 Let's get the chat going here. So welcome to Recovery Monday, episode number 57. This is the 50, has this started? Yes, this has started. Welcome, welcome UK. Happy new year everybody. We'll wait for everybody to show up. This is episode 57 of Recovery Monday. Just give me an okay and let me know that you can hear me. I will put the chat overlay over up as I always do so you guys can talk to each other like you always do. Today we're talking about the idea of having choice and power and agency and all of those good things, but also how those things are tied to courage which is the shitty part of that. But it is what it is. Hey, Becky, what up? Here we are, hello y'all. So everybody let me know where you're coming from. Hello B, what's up? Yeah, let me know where you're coming from. Let me know how everybody's doing today. We are at the end of the Christmas break. Let's see, 28 people. Anybody who is struggling today at the first day back after break, I know it's kind of a tough day for a lot of folks. It was this was one of the toughest days of the year for me. So if you're sort of struggling today because the break is over and you're forced to go back into the real world, I get you. Hang out here for a little while and we will talk about some good stuff, hopefully. So Northwestern Nevada, White Mountains of Arizona, the UK is here, the UK. Hey, Lindsay, how you doing? Croatia is here, always such a diverse crowd. I appreciate that you guys come from all over the world, it's really great. So anybody have any questions? We'll pop them in the comments. So the way we usually do this is I'll talk for a little while. Shouldn't be too long today, but I feel like I say that every week. I've probably said that 57 times and it's never been short ever. So I should just stop saying that because I'm obviously clearly lying. Although I say it with the best of intentions, I think I'm gonna be short, but then I'm not. So we'll get into it a little bit and then hello, New York. Welcome, fellow New Yorker. Hey, GBG, what up? Jim is here, struggling day five. Some people start struggling before the break is over. I know that was me. It's always funny, because I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday about this and when the holiday break for me, when the holiday break starts, the break is like a shiny new Ferrari and it's awesome. And then by the end of the break, it's like the planes, trains and automobiles car with John Candy and Steve Martin and they just burnt out. It's just a frame, there's nothing left of it. That's how I always felt. And honestly, like at this point, the Christmas decorations are just bothering me. They're mocking me. It's sad. It's like, okay, just get it over with and the world would come rushing back in and it just sort of sucked. Anyway, so hey, Munich is here. Welcome, Germany. Hello, Christina, happy new year. We don't want it to be brief. Jason is here. Hey, James. So let's get into this. Today we're gonna talk a little bit about the idea that there is in fact choice, which means that we have, when we have choice, it means we have some power, some agency and some influence in the process. Now, before I get started in this, I just wanna confirm here that the choice that I'm talking about today are, these are tiny choices like micro choices. So in the recovery process, we have choices at multiple levels, right? So in this case, I'm talking about choice that happens at a very small level, moment to moment, sort of when the shit is hitting the fan, right? But there are other moments of choice too. There are bigger moments. Do I even wanna do this work? Do I wanna change my life? Like, so there's choice all over the place, right? But in the hardest moments, we do have choice. There are little micro choices. They are hard choices, but we really have to acknowledge that choice exists. And this is an outgrowth of the idea that people say, when I get in the thick of it, I forget what to do or I've been doing really well and then I forgot how to accept or I forgot how to surrender. And in those situations, it's always helpful to say in my view, when you are experiencing that sort of setback thing or what people will call a setback and they say, oh, suddenly I've forgotten how to do this, you didn't really forget, you just have decided that resistance is a better idea again. And that's important because, does anyone wanna get out? Marvel fan. Before we get started, does anyone want to get out? Marvel fan, I'm curious about that. Is there a new Marvel movie coming out that I'm not aware of possibly? Anyway, so it's important to recognize that it doesn't, that we don't wanna get in the trap of thinking like, well, this thing is completely beyond my control. It's a thing outside of me that comes and gets me. It wipes away my skills. It makes me forget stuff. Well, it makes you feel stuff. It makes you feel really scared. It makes you feel unsure. And we don't make, it's hard to make good decisions when we are really scared and vulnerable and unsure and like kind of in the thick of it. So it is difficult to do this. There's no doubt about that. I don't wanna make it sound super easy here, but it's really helpful to remember that at any given moment, I can choose to follow the fear or I can choose to let go in a way. And I can choose to accept this and I can choose to sort of do the opposite. Again, little tiny micro choices that happen from moment to moment. And when the shit is hitting the fan and you find that you are like, oh no, I forgot how to accept or I forgot how to surrender or I forgot how to float, it's one of the situations where you can say, okay, well in the middle of that, if I discover, oh, wait a minute, I'm doing the old things again. I'm resisting again. Well, you have a moment of micro choice again where you keep an adjust in that moment. So in any given moment of say high anxiety or panic or discomfort, even if you discover that like, oh, I'm falling back into the other habits, I'm choosing resistance, I can change direction even in the middle of this one particular instance, right? So I think it's important to recognize that because when we recognize that there are moments of choice and they come and go, they were presented with choice and then choice and then choice and then choice, at any given moment, we can pick a different direction, even though that's really difficult to do. And when we understand that we have that choice and this goes, a lot of other really smart people say this, I didn't invent