 We're going to do another recovery Monday because it is Monday. We do these every other Monday. And even though I'm kind of off this week, I didn't want to skip a week. So today we're going to talk about anxiety recovery and specifically the topic of micro avoidance, what micro avoidance is and why it matters in the recovery process, because micro avoidance is really sneaky. So we will totally get into that. I'm going to put the chat overlay up so that you guys can talk to each other and see what's going on. Just give me a wave. Somebody let me know, Bethany is here. Thank you. Appreciate it. So a little bit different, different setup this week, different microphone. Just want to make sure everything's working. I did test it though. So I give myself credit. So as you pop in, just let me know where you're from. Let me know what's going on. Let me know how you guys are doing today. It is cloudy, humid and warm in New York today. And like I said, I'm off this week. I don't have any, I have no class today. I actually have no school this week. So I'm trying to take a few days off. But these are always fun hours. So I figured I would pop on and do this one anyway. I didn't want to miss the week. And today we're going to talk about micro avoidance, which is something that a lot of people don't recognize. They don't know that they're doing it. And it can be really sneaky and hard to ferret these little habits out as we go through. Most people don't even realize you're doing half of these things. I know I didn't. It took me a long time to find all my little micro avoidances. So we're going to talk about that today. Hello, everybody. If you are coming from the Facebook group, I will not be able to see your name. It'll only say Facebook user. That's just the way restream works. So if you're in the Facebook group and you're watching and you want to just say your name when you comment, that's totally fine. Don't take it personally. They're just not showing me your name. So where's everybody from here? New Jersey. Hey, Brittany and Jersey. How are you doing? My wife's have micro something. I'm looking at the comments here. You guys are hilarious. Totally got expelled from school. I got kicked out of school for the week, man. We all got kicked out of school for the week. Florida heat and humidity. Yeah, I won't complain about humidity to anybody who lives in Florida or on the Gulf Coast of like Texas and those places. You guys own humidity down there. So it's all right. Anyway, so yeah, I'm just chilling. Going through the pool is closed today. Three days in a row of working out at the pool. Damn, I'm sore. Sorry, Becky, but soreness is part of the deal. If you're going to work out, you're going to get sore. Anyway, so I don't know. I announced this late. I usually announced them on Sunday, but I didn't this week. I announced it this morning because I was busy yesterday. So we might have a little bit of a smaller crowd today, but that's all right. So let's get into micro avoidances. Here is in a nutshell, what a micro avoidance in anxiety recovery or avoidance in general, we talk about avoidance all the time. We know that avoidance is a thing that drives the disordered state. It's almost the thing that almost defines the disordered state. Like I'm having these unpleasant internal experiences. They're scary thoughts or their repetitive thoughts or their obsessions or they are symptoms or their catastrophic thoughts or whatever it is. I have these internal experiences. So I try to avoid having those experiences at all costs. And so avoidance is a thing that says, yeah, I have to do those things. I interpret that as dangerous or too much or overwhelming or can't handle it. So I avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid and that drives the disordered state because avoidance might make you temporarily feel better, but it doesn't actually teach you that you're capable of moving through that discomfort or those internal experiences. And so you get stuck. So that's avoidance. And we most often talk about avoidance sort of on the macro level, things that you refuse to do. Like let's talk about agoraphobics, for instance. People who are agoraphobic will refuse to leave the house or they refuse to leave the house without a safe person or they'll refuse to go to certain places where they've experienced anxiety symptoms or panic. People with OCD will avoid sometimes specific foods. If they have fixations or specific words, they won't say specific words. And this is not just people are agoraphobia, people panic disorder, people with OCD. They often mix and match, right? But those are the big avoidances. Hello, Norway. Hello, Katya. How are you doing? So those are like the macro avoidances that we all sort of know about. Driving on the highway, eating certain foods, going to doctor's appointments, going to social events, like going to school or work like we know about staying home alone. These are like the macro avoidances that we all know about because we talk about them in this community all the time and they matter. So we try to address those avoidances and we use techniques like doing exposures to try to reverse that and break our avoidance cycle. However, there are also micro avoidances and a micro avoidance is just exactly what it is. It's a much smaller avoidance. Micro sometimes it's actually quite tiny. And these are the little habits. And by the way, everybody in life has micro avoidances of some kind. We all have habits. We all have things we just don't like, whether or not you're an anxious person or not, everybody has these in life, everybody, right? So it doesn't the fact that you have some micro avoidances in your life doesn't mean like, see, you're a broken anxious person. Everybody has them. Sometimes they're just habits. Sometimes they're just based on personal preferences. It doesn't matter, right? So it's not automatically inherently evil. But in the context of anxiety recovery, micro avoidances are these tiny little