 Everybody wants to be recovered immediately. And I wish it worked that way, but it doesn't. We have to talk about the need to be patient with ourselves and let the process play out. It's Monday, which means it's recovery Monday. This is episode 22. Let's go. Let's put the chat overlay up as usual. And as you guys roll in, let me know where you're from. Let me know how you're doing. Let me know that you can hear me. I'm pretty sure you can. Everything appears to be working just great these days. I'm super psyched about that. Let me remind you guys that every Monday, or at least every Monday for the next few months, we still have some lessons left to go. We are teaching lessons of recovery right out of this book, The Anxious Truth. So we're really going just chapter by chapter, lesson by lesson. You don't have this book. You can find a copy of it on my website at theanxistruth.com. Go check it out. Yeah, so we're here every Monday doing that. We still have, I'm sure we have a couple of months left to go. We've been at it for 22 weeks so far. And we are just gathering steam every week. So happy to see you guys here. So before we get into it, let's see who is here. Belgium is here. Laura, what up? Morning sunshine, hey Donna. Can I talk about monophobia? Jackie, I actually have a full podcast on monophobia. If you just go to theanxistruth.com and search for monophobia, you'll find an entire podcast episode where I talk about that, that might help. New York, South Africa, we are global today here. I dig it, man. Russia is here. Yep, I love it. Russia's here. Let's see, Things I Do, which is a great screen name. Welcome. What else we have here? Love it. What else is here? What up, Terry? From the UK, everybody is here scrolling in. Sunny Arizona, it's sunny here too, except it's freezing in New York again today. Winter, what are you gonna do? Anywho. So let's get into this. And for those of you that I'm not able to to see in the comments right away, I'm really sorry about that. Again, let me remind you that if you are coming from the Facebook group and you're on Restream, I won't be able to see your name. I only see Facebook user, but that's the way Restream does it. So I'm sorry about that. Hey, Argen, what up, Michelle? So today we're gonna talk about the idea that recovery takes time. Not everybody wants to be recovered today. Like I 100%, I wanted to be recovered instantly. I wish all of you guys could be recovered today and feeling great today and just living a normal life today, but it kind of doesn't work that way. And it's one of the mistakes that gets made most often in the recovery process is that need to like, no, no, if it isn't working right now, then it's not working and I'm out and so I have to do something different. We really lose sight of the fact that unfortunately humans can learn to be afraid almost instantaneously, but learning to not be afraid or sort of undo that mechanism doesn't really work the same way in reverse. It works the same way just a lot slower. And I like to say that nature wasn't dumb enough to let us turn off our fear response that easily. So even when we know what we have to do and we understand the mechanics and we understand the principles behind it, I know many of you are probably saying like, yeah, I get all this, but how come it's, how come I have to do all this work and how come it takes so damn long? Well, it's because nature wasn't stupid enough to let us turn off our fear response that easily. So if you're going to build a mechanism into a human being, if evolution is gonna build that in and the idea is to help keep us safe and alive, I want that response to be really easy to turn on and like super vigilant about what's going on and really hard to turn off. It stinks that it is that way, but it is that way. And in cases like ours where it's gone off the rails a little bit that works against us, but it just doesn't happen overnight, right? So this is not a long topic, but I think it's really important topic because this gets into the thing that you hear all the time, recovery is not linear. It doesn't happen in a straight line. Like you don't go up, up, up every day, there are ups, there are downs, some days are great, some days kind of suck, some days are sort of neutral. You don't know what's gonna happen the next day sometimes, like we just have to maintain that consistency and be incremental, be systematic, stay at it, be tenacious, you know all the things that I talk about, but patience enters into this now because I think what starts to happen, the reason why we start to lose patience with ourselves, number one, we kind of feel like we're suffering and we don't want to suffer any more than we have to, of course. So in the end, we want this to be over as quickly as possible. And we lose sight of the target, which is that we're not trying to make it all go away. We're trying to build a new reaction to a new relationship with anxiety and fear. This is what recovery really is, that's the definition of it. We're trying to get to the point where we kind of like don't care whether we're anxious or not. And that takes a long time to learn. We're building all these new reaction habits, we're building these new ways to relate to this. This is not something that you learn overnight. So you want the suffering to end right now, so you become very impatient, like I need this to work and you define work as it goes away. Like I want to be happy and calm, I want it to make it all go away today. And then you can't and you get frustrated. And the other thing is, you know, again, we just, we start to be really hyper critical of ourselves too. So one of the things that I want to talk about, aside from the fact that you have to be willing to understand that there's going to be some ups and downs, sometimes you go a little faster, sometimes you won't. I know in the beginning, some people start going like, you know, the hammers to hell, which is great. And you could do a lot of damage. And I mean that in a good way in