 Today, we're going to talk about why avoidance makes you feel better on the short term, but it is not a good plan on the long term. This is Recovery Monday, Episode 10. Let's get to it. And by the way, if you're watching on Twitter, welcome Twitter. This is the first time I'm streaming live to Twitter. I have no idea what that even looks like. So let's get the chat up. Everybody pop in. Let me know that you are hearing me okay and everything's working. I should be working. Got everything connected the way it's supposed to. Hello. People are starting to roll in here. I mean, we'll take a few minutes and let the usual suspects pop in. I will remind everybody that we are doing Recovery Monday lessons right out of this book. I'll put it over here. This book, The Anxious Truth. If you do not have this book, we're just doing lessons out of it one by one. We're going to go for the better part of the next six or eight months on this because there's a lot in this book. If you don't have it, you can go to my website, theanxiestruth.com, slash books. You can grab your copy. And today we are going to talk about how avoidance does not work even though it is really common for people to want to avoid things. So let's get into it. Let's see who's here. Everything sounds good. Thank you, Laura. Appreciate it. I've been avoiding so much. So I will put the chat overlay up so that you guys can see what each other is saying. That's always super helpful. Sorry to roll those bets. I'm sorry. I just got a message. Okay. So let's talk about avoidance. Avoidance is like part of human nature. I cannot blame anybody for wanting to avoid things, right? None of us wants to be afraid and uncomfortable and think that we're dying or going crazy. Nobody wants that. Of course, I certainly don't want that. So it's natural to want to avoid those situations. And I think some of the things that you hear often said kind of in the mental health community, when they don't take the sort of approach to disordered anxiety and recovery is, you know, you got to find those triggers. You got to find your triggers so that you can avoid them. You have to make sure you just avoid those triggers. And that's not at all what we want to do. And here's the reason why. When we avoid the things that we fear and in the end, what we fear is fear, right? We fear our own bodies. We fear those sensations. We fear those thoughts, those scary thoughts that we have. This is what we fear. So we want to avoid instinctually. We want to avoid situations that trigger those things. So we avoid driving because driving might trigger a panic attack. And we can't have that happen. We might avoid going to eat at a restaurant because eating at a restaurant may trigger anxiety sensations and we can't have that happen. We want to avoid talking to specific people because you might be trapped in a conversation and then you'll start to have intrusive thoughts and we can't let that happen. So we avoid our triggers because not because of the thing itself, but because of what will come out of that, right? So we are afraid of those sensations and those thoughts. And we want to try and avoid the things that trigger them. And that's what avoidance is all about. And we want to do that again because humans are creatures of comfort and the path of least resistance. So nobody is blaming you for wanting to do that. It seems to be the logical thing to do, right? Except that what avoidance leads to is a deepening of the problem because when you are avoiding, you are essentially teaching your brain and yourself, really, that this is the way to do it. And so I can't handle that. I can't possibly allow panic. I cannot handle these thoughts. I cannot handle these sensations. They're too scary. So I should just eliminate all the things in my life that might possibly trigger them. And that leads to bad things. That leads to never going back out on the highway. It leads to never going on vacation. It leads to possibly never leaving your house. It leads to all of those bad things. You're essentially reinforcing the mistaken belief that the sensations and the thoughts and all of those things have to be avoided. So this is all because you're interpreting, your anxiety sensations and symptoms as dangerous and you try to avoid them. When you do avoid them and you get that bit of relief when you do, you are essentially reinforcing the mistaken belief that you can't ever let those things happen and you have to stop them from happening. And you might accomplish that except what's gonna end up happening is your world can start to get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. So if you are having a hard time with agoraphobia, for instance, agoraphobia for our British friends, the progression of agoraphobia from panic disorder is essentially based on avoidance. You have a panic attack, then you start to have panic attacks, then you begin to avoid all the things that might trigger the next panic attack as you're terrified of it. And then you wind up eliminating more and more things from your list of acceptable places and circumstances and tasks and you wind up stuck in your house or stuck in a room in your house. So even if it doesn't go down that road all the way, that can wind up happening. And then you wind up living a life full of restrictions and you also wind up living a life that seems very fragile and tenuous. So as long as I could just avoid the triggers, as long as they don't have to do this, then I'll be okay, but life sometimes makes us do that stuff. And