 just because you choose to ignore a problem doesn't mean that it goes away. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, my channel is all about mental health and what I like to do is pull different topics from the YouTube community to try to teach you how to improve your mental and emotional well-being. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. So real quick announcement, I have this picture of myself and Maya, my beautiful adorable cat which my girlfriend loves. She loves it so much and one day she decided to try it. So anyways, quick announcement, there's some brand new merch. Some Maya inspired merch up in the store. You can get it on a shirt, a sweater, a mug, whatever it is. So if you can relate, if you can relate to Maya, go ahead and get yourself some merch, links down in the description and it'll also be in the pinned comment down below. Alright, so yeah, this is one of my most highly requested videos. I really like how you guys get really active in the comments and let me know which videos you would like me to talk on or like, you know, dive deeper into a certain subject that I talk about in a video. So the other day, iNabber interviewed Gabby Hannah about all the stuff going on with her great interview. I did a whole recap. It'll be linked up in the info card. But anyways, one of the issues that Gabby faces is avoidance. And I gave some examples. I asked you if any of you could relate to it. And a lot of you said yes. So here's that video about avoidance. All right. So in Gabby Hannah's situation, she talked throughout the entire interview about how she'll just like post a video and just not even check on it, not check the comments. She gets off social media, doesn't check that stuff and all of that. And I discussed in the video about how avoidance can actually make problems worse. But yeah, here's pretty much what Gabby was saying throughout the interview. First of all, when I see, I don't know if people are going to be like, I've sat with me about this, but like if I see a video with my like face on the thumbnail, I will like click show me less videos like this, not interested, whatever. And I don't know if that's like a normal thing to do, but for like who I am and like my, the way my brain works, I can't see it. I can't look at it. But it also got to a point where like, I don't get on YouTube at all anymore. So I haven't logged on to YouTube since I posted my last video before that I haven't logged on to YouTube since I posted the video before that. So I don't watch any YouTube. So what is avoidance? So avoidance is a type of defense mechanism. And it's a defense mechanism that allows you to stay in a state of denial and try to trick your brain, right? A lot of people, a lot of people with anxiety do this. Some of the examples I gave in my last video was, for example, not checking your bank account, right? You're worried about how much money you have or don't have or whatever it is. So you avoid checking your bank account. For some of you, it might be like Gabby not checking social media. You don't want to see, you know, what's going on or whatever because it makes your anxiety go or some people avoid phone calls or texts or whatever. Something that I noticed with myself in particular and some of you might be able to relate to this is those of you who don't like confrontation, right? So maybe you and your friend or a family member had a disagreement or something happened or whatever. And then all of a sudden you see they're calling you, right? You see they're calling you or you see that they're texting you. So you avoid it. But again, like I said in the intro, just because you choose to not address an issue doesn't make it go away. And it actually makes things worse, especially if you struggle with anxiety. So how does this make anxiety worse? How does it make it worse? So some of you who saw my James Charles video, you already know about the hand model of the brain. But anyways, let's do a refresher, all right? So hold your hand up like this. We're going to do a quick little model of the brain. This is your spine. This is your brainstem. Fold your thumb over, all right? This part right here is the amygdala. This part right here is called the hippocampus. Last time I taught you about the two middle fingernails. If you fold it over, that's your prefrontal cortex. Let's go ahead and open it back up. So the amygdala. So the amygdala is part of the limbic system. The amygdala is where a lot of your anxiety comes from because it's part of the fight, flight, or freeze response. All right? Now the hippocampus, which is right next to the amygdala, your hippocampus is responsible for storing your memories, all right? So typically what happens is is that a memory pops up and then the amygdala gets triggered. This is something that a lot of people with trauma are struggling with, all right? So no matter how much you avoid your anxieties or what's giving you anxiety, your hippocampus ain't forgetting, baby. The hippocampus is storing that memory. So what's happening is even though you're not addressing it, it is triggering your amygdala. It's making your anxiety worse. You can put your hand down if you're still having it up. All right? So