the beginning of recovery. So some people get really hyped up about it and start to do those exposures. And suddenly they go from housebound to like being able to live reasonably normally and do most of life within a, I don't know, you know, a couple of months or the first month or two. And all of a sudden it seems like everything's going so great. So sometimes what happens is we get so gung-ho because it's going really quickly. And then all of a sudden we discover, oh, but hang on, now it's getting more difficult. And that's really common also. So you might make really fast progress in the beginning, then slow down. You might make really slow progress in the beginning and then speed up. Sometimes you'll be faster than others. That's just the way this is going to go. And there are just too many factors involved to predict how it's going to be for you at any given time. You just have to accept that it's going to take however long it takes. So the number one question that I probably get asked all the time other than did you have XYZ symptom is how long does recovery take? And in the end, it takes however long it takes which is a crappy answer to have to give you. But that is truly the answer and patience is so important. One of the things that I learned about in the process of my own recovery about patience and I have never been a very patient person. Anybody who knew me before my anxiety problems would 100% say like, patience is not a word you would have ever attached to me at all. Very impatient, always moving, always moving. Want it now, want it now. I had a problem with that for sure. I was not a patient person in any way. Am I still the model of patience now after recovery? No, I won't be teaching seminars on patients anytime real soon. But the process did teach me a lot about the value of being patient. So I'm a far more patient person today than I was back then before my recovery and certainly during my recovery. So that benefit carried on through even past the recovery process and I'm really happy about that. And in the end, this is always an interesting topic for me. Learning to be patient with yourself and we hear this topic all the time. We hear the word self-compassion all the time. You have to be compassionate and kind to yourself, self-compassion, self-compassion. And many years ago, especially when I was going through my recovery, that phrase was not in my vocabulary. Now that was a mistake. It should have been. I just didn't know any better at the time. I did not have sort of the breadth of the experience that I have now with this topic and I did not have you guys to teach me these things and I didn't have all the great collaborators that I have now to teach me these things. But self-compassion really shines through in patience. Like when we can say to ourselves, this is just gonna be however long it takes and I have to be patient. And by the way, you can be frustrated and patient at the same time, by the way, because we can feel more than one thing at the same time. But it's important to understand, like when you hear people say self-compassion and recovery is so important. Like I have Kimberly self-compassion OCD workbook right behind me. Self-compassion, self-compassion. I have Kristen Neff's book is next up in my reading list. It's a book on self-compassion. It's super important in recovery. What does it look like? It starts by understanding, I have to be patient with myself. So think about your recovery process and progress and the speed at which it goes. You would not like take a whip to like someone you love to get them to go faster learning something new or do something difficult. You wouldn't do that to them. Well, we shouldn't do it to ourselves either. And it's really important. Patience also helps us avoid that harsh negative judgment, that knee jerk reaction that says, ah, square one, not too bad. I was doing great for three weeks and now I panic attack square one. Like if I hear another person say square one, I want to choke somebody because it's never square one. And that's such a needless harsh negative self-judgment square one, square one. Every day we hear square one, but it's not square one. It just means that today looks different than yesterday did. That's all it is. And you don't like the way it looks, but that doesn't mean you're back to square one because you're just refusing to be patient. Like, nope, I'm not accepting this. I'm not patient enough to know that I have to get wet to learn how to swim. Well, I'm gonna have to panic now and then or feel anxiety to learn how to have a new relationship with panic and anxiety. So the part of the patience is understanding that I can't learn every lesson every day. And every time I feel anxious, that's an opportunity to learn a new lesson. I can't learn them all at one time. It's gonna take me however long it takes me to learn that. And if I keep stomping my feet and declaring it's not working and square one, that's not being very kind to yourself and you're missing the part about patience there. The other pitfall, before I start to take some comments and the questions here is sometimes patience gets tested because we wait a long time to start. And now this is always a tough thing for me to talk about because it sounds like I'm pointing fingers at people and I'm not. Because everybody makes that mistake and I made it too, plenty of times. But that thing that says, well, I just can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this. I'm gonna keep avoiding. I'm gonna stay in my little cocoon because, well, that's what works for me. I'm better if I just avoid or I'm too scared to do this. And then suddenly life makes you do a thing. OMG, I have a wedding to go to. OMG, my kid is graduating in two months. OMG, this is happening. Any tips? I have to move. We're moving house in six weeks. I haven't left my house in a year. Any tips? Well, patience is really tested then because if you sit and wait and wait and wait until you are forced to do a thing, then patients