 We are back for another recovery Monday. We missed last week, but we're back today. Today is March 20th, 2023. It's sunny. It might even be a little bit warmer today in New York, which I'm thrilled at. I'm gonna try and get outside in a little while once I finish this and some other work that I have to do. Hope everybody's doing well. Let me get into the chat here. I am mindful of the time difference. Yes, this is that ridiculous time of year that happens twice a year where the US and the UK are not synced up. So I think we are only four hours apart now until you guys change your clocks. I will say this every time. I do not understand why we do not have that coordinated. We're like country BFFs and we don't coordinate that. So I actually missed some stuff. Last week we had a little bit of a mishap on another project that I'm working on. Because of the clock change, it's really annoying. Hate it. Mustard Rain says, still processing all the Guinness I drank over the weekend need to be more mindful next time. Love it. Yes, it was St. Patrick's Day. So those of you who celebrate, I hope it was fun for you. If you're in Ireland, I hope it was fun for you. Let's put the chat overlay up so that you guys can see each other. Oh, really? Yeah, Siri wants to tell me the weather for someone on reason. Anyway, I hope everybody is doing well. I hope it's all working for you in terms of audio and everything. Today we're gonna talk about the idea that what people will say like, oh, mindfulness doesn't work for me. It doesn't work for me. Meditation doesn't work for me. And this applies not just to mindfulness but to a lot of different things. Acceptance doesn't work for me. Tolerance doesn't work for me. Whatever you want to call it. Surrender doesn't work for me. We're gonna talk about that. Because a lot of times there's just misconception as to what working is supposed to mean. So we will go over that stuff. Mindfulness is a thing that we talk about all the time. It gets a lot of press, right? In the recovery community, in the mental health community. Sometimes mindfulness is held up to sort of this panacea that where it can fix everything. I'm a big fan of learning to live mindfully. I actually am a huge fan of it. But I would never tell you that it's like a cure or a fix or the answer to every problem in the universe. It's just simply not. I mean, I might argue that it's maybe a better way to live because it's got all kinds of different benefits in terms of stress management and focus and just being more effective and connecting to things that matter to you. So it's got a lot of benefits. But specifically mindfulness, which is where we'll start the chat is not like the be all and all fixes everything, solves everything, fixes your anxiety. It doesn't do that, unfortunately. So we'll talk about that. Let me get rid of this. As usual, we'll talk for a few minutes and then we'll take some comments and questions. Oddly, we've had half the audience today, which is kind of weird. I don't know why. I see people from all three platforms, which is good. But maybe who knows? Maybe it's just not a hot topic. So anyway, let's get into it. When people say that mindfulness doesn't work for them. Now, is it possible that mindfulness isn't working in some objective way? Sure, I would be silly if I told you that like, oh, if you say that, you don't know what you're talking about. I'm not gonna say that. But what I am here to suggest maybe is that if you try tools like mindfulness or meditation or relaxation, and especially if you declare that it doesn't work and you declare that quickly, that's usually a hint here, as to maybe some improper expectations, or I say I like to use the phrase shooting at the wrong target all the time. Oh, by the way, before I forget, I promised that I would do this. Before we get into that, I'm gonna put something up on the screen right here because you might want to check that out. So this, by the way, is the URL for the podcast that Josh Fletcher and I are starting very shortly. It's gonna be released very shortly. Pop on over to disorder.fm. If you're interested, get on the announcement list there. We don't send out email. It's not a spam list. And we'll tell you when we're actually watching it. We have 10 episodes recorded at this point, so that'll be very soon. I wanted to mention it, if I didn't do it now, I would totally forget it. But yeah, go to disorder.fm and check that out. Get on the list and we'll tell you what's going on with that. So back to the mindfulness thing. If in fact you declare quickly, like within a matter of sometimes literally hours or sometimes within days or a couple of days or a week, like I tried mindfulness and it doesn't work for me. Many times that is an indicator that you are hoping that mindfulness or meditation or acceptance or floating or any of the things we talk about is going to create a specific state of being for you. And we use it a lot, oftentimes we make a mistake and we try to use it as a soothing strategy or a calming strategy or a relaxing strategy or a panic mitigation or an anxiety mitigation strategy. And it's not really any of those things at all, nor is meditation, nor is progressive muscle relaxation, nor is accepting or floating. Like I'm going to use these terms interchangeably. Mindfulness was just a hook for today. But a lot of times when people say, well, mindfulness doesn't work, one or two things is going on. Either they try to do things a different way and they try to drop their fighting and their resistance and they felt everything very intensely and then declared that should never happen. This is supposed to make me better, not worse. Therefore it doesn't work. And I can't do it this way because if I drop the resistance and I drop the fighting and I try to come back to the moment and just let everything be there with me, then I'll feel all the things and I can't have that. So sometimes the interpretation it doesn't work is, no, no, no, no, I really want you to give me something that will make me feel different right away or that will make it feel less or take it away. And even though you keep saying that it won't do that drew, I'm still hoping in the back of my mind somewhere that it will do that and if it doesn't do that and I actually feel the things which is part and parcel of the process, I'm gonna say, no, this doesn't work, I can't do it, I need something else. And I get that. I totally get that because everybody wants to feel different. That is not wrong. You're not wrong for wanting to feel