then when we refuse to do that stuff, then we feel really bad because it points out like, oh, we got a problem. Okay, so that's why avoidance does not work. It's a natural thing to want to do it, but it just doesn't work out for us because it will deepen the disorder, right? You're literally rewarding your lizard brain, your amygdala for being wrong. When it tells you, don't you dare get on the highway so you don't, and then you feel that relief that comes with leaving the highway or avoiding, then you are rewarding it for that. See, I told you not to drive and when you quickly went back home and get out of the car, you felt better right away. See, I told you not to drive. Okay, thanks, lizard brain. I'll never drive again. And then you wind up on a video or in a chat like this asking how can I overcome my driving anxiety, for instance? All right, so that's the deal with that. And so let's see, Emily says, avoidance is my arch nemesis. It's kind of everybody's arch nemesis. So much of what fuels these things is based on avoidance. Now, there are different types of avoidance. There's the overt avoidance that says, and we all know what that looks like. No, I do not go out to eat anymore. No, I quit my job. I can't go to work anymore. No, I can't leave the house. I'm never left alone. I can't be alone for any period of time. I don't go into social situations, that sort of stuff. Those are overt avoidances, but there are also really sneaky avoidances. Anything that brings us that little sense of temporary relief, because avoidance is temporary relief at the expense of long-term restriction, anything that brings us temporary relief can kind of be looked at as an avoidance. Sometimes we call them crutches or safety behaviors or escape rituals, but that is avoidance. Anything you do to try and avoid the feelings and the thoughts that you help, that might be subtle, could be snapping rubber bands or always making sure you have mints in the car or snacks or making sure you have a safe person with you or they're on speed dialing your phone. Those are also avoidances. Safety behaviors, you could classify it all into avoidance, right? So that looks a lot of different ways. It's not necessarily just refusing to do stuff. It is anything that you do to try and drop your symptoms, right? Drop those sensations and get away from them, okay? So why is it bad because it deepens the disorder? It teaches you the wrong lesson and avoidance just leads to more avoidance. So anybody, if you're in the chat right now and you guys have been trying to avoid and stop your triggers and figure out what they are so that you never go near them, you're still here. And as you could see, you wind up in that situation where then you start to get frustrated like why isn't it getting any better? Well, that's why. Because avoidance just fuels more avoidance. It just cements the disorder. So unfortunately, what we have to do is, when we say avoidance does not work, that is truth. And in the end, confronting avoidance doesn't work means that you have to make a choice between short-term relief now and long-term freedom. So you can continue to try to avoid things and you will get that short-term relief but you are then trading short-term relief for long-term restrictions. So when we stop avoiding, we are intentionally creating short-term fear and discomfort in exchange for long-term progress and freedom. So avoidance is really a short-term long-term thing in the end. And the overall scope of this avoidance is really short-term long-term tradeoff. So there you go. All right, let's look at some comments here. Let's see what everybody has to say. I'm gonna scroll a bit here. Everybody's talking to Donna, so I wanna see why. Hey, Donna, something good must be going on. Let's see, I brought the book and I'm on cognitive things really helped me. Very good, Brandy. I'm glad that the book is helping you. Oh, Donna just had a tooth pulled. Now I see why everybody's giving you the high-five fist bump. Good job, Donna. Yes, that would be a classic case where people like us would completely avoid that. I know people who have not only avoided dental procedures but real life-saving medical procedures. I'm gonna tell you a story. I don't know if she's here. I'm not gonna say the name but I don't think she would mind me sharing this story. She shared it herself. I know somebody specifically in our community that was facing an absolute life-threatening situation, complete life-threatening situation. It was legit life-threatening situation that refused to take the action that she needed to take to get her out of that situation because she just wanted to avoid. She wanted to avoid the possibility of having a panic attack at the hospital and this person came this close. Like she lucked out and thank goodness it all worked out but it can get that bad where I have seen the avoidance and that drive to avoid at all costs literally take people right to the edge of some really bad consequences. And luckily, thank goodness, knock on whatever what I got hanging around here, that worked out and this person is still with us and she's okay, thank goodness. But yes, that can happen, that can happen. All right, so good job, Donna, on your dental work. Absolutely 100%. So let's scroll down a little bit here. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Getting into the holiday spirit, because okay, let's see. Oh, good job, getting into the holiday spirit. Very good, of course, screw anxiety, I'm all for that. Let's see here, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, doing so much better but totally avoiding and necessary dental appointments. So, Donna, Bonnie, you get that. Use Donna as a role model, right? You can do it. Hey, Dawn, what's going on? Melissa is here. Yes, it is available. I'll put some stuff up on the screen and we'll answer it that way. Yes, avoidance is an absolute, it's almost a literal definition of a vicious loop. The avoidance will breed more avoidance because that short-term hit of comfort, like okay, I got off the highway and I ran home right away. I keep using driving but it could be anything. I got off the highway, ran home and I felt better. So everybody here watching knows that moment that you are able to trigger that relief, that sense of relief. It might be running and exiting, like I said, a driving exposure for people with health anxiety. The minute you reach out and ask about that symptom and get that little bit of reassurance, like oh, I had that and it just turned out to be whatever in my arm, it was nothing. You get that instantaneous, ha, that relief of tension but then it only lasts a little while and then you go back again into the cycle. So, but that, ha, that relief feeling and we all know what that feels like when you run and you instantly get that relief, that's a little bit addictive and it does and it fuels the avoidance cycle. Like oh, I want that again, I want that again. Let's see, so what do we got here? It's a huge circle and it's hard to get away from but once you do it so freeing. Sam, putting this up on the screen. This is hard. This is absolutely 100% difficult. I am not taking that away at all. I repeat that on the daily, on the daily. Like this is hard work but when you can break the avoidance cycle, then you can start to gain momentum in your recovery and it is 100% freeing. Thank you for saying that, my man. It is true, it is true. So let's see here. I wish I would have never avoided it. Okay, let's put this up because this is good. I wish I've never avoided anything in the past. It literally makes things so much worse. That's that cycle where avoidance breeds more avoidance. So thank you for sharing that. Sorry, I don't see your names. Streamyard doesn't show me your names in the Facebook group. Okay, this is good. So I'm gonna talk about this also. This person who says I'm no longer avoiding anything anymore and my life has improved massively. So I can't see your name, but excellent job. I'm glad to hear that. But let's talk about I don't avoid anything. There are things in life that we should avoid. Like so let's take it beyond the recovery process and sometimes there are actually things that we should avoid. Actual dangerous things, actual abusive situations and abusive people. Like there are things we wanna avoid. Don't go walking around waving your gold watch in a bad neighborhood by yourself at one o'clock in the morning, drunk. Like that's a thing you should probably avoid. So not everything. Sometimes people make the mistake of thinking if I make the choice to do something that just makes sense to anybody, anxiety or not, even non-anxious people, they will be worried that no, no, I'm avoiding. I have to do that. You don't have to do everything. Some things are legitimately things that we probably are not wise to do. Chief among those are situations where somebody is abusive to you or they are causing you actual harm physically or emotionally, the manipulative, whatever it happens to be they're controlling. That I see a lot. How do I, you know, how do I float through? How do I do exposure with somebody who is maybe abusive to me? I don't wanna get into an avoidance mode. No, no, no, that person you should avoid. Like that's okay. We never wanna do things that are legit harmful to us. All right, that's really important for me to say. So let's see here. I want to meditate. I wanna meditate but I stopped because it sometimes triggers DPDR. Does that count as avoidance? I would say that it does. Now, I'm not going to say that you, you know what? I'm not gonna say that it definitely does. That is avoidance. If you want to meditate, that is something that you want to try because you think it will be helpful and I believe that it is for a lot of people. It isn't necessarily for everybody, but you don't do it because you might feel depersonalized. Then yes, that is 100% avoidance. Like feeling depersonalized is really uncomfortable but it is not dangerous. And, you know, running from that symptom just makes it seem even scarier. Like no, I can't allow that. And that will create restrictions. So yes, I would definitely say that it is an avoidance. Let's see, you gotta scroll down a little faster here. Okay, let me just say this. I saw this one before. To stop avoidance, we have to stop fearing fear. This is so hard. So let me address that really quickly. Yes, technically that is true but stopping the fear of fear is a process. So that is actually the end result of exposure. And that is the end result when we drop avoidance. You don't stop fearing and then stop avoiding. You stop avoiding and then the end result of that process is you stop being afraid. So you have to make sure that you have them in the right order, right? So a lot of people get confused and they think, oh, I have to find a way to not be afraid so that I can stop all this avoidance. No, actually, you have to stop the avoidance first and just get better at being afraid so that you can learn to not be afraid. That's important because sometimes it gets people stuck