 On this episode of the anxious truth, we're going to talk about how no matter what anybody tells you, recovery is not just mind over matter. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. So let's get into it. Welcome back everybody. Welcome to the anxious truth. This is podcast episode number 187 being recorded in late December of 2021. It's almost Christmas as of this recording. Anyway, I am Drew Lynn Salata, creator and host of the anxious truth. This is the first time you are here. The anxious truth is a podcast that talks about all things anxiety and anxiety recovery. So if you have an anxiety problem in your life or love someone who does, this is the place for you. Welcome. I'm glad you're here. If you are back and listening because you are a return listener, a long time listener of the podcast. Thank you for coming back. Also, I appreciate your support. Before we get into this topic, the topic of mind over matter. Oh, is it just just comes down to mind over matter? No, it doesn't. It's actually the opposite. So before we get into that, I just want to remind you of a few little housekeeping things. This is the end of 2021. On January 3rd, 2022, I am launching a daily email newsletter completely free called the anxious morning. It's just a way for me to teach things and convey information and support and encouragement and empowerment and all the things that I love to do in a more organized way. I can write a little more detail to you. I can do three or 500 words every morning. You don't have to comb through the fire hose of Facebook or Instagram algorithms to see it. You can read at your leisure. You can use it any way you want something you can kind of hang on to. It's not just fleeting in the scroll of doom. So if you would like to subscribe to the anxious morning email newsletter, again, 100% free, just pop on over to the anxious morning. Email and you could subscribe right there. You can subscribe anytime. There's no spam. It's all useful stuff. So go check that out. And if you are not familiar with the rest of my work, which includes three books on anxiety and anxiety recovery and a bunch of other social media stuff. Head on over to the anxious truth.com where you will find everything. And if you're really a lover of my work and I'm helping you in some way, then you'd like to find some way to support the work. Consider maybe making a small monthly donation, which you can do at the anxious truth.com slash donate. That is not required, but it is always appreciated. And I thank you all very much for your time, your attention and your support. So let's get into this. Sometimes when we talk about the fact that we have to go toward our fear to recover and we have to do the opposite of what we really want to do. And we have to stop avoiding and that we have to do things that are scary and difficult on purpose. Many times people will listen to that and say, oh, I get it. It's really just comes down to mind over matter. And that is absolutely not true. In fact, that's 100% opposite of what it really is. Or you'll have people sort of who are trying to encourage you or help you move forward in your journey. And they will say, come on, man. It's just mind over matter. And they would be wrong. Now I understand the spirit of what they're saying. Mind over matter. Like, you know, you just have to do it. Then we're going to do an episode on just do it, which is also a gross oversimplification. It does not belong in this space. Just do it. But when people talk about mind over matter, I get the spirit of what they're saying. The spirit makes sense. The intent sort of makes sense. But really and truly, if we look at mind over matter and we sort of compare that to what we're actually doing here in the process of anxiety recovery and dealing with things like agoraphobia or panic disorder or OCD, we're actually doing the opposite. The problem with mind over matter is that people think that that means, okay, I just have to get into the right mindset so that it will let me move through this discomfort. And that's true to a certain extent, right? You have to accept that I'm going to have to go into discomfort. I have to learn to move through it and navigate it. Willfully tolerate, surrender, float, except whatever your nice terminology is that you like the most. That's fine. But really the process of recovery is actually learning to let matter go over mind, right? So our problem here is that our minds, the things that we are afraid of because we think they represent either thoughts that might come true or thoughts that are disturbing that you don't like. They upset you and they bother you. Sensations in your body that are natural, normal responses to fear and a perceived threat get interpreted as danger. Everything is happening in here, right? So all the drivers of these problems that we're addressing and that we're trying to recover from happen in here, inside of us. And much of that happens up here. So the problem when you are in this disordered state that we're talking about all the time is that mind is over matter. So it's a ready mind over matter because reality has shown you again and again and again. And you'll appreciate this, especially if you've struggled with this or suffered for any amount of time. Reality has shown you again and again and again that the things that we fear and that we try to avoid and we try to stop them. We try to escape from them. We don't want them to ever happen because we hate them and we fear them. Those things never actually amount to real harm. So reality keeps showing us that