 And we're live. We're not live. We're recording. We're not at all live. But we are here. We are alive. Yes. That's I'm pretty sure I'm alive. That's a whole different podcast episode. It is a different podcast. Hello. Oh, I'm going to start this time and introduce you. I see you were trying to point. I get it. It was. How are you? That's Drew, Lincellata. He's the anxious truth. You know him. You love him. There he is. He's awesome. And you can find him on Instagram or here on YouTube or on his website. Next, my right looking at the screen anyway is that's Lauren. How do you say your last name again? Rosen Rosen. I still have you in your own name. McMeekin is my old name. It's true. No. My father would better. Completely thrown out of your house. I'm sure. Totally. But that's fine. Anyway, Lauren Rosen is next to me. She is the obsessive mind on Instagram. Also quite an exceptional human being. So thank you, Lauren, for coming by. Lawrence, by the way, a practicing therapist in Southern California. Specialized in OCD and anxiety disorders. It's our jam. So here we are. It is our jam. It's our co jam for our, for our musical group, Fire and Ice, which we came up with. I don't even know what it means, but it's our disco group that specializes in supporting other people with OCD and anxiety disorders. Yes. It's complete with a disco ball. It's going to be awesome. Anyway, today we are going to talk about values like from an acceptance and commitment therapy sort of point of view and how values play into the whole recovery process. So what you got? Bring it. Yeah. So I mean, I guess maybe start with a definition of values from an act perspective, given that there's the term values is broad and nebulous. And I honestly, I was just thinking earlier today that it'd be nice to call it something else. So it didn't get conflated quite so often. But the idea with values from an acceptance and commitment therapy perspective is that we want to reflect on what qualities we most want to embody as humans. And the beauty of values as opposed to something like a goal, like I want to get to this, you know, marking on the road. It's how I want to get there, not getting to the point. And the beauty of values is they're always in our control. Whether or not we are acting in accordance with the qualities that matter most to us is something that we always can choose. And so things like being loving, kind, compassionate, generous, et cetera. Yeah. Open minded. Open minded. Willing all of these things. Yep. Exactly. Yeah. It's about attitude and that I think is super important in recovery, especially from the vantage point that you and I talk about so often, which is that we can't control our emotional experience. And if we can't control our emotional experience and we want, we want to do all we can to cultivate a meaningful life. How do we do that? How do we, how do we cultivate joy? Even if we can't necessarily feel good in any given moment, or feel joyful 100% of the time. Yeah. And so values become like in that in the act world, you know, they talk about direction, like values aren't goals. And things you do, it's like a direction. It's like a move in, which I love. And the thing that I love about thinking about it that way is when the shit hits the fan, which it does for anybody with panic disorder, OCD from time to time, and you don't know what to do. You can always move toward your values. Like, well, which, which thing moves me toward the things that I, that I care about, the qualities that I care about, the characteristics of life that I care about values are hard to define sometimes. They are. I'll move toward that. Which one of these two choices I can run back and get in my bed and put go into the covers, or I can move toward this fear and try and learn a lesson from it. Which one moves me closer to the things I value? Yes. And the person that I want to be. Right. Yes. The type of person I would like to be. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that this is especially important when it's difficult. Because sometimes it can be difficult to know when we're talking in the context of ERP or exposure therapy, whichever you prefer depending on the disorder, that sometimes we're, we're not sure which way is the exposure way. Like, sometimes we're like, oh, well, is that avoidance because I'm not doing that thing? Or is this, does that make sense? Do you know what I mean? Perfect sense. Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes we don't know. And it's clearer sometimes. Where's your phone right now? Is it near your mic or anything? Because something is making... Oh my gosh, it was. Yeah, it's your phone. You're like a genius. I've just done this so many times. It was just in the background. No, that's okay. I'm glad you said something. Where were we? So you're saying like in an exposure situation, is this avoidance? In which way should it be good if I don't do this? Yes. Yeah. And values can be really helpful just because that's always a good way to go. Right? No matter what, if something is reflective of the kind of person that you want to be, well, that's maybe an overstatement actually. I might take that back because you could say, I want to be an honest person and then somebody with moral superiority is like, we'll see, I'm going to tell them because honesty is my value. Yeah. It's not always that straightforward, but I do think generally speaking, it's a good way of ferreting out those moments where it's not entirely clear. I always like to, when I talk about values, because I always say to people like in the end, you don't know this when