habits that you start to weave into your daily routine or sometimes into your recovery routine. And those little tiny habits are designed to address particular conditions that you think you need to set to be OK. So you guys may have heard me use the term conditional OK-ness. I've talked about that before. Maybe I invented that term. I don't know. But little micro avoidances are the tiny little rituals and habits that you now sneak into your exposure routines, your recovery routines for your life that are designed to set certain conditions to be OK. So for instance, I can give you a couple of examples of what micro avoidance might look like. People might say things like I'm doing so much better now, like I'm able to pick up the kids from school or I stayed home by myself. I could stay home by myself for a half hour or, you know, the thought about, you know, the kitchen sink being a contaminated place isn't as strong as it used to be. I'm doing better. I'm doing better, which is awesome. Like we want to celebrate that true. You are definitely doing better. You're making progress. And then they'll sometimes say, but I still need help with certain things, right? So certain things I still need help with. Or I'm almost all the way recovered, but I have this last thing that I feel like I can't get past. And invariably, when you ask somebody about micro avoidances, like, are you telling me that you live completely free of restrictions and conditions when it comes to anxiety? Often that person will have to stop for a second and maybe think and will usually come back and say, well, and those micro avoidances usually would be I'm practically recovered. I just have a problem with this one thing. But I say I'm practically recovered, but I will only go. If I have to go too far from the house, I only do that with a safe person. That would be a micro avoidance, because technically where maybe one day you were homebound, now you're willing to travel hundreds of miles away from your house. But you set a condition on that, like, oh, if I have to do the really big things, I do it with a safe person. Another micro avoidance is, oh, I do do that thing where if I know I have a challenge coming up the next day, I will only eat certain foods because I have to steer clear of foods that might trigger me or make me anxious or make me feel bad because I need to be optimized in order to be OK when I meet a challenge. So whether it's a recovery challenge or just a life challenge, other micro avoidances revolve around sleep, like, oh, if I have to make I'm OK, I'm almost recovered, but I also have to always make sure I sleep at a minimum of eight hours or else I won't be able to handle the next day because I might feel things if I'm a little too tired. So you start to build these little rituals around things like sleep or diet or even exercise sometimes becomes a bit of a compulsion that becomes a micro avoidance, like, oh, I have a big week coming up and it's going to be really horrible because I only got to the gym four times this week instead of six. And so I'm really nervous about my ability to handle the upcoming challenges this week is going to be a busy week at work or something like that. So the micro avoidances can be really, really sneaky. They're the little things that you still have baked in that are designed to be safety valves or escape valves, or they set particular conditions for just making sure that you can be OK, because I think I'm OK, but I'm not totally sure. So I hang on to these just in case things. For me, one micro avoidance that I had also was and I've talked about this, right, my doctor used to give me a Benzo that he give me Xanax. He only gave it to me once. And I say all the time, I joke about it. He gave me a prescription for 90 pills and like a year and a half later or whatever, I flushed most of them down the drain because I just refused to take him. I was stubborn only because I was stubborn, right? But I did have a few of them crumbles that I would drive around with for a couple of years, right? So I had a micro avoidance. I always kept those few little crumbles of Xanax in my car. It was totally worthless. I'm sure I totally like ruined it by letting it freeze and bake in the car. But I carry that around all the time. That was a micro avoidance. So they could be safety devices. They could be sugary snacks. They could be, oh, I have to. I if it contains have to, I have to have my cold water with me. It could become a micro avoidance. I have to have my mints with me. I have to have a snack in my purse. I have to make sure I always have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So those aren't huge lifestyle impacting things. So for me, I was still doing the things that I was doing them with the bottle with little crumbles of Xanax in the car. Like that I had to deal with that. I had to work through that once I realized like I had forgotten it was even in there or the time when you first noticed that like, oh, no, I left the house without my water. Another possible micro avoidance could be your phone. Now, I understand the phone has practical use also. I get it. But oh, I'm OK. As long as I have my phone with me, that could become a little bit of a micro avoidance. Like I have to start working on doing some exposures without my phone as examples. There's there's a million of them. I can't give you all the examples, but those are micro avoidances. And the micro avoidances often when you feel like I'm really getting down the road to recovery, but I have these challenges that I just can't seem to get past. I would advise you to look for micro avoidances that you think aren't there or you didn't even realize are there and see if you can work on those because those micro avoidances are teaching you that you're only OK in the old challenges or the smaller challenges because you had those devices or those rituals or those optimizations built in. So now we have to say now I have to tear down the optimizations to protective