different at all. You're not doing it wrong. You're not on the wrong track at all. Everybody wants to feel good all the time. We all do. So that's just human nature. However, it's not being fair if you immediately say, well, what I'm really looking for is panic mitigation strategies, anxiety mitigation strategies. I'm looking for ways to eradicate this, to make it go away, to stop it, to tamp it down. And every time you give me a tool, it doesn't do that so these tools don't work. Now, you're allowed to look at those. You're totally allowed to look for those things if you want and everybody's allowed to pick their own path. That's absolutely 100% true. But none of the tools that I'm ever talking about are that, they're not that. The second thing that tends to be an issue in terms of mindfulness or meditation, it doesn't work for me. It doesn't work for me. It's not working is that sometimes people feel like they're not doing it right. Like there's a special way, if they did it the right way, then they would feel different or it would make some sort of major change right away or they'd have some blinding flash of insight over this. Or if I was accepting and it didn't stop, like I hear that all the time. People will say, I tried accepting and it didn't stop. The panic was still there or I went on exposure and I accepted but I was terribly anxious, I panicked in the car. Yeah, correct. Remember that in many of the cases here that does not mean you're doing it wrong at all. In fact, it probably means that you're likely doing it right because almost all of these tools, mindfulness, meditation, relaxation, acceptance, floating, allowing, surrendering, these are all rolling out the welcome mat for the feelings and the sensations and the thoughts that you hate that you are terrified of and that you're trying to keep it away. You've been trying to keep these away so long but these tools really sort of roll out the welcome mat for them. But again, it's super critical that we always remember why we're doing that, right? Hey, what up, Bea? So a lot of people, I like how she literally now just abbreviates B didgeroo, Barbara didgeroo. Like seriously, these are my friends. Anyway, we always have to keep in mind why we're rolling out the welcome mat because I'd face value if this is the first time, like if you're in this video right now, in this live stream and you've never seen me before, never met me, don't know anything I'm talking about and you hear me say that we're rolling out the welcome mat for panic and anxiety and truce of thoughts, you would think, what the effort you're talking about, man, that's insanity, how could that be a thing? But remember why we do that, we do that to have the experiences that teach us that we can handle those things, we don't have to resist them, we don't have to run for them anymore. Remember those principles. So if I'm going to try to practice being more mindful or if I'm going to use a meditation practice, for instance, why am I doing it? I'm doing it to learn how to relax my body even when I'm not calm. I'm doing it to learn how to put my focus somewhere even while I'm very anxious or afraid. I'm doing it to learn to pay attention to what's going on around me, even when my anxiety, my fear, my scary thoughts are begging to be the most important thing in the room. So it's always, I'm learning to do things even while I feel, that's why we use these tools. Because when you do things even while you feel, then we learn over time that like, oh, look, I can do things even while I feel, maybe not optimally, not perfectly, far from perfectly, maybe not comfortably, but that's a very different place to wind up than this is crippling, it's debilitating, I can't do anything about it, this is horrible, I have to run, I have to hide, make it go away. Look at those two places. Look, I'm really uncomfortable when I do some of these things now, for now. But I actually am learning that I am capable of being both uncomfortable, both uncertain, both vulnerable, afraid, and also capable at some level, which is very, very different than the other thing I described, which is this is hell, this is debilitating, and if I don't make it stop, there's nothing I can do but hide under my covers 24 hours a day. Again, everyone's allowed to make their own choices and follow their own paths. But when we immediately declare that things like mindfulness or meditation do not work, we have to ask ourselves, well, what do we want them to do? So what are you hoping it will do? If you are hoping it will make you feel better, then you will say, this doesn't work. If you are hoping that it will help you expand your repertoire, your behavioral repertoire, and actually do things that you are convinced that you are incapable of doing, then you will feel like they didn't work, right? I'm sorry, the other way. If you're doing them to increase your behavioral repertoire so that you can do things that you think you're not capable of doing, then you're gonna say, oh, this is working because look, I'm changing what I do. Things are actually changing. I'm still uncomfortable and afraid, but I'm learning to be a little bit more capable in the face of that fear. So what is your goal? What are you hoping to get out of mindfulness? What are you hoping to get out of meditation? What do you think it's going to produce for you? Now, however, keep in mind that on the other side of recovery, people who are not dealing with anxiety disorders, who preach the gospel of mindfulness, and I get it, I'm a fan. I'm a huge fan, like I said. Like John Kabat-Zinn, love his work. He's super, super excellent. He's great at describing mindfulness and the benefits that it might have in your life. Really, really great, really, really great. But in the end, he's not talking about using it in the case of an anxiety disorder. Nonetheless, you could use it the way he teaches it. That's why I love that guy. But in the same vein, it becomes a little bit more of a life skill. Yeah, maybe it will help you be in a little bit more, I don't know, happy place or a little bit more well-adjusted place, less reactive place, more capable place, true. But in the case that we're talking about in recovery, like it's not meant to do that. It's meant to help us, these things are meant to help us learn that we have a bigger choice. We have more choices that we can make. We're not limited, we're stronger than we think. We are capable, we can do these things. Like that's what these things are meant to do. That's what mindfulness is supposed