almost can't enter into it because now you only have two weeks or two months or six weeks or whatever it is. And that's not fair to yourself either. So along the lines of using patience as a measure of self-compassion and understanding that you have to be kind to yourself in this process, start today. Like actually start today. That's one of the most kind things that you could do for yourself to help teach yourself patience and to give yourself as long a runway as you can is to actually start today. So patience becomes a problem when you think that you can sit and wait and wait until life forces you to do it and then find out if there are special tips and techniques that will somehow get you from say housebound in the case of agoraphobia to moving across town or to a new city in four weeks. There's not, there's no special way to do that. So start today so that you don't have to worry about that and if you could start today and be patient and be kind to yourself as you go through this process when life throws a challenges at you, so much things will happen. There'll be much better for you to deal with, right? So there you go. Okay, so that is pretty much it. Patience is just exactly what it says. Recovery takes time. I just, how long? However long, I don't know. I've seen, I have seen people who have gotten a lot of this job done in two months or six weeks, it can happen. That's not normal. And I've seen people who have taken multiple years. That's also not like, that's not the primary thing. It's a bell curve like anything else. But it could be, it's gonna be at least a few months at least for me it was six or eight months but no one can actually tell you. And in the end, you kind of play the biggest role in that. And understanding that you have to be patient and being kind to yourself and resisting that negative self-judgment. And this isn't working and oh my God, I'm back to square one and I don't know what to do. Like when we really check those habits a lot we can tend to accelerate that. So the one thing that I can't tell you is I can't tell you how long your recovery will take but I will tell you that one thing that will help you go a bit quicker is to be very mindful of the way you judge your progress. Like I'm slipping, I don't know how this, that's it. I've fallen off the wagon. Like when you say that sort of stuff that will set you, it's not a setback because I don't want to use that but it's hard to swim against that current. Instead, hey, look, I'm really frustrated today. Totally get it. People get frustrated all the time. I was frustrated in my recovery. You know, I'm feeling down today. I'm feeling discouraged. Okay, I got to lick my wounds a little bit. And then let me get back on the horse or maybe you pop into the Facebook group and I'm gonna read the comments as soon as I'm done, I promise, I can't read them all though because there's a ton of them. And then you pop into the Facebook group and you wanna know, you know, when you do that like I'm back to square one thing, we kind of don't do that there. We wanna encourage people like, it's okay, you're having a rough day, let's just start practicing again. So that will impact the speed that you go, I think a little bit. You gotta kind of resist the urge to just wallow in it and just understand like, I'm learning a lesson right now. I don't really wanna learn it. It's difficult, I hate it. But okay, remind me again that I can do this. That's the best thing you can do, all right? So there you go. Let's look at some comments. Like I said, how are we doing here? 13 minutes, not too bad. All right, so let's see what everybody's got here. I'll try to answer questions the best I can. And then hey, Queens, what up? British Columbia is here. Let's pop this up. Here's one, Shelly, welcome. I feel like the more I practice my exposures, the worse my daily anxiety and panic gets. So I will address this, and that is you are not getting worse, but you are feeling it more. And this is actually not a mystery when you think about that and what is essentially happening here is if you have been hiding from it all this time, well, you're not really feeling it because you're taking every possible step to make sure you don't ever feel it. And when you stop doing that, you kind of stop doing it everywhere. So unfortunately, what most people find, and Claire Weeks wrote about this too, like it gets worse before it gets better. But when you start to feel it, you shatter that illusion of the safe zone. And it is an illusion because you're really safe everywhere. But when you start to do that stuff and you do this work, many, many, many people, I think the majority of people would agree, oh yeah, it felt like it got so much worse, but that's just because you stopped hiding. So now you're feeling it the way you always kind of needed to feel it. You don't want to do that. So you call that worse and you're hoping that, oh, if I do exposures, it will start to go down. No, at first, you're going to feel it more and that's how we practice. It's how we practice getting better at that reaction, those relationships. So you just got to keep going and understand why you're doing it. The mechanics are not to make it go away right away. It's so you can learn these lessons, but yeah, you're feeling it because you stopped hiding. It's very, very common. Very, very common. So let's see here. I'm going to scroll. I'm going to kind of skip down because I always miss the people at the end of which I want to try and have to do today. What does a good exposure practice do when your toxic thinking says you won't recover? That's kind of an easy answer. It's a blanket answer, which is we never act based on how we feel. We only do what we know we need to do. So unfortunately, Nikki, the bad news on that is the best exposure is to just do the exposure that your thinking is telling you you can't do. So no, I can't recover. Okay, well then let me go drive around the block unrecovered. So the best way to answer that toxic thinking of