 Welcome to Recovery Monday episode 44, the 44th time we're doing this, in about a year because we've had some time off. Today we're going to talk about the idea that sometimes you can actually go fast. It's okay. We've been talking for the past however many weeks about the idea of learning to slow down. We've been talking about benefits of slowing down as a way to change your reaction and your relationship with anxiety and fear. But invariably, when we have this discussion, people will start to ask me, well, what does this mean? Can I never ever go fast? So today, we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the fact that, yeah, you're allowed to go fast. There are times when you can really do that. So I will put the chat overlay up. How is everybody doing? Well, this way you guys can see each other. Bethany is here. GBG is here. Sarah is here. Welcome, Sarah. We'll wait for folks to pop in. The Netherlands is in the house. Hello, Hans. Good to see you. I am having not the best Monday, as you could see by the hat and that it didn't shave. It's been a little bit of a dumpster fire today. Beth's all right. Hey, Anna, what's going? Judy, what's going on? Becky is here from Twitch. Nope, I won't break the rules ever, ever. She says that's great. But 18 people, we'll wait for a few more folks to come in. Just as a reminder, if you are, hey, Julie, what's up? Tap with us here. If you guys are watching through the Facebook group, I can't see your names just because that's the way Restream does it. So I'm really sorry about that. And let's see what else. Fall is starting to happen here, I think, in New York. So it's good. I think summer is kind of ending a little bit. Hopefully, you guys are starting to feel a little bit of fall weather and break from the heat. I know everybody's been baking this summer. It's been a little bit weird, which I know we don't really want, but it is what it is. Carol's here. Julie's here. Jim is here. What up, Jim? Nice to see you, brother. So we're going to get into it in a second. Hey, Jason, what's going on? Let's see. It turned the screen blanking off. I forgot to turn off my screen blanking. You're 100 percent right. Hang on. Let me do that right now. Where's my screen blanking software? Hang on. I'm on it. I think it might be ready off. I don't see it. Okay, that's fine. I think I already turned it off to be honest with you. They quit the app. So thank you for reminding me of that. I appreciate that. We got 40 people. Let's get cooking here. We can do this. Tell them how to get the book. Okay, dude, I'm going to tell them how to get the book. Relax. I had a guy here this morning help me out with the podcast and he's a bit of a pain in the ass. If you do not have a copy of this book, because this is the book that we are working out of these days, you can get a copy of that book right here. I'm going to put it on the screen. So if you don't have a copy and you want to follow along with it, you can totally do that. Just go to 700slow.com and all the places to go to get the book are there. If you want to follow along, that's totally fine. So we're going to get into it here and what now remind them about the webinar. Okay. I know I got to remind you about the webinar. So the other thing just having a little fun with audacity. I was doing some creative stuff today for next week's podcast episode, but since Eddie, that's Eddie since he wanted me to remind you about the webinar. Every month, Joanna Hardis and I and OCD and anxiety specialists from Cleveland are doing a distress intolerance webinar. The next one's coming up in the middle of September. I'm going to talk about it a little bit. If you want more information about that, you can find that here. So I promise that I would talk about it and here I am. But we got 34 folks. Let's get cooking here. Let's talk about Eddie as Darth Vader. Just a little bit of creativity. That's all. Just flexing a little creative muscle. So let's talk about the fact that people worry like, well, am I allowed to never go fast? Now for some people, the idea of living slowly all the time and deliberately is a great thing. Like they really enjoy it and they want to do that, which is super cool, right? I have no problem with that. But other people will think like, oh, no, does this mean I'm never, ever, ever allowed to go slow ever again? I never allowed to go fast ever again. And the answer to that is, no, we can go fast. It's okay. The object of the game here is that speed doesn't have to be completely banished from our lives. Like people know how to go fast. Like it's built into us. We can speed up when we need to. So just like anything else, you know, in anxiety recovery, we're not trying to banish anxiety and never, ever, ever feel anxious. That's not what we're after. And this little sub part of that, learning to go slow and be deliberate and be mindful, doesn't mean we're banishing speed forever. We're just trying to put it back into a proper place. Use it on purpose. Use it deliberately. And so speed can occupy a healthy position in your life instead of dictating a frantic pace. So sometimes there's reasons to go fast. It's okay. Sometimes we need to go fast. We literally do need to go fast for safety and survival reasons. It's 100% true. So we always use the hungry lion or the angry bear as