to do in the case of anxiety recovery. Since I use mindfulness in the title, let's talk about it a little bit. What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is literally just learning to pay attention without judgment. That's literally all mindfulness is in the end. It doesn't have to be spiritual. It doesn't have to create a change in your mental state. It doesn't have to elevate you into some other plane. It doesn't have to make you calm. It doesn't have to make you joyful. It doesn't have to make you grateful for what you're paying attention to, none of that. That would literally be judging the mindfulness concept, the mindfulness practice. And mindfulness is literally dropping the judgment, pay attention and don't judge. So I can engage with what is going on around me. Not only what is going on in me is really how we would use mindfulness in our context. Because if you're in this room, there's a really good chance you spend a whole lot of time paying a lot of attention to what's going on in you and very little time spent paying attention to what's going on outside of you, except if you're forced to or you accidentally get distracted. That's why people like to use distraction. So like, oh, I guess I can, if I accidentally get distracted, oh, I wasn't thinking about my anxiety for a little while. I was mindful of what was going on around me. Didn't plan on it, but it happened. I was just playing with the dog or I had to tend to an emergency that's mindful. So anybody who's ever been through this sort of thing that finds that they were in an emergency situation finds that they handled it so well. And it's like, oh, look at that. Like I wasn't as anxious as I thought in the emergency situation because you were mindful of the situation you were in. So that stuff kind of matters, right? So that's what mindfulness really is here. We could talk about the mechanics of mindfulness for a very long time, but we don't really have to talk about that now. But do you think it's not working? So let's talk about that a little bit. Do you feel like mindfulness is not working for you? And why? So let's look at some comments here. What does everybody have to say? Oh, here's Chad. Let's see. Howdy everybody, howdy, howdy, howdy. Having a terrible last few days. Can you say the podcast that you're doing with Josh? Oh yes, I already did. So it's up on the screen, disorder.fm. Let's see. I'm new to anxiety and I'm trying both mindfulness and exposure, but I only see relief. Let's put it up on the screen. But I only see relief for a little while. That's okay. Again, you have to look at like, what are you hoping this will do for you? Is it supposed to bring you some sort of extended relief? Is it supposed to really bring you relief at all? In the end, I would argue that the relief that you're gonna feel is based on the realization that like, oh, I did it. So the sense of relief isn't really relief so much it is accomplishment. So go for accomplishment, not for relief. That's probably better. And I don't mean accomplishment like, oh my God, I'm so proud and I'm thrilled right now just the realization of like, oh, look, I handled this thing that I am totally sure that I can't handle. That would be a big deal. So don't worry about relief. It's not supposed to bring you relief. That's important. That's one of the expectation things. So let's see. Mindfulness is slow and quiet compared to the friend. Okay, cool. Let's put this up, I like it. Mindfulness is slow and quiet compared to the frenzied feeling of high anxiety. So the radical difference, ooh, this is really good. So the radical difference sometimes feels weird and therefore scary. Love this comment, sorry, can't see your name. That's a restream thing. But I love this comment because that's true. Sometimes if you spend all day long, super amped up in a really anxious state all the time, if you start to find that you're not in that state, it's foreign to you to not feel that. And some people will, for me, I felt like it was an empty feeling. Like it felt empty. I don't know if that makes any sense. But for me, I would feel like, ooh, this feels empty and empty felt wrong, foreign, scary, unusual, dangerous. So that's incredibly common. Really good comment. Thank you so much for that. Okay. I need to try it again. Hang on, I saw Mustard Rain, by the way, it's a great name. Okay, here we go. I knew I saw something before this. Gently bringing my awareness back to breath, thought strap equals thought stopping and distraction for me, which was bad. It made the thoughts stronger. I might argue that it made the thoughts louder, okay? Consider the difference between stronger and louder. So if you were engaged in a bunch of things that were designed to drown out the thoughts, get away from the thoughts, argue with the thoughts, replace the thoughts, be safe from the thoughts, and you're pushing away from them, if you gently bring your awareness back to your breath, you will hear the thoughts louder. So I can't really be in your head naturally, but I will suggest that you consider the difference between feeling them, hearing them more loudly, but they've always been there. You've just been getting better at avoiding them and putting distance between yourself and them in a protective way, not a productive way. And when you stop doing that, you hear them really loudly because they're right up in your face, right? So that's important. And then I see you followed it up here with, I'll try it again once I'm out of the hypervigilancy. I would argue that that might be backwards. What's going to get you out of the hypervigilant state if you insist that hearing the thoughts more loudly is unacceptable? Then if that's your assertion, then you will stay vigilant toward those thoughts. Are they louder? Are they stronger? Are they louder? Are they stronger? So you are literally increasing your sense of vigilance toward those thoughts. So it would be very hard to say, let me get out of that state and then I'll try the mindfulness thing. That's, believe it or not, a little bit backwards. I mean, again, I can't be in your head, so take that with a grain of salt, but something to consider. Let's see what else we have up here. I'm here, the one that lives in the stupid time change. Yeah, we'll figure that out. We'll figure that sooner or later. Let's see here. Oh, this is a good one too. Thanks, B, this is a good comment. Mindfulness is so important though. It just isn't exciting. Yeah, it's not exciting at all. It's super boring. It's super like