you'll never get better is to actually go and get better. Like there's no way to change that thinking. You have to actually go and do the work of getting better. So at the end of the day, that lesson is, well, I thought I can't get better. But look, I actually did my drive today, actually went to work today, actually went to school today, whatever it is. So at the end of the day, you can look back and say what I thought was an unovercomable problem. I actually took a small step forward today. So the best way to answer those thoughts in my view is always with behavior and action, not with thoughts. How do I change my toxic thoughts? You can't. You can change your behavior toward them and then let reality drag them along so that they have no choice but to see, oh, look, I'm actually actually recovering. That's important. Hopefully that helps. Sam is here from Delaware. What up, Canada, welcome. I'll put this up here. Hey, Carol. In my sixties, and I've had Gad all my life, is it too late to relearn? No, I don't think it's too late at all. Like brains are freaking amazing, man. Like I've seen people learn these lessons and change things in their eighties. Like it happened, I mean, 80 years old and up. I think the oldest person I've seen in our Facebook group at one point, I didn't want to say she was 84. But yeah, it's possible. You can learn your whole life through. So it's 100% possible. I actually did a podcast episode last year sometime. I don't know which one it is, but basically it was you can recover no matter how long you suffered. People think that like the longer I stay this way, the harder it is to learn something new. But no, you can learn something new every day. It's certainly possible. Let's see here. Michelle, thank you for the comment. I don't know, maybe you could tell my kids that I'm a smart guy. I don't put that in writing for them possibly. Or I should screenshot that, I don't know. I'm just kidding. I always joke about that, but it's fine. Let's see here. Let's scroll down a little bit. Emma says, I'll pop this up. Then I'm gonna skip closer to the end again. I don't wanna leave the end people out. My GP today bless him, said he felt he failed. Oh, that's terrible. He didn't fail you. Like make sure he knows he hasn't failed you. To be totally honest with you, and that's super sweet that he say that. He clearly cares, clearly. That's really a very clearly compassionate medical professional right there. But to be honest with you, general practitioner was never going to help you. He was never gonna help you. I mean, unless he sounds a lot like me or people that sound like me, he was never gonna be able to really help you out of this. So he didn't fail you. He just, a GP isn't exactly what was supposed to fix you. So it's okay. Maybe you could even tell him that too. He was, he's taken on a job that he probably doesn't need to take on. But it's so sweet that he cares that much. I love that. No, no, no, no, no, no. Let's see. I'm gonna scroll down a little bit. Been anxious all day, but I have migraine from myself. I notice I relax. I'm sorry, I'm gonna scroll down a little bit and pass some of these things. Okay, love this. GBG, what up brother? So my recovery has been going on since my first panic attack. This is a huge statement. Most people will say that it's true the panic attacks are kind of cause you to have to be in recovery, so I get that. But they are also, believe it or not, part of the recovery. Like, I know, like let that sink in for a second. Believe it or not, the experience of panic and anxiety is part of the recovery process. If you are insisting that you only define recovered as never feeling anxiety, never feel panic, and be perfectly calm and happy all the time, well, you will be super disappointed and probably hate me after a while. But if you have a more realistic and accurate view of recovery, which is I can learn to navigate through all of the things I feel, then that GBG peers put up on the screen is huge, 100%, like it's part of the process. No, no, no, no. Let's see. This is good. This is really good. Thank you. It is good to have supportive people like family or friends who can remind you that you are doing great and it takes time when you feel impatient or think there is no progress. So in a couple of weeks on the anxious morning, if you're not subscribed to the morning email and podcast, just go to the anxiousmorning.com and you can subscribe there. But I write about that, like what makes a great support person? And this is one of it. Like most people will think that support people are people who are supposed to, oh, it's okay and so this too shall pass. It's okay. It's just anxiety. You're safe. It's okay. It's just anxiety and explain your symptoms away. No, like the best support systems are the ones that will say, I know you're really afraid right now. I understand that. I can hold your hand. I can give you a hug. But even though you're really afraid, I know you can do this. Like I know you can move through that fear. And when you want that person to tell you like you're okay, the best answer that the most compassionate, kind supportive cheerleader can give you is, no, no, no, I know you're gonna be okay. You need to learn that you're gonna be okay. Me telling you isn't helping you. So that's a little weird for some people to hear. But I mean, that gets published in a couple of weeks on the morning newsletter. So that's a good comment. Thank you very much. No, no, no, no, no. I love Kristen Neff and Tara Brett. It was Kimberly to turn me on. Kimberly Quinlan turned me on to Kristen Neff. So I'm gonna check out her book out next. It seems pretty interesting. This is good. Throw it up on the link. Sorry, I can't see your name. I try to check the words I use to myself so important. I try not to label myself. That is huge. That is huge, huge, huge. I'm a huge fan of changing your words in a big way. Words by itself don't make us recover. But the way you talk to yourself and the way you treat yourself