 Hey, before we get into today's episode, I just wanna let you know that on February 11th, I'll be hosting this workshop, Panic Attacks Explained. If you have been trying everything to try to get rid of recurring panic attacks and nothing is working and you feel that something might really be wrong with you because you can't seem to fix this problem and you don't understand what to do next, then this workshop might be for you. You can go to the anxioustruth.com slash panic for all the details. If you can't make it on February 11th, I will make the replay available after that. So go check it out. I hope you find it helpful. Let's get on with today's episode. Hey there, I'm Drew and you are listening to or watching the anxious truth, the podcast that covers all things anxiety, anxiety disorders and anxiety recovery. So if you are struggling with an anxiety problem like panic attacks, OCD or health anxiety, this is the place for you. Today on episode 245 of the podcast, we're gonna answer the question, is your anxiety a monster that attacks you from the outside? It's a common question and it's a good topic, so let's get into it right now. Hello everybody, welcome back to the anxious truth. This is podcast episode number 245, recorded at the end of January, 2023. I'm Drew Linsalata, creator and host of the anxious truth. I'm happy that you're here, whether you are a first time viewer or listener or you've been here for years. Thanks for coming by. So today on the podcast, we're gonna answer the question, is your anxiety a monster that attacks you from the outside in? Do you see it as an external force that comes to get you over which you have no control? It's a common way to view this problem and it's actually a bit of an issue because when we see anxiety that way, we're giving up a lot of our power in the recovery process, so let's get into that. But before we do, just a very quick reminder that aside from this podcast episode, there are a ton of other anxiety and anxiety recovery resources that you will find on my website at the anxious truth.com. There are the three books that I've written on anxiety and anxiety recovery. There are webinars and workshops and courses. There's all my free social media content and there are 200 and somewhat other free podcast episodes that came before this one. So head on over to the anxioustruth.com and surf around, check out all the resources and evaluate yourself of them. I think you'll be happy that you did. So any way that you choose to support this website is always appreciated, whether it's just listening to the podcast, writing a review, liking a YouTube video, subscribing to the channel, I appreciate that. But if you really like the work and you wanna find a way to support it in some extra way, all the ways that you can do that can be found on the website at the anxioustruth.com slash support and that stuff is never required but always appreciated and thank you very much. So let's get into it. Episode 245, is your anxiety a monster that's attacking you, is it an external force that comes to get you, overwhelms you and over which you have no power or no control? Well, this is a common way to view that. Many people will look at it that way but when we look at it that way, understandable though it may be, we are often giving up some of our power in the recovery process. So let's really look at that because I think it's important for us to understand that anxiety may be triggered externally and generally speaking, the way anxiety works in a normal, healthy human life is that it is triggered externally. There are stressors, there's obstacles, there's challenges, life presses on us and we may feel anxious as a response to that. So that's pretty normal. But when it becomes a problem and you veer into anxiety disorder land where the anxiety itself becomes the source of more anxiety, then viewing it purely as an external thing that comes to get you, a monster that attacks you and overwhelms you kinda misses a lot of the point, some of the important parts of the point and it does leave some of your control, your power and your influence on the ground needlessly. Now before I get into this, I think it's really important for me to say very clearly that while I might be talking in this episode about the internal nature of an anxiety disorder and how we actually participate in sometimes making things worse, I am not blaming you for this. This is not blame. I'm not saying that you're choosing that, I'm not saying that you're bringing this upon yourself and especially if you are listening to me right now and you are operating under the assumption or the belief that your anxiety problem, this is pretty common, your anxiety problem is somehow a punishment on a spiritual or religious level, then this is critical for me to repeat. None of what I'm talking about is about blame. We're talking about in many instances just understanding the true nature of this beast which can only be helpful and we're talking about taking a sense of responsibility for our own actions which is always a good thing because it leads us into a position of power. So if you are really struggling because you feel like your anxiety is just this external monster that comes and gets you and you cannot control it and it just overwhelms you and there's nothing you can do, what I'm talking about today is actually good news even though it's a little bit counterintuitive, hard to get your brain around and as usual difficult to implement but that's not news around here. So let's talk about this. Do you feel like your anxiety, whether it's panic, high anxiety, intrusive thoughts, whatever it happens to be, do you feel like this is something that comes to attack you from out of the blue? Do you view your anxiety as an external force that sort of drags you down