 It's Monday, which means it's recovery Monday. Today on Recovery Monday, Episode 17, we're going to look at examining your three reactions to anxiety, the reaction before, during, and after. So let's get cooking. Let's wait for the usual suspects to roll in. I'm going to put the chat overlay up on the screen. If you guys could just let me know that you can hear me so I make sure everything is working correctly. We've had a fancy new internet upgrade since last stream. So hopefully it is going to be a little bit better than it was, although I do understand that there are some technical problems still happening upstream of me. So bear with me if you will. Today we are doing lesson number 3.5 out of this book, The Anxious Truth, every week on Recovery Monday. We teach a lesson out of this book. This is my anxiety recovery guide. If you do not have the book and you would like to read along with it, you can always find it on my website at theanxistruth.com. Excellent. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it that you let me know that you can hear me. Everybody just let everybody know where you're coming from. So we can all get to know each other a little bit. Chats up on the screen so you guys can see what each other is saying, which is always nice. I enjoy that. If you are coming from the Facebook group, by just a quick reminder, ReStream will not show me your name. It'll just say Facebook user, but we'll do the best we can. That's okay. So today, let's get into it right away. We're going to talk about reactions and really looking at and examining your current reactions to anxiety and panic and fear and all those things, right? So we know that the key in recovery is learning to change the way you react to anxiety and fear and the way you relate to anxiety and panic and fear. But before we go ahead and change those reactions, it's really helpful to understand what those reactions even are. And I primarily concerned with and I wrote about three reactions, the reaction before, which is anticipation and anticipatory anxiety. And then there's the reaction during, which is what do you do when you are actually in the middle of an exposure or a challenge or you're feeling very panicked. And then afterwards, Joyce is here. Hey, Joyce, good to see you. And then the reaction after is one of the most important parts of this that we miss all the time. We're going to talk about it today, which is what is the story that you tell yourself after it's all over? So when you face a challenge or you have a panic attack or you go through a big anxiety waiver and anxiety spike, and then it sort of dissipates and it goes away, what's the story that you tell yourself after that's the reaction after? So we really should look at those three reactions because they are important. And when we start to learn and understand what our reactions are, then we get started to work on changing them into something that's a little bit more productive, a little more recovery focused that moves us forward in those steps at a time, right? So that's what we're going to talk about today. Let's see who is here. Ashley is here. Billy is here. Joyce is here. Kathy K is here. What up? Cadence is here from Hamilton, Ontario. Cadence, I haven't seen you on Instagram, but just bundled up like you're in the Arctic Circle. It must be cold in Ontario these days. I don't know, but always funny. Beth, I thought you couldn't hear me, but it was her headphones not being connected. Thank you. I appreciate the technical help there. Anyhow, so let's get into this. Welcome, everybody. Christine is here from Long Island, fellow Long Islander. Welcome, neighbor. So let's talk about this. Three reactions that we care about, right? When we are anxious, then let's talk about that. Like we said, it's the reactions that matter and recovery is really about learning new reactions and a new relationship with the stuff. So let's look at the three reactions that we care about and let's start with the reaction before. And this is what we would commonly refer to as anticipatory anxiety, right? So I'm generally talking about a situation where maybe you have an exposure coming up or you have a challenge coming up. Like you have to go to a wedding or some sort of family function or a job interview or you have to go to a doctor or dentist appointment and you've been avoiding those things, right? So, and now you have a life challenge coming up. Life is going to make you do a scary thing. You cannot get out of it. And now you are in that like anticipatory anxiety trap where you are just thinking about it. You're obsessing about it. You're constantly running through your head. You're dreading it. You can't seem to get back to the present. That is the reaction before. Now it doesn't have to be necessarily in front of an exposure or a life challenge. It could really be almost any time. So any time you find that yourself, you're in a situation where you are anticipating or worrying about what might happen to make you anxious, what might trigger you, what might make you panic today, what might make you feel badly. One really good example of this that doesn't necessarily have to do with either a forced life challenge like a wedding or a doctor visit or a planned exposure would be sleep. So your reaction before being anxious, when you can't sleep and you are thinking OMG, if I don't sleep enough tonight, then I am going to be anxious tomorrow and you get yourself into that anticipatory anxiety like lather because you think that if I don't sleep, then my anxiety is going to go through the roof. It's going to trigger me and I might panic tomorrow. I'm