the example here. That's 100% true. So sometimes we do actually need to speed up. We need to get out of dodge. We need to get out of the way. For practical reasons, we do need to go a little bit faster. It's totally fine. That's not a problem. Not saying that you're just never, ever, ever allowed to go fast ever again, and you must do everything in slow motion. It would not be really practical to live your life that way. So if you're wondering, you know, that's what this means, no, it doesn't mean that at all. When we need to go quickly for safety reasons, for survival reasons, we can do that. We have the capability to do that. And we use it and apply it in that position, which is great. We just don't, we're just trying to stop interpreting our own bodies as creating safety and survival instances or situations. But when we need to, we can certainly go fast. Maybe we're running late. Maybe we are whatever. There's a deadline. There are times when we practically do need to go a little bit faster. I think somebody a couple of weeks ago in one of live streams was talking about, you know, working a fast-paced job. I believe she was a server at a busy restaurant. She said, you know, you can't go slow there. And that's true. So sometimes we do need to go quickly. We just don't need to get into a frantic state. So it was really important that day for me to kind of point that out, like the difference between going fast and being frantic. So we're allowed to speed up when the situation requires it. And as you get better and go down the road to recovery, you begin to regain the ability to assess that. Like, is this a situation where I'm okay because I know I'm okay, but I really do need to get a move on. And you get a little bit better at that. Not everything is an emergency. Not everything is a disaster. Not everything is revolving around how you feel and your symptoms and your thoughts. And you'll start to be able to speed up in a healthy way and go fast when you want to go fast. So one of the things that I want to talk about here is I want to ask a question. And that is, well, why? So if you're one of those people that's thinking, holy shit, like Drew's telling me that I have to just be slow my whole rest of my life. If that is a little bit disconcerting to you, I would ask you, well, why do you want to reserve the right to go fast? Like, why is it so important to you? And sometimes that is because we wear certain personality traits or characteristics that might not be helping us as badges of honor or accomplishment. So is your desire to be fast based on ego? Is it based on who you hope you are, who you want people to see you as? Is it based in self-image? We all want to have a healthy self-image, but we need to be careful that we're not perpetuating habits that are actually causing us more harm than good because we think they're good things or we want them to be the way the world sees us. So do you need to be like, I'm just the fast thinker? I'm never going to forget that there was a person in my Facebook group that I think is not there anymore who was said like, well, this isn't going to work for me because I think faster than everybody else. And that person was a hundred percent like wearing that as a badge of honor. And at some point, there was a realization like, okay, this might not actually be helping me to be that way, but it was difficult for that person to drop that bit of her self-image. I'm the fastest thinker in the room all the time. So if you are that person, I mean, I'm the fast thinker. I have the fast brain. I need to be the fastest person. I'm the fastest guy in the room. I'm the fastest person in the room because that speaks to who you hope to be or who you want the world to see you as. Well, that's a little different animal. That isn't necessarily a good reason to always be a speedy. You know, that doesn't mean that going fast is always harmful. We're talking about a particular context here, but think about that a little bit. You know, if the object of the game is that you need to show everybody that you are an overachieving, you know, accomplishment and, you know, to-do list machine that just gets everything done super fast. And you're the fastest thinker in the room because you're super smart. Well, that can sometimes become counterproductive when we want to do it that way or we demand that we always do it that way. So sometimes learning to abandon some of those things because we discover, you know, I've been doing that for many years. Guilty, by the way, guilty. And it's not really serving me. I have to come to the conclusion that this isn't really serving me. I can speed up when I need to, but I don't have, I'm not here to prove something. So if your desire to always rush around is based on the need to prove something to yourself or show the world something, well, that's something that you may want to think about a little bit. And I always want to bring that up because that comes up inevitably in the topic of why we should slow down. And when I wrote this book and put it out there, a lot of people were impacted that way, but I don't want to slow down. Okay, well, why don't you want to slow down? Because I'm the fast guy. Okay. Well, how's that working out for you? So again, you get everybody's entitled to make their own decisions. If it's