there's no great epiphanies in it. There's no great big, huge turning points or light bulb moments. I mean, a little bit at a time as we go. So that's a really good point. There's nothing exciting or sexy about it. A lot of times when we talk about things like mindfulness in a mental health context, we try, it seems sexy or it gets put in that like healing, spiritual awakening, higher level sort of sexy thing, but that's not what we're talking about here. Really boring. Let's see. Okay, this one I think we already saw. Relief for a little while. Sorry about that. This is how do we learn here? Do we, okay, let's see here. Don't we all envy people who stay calm or distressed? We can learn to handle stress differently too. Yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, I'm kind of that person. I mean, look, even, let me think about this. It's a really good point. Even when I was struggling with panic attacks on a regular basis, I was still in an emergency pretty good. In fact, really good. So that's that thing where I would get out of my own head. And now, especially even more so. So if the building is on fire, I'm the guy that's going to shrug your shoulders and say, well, come on, let's everybody leave the building and let's go get some water. And there's a reason for that. Mindfulness and meditation and focus practice has elevated that for me, for sure. Let's see here. Allow and accept and love your sensations. No, I would definitely not say love them. I don't like that. I don't like love your sensations because that's a really big ask. Like, hey, can you love the sensation of not being able to breathe? No, but you can certainly handle it. So I would be a little bit careful about making the statement, love your sensations. If you personally have managed to find a way to love them, awesome, that's really great. But I would not tell anybody if they have to learn to love their sensations. You could still hate them and be mindful. That's okay. I can handle stress, but I can't seem to handle anxiety. Well, that's because you've drawn a line in the sand over which you won't cross. Like, this is okay, but if it gets to be too much, I can't handle it too much. So you gotta be careful about that. Let's keep going here. Okay, so it's cool. Stoicism is also a great compliment to mindfulness, which at 100% is. There's so many lines from stoicism and Buddhism and even Taoism into this sort of stuff. It is a great compliment, you're 100% right. So that non-judgment is a really good part of sort of general stoic philosophy that fits in here for sure, 223. I'm gonna have to make it a little shorter today, unfortunately. Let's see. Yeah, this is like what Jen is saying here. I'm not looking to love the sensations. Nobody loves them. I didn't love them. I didn't learn to love them. If you can learn to love them, I guess, and it serves a purpose, that's okay. It's not wrong, but I wouldn't ask people to love them. That's a huge ask. Let's see here. Okay, this is cool. Jason says, meditation at PMR every day after my recovery and it makes my sore knees and overall mood better. So there's a lot of use of mindfulness, like MBSR, mindfulness-based stress reduction, and there's a lot of use of things like mindfulness and meditation practice in the management of chronic pain. So yeah, that's a big deal. That's one of those places where it could be really helpful in life. Is it possible to live life, regardless of how you feel? Yeah. Well, the question here, this is always a tough one. And again, I cannot be in your head or in your body, right? So I can't say for sure. But nine times out of 10, my experience is when somebody says, I'm still doing it. I'm doing the things. There's a difference between doing the things and fully allowing while you do the things. I'm doing the things, but the symptoms are still there. You have to really ask yourself, how are you doing the things? And again, this is a suggestion because I don't know you, I'm not in life with you so I can't see what you're doing. But ask yourself, how am I doing the things? Am I doing the things like this, just pushing through the things to get through them and then like, I don't understand like the symptoms are still there, which is one extreme, or are you literally slowing down and truly allowing and willing to allow all of the things while you do stuff? That's so important. And sometimes that leads, if you're not doing it that way, it leads to this sometimes. So that's something to think about. I can't say for sure, but it's something to think about. What is the best way to start practicing mindfulness? I'll tell ya. One way to start practicing mindfulness is to slow your rear end down. So when I wrote 7% slower, I was literally writing a mindfulness manual on the QT. So one good way to start bringing mindful practice into your life is to slow down because when you slow down, you have no choice but to pay attention. So that's a good first stop would be, just start to slow things down a little bit. When you just slow down, pull back on the throttle a little bit and you will have no choice but to pay attention more to, yes, the things that are inside you and the scary stuff, but also the things around you. If you're going at lightning speed all the time and you're rushing and you're, huh, you're just trying to get through everything, it's really hard to be mindful of anything you're just trying to get through. So slowing down to me is the first step toward mindfulness and accepting what it is, just learning to pay attention. What can I pay attention to? What is going on in this context that's more than just me? So in this context, I'm talking to you, my right knee really hurts today, my left shoulder hurts today, but there's also, I see a squirrel running up that tree and this light is on and I could hear copper walking around in the other room. So there are other things going on besides just me. That's what that is. Okay, so this is that same thing, the restfulness and calm is short lived. Okay, but this is the thing where you practice mindfulness with the intention of starting, of creating a specific state. Like I will only be mindful, no, I'm not saying that, that's not fair because that's what you're just not saying, Linda, but you have to be careful about I'm, I have to be, I want my mindfulness to make me calm and restful. And if I'm not calm and restful, it means the mindfulness doesn't work. It's not supposed to create calm and restful. We're not using it that way. So be careful about that. That's not, that's not a