this by the way, but it applies in our circumstances for sure. So when we recognize that there is a moment where I have a choice to make and I can, what am I gonna do with this anxiety or this fear that I'm experiencing right now, then we also understand that, oh, there is some power here, I'm not necessarily being swamped, I'm not being attacked, I'm not being overwhelmed by some sort of outside force, I get a chance to do this the way I want to do it to a certain extent. So it's super important to recognize that. And when people say, oh, I forgot what to do or I've been listening to the podcast, I've read your books true, or I follow all the other people that sound like me and I get it, but then when I'm really afraid, it all goes out the window. And I'm not gonna necessarily go along with that, that it all goes out the window, it's hard to make choices, but in that situation, you're confronted with a moment of choice where you say, what am I gonna do with this now? I'm going to fight it to try to protect myself the old way, or I'm going to let go this time and let it come and get me the new way. So at every given moment, when we get into those tight spots, we are confronted with those choices. So if I go back probably, I don't even know when this was. This is probably now four years ago, I don't know, three, four years ago. And I made two really popular podcast episodes, one of which I made while I was sitting in a park. I don't know if you guys are familiar with that. I don't know the episode number that is, but it was a critical moment of decision. So if you go to my website, theAnxiousTruth.com and search for critical moment in the search tool, you'll find this podcast episode and I walked you through what happened to me when I was out, I was actually on my mountain bike and I was working out on my bicycle and I had a panic attack while I was riding. And at this stage of the game, even though it was four years ago, well into being a recovered person, I was able to look back at that and say, okay, let me walk you through when I hit that critical moment of decision or choice, when I could have chose to follow the panic and fight it and try to protect myself against it or let go and just let it run its course. And, but I can recognize that moment because I've had so many, I've had a lot of practice at this. And that's what happens. We need to practice, but in the beginning of my recovery, I was really making a huge leap of faith there that like, okay, I got some of my fingers here, I will let go, I hope this is gonna work. So I kind of get that, I kind of get that. So in that moment of decision, that's where you find your power. That's where you discover that you have agency in this process, not because you have the ability to like superhero, just, you know, Hulk smash the panic when it goes away. That's not how this works, unfortunately. In the case of panic, when it's happening, it's happening, it has to just peek and run its course. You can't just stop it dead in its tracks. However, when that experience ends, and you've made that different choice, and you've recognized that moment of decision, that moment of choice, and you've made the choice to let go. As crazy as it sounds, when you make the choice to let go, surrender, float through it, except, I don't care what words you like to use, but if you give up the resistance amazingly, when it's over, that's when you feel like a superhero. So it's really the opposite. So if you say, well, everything goes out the window, so I'm gonna fight it, I'm gonna resist it, it'll end anyway, it'll probably take longer to end, in the end it's gonna end, but you will feel like, oh my God, it happened again, this is the worst, I don't know what's going on, I made it, I can't believe it, like I thought I was gonna die. When you fully let go in that moment of decision, and you exercise your right to choose, and your power in that moment, as crazy as it sounds, even though you're not fighting, at the end, then you feel like you won, which makes no sense whatsoever. If you don't fight, you end the episode feeling like you won a battle. When you do fight, the battle ends anyway, and you feel like you lost the battle. So it makes no sense, it's completely counterintuitive, those of you who are new to this community watching today are like, what the hell is this guy talking about? Aren't I supposed to learn how to ground myself, and stop it, and manage it, and activate my vagus nerve like, no, like no, actually in the end, if we just let it happen, run its course and end, there's no fight in that, there's no resistance in that, there's making a different choice in how you're going to respond, but you end that feeling like you won a war, which again, is completely ridiculous. But, and the reason why, one of the reasons why it's so difficult to first of all acknowledge the choice, I know many of you watching are probably saying, no, this is automatic, you don't understand, I don't have a choice, but you actually do. If you break this down into tiny little slices of time, you know, we're gonna go all physics here a little bit, but the smaller the slice of time, the more you begin to recognize, oh, in this particular moment, I can measure it in a minute, I can measure it in 30 seconds, I can measure it in 20 seconds, I can measure it in a second, I can measure it in a half a second. But in that half second little slice of time, you have a decision to make. And when you choose non-resistance, and you choose to surrender and not throw punches at it, not put your shield up, that's when you come out feeling like you won, which is kind of weird. But it makes it so hard because that decision happens in tiny little slices of time, it's completely counterintuitive, especially if you're new to this. And this is the third part that I put in here, power choice and courage, excuse me, making that different choice in that moment is a function of courage. This is where it goes off the rails for so many people, and people won't know, how, but how, what are the steps in that half a second moment of decision? And unfortunately, when we break it down to that one second, two second, half a second moment of decision, there is no steps, it's just courage. I'm going to let go of the rope now. So I'm pulling on the rope, I'm trying to get my way here, I'm gonna let go. In that moment I'm gonna let go. There's no step other than let go and let the chips fall where they may, which is counterintuitive, so it makes it difficult. It doesn't