working out for you, then keep being the fast guy. I have no problem with that. There's nothing wrong with it. But if it's not working out for you, then sometimes we have to think about it. And then why do we sometimes want to go fast, aside from practical reasons, survival reasons, safety reasons, look, sometimes it just feels good. That's okay. Like there are instances where you just kind of feel like, I'm going to give you an example. If you're ever been walking down the street in New York City and there's somebody slow in front of you, there are times when that starts to become frustrating and you want to walk past them. Like I want to walk quickly down the street because that's just the state of mind I'm in that day. Whatever it happens to be, somebody's driving like dangerously slowly in front of you on the highway and you got to go around them. But there are some times when our state of mind just lends itself to being, have a little bit more spring in our step, being a little bit quicker, maybe a little bit more forward, a little bit more aggressive in our actions. That's okay. It's actually okay to do that. We don't want to get trapped into living that way all the time by default. And we don't want it to be driven by fear and stress and anxiety and the need to try to escape and fix and solve and run away. But sometimes it just sort of feels good. And anybody who's ever maybe driven a little faster than they should just for fun knows that sometimes speed is fun. It's just, I don't know, just good for our state of mind. Sometimes it's a celebratory thing. Sometimes there is an accomplishment in that and it's sort of wrapped in that. Sometimes we're just having fun. Like, you know, sometimes speed is an experience enhancer, but it can be that in a healthy way. Even that can be deliberate. Like, I'm just feeling a little extra bouncy today and I'm going a little quicker today and I feel good today. So there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever. So this is, I don't have a really long lecture to do today because this is a pretty short chapter. I just needed to address that concern of like, oh, I'm never, ever allowed to go slow. I've never, never allowed to go fast. Yeah, you kind of are. And these are some of the reasons why. First, understand why you're trying to hang on to that. You know, you're hanging on to maybe some maladaptive or destructive personality traits that you hope are good, but are not really helping you. And then sometimes it's practical survival safety reasons. Yeah, we got to get out of dodge. We got to get out of the way. We got to dodge a bullet happens. And other times it just feels good. It's just part of fun. It's just part of life. Some days we are faster than others and that's okay. We really just care about the, the urgent and frantic speed that is driven by, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. So when you find yourself in, oh my God, OMG, OMG, OMG, that's a good indicator that that's probably not a good use of speed at least for a few minutes. Like if I am in OMG mode, OMG, OMG, and you're going frantic, faster, faster, faster, that is a good time to stop, take a step back, slow down and reassess like, do I really have to go at this frantic pace right now? Do I want to go at this frantic pace? How is this my speed and my frantic nature related to the context that I'm in right now? Yeah, it's fun. Like we're having a good time today and I'm just getting caught up in it. Okay, carry on. Or no, I'm freaking out right now, feeling really anxious and I'm trying to get away from my own body and mind or whatever. I'm trying to solve every problem in the world because I can't stop thinking about them. Well, then maybe I got to step back for a little longer time and be a little bit more deliberate on purpose going forward. So I think there's a range here. There's a range. It's not realistic for somebody to look at this book that I wrote, 7% slower and think that that means they will live their entire life in some sort of Zen state of perfect serenity and mindfulness in slow motion and graceful like a crane. No, it's not going to be that way. Our speed will vary from minute by minute, hour to hour, day to day. The context matters. We're just trying to address that knee-jerk reaction to fear, anxiety, stress, uncertainty and all those things. So yeah, we can speak a lot of different ways, right? We can act a lot of different ways in life and we learn that they're all okay. All of the states are permitted. All of the states are allowed. Humans have very varied experiences and we learn to have all of them and get through them in whatever way is appropriate for that particular situation that helps us and moves us forward. So that's all I really have on that today. It's pretty short. So we'll take some comments and questions. I think we're not going to be here too long today. Usually we do about 40 minutes. Maybe today we'll get to a half hour or so. Anybody wants to throw some questions out, go ahead, but let's see what we have. Oh, this is good. GBG says, when there is an actual need for speed, it seems normal to me. And that's that thing that happens when you are back to a bit of a more healthy, normal, regular relationship with anxiety and fear. And you're not interpreting everything as a disaster all