 This week on the anxious truth, we're going to talk about why it's more important to live to recover than to try to recover so that you can live. So let's get to it. Hello, everybody, welcome back to The Anxious Truth. This is episode number 283 of the podcast 2A3. We are recording in mid-January of 2024 for those of you who are listening from the future. This week we are going back to the usual podcast episode for a week. For those of you who have been following my Foundations of Panic series, that's a series that's geared a little bit more toward the brand new members of this community. And for those of you who've been around for a long time and more advanced in recovery, you've been very patient while I do that series. So this week we're going to go back to some regular programming content for those people who are maybe down the road a little bit, don't need the basic information. If you're here for Foundations of Panic because you're still new and you're still getting a grip on all this, we'll be back again next week with the next episode in that particular series. And we'll start to mix it up a little bit more, but you're welcome to hang around even if this is a topic that's a bit more advanced for you. There's probably something you can take out of it. So we are here at episode 283. We're going to talk about why it's more important to try to live so that you can recover as opposed to trying to recover so that you can live. And this is a really common mistake or a common error or sort of aiming at the wrong target that happens in the recovery community, the anxiety recovery community. So let's get to that just by way of introduction. If you are new here, I am Drulian Solada, creator and host of The Anxious Truth. I am a therapist in training here in New York in the United States specializing in anxiety and anxiety disorders. I am an author. I'm a podcaster on the topic of anxiety disorders. I'm an educator in this community. I'm also a past sufferer because I suffer from panic disorder or gorophobia, probably OCD, diagnosable or not, not sure, and clinical depression for many, many years of my life on and off for finally overcoming all of that. So not only am I speaking from theoretical or school or training knowledge or professional knowledge, but also from my own personal experience. So I hope what I have to say here is helpful. And if you are enjoying what you see on this particular video or podcast episode, I urge you to hit my website at TheAnxiousTruth.com and check out all the other goodies that I make available, including workshops and courses, the books that I've written and other social media content and 282 other podcast episodes that are certainly free. So go check it out at TheAnxiousTruth.com. Hopefully find something that helps you. Hopefully this episode will help you or at least resonate for you in some way. So let's get into it. Many people who are struggling with trying to recover from an anxiety disorder that might be panic disorder, that might be a gorophobia, that might be OCD, that might be health anxiety, that might be social anxiety will get into a situation, especially if you start to kind of latch on to the sort of content that I'm providing, people who sound like me or maybe a therapist that you're working with will take that information and it seems like a revelation and it seems like something that would be incredibly helpful to you, which is great. And often that person will try to apply that information and recover 24-7. Like if you are awake, you are trying to actively engage in the process of recovery. It's very common to become almost completely consumed with the process of recovery from an anxiety disorder. Some people might call it obsessive recovery or compulsive recovery. Yes, that can happen in extreme cases for sure. And one of the reasons why I think that happens is that people will conceptualize this as something that they have to do so that they can begin to live again. And it face value that makes sense because if your chronic and distorted state of anxiety is causing restrictions on your lifestyle or imposing restrictions upon your lifestyle, and one of the hallmarks of these problems that I address is that your life gets more and more restricted, more avoidant, and tends to shrink and get smaller and smaller over time, then it would make sense to think that I have to actively engage in this process called recovery so that I can live again. And yeah, I mean, again, logically speaking, common sense seems, well, that seems to make some sense and there is some truth in that for sure. But I want to suggest to you an alternate interpretation, which is that you have to start working on living your life again so that you can recover. You might say, well, I want to recover so that I can live my life. But I would say, well, what would happen if you start doing the best you can to actually live your life again so that the end result of that is this thing we call recovery? You can't really separate those two things. Recovery is happening. Life is happening. They are intertwined. And since it is not practical or possible to recover 24-7 during every waking moment, and that's a thing that I actually wrote in this book. So in chapter six of The Anxious, I'm sorry, lesson 5.7 of The Anxious Truth actually wrote that. Recovery happens, but life also happens. It's going to be essential to integrate the two. And I actually said in this book, you cannot actively recover 24 hours a day. That's not practical