make any sort of sense, it's not what anybody seems to think they should do, makes it difficult, and it requires courage. You are doing something that seems inherently dangerous and reckless and wrong and fraught with danger and how can I possibly take a chance on letting go here? I understand all that, but sooner or later we get to the point where we have to say, I can keep declaring that I forget or I keep declaring that it goes out the window or I can recognize the courage part of this equation and what I'm really probably saying is, I'm not saying you're thinking clearly in those moments, you're not, I get that, but you can't completely just throw your hands in the air and say, I have no control over this, I'm just overwhelmed, I forget everything, give me steps to not forget. Like factor in the courage there and instead think of it as, well I'm missing my opportunity to make a different choice and exercise my power because I'm afraid and I'm acting toward the fear. That's all that is. And that's not a crime, that's a normal human response that in no way is failure, that's not a crime, it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong, it just means you got to get to that point where you recognize, oh, this is that moment when I have to plug the courage variable into this equation and decide I'm gonna use it or not. That's all. So I know I try, I make it sound simple and easy and it's not, it's complicated because some of the things in those critical moments of decision there are so many things that you are factoring in. Even though you're not consciously thinking very clearly and you feel like you can't make good decisions at that moment, you are making decisions based on survival and amazingly, the fear center in your brain has the ability to factor in all the bad past experiences. That it will do. That it seems to be really good at doing like I'm gonna run through all of the nightmare scenarios and make a decision based on that. Like, oh, hey, thanks, that you can do brain but if you want to rely on all the times that nothing happened to you and you were safe even if your fear is maybe based on past experiences that your brain wants no part of. So it's really ridiculous. Like, I keep saying that at some point maybe this part of the human brain will change and evolve, who knows? I understand why it's like that but it makes it sometimes really annoying and I'm not gonna lie. I mean, I believe that it's just really sucks like we're fighting against a little bit of bad design. So the survival mechanism, the amygdala will factor in will plug in all kinds of catastrophe variables and do a lot of math on those but it will completely ignore all the success variables and the reality variables. That nope, can't, I forget it all goes out the window but so you're really brute forcing your way past that knee jerk reaction that says fight, save myself. So in a way in those moments of decision you're really kind of, I always say you don't push through, I didn't really think about that. This is never pushing through, it's letting go but you're actually, there's a barrier. What's the best way for me to say this? So here's letting go, here's you. There's a barrier between that and you have to push through that barrier. When you push through the barrier to letting go then you let go and then there's no more pushing then there's just floating and just let whatever happens happens then they're surfing. So hopefully you shed a little light on this maybe give you something to think about maybe understand that like, oh, I guess maybe I do have some say in this because in the end, anybody who has come down the road and is a little further down the road to recovery and seems to have built the ability to relate to this in a different way. And we see people like in the chat right now Bethany is here, Jason is here, Grease Bell garage. I know there's people here that are further down the road to recovery and almost every one of them will without exception say, well, at one point I thought that it was out of my control also. So it's just a little incremental change, change, change, change. And the next thing you know, you understand and you're feeling that like, oh, I'm driving the car here, man, I could do this. So hopefully that helps. Let's pop through some of the comments and questions here. I will take the ones that I can close this. Again, I have to remind you guys that if you're coming from the Facebook group I can't see your name unfortunately, but that's okay. Let's see what everybody has to say. This is the part where you watch me scroll through the comments, which is always exciting. I'm facing fears and sitting at all the anxiety but not sure how to, okay, so I'll put this up on the screen again. I'm sorry, I can't see your name. I don't know, but you're clearly coming from the Facebook group, so hello. I'm facing fears and sitting at all the anxiety but not sure how to keep going like this. So in this situation, my best advice is, first of all, let's acknowledge that, yeah, that's a really difficult thing to do. It will wear you down, without a doubt, it is very difficult to do what it is you're doing. So good job on doing something that's really hard. Sometimes it's the expectation of what's supposed to happen when I sit with this, so what is the story afterward? So I'm sitting through this, I'm sitting through this. At some point, what is the story that you tell yourself? Because that does start to matter. That story really does start to matter. It becomes, hey, this is really horrible. It's never ending and acceptance clearly doesn't work. Sitting with it doesn't work. I'm not saying that's what you're asserting here but that's the most common train of thought that leads to this. I don't know how much longer I can do this as opposed to, oh, look, I'm doing it. I'm actually doing the thing and no harm is coming of me except I feel really uncomfortable right now. But I'm sitting with it now instead of running from it. So what else can I do while I sit with it? What can I do with my life while I'm feeling this way? So it's really kind of important to really take the feedback loop matters a lot. So what is the feedback that you're putting back down the chain? Is it, this is horrible, this is horrible. When's it gonna end? I'm sitting, when is it gonna end? I'm sitting with it, I'm not running. When's it gonna end? It's not gonna end anytime soon if that's the way you're doing it. If instead the feedback is, look, we're doing this, what else