but we never lose We either win or we learn and if you're winning if you're learning you're winning anyway, so you either win or you win Make the effort do the things even on the days when you are sure that you can't and I know that that means you have to be brave And I know that that means you have to ignore the the powerful drive to just crawl into the covers and hide but When you can do that when you could take that leap of faith in yourself when you could roll the dice and bet on yourself and You can see well that wasn't so much fun, but I did it and I can do it. I thought it was impossible I didn't like it. I was scared. I was uncomfortable, but I did it That is a huge lesson. That's such an important experience to have Even if that experience doesn't look the way you want it to it's not ideal. It's not pretty. It's not pleasant It's not anything, but it is educational and it does teach you that you are capable of doing the hard things Even on the hard days not just on the good days How's that for like an almost completely? Uninterrupted off-the-cuff rant about this particular topic that took us about 15 minutes to do minus the intro I'm not going to belay the point belabor the point. I think I've said what I need to say I May have made you confront some things that you don't want to confront if that is the case take a little time reflect on this You're not ruining your recovery. You're not hopeless. You're not weak. You're not doing it wrong Everybody needs some instruction Everybody kind of makes this mistake So if this was an eye-opener for you the last 15 minutes open your eyes and made you see that you need to Change your plan or make a plan or change course a little in your recovery challenge yourself a little more join the club That's not a negative reflection on you You just needed some instruction and I was happy to provide it and I hope it was helpful So that pretty much is episode 266 of the podcast in the can We're gonna sign off with the new music. It's royalty-free. I don't even know if it has a name, but I do like it Anyway, I'm going to ask you guys a favor as I always do if you are listening to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or some platform that lets you rate and review podcasts leave us a five-star rating and maybe write a review if You like the podcast because it helps other people find it then more people can get some help And that's why I do this to begin with if you are watching on YouTube is a boring video because you don't see me It's just a still image but nonetheless, maybe subscribe to the channel hit the notification bell when you find so that you know when I upload new Content leave a comment. I answer all my YouTube comments I always circle back at least twice a week to do that if you have an idea or a suggestion for me Leave it in the YouTube comments Like I said, I circle back and listen to all of them and that is it. We are out I will be back next week on the anxious truth I'm going to also suggest that if you're not listening to disordered Which is the new podcast that I do with Josh Fletcher You can find that at disorder.fm this podcast comes out on Wednesdays disorder comes out on Fridays That is some of the best work. I've done. I'm digging disordered. So go check it out and remember If I gave you something to think about today think about it for a while Reflect and go act on it because any step that you take forward in your recovery no matter how tiny it may be It does matter. They all add up They will get you where you need to be if you keep taking those steps hang in there and I will see you next week