fair ask. There's the restfulness and calm is short lived. You can really look at it the other way and say, if I do practice this thing for 10 minutes, whatever, however way you're doing it, and I'm able to achieve a state of a little bit more restfulness or calmness, that's a win and it actually shows you something. But then to say, but it didn't last. So it doesn't work. That's throwing out like the baby with the bathwater, right? That's not fair. You're missing, kind of missing the point. Let's see. I can't see the on-screen things. Yeah, I get it. I tried to practice mindfulness but my mind is not quiet down. I was waiting for this one. I knew this one would come. There's a bunch of thoughts zooming by. Exactly. So that's exactly correct. A lot of people will say this about mindfulness and especially about meditation. I can't meditate. My mind doesn't shut down. Mindfulness and meditation is not about shutting your mind down at all. It's literally about learning how to allow those thoughts to zoom around. Just that now when they zoom around, you either latch onto them and try to engage with them and argue with them and get rid of them and work on them, or you resist them and try to push them away. Whereas when we get into a state of mindfulness or use practices like meditation, we're simply allowing them to be there. I can notice that they're there and I could pay attention somewhere else. So it's not that it doesn't work. Mindfulness doesn't work because my mind doesn't quiet down. If you have a really loud racing mind, you're probably, that's the time to practice it. That's actually the time to practice this stuff. You don't wait till your mind is quiet and then say, oh, now it works. We actually use tools like this to help us get to a place where it doesn't matter if our mind is quiet. Does that make sense? Okay, I get this. I'm gonna, I have another, I could do about another five or 10 minutes. And like I said, unfortunately today, I have to make it a little short. I have felt like this for so long now, it does really feel alien and then I get anxious again. But that's okay. Again, if I'm gonna judge things based on how I feel, if I feel too calm, that's dangerous and then I will start to engage with that and try and figure it out and stay safe from it. And then I'm anxious again. Then if I'm anxious, that feels dangerous and wrong and debilitating and I can't do anything. So you see the vicious cycle there. You have to be careful about getting caught and I'm only okay as long as I feel certain ways. So let's keep going here. I think we're doing all right. Okay, this is a good question. Thank you, Chris, I appreciate this. If anxiety is intense, is it best to briefly pay attention to anxiety then switch to something else? Okay, so if you go to my website, theanxistruth.com and search for ignoring. I think the podcast episode is called Are You Trying To Ignore Your Anxiety? If I gave you $10 million in a paper bag right now and said, Chris, ignore or anybody in the room, ignore your anxiety, I'd keep the money. I wouldn't give you the money because you wouldn't be able to do it. We can't ignore it even if we want to. So it's okay to acknowledge it and some really good tools that would get used as part of a mindful practice or an acceptance practice and things like ACT is we would use, and I've written about this. Like I wrote about this when I was writing The Anxious Morning. Two great tools that I find are I'm thinking and I'm feeling. So, oh, I'm thinking again or oh, I'm feeling again or you might say I'm noticing that or I noticed that I'm thinking or I noticed that I'm feeling because you can't not notice it. So there's no way to just, oh, I'm just gonna ignore it completely. You will feel it. And I think it probably is more useful to acknowledge it and say, oh, I'm feeling this now or I noticed that I'm feeling this or I noticed that I'm experiencing anxiety or I notice is a great thing. To me, I usually simplify it with, oh, I'm thinking again. Oh, I'm having thoughts. One of the coolest things that I heard somebody say, I think in the Facebook group not too long ago was this person started having really scary thoughts and their response to that was, oh, that's information. And I think that was great. I don't know where that person got that, but that's awesome. Like, oh, that's information. So yeah, it's okay to acknowledge it because you kind of have to. Like, oh, I'm feeling these things now. Okay, I know what to do now. So that's okay. You don't try to ignore it. You can't ignore it if I paid you, you wouldn't be able to. Let's see, let's keep going. A lot of good comments today, guys, this is awesome. I see mindfulness as a preparation to meeting your emotions with love and compassion. Sure, it's a lot of practice, but when meeting with emotions, you show it love instead of fear and panic. Yeah, I mean, that's another way to look at it for sure. Do you know what? Here's the beauty of this. It becomes so individual, especially as you go further down the road and you're not trying to use it as a rescue tool or a mitigation tool or like, one of the more interesting writers in that act space is Russ Harris. And I'm finally reading the Happiness Trap and he talks about being an obey mode or struggle mode. As long as you're not trying to use it as an obey tool or a struggle tool, which is that's his like resistance and fighting things, then it starts to take on all kinds of different meanings. And sometimes you could use these things in an emotional context for sure. So I love that, that's really great. It does start to become very specific or individual and meaningful in its own way to every person individually, which is awesome. It's really great. Ooh, okay, this is solid right here. See, I dig this, but this is radical for a lot of people if it's not happening in this moment, then it's not happening. So all my Gad people in the room, who sees this and like, what? So like for a lot of people that are dealing with generalized anxiety disorder, our warriors, our over thinkers, our over planners, our hyper responsible people, our control people, like for people that are struggling with that what Val says here, which I dig 100%. And this is almost the essence of what a lot of what you hear about like in Buddhist philosophy, all we have is now, we only have now. We also hear it in stoicism. We have nothing but now, like why are you paying attention to a life that you don't have anymore because five minutes ago is gone or why are you paying attention to a