 When you're struggling with crippling anxiety but you know that getting out the house and doing something would make you feel better but you can't. How do you make the jump from one to the other? That's the topic for today. So today's podcast video however it is that you're consuming it is inspired by the fact that I struggle with crippling anxiety every now and then. I mean anxiety all the time but crippling every now and then and I recently had a little bout of this a few days ago and I tweeted when I finally made it out the house got to the climbing wall felt infinitely better as I knew I would and was just so glad I'd finally managed to break out of the anxiety prison and some people replied saying can you tell us how you did that because either I'm struggling or my child is struggling or my partner is struggling how do you go from knowing getting out and climbing or whatever works for you would help to actually doing it. So I'm going to share some ideas on that full disclaimer partly because it will help you guys and partly because it will help me. So the first thing for me is to actually recognise and acknowledge that there's a problem I will say to my husband to my family to my friends sometimes to the world on Twitter I'm struggling with this I know I need to get out and kind of make that a known aim and acknowledge that I am not doing what I need to for myself right now I need to make a change so actually acknowledging is the first step there and it's not about beating oneself up or about looking necessarily for sympathy there a bit of empathy can help here it's just about noticing hey this has become a problem because sometimes that kind of cycle of anxiety and the world getting smaller and things getting harder can creep up on us and we don't always notice that it's happened until it sort of has and there can be the sudden moment of oh gosh I haven't left the house in three days and the thought of it terrifies me and I don't know how to do that anymore and and so we want to just notice that that's happened and that we would like it to change. Next I begin to hatch my escape plan so I'm going to be thinking largely about when am I going to go now this is really important because what can sometimes happen is you think like say for me I know that going climbing will really help and I go well I'll go climbing when I've got a window that will make that possible that doesn't help because the window will never appear and that's true just of general life like intention planning is very important when it comes to any form of self-care we need to know exactly what we're going to do when we're going to do it who we're going to do it with make that window otherwise you'll never keep to it so I would think very specifically okay after lunch today I am going to get in my car and go to the climbing wall I'll make a very sort of specific window of when I'm going to make this attempt on breaking out of the anxiety jail. Next there's the what so in this instance I've chosen to go climbing but actually thinking about what it is you're going to do sort of where you're going to go what the activity or the thing that you're going to break out of the anxiety jail for is and that's again important to get right because we don't want to do something that's really high stakes so I wouldn't be thinking about my first time out and about in a while when I'm feeling very anxious as being an activity where I might let people down where there are other people kind of relying on me where I'm meeting lots of people or where it's an environment that I know will be quite overstimulating or triggering generally so I would go somewhere that I know on a normal day when things you know anxiety is just at its normal levels that would feel good that would feel welcoming that would feel warm that would feel easy that isn't too overstimulating for me because that's something that I struggle with but you'll know which are your comfortable places which are the places where if anxiety wasn't feeling like this that you would look forward to going to places where you feel good so I'd identify the the what the where and think really really carefully about that making sure that it's low stakes so for me I chose climbing because I know that I love it and I know that there's so many benefits to me and my anxiety for actually going and doing that activity so you might pick a specific thing or place that you know will actually help to alleviate your anxiety as well as just breaking the cycle of being stuck in the house. I also like to think about who and the why so who is there anyone who can support both at home who can be your kind of cheerleader try and keep you to your plan so if you said I'm gonna try and go climbing after lunch my husband will be there gently going have you got everything ready feel it all sorted are you are you all right to go is there anything I can do to support I've got control of everything here you know he'll do all those things without pushing but just gently enabling and maybe you're someone else's who who can be supporting equally sometimes it's about going with and actually being alongside sometimes it can be helpful to have a pal or a parent or a partner with you when you go and do things if things are feeling really overwhelming different people need different things at different times so we shouldn't make assumptions about who is helpful and whether we want to go alone or have someone with us but it's really worth thinking about and making a proactive plan about who can help both at back at base and out in the wild and then the why I find it helpful just to check in with my why just to remind myself why am I doing this thing that feels terrifying because the way the anxiety kind of cycle builds is that we do stuff and it peaks the anxiety and so we're like hell I'm not doing that again that feels horrible why would I do this thing to myself and in order to get out and break out of that anxiety prison when we've kind of created it then we have to do the thing that feels horrible it will feel horrible like your anxiety will peak you're doing the thing that scares you right now and yeah maybe you've done this thing a million times before and it felt fine and you'll do it a million times in the future it'll feel fine but right now it feels impossible and so remembering I've done this stuff before and it felt really good I really like being able to leave the house I know I'll love going climbing I want things to feel better and I know this is a really good step in the right direction I don't want to be stuck in the house for weeks on end which is where I've ended up before when I haven't tried hard to break the cycle it feels hard today but it'll feel even harder tomorrow there's all these different kind of whys and we kind of know them but I find it really helpful just to tap back in and remind myself of my motivation so this feels like something I am doing because I want to even though it feels horrible right now another thing I think is really crucial is just to lower expectations and to be really forgiving of ourselves if it doesn't kind of work out so make a plan try to stick to it but actually maybe think about having a bit of a graded plan so when I was going climbing the other day then I had a plan that I would try and get to my car I would get in my car I would drive to the climbing wall I'd get out of my car I'd walk into the wall I'd check in I'd go for a climb I'd come home and each of those