I hope that makes sense. Just because you're avoiding an issue doesn't mean that your brain and your unconscious mind forgot about that issue. Okay? So some of you start to get anxious and you don't even know why. And it's because it's because your brain is such a powerful thing and it knows that you have something that you need to address and need to resolve. Now aside, aside from, you know, just causing your own anxiety, what we talk about with avoidance is that there's often consequences that come along with it. Going back to previous examples, not checking your bank account, it can leave to overdraft fees, right? So not checking your bank account is typically because you're worried about how little money you have and you just don't want to address it, right? Well, if you overdraft, you have even less money, right? So a lot of our anxiety is self-induced, okay? We cause a lot of our own problems. Or for example, you're avoiding a conflict. You don't want to return this call. You don't want to return this text. Or maybe you're avoiding opening the mail or whatever. You can go into debt by not opening your mail. Problems with a loved one can get even worse because you're avoiding talking to them. All these other things. So this is something that we absolutely need to work on. A great, great, great solution for this is something called acceptance-based behavioral therapy, which is also known as ABBT, all right? So anxiety.org defines ABBT as there are a type of behavioral therapy. Like other behavioral therapies, ABBT is conceptualized anxiety disorders as developing due to patterns of behavior that may decrease anxiety in the moment, but do not decrease and may in fact increase anxiety in the long run. So this is one of the reasons why we have to work on this, right? Because we as humans, we look for short-term solutions to long-term problems. And by keep doing these short-term solutions, we make our problems worse. We make our anxiety worse. We make our life worse. I mentioned in my last video for somebody like me who self-medicated with drugs and alcohol, and you can look at this as any toxic behavior. Like any toxic behavior is typically some type of avoidance behavior, right? So you might binge eat to ignore your problems or you may go party or you may start drinking or you may hook up with people or whatever. Like, oh, I just don't want to worry about this right now. I'm going to go do this to take my mind off of it. But the problem is, is that your problems don't actually go away. So this is actually increasing, all right? So let's talk a little bit about what ABBT is and what you can start working on. If you don't have a therapist, but if you do have a therapist, go and do a therapist office and be like, yo, you know anything about acceptance-based behavioral therapy? Let's start working on this stuff. But here's a rough idea of what it is. So the three goals of acceptance-based behavioral therapy are to increase awareness, increase acceptance, and to live a life that's worth living, okay? So the first thing is increasing awareness, all right? And guess what awareness is another name for? Mindfulness. You know that thing that I keep teaching you about, all right? So the first thing that you want to work on is acknowledging that you're doing it, okay? So you know how I keep telling you to meditate for five to ten minutes a day or whatever? Like you are training your brain to notice what's happening in the moment. So the first step is just acknowledging. Acknowledging like you're pausing for a second saying, wait, am I avoiding this, right? Because what happens is, is when you develop a bunch of avoidance behaviors, you're designing different neural pathways in your brain to keep doing them over and over and you eventually get into an autopilot. So you might not even recognize how many avoidance behaviors you have. You might notice some major ones like for example, checking your bank account, but there might be a bunch of other ones that you're not noticing. So the first step is to become aware that you're doing these avoidance behaviors. The next step is acceptance, all right? Acceptance is a huge, huge one, all right? Accepting the way that you're feeling, okay? So something that mindfulness teaches us is that our emotions, our feelings, they come in waves, okay? They come and they go, all right? One of the, one of the things my, one of my first meditation teachers taught me was emotion, right? The keyword in there being motion. These things come and go, okay? So accepting what is happening, all right? For example, like acceptance is a lot about knowing what you can and cannot change, okay? You cannot change what is currently in your bank account, all right? Like whatever that number is, when you're neglecting to open your little app on your phone, that number has not changed, okay? Now what about opening the mail? Whatever is in that piece of mail, it is not changing, all right? So you need to accept it. Now I'm going to give you the best hack ever, okay? So you know how I keep trying to teach you about mindfulness? There is a mindfulness exercise called rain, all right? I can't think off the top of my head which app has the rain exercise? But this