or overwhelms you or pins you down and over which you have no power or control and you cannot resist it? Well, that's really common and I hear a lot of people talk about it that way and some of the comments that I hear are things like, well, it feels like a monster because I can't control it. No matter what I do, I can't seem to control it. I can't resist it or no matter what I do, it keeps coming back. So in that light, sure, it seems like some sort of external force that keeps rolling in over the horizon or gets you out of the blue when you least expect it but notice those two statements because they're two of the more common statements, they include words like control it, resist it or no matter what I do and therein lie the clues. So when we are trying to control it, when we are trying to resist it, when we look at the things I have to do no matter what I do, then we start to have a problem because every single time we resist it, every time we see it as something that we must automatically control or prevent or fix, we are actually helping to create the very monster that we declare is coming from outside of us to get us. When we see it as an external force that is sort of laying siege to the city, we think that our job is immediately to fortify the walls and batten down the hatches and hold off the invading army. But in the end, and here is a bit of a news flash for you, the invading army is already inside the walls, the monster is already here and in many instances, when you are trying to control it, when you are trying to avoid it, when you are trying to run from it, when you are trying to resist it, you are inviting the invading armies inside the city walls, you are inviting the monsters in and you are accidentally without knowing it, feeding them and giving them shelter and sending them to the gym and making them quite comfortable. So when you think they're coming from the outside to get you, well, they were already on the inside because in many ways, you're making it really easy for the armies, the invading armies are the external monsters to live on the inside and pop up whenever they want to. So think about that. When we do it this way, we are giving up so much of our power and our influence in the process. So when we accept that we do play a role in creating the monster, we find that the monster, if you will, loses some of its power and then we get some of our power back when we see that anxiety is sort of a natural experience and that we play a role in pumping it up from a normal natural sort of regular occurrence in a human life to epic out of control, life crushing problems and proportions, then we have a foothold. When we see that we are engaged in that, we play a role in that, now we have something to work from because if you are seeing it as an external monster or an external invading force, a storm that comes out of the blue and you can't do anything about that, then it's really hard and you can wind up feeling like, what can I do? There's literally nothing I can do. I am powerless and nothing I do is going to matter. But when we accept that, oh, wait a minute, we're playing a role here because anxiety is gonna happen sometimes, but I help make it way worse and blow it up to the levels that I'm struggling with right now. Now we have something that we can work with. We actually have a foothold here. We have a little bit of a ray of light that we can move toward. Believe it or not, accepting that gives us something to work with and a path to go down. It's really important. But here's the rub. That is a really difficult thing for us to accept and that's a difficult thing for almost any human being to accept. I believe that Dr. Claire Weeks, when she was writing and you guys know that I'm a huge fan of her work and so much of what I say is sort of an outgrowth of what I learned from her. I think at one point she actually said, the only thing keeping you sick is you, which sounds really harsh. And again, to go back to the very beginning of the episode, it sounds in many ways like blame or that you're choosing this or you're bringing this on yourself. You're not. You're actually doing what anybody would be expected to do sort of instinctually at a gut level. We get that. But then it makes it really hard to say, well, that means I'm making myself sick or I'm keeping myself sick. I didn't choose this. You're doing what sort of comes naturally, but sometimes what comes naturally can make things worse. And as much as it's difficult to get your brain around what Dr. Weeks said, the only thing keeping you stuck or sick is you. There is power and control there and that's what I wanna look at today. So what we start to do is we start to recognize that we have choices. There are moments of choice that occur in any anxiety spike, in any anxiety flood, in any anxiety attack, panic attack, whatever you wanna call that. In every instance where anxiety is causing you to be in a state of distress, there are moments of choice. There are points at which we get to make one choice or the other. Recognize that there are decisions that we make as we go through these particular episodes, these contexts, these situations that are recurring so often in your life. And recognize that our interpretation of what's going on and our steadfast refusal, and I get this, again, not blame, this is a normal way to start dealing with this stuff for everybody, our steadfast refusal to accept reality, but to instead choose to follow our scary and anxious thoughts are moments of choice and decision. And we do make choices and we do make decisions. You may feel like you have no choice. Like this is completely out of my control. It's totally automatic. And I do understand that because it does kind of feel that way. But sometimes we can look at the work of somebody