not going to feel. So these are really common things. When you are anticipating how you might feel down the road and you are worrying about how you might feel if you will be triggered, if you're able to handle it, this is your reaction to anxiety beforehand. Now in that moment, you're also anxious. So it's a little bit strange in that way. But it is important that we look at that. How are you reacting to things that you think might happen or are going to happen? That's your first reaction that we care about. As we go on in these lessons, we'll talk about changing those reactions. But today we just care about identifying them and giving you something to think about so that you can really sit down and say, well, what do my reactions look like? Am I sitting frozen and just thinking about the event? Am I constantly in my head ruminating over it? Am I trying to predict the future? Am I desperately on the internet trying to find a way to make myself feel better about this thing that I'm worried about? Look at what your before reactions are, your reaction before. What is it that you're doing? What are your habits that you engage in when you are in that pre-anxiety, even though you're anxious at the moment, pre-exposure, pre-challenge, worried about the future state? So in the end, it helps for you to sit down and really start to look at like, well, what am I doing in that state? Now the second reaction that we care about is the reaction during, which is the reaction when you are actually in that anxious state. So you are in the exposure, you are meeting that challenge, you're at the dentist, you're at the doctor, you're at the airport, you're on your trip that you've committed to taking with your family and you won't cancel it, so now you're in it. So what is your reaction while you're in it, while you are in the panic when you're feeling it starting to rise, when the anxiety wave comes up over you, when that health anxiety is kicked up or when those anxious thoughts or scary thoughts popped up, that's your reaction during. Like what happens when you are in that state? What is your reaction there? And for most people, the reaction by default is to brace, to fight, to try to stop it, to get away from it, to run away, to escape, to soothe, to calm. So you really got to think about that, right? Yeah, okay, Ashley says the reaction, run! Like yes, the reason why we call them panic attacks is in panic, you have that like really strong desire to just run, like escape, right? Then that's common, that's the normal reaction. So that is the way that goes, right? You have to look at when I am in an anxious state, when that panic is rising or when I'm in panic, when I'm at that wedding or that birthday party or I'm stuck at the restaurant with my family or we're not going to leave for two hours or whatever it happens to be. What am I doing? How am I reacting to my fear, to my anxiety, to all the thoughts and sensations that come with it? That's the reaction during what happens during the event. How do you react and relate to your anxiety during the event? That's probably the one that we think about more than any other. So this is probably the one that's at the forefront for most people. What happens when I panic? What do I do when I panic? What do I do when I have these scary thoughts? What do I do when I want to Google symptoms because my health anxiety is kicked up? That's the one that we probably pay attention to more than any other is what happens when I feel this bad. What can I do? What can I do? So I don't know who it's freezing for, but you could try it on YouTube. I don't know if it's freezing on Facebook. I don't know, but it's on my YouTube, so you can check it out there if you want. So when you are in the thick of it, right, when you are in the thick of it, what exactly do you do to respond to anxiety and panic? And like I said, that's the one that we probably care about the most. If you are watching videos like this, you're reading my books, you're following other people like me online, and you're kind of invested in all this recovery stuff, you are primarily, you are primarily probably worried about what you fear, what you are feeling when you're in the thick of it. But that's only one of the reactions. Remember, we had the one before, that's the anticipation reaction. But and then the one while you're in the thick of it is the one that you are probably worried about the most. How do I make myself feel better? How do I make it stop? How do I make it go away? You're only focused on your reaction during the anxiety, whatever, the anxiety spike in that highly anxious state. You're worried about that more than any other. But you have to really think about the first one before, and you're going to have to think about the second one, the third one, which is the one that I'm talking about in a second, we're going to get to that. So take a second and really think about, well, what do I do when I feel the panic rise? When I feel my anxious thoughts come up, do I feel, do I automatically speak them out loud? Do I have to automatically tell somebody how I'm feeling just in case so they know that, you know, my heart is beating really quickly so that they can save me? Do I automatically run to Drew's Facebook group and post about it and search the group and looking for people to reassure me, you know, what is it? So really think about that when you are in the thick of it, which is the part again that we care about the most understandably. We totally understand that. What do you do when you get into thinking about what are your reaction habits in the middle when the shit is hit