 love to read about anxiety, talk about anxiety, watch videos and listen to podcasts. But recovery is actually a doing thing. We must do things to recover. It's Monday, which means it's recovery Monday. This is episode 21. And today, that's what we're talking about. So let's get cooking. Let's see who is here. I'm gonna put the chat overlay up as usual. Let me know that you can hear me. Let me know where you're coming from. Let's get comfortable. Another Monday 21st week that we're doing this, I cannot believe that we've been doing this for this long, but we have and we still have quite a bit more to go. We're gonna be doing these well into the spring. I will just remind you guys as you are filing in filing in and finding your seats, pulling up your beverage, whatever it is, that every Monday, we do a lesson out of this book, the anxious truth, which is my recovery guide. And so if you do not have a copy of the book and you want to go along with it, by all means, you can find it on my website at the anxious truth.com. I think it's a good book. Everybody that reads it appears to think it's a good book. So go grab a copy if you don't already have it. Let's see here, GBG is here, Amanda is here, Bethany can hear me. Yay, fellow Long Islander, Christine, welcome. So today, we're going to talk about the idea that recovery is a doing thing. We have to actually do stuff, which we all hate. We don't want to do stuff. It would be great if we could just read books and listen to podcasts and recover, but it doesn't work that way. So we're gonna go over that. They will do some Q&A like we usually do. And yeah, let's get cooking. Let's get into it. So this, this part of Recovery Monday, this starts chapter four in the anxious truth. So the book is laid out in five different chapters really. And chapter four is all about learning how to make a recovery plan. And then chapter five, which we'll get into in a couple of months or wherever long that's going to be is about how to execute that plan. So the first step in knowing how to create a recovery plan is to understand that the plan is about doing this isn't about what other books you can read, it's not about what other podcasts you can listen to. It's not about following more people on YouTube or watching more videos. This is about identifying the things that we can do actually behaviors that we can engage in and things that we can do or behaviors that we can not engage in for the GAD folks and the health anxiety people. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Why do we have to do things? Why is this a doing solution as opposed to a just a reading or a talking solution? The reason why we have to do things is because in the end recovery from an anxiety disorder is really about learning, right? So I always like to say that nobody really has to heal. We have to learn not saying there isn't healing involved and not trying to take away your healing. But recovery is not really a healing process. It's a learning process or you might say an unlearning process if you will. And we need to find good ways to learn. And there are a couple of different ways that humans learn. I can't go through all of learning theory in one little video, but we can learn by ingesting right by literally reading a book or listening to an audio book or watching a video. I can read about how to play the guitar, but that doesn't actually teach me how to play the guitar. We get no better at the guitar by just reading about it. The second way is I can watch somebody play the guitar so we can have somebody model behavior for us. And that helps us learn as well. And that's valuable. So is the reading and that sort of stuff reading and listening. That's valuable. Watching somebody engage in certain behavior. That's also valuable for sure. But I can watch great guitarists all the time, which I do like to do because it's just enjoyable. But watching Mark Knopfler or watching, you know, David Gilmore doesn't make me a better guitarist in any way. I enjoy it, but it doesn't make me a better guitarist. It sort of shows me what I would love to be able to do. But before I could do those things, I have to actually do them. So the most effective ways that human beings, beings learn new habits and new behaviors, because this is about behavior change, not changing your thoughts is to do those new behaviors. Like we do not get better at doing new things and learning new things to do unless we actually do them. We do them. We are bad at them at first. We stumble, we fail, we get it wrong, we refine, we integrate our learning, we integrate our listening, we integrate our watching and seeing other people who are ahead of us in the recovery journey, we can model what they do. And so we get it over time, right? But we have to do the things in order to learn. You will not learn to be a recovered person. If you think you could just read about it or talk about it or wish to be recovered, it just just doesn't work that way, which thinks I wish it did. If it did, we wouldn't be here today and everybody would be feeling good and you wouldn't need me and that would be great. But unfortunately, it doesn't. We have to do things. We have to leverage the ability of human beings to learn through experience. What are we learning when we do? Well, we're learning new skills and we're learning to build actual new behaviors, new ways to relax into anxiety, be not reactive to it. We are