the time. You get way better at judging that context. Like, oh, yeah, this is pretty normal. Like I'm pretty late right now. So I've got to hurry up. And you hurry up and that's totally normal and it's okay. And it doesn't feed that fear cycle, right? So that's pretty cool. What else here? Don't go fast. Let's see here. Don't go fast if you have a false trigger. Hans, I think I understand what you're saying. It is part of this, the thing where we're learning to assess the situation a little bit better. And I think I'm thinking that you mean that the fault, the false trigger is, oh my God, how I feel, oh my God, what I'm thinking is the trigger that makes you speed up. So if the trigger, I think, and this is a tough one, because I just got done telling you that sometimes it feels good to go fast and we could do that. But I think it depends if the trigger comes from inside of me, there's a really good chance that you're going to want to examine that. Like if this is internal drive to go fast, fast, fast, fast, fast and it feels urgent, you might want to think about that trigger. Is this a trigger that I need to obey right now? If the internal drive is just pleasure-based or, you know, no, it's just part of what's going on right now, then it's totally cool. An external trigger that tells you to go faster might be a little bit more likely, and this is not cut and drive black and white, more likely to be, what I would say would be a valid trigger. I don't know, like somebody is coming at you, there's a truck coming at you, you got to get out of the way. That's an external trigger that says go fast and so you do. So that's a good point. I like the false trigger thing. Let's see what Bethany has to say. Oh, this is really good. This is truth. Going slow can seem boring if you're doing stuff you'd rather not be doing and you want to get them over with. Yeah, that's 100%, 100% true. But I think what that means is when you can find, when you find that you are doing a task that you can see is boring or this is boring me, like, oh my God, this is never going to be over. And there's no sense of urgency or there's no frantic nature in that. You're in a pretty good place because then you've discovered, like, oh, I just want to get this over with because I don't like doing this. There's no fear in that. There's no anxiety in that. There's no stress. There's a little bit of stress because nobody wants to be bored. But if you're doing things you just don't like and you can judge it as that, I don't like doing this. This is not my favorite thing in the world. I just want it to be over with. That's a great reason to maybe speed up in a healthy way. Just be mindful of what the context is. Good comment, B. Appreciate that. Oh, God, this is a thing for me. It's still a thing for me even though I've gotten so much better. People being slow in the queue at the supermarket. Like, everybody does this, if you go to the supermarket and you're ready to check out, you know that you're standing there for a few seconds and you're going to scan, like, which of these lines is moving fastest because I got to get on that one. I think that's a really good example of just our normal tendency to want to get things done relatively quickly. Now, sometimes that's part of the anxiety problem. Like, I get to get out of this supermarket really fast because I'm on the edge of panic. So I must pick the fastest line. That's a good reason to not pick the fastest line. You don't necessarily have to pick the slowest line, but understand what you're trying to do and slow down. Is the supermarket line a boring place you want to get over with? Yeah, it 100% is. So for like a recovered person or a non-disorder person, we try to pick the fastest line because it's boring to wait online at the supermarket. For an anxious person that needs that line to be really fast because if I stay in this building too much, too longer, you know, too much longer, I'm going to panic. I feel like I'm going to pass out. I'm going to snap. I'm going to have a break. That's a good reason to understand, oh, now this desire for the shortest line is being driven by fear. That's a very different animal. But yeah, just a slow supermarket line, like death. I'm with you 100%. Let's see here. Yeah, this is good. Julie's got a good slowing down. So helps the thought process and your stability for me. It so does. Julie's a great comment, just recognizing that you are moving through things. If that makes sense, it actually makes perfect sense. I love how you use the word stability. So when we slow down, we are taking away the frantic state, the sense of urgency. And without a frantic state and without feeling urgent, we do feel a little bit more stable. We're making better decisions. We're navigating a little bit better. We're more capable. We feel more capable. And then we act more capable. So I love your use of the word stability here because I think that's a great word because it's actually quite accurate. When you're anything but stable, you're wound up, you're bouncing around, you're not standing on firm ground, you're not making good decisions. I don't even know what to do. I can't speak right. I'm fumbling. When you slow down and all that stuff starts to settle a little bit, you could still be afraid. But your navigation skills get so much