the fan and the chips are down? What do you do? Okay. The third reaction that we care about, and this is the one that I think we talk about the least, but it might be the most important one and hear me out on this. Everybody cares about when you're in the thick of it, like I was just saying, first and foremost, that's the one you care about most. The second one you care about is anticipation. Oh my God, I have a dentist appointment coming. Oh my God, my husband's going to go on, you know, he's going on a work trip and I haven't been home alone for two months and I'm terrified. So we care about the anticipation before because it's super uncomfortable. We certainly care about what it feels like when we're in the heat of it in the moment. But the part that we forget almost more than any other is that third reaction, which is the reaction afterwards. The reaction afterwards is actually where the magic happens. So when I talk about the reaction afterwards, what I'm talking about is after this experience is over or you're coming out of it, you're exiting it, it's an exposure, the wedding is over, your dentist appointment is over, your partner comes home from their trip and then you're not left alone anymore. And, you know, so that the crisis has passed or whatever it is, what is the story that you tell the panic attack is over, right? What is the story that you tell not only the world, more importantly yourself afterwards? What is the lesson that you take from that experience? There are two ways you can go with that. One lesson is that was awful is hell on earth. That was the worst thing ever. I almost passed out. I almost did this. I almost went insane. You really interpret it as it's the worst thing to ever happen to me. I cannot ever let that happen again. I do not want it to happen again. I barely made it. Like I don't know what got me through it. I just managed. I luckily got through it. If that is your reaction afterwards, then no matter what you do during, it becomes really difficult to make a meaningful change on the large scale, right? So when you go, if it was a panic attack as an example, if you have a panic attack and your reaction after that panic attack is to sell everybody that would listen, but mainly yourself that you are, that you just went through the worst possible experience, every panic attack is the worst one. It's all level 10. It's all the mother of all panic attacks. It's, it's the worst. I just barely made it. I felt like I was going to go insane. It felt like I was going to die. It felt like it was going to pass out. If you do that, right? If you do that continuously, the way you tell the story afterwards is that you just barely made it and it was just dumb luck that you actually survived and somehow managed to dodge some sort of bullet, then you're going to have a hard time with recovery because it's in that after effect. It's in the reaction after that we actually take on the lesson. So I did a podcast on this not too long ago. I think it was called refusing to, to learn the lessons of recovery, which was all about that at the, after that anxious experience, the anxiety will sit in the back of the room and scream at you. That was terrible. That was awful. That was awful. That was awful. But really and truly reality is telling you, well, you were very afraid. You were unsure. You were vulnerable. You weren't comfortable, but nothing happened, but nothing happened. So the best story, for instance, for a panic attack that you could possibly tell would be, I had a panic attack. That was really scary. Now it's over. Nothing happened. That's it. Now I know that for a lot of people that sounds like, well, I'm not allowed to say what I feel like I'm supposed to suppress my emotions. No, not at all. But what I would rather see everybody do and what I had to learn how to do, this was a big deal. I had to learn to really speak about the experience to myself, to myself, first and foremost, in a more objective way. So telling everybody that it was terrible and hell on earth, okay, but that didn't help me at all. The reality of it was, well, nothing happened. I was really afraid. I was panicky. I was really afraid, or I was stuck in that loop of thinking about death and dying in existence. But that is one way to definitely, if you're going to keep describing it as, I barely made it. We talk about it all the time in the Facebook group. We talk all the time. Somebody will say, oh, I had to do this thing. It was a big exposure. It was a big deal. I had to do this exposure. I had to go to a wedding or we took a trip. We drove to the next city today and we went to a museum. Didn't think I could do it. I made it. And a lot of times a bunch of us will roll in and would say, no, no, you didn't make it. You did it. You were always going to make it. You were always going to make it. You did it. So I see the difference in the language there. So the reaction after is the one that we overlooked the most, but it might be the one that matters the most. So after you get past running and escaping and fleeing the actual anxious situation, if you could get yourself to the point where now I'm going to stay in it and navigate, that's awesome. But if you slew back around and tell the entire universe that it was the worst possible experience and that you can't handle it when reality is clearly telling you that you did, you just felt bad when you did it, then you're going to have a hard time. So we really have to care about that third reaction, the reaction after really important, really important. The story you tell yourself and everybody that will listen is really important. That's