you start, but the recovery process is one giant march away from fear and toward what you value. And you see it as you start to make progress and your life begins to change again and you become more engaged in the things that you didn't used to engage with. So suddenly the choice is like, in my community, I really have not been able to get out on my own, but I'm going to use a real-life example. This person knows if she listens to, she won't mind because I won't say her name, but she was really struggling with agoraphobia, but she also promised her daughter that she would get her hamster. And so after some hard work, she got to the point where she could choose, I'm going to go to the pet shop and get the hamster because it's important to me. I'm not going to get away from the fear and toward the value. So the value might not be an absolute thing like you were saying, but if you wait against fear, am I leaning toward fear? Am I leaning toward something that I value? Yes. And it's interesting because we can see that there's a clear goal in the case that you bring up that somebody wants to do this thing for their daughter which is also really important talking about goals in the recovery setting. And I think in terms of values, that could be the sort of prioritization of expressing any number of values, like being a supportive parent, being a generous or even a selfless person, right? Being thoughtful, those sorts of things. Going to get a hamster at the pet store is not a value, but it embodies a value. Exactly. And so we want more and more and this act is all about taking committed action toward the things that matter to us, which are goals and values generally. So it's more and more can you take actions that reflect those values? Yeah. Right. Sometimes it's hard for people to get in touch with those values. I think when they're in the thick of it and in the bud, what's important to you? Sometimes I get a blank stareback like I'm not sure who I am anymore. Yeah. So sometimes the values are found in the opposite of what you really want to do right now as crazy as that sounds. You can uncover your values when you're in the thick of it. Yeah. Your values are probably in the other direction. Probably. Yes, absolutely. But you're so right. I think by the time that people get to a stage where they're willing to consider doing something different in the service of recovery, there's been so much running away from fear that sometimes people don't even know what they want anymore. Very tough. And so this is where, again, this is not something that ERP necessarily in and of itself addresses. It's really important to sit down and go, okay, what kind of life do I want to live? Do I want to live the kind of life where I stay inside all the time? And why or why not? And there's going to be ambivalence, obviously. Yeah. And I think sometimes you don't know, but sometimes the way to uncover you say I don't even know who I am anymore. The way to uncover that is not to necessarily dig for it, but to just make room for that to come back out again. So sometimes just taking that action opposite of the fear starts to get you to the point where you have enough space so that those values can begin to bubble up again and be seen. Yeah, they're still there. You're just paying them no mind because there are other more important things. Yeah. And I think you bring up another good point which is that you sometimes have to take a leap of faith because of the fact that maybe you're not really sure who you are anymore, that just taking stabs in the dark like maybe I like doing this or maybe this is important to me and I'm not entirely sure, but I'm going to see how it goes. Yeah, because I think a lot of people will get back into the cognitive realm of how I got to think more about this and I got to figure out what it is that's meaningful to me and I don't know that that's helpful generally. And it's weird because values are not tasks and they're not goals and values are not things that you do, but sometimes we uncover the values by just trying things that we have not been doing. And people will say like, yeah, but how come I can't be happy? Well, you got to make space for happy and I don't even know what I want to do anymore. Just try stuff. It doesn't matter. Just try things. You might not like them, but just try them. And hard to know if you never try, right? You can't think your way into figuring it out. It's one of the more valuable things that I had, the therapist that I had for a while and she was lovely. I remember calling her, I was well down the road to recovery, but I found myself in that place of that one. Like, I've literally quit my job as a full-time anxious person and now I don't know what to do. What do I do? Who am I? And I remember her saying like, I don't know, go to the movies. Like go sit at Starbucks. And I'm like, what? What kind of stuff? What is that? And am I paying you for this? And she was the one that told me like, yeah, well just try stuff and you'll remember what you liked then. Yeah, maybe you'll discover brand new things that you ever knew. When I really went to the music store and said, I'm going to buy a guitar. And I did and here I am with too many guitars that I don't play well. So I blame her, but that was good advice. Try stuff. And that was like a, holy cow, really? I wouldn't, that was not in my frame of reference. She had to tell me. Yeah. Yeah. It's really, I can't help but think back in my own experience too on this front that it was like when I got sober, I had no idea that selflessness was as important to me as it was, right? The being