like Victor Frankel, who even in extreme cases that he was writing about, and if you're not familiar with Victor Frankel, F-R-A-N-K-L, you can Google him, he wrote about Holocaust survivors and life in concentration camps, very, very extreme states of duress and distress and fear and danger, actual danger. And even in those situations, Victor Frankel found that there is a moment between perception and action. There's a moment of choice. There is power in that tiny little slice of time. So when we look at that sort of interpretation, even in those extreme, extreme conditions like Victor Frankel was writing about, we can also move that into our situation. Our situation is also distressing. It seems so scary. You think you're about to die. You think you're about to go crazy. You think you're about to do something horrible that you clearly do not wanna do because you're having an intrusive thought that says you might. Very distressing, very difficult, very anxiety producing, very terrifying. But even in those moments, we have moments of choice. So what part of that is automatic? The first flash of, oh my God, and Claire Weeks called it first fear, the first flash of fear is automatic. You can't do anything about that. You're going to have that initial OMG response. Hey, listen, I don't know anybody more recovered than me and I can have the OMG response too because we don't get to engineer that away. That's just part of being human. But it's what happens next. So think about it this way. You may feel like you do not have a choice, but if you really look at it and say when that flash hits and things get to the boiling over point, in those first 15 seconds, I kinda don't have a choice. That's okay, that's true. You're human, you can't change that. But it's not the first 15 seconds that we care about. It's what happens after that. So don't think about the first 15 or 30 seconds. Think about the next 15 or 30 minutes. That's what defines the outcome. And that's what sets us up to either learn one lesson or the other. One points us toward recovery. One kinda cements us in the state that we're in, confused and wondering why we can't get any better. So it's not the initial OMG. It's not the, oh, it's not that flash of intense white hot fear. And Dr. Weeks wrote about it very eloquently. It's what happens after that. At some point we notice that we make a choice. And I'm guessing you can relate to this. You make a choice. I know I'm not supposed to do X, Y, Z, but I'm gonna do it anyway because I need relief in this very moment. I know I shouldn't call for help, but I'm gonna call for help. I don't think I should go to the emergency room or the A&E, but I'm going to anyway. I'm not gonna do, I don't wanna do this compulsion because I know that I have to stop doing that in order to get better, but I'm gonna do it anyway. So at some point, and again, not blame, you are looking for relief, which is completely understandable, but we choose those things. We make those choices. Think about what happens after those episodes are over. What happens after the panic attack ends? What happens when you begin to calm down? What happens when you're in a little bit of a less distressing situation? I see it all the time in my community. People will come into the community, be it the Facebook group or on Instagram or wherever. And they will berate themselves for failing. I did the wrong thing. I ran, I went to the ER, I did my compulsions, I took my rescue meds, whatever it happens to be. And they beat themselves up because they can see the choice. So in retrospect, you could see the choice, but that means there was a choice. You just have to work hard to see it in the moment. And that is the moment when you get to say, wait a minute, is this an external invading force or a monster over which I have literally no power or can I in this moment make a different choice than I want to make? Now I understand you want to make the choice that gives you immediate relief. But if you can frame it that way and say, oh, here's that thing where there's a fire beside me and I noticed that that fire has started burning and I don't like that because that's scary. And accidentally I am choosing to put it out with a can of gas and a bunch of oily rags. So when I see it as an external invading force and I try to resist it and run away from it and save myself, I've been making things worse and keeping myself sort of stuck by seeing it that way. So what if I begin to recognize my contribution to this? The can of gas and the oily rags. What if I put them down and I choose to not use them this time or at least not use them for a little while longer? What would happen? What if I make a different choice moment by moment in this moment of distress or duress? What can happen? And that only comes from understanding that we do have choice, which means that we challenge the narrative, that it's an external force that we have no role in and that we cannot control and it will attack us and overwhelm us. We can only start to make those different choices when we sort of start to drop that narrative and say, well, there might be an external trigger here that gets me going, but then it got me going and I'm the one that's going and what can I do differently here? This does not make it easy. Don't get me wrong, but every time we acknowledge that, oh, I have a role here, I have some power and influence here and every time that we choose a different path and we act based on our own role and our own part in the play and we choose to say different lines in the play as opposed to just throwing your hands up and saying there's nothing I can do because it's outside of me, every time we make those different choices and we hang in there just a little longer, just a little longer, we find that courage, we do it a little