 This episode of the anxious truth is brought to you by me because I'm not just a podcaster I'm also an author. I've written several useful books and anxiety and anxiety recovery And I know you're gonna find them helpful. You can find them on my website at the anxious truth calm Hello everybody, welcome back to the anxious truth the podcast dedicated to understanding and overcoming anxiety issues Like panic attacks panic disorder agoraphobia monophobia and things of that nature I am drew linsellata creator and host of this fine program what I hope is a fine program. I'm glad you're here This is episode number 179 recorded in October of 2021 today's topic is Understanding the difference between following the principles of anxiety and recovery versus asking for instructions on how to recover and This is important. We haven't really talked about this yet But it's important to understand the difference between following principles and asking for instructions Because everybody and their journey through an anxiety problem and the recovery process Kind of starts asking for instructions. It's okay It is okay If you are naturally drawn right now to to look for as many Instagram posts You could find that give you seven things to do during a panic attack. I feel you I understand like everybody starts there Everybody starts by saying this is this crazy monster my own body and thoughts are against me here. I'm terrified I can't leave my house. This is ruining my life. It is beyond my control. I am powerless. Please Internet please helpers please therapists please psychoeducators whoever please give me things I can do right now To feel better. I understand you're asking for instructions and I get those questions all day long If I were to go on my say my Instagram right now or my Facebook group and ask a large number of people Hey, ask me questions. Ask me anything. I'm going to get most of those questions Probably 70% of those questions will be asking for instructions instructions So why do people want instructions as opposed to saying well? Can you teach me about what this is and how I can apply the principles of? Disordered anxiety and recovery to my situation like that would be the more productive question long term But very few people actually ask that question It takes a long time or some period of time I could say a long time It takes some period of time to get to the phase where you are actually interested in that right now Why is this and again? I'm going to use that that example of the social media post that that lists, you know For the 10 zillionth time and your Instagram scroll or on Twitter or Facebook Seven things to do during panic five things to say when you're anxious five mantras you can use three things You can you know eat that will lower your anxiety the top five vitamins that are good for anxiety Those are instructions. Those are instructions take this eat this chew this swallow this drink this rub this say this wear this touch this smell this Those are instructions and we are naturally drawn to those because when we feel like things are out of our control and we have no Agency here like this anxiety thing my my anxious sensations my anxious thoughts these intrusive thoughts these scary things That are ruining my life right now. They are beyond my control This is a monster that is attacking me and stalking me all the time. I have no power here So please give me five things I can do right now to fight this monster and make it go away I get that I get why you want instructions now instructions generally are now focused Instructions are focused on the now Give me five things I can do now Because I can feel a panic attack coming on and I need five ways Steps to stop it right now because I need to feel better right now The only problem with that and you may be starting to understand this depending on where you are on your journey And again if you are in the early stages of your journey And you are still seeing this as I just need to find a way to make this stop right now. I get you I feel you I understand my heart goes out to you. I understand you are desperate for immediate relief But you may be far enough down the road where you've been trying to do this Give me instructions on what to do give me tips any tips give me tips So I understand that if you're in that situation you're looking for a relief right now I need to make it stop right this minute you may already be down the road enough to understand that well every time I do that I can get some relief right now But then in two hours or tomorrow. I'm back again Asking for the same tips or trying to find better tips new tips more tips To feel better right now, right? So that one of the key differences between following principles and following instructions is that generally speaking in the In the context of recovering from an anxiety disorder Instructions are based on immediate relief. Make me feel better right now And I understand why you would want that I'm not saying any of you shouldn't want that everybody wants that I would want that every human being would want that But and but they're based on the here and now generally speaking. They're gonna be focused on how can I make you feel better right now? And I'm gonna throw something out here because important like I understand if you listen to this podcast and clearly you're taking the initiative to Reach out to learn to ask for help to try to try and make things better And my hat is off to you. I if you're listening to this podcast I'm gonna give you a big old thumbs up for just listening to my podcast or any podcast like this because