learning those things. We're learning how to act differently. But we're also learning that the outcomes when we do those things are positive. So I felt really bad and I still felt afraid. But, oh, look, nothing actually happened, even though I didn't try to save myself. So we learned to act a new way toward anxiety, relate to it a different way behaviorally. And then we hopefully learn the lessons that come out of that, which is, oh, even when I dropped all my safety behaviors and went toward it, the bad thing didn't happen. Because the panic and the anxiety itself is not the bad thing. The bad thing is what you interpret that as. I'm going to go insane. This will never end. I might get stuck like this. I might die. We all know the common fears. So those are the things we learn through doing. We practice our actual new behaviors and we take the lessons that come out of those experiences that say, oh, yeah, I did it this new way. That wasn't so good at it today. I'm working on it. And look, nothing bad happened to me, even though I was really afraid and uncomfortable. I don't want to do it this way. But look, I learned something today. That is why we have to do things. So I will definitely catch up with the comments in the end, by the way, but I will just kind of get through the little bit of a lecture first and then we'll do some Q&A. So I'll catch up to you guys, I promise. So why that's why we have to learn. So again, if I go back to this chapter, which is lesson 4.1 of the book, we have to acknowledge why, not only why we do it that way, but why we can't just do it by talking and reading and speaking and affirmations and mantras and repeating things. Why doesn't that work? Well, that doesn't really work because the part of your brain that's responsible for all of this stuff, like kind of the fear response and the threat detection response going off the rails, doesn't understand any of that stuff. It's not designed to listen to you speak. It's not designed to, you know, listen to positive quotes. It's not designed to be inspired. It's designed to find things that are threats to you and protect you from them. That's all it knows how to do. So it's not terribly complex that way. And it's just not ever listening. It doesn't understand. It doesn't understand when you want to speak your way to recovery. It doesn't understand when you want to mindset your way to recovery. It doesn't understand when you want to think different ways or think positively or none of that stuff or listen to all the podcasts that ever produced. It just isn't listening. It only knows experience. So we have to give it experience. That's why we can't just talk about this. It would be great if we could, but we can't just talk about it. We can't just try to find like, oh, you know, new mindset. I got to get a different way to do this in my head. I have to just get it. Something has to click. No, we actually have to do the things. So that's really important. It's a raw deal. It's not the best deal, but it is the deal we have. And I say that all the time. So we kind of have to go through this and do the things because those outcomes every time we do them, teach us again that the bad thing never happened, right? It never happened. That's really important. The doing is only half of it. So if you guys are out there and you're like, no, I do all the things. Or if you're, you know, a health anxiety person or whatever and you're talking about, well, I haven't Googled in a long time, that's great. That's really a good thing. But in the end, like if we don't take the second half of that lesson, that nothing bad actually happened, then we're missing half of the doing. So the doing and recovery is both of those things. It's I have to do the scary thing or refrain from doing the safe thing, right? If you're a health anxiety person or a bad person. And then I must realize that, oh, nothing bad actually happened. So one common mistake that people make in terms of the doing is like, well, I do all the things I do, I am out, I live my life, I'm not homebound, I do all my stuff. But the second part of the doing, which is the part where you actually try to actively take in the reality of the experience. Sometimes you miss. But I was panicking. I do all the things, but I panic, I do all the things, but I feel anxious. I do all the things, but I still have the scary thoughts. Well, doing comes in two parts, like if you don't allow yourself to actually take in the experience in the form of the actual outcome, I think that happened to you, then doing is kind of half the battle and it becomes really frustrating. So if you're listening today or watching today, and you have you feel like I do I do all the things, but it's not getting any better. Are you actually accepting the lessons of the doing doing? That's the important part. We do the doing not for the sake of it. This isn't just being hardcore. This isn't doing scary things just for the sake of it. We must have experiences that teach us lessons. So sometimes if you're not taking the lesson, and you're only saying, Well, I was anxious while I had the thoughts while I was still scared. So it's not working. Well, you're missing missing the most important part, missing the reason for the doing. Right. So the other thing that I want to talk about that 10 minutes in, this is good that I think I want to talk about two of the things. One would be motivation. The first one is