better when you go into that state. Julie, great comment. Appreciate that. I feel personally attacked by this comment. I completely understand. Some people do talk fast. I am 100% one of them. I get that. One of the funniest comments I think early on when 7% slower came out and I released the audio book was somebody didn't like the audio book because they said it sounds like he's trying to read it too slowly. And in a way I was like, wow, okay, irony and guilty 100%. I had to go back and edit some of that book because that was true. But some people do talk fast and I'm one of them. It's what am I going to do? Is it possible? It's what we saw growing up. Sure, you can learn that. But I think the way this works out, Marnie and certain, I mean, I can hypothesize here because I don't know your family, of course. But yeah, if you're taught to go that quickly, then you're probably your propensity will be to try and rush through life that way. But were you taught to have a spring in your step? Why were they teaching you to go fast? Why did they need to go fast? Some people there's that personality trait or like, I just need to get things done. I have to get things done. I must get things done. There's conditional okayness. I'm only okay if I get done with all my chores. I'm only okay if I have everything under control. So sometimes you'd have to look at that and say, well, why were my mom and my aunt always running around so much? Now, I may have modeled what they showed me and that's pretty normal. We do learn from who we see as kids. Why were they doing it that way? Maybe you could ask them. Why were you always running around, mom? Why were you always running around? Aunt Jane, whatever. So what was that all about? So in a way, yeah, we could certainly learn that and it becomes sort of our default. And if it's not causing us a problem, that's totally fine. If it's contributing to the problem that we're trying to solve here, well, then you got to examine that. But why were they always running around might be a good question. Like, was there a purpose for it? So do I have to do that? Good question. Oh, this is good. You know, this is a good question. When I speak Spanish, I have to do that fast. Latino people are fast-natured. I think it's interesting. Language is a really good question here. Oh, this is, I got to put this up on the screen. I tried slowing down my Spanish to my buddies, but I sounded like I was trying to seduce them. I'm no language expert in any way, shape or form, but it does seem to me that certain, maybe because I don't understand the language. So it seems like it's going a million miles an hour. That's probably just because I don't understand what's being said. But it does feel like some languages are much faster than others. This is just me throwing stuff against the wall here and thinking out loud, based on that comment. It does seem that way. Could be wrong. Like Spanish, Italian sounds really fast. And I understand a lot of Italian, but it still sounds fast. German seems slow to me. I don't know why. It could be completely wrong. Anyway, I can say that I just, for your last cosplay, experience, I came out of it very well, but gosh, it was weird to hear it elsewhere. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. False trigger as you're feeling it. So I thank you, Hans. I appreciate that. Carol is confirming here. Slowing down helped me to think straighter. I like the idea of think straighter. I like the word stability. These are all good. These are excellent, excellent. Cosplay? No. Yeah, I think I kind of got you, Becky. Cosplay? No, podcast. Last podcast episode. Yeah, that was interesting. So would Becky put up on the screen? That's one of those I got to look over. Experience with nasty antibiotic side effect. Some people have that. It happens sometimes. And last week's podcast episode was with Jen Swantowski and her experience started with an antibiotic. So for anybody who hasn't listened to that one, that's episode 223, I believe. So good. I'm glad you got something out of that. That's great. Tomorrow, Wednesday, 224, is it a success story? That's our friend Katie from the Facebook group. Katie's on the podcast this week talking about her success story. She's in Europe right now traveling. Like, so she talked about that really good. And then the week after next, we're going to do sleep anxiety. And Eddie is in that one, the voice. So I realize that when I'm speeding up, it's usually because I'm anxious or want to avoid being in the situation. Okay, this is good. I like to get in. Yeah, need to work on slowing down for sure. And Sarah, that's really great insight. I love that you recognize that it's a big part of it. Just also recognize that breaking that habit is a challenge, right? When you think that you need to get in and out of that supermarket because it's scary to you. It's not natural to stay longer in the supermarket. You think you got to get out of there. So it's really good. That's good insight. Just keep in mind that you're trying to break a long standing habit that's based on the idea that you're keeping yourself safe. So be nice to yourself, be patient. It's going to be a struggle sometimes. But that's good. I like it. Okay, let's see here. Oh, this is solid. Welcome another Twitch person. Not a bot. Okay, thank you. Not a bot. 30 years as an adrenaline junkie. 