or even possible. Although many, many people in our community will try that. But I want you to consider that what you should be doing is conceptualizing recovery as a process of beginning to engage again in your life, working toward life and what is important to you and what you want to do, and moving away from the fear-based restrictions because the lessons that we learn in recovery, which is even if I get really anxious, even if I panic, even if those scary thoughts pop up, even if the symptoms pop up and my body reacts like an anxious or afraid body will, I can handle that. I can move through that. I don't like it. I don't want it. I wish it didn't happen. All of that is fine. But I learn over time as I start to have these experiences, which we would say is moving toward your fear or facing the fear or embracing the idea of surrender or acceptance or willful tolerance or whatever word you like. In that situation, you'd really have to look at that and say, those experiences that we're looking for, which a lot of people would say, oh, those are my exposures. So I do exposures so I can recover. I work on my recovery in this process called recovery so that I get my life back. I would like it if there was a way for life to be your exposures. So as opposed to saying, well, I have to do exposure so I can learn how to live life again. Yes, to a certain extent, some of that does happen. That's correct. And we'll get into that. But really and truly, I want you to think about, well, how can I start to re-engage with life again a little bit at a time slowly in small steps? You don't just rip the Band-Aid off. I've said this many, many times. If you've been homebound with agoraphobia for six months, you don't immediately decide, well, then let me take a vacation with my family 700 miles away for two weeks and I'll fix it. That doesn't work that way. So you would be re-engaging in your life and starting to move toward your life again so that you can foster an increased state of recovery, which you would do that in small steps incrementally. So instead of thinking, first I have to do recovery and then I will start to do life again. I want you to think about what would happen if you did both of those things sort of at the same time. So sometimes you are engaged in the process specifically of recovery. So if you're doing exposures, whether that is out doing driving exposures or working on staying home alone or practicing things that trigger your anxiety or your panic or you're working with health anxiety and you're working today on letting your fear be there without seeking reassurance, checking yourself in the mirror, calling a doctor, googling, telling somebody your fear. Maybe you have OCD and you're doing ERP work with the therapist. Yes, in those situations you would say, well, I'm doing recovery right now, which is true. But if you can be doing those things while you are also engaging with your life and the things that you would like to start to do again or return to, that is incredibly effective. So one of the sort of knocks or criticisms and it's not a criticism, it's just an observation that people would levy against like old school or traditional cognitive behavioral approaches and exposure-based approaches to anxiety disorders is the relapse rate and it's true. The relapse rate was relatively high. That's true. The data tells us that. It was still the most effective way to treat these things but the relapse rate was too high for comfort. And one of the things we've discovered over time is that as we move toward more acceptance-based and experientially-based recoveries and third wave CBT or third wave cognitive behavioral therapies that are a little less focused on trying to change your thoughts. We change your behavior and then thoughts and beliefs follow behind. If we do that by integrating different, a wide range of experiences and integrating life and trying to reconnect with what we value in life and using life experiences as exposures as much as we can and as practices, the relapse rate goes way down. So we have a varied set of experiences and we connect those experiences to what we actually want in our lives and we try to approximate life as part of that practice and those exposures. People do much better. And so we kind of want to reconnect to life as part of the recovery process. We don't want to reconnect to life as an afterthought or first a recover than I live my life. So a few examples of that might be, well, instead of looking for all the exposures I can do this week, let me think about what I want to do this week. Now some of those things would be what I would call moonshots. They're so far out of your comfort zone and so far out of your recent experience that they're almost unattainable, right? And they would be almost impossible for you to do. That would be true because you would not really believe that you have the ability to cope with the feelings that come up and the anxiety and the panic and the thoughts. And so you sort of move toward that incrementally. That's fine. So well, I really would love to go on vacation with my family next week. But since I can't do that, what can I do? Well, you know what? I can go out and I can maybe break some leaves in my yard. I really used to like to garden. I used to like to be involved and say a community garden project. Maybe I can go to the community garden center and work on the planting beds for 15 minutes today. Or maybe I can get up and instead of automatically scrolling on my phone