in this place where like, oh, I can't get any better because I think I have to stop being afraid first. Stop being afraid is the end result. It's the end of the process. This is pretty common. So let's put this one up here. I'm not doing too bad on comments here. I don't intend to avoid. Very good. But sometimes as I get closer to what I intend to do, the feelings get worse and I start to question whether I should go, that is super common. Pretty much everybody does that. Don't beat yourself up over that. That is the anticipation rears its ugly head and it does make it difficult to follow through with your plans. Engvill in the Facebook group is always firm of, she always says, make a firm decision with yourself and there's no, what you can't do is don't get into a place where you're arguing with yourself. It's normal to get more afraid as the event comes closer and closer. That's okay. It's totally normal. But we just got to learn to move through it. Don't beat yourself up for feeling that way and don't allow yourself to get into the, I'm going, I'm not going, I'm going, I'm not. If you're going to bail, just bail. Better to do that than to land in that middle ground. I think I actually did a podcast episode called the discomfort of hesitation. If you go to my website and search for hesitation, we'll find a podcast episode on exactly that thing. So let's see here. Put this one up on the screen here, try and keep up. So when your lizard brain gives you avoidance ideas, do you ignore it? Yes, yes you do. There's a principle that is not exactly applicable in every situation called opposite action or opposing action. So yes, our lizard brains are telling us to avoid and run and retreat and this is dangerous and we should never be in these situations. So yes, we have to wind up doing the opposite of what it is telling us to do. So you don't ignore it, you acknowledge it and then go anyway. This is not just a cliche, feel the fear and do it anyway. Like yes, my lizard brain is telling me right now that I shouldn't do this. I understand why it thinks it's keeping me safe. My brain is trying to do what it thinks is correct for me. It just happens to be wrong. So I'm gonna have to do a really scary, difficult thing right now. So acknowledge it, you can't ignore it. It's right up in your face. It's right in your grill. You can't ignore it, you can't ignore it. You just have to, you literally have to acknowledge it and then move forward anyway. So let's see here. Panic is not an attack, just a silly mind. Yes, okay. That's straight out of like Josh and Dean's thing, right? Which was great, they try not to call. They don't like the word panic attack and I'm with those guys. So that's a good way to frame that. Let's see, I'm gonna try and get through as many of these as possible. What's this one? Let's see, something about, would you please talk about how to deal with the frozen feeling when we go to the doctor, but we feel frozen and wanna stay in the car? How do you get out of that moment? Well, I understand you feel frozen. That's not, I'm gonna say that's not a unique situation. Like people get to the car and get to the doctor and don't wanna get out. I would get to the supermarket and not wanna get out of the car. I would get to my office and not want to get out. So I think the first thing I would say is just be careful about like, well, it's special that I don't wanna get out of the car. Nobody wants to get out of the car. No one wants to walk out of the house. No one wants to get out of the car. No one wants to be home alone. No one wants to have those scary thoughts. Nobody wants to feel compulsive to do their compulsions. So it's just part of the process. I would say that you just at some point, some of it is ripped the band-aid off, but it's definitely not that easy. Just understand that like, I may have to get out of the car incrementally. I may have to get out of the car and practice that. I might have to drive to the doctor's office a bunch of times and sit in the parking lot and then practice getting out of the car and then practice walking in the office. I may have to do that. That's how I would do that. I would take steps toward that, but it's not a special thing. Almost everybody feels that resistance. So let's see, Dawn says she's doing great. Love it, love it, love it. Sam is listening to the podcast because he just made a reckless comment. For those of you who are not listening to the podcast, please take advantage of it because it is seven years now worth of free stuff that talks about all of this stuff, that all of it, all of it. And yes, so be reckless. My last podcast episode was called learning to be reckless, but not really because avoidance is fueled at least in part by the idea that doing these things feels wrong. It feels irresponsible. It feels reckless, especially if you're resisting compulsions in OCD, especially if you're resisting the urge to Google your symptoms and seek medical reassurance for health anxiety. It feels wrong, reckless, and irresponsible to do that. It feels like the responsible safe thing to do is to avoid. So when we break down that avoidance habit, we literally feel like we are being reckless. How can they be on the live and have my messages seen? Julie, I see your message. You're on the live right now. You're actually on it and I see your message. Let's see here. I refuse to go out of town. I will stay home. Okay, it has gotten so much worse. Okay, Patricia, I can't put everything up on the screen because I gotta keep moving