and label yourself do matter, it does matter. So the vocabulary we use is an important part of learning to be patient with the process. If all you wanna do is roll in after your challenges and say that was horrible, this was horrible. I was anxious all day. I had two panic attacks. I'm back to square one, then it's really hard. You're not being patient at all. You're not allowing the process to happen. So changing our vocabulary is important. Okay, Julie, it's okay. You could practice. Look, I can tell you guys, I still not, I think. I'm clearly not the most patient person in this room right now. Like, you know, with you guys, I'm better than I was for sure. I'm more patient than I was, which means I'm kinder to myself and other people than I used to be. But patience is a thing that I had to practice. So you can practice like, and I understand, and this is what Julie, what leads you to that doing that every time there's another symptom or another kind of anxiety. This is a different kind of anxiety. Tell me about this one and I'll tell me about this one. You're looking for an answer right now to everything you feel. But if you can just kind of drop down and say, okay, let me get underneath this thinking here and just let it be. I have a sensation. I'm thinking some thoughts. I can just let that be. I have to be patient with this and learn to work through it. That's a thing we have to practice. It doesn't come naturally. It really doesn't. Let's see, let's see. This is awesome. You guys need to give a huge shout out to Carol who is doing more walking unaided. Carol, I know that you have struggled with this and have been so afraid and you are killing it now. And I'm super proud of you. You don't need me to be proud of you, but I am. I can tell you. So yeah, big shout out to Carol because I know Carol, you're working hard on this stuff. I know you're afraid of these things. So let's see. No, no, no. That's me, OMG. I'm gonna scroll down. Let's see. Get to the bottom here. Barely take Tylenol. Okay, let's see. All right, let me throw this up here. I know, I think Michelle, you might have asked this a couple of times. I can barely take Tylenol. Michelle, did you ask about health anxiety? I'm not sure. You're not, you're afraid of this stuff. This is a common thing for sure. If you're not alone in this, but that doesn't mean you can't overcome that. So this is just a process of like every time that you're afraid to take that Tylenol and you gotta take it and like, ah, I'm gonna have to go through it now. I'm gonna be afraid for the next hour. Then you're gonna be afraid for the next 50 minutes and then maybe 40 minutes and then 30 minutes. Like that's the process. So the same thing holds true of this health anxiety or fear of taking medication. This is the way we go through it. Like you have to be patient and say, I can't find magic words that will instantly make me okay to take Tylenol or my medication or will instantly convince me that I don't have cancer or some horrible health condition. I'm gonna have to like tolerate some discomfort for some amount of time to show myself that I can move through those fears which can feel so real, but in the end or not. So it's okay to feel that way. So many people in this community do. All right, let's see. Somebody says something about no one understands. I wanna address that for just a quick second. We all wanna be understood, right? So one of the cool things about a community like this one and the extended community, not just my podcast, but the whole sort of anxiety community, at least in terms of the stuff that I talk about and some of most of my collaborators talk about, I think it's great because you can find a place where you do, you are understood, but understand the difference, shouldn't say I don't understand, but be mindful of the difference between being understood and being accommodated. Like, okay, nobody understands is true, but guess what? We don't really need them to understand. You know, we need them to, I guess, be sensitive. We need them to support us and cheering us. It may be having an understanding and the mechanism would certainly help, but I'm always a little weary of the no one understands or we need more awareness thing because understanding and awareness doesn't solve Jack squat at the end. It really doesn't. Like, there's no amount of understanding and awareness in the world that will make you recover. In the end, nobody truly has to understand why you are afraid to go to the supermarket, for instance, because they're not afraid and they know you don't have to be afraid. So it's hard to ask for understanding. What we want is support and encouragement and it would be nice that the people in our lives would maybe learn a little bit about what we're doing, but learning doesn't mean that they make it okay for you to hide from the world. So that's always touchy. When I talk about that, it's a little rough, you know? Let's see. Some things, okay, I'll throw this up real quick. Where are we? Okay, I'm doing it right here. So the hardest things feel like head sensations are the hardest for me to be patient. So this speaks to everybody has like a scariest symptom or a scariest thought or a scariest situation where you are inclined to say, all bets are off. Like, nope, I'm okay with everything else. I could be patient. I could surrender. I can willfully tolerant, except this. If I feel a thing in my head, then all bets are off. I can't accept that. I'm gonna fight against it. I'm gonna frantically try to make it go away and solve it. Any tips? No, same tips always apply because the scariest, so here's the deal. Let me tell you what the scariest anxiety symptom or thought is, the one you're most scared of today. But if you are scared of head sensations, there's 15 people in this room right now that would like to have a word with you because their heart anxiety is much worse than your head anxiety. And then there's 15 other people that will tell you that their dizzy anxiety is way worse than the heart or the head anxiety. So consider that for a second. Be careful about the whole like, well, this special symptom is the one where I throw all the rules out. It might be the most challenging thing to move through. 