for an hour and a half until I feel ready to get up and less anxious, maybe I could just get up and try doing the morning like I used to do it. Or maybe I could take a little walk with the dog today because I used to love to walk the dog and now I don't. Or maybe today I could actually play with my kids instead of spending half of that time on Google checking about checking up on my health or checking in on my health anxiety support groups. And maybe I can leave that behind a little bit and spend more of my time playing with my kids because that's what I really want to do and that's what I used to do. So see how it's a little bit different. I'm not waking up and saying, let me look at all my exposures this week. I'm saying, yes, these are the things I have to work on this week. These are the things I need to practice this week. But are there life activities and events and things that are important to me on a value level that I can engage in while I practice those things? Because remember most people will initially make the mistake of thinking, oh, I have to learn how to not Google my symptoms or I have to learn how to drive on the highway or I have to learn how to be home alone. Not really what you have to learn to do is to relate in a new way and learn how to willfully tolerate and navigate through the feelings that you get. We care about that. We don't really care about the Googling. We don't really care about the excessive scrolling. We don't really care about the driving or the going to the supermarket. We care about the internal experience that you have and your ability to practice new ways to have that internal experience, meaning I have scary thoughts and that makes me uncomfortable and afraid. I have symptoms and that makes me uncomfortable and afraid. I fear irrationally for my health and that makes me uncomfortable and afraid. So no matter what you do, whether you manufacture an activity, which sometimes we do have to do, that's okay. I'm not saying don't do that, but when I do an activity, I'm actually practicing the internal experience that that activity triggers. So how can I trigger those unwanted internal experiences? Fear, discomfort, feelings of overwhelmed feelings that I can't handle this. I'm about to snap. I'm going to die. How can I trigger those feelings with life things, right? So it's really very helpful if you can begin to say, well, I'm going to start to do the best that I can to actually engage in my life or as close an approximation as I am able to now at this stage in my recovery and based on my anxiety. Instead of just saying, first I have to do recovery, then I will live again. It is far more effective and far more meaningful and long lasting and durable. If you can say I need to combine recovery and life while I'm doing recovery, I'm also living my life. Like my life isn't on hold while I do this thing called recovery. Let me do recovery and I'm going to have to do planned exposures and I'm going to have to do manufactured things like drive three exits on the highway or stay home alone for 10 minutes or resist Googling your symptoms for 15 minutes before you do it. Those are manufactured exposures or go and read through your imaginal stories or go and recite your thoughts into the mirror. Those are things that you would work with with your therapist or your counselor and you would manufacture those activities to trigger yourself to practice the internal experience. But also what can I do with life that might trigger me and help me practice that internal experience? While I'm doing things that I really, really want to do or I miss doing or I want to get back to doing or I'm interested in doing, the things that are important to me, the things that define who I am as a person from a value level. So the moral of the story here, you know, 15 minutes into the episode is you don't want to only recover to live. You want to do the best that you can to live so you can recover. And again, this is a little bit more of an advanced topic for people who've been around a longer time. But even if you're new to this, consider that because as you begin to implement the things that you hear, whether it's on this podcast or in the books that I write or with your therapist or your counselor, keep this in the back of your mind because you're going to want to build recovery to get your life back. But when you're doing that, keep in the back of your mind like, oh, how can I start to slide life in here and use that as my practice? Because as anybody who's been down the road will tell you and attest to, when you meet an anxiety challenge that is connected to something that's important to you in life, the person who goes to their kids, say school concert or a play or the person who takes care of a loved one when they are ill, even though their anxiety is telling them that they're not able to do that. When they get through the other side of that anxiety challenge, there's so much more meaning in that. There's a sense of pride in that. And there is something about that experience that's just broader, deeper and more impactful is probably the word I'm looking for than just a cold manufactured artificial exposure. Those artificial exposures are needed. They're going to be part of the deal. But when you're out walking around the block for the fifth time this week and that's not something that you normally do and probably won't do because that's not just what your life looks like. Yeah, you're practicing for sure. You're getting triggered and