again and again and again. No matter how many times you have an intrusive thought about running someone over with your car, very common thought, it hasn't happened. Reality keeps showing you that the fear that you may have run somebody over without knowing never is true. No matter how many times you get a sensation that seems like you might pass out and you don't pass out. Reality keeps showing you. You don't pass out. It's not true. Every time you get a sensation of a rapid heartbeat and you think that that means you're about to die or your heart's going to stop, you're going to have a heart attack, but you never do have a heart attack. Your heart never stops and you do not die. So reality keeps showing us again and again and again that what's going on up here in our heads, our interpretations, our subjective interpretations and evaluations of what's going on are wrong. So matter reality is trying to show us what is real and that we are safe. But mind what's going on in our heads as we interpret what we feel and what we think is telling us that we are in danger. So the problem with the disorder state is that it is mind over matter. So we are literally trying to reverse that. We are trying to get to the point where instead of your thoughts and interpretations, taking precedence over reality, right? So mind is taking precedence over matter. We don't want that. We actually want it the other way, right? So we want it so that those lessons that reality keeps shoving in our face. You're okay again. You didn't die again. You didn't pass out again. You didn't go insane again. You didn't run on somebody over without knowing it again. We actually want matter reality to jump up and take precedence over what's going on in our minds. So I understand the spirit behind mind over matter. That's people trying to, I guess, encourage us or light a fire under us or motivate us or, I don't know, maybe convince us that we're strong enough to do that. And I appreciate that. I really do. But it's kind of critical to understand that this is not a mind over matter process. The disorder is actually the mind over matter. The recovery is allowing matter, which we're going to say is reality, to take over. And it's matter over mind is what we're really after here. So when you frame it in that context, if you have been a person that keeps saying to yourself, this is just mind over matter, man. I'm really scared, but it's mind over matter. No. Think of it the other way. So when you are getting geared up because you have to do the ERP homework that your therapist, or your counselor has given you, when you have to do your exposures, when you have to stay home alone for 20 minutes, when you haven't done that at all and you're terrified, when you have to go and walk around the block, whatever it is that you have to do, you're going to go to that birthday party or with that social event, whatever it is that you've decided, I'm not going to hide anymore. I want to go move forward in recovery. So I'm going to start doing these difficult, scary things. I want to do these exposures and do my ERP homework and do all of these things. When you're doing those things, do not think that it's mind over matter, that your mind should will you through something. In reality, what we really want to do is kind of put the throttle down or at least take our foot off the accelerator mentally and just let our minds coast so that reality, matter, can actually sink in. Right? So it can be while we might think this is a silly little thing like, why do you care mind over matter, matter over mind? Because for somebody who's actually engaged in the recovery process, who is trying to find motivation or strength or courage, using the concept of mind over matter would be counterproductive. So when people keep telling you mind over matter, mind over matter, they're trying to tell you that you can be strong and that's a good message. So take that because you can be strong. But do not try to approach this as a mind over matter problem. It's actually the other way. So I would urge you to say to yourself, is this mind over matter? Should I be following mind over matter? No. My mind is overriding reality already. My mind is what's standing in the way of me accepting the reality that I've never actually had this horrible thing happen to me. Right? My mind is blocking the lesson that reality is trying to give me. I did an episode not too long ago. I don't remember which one it is. You can go to my website, theAnxiousTruth.com and search for it. It wasn't too long ago. And it was about not accepting the lessons of recovery. So your exposures are supposed to give us lessons. The lessons they are giving us are based in reality. But if we are going to follow, the lessons are based on reality, matter, like MATTER is reality. But often we refuse to accept those lessons. Why? Because we think we need to follow our minds. So mind over matter has gotten you into this problem to begin with the other ways and it perpetuates the problem. You need to look at it the other way. Like I have to stop going with my mind. I have to stop listening to those subjective interpretations and evaluations and judgments and predictions because they're always wrong. They feel so real and they're scary every single time but they're always effing wrong. So you don't want mind over matter. You actually want the ability to let matter reality hand you the lesson that no matter how afraid you have been and how much you think you are in imminent danger that has never been the case ever. And when we do that, we begin to