life that you don't have yet because five minutes from now doesn't exist yet. So this really is awesome, but for a lot of people who deal with things like Gad in this community, that would be like, what do you say? What do you say? Let's see here, let's keep going. Yeah, this is really good. I think for Gad people, this mindfulness work is how you work through that daily worry and hyper focus on every problem. Because it's again, it's a tool that we use in acceptance. It's a tool that we use in navigation, not eradication. So yeah, I would agree 100%. You could apply this the same way for, let's say you don't have panic attacks. You might be in the room and I don't have panic attacks. I just, you know, I have Gad, I worry all the time or I have health anxiety. These are the same tools that you can use because say health anxiety, for instance, will compel you to continually focus entirely on that health fear that you have. Gad may have you focus continually on all of your worries about your family or about yourself, maybe about your health, about the past. Well, okay, let me pay attention to what's going on right now and I'm gonna have to leave these questions unanswered and unsolved right now, which is a hard ask, but this is a good way to practice it. Thanks, Pete, that was good. Couple more minutes. Okay, this is cool. This is fun. It's one thing that I hear a lot too in our community that like anxious people are pros in a crisis and that's probably true. Like sometimes all, but some of the things the habits that we are in or I would say that I was in, but the habits of anxious people can really make them good in a crisis for sure, but I always find it amazing when you hear stories in our community of like real emergencies or, you know, I saw somebody not too long ago, ah, you know what, it's probably a year ago now. Might even be more. And it sucks because it was her son had broken his ankle, but he was okay in the end, kids sometimes break bones. And the story was my son fell off his bike and he broke his ankle, which actually happened to me when I was about 11 years old, but I was riding my bike in an ice storm while my friends and I threw ice balls at each other, stupid things that boys do. But, you know, her son had fallen off his bike and broke his ankle and they had it taken to the hospital and they were there for hours and he got x-rays and a cast. And she said, amazingly, I was never anxious. Yeah, because she was entirely focused on taking care of her son. So out of your own head, suddenly how you feel is not that important anymore. And we're really good in a pinch. So, let's see. I've just judged mindfulness. Mindfulness is an antidote for rumination because a mindfulness tells you, let me come back to what is now. Let me come back to what is now, which is super uncomfortable. Like, but I have to think about that. How am I gonna fix it? Ooh, what if I don't fix it? Imagine that. Ooh, like Lauren just said that, I saw it pop up here. What if there's nothing I can do to fix them? So let me just pay attention to what's here now. Easier said than done. Always wanna say that, easier said than done. This is good. Thank you for sharing this, Jason. I use meditation and muscle relaxation as a rescue behavior for years. It really worked for me, but I never use it to confront the anxiety directly. This is incredibly common. Like, I use them as rescue strategies. And that's also sometimes, how can I not bring this up in the beginning? Really good comment, Jay. Sometimes a lot of people will say, they don't work because they never practice them. They don't care about them. They don't even think about them till they're really afraid. And then they wanna be all mindful and all meditating and all relaxing to get away from what they are afraid of. And then it doesn't work because they never practice it. They don't really understand what it's supposed to even feel like. And then they'll say, this doesn't work. It doesn't work. I didn't do any practice. I don't know anything about it. I only wanna use it as a rescue. And when I try to use it to rescue myself, the panic still stays there. So all bets are off. Very, very good. Very, very good. Thank you for that comment. I appreciate it. Sonya's talking about medication. Let's see. Not medication, meditation. I was able to actually allow full meditation. It feels so good to do my brain to simply think, relax in that moment. Yeah, it is. And sometimes a relaxed brain, like when I meditate, I often have a lot of things in my head. I have all kinds of projects that I love doing and like I'm excited about stuff. So it's not, for me at times, it's not bad stuff. It's good stuff. But it's good stuff that would lead me into bad habits. Like, I wanna do everything all at one time. So I use meditation sometimes to just let those run and just disengage from them, like putting the, I've used the manual transmission thing before. Anybody who's ever driven a manual, if you hit the clutch pedal, you flywheel disengage from the engine and the engine is revving up a storm, but the car is coasting. It's not going anywhere. That's how I use it. And I also like Sonya how, if I put that back up again, when Sonya says when I was able to allow a full meditation, it took a while, right? So like that's in, to me, I love that because that is a acknowledgement, acknowledgement that no anxious person just sits down and like instantly meditates quietly. It gets it so well for an hour. Doesn't happen, just doesn't happen. It takes a while. Practice, practice, practice. The anxiety sensation scare everybody so much. That is 100% true. We would not take away from that. But being afraid is not the same as being in danger. That's one of the core principles around here. It's very important. Mindfulness has helped me not jump to. Oh, these are so good. I got to end in a minute or two, but you guys are killing the comments today. Let me just send a quick text, hang on. This is good. Watch Drew send a text message. Aren't you glad you tuned in today? Sorry, okay. So I'm just gonna put this person off for a few more minutes because I can. I love mindfulness has helped me not jump to the thing that anxiety wants me to do. It gives me more control. It's a good way to push it than the slowing down thing is a good way to put some space between you and that urgency. Yes, sorry, be there. Mindfulness, meditation, relaxation, coming back to the moment, slowing down. It's a really good way to pull the curtain back on that state of frantic fear so you can see the choice