of service was as important to me until I was in the 12 step realm and they were telling me I had to be doing that. And I was like, oh, I like this feels good. Like being selfless is actually like, it's very selfish because I like, I walk away feeling really good about who I am. But I had no idea I had no idea that that was going to be the case until I was prioritizing that. Yeah. And maybe you would have found that, all right, well, that's not so much my jam, which would have been fine. But as it turns out, oh, that is my jam. I like this. Yeah. But you would not have known that the program had not sort of pushed you gently in that direction like try, well, you're going to have to try this. Yeah. Totally. And I will say that particular one, I think most people find it to be useful. So while I certainly am not an advocate for being so selfless that you are self sacrificing or you're ignoring your own limits and boundaries, that's certainly, that's not good. I'm not advocating for that. That being said, sometimes getting out of our own heads and just trying to show up and this is and this is in the realm of values, but to try to bring a quality to a circumstance, even if you're not feeling it to somebody else can be really profound. Yeah. And you don't know until you get engaged with that. And sometimes you don't know to getting into you. Well, I'm just going to have to try it. I talked about that help when helping helps to help her like it's fully there yet, but helping other people might be something that helps to uncover one of your values again that you forgot about or had been buried by fear. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is so true, though. It's they get buried by fear. Oh, 100%. And I think when people wind up out of touch with their values, they're not sure what to do. I don't just know what to do. And that's why so many people we were talking before we hit the record button or always looking for instructions tell me exactly what to do. Give me steps like, well, you know, okay, initially sure, but then sooner or later natural steps will organically start to bubble up. I want to do this. I want to do this instead of that. I'm tired of doing that. Now I want to start doing other things. And now I'm just going to try other other stuff. Yeah. It's resonate with me. Good save, by the way. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I really ruined our PG 13 rating earlier, I believe, but I'm not sure. It's all good. I didn't I didn't notice. That's so funny. Yeah. I think that and on the other side of things that it's not always going to feel good to be in the moment to show up and be the kind of person that you want to be. If you are feeling and this is outside of the realm of even anxiety if you're feeling depressed and everything in you is screaming pull the covers over your head and don't go outside stepping outside and taking a walk and waving at people while you're on your walk is not going to be an enjoyable experience in the moment. It's going to be and the thing is over time that it starts to provide almost kind of what you were saying earlier, it provides space for new information to come in, for new experiences to come in and for new feelings to come in. Yeah. Strangely enough. No, I agree. I always like to think of, you know, imagine you're living in a cube and anxiety and fear take up all the volume of the cube, all of it. It owns all every cubic inch of that cube and then as you do stuff like that it shrinks a little bit so there's more rumor on the edges of the cube for other stuff to start to show up and filter in and fill in the blanks and the better part of your brain starts to weigh in and all that good stuff happens. Yeah. Yeah. So in the context of like the act thing the way I seem to understand it is, you know, when people are not sure, people ask me this all the time and I'm sure you get the same question like, well what should my exposures be? Well, in certain instances sometimes it's really basic stuff to get the ball rolling but then when you can get in touch with your values your values then dictate what your challenges are going to be down the road. Should I do this or should I not do this? Is this the same exposure? Well, do you want to do it? You know, it represents something that you value that is a part of who you want to be then yes, do or do that. Well, yeah, but you could really be scared and also moving toward your values at the time. Yeah. With the willingness to move toward those values and have all those internal experiences while you do that to know that I'm okay. I can still be okay. Yeah. But to your point that the motivation is so much greater when it's directly tied to something that's important to you. It's like just driving for the sake of driving to get out of the house is not nearly as motivating as I'm going to drive to the pet store and I'm going to get that frickin hamster, right? 100%. 