100% true, I would not deny that or invalidate that, but it doesn't make it special or intolerable because what you think is intolerable, someone else doesn't even think about it all. And what they think is intolerable, you might not think about it all. So there's power in that realization like, oh, that's right. Like a lot of people would get a headache, but I call it cancer or whatever it is. So be aware of that stuff. I'm gonna put this up just because this person is on Twitch right now. What up Twitch? Our one Twitch viewer. Thank you, Becky. I appreciate that. I just wanted to put it up because it was Twitch and I'm just being silly today. So let's see here, no, no, no, no, no. I'll throw this up here. Sam always has good comments. This two-shell pass. Time is your ally. Okay, I'm such a buzzkill sometimes. I totally get that, man. Like this dude is a buzzkill. If you ever thought that about me, I understand why you'd say that. The reason why I hate this two-shell pass is it only matters if you are willing to be uncomfortable. So the mantra by itself, this two-shell pass, this two-shell pass means I just need it to get it over with. I need it to pass. I need it to pass now. And I have to remember that it will go away. Yes, I understand. Like we all have that goal on the end, but I'm not a fan of this two-shell pass. I'm really more of a fan of I can do this. Like I can move through this. Why can I move through it? Yes, because it's temporary. Like just pretty much everything in the universe is temporary, different philosophical bent there. But I much prefer the precursor to that, which is I can move through this. Well, how do I know I can move through this? Because this will pass, it's temporary. Start with that statement as opposed to just going directly to this will pass. Because this two-shell pass really says like, I'll be okay as soon as it goes away. You're okay now, even before it goes away. And that's critical. So I know sometimes I'm splitting hairs and I'm kind of dousing. You guys got all psyched about some quotes and stuff. And then I just shit all over them. I don't mean to, but I think it's, these things are really important. Like I, for me was, I really had to get rid of that. Like this two-shell pass, I got this, like that stuff I don't really like so much. Okay, so let's see here. I'm gonna scroll through to the bottom to see. You better learn to super read all the comments. Sam, I'm working on it, man. I'm working on it. Let's see. I totally understand it's silly. I don't know about these calls. Okay, I'll throw this up real quick. So I know I'm kind of injecting myself in the middle of this conversation, but Tawny, like I would rather just tough out the colds. That's not a good strategy. Not because, you know, we care if you take a Tylenol or an aspirin, if you have a cold, it would be nice if you were comfortable of course. But the strategy that says, nope, I'm afraid to take the Tylenol for instance. So I just won't take it. You will never actually get over that fear that way. So I just want to throw that out there. You know, kind of important. Let's see here. This is important. I'll throw it up real quick from the Facebook group. How do I handle intrusive urges? It feels like my body wants to act on it, but what it feels like never actually happens. So this is a super common question, right? Super common, like, because people that have intrusive thoughts think that thoughts can become uncontrollable impulses, but they don't work that way. So actually, if you look at the podcast episode that I did with Martin Seif, Dr. Martin Seif, just search Seif, S-E-I-F or S-I-E-F, can't remember S-E-I-F on my website. You'll see that podcast episode. He specifically talks about that. He and Sally Winston wrote the book Overcoming Unwanted and Intrusive Thoughts, and he specifically addressed that. They addressed it in the book and he addressed it in the podcast. You think that the thought will become an urge that you can't control, but that's not how thoughts work. It doesn't happen that way. All right, so let's scroll, let's scroll. What's up, Maria? Let's see here. I'll throw this up. That's a good question. It's a big comment here over the top of the comment. What up, Maria? It's kind of a personal question. You, as a person that has struggled with severe anxiety for years, how can you not feel that you're close to getting overwhelmed despite sending every type of thing you can talk about it? Because I don't care. Like, the definition of recovery is that I do not see anxiety and panic as anything special anymore. Like, that's kind of the point of the whole thing in recovery is like, I have just a completely different relationship with it now. So in no way, I don't see it as anything that needs to be avoided or, oh no, hope it doesn't happen or like, geez, I haven't panicked now in eight months. I hope it never happens again. I never, ever, ever think that if I panic today, I kind of don't care. I mean, I don't want to. It's not pleasant, but it's a single event. It'll be over in a half hour. I'll be shaky for another half hour and then I'm on with my day and I don't care the next morning. So that's how. Now, this is not to say that sometimes I don't have to step back because I have thousands of people that want to hand me their fear. And that's not your fault. I'm not complaining about that. But yeah, sometimes I do have to step back a little bit on that, but it's not because the discussion is triggering in some way. It's just because I only have so many hours in a day and I have some time for myself and make sure I take care of my own stress too. So, but that's how I can do this because the topic is, it's not irrelevant, but I'll just say, yeah, I'll say that. Panic is irrelevant in my life now. It can happen