a little bit, but Patricia says it's gotten worse over time. I understand that. And the holidays often really, really shine a light on this because it's difficult. We don't wanna avoid, and the holidays for a lot of people are times of gatherings and social things and family things. And when we have conditioned ourselves that we should avoid those things and we cannot do them, it can make it even worse. But Patricia, trust me on this, I promise, it can actually get better. It can actually get better, all right? So it can, it's hard, but it can get better. I've learned to do nothing when I feel panics is in the net. That's a nice short comment we'll put up. This is critically important. So your life is probably on the upswing and getting better because you have learned to do nothing in the face of panic, but it is hard to do. It takes practice, it takes practice. So it's not as easy as that. I always make sure of that. Okay, how do you deal with a move and moving somewhere where you don't really wanna move? Okay, well, I'll put this up because it kind of speaks to the thing I was talking about before where life enters into this too. Moving somewhere where you don't really wanna move, you are military. Well, number one, thank you for your service, but we've done several moves, but we haven't since my panic sort of started. There may be multiple things there. You may be, I mean, I understand military families sometimes move when they don't want to move. That's part and parcel of that life, which I understand, and that is certainly a sacrifice that you guys make, and we all appreciate that. But so you might, you can acknowledge the fact that maybe I just don't wanna move right now. Like I like where I am. I don't wanna move to a new place. I don't wanna go through that. That's okay to feel that way. But then also understand the other part of that, which is the, well, I'm afraid to move because this place has become my safe place and I can't possibly leave it. That's different, that's very different. Let's see here. So what else do we have? I've been avoiding and running my whole life. The stress response versus the anxious response. Well, that's, okay, I'll talk about that. I mean, that's really Josh's thing, but I could talk about that a little bit. So Josh talks about the stress response versus the anxious response. The stress response being a response to like stress because life is stressful, like, you know, whatever. Oh man, like my car just, I have a flat tire and I'm late to a meeting. That stress and there will be a response to that. It's normal, it's natural to be expected. That's normal. That would be the stress response. The anxious response, in that context of the story I just told comes after the stress response. So my car is a flat tire, I'm late, I'm running behind, I'm frantic, I feel stress, I feel the response to stress in my body and in my mind, I feel tense, my body is acting up because I'm stressed and now the anxious response is, let me take that normal natural response that all human beings have and light it on fire and make it even worse. Now I'm afraid of that response. So I think one context to think about that in would be stress response is normal. The anxious response is when you literally like the stress response on fire because you are afraid of it. That's how those two things relate in my life. That's how it worked to me. So let's see, let's keep going, let's keep going, let's keep going, no, no, no, no, no. This is a good question. I mean, we've been talking about this a little bit, like how do I know it's avoiding versus something I don't wanna do? Sometimes you don't when you're in the thick of it. Sometimes you don't know. And that's tricky, I will freely admit that. Like, is this avoidance? It's a common question. It's hard to know because when you're almost entirely, I will tell you this, at the beginning of the recovery process, when you're really still kind of almost all driven by fear, then it's hard to know, it's really hard to know. But as you go on and get better and better, you will begin to differentiate between those things. So it's kind of tough. I always tell people to a certain extent, you have to default a little bit to yes in the beginning because it's just too easy when you're in the beginning and you're still fear-driven to avoid in the name of I just don't wanna do it. But again, that's a judgment call and it's gonna vary from context to context. You're never doing, never do things that are legit dangerous or involve abusive people or manipulative people. You don't have to do that sort of stuff, all right? So that's important, but it's hard to tell. It's okay, you'll get better at discerning that as you go, all right? I love that you guys are talking to each other and I am not even involved in half of these conversations that is thrilling me because I just love when you support each other. Let's see here. Yeah, always do the opposite of what you think you need to do. Correct, that's why it feels reckless. Take it very rarely, decided to do it. It felt like a miracle, that's great. So I can't put them all up on the thing but you took the Ativan, like you panicked, all of that stuff, but you did it and you didn't even panic and it felt like a miracle. It does feel like a miracle. When we break that avoidance habit and we stop avoiding it and we start doing things that we are afraid of and we feel like, oh my God, I did this hard thing that I was so scared to do but I did it, it totally feels like a miracle. You get that