100%. So if that's, and I guess sort of reflecting what do you see a lot with panic disorder in terms of or agoraphobia like things that people tend to find motivating in that way that tend to reflect values you see a lot. Well, that definitely those, it's the life things. So there's the and, you know, I have my fear ladder I'm going to go up my fear ladder I'm going to do my planned exposures and I say that all the time, like those are artificial experiences to a certain. So they count, they're meaningful, but we're manufacturing ways for you to feel afraid. Okay, that's why you drive around the block 25 times which is not a thing that you would normally do in your life but when life shows up for that person and says it's kid's school concert next week and you make that first leap of faith to say, okay, I've been driving around 25 times every morning, which is totally a natural and meaningless to me on a values level right now it made a little space for me to go toward my values which would be I would like to be an engaged parent and be I would like to be supportive parent. So I will go to the concert. Yes. Then that challenge becomes for people who are far enough down and have allowed themselves this I can go on this stop me because I'll just go on a tangent but I like it when they've developed the willingness or adopted that attitude of I'm going to have to be willing to have these experience these negative experience they don't want to have then they go and do a life thing that's more value oriented whoa those wins are huge and exciting and uplifting and they're so psyched and they want to share it and way better than I did my exposure this morning I drove an extra mile yeah that's a good that's a big deal but yeah, yeah way yeah well and way more inspiring and keeping you in the the trudge yes that is heavy and difficult sometimes so yeah I think you're you're making a really good point for both sides right that you have the manufactured exposures are important in that it's like going to the gym you're building this muscle so that when you show up to the 5k or the marathon however you may be depending on your abilities right like you are already for that but it's way way more exciting to for people I think to realize oh I could do this like my anxiety doesn't get to stop me from doing the things that really matter to me anymore but that that's a good I love the the 5k or the 10k or the my knees are just talking about that but you know so you go and you you get up early and you run by yourself in the rain and it's shitty nobody wants to do it it's not a pleasant experience in many cases are you trudged through it because the value of I want to I want to be somebody I want to be somebody who can commit to things I want to finish things and then when you cross the finish line of that 5k that 10k that marathon that's the that's where you get the good part yeah yeah in the sense of the comments yes exactly yeah you don't have to be willing to have the experience where you want to sleep in that morning but I gotta I gotta train if I'm gonna yeah I'm gonna move toward that value I have to do this thing now that is unglamorous not fun and maybe crappy yes all of those things and it's really important to tie them together because I think that sometimes and I think maybe this is where super manualized treatment like we're just gonna do the exposure without talking about your why is very limiting because it's I honestly I think that some people probably drop out of treatment why am I doing this arbitrary thing where I'm touching this doorknob and it's like who cares about touching the doorknob until you need to get to an appointment that you know for your loved one who's going I don't know for cancer treatment and I need to be able to open the door right then it matters then it matters it's funny because when I wrote the anxious truth I wrote a whole bunch of stuff about that life is recovery and recovery is life and that that was such an important lesson for me to learn when they started to become intertwined oh boy everything got so much better and so much more meaningful as opposed to just get up in the morning it was freezing that winter I remember I just drive around in the snow in the ice it was so much better when life started to be my recovery because yeah it was values built into that I was starting to move back toward the person that I wanted to be and the life that I wanted to have yeah so it accelerated and I was motivated yeah yeah that that momentum that builds up yeah absolutely yeah very much yeah so you know moving toward your values is kind of if you're not sure what to do it's always a reasonable thing to say well what's important what's truly important to me and I think it's a time thing too what's important to me in life macro versus what is important to me for the next two minutes yes making all of your choices two minutes at a time and when we act in our values we make choices macro choices absolutely and ultimately what's interesting is that it becomes over time when you start making these macro choices that really aren't quite so myopic and time limited over time you start to feel differently as a result of being the kind of person that you want to be and so that there's like this stabilizing effect where your sense of self is impervious to the shifts right of the ups and downs of anxiety and the value driven actions themselves become intrinsically rewarding so you don't have to necessarily hit some big marker to recognize you know what I was just really compassionate with myself and I'm really proud of myself for that because that's the kind of person that I want to be yeah but I think that that's something that maybe doesn't happen right away because at first you're like I don't know why I'm so random today but self-compassion every five seconds you're like God I'm such an idiot right so when you are moment by moment just tweaking that it's not like you're feeling really good about it but when you start to get more space and time with the practice and it becomes more embodied then you know what it feels like to be the kind of person that you want to be and then every single moment becomes a moment to celebrate and it becomes a little more automatic and organic at first it's clunky and unnatural and having to