devices, the rituals, the habits and do my stuff without those. And when you can do that, it becomes much more probable that you can take the leap from the challenges that you think you've already mastered to the bigger ones. So we talk about this all the time, right? That thing where people in the beginning of recovery, people think, well, I have to learn how to do all of these life things again. No, you really don't. Like at some point, those experiences become portable and adaptable across your whole life. That portability and adaptability would be impacted by by the presence of micro avoidances. So micro avoidances can tend to keep you stuck in a situation where you feel like, well, I've mastered the supermarket or I've mastered the school pickup line or I've mastered this thing or that thing. But I haven't worked on that yet and that I won't be able to do. So you have to be careful about that because sometimes that would be the presence of those little micro avoidances could be fueling that when you tear down the micro avoidances. And we'll talk about sort of how to do that because it's not easy. You do it little by little because they're not even easy to find sometimes. So when you start to tear those down, then you get a little bit more of a capability of taking your old child, your old wins and making them portable to the next wins that you need to come up with. Right. Does that make sense? So how would you even know I need to make a statement? It's probably important. Be careful about compulsively looking for micro avoidances. So when I I was a little leery about doing this topic because it's almost like suggesting that you must have trauma and then you start digging and digging for stuff you can't find. Same thing, you might only have a few of these or you might have none that are impacting your recovery. You really just have to be honest with yourself. You don't have to dig. You just have to be kind of honest and it's OK to be honest privately. You don't have to be honest in public here in the comments section unless you want to. That's fine. But it's more about just being honest. I had to be honest with myself like, I know what I'm doing here. Like I get it. I know what I'm doing here. And I was able to say, hey, listen, I've had a lot of huge wins and I've made a lot of huge progress here. But I do know I have to work on these little things. So just be honest with yourself. You don't have to go digging and digging and digging and evaluating every little thing you do to see if it's a micro avoidance. Just think about the things that you feel are must. I must do this to be OK. Think about that. And those are the things that you can sort of work on. But before we get into the comments again, I don't have a ton to say about this 15 minutes tops. But these are things that you work out little by little. And even the big safety and we've talked about this like using crutches or safety devices, you would drop them sort of one by one little by little over time and you practice. So nobody is able to sit down and say, here's a list of my 11 micro avoidances and just wipe them all out that wouldn't I don't know anybody's ever been able to do that. Because sometimes it just takes you a while to even start to recognize them. So it's totally OK for you to kind of drop those or work on dropping those a little bit at a time, just like we do everything else in recovery that is completely acceptable, it's completely OK. It's kind of expected. So again, this is not something that you're just going to say, even like the big things, nobody says, well, I have to do these four major exposures to get better. I'll just do them all at one time. It doesn't work that way. So just be patient and know that it's really OK for you to drop these things little by little, just practice a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. It's a gradual process. It's a systematic process. It's supposed to be like that. You're never going to be able to just wipe them all out at one time. Totally, totally, totally fine. And again, just to reiterate, at some point in time, you discover, well, I have a bunch of habits and rituals roving into my life that have nothing to do with anxiety anymore. They have to do with personal preference. They have to do with convenience. They have to do with schedule. They have to do with logistics of life. That's OK. Don't get so caught up in like, you know, oh, I now have to rid my entire life of these little things. You don't because we all have them built into our lives and they probably serve a purpose in a lot of instance. So that's kind of all I have to say about micro avoidances. Let's look at the comments here and see what everybody has to say. I will scroll up a little bit. I see there's lively conversation as always. How are we doing? We got 60 people. OK, not too bad. Let's talk about this. Micro avoidances. This is the part of the show where Drew scrolls through the comments and you watch him do that. It's really good. Let's see here. Florida heat, humidity, no, no, no. Oh, Brittany, we came in through, I guess, Rebecca. Welcome, Brittany. Get glad to see you. I'm glad you're here. Let's see. Sweating in Oklahoma. I like hanging in there. Norway is here. I'm just going to scroll down to see what I best here. OK, so let's see what best yesterday about this. I'm definitely struggling with this lately, but trying to say effort and move forward. This is exactly it. Like this is kind of, you know, you get the best you could do is to say, I do have to work on these little micro avoidances. I have to sign it kind of work on my micro compulsions, my little rituals. Screw it. I'm going to do the best I can. Let me see which one I can work on today. That's totally fine. Move forward. Just move forward from, you know, in small steps. It's totally fine. It's completely fine. So I like that. Trying to say effort and move on. Terry's here from Connecticut. Hello, hello, South Africa. You may hold the record for the longest