clearly you're trying to get better And that's great. That's really great. So pat yourself on the back for that because I patch on the back for But understand as you're consuming this type of information That if you're continually going back for the well for instructions for immediate relief You can easily wind up in like a blizzard condition in your head where you're overwhelmed with instructions That's really common So I want instructions because I need to feel better right now and I don't feel like I have any power So I need somebody to tell me exactly what to do right now because I want to feel better right now And I don't know what to do right now and then if you seek out those type of instructions Prescriptive instructions again and again, you can get buried in them You can probably right now if you're that if you're in that situation and you've been kind of collecting instructions from different people like me and others online then you are likely have a very long list Special breathing things to sniff oils things to eat special things to wear. I should put my toes in the dirt I need to walk in the grass. I need to look at the trees. I need to look at the birds I need nature. I need calm. I need chakra clearing. I need oils. I need meds I need supplements like you start to get this you get buried under this giant pile of prescriptive tips and steps and instructions on what to do And that can be really overwhelming So you're just trying to not be overwhelmed and then sometimes you can wind up overwhelmed Trying to not be overwhelmed because I don't even know what to do next like I have this Am I supposed to breathe am I supposed to ground am I supposed to sit on the floor am I supposed to look at the trees? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? You know, I keep having these thoughts about death and existence like am I supposed to think positive and supposed to choose happiness Am I supposed to do a mantra? Should I listen to a radio? Am I supposed to what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to chew gum? Am I supposed to snap a rubber band? What am I supposed to get ice to distract myself? What do I do? You can easily wind up getting buried and feeling very overwhelmed by instructions that are designed to make you feel better now But from a social media content creator perspective, I can tell you that the most engagement I could possibly get and I refuse to do this if you follow me on the socials, you'll know I don't generally do a lot of this stuff You know the most engagement I could get and if I want to build giant numbers of followers I'll just keep telling you what anxiety feels like. I'll just keep telling you five steps You can do I'll just keep giving you five different steps for panic attacks again and again Yeah, you a lot of clicks a lot of likes a lot of follows But then you just keep coming back to me for more and more and more of those and that can get frustrating and overwhelming So if that's the situation you're in your your instruction base right now I get you and I understand that that's starting to be overwhelming or you're starting to feel like I don't understand This isn't working. So you're getting discouraged. I can't get better. I'm clearly something is wrong I'm never gonna get better because all of these instructions don't work for me or they don't work consistently for me I understand why I get you I feel you you can get better. I know you can So let's start to change our focus now from here and now Prescriptive discrete instructions step one two three four five do this to feel better now Instead of going that let's let's take a step back and say, okay What if we look at it a different way when I start to play these guitars behind me? And if you're not watching on video, there are guitars behind me and there always are in these things But when I start to learn how to play these things I need my teacher my teachers to tell me where to put my fingers Just just show me where to put my fingers so I can play a D minor chord Just just tell me just tell me what I put my fingers and I'll just put them there and I'll strum And I'll have a D minor chord then tell me where to put my fingers for an a minor chord Then tell me where it had it then tell me how to do an F bar chord You know then tell me how to do try it in versions. Where do I put my fingers to do all these inversions? Okay, I mean I could ask for instructions there But sooner or later that's going to get really old and ineffective Because if I want to start to actually either write my own music or play songs that you hear on you know Whatever your favorite music. I can't ask my teacher to tell me well now what are my fingers now? Do we do it now? Wait or I do it now wait or I do it? It reminds me of a story when I was a little kid and this sticks in my head I remember I could have been more than maybe four years old five years old Probably even younger and I sat in the kitchen with my mom And I wanted to write a letter to my friend a letter adorable, right? But I I did not a spell anything You know, I was I was really lit. I was really low. It's probably closer to three or four And I remember I had to ask her how to spell every single word and God bless my mom Like how she didn't jump out the window of our apartment at the time is beyond me Like she should have easily just run out screaming and asked for help because I was making her nuts But I had to ask her how to spell every single word now. I was a kid I was a little I don't understand the principles of grammar and sentence construction So that's a little, you know, it doesn't