10 years later, my heart rises in the shower and I don't leave the house for days. Well, first of all, I'm sorry that you're in that situation. That's a crappy situation to be in. None of us likes it. A lot of us here can understand that. I can completely understand where you are and I'm sorry. That's not a nice place to be. And I hope that you start to get better and move forward. But I love that you point that that you were an adrenaline junkie because so much of what we talk about here, there can be light bulb moments on the path to recovery where we realize, oh, wait a minute, the exact same sensations that I used to run toward when I used to jump out of planes or go on roller coasters. And there are people who are adrenaline junkies. Those are the exact same sensations. I love them then. Now I call them dangerous and I stay in the house. That little bit of realization where you could compare your old state to your current state is kind of important because physiologically, they are the same exact state. But now you just see them differently. So what does that tell you? That's really good. There's a lot of insight in that comment and I appreciate you sharing that. Thank you. Okay, Brooke says, I have days when I feel overwhelmed and like my insides are jittery. Man, I can remember literally laying down to go to sleep and feeling like I was vibrating like a tuning fork. So I get this comment. I can feel this comment a little bit. There were times when I literally felt that my insides were vibrating like a tune like no joke, like a tuning fork. I felt that way. Really uncomfortable for sure, 100%. And slowing down in the face of that is not easy because when you slow down, that discomfort, in fact, I see Hans just said that, becomes clear and louder. So I used to when I felt that my initial reaction would be to try to somehow, I like it to sandpaper. That's a really nasty feeling. We don't want to feel that rubbing against us. So we try to find ways to smooth it and make it a little bit more gentle. And when you stop trying to find ways to smooth it and you slow down and let it be there, you feel that sandpaper just just rubbing against you and it is uncomfortable and it feels worse. But it really is the way to go. Like when I learned to just go ahead and be a tuning fork, I hated it. But slowing down is kind of part of that it does make slowing down more difficult because it's so uncomfortable and you'll feel it more. Sucks. Oh, Marnie has a little bit of insight here. Getting out of the shower fast. I realize it's fear. Now, isn't it amazing because sometimes, oh my God, I'm running behind. Funny little story. I'll take 10 seconds and tell you the day that 7% slower came out on its release day. I was on Kim Quinlan's podcast and I think we did a live. I did a live with her. She asked me to do an Instagram live with her. The day the book came out and I was literally running through the shower because I was so behind. And so the day I published the book about going slow, I was frantically running through the shower because I was going to be late. Like I was going to be late for her Instagram live. But in that situation, I used speed because I was in fact going to be late as opposed to sometimes it's okay to jump out of the shower quickly. But there's also a time in my life when I would run in a shower because I was afraid to be in the shower, which still seems amazing to me when I say that out loud, but I was. So I get that, completely get that. Oh, God, it's me is here. Mia hates the lizard, man. Mia, you missed. I'll call you later and I'll introduce you to Eddie. You missed the whole thing. We got to get Eddie on your podcast too. When we can unlock a new level of using into practice patient. This is good. This is that thing, the thing where I keep saying that 7% slower isn't like a mindfulness manual on the down low. Listen to Bethany. She knows what you're talking about. 100% true. I don't want to hurry myself. I just, okay, this is a good shout. I love this. Thank you so much. I don't want to hurry myself. I just want everyone else to hurry too. So someone early on when we were doing the slowing down recovery Monday live stream said that that when you are rushing down like crate, you're rushing like crazy to get out of danger and escape and get back to your safe bubble, but other people don't go along with you. It can be frustrating and you start to get angry. Somebody actually mentioned that. I can't remember who it was. It said she would get angry with her husband because all she wanted to do was run home. He doesn't think you need to run home. He doesn't see any danger. So he's just going at normal speed. You're going at frantic speed. Guys remember the movie space balls? That was a silly movie, but they have ludicrous speed. So you're going at ludicrous speed and no one else thinks you need to and then you get angry at them and frustrated and it amps us up even more. Been there, done that. Sometimes that becomes a lifestyle thing too. When you live in the part of the world that I live in and you walk down the street in New York City and you are slow, everyone else will get angry with you. And you could argue philosophically, yeah, what's our big hurry? We'll live longer if we slow down maybe. But