teleporting into the stream today. Let's see if anybody is from further than South Africa. Hello, New Hampshire. How are you? Couldn't watch Snake versus Mongoose. It's isn't it's so interesting. I'm going to put Chris Belly garage up here. Let's see. Couldn't watch Snake versus Mongoose, et cetera, on YouTube. And I will say that this is a really good illustration of, I think a lot of people would look at this, this like completely out of context. If anybody to look at Jason's comment here, out of context of anxiety recovery, they'd be like, huh? But it's amazing how like little things, they become very individual. They might not make sense to anybody else, but they're important to you. So I'm sure Jason, when you were avoiding those videos, it might not have made sense to a lot of people. We, the rest of us in the room might understand the concept, but to you was probably a pretty big deal. So micro avoidances are also, it brings up a good point. They're also very personalized, as crazy as it sounds. They get very personalized. They're very specific to you in many instances. We all have the same patterns, if you will. The concepts remain the same across micro avoidances, but since they're small little rituals and habits that get woven into your daily routine, they tend to be specific to each person. We all have our own little things that we come up with. Oh, you know what's another good micro avoidance? Body language. One of the first videos I think I ever did on this YouTube channel, if you're watching on YouTube, might've been the first, was about body language. I had, I was full of micro avoidances based on body language. And I've talked about this before. Tugging on my ear was huge, poking at my chest, like craning my neck. I used to squint all the time. When I discovered how much I was using body language to resist, those were also micro avoidances. So look at your body language. You know, what are you doing? It was huge. And until I videoed myself, I had no idea that I was doing all that. And it was striking to me. And then I, for me, I was able to actually use those videos. I didn't share them with anybody. Yeah, I was kind of sharing videos back in the early days with like Billy Cross, if you guys know Billy, who used to do Anxiety United. We were sharing videos with each other on YouTube in this little group. And when I saw what I was doing, it was such an eye opener. It took me a long time though. Took me a couple of months to really work on those things. So body language could also be a little bit of a micro avoidance. Are these things alone, like major deal breakers in recovery, you'll never get better? No, these are just things that tend to create friction in the process and will tend to keep you sort of stuck at certain points along the way. So if you're not sure why you're stuck, look at this possibly. So that's the thing. Let's see what Marina has to say. This looks like a good comment. Micro avoidance can be a step between big avoidance. Yeah, it totally is and final recovery. In my opinion, it's only useful if you're aware of it. It's not full recovery. If you still have micro avoidance, that's true. But so this is a really good comment. It's very accurate, I think it is a step between, right? So nobody in the beginning of the recovery process is working on micro avoidances. So if you're watching today and this is the first time or you're new to all this, maybe you stumbled upon my YouTube and my podcast or maybe you found one of my books or something on Amazon and this is all new to you, you filed this one away. Like bookmark this on your browser, come back in six months and watch this video again. This video isn't necessary for you. Nobody starts with micro avoidances, nobody. So they are an indicator. When you're working on micro avoidances, generally speaking, you're gonna be down the road and recover a little bit. So that's a really good comment. The part that Marina, I'll put it back on the screen, Marina says it's not full recovery if you still have micro avoidance. I agree with that. I tend to agree with that. Not that you are choosing to not recover, but again, if you find that you are keeping conditions, I'm recovered, but there is still a line in the sand across which I will not cross. And some of that is fueled by micro avoidance. Some of that will be fueled by micro avoidance further back behind that line that you think you've already gone over. I would tend to agree with that. So they are related. What I call the acceptable bubble is usually riddled with micro avoidances. Again, not a choice. Nobody's blaming you for that, but if you find that you keep... I don't know what's going on. I think I'm better and then I keep falling back. I keep falling back, I keep falling back. This is a thing to look at also. So good comment, Marina. Thank you, I appreciate it. Forget my phone in the car. Oh, okay, see, this is the phone thing. I forget my phone in the car now. So Jason's at the point where he could forget his phone and realize he doesn't have it. That would have been a big no-no right back in the day. I get it. Let's see here. Ooh, I love this. Let's put up a win from Viola. Sitting on the beach in Ocean City, Maryland, it's six hours from my house. And a couple of years ago, I never thought I'd ever see the ocean in person. Good job, Viola. Excellent, I'm so happy for you. I hope you're enjoying the ocean and enjoying the fact that you got there. Let's see here. Listening to a sleep story was micro avoidance. Okay, let's put these all up. You guys are on fire today in the comments. Love it. I stopped plugging in my headphones a month ago. I practiced letting the thoughts be clouds. That's another good example of a micro avoidance. I think what Becky's talking about here is like the calm app has sleep stories. It's like their nighttime meditations. They might be more than just that app, but some people do that. Some people use my podcast or podcasts like mine as micro avoidances. Like whenever I