like superhero, like you feel invincible. It's really awesome, so enjoy that. Can I talk about, I'm not gonna talk about eye related symptoms because no symptoms matter. Like I'm just gonna, that's no symptoms matter. I'm not gonna talk about specific symptoms here. I'm not gonna talk about dry mouth. I'm not gonna talk about bathroom symptoms. We're not gonna talk about symptoms. All the symptoms are the same. The answer, it's always the same. So let's see, a scroll. We're almost at Love the Be Reckless podcast. Nikki, you're welcome. Thank you, I'm glad you liked it. It was interesting because I don't know if Bethany is here but one of the admins in the Facebook group, she talks about the reckless this thing a lot and so it's a good concept because a lot of people are like, ooh, I'd never even noticed that. Be reckless is a mantra, like live recklessly. The funny thing about it is the reckless thing. It feels like we're doing reckless things when we stop avoiding and it feels like we're doing reckless things when we do our exposures and we intentionally do scary things, but we're not really. That's why the name of the podcast episode is How to Live Recklessly, parentheses, but not really. We're really not being reckless and over time, the more you do those things, the more you realize like, oh, that wasn't reckless at all. That was just going to the supermarket. That wasn't right. That was just going to dinner. That was just being home alone for two hours. That was not Googling my blood pressure for an hour. Like, you know, you get it over time. So it feels super reckless now, but it's really not. So let's see here. Sarah says, what if you had a past experience of making a mistake and a sense of loss of security? I've done healing. I'll put this up here as a prior long question. I'll try to answer it the best I can. What if you had a past experience of making a mistake and a sense of loss of security took place? Have done healing. But 30 years later, almost lost the job and have severe anxiety. Okay. Well, there's multiple ways that people get anxious, right? So our life experiences do teach us things. Like, oh, you know, that was a mistake. It caused a problem. It made me uncomfortable. I don't want to repeat that. Nobody wants to repeat mistakes, right? Nobody, nobody wants to repeat those mistakes. So recognize that that's okay. That's not a problem that you don't want to go down a bad path again. That's like normal, nobody would expect you to. So I think it's important to understand that healing, whatever healing means for you in that context, doesn't mean like, oh, I'll just like, I'm going to forget that. It doesn't, it doesn't mean that. Healing isn't forgetting, right? So if you had a bad past experience and you have done whatever work you needed to do, you think so that it becomes a memory. Even if it's just a memory and it doesn't, there's no flashbacks and things of that nature, bad memories do create a response. So we do respond to bad memories and we respond with the stress response and maybe the anxious response. If we are reminded that like, oh, I blew that last time. I made a mistake last time. So it's what you're experiencing is pretty normal. How do you get rid of it? Well, like everything else, you would just kind of move through it, but that's a slightly different situation I think. Sarah, I can't really say, because I don't know your exact situation. So I don't want to say too much, but it's okay to be anxious about a past mistake or a past event. It's okay, that's normal. All humans have that, it's okay. You just have to move through it and understand that then and now are two different occurrences. You can take what you learned out of that. You might make the same mistake again, whatever. You would handle it. That's the object of the game there. Grossly oversimplifying, because I just don't, I don't really know your situation. So I can't say much more than that. I'm going to scroll, we're getting to the end here. So let's see, where's the clapping emoji? Can I end this sitting at home? I have to go out and live my life. I will answer this one. This is a reasonable question. Can I recover from anxiety while sitting on the couch at home or do I have to go out and, I believe, well, look, how am I going to answer this? I'm just going to answer it with a no. No, I don't think you can recover from anxiety by sitting on your sofa all day. That would appear to be, unless your literal job is sitting on your sofa and it might be, that would appear to be a perfect example of avoidance. And one of the very earliest podcast episodes that I ever did was called overcoming anxiety, the active process or an active process, something like that. I've said so many words over the years. And I literally in that podcast episode talked about how there is no immune response to anxiety. Right, we don't have, if you got sick, like you got the flu or you got an ear infection or something or you broke your leg. Yeah, you'd sit on the sofa for a while and then your immune system would kick in or your bone would mend itself because our bodies are amazing and it does that. And then you would get better just by retreating and resting. But there's no such mechanism with this. So retreating and avoiding and resting does not trigger healing. It actually doesn't. So in a way, thank you for that question because it really brings up a very big point, which is resting and retreating and avoiding might seem in some circles or in common sense to somebody like, oh, I'm letting myself