steps achieving any of them would have been an improvement on where I was before I started so even if all I'd done was step out of my house actually even if all I'd done was that step out the house onto the pavement that would have been a win worth celebrating and I'd have come back and tried to build on that next time so try and think about what all the kind of different steps are and just actually acknowledge that you've done a good job no matter how many of those steps you get through and it might take a few attempts to get to the end I was lucky on this occasion and I've done good prep and so I was able to do the whole thing but there's been plenty of occasions when I've backed out I almost almost backed out when I got to the climbing wall it was a little bit busy in reception and I had to queue and as I joined the back of the queue I was aware I was like sounding in this queue is going to allow my anxiety spilled I'm a little bit worried I might get quite anxious I might just turn around now I've done really well but at that moment one of the members of staff who know me caught my eye and said I've checked you in Pookie you can go straight in and that really helped me that's like a whole nother video on why that really helped me one was I didn't have to queue and let the anxiety build but the other was that feeling of connection and belonging I've barely been to that wall in weeks I've been too anxious to go and this guy knew who I was greeted me by name checked me in like you're part of the family here and that felt really good and that really helped and gave me that little boost that I needed to then actually make it into the climbing wall and get on with my climb so we're having like lower expectations we're going to forgive ourselves if it doesn't all work out and we're going to notice what we did achieve and actually even just having the intention wanting to leave the house is a really good starting point other things we can do to prepare is like proactive calming so I want to make sure if I'm going to go and do a scary thing that I am in the best possible starting place before I make an attempt so what does that mean that means I might have used some of my breathing strategies that means I've probably given myself a little bit of a break and not eating a lunch that's really stressed me out I've gone back to my like familiar foods and I might have done other sort of calming relaxing whatever you know works for you to get you to the point where you feel as kind of calm chilled happy as you can so that you're on a really good kind of level playing field before you go and try and do the difficult thing like trying to go and break this barrier go outside for the first time go and do the things that scare you when you're already feeling really anxious is much more likely to fail so we just want to think about what's the lead in there so if my daughter Ellie is going to do something that scares her a bit I'll always be like have a luxury bath and that's her thing so a luxury bath is a very long lovely bubbly bath maybe while watching a film and that is what helps her to get to a really good calm place and it's different for all of us but you will have an idea about how to get to your best place ready to go and try and do hard things so I do that proactive calming before making an attempt finally we celebrate however far we got done that process even if we just planned it and acknowledged the need for change that's great but however far we got actually notice that celebrate it maybe actually tell other people the reason I tweeted was to kind of share that I'd done it and I was proud and I find it really helpful to publicly acknowledge that sometimes you know also talked about it with my husband and you know well done me this does matter because what we're trying to do is sort of speak to those demons in your head saying don't do those things it'll be terrible we're going you know I did I did do it and nothing really awful happening yeah it was hard but I did it and I do feel better for having done it because of XYZ and actually really exploring that really acknowledging that really leaning into that feeling of I did I can I've done it I've conquered this really matters because we're trying to reprogram our brains a little bit really so lean into what's gone well and then finally finally do it again soon so it's no good just doing it once that's fantastic and remarkable and huge and scary and wonderful that you've done it but then start planning for next time right away be thinking right away okay I've got this I've done it I can and that success will spiral us on to do it again but do it again as soon as you can so be planning for the next time because the only way to break out of these cycles is through repetition and practice and reprogramming our brain to tell it I can rather than I can't so plan plan plan next time as soon as you can you may keep making progress sometimes you may step back but repetition is absolutely key here and with that in mind I am going to go climbing again today good luck it is really hard and I do think it's important just to acknowledge how hard it is often those of us who struggle with this kind of crippling anxiety you don't tend to share it and people don't tend to see it on the days when it's really difficult everyone tends to see us on the days when we're masking or managing and so I think it does go quite hidden this sort of yeah literally can't leave the house I mean the day before for context the day before the day that I did manage to make it to the climbing wall I barely made it out of bed and I'm a really productive proactive person and I try really hard and I genuinely look like I'm managing really well but that day was a duvet day and in the end I forgave myself for it and realized I needed it and I think that duvet day gave me the strength to then break the cycle the next day but it was not a pretty looking day from a kind of social media or outward facing point of view but people don't always see that bit so you know if it's you and you're beating yourself up for not managing better just know that you're not alone and take each day as it comes and please be a little bit forgiving of yourself and if you're watching this because you're supporting someone that you care for or work with just just take a moment I think just to understand how remarkably hard it is that we sometimes have to work to do things that might appear really really simple for you and that's not meant to make you feel guilty or like you've managed things wrong or anything like that I think it's just acknowledging the scale of the challenge sometimes for some of us things that look simple to the rest of the world feel like climbing a mountain before we've even eaten our breakfast and just I don't know people kind of getting that understanding how hard we're trying and how very challenging this can be can actually really really help sometimes I hope there were some helpful ideas in here please do drop a comment below with what helps you today was based on what helps me obviously what helps me is generally drawing on all the evidence base and many many years of research and theory and all that kind of stuff but actually it's just what worked for me on this occasion I'd love to hear what works for you and if you are struggling with this right now good luck you're not alone we're in this together and you can do this just think of a tiny step you can take until next time over and out