the reaction after. So when you're examining the way you react and relate to your anxiety or panic, your fear, all the stuff that comes with it, ask yourself, what do I do when I'm anticipating fear and anxiety and panic and scary things? What do I do when I'm in the thick of it? And then what do I do after? It's really important to really sit down and sort of be honest with yourself, write it down or think about it, whatever, record it into your phone. What do I really do? Walk myself through that. What am I doing? What am I actually doing when I'm in those three situations? Anticipation in the thick of it and then after, what do I do? So before you can start to really make meaningful change in a more healthy and productive way, it would be really helpful to know, oh, this is the way I do it now and I see what it is and I'm going to have to change. That helps a lot. This is the thing I say all the time and I am the last person in the world that loves structure and planning. I hate it. I literally hate structure and planning, but in recovery, structure and planning could be super useful because if you're just going to make it up as you go along and just be in reactionary mode to every thought, feeling, sensation and situation, you're just going to react to it without having any idea of what you're going to do ahead of time. It gets really, really, really difficult because when we're in reactionary mode, especially because we are afraid, we don't make good choices. We don't make good choices. So think about those three reactions. Reaction before, reaction during, reaction after. Start to think about what you do in those situations and then we can start to move on to like, well, what can we do differently? What can we do differently? So let's take some questions here. That wasn't bad. I got through the whole thing in about 60 minutes. Very good. I apologize. This is starting to look like a Facebook problem more than anything else. People are saying that it's freezing on Facebook. It's working perfectly on YouTube, it appears. So I don't know why it's freezing on Facebook. If it was a problem that I could solve, then it would be freezing everywhere. So sorry about that. Welcome everybody. Welcome everybody. Welcome everybody. Let's see here. I have a agoraphobia of what needs to be unconcurrent with constant exposure. Can you, can give you PTSD? Anything that makes you live in worry? Elevated card. Okay. This is a pretty big, okay. So there's a pretty big comment here. William was talking about like, can, can you get PTSD from recovery? I mean, I'm gonna get, if you're asking for my opinion, that reaction afterwards plays a big role. So I just talked about the reaction afterwards. I think it sort of matters, right? So you have decided that, oh my God, I was in a worried state. I had cortisol in my bloodstream. Like cortisol is natural, but I saw you say cortisol, elevated cortisol levels. It's going to turn into memory loss. Like that story as opposed to, hey, look, I did some really scary things and now I'm not afraid to do them anymore, which by all accounts would be a really positive experience. And they're trying to minimize what you went through, but look at the way you are talking about it. Yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but I had cortisol and that could be damaging. Yes, but it was really scary. And like scary things can cause you to be traumatized. I'm not saying that they can't, but I can't give you a definitive answer as to whether or not you can get PTSD from recovery, but how you are going to frame that and talk about it and decide, well, I did it, but let me tell you all the reasons why what I did was actually bad. Instead of I overcame my agoraphobia, that can play a role. I can't give you a definitive answer to it. Nobody can. Like maybe you got a therapist, maybe you talked about with your therapist, but the internet certainly cannot answer that question for you. So there you go. Let's see what else we got here. This was one of the funniest thing when Ashley put this up here. Sadie says you are the stories you tell yourself. There's a certain truth to that. Ashley kind of nailed that. The reaction run is pretty common. That would be the normal reaction for most of us. And one of the things that makes recovery in this process so difficult is that is the reaction that almost all human beings would have to run to run, but recovery lies in not running. So that's what makes this like so counterintuitive and so difficult. Let's see here. I remember this from your book, changing before and after reaction. Okay, this is good. I'm putting it up on the screen. I think these are things that we miss a lot when we are solely focused on, but what do I do when I am most afraid? You are missing all the fuel that you pour on the fire ahead of time, and you are missing the fact that you may completely discount the fact that nothing happened. So it's the before and the after that really become the secret sauce. Yes, what you do in the middle of the package act certainly matters. It's probably the first thing you're going to care about. But if you do not address the before and the after, you may find yourself in a loop where it's like, well, I'm doing the things I'm doing and I'm doing it, but nothing is changing. That's one of the reasons why, possibly, because you're missing that. So let's see here. Okay, this is another very typical example. Open the window, put the AC on, anything to get your mind off it, the need to go home, the Zoomies. I know the Zoomies. I give full credit to my editor, Hillary. She put the word Zoomies in 7% slower