and it does maybe twice a year, maybe once twice a year. I don't know. It's just, even when it does, it's irrelevant. So there you go. So there you go. Let's see. I'm gonna scroll to the bottom. Let's see. No, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry. Let's see what's left of my brain can change. Really? If what's left of my brain can change anybody's brain, that's a funny comment. Thank you. I appreciate the humor. Very good. Scrolling down, scrolling down. Oh no. Okay. This is tough. This is a tough spot. Cassandra, I'm really sorry that that happened. That is a terrible thing that you experienced and I feel bad for your friend and of course their family and their friends you included, of course, if a person can get to that point. Even the mention of it sets me off. How do I do exposure to that? So this is a really common fear also. And it goes back to the question that I answered not too long ago, which was we fear that thoughts will become actions or like I might decide to do that one day. And I understand like this is really emotionally charged. You lost a friend under horrible circumstances. So there's so many feelings that come with that and it would be super normal to actually think that. Like, oh, like we've all had that happen. We've all known somebody that's taken their own life and it's tragic and it's terrible. And it does make us think, wow, like what does it mean to get to that point if somebody actually makes that decision? That's a question that every human being is probably confronted because we either know someone personally or we're all aware of the topic of suicide. It's really difficult, right? But the realization that somebody did get to that point, which is true, that it actually happened and it's terrible and it's tragic, but it has nothing to do with you. So here's where you start to understand like while I'm really hurting right now and I'm thinking a lot about my friend that I'm thinking about this, trying to make sense of this event, which is we can't make sense of it. That's one thing and that's really normal, but where it gets into problematic area is when you say, well, thinking, I have to be afraid of thinking now. No, you don't. Like you're thinking normal things that any human would think in the circumstance, especially that you were close to this person, you lost a friend. So there's a lot of emotion that fuels that also, but it doesn't mean that what happened to her is automatically anybody else's fate. Like just cause she did it, doesn't guarantee that you will. So the problem here is that uncertainty, you don't wanna tolerate that uncertainty, but it has nothing to do with you. So like I, you know, people do things every day that we don't do just cause we hear about them doing it. So just understand when it tips over from grieving and loss and having those normal thoughts that we would all have it to now I'm afraid of having those thoughts. I feel those thoughts are somehow a threat and they're not, but I'm sorry, that's a terrible situation. Let's see, Terry, excellent. This is huge. Like the victory journal, what I would call a success journal is incredibly important in my view. Like, and this is a debate that I've had with other people about journaling. Some people are natural journalists anyway. So every other type of person that keeps a journal and it helps you, that's great. Whatever form that is, there's nothing wrong with that if you like the journal. If you don't journal, I would strongly suggest considering making a victory journal or a success journal. Now I'm going to write about this. It's coming out in a couple of weeks in the anxious morning. If you subscribe to that, I'm writing an entry about that and what it looks like. But a success journal basically says, what did I do today? What did I accomplish today? Right, so as opposed to how do I feel today? So that becomes the difference between your typical journaling, like I felt horrible, it felt like it was going to pass out, just saying your thoughts again and again and again. For some people, a brain dump of those thoughts in a journal can be helpful because it gets them out of your head. That's true. For another subset of people, they don't like journaling the thoughts because just repeating them again and again and again, it was scary, it was horrible, this is hell. I felt like it was going to pass out. I thought it was going to go crazy. I think I'm going to go insane. What if I kill myself? That can be counterproductive for other people. So if you can't journal that way, that's okay. You don't have to journal that way. But you can totally sit down at the end of the night and take literally three minutes and just write down what you did. Here's what I did today. Here's what I felt, but here's what I did. And as I can see, the feelings and what I did didn't match because my feelings said I can't do this, but look, I did. And then on the days when you are struggling and you need some motivation, you can go back to your success journal or your victory journal. So Terry, thank you so much for bringing that up. That's the thing we're going to talk about more and more as we go forward. So let's see here. Can you give an example of compassionate and patient self dialogue? Sure. I can't believe I'm actually answering questions about this, but okay. Just because it was never my belly wick at all. I think objectivity is really as compassionate as we get here. So you're emotionally charged and you want to make a judgment about that that's emotionally based. So to me, the best dialogue you can have with yourself is one based on objective reality. What can I do today that I really thought I was not able to do a month ago or six months ago? I know how I felt, but what did I do? I know what I was afraid might happen, but did it happen? Any time that we can put a little air gap between us and the fear and us and those emotionally charged judgments and insert a little bit of reality in there, we can get a little bit of relief in a