have to make sure that I listen to the anxious truth, some episode today, like in order to be okay. Let's see. Are you used to the same thing? Oh, here you go. Right after that, I was constantly listening to Drew's podcast. It was so bad that if I forgot my headphones it would trigger my anxiety. I can relate to that because I had, excuse me, I bought a Claire Weeks book, Pass Through Panic, I believe. I don't remember which one it is. I still have the MP3s. I bought it and I would take it with me on my iPod. Like back in the day, that was literally like an iPod that I had. And I would take it with me. And if I didn't have the headphones and I didn't have my iPod with Claire Weeks on it, ooh, it was a no go. So I get that. Totally get that. The optimization. Oh, wait. I just noticed Claire Weeks. I love it. Love the screen name. So many small things that I do to optimize how I feel. So notice that when you're doing that. I mean, listen, this is the thing we talked about. Like, last two weeks ago we did like gut health and diet for anxiety. It's okay to want to feel okay. It's totally okay. Like it's okay to want to eat well. It's okay to want to take care of your body. It's okay to want to sleep. It's okay to want to feel good. There's nothing wrong with that. We just care about when it becomes, like your whole life is contingent upon making sure you optimize how you feel. So it's totally okay to take care of yourself. Don't not do that. But just, you know, just notice when you're taking it to an extreme. I think micro avoidance are okay to get you going. Yeah, this is good. That's what I said in the beginning, like nobody starts with micro avoidance. In fact, I would take this a step further either. It's not even only micro avoidance that's okay to get you started. People have asked me, you know, is it okay for me to start doing exposures with a safe person? That's not a micro avoidance. That's a huge sort of avoidance or safety behavior. But yes, it would be better for you to start with the crutches, with the safety rituals than to not start. So I would, this is a good comment, but I would even take it beyond that. If you are having a hard time just getting started, then by all means, bring some safety devices, crutches or whatever. It's better to get the ball rolling if you have to. I would 100% endorse that, 100%. Oh, this is good. This is a good micro avoidance. It's not a good micro avoidance. It's a good example of a micro avoidance. Thank you for sharing this, Terry. Check this out. I call myself extending my afternoon walk in order to arrive home at a certain time so I can launch right into making dinner because she didn't wanna have downtime. That's an excellent example of a sneaky little micro avoidance. Let's see here. This is one, possibly, person who got, don't even have asthma, but always have it with me. So that was probably driven by the fear of that air hunger sensation. I feel like I can't breathe. So I better have ventilation with me, even though I don't actually need it. That could be a micro avoidance, possibly. Carol says the Xanax probably won't work now. By the time I threw up that Xanax, I was pretty sure that it was 100% not working. I literally baked it in the Long Island heat. It could be 110 degrees Fahrenheit in your car in the summer and minus five in your car in the winter. I was baking it and freezing it on the daily. So it probably was not working. Let's see here. You call it micro avoidance. I feel it's my OCD control issues. Okay, I mean, it could be. It certainly could be. That's a tough one. There's gray area there. But yeah, I mean, the term doesn't necessarily matter. You're right. But so in that situation, your job is to drop those. So you might have a compulsive need for control or an obsessive need for control and the compulsion is actually acting on that. So for the analog there would be, you have to stop doing the things that you're doing to try to control things, which could be a macro avoidance or they could be tiny little things too. But love it. Love that you brought that up. Xanax is not a crunchy snack. It is correct. It is not. Oh God, chewing one of those would be horrible. Tastes terrible. Oh, this is good. So when I said before that you had to be careful about getting into compulsive digging. I got to find all my micro avoidances. Drew said I have micro avoidances. No, just try to be honest with yourself. And when you find yourself getting stuck, just look at that. Where have I set conditions? And how can I start to tear down those conditions? Because this could be a trap for sure. Very black at my thinking. I'm either all good or failing or I'm either getting it perfectly right or I'm not recovering. It's a big deal. So thank you for bringing that up. I appreciate it, Ashley. I noticed that I do this too with reducing screen time to make sure that I'm gonna put these all up on the screen. I know they're scrolling past and you guys can see them, but they're really good. Reducing screen time, which is not a bad thing to do, right? You might say from a lifestyle issue, I don't like it. I'm spending too much time on my phone. Cool. But I'm doing it to make sure that my eyes are not tired because I don't want to trigger my DPDR. That's a micro avoidance. Excellent. Gotcha. Excellent. One of my favorite, oh, I'm scrolling through the comments. Very good. Love this. Let's see. Heather says, avoiding listening to my podcast. Love it. Haven't listened to it in weeks, even during my high anxious moments. Very good. Like I'm the worst podcaster ever because I'm giving you a thumbs up for not listening to my podcast. But I say this all the time. People like me, the best day for me will be the day that I fire this up on Monday and no one's here. So you don't have to listen to me anymore. Be like, all right, we're good. So good job. Very good. Because we don't want to use those things as safety devices. My podcast is not a rescue device. It's not a safety device. My podcast, whoever