and it seems to have caught on. Those are the standard responses that any human being would want to have. I want to decrease my discomfort right now. Nobody blames anybody for that, but those aren't the most productive responses. So let's see here. This is great. Crystal, let's pop this up in the screen. It's not great that you weren't feeling well, but it's great that you're going through this in a productive way. Home alone with the babies, anxiety, air hunger has been nonstop, ragged on, not calling anyone, just surrender. And yes, eventually it will show you that it was safe. Now, you absolutely can, you can't acknowledge, hey, that was really difficult. Like that was really scary. I'm not telling anybody to pretend that it's not difficult or scary. You don't have to deny that you were afraid. Like you literally were afraid. That's correct. That fear is 100% real just that the basis beneath it isn't necessarily real. Like the fear in this case, we're learning that fear and danger are not necessarily the same thing. So it's okay to acknowledge that it was really difficult. That was super scary. It was like scared to death. Okay, that's cool. But nothing actually happened. Nothing actually happened. It's always, and nothing actually happened. Being afraid is not an event that is worthy of like, no, no, but it really did happen. I panicked. I know, but what happened as a result of the panic? Nothing. So you have to be really careful about that, right? Let's see here. I feel relief after, okay, this is important. I feel relief afterwards and I can see things clearly. Yes, you will feel relief. Noel, thank you for saying this because it's important for us to acknowledge this. After the fact, the reaction after there will be relief. Anybody, I'll use driving anxiety. Like that was my jam, right? Anybody who's ever been in a situation where they're driving it really anxious driving, the minute you turn that car towards home and you get closer and closer to the home, that sense of relief is real. You feel that relief. So you can 100% acknowledge that. And Noel, I'm really glad that you brought it up because that's real. The relief is real. It's not not in your head and you don't have to deny the relief. Yeah, it feels a whole lot better when I go home. But the fact that you're acknowledging, well, I can see things more clearly when I get into a state of relief. It's important because that tells us, well, when we're in freak out mode, we don't really see things terribly clear. We just don't. But yes, I was, I had a sense of relief when the exposure was over. I had a sense of relief when we got home or whatever it happens to be. But really, even when I was really afraid, nothing bad happened. So you have to be careful that you don't take that relief, which is the thing that starts to fuel the disorder, because then you will say, we'll see when I go home, I got relief. And so therefore, I must always go home. For example, I must always go home. That isn't necessarily true. You could have gotten relief even when you don't go home. That's, that's the lesson there. So like I didn't do anything to save myself and I was still okay. Okay. We are the story we tell ourselves is a thing. It is a thing. I'm not a big, huge fan of like a lot of that stuff at a very deep level, but in the end, we are the stories we tell ourselves. This is a, these are philosophical things about perceptions and reactions showing we could love to talk about that stuff. But yes, let's take that as having a grain of truth to it. It does matter. Afterwards, if you refuse to take the lesson of reality, because all you're going to care about is how you felt and the thoughts that you had in what your body was doing, if that's all you're ever going to care about, then recovery will be difficult for you to come by because you have to really accept the lesson of reality. And some people will say like, well, you know, then, you know, I don't have to say like it really, the bad thing really does happen because you see the panic as the bad thing or you see that the scary thoughts are being afraid as the bad thing. But being afraid, you know, being afraid is not an event. Like it's a thing, it's impactful, but we have to, if you're in that situation where you think, no, feeling panic is the event, the bad thing really does happen. Being afraid really does happen. That's a tough one. So you have to really redefine that and say, well, yeah, but what was the result of that? So let's see. So I'm doing this, I'm going to try to be more quiet about mine. Okay, this is important. Let me throw this up on the screen real quick. And I always like to truly be like super clear about this. I'm going to be more quiet about mine says Julie. Hey, Julie, how are you doing? So I want to talk about that for a second, like be quiet about it. I know that I've written about that. I talk about that. My podcast episode, how do you talk about your anxiety or what is your habit of words was another podcast episode that you did that's really popular. And some people really like, well, what do you mean I have to be quiet? And I can't say this enough that I'm not trying to teach anybody to stuff your emotions or never express yourself. We just really have to take a look at like, well, what are we defining as self expression or healthy self expression, continually speaking the same fear again and again and again, and telling the same horror stories again and again and again. Okay, you could say that's expressing yourself. Sure, technically it is. But is that a really productive and healthy way of self expression? I would argue that there are other ways that you can more healthily express yourself and honor your emotions. I was really afraid. Like I was really unsure of myself. Yes, validate those emotions, validate those experiences. But you can do that without drawing the conclusion that and it was terrible and it was it was awful because you handled it. So we're never trying to learn to like stuff our emotions. I've had people say, I'm never allowed to tell anybody how I feel anymore. No, no, no, that's not it at all. This is very specific that we're talking about. So let's see here. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You believe that this will work? Yeah, let me throw this out here. I know it's a really common question, right? Do you believe that this will work for anyone to matter to what extreme their anxiety is at or ingrained in them? So this is one of those perceptual things or this is all about the story that you tell. So many, many people, some of you guys watching right now, people in the community, podcast listeners, people who read my books, will often say, Yeah, but my anxiety is so bad. My anxiety is so bad. If I could line 15 of you up in a room, have you sit? I won't line you up. Have you sit in the circle? I would almost bet that every one of you would would probably make the assertion. But my anxiety, yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but is a is probably the number one phrase used in the community. Yes, but or but what about anything with the word but in it, right? So the assumption is no, no, no, I feel it so intensely that I think I probably have it worse than anybody else because I feel it really intensely, right? That might be a mistake, right? I'm not trying to minimize or invalidate your experience or what you feel. I know you feel that way. I get how afraid you are and how it feels so intense. But you are basically saying, Well, I'm taking these reactions, these physiological reactions and these thoughts that we all share, we all have those same reactions like biology is biology. And you've decided, Well, because of the way I feel about it, this is what is my proof that it is really bad. So I did, I said a thing a few months ago. So there's two things that I could tell you about anxious thoughts, because in the end, that's a thought problem. Anxious thoughts are really strong, but they're also really wrong. So those two things are true at the same time, I'm not going to say that they are not strong. The feeling that your anxiety is so intense is very strong. That's a really strong feeling and thought, but it could also be really wrong, just that the stronger it is, the less likely we are to entertain the idea that is also strongly wrong. So they could be really strong, but they can be epically wrong, except that the strongness makes us discount the fact that, well, they keep, they're wrong every time. So my anxiety is the worst. I, it's so, I feel it so intensely. So therefore it must be true that it is special, is not correct, but there's a, we have a bias. We do evaluate things based on how we feel and our emotions and things like that. That's so normal. That's just built into every human being, but we have to really question that, like, is that true? All right. So let's see here. Donna, welcome back. Donna was sick for a while. I'm happy to see you on your feet again and like getting there. So take, take good care of yourself, but happy to see you like on the upswing. Very good. So let's see here. Okay, this is good. I can't tell who this is. I had a panic attack for the first time in a long time today. I felt so self-involved until I paused. Ah, I wish I knew who that was. I'm sorry because it only shows me Facebook user, but yes, I am going to give a big fist bump to that comment. I felt so self-involved. That is so, so, so important in these situations. Recognizing that anxiety will essentially be, pay attention to me, me, me, me, me. Not that you're selfish, but anxiety. You're not self-involved, but the anxiety and the fear is incredibly, incredibly self-involved. It's all about me and how I feel. In that moment, all we care about is me, me, me, me, me. How am I feeling right now? What am I thinking? This is the worst. I am having the worst experience ever, but that pause that you're able to put in and kudos to you, like huge fist bump for doing that, gives us a little bit of space where we start to see that, oh, wait a minute here. Wait a minute. We could do something a little bit differently. Wait a minute. We could do something a little differently, right? So, that's so important. I love the way you brought that up. I was very self-involved until I put in a pause. That is so important. That's where that power is. It's in that little tiny pause. That space contains a huge amount of power in that little tiny space. Good job. Excellent, excellent job. So, let's see here. I'm going to try and scroll down to the bottom here. I don't have too much more time, but let's see here. This is a, this is kind of, I hear this all the time. Let me throw this out here. So, let me throw this out here. I'll try to put some on the screen. Okay. Why do we get more anxious when I'm reading your posts and books and podcasts? I feel more anxious like I'm feeding my health anxiety. This is a thing that I hear quite often. In fact, you know, I wrote this book and I've written other books, right? So, there is a very large segment and, you know, I'm very fortunate. The Anxious Truth has sold many, many copies, many, many copies. But I estimate that somewhere between 20% and 30% of all the people who bought it start reading it. Love chapter one and chapter two