can we do while we're uncomfortable because it keeps failing to take me down? That's very different, okay? That's very different. So that's the best advice I can give you on that without knowing specifically what's going on. Let's see here. Let's put Yvonne, hello Yvonne, happy new year to you too. Did that get cut off? Happy new year, feeling the pressure of having to do and knowing I need to, but my mind, okay, I kind of get that. I'm guessing that you probably finished that comment later on. That's that thing, that's why I said it really makes it difficult because it's super, super, oh yeah, new video background by the way. Do you notice my stars? I just literally downloaded that like two seconds before I went live. I was tired of the Eiffel Tower thing and whatever else I had. But the reason why you will say, well logically I know what to do, I know what I have to do, but it's so hard to do, that's correct. If we could just act on our logical brains and what we knew we had to do, none of you guys would be watching this video right now. I would not have written any books. I wouldn't have to do any of this. Nobody would know who I am and I wouldn't know who you are. And that's probably a good thing. Like I wish it was that way. But since you can't, logically what you know to be true and what you know you need to get done is helps for sure. Like when you adopt that and say, well okay, I'm gonna try it this way and I know what to do, you're still going against the grain in terms of the lower part of your brain, the part that's supposed to keep you alive. So recognize that when you're saying that, I know what I'm supposed to do, my mind wants no part of that, that's normal, you and everybody else. It's you're in the same boat that everybody else is because you're human, right? So it's gonna be hard. It's gonna be hard. Let's keep going here. Choo, choo, choo, choo. Oh, you know what Becky? I'm hiring you to be my Christmas consultant next year, no one in my house want that to decorate. Instead we decided to do festive things rather than look at festive things. I guess I'm okay with the decorations, but it is true that by the time we would get to like New Year's Day, I'm literally like enough of this now. Like now you're mocking me. Is that ridiculous? I don't know if anybody can relate to that. It feels like it's now the Christmas decoration just mocking me. Anyway, how lucky was that lady bumping into me? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that was great. I actually got to meet a member of the Facebook group over Christmas. It was a random thing, it was not planned, it just sort of happened, but yeah, that was great to get to meet somebody, very cool. We're loving the podcast, thank you, Christina. I hope they're helpful for you. Let's see, let's pop this one up. Have good and bad days with anxiety. I can't even enjoy the good days because I'm always fearing when the anxiety will creep back in, which then triggers my anxiety. Okay, so what you're describing here is literally the definition of things like panic disorder. So panic disorder is when you are afraid of the next panic attack. So the anxiety itself drives the anxiety. So literally what you're describing is exactly what everything I write about and talk about is aimed directly at. So the good news here is that you're not describing anything strange or out of the ordinary, or you're not describing a special obstacle or a special kind of stuck. It's exactly what creates the position that you're in and what keeps you in a position that you're in. So remember that the thing that you are afraid of is not, it's the anxiety itself generates the next bout with anxiety. So that's normal, recognize that. Like, oh, I'm looking for the next one here. Okay, I might do that automatically, but what else can I do while I am doing this, while I am scanning, while I'm trying to protect myself? I have to be able to live myself my life also, which is a gross simplification, but that's what we're talking about here. Instead of just sitting passively and wringing your hands and shaking over like, when's it gonna, oh no, oh no, now I'm triggered again. Okay, I'm worried about how I feel. I'm afraid of how I feel. I'm afraid of my own body and thoughts. What can I do while I'm afraid to show my brain that it doesn't have to keep doing this? So you're describing incredibly almost textbook situation. Let's see here. My husband and I needed to see a doctor over the long weekend, glad it's over. Me too, no fun. Hope you guys are okay, Carol. Let's see, Captain America Winter Soldier. You know, I don't think I've ever seen that one. Okay, let's see here. Hey, Robbie, what does Robbie have to say? This year it's taking so much away from me. I feel like more, okay, this is good. So let's put Robbie's comment up. Hey, Robbie, this past year it's taking so much away from me. I can feel me being more angry with it. That's not a bad thing in my view. I'm certain maybe this is how I change the relationship with it. I am of the mindset that says that getting angry at it, not angry yet at you, we have to be really careful here. And it brings up a good point. When we talk about this stuff, I almost want to separate like what I'm talking to your anxiety and what I'm talking to you. And the same thing for yourself. When am I talking to my anxiety? When am I talking to myself as a person? So being angry at it can be really productive and can actually be motivating and can inform different actions and change of direction. I remember getting to that point where it's like, I'm done, I'm not doing this anymore. This is an unacceptable way to live. So before I did the critical moment of decision episode of my podcast, I did one either before or right after that where I talked about that. Like getting to the point where it's just like, you're gonna have to just kill me then because I'm not doing this anymore. And getting to the point where you get angry at it can really be a game changer sometimes. So tap into that, but just be careful about turning the anger on yourself. Like now I'm angry at me. You don't have to be angry at you, be angry at it. Now I always say like, we oversimplify things. Like your anxiety is not sentient. It's not a separate person. It's part of you, but sometimes it helps to separate that out. I'm really, I'm just angry at this disorder now. I'm not angry at me. Like, oh, you're, because I hear this, I get angry, I hear people beat themselves up. Why can't I get this? I'm too dumb, I'm