point. Like, oh, wait a minute. If I slow down a second, I can see that I have a choice. Like, oh man, like I can choose to slow down. It's not easy, but I can choose to do that. I don't automatically have to jump when my fear tells me to jump. So love that, really good. Let's keep going. I gotta put this on the screen just cause it's funny. I call mindfulness being sober, very good. The slower thing is really, and I appreciate all the nice comments here about 7% slower and going slower. You know, it's sometimes for some people, listen, it was about a year ago, somebody posted on Instagram, I saw that picture. They literally had the title of the book in this font tattooed on their arm. Like, have you written a book that people tattoo on their arms? Just asking. But so for some people, it's becomes really game-changing. For me, it was just a silly tool, but I love how some people really, really, like they attach to it and it becomes meaningful for them, which is great. Yeah, you guys are killing it here. I know I wouldn't pop in anymore. That's okay. Kathleen, you're allowed to pop in. Pop in anytime. We're happy to have you. Kathleen is a traveling fool now. She's just everywhere. It's really great. If you guys have not heard Kathleen's episode on my podcast, you totally should. And speaking of my podcast, is Mia still in here? Where's Mia? Where's Mel Diane Voss? Mia, how come you've never been on my podcast? Cause you've been through some stuff. We should talk about that. Let me keep going. I lost track of the comments at this point. Sorry. Let's see, New Hampshire, 27 degrees, long pants. I'm hearing about weather. I love when you guys are just chatting with each other. No, Carol, we didn't start early. The US and the UK are only four hours apart now instead of five. So that's why to you it looks like an hour early. Sorry about that. We'll catch up. I don't know when do you guys change your clocks in the UK? We'll catch up again. So it'll be five hours apart. Rubix, I have a gigachat. I've missed the gigachat for comments. How's it going, brother? Good to see you. This week we got over three feet of snow. Oh, Jesus. Let's see here. Oh, let me put this up real quick. This is a reasonable comment. How else would you look forward to good things if you just lived in the now? That is pretty reasonable. That's actually a reasonable comment. So, okay, let's talk about that. Like, how would you look forward to good things if you only live in the now? And I think it exposes, what's the word I'm looking for here? Like absolutism. So like we only have the now, it's all we have. But we also do have good memories of the past sometimes. And sometimes we have really good things to look forward to. You could make the philosophical argument, and this is outside the realm of this. This is literally just sit around and drink coffee or something else and have these conversations. But you could make the argument if you are, even though you are looking forward to something that is coming up, say something fun, you're still in the now because your thoughts are happening now. But it's a really good point. It illustrates the nuance and it illustrates the fact that like, not everything applies to everything all the time. You can't be super like, just be mindful. If you could just be mindful during every minute of the day, you'll be awesome. Doesn't work that way. Good comment actually. Okay, let's see here. Another couple of minutes, let me see. Did I get a response? I did get a response. Good for about another five or 10 minutes. Actually worked out well because the person is running late to begin with. Can you, who asked me about intrusive thoughts? Can you elaborate on mindfulness and intrusive thoughts? Well, so here's the deal. It's not mindfulness for intrusive thoughts, just like it's not mindfulness for panic attacks or mindfulness for anxiety or mindfulness for dizzy or mindfulness for health anxiety. It's just paying attention. So don't try to make it a thing for intrusive thoughts. I have thoughts that scare me or they disturb me or they make me question who I am. I don't like them. But instead of paying attention only to those thoughts and fighting them and try to prove that they're wrong and do my compulsions. If you have compulsions, mental or physical to keep me safe from them, what I can do is acknowledge them mindfully, not judge them, don't like them, still scared of them, but don't attach meaning to them beyond the fact that they're just thoughts. And what else can I pay attention to? What else is going on in the world right now? Whether it's right next to me or a thousand miles away while I'm having these thoughts. But that is the same thing that we would say for people that are experiencing scary anxiety symptom or thoughts about health or anything like that. So don't be careful of the trap of I want to apply this, show me mindfulness for intrusive thoughts. It's just the practice of paying attention without judgment. Which is a thing that we would use in any context when you're dealing with anxiety. I still do stupid stuff since GBG. I hear you, man. I hear you. Let's see. Rumination as a shield from feelings is a good point. Chronic introspection. Love this. Mindfulness allow me to see introspecting behaviors as a way, yeah, I was trying to keep me safe and geared up. Like sometimes we're allowed introspection is not a bad thing. Inherently it is not and automatically I must never be introspective for the rest of my life. That's not true. Just that like anything else in the state of disorder and anxiety, shit goes off the rails. So good habits become bad habits or adaptive responses quickly become maladaptive responses because they go to the extreme ends of the spectrum. And so much of this is just about bringing stuff back in. So it's not like you're never allowed to introspect. Introspection is healthy and it serves a purpose. But I love that it's the realization that like, ooh, I was constantly doing that as a way to seek safety or certainty or that sort of stuff. And then it becomes extreme and now it's not helpful anymore. So let's see here. Helps me put on the brakes and I'll Ooh, okay, cool. Okay, two more minutes. Mindful this helps me put on the brakes on all the list making and planning behaviors or at least when you know that the list making and planning has gone way overboard, right Becky? So is it like you're never allowed to make lists? No, of course you can make lists if they're useful tools but that it helps you know when it's gone off the rails and