compassionate way. Let me not just judge myself for what I think or how I feel. Let me instead think of what I did today. What have I accomplished? What am I able to do now that I was not able to do before? Like, how is my thinking about this change? How has my attitude changed? Am I looking forward to my recovery as opposed to thinking that I have no possible way to recovery? Insert the changes based on reality. What's different about you today than was last month? What do you do differently today than you did last month? That is a good conversation to have with yourself. When you feel like you're stuck, if you feel like you're stuck or you're in a setback, like, that's not a setback. I literally, and this is amazing because human brains work this way and I'm never gonna figure out why none of us are. And I wish they didn't, but they do. I know people who literally have been homebound for six months, eight months, who two months later are out taking walks, going to the park, maybe doing the school drop-off, who then maybe have one tough day and will declare a complete setback in square one. And then when you actually point out, but wait a minute, you were completely homebound for six months and now you're out of the house every single day and doing stuff and engaging with your family and stuff. Oh yeah, I am doing that. So the natural bias that we have is to latch onto those emotions and like I'm afraid so therefore everything went to shit. That's what we do. We have a bias toward our own emotions and so we will latch onto them and it's always nice to have other people that say like, hey, look what you're able to do right now or go back to your success journal like we were just talking about. It's really important. I'm gonna scroll down to the end cause I'm gonna end this pretty shortly. So I'll take a couple at the end here. Hey Chris, what up dude? Good to see you again. Ooh, this is cool. I like this method. At your best success, I wrote letters to a hypothetical self who was struggling in the future. Chris, that's a super cool idea. Like everybody does it differently. You know, like we can, we have our own writing styles, making styles and verbal styles. So I dig that. If maybe this resonates for some folks I'm gonna put it up on the screen. That's one way of keeping a success journal. Hey, future me, let me tell you about today. It really sucked and I thought I was gonna lay in bed all day but I didn't. I like, I did a few things. I got some stuff accomplished. I had a phone call with a friend and like nothing bad happened to me. Signed me. Like leave it for your future self. I dig that man. That's really cool. Let's see, I guess we're at the end here, which is great. All right, I dig it. So thanks guys for coming by. I'm sorry I cannot answer every single question. I cannot tell. Hey, Kaden's is here. Welcome. Ooh, let's put this up on the screen. Just costs. Kaden's deserves a big shout out because I know that you're working really hard. Bed, bed and agarophobic 90% better now two weeks medication free. I know that you are working like a dog on this. So congratulations. That's really, really, really, really, really great. Love it. So I don't know if this person is still here. I know, I don't know if you were new. Let me scroll up a little, Melissa. Marissa, I'm sorry. Marissa, I don't know if you're still here. I'm sorry I can't answer every single question but I will end with this. I will put it up on the screen. I don't know if you're still here. So a big long question, which is really common. Especially if you're new to this, if this is what you're hearing is kind of all new, it's really, really common to kind of want to show up and be told like I want you to address my very specific symptom and fear. Like tell me about this specific thing that I'm afraid of. That's really, really, really common. What you'll find if you hang around for a while is we tend not to say, well, this is what you do when you have this fear or that fear or this is what you do in this specific circumstance or let me address your exact fear like learning the principles of recovery gives us a really good foundation to stand on. So you start to understand why we're having conversations like this when I know and I feel you, I really do, I feel you like you're here and you just want somebody to address your fear but we're actually learning to almost not address the fear or we're learning to react to it in a new way. So that's why it might feel a little like, I don't understand, what does somebody just tell me? What does somebody just tell me? I need an answer for this right now. I know how urgent that is but in the end you'll find that it was never really that urgent because you've never really been a danger. So hopefully that helps. I don't know if you're still here but I'm sorry I didn't get to you. All right guys, we are out. We will be back next week. Next week we're gonna talk about. It's funny, because when I looked at the chapter I said, oh, I should just park the next one. Okay, so next week is lesson 4.3 in this book which if you do not have it you can grab it on my website at the anxioustruth.com. Lesson 4.3 is about setting goals because it's important to set goals. So next week is gonna be a really good discussion. Same time, are you very welcome Marissa? I'm glad you're still here. Stick around, learn as much as you can. It's a great community. Everybody will try to help you out. I know they will, very, very supportive. So we'll be out next week. We'll talk about setting goals because that's really important to recovery. Same time, same place. This will stay in the Facebook group but it will stay on my Facebook page. It will be on my YouTube. If you're watching on YouTube, be sure to subscribe to do that. And I'll also, I upload them to Instagram but I don't even know if anybody watches on Instagram to be honest with you. But I'll put it there anyway. It'll be up in about an hour. So thanks for coming by. I'll see you guys next week. Thanks for the question.