too weak, I'm a loser, I can't get it right. No, no, no, no, that's not fair to yourself. Like take that anger and direct it at the disorder, the disordered state and try and use that. But angry yourself, you can't help it. We can't decide what emotions to have. Just notice when you're doing that. Are you angry at you or are you angry at it? Try to be angry at it. And it might change the way you see it. Because when you get really angry at it, it seems like a little bit less of a monster if that helps. Good question, Robbie, or good comment. I've noticed the power of my thoughts since journaling announced I've got 80% recovery. I'm letting go, this is good. Again, sorry, can't see your name. The power of my thoughts since journaling, and I'd say now that I'm about 80% recovered. I'm letting go every day now and it's resulting in fewer symptoms. I wish I knew who this was. Thank you so much for saying that because that's kind of how this works. Now, for this person, journaling became a way to put space between thoughts and between themselves and their thoughts. Like we're always trying to put space between us there. And that seems to have done the job there. I'm a fan of journaling and recovery in so much as it helps us do that. So instead of journaling like, oh my God, it was terrible another day. When is this gonna end? I felt dizzy. I was nauseous. I thought I was gonna die. My legs were shaking. Nobody knows. That's a, in my opinion, that's not a productive journal. Now everybody needs a place to vent. So that's fine, but that can't be the only way you're right about this. I am a huge fan of calling it out in your journal, right? So today I felt all the things that I'm afraid of and I didn't try to save myself and they didn't kill me again. Day 32 of not dying. Day 74 of not going crazy. Like call out the irrationality in your journal. Use it to let reality be your guide so that when you get into tricky spots, you can go back to the journal and look and say, oh, look at that. I used to think this all the time. I used to think I was gonna go crazy all the time. I used to think I would never get better and I feel like I'm getting better. So look at all these wrong thoughts. Look at all these inaccurate thoughts. Look at all these wrong predictions. Look at all the times that my heartbeat and my breathing didn't mean anything. Really good. That was a great comment. Thank you so much. I appreciate you sharing. So what time is it? Okay, we're good on time. I think it's hard to understand that this is a repetitive thing. It's going, it's not finished. Never have to use it. This is good. Let's put this up. Is it a big comment? I must have to look over it, but I think it's hard to truly understand that this is a repetitive thing. It's ongoing. It's not finished. Never have to do this again. Please listen to Bethany when she says this because that is 100% true. Like these are things that you will return to again and again and again. I joke about this all the time. I don't know a person more recovered than me walking this planet. I'm proud of that, but there are times that I do have to return to recovery principles. So if I get super anxious for whatever reason, or I wrote, I don't know, a few weeks ago, I had a problem with vertigo and it did kind of tip me into a panic zone that I haven't been in a long time. I still use these tools all the time. And then I also use them outside of anxious situations, just as life tools. And they're really worthwhile. So don't think of this as something that like, oh, I can't wait for my recovery to end and I'm never gonna have to do this ever again. That's probably not accurate and it's gonna set you up for some disappointment. So thank you, Bethany. I appreciate that. My success journal has been so important. Huge fan of this. I've written about the success journal. Give it a try. Give it a try. Sometimes I get in arguments over this though because when I say I'm not a fan of journaling, what I mean is I'm just not a fan of writing down how you felt all day long, another day of nausea, another day of jelly legs. Not helpful, like not helpful, but a success journal, hmm. Oh, this is good. Hello, Amanda. Good to see you. I'd like to say that I've taken my eyes off the tools and resources. So I guess I'm kidding myself that I can do it by determination. Okay. This is a really strong comment by Amanda. Thank you for sharing Amanda. I appreciate it. This is a strong comment because she's right. Like it's not enough to just say you're doing it. It's not enough to just want to do it. We actually have to do things. So I can want to play like David Gilmore. I would like to play that Stratocaster just like he does. And I could be so determined. But if I do not actually practice, well, you know what? If I practiced every day until I die, it still wouldn't sound like David Gilmore. But the point is, I know that me playing the guitar is not the same as you overcoming anxiety disorder, but being determined alone is not going to get the job done. So as much as we want it, if we start to slack off a little bit, things get a little tough. Anyway, hello London. Good to see you. Let's see, that is a great explanation. You're welcome. I don't know what I explained, but I'm behind on the comments. Sarasota, this is cool. All right, Carol. Good to see this. I managed to do a short meditation this morning. Felt calmer than I have in ages. That's excellent. So the path to that, because a lot of people want to meditate, but are you either afraid? Because when they do that, they hear their brain racing and they hear their thoughts or they feel their sensations. This coming Saturday in my Instagram subscriber group, we'll get back to Surrender Saturday. We do a bunch of those like mindfulness practices on every Saturday. So I do talk about this a lot. I have some meditations that are free on the Insight Timer app if you wanna check them out. But the path to what Carol's talking about here isn't necessarily a calming path. So we have to be careful that we don't look to meditation as a calming tool. But in the end, when we practice it and we practice just letting those sensations and those thoughts come and go, we wind up in a calmer state. So again, like so much of this stuff that we're talking about, this crap that we have to deal with, it's a happy secondary effect. I'm really happy to hear that, Carol. You deserve a break. Let's see here. Happy holidays. Hello, Julie. Good to see you. I start courageous, but the letting go seems so