motivation. And I want to touch on the fact that motivation is also not enough. This is a drag. But this is also true. Like motivation is great. And we do want to be motivated. But sometimes we overemphasize that motivation. Like, Yeah, today I'm going to get it, man. That's it. I'm tired. I'm going to recover. I'm going to kick its ass. I'm going to do all these things like that's great. And that can get you moving in the right direction. But motivation by itself does not actually lead to recovery. Like motivation is just a way to inform new actions or generate behavioral change, which is really great. But a lot of people start to think that well, if I could just get motivated to do this, then then it's going to be great. Like I'm going to fix it because now I'm going to be motivated to do this and just being motivated to recover is great. But by itself, it won't get the job done. And then sometimes when the motivation sort of sags, because well, it's really hard to do these things and recovery doesn't happen in a week, then the motivation begins to sag and then we get into that trap that says, Well, I lost my motivation. So therefore I'm done. Like it didn't work. I'm not motivated anymore. I'm discouraged. One thing you have to super remember is that motivation by itself. I like that super remembered. Is anybody ever super remember anything? But the two things really get to remember about motivation is motivation itself is not recovery. It's good to have it, but it's not recovery by itself. And a lack of motivation does not mean failure. Like we have to do things even when we are not motivated to do them. It is 100 percent possible to do things even when you are not motivated. And one thing that sometimes keep keeps people from the doing or the action in recovery is the mistaken belief that they have to first be motivated to do it before they can do it, which is not true. Just because you don't feel like doing it doesn't make you unable to do it. So do not make the mistake of thinking that motivation alone will get you over the hump, or that a lack of motivation means that you're dead in the water. That's not true. We can do things even when we are not motivated to do them. It happens all the time. We do things every day that we're not necessarily motivated to do. Yes, please super remember that. I don't know. I can't tell you what I'm going to say next. Who knows. And then the last thing that I want to touch on before we go to the comments is the idea that people sometimes think it's along the lines of motivation. It's it's it's it's sort of connected to that. Some people feel like, okay, I know that I have to do things. I know I have to change and I have to stop googling my symptoms. I know I have to let imperfection be. I know I have to stop being a people pleaser. I know I have to do my exposures and drive on the highway. But I just if I could just find a way to make a click first, that is a very common mistake and it will 100% gets you stuck and frustrated. Here is a little bit more bad news. And I feel like all I do is get in this camera and give you bad news. But the bad news leads to good leads to good outcomes. I promise. So you cannot wait until you are ready to do this. Right. So there's a multiple layers of ready in this. If you're coming to this and you're kind of new to what I'm saying. And you know, this is a little bit of a new approach to you and you've been taking a very different approach. You're not really sure if this crazy dude on the camera is even right. I get that you kind of have to be ready to even hear this message. And that might take a little bit of time. That's where psycho education comes into play. So that's like the first form of ready. And it's okay to have to move through that before I'm willing to accept that this is what I have to do. I really got to get my brain around this. I get that that's one form of readiness. The second form of ready that sometimes keeps people stuck is the idea that well now I okay, I know I have to do this, but I'm just I just got to find a way for it to click. I need to find a way to make it click so I'm not so scared so I can do it. I have to find a way to like somehow feel bravery before I can do it. So you will never be ready. Like this is work that you are never ready to do is crazy as it sounds. And I like to say all these ridiculous semi profound sounding paradoxical things, but we are only ready after we start to do it. That and that's true. Like if you are waiting for the perfect moment that the stars are aligned and the fear goes away. So now you can start to do the work. You will never do work. You have to start to do this even when you don't think you're actually ready to do it. So as long as you have got your brain around the fact that OK, this is in fact sorry guys, this is in fact what I have to do. That's phase one of readiness. Once you're there, you can't wait for some magical phase two that has you feeling brave and sure and totally certain that this is going to work out. You're going to be uncertain. You're going to be unsure. You're going to be in new territory. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to stumble. You're going to be afraid. You're going to not want to do it. You're going to want to run and go back to your old habits, but you got to do it anyway. Like that's how we learn to break the old habits. That's how we learn to do the new things. So that part of ready, which is tied to motivation to a certain extent, only comes after the doing and really truly like motivation kind of only comes after the doing to like there's way, way, way more motivation to be had after the doing. The doing actually feeds the motivation. The doing feeds the confidence. The doing feeds the bravery. But you got to start with the doing. So it's important to say that because I know a lot of people wind up with like, if I could just let me just find one more video, let me find some one other person to follow on Instagram. Let me read one more book. This might be the book that lets me actually recover. Usually that means after you've been through a zillion books, mine and everybody else's and YouTube channels and podcasts and forums and groups and discussion groups after you've been through so many of those that really is well, I'm just scared to do this. So I'm hoping to find a way that will help me do it not scare. Or I want it to be easier. Not say anybody's lazy. I'm not faulting anybody. That's human nature. But just be aware of that. There's no such thing as readiness to go. Okay. So let's take a look at some comments that is all about the fact that it's a doing a thing. So let's pop up to the top and see where everybody is from everybody's happened for all kinds of different places. Love it. Colleen misplaced the damn book. Really? That's like something I would do. Let's see. Belgium is here. England is here from all over the world. I love it. Ottawa, Canada. Welcome up to 3.5 makes so much sense. Can't wait to hear how to make the changes. Okay, that's what you're talking about now. So over the next, I don't know how many lessons are in this book. I don't even know how many lessons are in this book. But all of chapter four is about how to make your plan and all of chapter five is about how to actually execute that plan. So we'll keep going. So let's see here. Wasn't able to practice walking on 80 because of the real. Okay, let me pop this up on the screen real quick. We'll go through some comments. I'll take as many as I can. I probably won't be able to do them all. Wasn't able to practice walking on aided the last few days because of really bad weather. That sucks. That happens sometimes. Now I have to go back to square one. I'm not sure why that square one. Why would it be square one? It's just don't Carol, don't throw away your experiences, right? So if you're if you did a thing on Tuesday and then weather doesn't cooperate so you can't do it again until the next Tuesday that does not negate what happened the previous Tuesday, right? So you might feel differently about it. You've lost a little bit of maybe momentum or the fear starts to creep in again, but that doesn't negate what you already did and square one usually means I got to start doing these things again, even though I'm afraid I'm afraid to do them again. But the next time you go through it, the experience of the first time helps you like these experiences are additive. So if you take those experiences and let them come with you, you might be a little bit more afraid to get out the door again and walk like you wore the first time. But once you start doing it again, nine times out of 10 you'll go a little faster than you did the first time because those previous experiences count. Don't discount them. You did that. You get credit for that. No, no, no, no. What does Sam have to say? Sam always has good good shit to say. We would all have to stay in bed until it's over. Clearly, there were many times when I would have been happy to do that, but no brain, but the brain has to see and feel us getting up and going out in regard with the danger. Yes, excellent, excellent comment that is 100% true. Like that experience, your brain has to have the experience that oh, I went out and did some stuff and interacted in a new way and nothing bad happened. It doesn't understand anything but that. What it's looking for is green light signals. All it knows right now is red light signals and all of the things that you have been doing to try to stop it and run away from it and manage it and cope are sending they're having the opposite effect. Those are red light signals. So when your brain says danger, danger, danger and you immediately run back to your house, shut the door and don't leave for three days, you're essentially saying, yes, that was danger can't can't do that. So you're sending a red signal back and your brain's like, OK, cool, I got it right. I'll do it again. So we have to be super careful about that. Super careful, super remember. I want you super a lot today. I decided it's my thing. Let's see here. I look back on past exposures as evident. OK, this is good. Let's see here. I look back on past doing exposures as evidence to support my proof of the fear to shout at it like, yes, thank you, Nikki. Nikki, you always have good comments. I appreciate you. I really do. I love when you're here. This is the experience that when you take the experience out of the the exposure, you take the lesson out of it and you carry it with you. If you don't take the lesson that Nikki is talking about, look, I did it and your only response to the doing is that was terrible and I was still afraid so it's not working and I must never feel these things and I have to find a way to manage it and make it go away. And that doesn't work to make it go away. Then what's the point? You're just putting