 What's up dudes and dudettes drew here from the anxious truth still getting used to the new name. It's a Saturday afternoon in October 2019 I'm actually sitting on the beach because it's like extra warm-out and I'm enjoying this I want to take a few minutes and talk to you about something that's been on my mind for the last week or so And this will be short maybe five to seven minutes I want to talk about the difference between reading about recovery from an anxiety disorder and actually doing the process of recovery from an anxiety disorder And I think this is something that gets confused quite often people confuse this And let me give you an illustration in my Facebook discussion group this morning And if you're not in the group follow the link wherever you are that says my links and from there You can hop over to the Facebook group and join but this morning in the Facebook discussion group One of the members said she's been doing so good with her exposures and making progress And then I guess it was yesterday She decided to go out and do some of this work and she got really afraid and she kind of panicked And she ran back home. She got really disheartened by that because she's been doing great But she gave into the fear and she ran home. She escaped And she knows it's not the way to do it and that that's fine But she followed that up with I don't know what to do now I feel like I'm right back to square one. The fear is so powerful I'm going to read the book again And I'm pretty sure the book she was talking about is the Claire Weeks Hope and Help for Your Nerves Which if you follow me for any amount of time, you know, it's like my favorite book It's the gold standard that I judge everything else against So she went back to read the Claire Weeks book again after this issue where she ran from the fear And my response to her was put the book down and go do it again Because you're never going to learn how to do it by reading again There's no magic in those words that's going to teach you how to do recovery So this is a common thing that I see people run back to the book They either run back to an existing book that they've already seen read Or they go and look for another book to read when they hit that point where they're right at the edge Where now I have to actually do the recovery. I have to do these hard and scary things I have to do things that terrify me They get right to that edge of doing it and they retreat and go back to the book Or the course or the videos or the podcast or the coach or whatever it is They'll either go back to a book they've already read or they'll go and buy another book Maybe this one will be the one That's avoidance. So people go back to the book if you will out of avoidance They don't want to take the next step into into the fear and that's human nature I understand that a big partial big part of the a big part of the recovery process here Is overcoming that like getting past the the natural human instinct to run from fear So that's an avoidance behavior going back to the book all the time. Let me read again No, no, you got to do again. That's what you got to do. You got to practice this stuff The second reason why people go back to the book or look for new books or whatever Is they think that they're going to find some magic words that they missed the first time around That will make them not afraid to do these things and that's not how this works So I mean hell I'm writing my own book about anxiety recovery and at every stage of what I write I stop at the end of every lesson because the book is broken into lessons and I kind of say like flat out Okay, you've read this now put the book down think about this and now go do these things Because the book by itself. I don't care what book it is my book Claire Weeks Whatever book you love about anxiety is never going to eliminate the fear of doing these scary things that we have to do Overcome an anxiety disorder. You cannot read listen watch or talk your way out of being afraid You can only act your way out of being afraid. It's not in the reading. It's in the doing And that mechanism is this I'm going to use I'll use health anxiety as an example because I often don't so I will do that this time In health anxiety, you are afraid as soon as you feel something in your body you assume the worst This is some horrible thing that is going to kill you And you google you check symptoms you read you're constantly scanning your body you run to the doctor You talk to people about it to seek reassurance. These are your safety behaviors. I try and get you out of that I'm afraid that I have this horrible disease. This is going to kill me And I must be seek safety and reassurance about this And in health anxiety the scary thing to do is to not do that stop checking stop googling stop seeking reassurance Stop seeking safety stop running to the doctor That's the scary thing you have to do. You're basically surrendering to this horrible form of whatever disease you're afraid you might have at the moment That's really scary. It's hard and scary to drop those safety behaviors and just let the fear come at you In panic disorder and agoraphobia. It's a little bit different because you actually have to go and do things So in health anxiety, you have to not do things and in panic disorder and agoraphobia You have to do things So if you have agoraphobia, you have to actually walk out your door Maybe drive down the street drive around the block walk to pick up the kids from school Whatever it is you have to do these things and they are all scary things to do So whatever your variant of an anxiety disorder is you must do hard and scary things in order to do them And a lot of people will run back to the books the printed material the lectures or whatever it is the videos because they think that Somehow if I read again or I read something else or I read From a new angle or whatever it is that I'll be I'll be okay. I'll be ready to do these things You're never going to be ready to do the things until you do them So the mechanism is you do the scary things even though you are scared. That's the definition of courage You act even though you are afraid. That's courage. Courage isn't not being afraid Courage is being afraid of doing it anyway You do these scary and difficult things the outcome is positive You did not have a horrible disease and you didn't die or Maybe you had a panic attack on the highway, but you didn't die. It was still okay So you must learn through experience The the learning to not be afraid is a doing thing It is not a reading thing So you must put the book down at some point or or don't buy that next book You've already read 15 books about anxiety the 16th one is not going to help you in any way It's just going to make you $15 poorer. You must put the book down and go do the things You do the things you do them constructively You have a positive outcome meaning the worst case that you imagine doesn't happen Your brain has the experience that it needs to be a little less afraid of it next time And when you repeat that incrementally and systematically doing doing doing Then you learn I don't have to be afraid of that thing anymore. I don't have to be afraid of panic I don't have to be afraid of anxiety. I don't have to be afraid of my thoughts But you will never read your way into being okay with doing those hard things So we have two issues where I say do not confuse the process of recovery Reading and doing are two different things reading is what you do first and books are super I love I mean I will recommend everybody should read the Claire Weeks book everybody Hope and help for your nerves. It's awesome. You know, hopefully when I get done with my book It'll help a bunch of people. We need those things you need to learn. So that's okay But once you've read once twice three times you've read three four five six books Going back to the book over and over and over when really and truly you haven't been doing the stuff That's that's going to keep you stuck. So you really have to be honest with yourself honest with yourself and say Why am I reading this again? Why am I buying yet another book about anxiety? What am I am I actually doing the things am I really really surrendering to the fear? Am I really going into the fear? Am I really letting it happen? Am I really accepting floating surrendering whatever your favorite word is? Am I doing those things? If I'm not then the book isn't going to help me do those things I've already I've already read about that now. I have to do it. So I know that's a little harsh But you know, it is what it is like at some point you got to put down the book Stop watching videos stop listening to podcasts and go and do because doing is where the recovery happens and recovery by the way As a reminder is not about making it go away. It's about learning to not be afraid Because you don't have to be afraid of these things, right? So I know they're scary But you can learn that you don't have to be afraid of them and then the scary goes away And then when the fear goes away then you are on the way to making it all go away But first you got to lose the fear and you're not going to lose the fear by reading a book again for the tenth time You're just not So that's the deal. Uh, thanks for hanging around. We're about eight minutes. I'm going to end it and uh, of course that there are any questions Wherever you happen to be watching or listening to this There's always a link to all my social media my websites and stuff go ahead and follow me And you can ask me questions on whatever platform instagram facebook whatever it is I'm happy to hear or if you're watching on youtube, just leave leave questions in the comments here I do my best to get back to them as quick as I can I get a ton of comments So I'm sometimes behind even by a week or two sometimes, but I do my best to answer all of them So if you have questions or you think I'm crazy or you want to like tell me to shut up But whatever it is knock yourself out like I'm happy to hear from you either way So thanks for coming by. I appreciate your time and I'll see you in the next one later