disordered that I do with Josh, you should be listening to that, by the way, disordered.fm. If you're not listening to that podcast, you're missing some of the best work that I think I've done is the podcast I do with Josh. But whether it's the anxious truth or disordered or Kim's podcast or Jenna's podcast or whoever you like to listen to, they are not rescue devices. They're psychoeducational devices. So if you have questions about recovery, or you think you want to learn about it, a principle that you can then apply in your situation, that's what it's for. It's not meant to calm you down. So I'm the guy recording the podcast and I'm telling you right now, when I record a podcast in no way am I thinking, how can I calm people down? I never record a podcast with the intention of calming you down or saving you from anything. So keep that in mind. Body language, what does Aurora do with body language? Let's see here. Playing with my ear while driving, that was me. I would talk, I don't know how this ear isn't literally ripped off at this point, because I would tug on my left ear like crazy all the time, especially while driving. So I get you, like long ear lobe crew checking in, I probably stretch my ears out doing all that. Let's see here. Yeah, so Mary says, she feels like microvoidances are we keeping me from moving forward as well as my OCD. Very good. That happens, it's okay. It's not a crime, by the way. If you discover like, hey, oh, I have microvoidances, it's okay. You don't have to say, oh, I have microvoidances. Just like I said, everybody does. So it's okay. Ashley's gonna make money on her microvoidances. We're gonna pay her a dollar for every time she has a body language microvoidance. Independently wealthy at no time. Let's see. I'm speeding to get through a driving exposure. Very good, let's put this up. Sorry, can't see your name. Sorry, Restream doesn't show me your name. Speeding to get through a driving exposure, putting my hands on my pocket so no one sees my handshake tile and all after exposure that may have given me a headache, may have, and wearing certain colors so no one sees me sweat. These are all excellent examples of microvoidances and really good that you can recognize those. Yes, microvoidances are in fact safety behaviors. They are the same thing, for sure. Let's see here. Does the constant need to be walking count as a body language thing? Yeah, kinda. I mean, I wasn't necessarily talking about that, but certainly it is body language, I guess. But I don't know if that would necessarily be a microvoidance, it depends. Like it really depends. And again, like everything else, like everything else, this was, oh, hey, Holls, good to see you. Holly's here from Majorca. Holly is, you guys know Holly, she's been on a bunch of podcast episodes with me. So Holly's here, it's always nice to see Holly. These things are not black and white. They exist on a spectrum, right? So sometimes constantly walking would be a macrovoidance. That's a major issue for you that you're working on. But sometimes it would be a microvoidance if it's just the thing you do, let's sort of on the QT or on the Sly or automatically in other anxious situations as I have to start to walk. Don't confuse that with anxious pacing, which is something that many, many people, non-anxious people do, but this isn't always black and white. Remember, there's shades of gray in all of this stuff. Let's see here. I'm not gonna answer that question, by the way, about your heart. Let's see here. You can not know about that. Try that, try not knowing. Microvoidance as a safety bubble, microvoidance I think is part of what I call the acceptable bubble for sure. I think it contributes to that. The acceptable bubble, for those of you who don't know, if you, I think if you go to the anxious truth and search for acceptable bubble, I think I did a whole podcast episode on that probably three or four years now. The acceptable bubble, I forget that so many people are new, is what I call it when you teach yourself to do certain things without panicking. Like you manage to engineer, oh, I can do this now and I don't panic or I could do this now and I don't panic or I could resist this compulsion and I could get enough of my life done most days where it's okay and then I just stay here. That's what I call the dreaded acceptable bubble because it's a fragile bubble and as soon as life disrupts your carefully engineered not panicking or your carefully engineered okayness, life will disrupt it because life sucks sometimes then the bubble bursts and then you're left like, oh my God, I'm back to square one and I don't know what happened, which is not fair to yourself. It leads to very negative harsh judgment and in my opinion, if you build an acceptable bubble and stay there in a carefully engineered state of okayness, you are susceptible to that like, oh, I'm back to square one. And I only say that because thousands of you over the years, just a story that we see again and again and again and again. So that's where I came up with acceptable bubble. I may have invented that. I'm not sure. I seem to invent a lot of things. Always my hands on my neck are cuddled. Okay, that's another one. I used to have my hands on my pulse all the time. I spent so much time with my fingers on my neck. People noticed it too. Let's see here. Which book has the most information on helping a loved one? I never, I didn't write, let me think about this. It would have to be the anxious truth. I mean, an anxiety story. By the way, you can get that one for free. So the first book is called an anxiety story. That's just the story of what I went through. Go to my website, follow through to that book and you could download that one for free. You could buy it on Amazon if you want. You could buy it as an audio book if you want. But you can also just follow the links through and you could download it as a PDF free or you could download it as NPD free. So that might give you some hint of what your