yourself in a looping torture chamber of doing and doing but feeling terrible while you do it. Nikki has it right. Like the experience tells you, oh, nothing happened and now I can take that experience with me the next time to just make it just a little bit easier the next time. Just a little bit, not a lot. Just a little bit. These are additive experiences, but you have to take those lessons and run with them. You cannot just you can't throw them on the floor. You throw that if you throw the outcome on the floor and only judge based on what I thought I was going to happen, what it felt like, it becomes like a hamster wheel that it's hard to get off. It's really hard. And then let's see here. Terrio, what up, Terrio from Ottawa. Let's see. Following. First of all, you know, I'm going to have to say this. My method, this is not my method. I did not invent this. This is not a method, a system, a program. I'm just delivering the same information that like a zillion really qualified therapists and clinicians would give you. So it's always important for me to say that this is not the true method in any way. I didn't invent any of this. It just appeared to be good at talking about it and explaining it. So that's the only credit I could take. If I don't push myself to panic when driving, but keep going further, is that OK? You know, what I always say is people ask, do I have to panic to recover? Not necessarily, but you do have to be willing to panic. So if you are in a situation where you're driving exposures are maybe a little too easy. And this is a thing that you have to decide. And sometimes you have to experiment with to see like, I'm not sure it was easy today, but not so easy yesterday. It's been easy three days in a row or four days out of six. You've got to kind of trial and error to a certain extent. But if it's at the point where it's like I can do this and I'm pretty much in no danger of even getting close to panic, then yeah, you've got to and it's time to push yourself more. Right. So you have to get yourself to the point where you push yourself into a zone where you may in fact panic. If you don't, you don't. But if there is discomfort and you're right on that edge of panic, sometimes you go over and fall into it. Sometimes you don't. That's kind of where you want to be. Just be careful about staying too far away. If like if panic is not going to happen, it's just not a thing and it just becomes a little comfortable, then that means time to push a little more or work on something different. All right. So that assumes that panic attacks are your problem, right? That we always got to make sure that I say that like that assumes that what you're working on is something like panic disorder or garophobia that's fueled by panic attacks. Got to be willing to panic and you got to push into the zone where you very well might. For me, sometimes I did. Sometimes I didn't. In the beginning, I did a whole lot more than it started to be less and less. So can't give you an exact answer, but that's sort of your guiding thing. All right. So let's see here. Emma is here. I'm not sure how much experience of me not having a heart attack my anxiety to say, still not convinced it's not an underlying heart issue thing. Usually, and this is common, Emma, so don't worry about that you and many other people. But you really have to look at that and say, when you are doing these things, like really sit down. I'm not saying this is true, but these are these are hints that usually point us in this direction. What am I really doing in these exposures? What am I doing as I'm living my life? What am I doing up here? And what am I doing behaviorally that is still designed to have just in case? Do I know where the hospitals are? Do I know where my doctor is? Do I always make sure I have my phone with me ready to go? Do I always make sure that somebody is either with me or knows where I am in case it is a heart attack? There's a lot of little sneaky stuff that sometimes we drag into these experiences. And we think, well, I'm doing it, but I still don't believe that it's not really my heart. Well, sometimes we drag a whole lot of just in case little subtle behaviors into that. And that's something that you really have to look at. I can't tell you if you're doing that or not. But it's usually an indicator of why something like this happens. Like I'm just, I still think it's my heart. Or you just have to get to that point where you are 100% willing to say, OK, then it's my heart. Fine, it's my heart. Go ahead, kill me. I hate to say that because that sounds like I'm telling you some sort of crazy hardcore thing. This is not about being hardcore for the sake of building character. That's where the lesson is. So when your brain decides, yeah, but I'm still not sure this might be my heart, the answer really has to be, well, then let it be. Go ahead and let it be. I'm not doing anything to respond to them, doing literally nothing to save myself from that, protect against it or plan for that. I'm going to go out and go to dinner. And if I die at the restaurant, then I die at the restaurant. Now, clearly, you don't want to die at the restaurant or we don't want you to. But sometimes if you're still hanging on in some way and not willing to go it that way, that could be part of why. No, no matter how many times I do this, I'm going to keep listening and entertaining the thought that I'm having a