heal, but you're not. You're actually not. And I'm not saying you got to drive yourself to the brink of exhaustion every day to recover, but resting and avoiding is not promoting healing, actually. I know that sounds counterintuitive and a lot of people would come at me with pitchforks and torches for saying that. I'm not saying drive yourself into the ground, but I do not believe that you can just sit and wait to recover. You can't recover here. You can't recover just in your head by thinking about it. You actually have to do things. It's an active process. That's a shitty deal, but that's the deal we got. I wish it wasn't our deal, but it is. All right, so almost at the bottom here, looking good. Living life, have the nuts in my stomach every day. Good job, Sarah. I'm glad you're not retreating and the nuts in the stomach, no fun. So I hope you get through that really soon. All right, I really do, but you could do it. Let's see, we're just about at the end. Oh, that's a clear weeks question, let's see. I'll take a clear weeks question because she started this whole thing. What did clear weeks mean when she said we've already experienced the worst? Okay, I can answer that because I know I have said that as well. You have literally experienced all that adrenaline and anxiety and panic know how to do, right? So there is a common misconception that like, and people will say things like, oh, I'm afraid of having the worst panic attack. So there are two things here. Either you think that there's such a thing as the worst panic attack that you have yet to have, like it can somehow get worse than it already has. And the answer to that is it can't because your body is only capable of producing so much. Like that physical fear response is limiting, we're not machines. We can't just keep turning up the volume. So from a physical standpoint, you have already experienced everything that it knows how to do. And from, now let's take the other side of that, which is the sensations itself you think can get worse, but beyond that, you think that the sensations themselves will lead to something else, a heart attack going crazy, whatever, something like that. It doesn't, it never does. Again, why? Because you have experienced all that it knows how to do. Panic doesn't know how to make you insane. Panic doesn't know how to make you permanently capacitated. Panic doesn't know how to kill you. It's just not built in. It's not, that is not part of the physiology and the mechanics of panic and fear. It does not know how to do that. There is no mechanism for it to do that. It's like worrying that, if I cook the meatloaf too long, my car will explode. You might cook the meatloaf too long and that would suck, but it has nothing to do with your car. The two things are not connected in any way. So when Claire Weeks said why you've already experienced it worse and when I say that as well, that's exactly what I'm saying. One of the biggest turning points in my own recovery was understanding that and would be willing to test that. So let's go back to the reckless episode, last week's podcast episode of being reckless. I had to choose to be reckless and test that theory because my lizard brain was having none of it. Even though I knew on a logical level that it has already done its worst and it can't kill me, I still was worried that it could. And so I had to recklessly test that theory. I had to test Claire Weeks's words through action and letting it kill me and it didn't. And then every time it doesn't kill you and you didn't try to stop it from killing you, you learn again experientially, reality smacks you in the face and says, see, it doesn't know how to do that. So that was a really long answer to a short question, but I think a really important question. There is no next layer of escalation that you think is waiting in the wings. And those consequences of panic that you think can happen going crazy, dying, becoming permanently incapacitated, it will never end. You'll get stuck in a depersonalized state. There's no such mechanism for that. Those do not exist. If you follow the recovery room, when I do that with Josh and Kim and Dean, Kim and Dean have talked about, Kim and Josh have talked about that. You'll read it all over the place. A ton of clinicians will tell you that there's just no link between those things that does not happen. So yeah, it's already done the worst that it knows how to do. And that's why in a way, I've also called it a paper tiger or a toothless dragon, fireless dragon, whatever it is. All right, guys, good session, good questions. Appreciate it. We will be back again next week to do the next lesson in this book. If you do not have this book, then all I can tell you is you're missing on a ton of information. All of the stuff that I say is pretty much in this book. So you can wait for every Monday to hear me say it and I'm happy to have you come by. But if you don't have the book, go check it out. If you do have the book, go write me a review on Amazon if it's helping. There you go. You'll really be helping me out. All right, guys, I will see you. Wait, what is the last one? Any hope for guided morning meditation? Yeah, I'm gonna record more of those. I will be recording more on Insight Timer. They're gonna go on a break. So I gotta try and get one or two in before they do. Otherwise, they'll be like late January. You'll see more come out. So all right, guys, thanks for coming by. I will see you the same time next week for the next lesson. And yeah, have a good one.