you're practicing tolerance and acceptance and navigation. But that's not really a life thing for you. When you can do a life thing as part of your recovery and you can do that on a consistent level, you have a much better outcome, likely outcome in the end. You have a lower chance of relapse. Your setbacks because they're going to happen will be less severe. You'll recover from the quicker, more quickly. There's a whole bunch of evidence that tells us this is a better way to go. But it starts with throwing away the idea that I recover to live and embracing the idea that I have to live to a certain extent to recover. And what will happen is in the beginning it's almost all recovery and no life. But if you begin to try to insert life in as you go, one of the signs of progress is that your days look more and more like life and less and less like some activity called recovery. That's what you'll find. That's the natural progress over time. So I think this is one of those weird almost like you got to sit down and think about it for a while. You got to kick it around a little bit. You got to ask yourself, oh, am I doing that? You know, am I doing it? Am I like trying to recover and waiting to start my life again until I feel recovered? A lot of people do that. I mean, I'm sure I did that too in my recovery. It's kind of natural. Like everybody gets trapped in that a little bit. But one of the things that you confront when you consider this is you might never feel like if you wait and say, I got to do more recovery because I don't feel ready for my life. You will maybe take a very long time to recover and get frustrated because as part of this process, we do things before we think we're ready. We start recovery if you will before we think we're ready to start recovery. We start engaging in life before we think we're ready. It's the idea that we're not ready or we're not capable that gets us stuck to begin with. So if you want to start to use some of what I said today in this particular episode of this video, you're going to have to recognize that like, I don't feel ready to do that. But I guess I get to do stuff before I'm ready. Like even when you're doing manufactured recovery exposures, you're doing them before you think you're ready to do them. In fact, the reason why they're exposed is because by definition, you don't think that you're able to do them. That's otherwise they wouldn't be exposures. They would just be stuff to do, right? So these are things you have to consider as you look at this particular topic that we're talking about today. So it's not just recovering to live. It's living the best you can to recover. And as you go down the road, you will discover that you're living more and recovering less, but you're living more but actually recovering more at the same time. So this is a really valuable concept and it's something that doesn't get talked about enough. If you were working with a therapist or a counselor, it would get talked about because your recovery plan would start to include life. But here on social media, sometimes we forget this talk. So I wrote about it when I wrote The Anxious Truth. And if you don't have that book, you can find it on my website. Just go to theanxustruth.com if you want to check it out. It's print, it's Kindle, it's audiobook, it's all the thing. But when I wrote this, I had to take that out of my own experience. And also I had to look at the experiences of all the people in the community that I have the privilege of interacting with. And you could see the success stories are more likely to come from the person that says I'm going back toward life as opposed to, I'm just going to do only my prescribed exposures, hope to recover, and then hope to feel ready for life. The people who are most successful more consistently on a longer lasting basis are the people who embrace the life is recovery thing. Even if it takes them a while for that light bulb to go off and say, oh yeah, I got to do that. And if it takes you a while, that's totally fine. There's no right or wrong here. Just try to take this lesson with you as you go. I think it's important. And it's one of those nuances that probably if you can get a grip on is going to help you in the long run. So that is episode 283 of The Anxious Truth, ready to rock and in the can. You know, it's over because the music is playing as always. I'm going to leave you with the same stuff that I leave you with on all of these sort of regular episodes, which is if you dig the podcast and you're listening on Apple or iTunes or Spotify, place where you can rate and review, leave a five star rating if you dig it, maybe take a second and write a review. Of course, if you're watching this as a YouTube video and you're not subscribed to the channel, why not hit the subscribe button or hit the like button on the video because it really helps the channel out for sure. And if you have a question, leave it in the video comments. I will circle back and check them out for sure. And that's it. I will be back next week. We will continue in episode 284. We'll continue the Foundations of Paddock series for those of you who are new in the community. And just a quick reminder again as we leave, remember every step you take toward recovery and away from avoidance and fear today, no matter how small that step counts, it will all add up. They will make a difference in the end. So do what you can today. Do your best. It matters. I will see you next week. Thanks for listening. Take care.