heart attack now. For me, I literally had to get to the point where I would say literally say, this would be heart attack number seven thousand. I'm just not going to listen anymore. There was a little bit of anger in that anger at myself, anger at my own brain anger at the whole situation. Like I'm not listening anymore. If you're going to die now, go ahead and die. Like I literally had to get to that point because I was just done. So sometimes it takes a little bit of that too. Hard question, because I don't know your specific situation, but those are some of the reasons why. No, I'm still hanging on. Like your brain will still have time to say you might be having heart attack this time, but you can learn to just, OK, shrug your shoulders. You may be stuck in a situation where just because you have the thought you think the thought is important and you must listen to it. That's not true. It's been wrong always. Just saying. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's see here. Let's pop this in here. Sometimes I got to look over the top of the comments because they're really big comments. Hey, Maria from Greece. Good to see you. How can I cope with external causes that give me anxiety like poverty, etc. I make quality of my life worse. It's difficult when you stress over the possible. Oh, look, let me let me. First of all, I'm very sorry that you're going through those situations. Those are 100 percent stress and anxiety producing. No doubt about that. Now, this goes a little bit beyond disordered anxiety, right? So we always talk about anxiety disorders versus regular air quotes on being facetious, regular anxiety or externally generated or just regular sort of life anxiety. That's life anxiety. That's real. That's real stress. That's real uncertainty. Those are all of those things. The best advice I could give you, Maria, is that you may feel stressed and anxious over food security and shelter security and money and things of that nature. And my heart goes out to you. It really does. You don't have to add being afraid of the uncertainty. So that's where things go a little bit off the rails. You are under tremendous amount of stress. That's true. The difference is I'm really stressed and anxious over my food situation versus I'm stressed and anxious over my food situation. And now I'm anxious because I'm anxious. Those are two different things. And we're always addressing the second thing. You don't have to be anxious about being anxious. But I do hope things improve for you. That's that's a tough way to live. It really is. I'm very sorry. Let's pop out here. Super remember to do your exposures. Love it. Yes, let's throw this out here. Motivation follows the act itself. There's a whole field of study in psychology and sociology, social psychology that looks at motivation and things like that. And in many cases, we find all the time that like, OK, the motivation does come after the action. We have it backwards somehow. We think we have to get motivated first and then we can act. And some of that is because of the messages that we are immersed in every day on social media. Mindset, change your mindset, growth mindset, blah, blah, blah, mindset, mindset, but mindset is bullshit. Go do the thing and your mindset will follow after. I promise like nobody's ever mindset of them out of OCD. Nobody ever mindsets themselves out of panic disorder. In this situation, your mindset is not going to change until your behavior changes. It's really important. Really important. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's see here. This is this is a life thing. How do you get motivated? If you know you're going to do something that will cause you pain afterwards, like starting working out again. OK, that can happen, right? So people go to the gym and they get sore or they run races and they get shin splints. Like, first of all, you don't have to do that. OK, you don't have to or maybe you do. I don't know. I don't know the specific situation, right? But if you are in a situation where you choose to do things that will cause you physical pain, OK, you can you can choose to do those things all the time. My shoulders are on fire, but I still lift. I don't know why I do that one day. Maybe I'll stop, but I do. The difference is that the pain, you know why the pain is there. The problem here is not that that is again a special circumstance. Tell me now how to deal with exercise induced pain anxiety. That's not special anxiety. That is just if I feel pain, I throw gasoline on a fire that's already there. The fire is this big because of my pain. I turn it into a 10 alarm three story blaze by pouring worry and anxiety on top of it. That isn't required. Same problem, different context. So again, tell me about this special anxiety. It's none of it is special. None of it is ever special in that situation. OK, you hurt and that sucks. You can choose to not do those things or you can understand why you hurt and not turn that into a huge disaster. All right, so you got to look at that sort of stuff. Let's see here. This is good. I'm sorry, I can't see your names. I'll scroll down. I'm going to have to jump through the bottom because I'm never going to get through all you guys. This is great. I've been seeing my panic attacks while driving as failures. Definitely not failures. However, I was able to go and still do what I was trying to do. Excellent. So that's the lesson. Like