because it's the feel good. Like you're not broken. You can do this part and then they get really afraid to read the rest. So, sometimes listening to people who sound like me, and you know, like my friends and frequent collaborators, we all say very much similar same thing. A lot of times we can trigger your anxiety because when you are hoping to find somebody who will calm you and soothe you, then, but you get somebody inside who's going to tell you, you know, you have to actually do scary things and do the opposite of that to get better. It could totally be triggering. That's actually really common. So, all I can, I can't exactly tell you why you get more anxious because I can't be in your head and they don't know you personally, whoever said that, but know that it's extremely common. I have a lot of people who say they have a problem sometimes listening to me because it's like, oh no, he's telling me the stuff that I don't want to hear. I understand. I'm not telling you stuff to make you feel bad, but I feel like I'm trying to say the things that we have to hear. All right. Let me scroll down, scroll down, scroll down. Let's see here. It's a good question. What did I tell myself during exposure? I'll throw it up on the screen. Billy asks, what did I tell myself during exposure? I didn't tell myself a lot, right? So you guys have heard me say things like, again, one of my most popular podcast episodes was entitled, why positive self-talk is bullshit. Now, okay, maybe that was a little clickbait and that's me being a smart ass because I am sometimes, but I am not a huge fan of, of the talk during, like during is not the time to try to talk yourself down. So usually what I would tell myself is I would prepare myself and like, all right, here we go. I'm going to, this is it. I'm going to do this really scary thing. The only thing that I might be, if I think about what my inner dialogue really was, it was more instructive than anything else. Like, relax, put your shoulders down. You know, I was reminding myself of the actions that I had to take. Now, in the beginning, all of my talk during a challenging situation was soothing or calming talk, but as I got better at it than that talk, if I really think about that, it was a really good question, Billy. That dialogue changed from being soothing and calming to being more instructive, right? So, oh, that's right. I have to do this. Remember to breathe, put your shoulders down, like, go, you know, relax, no tensing. I would have, I would remind myself of those things. Chin up, chest out. Like that was what my talk looked like during exposures when they got really effective. It's a good question, really good question. Let's see here. Let's see. Let's see here. I feel like, okay, this is good too. Let's throw this out really quick. I feel like after the panic attack, I actually remember it as worse than it really was. Yeah, you probably do. You probably do. Now, that actually can change over time. So, well, here's a common theme, right? This is a thing that you can, where was that? Hide the message, take it off. So that's a common theme. And here are the red flags that I see all the time. It was the worst panic attack. It was the mother of all panic attacks. I had a level 10 panic attack. Look at the words that you use to describe it, right? And try to change that a little bit to like, oh, I had a panic attack or I experienced a panic spike or I felt panic. So the way you describe that, if you are continually in the habit of saying it was level 10, it was five alarm, it was, you know, it was hell, it was the worst panic attack, the mother panic attack. One of the things that's really common for people that have panic disorder to do and people in the community is to describe almost every panic attack is the worst panic attack. It's not possible that every panic attack could be the worst. It's just not possible because that would mean that there was an infinite layer of worstness that can happen in panic. And that's just simply not true. So panic is panic. Adrenaline can only do so many things. When it does what it does, what makes it feel and makes you interpret it as more severe or not severe is the level of fear in that moment. What do you do? If you get caught up in, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. And you think of it as like, I don't know what I did, but I made it and I barely escaped death or incapacitation. Then you're basically interpreting the same physiology that you always experience. In that case, for whatever reason, it seems like, oh, that one was worse. Well, no, you were just more afraid of that one. It doesn't mean it was objectively worse. That's important too. People, if you were hooked up to all kinds of medical monitoring devices during panic, you would see that for the most part range of response is relatively limited. It's our interpretation and how much fear we had on top of it that will lead us to believe that was the worst one, or everyone is the worst one, but not everyone can be the worst one. It's not possible. So let's see here. What do I think about untangle? Okay. I'll put it up on the screen. What do I think about untangling your anxiety? I've read Untangling Your Anxiety. It's Josh and Dean's book. It's very similar. If you've read The Anxious Truth, you're not going to find anything that's very different. If you've read Untangling Your Anxiety, you might not find anything different in my book. We're all very much saying the same thing, right? One way or the other. We're all essentially giving you guys the same message again and again and again. Everybody says it a little