difficult for me. Okay. So Ian, this is where, let's see here. I start courageous, but the letting go and floating with it seems so difficult. Dude, it's difficult for everybody, man. Don't beat yourself up. This is not easy for anybody. It wasn't easy for me. I know that sometimes when I write about it and I'm so far removed from it, it sounds like I just ran this over. Like I just decided to accept and surrender, but it was hard for me too. It's hard for everybody. For all those reasons, it's counterintuitive, requires a leap of faith, it requires courage, all of those things. So I get it. And at some point, I think it's okay. Just don't get into the trap of beating yourself up. I don't know why I can't let go. Everybody has to reach a point where they're ready to let go. Everybody has to get to that point. And you can't just be at that point if you're not at that point. So think about that a little bit. Let's see here. Courage seems to get beat up. So this is one of those things that people talk about all the time. Now, driving anxiety, that was my jam, 100%. And I am of the mindset that says, listen, you get to choose whatever you wanna do. Pull over and panic if you have to. If that feels safer, that's totally, totally fine. But I am always gonna push back on the argument that says, but you don't understand driving is special because that really is dangerous. But when people say that to me, I always will say, okay, well, think of the last time that you were in a driving situation where you felt like you were losing control because this fear was at such a high level. What did you do? And nine times out of 10, they will either say, well, I had to stop driving. Okay, and what happened? Well, then I got myself home. Okay, how did you get yourself home? Because it hit a peak and it came down to the point where you can navigate the car safely. Perfectly acceptable way to end that. Except the part where you felt like you had to go home. Or the other thing that they say is, well, I went home right away. Okay, well, how did you get home? Oh, so fast. I couldn't get home fast enough. So your assertion is that you will lose control of the car, but you were always in control enough to drive home like a Formula One driver that you could do. How is that possible? Or you had the presence of mind to say, I don't feel competent behind the wheel. Let me pull over and then felt competent enough to drive but to home or wherever your safe place is. So the driving thing I'm always gonna push back on because if I had continued to say, no, long and expressway, no way. Midtown tunnel can't drive in the Midtown tunnel because what if I have a panic attack in the Midtown tunnel? I would still be where I was. So we have to challenge some of that belief. And on a practical level, you did one of two things that was safe and you made safe, good choices because I will tell you that almost does not count. So I never liked it. The word almost should be like stricken from every vocabulary as a group. Well, I almost passed out. How do you know you almost? You can't almost passed out. You either did or you didn't. And what did you do to stop yourself from passing out? Well, I pulled over. Well, okay, but how did that make you not pass out? I don't understand. Oh, I took a glass of, I was drinking my water. I took my mints, I called my wife. How did that stop you from passing out? Like is your phone magic and it can somehow stop that physiological process? So it's so important that we attack those irrational choices. But everybody also has a right to make whatever choice they want. If you feel that driving is just too dangerous, then you don't have to. That's okay. I saw a woman from the UK. I don't remember her name. I think she's a big mental health advocate. She doesn't really focus on anxiety. This is going back a few years. Somebody sent me a link to a video that she did when she told the zillions of people to follow her, maybe you're just not meant to drive. And I saw red. I'm like, how could you effing say this to those people? But honestly, three years later, okay, I might say the same thing. You can choose to not drive if you want to, but you can't choose to not drive because you insist that it is unsafe and also lament that you can't drive. You have to pick one, pick a lane, pardon the pun. Anyway, so Jim, I hope that helps. I will throw this out. Hello, Sue, good to see you. What is my thought on EMDR in addition to exposure therapy? So EMDR is the therapy du jour, right? Right now it is a very popular therapy and everybody, and so, okay, let me be professional about this and not ruffle any feathers. EMDR is specifically indicated in the case of trauma resolution. Like that seems to be where most of the research is headed with the use of EMDR. EMDR is used as a way to help you sort of re-experience and go through those sort of flashback things while staying in the present and not re-experiencing like as time travel. I'm super oversimplifying it, right? But there is also a fair amount of research that says, okay, well, EMDR seems to be pretty effective in that situation. It helps people get through those painful memories. Cool, if that helps, I'm a big fan. But EMDR is not a treatment for an anxiety disorder. It's simply not. It was not designed to be that. There's no empirical evidence that says it is for that. It does not appear to be effective for that, but it doesn't stop the mental health community from latching on to the popular concept and trying to shoehorn it into every possible thing. So I do not believe that EMDR has a place as a treatment for anxiety disorders like panic disorder or OCD. There is a fair amount of research that shows that even without that bilateral activation thing that EMDR claims, there is still effectiveness. So even if you don't do that magic eye thing, it sort of works. So there's a reasonable amount of empirical data that says, well, wait a minute, why does it work? What's so special about that eye movement thing? Because that bilateral stimulation, which is supposed to be the secret sauce, even if you take that away, there's really good success in using like whatever you might call them grounding or staying present techniques when re-experiencing those painful memories. So I know one therapist that I work with all the time and I respect, she calls it sprinkles. And I'm not sure that I disagree with that. So, but again, if you're dealing with trauma resolution or you're working through some painful stuff and EMDR helps you get