again, that thing lives on a continuum. Sometimes it's just a part of sort of lifestyle and you're mindlessly wanting to go fast for no reason that you can identify. Other times you want everyone to be a speed demon along with you so you could stay safe. However, we have space balls fans. Great movie ludicrous speed. I haven't seen in a long time. Let's see here. Slow down. Well, it's a good comment also. I think slowing down is a big part of the GAD thing to be completely honest with you because it puts you in a little bit of better touch of some of those underlying habits that fuel some of that condition. But slowing down reading the book, I literally had to write that in the introduction to the book. Like please do not try to read this book as fast as you can. In fact, if you're a GAD person and you are the person I got to read this book because this is going to solve my problems, I would almost recommend that you read whether it's this book or my other books or someone else's I don't care what you're reading, intentionally put it down and like let it sit for an hour or a couple hours or till the next day. If that makes you uncomfortable, that's practice. There you go. Let's see here. This is a big deal also. It's hard to slow down. I find myself stuttering at times. One of the ways that you know that you are in frantic mode is that like pressured speech fumbling for words, fumbling like you lose your dexterity, you start to drop things. I always liken it to when you're watching like a horror movie or a scary movie and the person is running to the car, they're getting out of the house, there's the killers in the house and they run up to their car and these are older movies where there are keys and they're fumbling with the keys. Fumbling, fumbling, they can't open the car then they can't start the car. That's the frantic state and it absolutely 100% affects you in terms of fine motor skills, speech, thoughts. It's a good indicator that you are in a frantic, fear-based state. My common friends are my slowest friends, probably right. Thank you for acknowledging this. Cube in Spanish is really, really fast. Thank you. I used to believe that I slowed down it. This is good. Thanks, Jim. I appreciate this. I used to believe that if I slowed down, it would catch up with me as long as I was busy, all seemed to be well. How did that turn out though in the end? Very, very, very common and it's so funny because we have people in the community that talk about the idea that they're always on the couch and they're working hard to get off the couch and then on the flip side are people that cannot sit on the couch. That's also maybe not as prevalent but not rare either. I would put it at 35 to 40% of the people will not go and sit on the sofa. They must be moving around and moving around and moving around because if not, anxiety will catch them just like Jim just said where they'll be alone with their thoughts or their sensations. Can't have that. Got to be busy. Comment. Yeah, sometimes I hate this but it's true. I know I need to just slow down and suck it up. Well, I mean, if you're deliberate in that, Marnie, like, okay, I don't have a reason to take a slow shower but I'm going to do it anyway because it's practice being uncomfortable taking a slow shower. And it's interesting, so we joked around with the voice in the beginning and the Distress Tolerance webinar that I do with Joanne Hardis, that's kind of part of it. So much of this problem we're trying to solve is a problem where we are intolerant of any state of distress. We can practice tolerating distress even there. So if taking a slow shower feels wrong or uncomfortable but it's not the end of the world, it's a good way to practice tolerating distress, the uncomfortable situation in a more neutral situation. It's not a panic attack situation. It's not a life or death situation. I just don't like it. Okay, go do something that you don't like to do. Practice with that. It's a thing. Let's see. Eye in the Sky. It's a good name. Every time I get out and feel the white hot in my brain, I keep going to lose it. The more I keep going, the more I will learn. Yeah, it's 100%. This is how this works. Comment there, eye. Even when I feel like I'm going to lose it. Very important. That's the time that we learned the most. I was sure that I was not going to make it. I was sure I was not going to make it, but we made it. Good lesson there. Let's see here. When is habituation coming out? GBGS, that's probably in a few more weeks. I can't remember when that's one schedule. Then probably next month, we'll have habituation versus inhibitory learning. That will be the geekiest podcast episode I've ever done. I might have some guests on for that one, too. Let's put this up on the screen because this is a good point here. Hey, Vic. Vic E, like that. My mind can be calm and slow. My body tells me otherwise. My body seems to always be on the go. How do we keep both in tune? You don't. You practice. You practice. Usually, we see this the other way. So what we're working for in the community here is the difference between calm and relaxed, and often it's that your mind is racing, but we can learn to slow our bodies down. So now you are in the same kind of boat. Now, your mind might be racing, but your body tells you that my mind can be calm