learn that, wait a minute, all that avoidance, all that saving, all that running, all those rituals, the oils, the crystals, the mantras, the calls, the snapping of rubber bands, the bottle of water and the mints has never been required. I've never actually been in danger. That is a powerful lesson that reality, matter, M-A-T-T-E-R is trying to hand us but our overactive, oversensitized minds think they are doing us a favor trying to keep us safe. They are blocking those lessons again and again and again. Your brain will tell you, I know the guy on the podcast says that I never pass out but this feels, this time it feels like I'm really going to pass out and it will do that again and again and again and again forever if you keep following it. So this is not a mind over matter problem. This is a matter over mind problem. At some point we make the decision to say I'm going to do these scary things. I have to recognize that the interpretation that I'm getting out of my mind, my overworked, oversensitized amygdala, my lizard brain is not doing me any favors. So I'm going to have to let it tell me that I'm in danger but act like I am not so that I can allow reality to leapfrog my brain and teach me lessons that I need to get better. So I can't explain it, I think, any more ways than that. That recovery is absolutely not mind over matter. Recovery is actually allowing matter to take precedence over mind. Now, before I wrap it up, I just want to make sure that I clarify one thing. I am not saying that the act of recovery or trying to deal with anxiety is ever about ignoring your emotions or invalidating them or trying to become a robot and never caring what you think. That's not it at all. When you get to a more, a less disordered state when anxiety has been put back into its rightful place that it belongs in in all human lives, then we can start going back to maybe a little more closer examination of our thoughts and our feelings. We can do that, that's true. But right now, when your brain, when your mind is 100% running the show and reality has no shot, we have to err on the side of allowing reality to take precedence over our thoughts. So some people get a little nervous and they think like I'm telling them, oh, this is all about learning to never, never, ever, ever care about what you think. And for some people, that's a really difficult concept because some of their identity is really tied up in thinking and feeling and emotions. I'm not saying that that has to go away, but we can learn to temper that and we can learn that those traits, right, of seeing your thoughts as special and sacred, then they must be followed. That trait that you hang on to or the trait of following those emotions is keeping you in a state of mind over matter when we need to reverse that and do matter over mind. So we need to kind of work against those traits or those habits for now. For now. When you get better, that part of you can still flourish. That can be a very useful part of your personality. We need all different kinds of people in the world. It's not a bad thing to be emotional. It's not a bad thing to be contemplative. Totally fine. But right now, some of those habits are getting in your way. So those habits are cementing the role of your mind over matter. So if you are a thinker, I must think. I must think. I must feel. I must feel. I must follow what I think. I must follow what I feel. Those habits and traits are cementing the disordered mind over matter. And so we need to back those off a little bit, which will feel really hard. It's what makes this process so difficult sometimes, makes it such a struggle sometimes. We need to back off from that so that we can get a balance again between what's going on up here in our heads and what's going on in the universe and reality around us. So this is really all about achieving that balance again between what goes on in your head, what you think and what you feel, and what reality is actually giving us. Right now, what you think and feel is 100% in control, mind over matter. We need to flip it the other way, matter over mind. And then as you start to get better, we get a more healthy balance and an organic expression of those things. So there you go. That is the mind over matter discussion. I always find it to be an interesting thing because mind over matter is a thing that we hear all the time, especially from coaches and motivational speakers. And that's saying has been around a long time. So when somebody tells you that your recovery is simply a matter of mind over matter, you got to say, no, no, it's actually the opposite. I'm having a mind over matter problem. We need to flip that, please. You got to get back in touch with reality. My overactive mind needs to calm down just a little bit. So that is it. Thanks for coming by. You hear my dog, Copper, in the background. He wants to sign off with me. I'm going to leave you as always with After Globe by my buddy, Ben Drake. You can find Ben and his music at bendrackmusic.com. Tell them I said hi. I'm going to ask you if you are listening to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or some platform that lets you rate and review, leave a five star rating, write a review. And if you're watching on YouTube, hit the subscribe button, hit the notification, like the video, all this stuff. And that's it, guys. Thanks for coming by. I appreciate your attention all the time. I'll be back next week with another topic. Don't know what it is, but it will be a topic. Thanks again for your time and attention. And remember, this is the way.