mechanically practice moving toward your values is completely unnatural and feels ridiculous yeah unfortunately there's no other way to start except to do it that way I think that it's so important for people even who don't have disorders I don't think many people live that deliberately and I think it's a shame that's a good point, I think it's a really good point disorder or not what's really important to me there's certainly limits to that we have to live together so I get that, values aren't self-centered we should probably point that out no in certain instances too actually that I kind of stumbled upon a good point accidentally I will freely say it was accidentally but you know a lot of people in the community struggle with that that recovery and I had to write about that too like putting yourself in the driver's seat and at the top of the priority list for an hour day to get better is not selfish it is not right you're not a bad person you're not abdicating your responsibility as a parent or a partner or an employee like if you're not okay you can't meet up to those other responsibilities move toward the things that are important to you I know that some people listening are going to say oh no I can't I'm not supposed to do that my sense of worth I'm always selfless right but are you right and why are you doing it if you're actually doing it from a selfless place from a values place you're not doing it for some sort of reaction you're doing it because that's the person that you want to be a lot of people you're very prone toward the codependent side of things are selfless because they're reliant on the positive feedback so we're not looking for I'm going to do this selfless thing because it'll feel good because then other people will say nice things about me or think well of me potentially but I'm doing this selfless thing for me and that also comes with we're giving selflessness there's a value a lot of airtime but all of the values that you hold for other people you also hold for yourself you're allowed to hold them for yourself sure well and I think but a value is not because by definition it's the quality that you want to embody in terms of how you relate to other to the world around you even it doesn't have to be even other people the way you want to relate that's not just about other people that's about you too so you can't be a kind person and be really unkind toward yourself right you can't be a thoughtful person and put yourself last and never think of yourself that's not right they're mutually exclusive so I think it's really important to recognize that kindness may be your value I mean that you would get to ignore yourself in that self kindness is a part of that practice yeah so I think it's very meta but in the same vein it's a really solid point because I do run into people and when you say you can't be a kind person but be unkind to yourself kind of see it all the time but that's where the values have become detached or hidden I'm supposed to be good to everybody I take care of everybody I set everything out but I put myself last and I beat myself up when I don't do it right and I don't get the right feedback that I want I did and I let everybody down so they try to be really kind to everybody else without being kind to themselves but then are you really being kind to everybody else or are you just trying so hard you know what I mean are you manipulating everybody else sorry not to use a word that's kind of laden I get that though and not even like for anyone who's watching I'm like mustache curling kind of manipulation I'm talking about the kind of manipulation that we with anxiety disorders do all the time which is how can I manage and control the things around me so that I don't feel this way right and so I think it's so interesting again not to harp on selflessness but no no no I have to take care of everybody else I can't put myself first that's selfish but in the state that you're living in right now where you refuse to put yourself first to recover are you being are you taking care of everybody maybe you're not are you trying to feel good about yourself and say that you are but are you doing that as well as you possibly could when you're in an anxious state all the time and driven by fear is it about the other people or is it about you that's where it's like it's not true altruism not to get totally out of it yeah we can talk about that for hours that's a good question that's a really good question probably not no I would agree with that you're trying sometimes you're trying to express the value whatever that happens to be but you're trying to have your cake in eat it too like I want to be this kind of person but I need it to be within these very safe parameters so I'll make it look like this but that's not really what it would normally look like if I wasn't having these thoughts or wrestling with compulsions or avoidance behaviors so what would that look like I'm trying to conquer so in other words I'll give you an example so you have a relative that is ill in some way show that you're a gorophobic I'm using a real life example here again but I'm not going to say names and you have somebody that you care about who's in the hospital but you can't get there and so it's eating at you because your values would tell you I would like to be a supportive family member whatever it is but I can't get there so I will frantically find 16 other possible ways to make up for that so that I feel like I'm being supportive and caring but I'm not really doing the thing that I know really means the most in terms of being caring and that is a