I had a panic attack while I was driving and guess what? I didn't die. I didn't crash the car. It wasn't lock. I didn't dodge a bullet. I did it. I did it. So it's really good when you see it as failure, the panic attack as failure or the anxiety as failure. That's part of what creates the disorder to begin with. Like I must never feel that. That's what creates to begin with. We're learning that we don't want to feel it. But even if I panic, I'm OK. Not what if I panic. Even if I panic, I'm still OK. OK, we'll get back to that maybe. Let's see here. No, no, no, no, no. Let's pop through here. How do I stop being? I'll put this up. How do I stop being afraid of the bodily sensations? What is doing nothing? Doing nothing is literally doing nothing. Doing like if you're afraid of your own body, what do you do to try and save yourself from that? What actions are you taking? Are you googling? Are you trying to find explain what it is? Are you making sure there's always a safe person? Do you stay close to home? Do you always have the hospital nearby? You know, all of those things. What do you do in response to keep you safe when you think you are in danger? Then you stop doing those things and then nothing happens. And so we're looking for that. Even when I am afraid, I am OK. If I'm not afraid, I'm OK. If I am afraid, I'm OK. Just because I think and feel a thing, I'm still OK. So in a nutshell, and everything I've ever written or said in these podcasts and these books is about how to do that. So I would urge you to avail yourself of those resources. How do I stop being afraid of the bodily sensations? You don't stop being afraid. You start acting like you're not afraid, like a non-anxious person would be. And then the fear goes away. You can't just decide to not be afraid. That's an important point for anybody still listening. You cannot just decide to stop being afraid. It doesn't happen. Today's whole thing is that recovery is a doing thing. If you could just decide to not be afraid or hear some words that would make you not be afraid, we wouldn't have to do anything. And then I wouldn't be here writing books. But in this situation, it doesn't work that way. So we do these things, in some cases, not do the things, doing nothing, because the experiences teach us that we don't have to be afraid anymore and teach us that over time. So that's how. And as far as the follow-up, I never know what's real and what's not, the answer to that is correct. You don't. Part of this is uncertainty and tolerance. We don't know. But when the evidence shows again and again and again that every single time I've been 100% sure that I'm having an aneurysm and I must go to a hospital, I'm wrong. Every single time. Every single time I'm wrong. So you have to start to go based on those trends. But we can never, never know. This is true and this sucks, but you have to say it. This is never, we never get certainty in life. And if you think I can only do this if I can get 100% certainty, you will be frustrated. There's no such thing for any human being walking the planet in any circumstance. That's a bitter pill to swallow. It's a hard pill to swallow, but that's true. Let's see here. Oh yeah, the swimming and getting wet analogy. I didn't use that today, I should have. I guess what I usually say in that situation is if you want to learn to swim, when you declare disaster every single time you get wet, then you will never learn how to swim. You must get wet to learn how to swim. And that's kind of what this is. We need the water. We need the wet to get to learn how to swim. Thanks, B. Let's see here. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, let's see. Geronimo. I'll put this up. This is always a controversial thing. Not everyone is the same. Okay, you can make that declaration if you would like. We are not all the same. This is 100% true. But generally speaking, within a relatively narrow range, cognition and learning and the things that drive these disorders are kind of universal. Yes, there are experiences that color that. That's 100% true. But the assertion that everyone is different, so therefore I don't have to, I shouldn't do these things to get better. There's a different way for me to get better is not an assertion I'm gonna necessarily agree with. I'm 100% gonna validate your uniqueness as a human being. We are all unique and our experience is color, sometimes our perceptions and our actions, that's 100% true. But if we adhere to the principles of recovery, then we know how to work with those things. So the argument not everyone is the same is usually says, well, I don't like what you're saying, Drew, I don't wanna do it that way. And you don't have to, you're free not to listen or you're free to do it any way you wanted. I would wish you well no matter what. But it's not based on the idea that somehow we are all unique snowflakes and everybody's brain works completely differently. That is simply not true. So if you understand the workings of why we do these things and then you can see through the lens of your experience, well, then we have a way to work within the system where everybody is kind of the same. And trust me, in this situation, you want us to all be the same but yet honor our differences and use them in part of our recovery. That's critically important. But some people do wanna dig their heels in and say, no, everyone's different and this isn't for