exactly apply But I remember that very clearly and then as I got older and I started to understand Letters and writing and how to make words and sentences I didn't have to ask my mom how to write every letter and word of a to write to my friend anymore, right? So the same thing happens here same thing happens here When you start to step back and say well, let me start to really think about Understanding what the nature of this problem is let me think about really starting to understand Even though I don't like to hear these things like why is this guy keep talking about doing hard things? Why does he keep talking about facing my fear? Why does he keep talking about surrendering to the worst outcome? Like why do I have to you know accept it? This sounds crazy to me But sometimes you have to stop and say okay Well, let me just separate myself from instructions designed to make me feel better right now And maybe I got to learn a little more about what this thing is And you either sometimes have to decide make a conscious decision to do that I'm gonna step back and start listening to this now I'm gonna have to start learning the principles of this so that I don't have to ask every single time I have a different thought or sensation what to do Right, I'm gonna learn what disordered anxiety is I'm gonna learn the principles of how it operates I'm gonna learn the cognition underneath that I'm gonna learn like well This is the overriding principles that we use to deal with these problems so effectively And when you start to understand the principles, you don't have 77,000 different social media posts telling you what to do minute by minute You have guiding principles that when you begin to accept them for what you have to be willing to do And if you if you disagree with these principles, you're welcome to do that You don't have to agree with them But if you are willing to say okay, I'm gonna I these sound right I'm I don't like them, but they sound right and I'm gonna really embrace these principles I'm gonna understand I'm gonna start to apply these things to my own recovery journey I'm gonna step away from asking people to tell me what to do every minute of the day And I'm gonna start to understand what I have to do so I could do it myself It becomes far less overwhelming far less overwhelming and I'll tell you why because if you are right now in the habit of Very common. I see this all the time in my in the community surrounding this podcast. Hey guys I was doing really great for the last three weeks. I you know I haven't really nauseous anymore like you were right. It really went away But oh my god, last night I woke up in the middle of the night My heart was pounding and it was skipped a couple of beats and how do you any tips for that? Like does that sound familiar to you, you know, or like I was doing so great like, you know I was having thoughts about like, you know Maybe I don't actually love my family and those they were dragging me down and I'm pretty good I've learned to move through those but now all of a sudden I'm really focused on like health Getting getting sick. I'm having intrusive thoughts about becoming sick. How do I deal with that? Sound familiar? So like one thought goes away and another one takes its place one sensation goes away and another thing takes its place You know one situation resolves and another situation presents itself that makes you anxious because that's what life does And then you have to run back and ask for new instructions Whereas the person who has started to understand the principles of anxiety and recovery would be able to say, okay The principle of dealing with it. This thought was was this so now I'm having a new thought that's scaring me and bothering me So I can deal with it the same way. I use the same principles across multiple contexts, right? so I understand the principles of chord structure and triads and Chord progressions so that I can I don't have to ask my teachers where to put my fingers to play every song I want to play on the guitar So it becomes far less overwhelming and far easier and I don't mean easier in terms of effort It doesn't make it any easier. I get smooth sailing, but it becomes less cluttered. It just becomes less cluttered however Taking a more principled approach rather than a instructions approach to recovery means you're taking on a whole lot more responsibility So you we have to acknowledge that and sometimes that seems scary or even impossible Like it seems certainly more possible to just run to your Facebook group and ask the group You know, how do I it's much it will feel easier to do that. I Understand why like I don't I don't want to read a book I don't want to read this giant 400 page book that you wrote, you know Even though this is literally like the principles of recovery and then how to apply them. That's what I wrote here I'm not trying to sell you a book. I mean, it's a great book But there's a reason why I wrote the anxious truth the way I did There's a reason why this podcast sounds the way it does and there's a reason why my Facebook group Sounds and looks the way it does Like we are so based on the principles and teaching the principles of recovery and helping people learn and apply those That you know, it matters And so when you keep having to run back to your favorite support people and ask what do I do now? Well, what do I do now? Well, what do I do now that starts to become very tiring and discouraging like Feel so weak. I can't stand on my own. I'm never gonna get better. Something must be specially broken about me It's not it's now. You're not specially