is an extremely, extremely popular meditation. So you should be able to find it on just about any meditation app. I know the calm app has it, and there's a link down to the calm app down in the description below. But anyways, what rain stands for is recognize, accept or allow, investigate and note, all right? So just a brief overview of it. Recognize, that's the awareness, okay? Recognize what's happening right now, okay? So imagine this being like a 10-minute meditation, okay? So recognizing it, okay? Recognizing, okay, I'm feeling anxious because I don't want to check this. This is what's happening, right? Then the next part is accept slash allow, all right? So a lot of our anxiety comes from trying to avoid what we're anxious about, okay? So training your mind to accept what that feels like, strengthens your brain, strengthens your resilience, and here's some neuroscience, FOIA 2, all right? Studies have proven that regular meditation actually decreases the size of the amygdala, okay? So you're actually taking power away from the part of your brain that causes anxiety, okay? So accept and slash allow, this helps build your resistance towards the things that are making you anxious. Investigate, okay? Noticing what that thing feels like, okay? So you're allowing it to happen. You're investigating what it feels like. Note, you're taking note of what actually happened during your experience, and what that does is it then stores in your hippocampus. So the hippocampus remembers, oh, wait, we were in this situation before, and guess what? It's all good, baby. So the last goal of acceptance-based behavioral therapy is living a life worth living, right? So in my Gabby Hannah video, I had a lot of questions, right? Like, is this bad avoidance? Is this bad avoidance? Is it okay to avoid this? Is it okay to avoid that? Like, that is completely subjective, okay? So here's my recommendation to you, okay? Get a notepad. Get a notepad, write this stuff down. Once you start recognizing your avoidance behaviors, write them down, okay? If you're avoiding social media, if you're avoiding a person. For example, for example, if you're avoiding an abusive ex or a toxic family member or a toxic friend or whatever it is, I wouldn't say that that's bad, okay? Because it's not hindering your quality of life. But if you're avoiding social situations and it's causing you to isolate, which is increasing your anxiety and depression, maybe that's something that you need to work on, okay? Another example is social media. I do not agree with quitting social media, and I'm going to be doing more mindfulness videos about how to use social media without losing your mind, all right? But social media is a great tool to keep us connected to our friends. Like, I tell all of you guys, like, hey, you know, we have a Facebook group. We have a Discord server for you to stay connected. Do you know how many people I've had say, I don't get on Facebook because people are on there and because it makes me anxious, because it makes me depressed, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. You are avoiding something that could potentially help you because we have a Facebook group, a mental health support group with over a thousand members. So the thing that you're avoiding might actually help you, okay? So I hope that makes sense. So what I recommend because everybody's different is take a notepad, write down what you're avoiding, and write down, is this good for me or is this bad for me? If it's something that's bad for you, that's how you know that's something that you need to work on, all right? But anyways, anyways, I hope this helped give some clarity on what avoidance behaviors are, as well as provided you with some solutions. Again, like I said, if you have a therapist, ask them about acceptance-based behavioral therapies, or they might know better than me, they might know you better than me. Ask them, say, yo, I noticed that I have an issue with avoidance. What do you think we can do to work on that, all right? And if you don't have a therapist yet and something that you're interested in, like I always say, I don't care how you do it. If you have insurance, talk to your doctor, see if they have a recommendation, call your insurance provider, ask them which therapists that are in your network, see what they specialize in. A lot of them specialize in anxiety disorders or trauma or depression or whatever it is. Or if you would like, my channel is partnered with BetterHelp Online Therapy. That link is always down in the description. It's a service that Tristan uses, a lot of my friends use it. So if you want to go that route, go ahead and check it out, all right? But anyways, that's all I got for this video. Don't forget that we got some brand new Maya merch up in the merch store. That'll be linked down in the description, as well as down in the pinned comment, all right? But anyways, if you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos. It's a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing. And if you would like to become a Patreon and get some exclusive perks and extra content, click or tap right there, all right? Thanks again so much for watching. I'll see you next time.