heartbreaking thing to see it's somebody who's trying to live their values but inside the box of fear Yes and there's space for somebody who's making their way toward visiting their family member to say you know what I'm not ready today to drive several counties over to see my family member but I am willing to do X because we don't want to make it an all-in-one thing because it's not at the same token you're not going to be satisfied with yourself if you know that you're pulling punches because you're scared long-term and you're being in that direction maybe you're not there yet in that day it's a whole lot easier to deal with that Definitely I know I'm not there today the way I really want to be but I'm working on it and I can find a little bit of a compromise I'm still not going to feel great about myself but I'm not going to hate myself as much as I would have otherwise Right and I can recognize that maybe tomorrow I'll do the next thing tomorrow I'll do the next thing and that's this is a process and that's where I can recognize the value here compassion for my family member or compassion for myself and you can't it's not like we pick one it's how do we balance these right and maybe which one takes priority in any given moment which one needs to for my growth or for my connection to this person right like it's not always going to be a straight shot it's a little messy and murky it is messy and murky excuse me all of this is the whole idea of identifying your values or finding them again and moving toward them letting those inform your choices along the path it's all messy sometimes you don't know which direction to go you're still not sure so it's okay if you can't really identify all this stuff No totally and I will say one way that I have found really helpful in terms of just getting some clarity around values is to look to the people that I admire and to consider what qualities it is about them that I admire so you take somebody like Brené Brown for instance and I look at her and I see warmth and growth mindset and these sorts of this flavor of things that even if you're not sure what it is that you really want to be and you're certainly not there yet like in terms of it's the path that can give at least some clarity Yeah you can No I think that's great you can use other people as role models if you're not really sure that's part of the just trying stuff well I don't know find somebody you admire and try to be like them Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't but it's something to try Yes and especially people who inspire you like why do they inspire me what is it that's inspirational about them well they're courageous or they're persistent or whatever I get it so this has been I really enjoy this conversation but I know if you guys are watching this is probably one of our least nuts and bolts conversations but these concepts matter too like not everything can be specific steps and do this and then do this because you've got to take these things into account and they matter Yeah I agree and it's not always going to be straight forward but if there's one one small take away I think I generally like to walk away from something like okay well what can I do to put this into practice in my life sure you can do some of the things we've already talked about like think about a role model or what have you maybe just one moment at a time I love what Drew said at the beginning which is like is this toward my fear is my fear running does it have me by the nose and is it pulling me that way or is this toward something that matters to me Yeah that's it simple one moment at a time which is the only way to make these kinds of choices and now I'm a person who has all of my values at front and center or I'm not it's one moment at a time we build that Yeah The only thing I'd add on top of that is just to try and maintain an openness which is a big part of the whole act thing like an openness to have these different experiences and to accept them when they come up so when life throws you a challenge that you think you're not ready for and see it as something that might move you toward your values even if it's less than perfect or really difficult so just let these sort of things let the organic part happen organically as it happens while you're doing the manufacturing part they should start to come together at some point Definitely All right folks 35 minutes not too shabby Not too bad Not too shabby I ran on schedule a little bit The usual stuff that I do if you guys are not following Miss Lauren on Instagram I got it right she's right there at the obsessive you should totally do that You crushed it man King of pointing today I'll put myself up on the screen too And this guy right here is Drew Lincellata and you should check him out on Instagram and on all of the other platforms as well because he's great How's practice going by the way How's my practice New practice come on Yeah it's good We're in the process of hiring on somebody new so very exciting I love it so if you are in the state of California or other states you're in multiple states Can't you? Yeah I'm licensed now in Utah, Florida Nevada and hopefully soon to be Oregon You are rockin' and rollin' you can hit the beach the mountains So in those states you can go to the obsessivemind.com which is Lauren's right that's the center for the obsessivemind that's your practice website and we'll see you again next week next month not know what we're going to talk about but we'll talk about something I'm sure we'll figure it out as we go before like usually Thanks for joining us See you next time Bye