broken and you can get better. You can get better But I in my opinion in my opinion in my experience in my experience with a lot of people now I've been doing this for many years and many thousands people is that principles beat instructions every time every time in The end if you talk to people who have actually gone down the road Who started in the same maybe dark and feeling seemingly hopeless and confused place that you might be in right now They I was you I was there other people that you may see the admins and mods in my Facebook group people who Recovered people who hang around to help just because they're good people right and they want to pass along that experience they were you too and Along the way they either sat down one day and said I'm tired of asking for instructions I'm gonna start to learn and apply the principles or just naturally over time They start to pick up the principles and use those So it's a natural process. It kind of happens no matter what you try and do you will start to understand the principles if you are willing to accept them But if you are going to just insist Continually that you must be given instructions on how to handle the thing that scares you today That becomes really frustrating and I understand your frustration and I feel for you. I do so if you are what you You're kind of feeling stuck on the treadmill a little bit like I can't seem to get better. I just keep going through the same advice again and again and again I keep looking for new I'm following new people every single day trying to figure this out. I can't seem to make it work I feel broken. I feel hopeless. I think I'm never gonna recover. I can never get better if you're in that situation I would tell you take a little time and Don't beat yourself up for that don't at all. I would not beat yourself I wouldn't beat you up for that like I understand why you're in that situation. I do it's normal and natural You're not a failure because you're you're in that mode right now at all. That is not failure But if you are there, I would say take a step back and say, okay Well, maybe maybe it's time for me to start to approach this a little bit differently Maybe I could take a little bit more I don't want to say ownership because that would imply that you're not you're not responsible somehow or like oh You're shirking your responsibility or slacker. I don't mean that at all But like oh, maybe I have some agency here Maybe I could stop and really start to learn and apply principles I am a but maybe I'm able to actually do that Anybody should listen to this crazy guy in the microphone like maybe he's right Maybe I can actually learn and apply these things instead of continually running for rescue instructions every single time It will make things better for you. I know it will and I know that you can do that So to wrap it up you can try to recover by being given continuous sets of instructions for every individual fear Sensation thought context of situation Which isn't terribly effective on the long run and becomes really overwhelming or frustrating or you you can begin to understand the principles and Concepts behind disordered anxiety and your particular problem and you can begin to understand you can apply those principles and those concepts across Multiple fears and multiple sensations thoughts context and situations and that becomes more productive on the long run It leads to more lasting durable recovery that is applicable across multiple live contexts And it's far less overwhelming because you don't have to look for 72,000 lists of Things to do during a panic attack like it will clear things up in your head And man, I get to tell you there's a lot of relief that comes with that if you're just feeling snowed under by all this Anxiety advice starting to follow our principled approach Really helps that in a big way. All right, so that's my little 20 minutes on you know principles versus instructions I would hope that as you go down the road and as you progress in this journey You start to head more toward the principles of recovery and less toward, you know, just asking for instructions every time It makes a difference. So that is it. I will end as always with Afterglow by my buddy Ben Drake. You can find Ben and his music at Ben Drake music comm Thank you Ben for letting me use the song. I appreciate you guys coming by Comments questions. Any way you can find me is great. I will address for a second the fact that I cannot answer direct messages I'm really sorry. I get so many of them. I know you guys want to send me emails and SPDMS I but a comment on an Instagram post or a question in my Facebook group That's a good way to do that. I'm active there and I will try to help you there But I can't answer every comment in question privately. I just can't I'm really sorry I could if I would but I can't So that's it if you're listening to the podcast on iTunes or someplace that lets you rate or review the podcast leave it Five stars if you're digging it and then take a minute and write a review because it helps other people find the podcast And then more people get help and that's what we're all about in this community And I guess if you're watching on YouTube a video, whatever it is like and subscribe I'm supposed to tell you that I'm supposed to tell you to hit the bell button But whatever hit it don't hit it, you know, it's good for you I ain't gonna tell you and that's it. Thanks for coming by. We'll see you in the next episode I hope this has been helpful and I will remind you as always from my stolen line from the Mandalorian that this is the way