overboard. Very good. All right, let's see. Clock's changed this weekend in the UK. Thank you, appreciate it. So we'll be back. We'll be back in the same sort of five hour thing now. Hey, Adelaide Australia, good morning. Good morning, future. How's life in the future? Let's see here. Australia's in the house. We would like to know if you have cured cancer yet and if there are flying cars since you are in the future. Just let us know. Just so I'm looking forward to that. Let's see. Okay, let's put this up real quick and I think this might be the last one. How do you live in positive thoughts? Have you lived in scary the sky is falling? I don't know anything else. Who says you have to live in positive thoughts? Like, do you have to live in positive thoughts? That's one of those things that I think is not good advice for anxious people, for people in our community. You're not required to have any kind of thought at all. Whatever thought you have is an acceptable thought. So the idea that like, no, I must live in positive thoughts, I must live in a positive vibration. I must live in a positive mindset. No, you don't. Most of the time the default state for human beings is neutral. I mean, anybody that tells you that they walk around in a positive mindset all day long is f-ing lying to you because brains don't work that way. Like most of the time we're just unaware. We're neutral. We're not positive or negative and we swing from positive to negative all day long. It's what we do. So be very careful about saying like, oh, the opposite of being anxious is positive. The opposite of being anxious is being unaware or content, if you will. If you could say that it sounds like ignorance is bliss, it sometimes emotional ignorance as the default state because most of us live that way most of the time is bliss. That's not a bad thing. Emotions come up when they have to. We deal with them when we have to, when it's appropriate. So be careful about that. I need to get to positive. I need to get to positive thoughts. No, you don't. You just have to stop caring so much about the negative thoughts. Somebody asked me, where was it? Did I narrate my audiobook? Yes, I did narrate my audiobooks. I narrated all three of them. If I ever write more books, and I will write more books, I will narrate those two. So I've actually narrated other people's audiobooks too. So yes, let's see, let's keep going. I think that's the end. Listen to your first book this afternoon. Good stuff, good. I'm glad you found that helpful, Carol. That, and I'm gonna wrap it up here and also Geo, yes, am I studying to become a therapist? Yes, as a matter of fact, I just realized this. Today, it has been exactly one year. I started my grad program March 20th, 2022. So here we are, March 20th, 2023. So I've been at it for a year. And it's going fast, it's really fast. The first book, that's this book, I believe. This one makes me no money, by the way. This one is called An Anxiety Story. If you don't have this one, just go to my website at theanxiestruth.com. This is what I lived. This is what I went through. I've talked about it in podcast episodes and stuff. But when I was writing The Anxious Truth, this was supposed to just be the introduction, and then it became its own book, which became the first book that was published. If you go to my website, go to this book. You can download it as an MP3 file for free and you could share it with your friends if you want. Or you can go to Smashwords and download it as an ebook for free, it's named your own price, just the price could be zero. I'm totally cool with that, that's why I did it that way. If you have to get it for your Kindle or an Amazon, it's pretty cheap over there. But you can get it for free if you guys want to check it out. Unfortunately, I would not be able to work with patients in Canada. I would be able to work with patients who are in the state of New York, and hopefully by the time I practice any state that has joined the counseling compact. So I will likely be able to practice in multiple US states, but technically I would not be able to practice in Canada because I would have no credentials in your province, for instance. And unfortunately, ethically here, the ACA probably wouldn't look too kindly on that. No, not coaching, because coaching is just another word for I'm going to practice outside the bounds of the credentialing organizations. So that's a tough one. That would subject me probably to problems here with my state licensing board in New York and with the ACA, so it's a little tough. The counseling compact is a legislation that was started a couple of years ago that acknowledges that state boundaries in the US is kind of choking access to mental health care. So states that joined the counseling compact are agreeing to reciprocal licensing agreements. So surprisingly, my state, which I did not expect to happen, New York does have legislation in progress right now. It's in committee, it's got bipartisan support. It'll pass at some point to join the counseling compact. So that means if you live in a counseling compact state, my license in New York will automatically be accepted with just a little bit of paperwork in all the other counseling compact states, which at this point is, I wanna say 15 or 16 states and it's growing every quarter. So yeah, it's good to know. You'll be able to, if you're in a counseling compact state, go to counselingcompact.org and you will find all the states that are either participating or in the midst of it. So hopefully that helps. All right guys, we're all good to go. I think this has been mindfulness doesn't work. A little bit of a clickbait title. Hopefully it's been really useful to you. I am now officially late, even though I postponed. Just a quick reminder again, even though some of you can't see what's on the screen, this is the new podcast. It's not replacing the anxious truth. It's in addition to, I might wind up going every other week on the anxious truth, I don't know. But this is Disordered with me and Josh Fletcher. Go to disorder.fm, pop on the mailing list. We'll tell you what's going on. And I think we're good to go. We'll be here again next week. This will stay on the YouTube channel. It'll stay in the Facebook group. It'll stay in my Facebook page. I don't know what it does on Twitch. I have no freaking idea. But subscribe to my YouTube channel and this way you can always go back to them and just go to the Recovery Monday playlist and it'll be here. All right guys, we'll see you next week. Thank you.