and slow. My body tells me otherwise. So in that situation, especially where there's the disconnect between mind and body, fast here, slow there, calm here, relaxed there, calm, not calm. Really common. In that situation, especially since you're saying that your mind is calm and slow, you can think a little bit more rationally like, well, I'm going to have to slow down here. How do I keep both in tune? You practice doing it. You're just going to have to practice it. And that might mean that when you try to slow your body down, you experience a state of discomfort. That's okay. Like, okay, I'm really uncomfortable doing this, but I have to learn how to do this. Let's see. Hello, everyone. Hey, James, what up, man? When I feel my discomfort clear. Okay, this is good. Ah, this is so good, Hans. I'm digging this. When I feel my discomfort clear, I can train my mind to be non-reactive. So many parts of this thing are paradoxical. And this is one of them right here, right? What Hans is saying right here. When you come face to face with the actual sensations and you experience them, the thoughts, the sensations in a more clear way, they do tend to become a little bit more concrete. So I feel this right now as opposed to, oh my god, oh my god, I don't want to feel this. And those feelings become like amorphous blobs of undefined disaster. And when you sit and let them catch you, figuratively not always sit. When you let them catch you, they tend to take on a definition. Oh, I'm afraid of this right now. And when you get that clarity and they're no longer just sort of like vaguely defined nightmares, sometimes you can make a little bit more rational decisions on how to interact with those feelings or not interact with them. So this is hard to describe in words, but Hans, what you're saying is really, really good, really good. I have a dark helmet reference. Very good. Let's see here. Okay, we'll throw this on the screen real quick. How long do I stay in there when it is okay to leave? Well, plan a regular, plan a trip to the supermarket, right? So Sarah, the best way I could say this is I'm going to go to the supermarket and I'm going to buy these 12 things on my list. Go and buy the 12 things on your list slowly, deliberately, as mindfully as you can. This is stuff we're talking about here. Go through the checkout line and exit the store. Did you get all the 12 things on your list? Did you do it in as slow and deliberate manner as you could even though you wanted to run out of there screaming? When? You totally when. So it's not so much like, well, when is it okay to leave? Did I accomplish what I set out to accomplish? But remember that what you have to set out to accomplish should be a challenge. So instead of saying, well, I'll go on the supermarket, but I'm only going to buy one thing. It has to be close to the checkout and I'm going to run out. Okay, well, you could maybe start that way, but at some point you're going to have to say, I'm going to have to buy these 12 things on my list. So hopefully that helps, like complete the mission, the best way you can, and then exit the mission. You know, that's the end. You did it, win. Right. So, and then anytime you feel uncomfortable and you move through that for five minutes, 50 minutes, five hours or a week, there's a lesson there and it's a win. So that's going to vary. It depends on what you're trying to accomplish at the supermarket. There's no reason to sit in the frozen food section for six hours. That's, that's not a natural thing to do. Let's see. I think I may have reburied myself to be slower. I totally did. I know I did, for sure. There's a lot of benefits to it. We've talked about that. All right, we did get 40 minutes anyway. There you go. And I talked fast the whole time and that's the way it is. So anyway, I appreciate you guys coming by. I'm going to wrap it up here because I am behind on the stuff that I have to do today. But yeah, I appreciate it. We'll do it again next week. We don't have anything left in this book. I think we have one more. Let me see. Speed is not always, yes, we have one more chapter left and seven percent slower beyond seven percent slower. It's called. So we'll do that next week. And then we'll have to figure out what we're going to do from there. I'm not really sure. Maybe we'll turn these into Q&As. We'll have different topics every week. I'm not really sure. So think about it. If you have any hot ideas as to what you want Recovery Monday to be. And those of you who saw me do the live thing on the Super platform, maybe that will become a thing. Don't know where you guys can maybe join me up on the screen and talk about that sort of stuff. We'll see. I'm going to make this up as I go along. We'll figure it out. But we'll be back next week. And again, if you don't have a copy of seven percent slower, this book is what we're talking about. And you want it, you go to seven percent slower.com or go to the anxious truth.com. All of my stuff is there the morning newsletter. If you're not on that, all the social media, all that stuff is there. So go check it out and you know, avail yourself all the resources, especially the free stuff. There's a ton of free stuff. That's it. I appreciate you guys hanging out with me on another Monday. As always, we'll be here again next week. Later