through that painful stuff, huge fan, huge fan. So I do not agree with that. I respect Dr. Kiran, but I do not think that EMDR is a gold standard when treating health. I don't understand how that would work. So EMDR somehow is going to change your tolerance. I know I'm jumping to the last comment, but I just saw Christina say that. I don't know what the mechanism was supposed to be there. My conceptualization of health anxiety is an intolerance of risk, plain and simple. Like you refuse to tolerate anything that isn't 0% risk. So I'm not sure how EMDR changes that in some way. Now I understand if there are some experiences in your past that are holding you back in some ways, it could be a tool in the toolkit, but I would disagree that EMDR has somehow become the gold standard in treating health anxiety. In fact, she's the only person I've ever heard of that has said that. Again, full respect to Dr. Kiran and her credentials, but we are allowed to disagree. She would disagree with me, I'm quite sure. So if somebody said drew from the anxious truth, doesn't believe you, she would, I'm sure say that I'm wrong. And that's okay. Let's keep going here. How are we doing here? Okay, we'll do another five minutes or so. Hopefully get to the end. Not sure what to do when anxiety makes me feel like I can't work, but I need to work to survive right now. Well, okay. So this is a pretty big deal. Not sure what to do when anxiety makes it feel. The key words is makes it feel like. So I'm not telling you that you can go from homebound. I don't know who you are, I'm sorry, but I don't know your specific situation, but I don't know if you've been trapped in your home for whatever, however long amount of time, and you wanna go back to work, I get that. You're not gonna go from homebound to back to work in a day. So it doesn't work that way. So there is a systematic process here for sure. And I think what winds up happening here is you have to start to look at dismantling the belief that what it feels like is how you make your decisions. If you make all your decisions based on what anxiety feels like, then you get stuck, you get dug into the hole, and then you stay there. So this process on the whole is based on discovering through experience that what it feels like isn't a thing to base everything on because what it feels like is invariably always wrong. I'm not saying it doesn't feel that way, it totally feels that way. So when you are anxious, it completely feels like you are going to go crazy or like you are going to die or whatever your imagined outcome is for sure. But just because it really feels that way doesn't mean it's true. We have to learn to challenge that, all right? So the toughest part is hearing my trigger words and not reacting. I did better today when I heard it just to not react to them. Excellent. So what I would say here, that's difficult. I understand for many people, they don't want to hear words. I couldn't, the word death, death, dying and dead. Three words were absolutely off limits to me and they would send me into a good spiral for days. But that got better. Just remember that you will have the initial reaction. Do not beat yourself over that. People tend to make the mistake of thinking I turn off the reaction, you don't. You turn down the volume on the maladaptive reaction over time little by little. But the initial, like when you hear those trigger words you're going to get startled. You're going to have that flash of adrenaline. You're going to get really uncomfortable. That's normal. It's the reaction to that reaction that you care about. So keep that in mind. Good job today. Very good. Kill this, I cannot take this call right now. What you're saying is exactly what's taught him at ERP therapy. Yep. I find that even if I let a little bit of resistance go it makes a difference. Very good. A good comment there for sure. It does make a difference. And that's why you let go a little, little, little, little, little. Sooner or later you have to fully let go. Sooner or later, like one of the coolest things and it might have been in one of these videos. I'm not sure I was on an Instagram live. I heard somebody say my therapist keeps telling me that my acceptance knob only goes to nine. And I refuse to turn it all the way up to 10. So sooner or later you got to go away to 10. But little by little is totally fine. Let's see here. Why do people stay stuck on negative thoughts out there and you can't get it out of your head? Okay, I'll throw that up on real quick. It's okay that you, so the reason why you can't get it out of your head is because you're trying to get it out of your head. We can choose to think things. We cannot choose to not think things. So the quick reaction I'll give you to this comment is remember that you don't get to choose what you think. You do get to actively decide to think about a thing. If I want to think about an ice cream cone right now. Okay, I did it. I thought about an ice cream cone. If I want to really try hard to think, to not think about a thing, I can't do that. There's a metacognitive process that kicks in, that checks to see if I was successful in not thinking it. And then as soon as I checked to see if I'm not thinking it, I'm thinking it. So it's pretty well documented. Just be careful about thinking that you have to stop the thoughts. You don't. And if they live in your head all day long right now because this is new to you, that's okay. Your job is to learn how to let them be there without trying to fight them off and argue with them all day long. Believe me, that is exhausting work. It totally is. And depending on what your particular situation is, you may look at working with a therapist who's gonna do ERP work with you. I don't know your specific situation, but I get that. Just understand that the thoughts are there, that's okay. That's okay. Hello, Dana. Nice to see you here. Let's see. I've been learning to not care, but I've had to learn to not care. I'm always angry at myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Christina Sun is happy to be going back to school. I get that. You know, on the flip side of that, I will say that after this break, which I really needed, like I did a lot of nothing for the past 10 days, I was kind of sick at the beginning of the break too. I'm not only, like Christmas is mocking me now and it's like, ah, the break is over and you get sad because the break is over, but I feel like, oh God, I cannot be like a lump anymore. So I kind of get that. I get why