me. Okay, I would still root for you whatever path you take. So let's see here. I'm gonna scroll to the bottom because we're at 35 minutes and I don't have a whole lot of time today. So let's see. Wearing something. I'm sorry, I'm just reading through the comments. I'm not trying to be rude and not look at you guys. Hey, Loretta, how's it going? Next Monday can you end the recovery and start to pull back? On Mondays, I'm essentially just going through the book. So no, that's not a thing that I'll be talking about next Monday. It's in chapter five of the book. We do talk about sort of setbacks and frustrations but these Monday sessions are essentially going through the book lesson by lesson. So we'll get to that sometime in chapter five. It touches on it. Okay, this is a good comment. What up, JJ? I used to have a lot of anxiety from noticing a numbness sensation near my heart. Now I don't feel anxious anymore but want to not notice the numbness anymore. Okay, well, unfortunately that takes a long time as crazy as that sounds. Now, of course, all of what I say always like the standard disclaimer, I shouldn't even have to say this, but I will. It's not medical advice. So I'm always operating in the assumption that you have been given a clean bill of health and everything is okay, right? So assuming that you have then the best advice I could give you with that is the sensations themselves that I used to have did take a long time to go away and most people will say that. Like, I'm not afraid of it anymore but I'm still nauseous. Okay, well, patience. Like patience, you know, time, time, time. Time kind of fixes all that stuff. And I was always blown away by the number of sensations that I experienced on a daily basis back in those days that are gone. Like what could possibly be, did my body completely remake itself? Did I have some sort of like wide series of afflictions that somehow went away? No, not really, didn't. So let's see, time, time, time. Be patient. I think that's it. Let's see if I get one more in. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, love it. I'm a big grease belly garage fan. It's just a name, but really the comments are always really good. But I love a good creative screen name. I really do. I shot a video from my channel yesterday the entire time my lizard brain thought I was having a heart attack. It was uncomfortable by the time I got home, everything was fine. That's the most important part, dude. And I think I know you know that. So that's the most important part of the story. The most important part of the story is the part where nothing happened. Normally we want to say that the most important to the story is I felt like it was gonna have a heart attack. I thought it was gonna pass out. I thought I was gonna fall over. I thought I was gonna get sick. I thought it felt like it felt like you wanna tell that story again and again and again. But really the story is I shot a video from my channel. It was really uncomfortable. I was afraid while I was doing it, nothing happened at the end. That sounds really cold and cruel. I'm not trying to invalidate your experience. But if you want to continue to do nothing but validate the feelings and the thoughts, you're gonna have trouble. Like in a way, we do have to get a little bit disrespectful toward those thoughts and feelings. I'm gonna have a heart attack. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna pass out. I'm gonna go insane. I'm pretty sure that this might be a heart attack this time. If you wanna keep validating and respecting those feelings, they will continue to just stalk you and drag you up and down. So as crazy as it sounds, we never wanna disrespect ourselves. I never wanna disrespect a person, but I'm always gonna be disrespectful toward that irrational fear. So there you go. So there you go. I do say that a lot, don't I? So there you go. Not required. Anyway. All right, guys. I think that's about it. I've gotten through just about all the comments. Thanks for coming by. As always, next week we're doing, what are we doing next week? I don't even know. This is a doing thing. Lesson four dot two is, wait for it. This takes time. Oh, look at that. Next lesson is about patience. Do you think that I would know that? I wrote the book, but I actually don't remember what or the chapter during some times. So anyway, if you do not have the book and you want to get it, you can find it on my website, theanxiestruth.com. There you go. I'm guessing most of you probably already have it already. So I'm preaching to the choir. Thank you so much for your support. Those of you who do have it. And I will leave you with this. Again, we'll be back next week. We're gonna do it again. We're doing it every week until we run out of lessons. So if you are not subscribed to the morning email, the anxious morning, which is kind of my favorite thing that I do and probably the best work that I have ever produced in this space. I'm really proud of it. And everybody seems to love it. Go do that. It's at theanxiestmorning.com. It's free. It's 100% free. You just put in your email address every morning. We're gonna send you a little email, a little recovery lesson and a little podcast that you can listen to outside of the doom scrolling. No doom scrolling with the anxious morning. So go check that out. And thank you guys for coming by. I will see you again, same place, same time, new lesson next week.