bit differently. So you might find that Josh and Dean, the way they wrote their book, it resonates more with you more than I do. There's nothing wrong with that. For some people, the way I write and speak resonates a little more. So the message is almost always the same. I would never review those books because it's probably not fair because those are people I collaborate with and they are friends of mine. So I might be biased in that. But I would tell you that you find the people that resonate with you, but you're going to find that for the most part. We're all telling you the same thing, right? I'm going to put this on the screen real quick before we end this because this is important. I don't know if it's the same person or not. Again, I can only see Facebook user. I get anxious because reading your books and podcasts is like I'm telling myself that, yes, I'm broken and I need help. This is a good point. Nobody who does what I do, I did not write these books to make you feel like you were broken. I wrote the books and I do this podcast and I do what I do to try to tell you to offer you the alternative perspective that says you are not broken. You just can change the way things are going. So I, first time I've ever heard anybody say that and I appreciate you bringing that out there, but it depends on how you're going to consume it. If you can, if you continue, I'll throw this out here to end it up, right? Because I think it's important to say, if you're in the habit of consuming this type of information, the information that I produce, my books, my podcasts, Josh's stuff, Deans, Kimberly's, whoever you like to follow, Jenna Overbaugh, all of the people you see me work with, if you are following us and consuming our information again and again and again, but not necessarily really acting on it, then you could definitely wind up in a situation where all it does is remind you that you have a problem. Because if you take the information that I'm putting out there and I'm not blaming anybody, I'm not saying that I'm not picking on anybody, I'm not invalidating anybody or shaming you for this, but if you consume the information again and again and again and you don't actually act on it, then it would be very easy to wind up in a situation where you might feel, well, I just, all I'm doing is reminding myself that I have a problem. And that would be true, right? That would be true. So, you know, for somebody, for instance, like, you know, I was a gym, a fan of going to the gym, right? So into strength training and powerlifting. And for a while, I did spend a lot of time learning about the sport of powerlifting. I would watch videos and instructional videos, proper form and technique and different theories of muscle development and kinesiology and that sort of stuff. If I did that without ever going to the gym and actually lifting heavy things, I would not get any stronger. I would not become a better lifter. And that information might lead me to conclude, I'm just weaker than every one of these people, right? So it was great to have all that information at my fingertips, but I had to take that information and then actually use it and do that work. Yeah, I was still probably weaker than a lot of those guys in those videos because they were just monsters. But in the end, I could, you could see where, if you don't actually put the information into practice, whoever information it is, you could, you could wind up, you could wind up in that situation. Okay, there you go. So this is important. All right, Simon, that's, that's a good point. And it's a lot of insight there. So it's a really good comment that you made. I'm going to guys, I'm going to wrap it up because I'm getting that running out of time. But if all you're doing is reading and researching and thinking and posting and discussing and talking about it, and you're hoping that that will somehow get you to the point where things begin to change, you can wind up frustrated and in that situation where it's like, this just feels like an unsolvable problem because part of the solution that you're missing would be the action. Right? So really important. There you go, guys. That was, I don't know what lesson this is in the anxious truth. That was chapter three, lesson five, three dot five in this book. You don't have the book and you want to want to follow along. You can find it on my website, the anxious truth.com. And I will put this up on the screen because these are going so well. I'm really happy with the way this is going. If you are not subscribed to the anxious morning, there's an email newsletter to the podcast. Go to that URL at the bottom, the anxious morning dot email, anxious morning.com and sign up because every morning, every weekday morning, little lesson goes out, little podcast, little email. People seem to be really loving it. I'm enjoying producing it. And there you go. So if you, this will stay in the Facebook group, it'll stay in my Facebook page. It'll stay on my YouTube and I will post it on Instagram in about an hour. So if you're on YouTube by all means, subscribe to the channel and like like and subscribe and do all that stuff. I'm done. I can tell you that. I appreciate you guys coming. Next week, we get into changing your reactions. I believe that was the longest chapter in this book. Lesson 3.6 was the, I remember the day that I wrote that. It was an all day writing session and that chapter by itself is several thousand words. So next week we're going to talk about changing your reactions. We'll see you next Monday at the same time, same place. See you guys later. And yeah, keep moving forward.