family member or your loved one is going through. But the 7% slower wouldn't be for that. But the anxious truth would teach you the mechanics of what they have to do. And I did write in that book about for the anxious person how to get your family in order to help them be cheerleaders. So you might find it helpful. But admittedly, Colette, I did not write the anxious truth for you. I wrote it for the anxious person. So just take that with a grain of salt. Let's see here. I'm giving up a lot of your podcasts. Sorry, not sorry. Not a thing you ever have to apologize for. I'm actually happy that you don't need to listen anymore. So that's really good. However, struggling into specifics and kinds. Okay, this is that thing where you don't have to be obsessive about this. Struggling, organizing them into specific and concrete thoughts, ideas of what they actually are. Simplify this. What do I do because I have to do it to make sure I'm going to be okay? That's a good question to ask. And what am I doing to satisfy the conditions I've set in my life? Anxiety-wise, by the way. Anxiety-wise, always anxiety-wise. So just simplify it to that. What am I doing to satisfy the conditions I've set around my anxiety? And the examples we've been given might help you with some of that stuff. I listened to you on the interstate plus we shared birthdays. We do, hey Paul, what up brother? Paul and I were both born in March. I'm not going to say the date. Some of you know already. Thank you for everything you do. You're very welcome. I'm glad I'm able to help in some way. Love it. Let's put this up on the screen. Went to a party this Saturday alone. Didn't know anybody. Thought I would leave after two hours and stayed until the end. This was a great exposure. I had a great time. Love it. Love it. Love that you had a great time. That's a huge win. I give up my hot water bottle. You don't have to give up your hot water. Enjoy your hot water bottle. You know what? You may never give up your hot water bottle if you like. Yes. Thank you, April. 30 days has September, April, March and November. Let's see here. Muscated hours of sleep. Okay, let's put these up at Claire Weeks. But these are good. Bring the water everywhere you go. Must, must gait eight hours of sleep. Or else. Or else. Okay, this is cool. I get this, Julie. I totally get this. I would carry Claire books around. Claire Weeks book around. And you know what? Now that I think about this, did I ever carry her book around? I didn't. I didn't. And by the way, if you, for those of you who have fought along with me for a while, I will always say, I don't know why. I don't know why I sort of relapsed two times after I read Claire Weeks and got better the first time. If you listen to the Attitude Shift episode of Disordered, I literally discovered in real time and it would have to do with Claire Weeks in her book. So if you want to go listen to that, when you go to disorder.fm, there's an episode called the Attitude Shift where about halfway through the episode, I literally joked around with Josh and said, I'm not paying you. Like I'm not paying you for this therapy session because we actually, in just talking about it, I realized like that, that's why I relapsed. So it was really good. But I'm guessing that people did carry books around before podcasts, what can you do? Right? Let's see here. So just quickly, it's Craig the critic. My sound effects in the podcast. Let's see here. I'm going to put this up because this is a thing. Hang on a second here. So just in general, if you're new and you just sort of stumbled upon this stuff or maybe this is your first live stream, I know that you want to say, can you please talk about this kind of anxiety or can you please talk about this particular symptom? This is a blanket statement if you're relatively new here. But what about thoughts about going insane? But what about anxiety about this? What you will learn, and I would urge you to go either start listening to Disordered from the first episode, there's only 15 of them because those are foundational episodes or go back and listen to the anxious truth, the first 15 or 20 podcast episodes of that, maybe consider buying the anxious truth that book. You'll see why I don't answer these questions. But what about anxiety about, what about this kind of anxiety? You'll get it. There's principles here that we're talking about. So go check that out. I'm not trying to be rude by ignoring your questions, but I don't ever do that. Let me talk about my kind of anxiety. So let me put this up really quick. Let's see here. I appreciate this. I do appreciate this. This is a thing that Billy and I both talked about, by the way, I'm not speaking out of school. Billy and I both talked about this. And Billy, you know what? I love it. He's my friend and he doesn't do anxiety videos anymore because he doesn't have to, which is great. One of the things that became a little bit problematic, I'll be honest, transparent with you guys and you guys, anybody who knows me and follows along in the community knows when I get really riled up about this stuff is it became a little bit about the comedy and the entertainment value. And so we had to kind of back away from that. And that's why I get so vehement about like, no, no, no, no, we're not gonna talk about my mannerisms. You guys joke about it. Sometimes it's fine, but we have to be really careful to not make it about me or my personality or Billy or the comedy. Like it's really all about the message. It's much more important to me. I know I'm, what can I say? I'm sneaky. I'm weird that way. This is good too. You guys are killing it today. I text people what I'm doing and where I'm going. I'm doing this to be sure that somebody knows how to rescue you. Tell you what else. Along those lines, I love this comment. Here's another sneaky one. Geez, I feel kind of weird. How many people in the room have done that? I feel kind of weird right now. Like that thing where you just casually, like you