your son wants to go back to school. Let me scroll down to the bottom here. I'm sorry, I'm not gonna get to every one of the comments here. I wish I could. Can I watch this back? Yes, this will stay on my YouTube channel. It will stay in the Facebook group. It will stay on my Facebook page and it will stay on my YouTube channel. If you want to watch these things back, the best way to do it will be to subscribe to my YouTube channel because they're just in a playlist. So it makes it super easy to go back and find all of these. Let's see here. Did I overcome agoraphobia? Yes, I'll answer the question quickly. The answer to that is yes. And that's all I will say. I did three podcast episodes about my use of medication. You can go back and listen to those if you want to hear the whole story. But yes, I did. Might be easier to play while I kill more. Let's see here. Stop being so logical. My wife's driving ramps up my anxiety. She has a hemi now. All right, good job, dude. Let's see here. How do you let go of the fear of fearing symptoms? You have to let the fear be there and let them do what they do. Short answer because I'm now just trying to get through them to the bottom here. Gee, Wilbur. Anyway, all right, let me scroll down to the bottom here. My son wants to say, hi, hello, Leo. Can you explain how you managed to stop rumination? So rumination, a lot of people would call rumination a mental compulsion, right? So in the OCD world, they would say, well, rumination is a... People will say the rumination is a choice. I don't necessarily disagree with that. There's a choice that goes into ruminating and also that rumination is a mental compulsion. So the way you would stop dealing with rumination is you have to start to let the questions that you are trying to answer remain unanswered and you'll only be able to do that for short amounts of time before, oh my God, no, no, no, that's not right. I have to go back to thinking again. I have to think about this. I can't, that's too important to not think about. So over time, when you can disengage a little bit more and a little bit more for longer and longer periods of time and discover that like, oh, my relationship with this thinking habit isn't helping me at all, then that starts to change that. That's a very short, simplified answer to that. Not even close to covering all the bases, but there are a lot of people who do a lot of good work on rumination. So a lot of times with rumination, it's the idea that like, well, what else can I do besides just thinking now? Now, if it's part of OCD and there's an OCD thing going on, it's a little bit different, so similar, but not exactly the same. Again, I can't answer it in a quick comment. Les G. Hang in there, Les, this is hard work, but good job getting started here. Have you ever set yourself a daily routine? All right, two more minutes. Yes, I did, almost like a workout. I will tell you that when I wrote, when I wrote The Anxious Truth, you would think that if I was better at this, I would have a copy of my books in my hands, but I don't. But I talk about a thing called The Morning Effect and The Anxious Truth when I wrote that book because I built my recovery on a morning routine. I built my recovery on a morning routine. I would wake up in the morning, I was a morning anxiety person. If you're a night anxiety person, you might have to modify this, but instead of opening my eyes and then laying in bed and ruminating and thinking about how I felt and dreading the day, I immediately got up, put my feet on the floor, brushed my teeth, got dressed, combed my hair, took care of myself, had something to drink, got out the door, did my exposures, no matter how I felt. That was really, really hard to adopt. But without that, I would literally wait around to see how I was feeling before I decided what I would do and that was a bad place to be. So yes, I built a daily routine and I used it religiously during the bulk of my recovery. Would that 100% work for everybody? No, because everybody's a little bit different and I hated it, hated, hated, hated because I do not like routines and schedules even to this day. But I learned a lot about the value of a routine and schedule while doing that and I still use some routine for it now, in my life now, for sure, it does help. Program software, this is Restream, Restream.io for anybody who cares. Somebody asked what program this is, just Restream, it's just a streaming service. Being home alone has been challenged the past couple of months, I'm getting better, very good. All right, guys, I think we're done. 249, we did pretty good. Try doing that at 5 a.m. when it's below freezing. I did. As it turns out, when I was doing that work, that's exactly the winter that we had in New York. It was a brutally cold, ridiculously snowy and icy winter. It was one of those winters that we can have now and then and we had one. So, oh man, and I don't mind the cold, I actually like the snow, but getting up in the morning and just everything was crunchy and icy and freezing and it was no fun. But it started, became my friend after a while because when I started to see that this was working for me, I started to mind the cold a little less for what it's worth, but yeah, it sucked. It sucked doing it in the middle of winter, but just happened to be that way. Anyway, guys, thanks a lot for coming by here. I will say that we'll be back again next week. Don't know what we're gonna talk about. I kind of decide the day before sometimes if anybody has any topic suggestions, if you're in the Facebook group, you wanna hit me up on YouTube in the comments, whatever. For those of you who are commenting on my YouTube videos, I promise this week I will get back and catch up with them. I have not looked at comments for like a week and a half, I'm very sorry. But yeah, we'll be back again next week. What else can I tell you? All the stuff that you want from me is on my website at the anxioustruth.com. All of the stuff, the books and everything are all there, so go check it out. For those of you who are interested in learning more about the art of distress tolerance, which is in fact a big part of this equation, Joanna Hardison, I do a webinar on that every month. I don't know when the January one is usually the middle of the month. I think we're doing an evening one again so that anybody who needs evening hours in the US can see it. You can check that out, that's on my website too. And that's it, we'll be back next week. Thanks guys, appreciate it.