know that you shouldn't go into it, but you kind of casually tell people how you're feeling or boy, that's weird. I just felt like you're trying to be super on the QT about it and you're doing it so that somebody hears how you feel in case something comes of it and you need to be rescued. That's another really sneaky thing. I used to do that. I used to do that. Let's see here. Just learning so much. You're welcome. Let's see. Let's keep going. The Facebook group will not change at any time in the near future, FYI. There's a reason for that. We talked about it in the group. I'm not gonna get into that here on this stream, but yes, it's not gonna go back to the old way. Did you lose any confidence in yourself when you had anxiety or at your worst? So one of the statements that I've made over and over, and it's taken me a while to crystallize this in my mind, is I'm not gonna say that I lost confidence in myself, but I used to feel like I was failing and then at some point I started to feel like a failure, which is two different things. So I could say that. That was not a good place to be. Not only did I feel like I was failing, I started to feel like a failure. So that's not necessarily, I guess it's a confidence thing, I suppose, but good question, let's see here. I'm glad you guys are enjoying disordered. I'm enjoying doing it. Had to have my Fitbit all the time so I can keep track of my heart rate. That's a good one. This could be a macro avoidance, but it also could be a sneaky thing if you're still doing it, right? Still doing it, so it could be a thing. But so that being said, this person in the Facebook group said, I totally felt like I lost confidence in trusting myself. Many people say that just cause I'm not sure that I would say I lost my confidence. You might say that feeling like a failure would be a confidence problem. I get that, semantics maybe. But many, many people will say that they lost their ability to trust themselves. They lost their ability to trust that they are capable. Some people will say I lost trust in my body. Like I don't know if anybody can feel that, right? Like I feel like I can't trust my body to take care of me anymore, hear that all the time. I feel like I've lost trust in my ability to handle life. I feel like I've lost trust in my ability to make decisions because I'm always so afraid in making fear-based decisions. Very common. If you feel like this, you're like your confidence is gone and you've lost the ability to trust yourself, you're not alone in that. That's incredibly, incredibly common. So you guys did a great job in the comments today. I appreciate all the interaction and all the support for each other, which you always do. I'm just gonna, let's see what Terri has to say real quick. I just saw that pop in before I wrap up. Terri talks about, I haven't lost confidence. I do wonder if I'll ever be truly happy again. Yeah, yeah, that's a thing. A lot of people worry about that too. Happiness will come when it comes. That's what I always say, you don't force it. Do not judge things based on whether or not you're happy. The only thing that I'll say about that, which I think people need to hear over and over, is the opposite of anxious is not happy. The opposite of anxious is just not anxious. So the opposite of anxious is content. The opposite of anxious is neutral because that's generally the default state for most human beings most of the time. Generally speaking, we're not keenly aware of our emotional state or our state of being. And then we have moments where that's interrupted with an emotion, a response that's anger or excitement or happiness or joy or frustration or despair. But normally we're not, the default state is to not always be aware of how we're feeling. So remember that the opposite of anxious is not happy. It's just the opposite of anxious is neutral or content. Not worried about how you feel. And then happiness comes when it comes. So let that be organic. I think we talked about that in a live stream of the subscriber group on Instagram last week, I believe. So let's see, happiness looks and feels different to me now after going through my anxiety storm. Okay, I see the anxiety storm. Appreciate the reference there. Yeah, that's a thing too. More content, I'll put that up. This doesn't need to be shown. We'll end with this one. I keep saying we're gonna end, but I swear we're really gonna end. So much more content in how I'm feeling. When you get down the road where you start to experience times where you don't care how you feel, it's not always the most important thing. You are comfortable in either just being neutral or even feeling things. I'm feeling angry today. I'm sad today and you're comfortable in that. That's a big deal. That's a big deal. It's a big sign of improvement and enjoy that because that's a big deal. I appreciate you saying that. All right, guys, we are gonna wrap it up. I think we're good to go. Just a quick reminder here, all the things. If you want all the things, all the rest, all the podcast episodes, the books, all that stuff, courses and stuff that I'm working on. I got some more stuff coming out. Just go to theanxiestruth.com. Maybe subscribe to my email newsletter. I'm using that more to send out tips and things like that. So if you want to do that, that's fine. Thanks for coming by. I appreciate it. We'll be back again in two weeks. What else are we doing this week? This week might be a little light on content because I have a week off and I'm gonna try and take advantage of that. If you're in the Instagram subscriber group, we'll do the usual Friday livestream anyway. So I'll see you there. And that's it, we're out, guys. Thanks for hanging out. This, I will keep this, by the way, on the YouTube channel in the Recovery Monday playlist. It'll stay on Facebook and in the Facebook group, but things are impossible to find there. So just subscribe on YouTube and you can come back and watch it then. Later, go work on those micro avoidance.