bit differently. We understand that I can play a role here, I can make this outcome different, I can set myself up to learn a different lesson. Every time we do that, even in little tiny bits, we are winning. When you exercise your power and your choice that comes from recognizing that you have power and choice because anxiety and panic and fear are not solely external monsters that attack you, then you are winning. You are heading in a more productive direction and you give yourself the opportunity to take that experience where you are under duress and in distress and turn it into something that you can learn from and what you're learning is your ability, you're learning that you are competent, that you are strong, that you can navigate, that you can hang in there a little longer and you're learning little by little, bit by bit that, oh, if I recognize that I have choice and I make different choices little by little, I'm learning that those choices make a difference and look, it turns out okay, even if I don't do it the old ways. That's a big deal, that's a big deal. And to bring it back to the topic of this episode, that only comes when we drop the narrative that it's an external thing over which I have no control and it attacks me. So what does that mean? Well, it means that as always we have work to do and look, none of this makes sense, I get it. I totally get it. And if you've been around any amount of time listening to this podcast or watching me write or speak into microphones and cameras, then you already know that so much of this makes no sense. It's counterintuitive, it goes against our sort of instinctual drive to seek safety and comfort and immediate relief, all of those things. But that doesn't make it wrong, it just makes it difficult. But we can do difficult. So much of this is based on the idea that we can do scary and hard things to learn from them, right? So to wrap it up, I would say, take a little bit of time to think about this. Are you treating anxiety as an external force? Do you see it as a monster, as an invading army that you are powerless over? No matter what you do to try to stop it, hold it back, resist it, control it, or prevent the invasion, it keeps happening. Can you think about that? Is that the way you're seeing it? But then can you take a little time and think about how it might not be totally that way? Can you think about your role in turning a small fire that's certainly alarming into a giant blaze that is really alarming? And when you think about yourself reacting to the horror of that fire that's beside you and then pouring gas and throwing oily rags on it, what does that tell you? Like when you start to recognize that part of the process that you're playing, when you start to see the role that we play, when we understand our contributions and turning an anxiety fire into a huge 10 alarm blaze that threatens us, then what can we do next? So if you take some time to think about that, hopefully wind up in a spot where you think, okay, well, what can I do next? So that's what I would sort of leave you with today and make you think about a little bit, which is am I thinking of it as an external thing over which I am powerless? Is it a monster that comes to get me or is there an external trigger? Maybe there's a little bit of a monster, but as soon as he taps me on the shoulder, I go into high gear and I start pouring gas on the fire. Think about that. Again, no blame though here. This is not blame and I've done an entire podcast episode on how responsibility is not blame. You are not choosing it, you are not blaming, you are not to blame, you are not bringing this upon yourself. You're just doing what humans naturally do to try to feel better in the moment, but unfortunately in our context, what we do to try to feel better in the moment tends to make us feel worse in the long run. So consider all this, think about it a little bit. If you have some quiet time, do a little bit of reflection because sometimes making these different choices involves coming to that conclusion and at least saying maybe he's right and maybe I should try it this way. Just something to think about. So there we go. That is episode 245 of The Anxious Truth in the books. You know it is over because music. As always, I will play you out with Afterglow written by my friend Ben Drake. Ben wrote that song a couple of years ago, inspired at least in part by this podcast and he is kind enough to let me use it at mostly the beginning but always at the end of every podcast episode. So you can find out more about Afterglow and Ben Drake on his website at bendrakenusic.com and if you do check him out, tell him that I said hello. I'm going to ask you the same favors that I always do and that is if you are listening to this podcast on Apple Podcast or Spotify or some podcast app that lets you leave a review and a rating, maybe leave five stars if you dig it, take a few seconds and write a review because it helps other people find the podcast and other people get help and that's kind of why I do this to begin with. And if you're watching on YouTube, subscribe to the channel, hit the like button, leave a comment. I promise at least twice a week I circle back and interact with you guys on YouTube and maybe hit the notification bell so you know when I upload new episodes because every podcast episode is there. Check out all the website stuff I have to offer all the resources that I have to offer on my website at the anxioustruth.com. Thank you for coming by. I appreciate it. We will be back next week with another podcast episode. I do not know what it's gonna be about, but I will be here. And remember, as always, ripped off brutally from the Mandalorian which is getting a little long in the tooth now. People are forgetting it. This is the way. I'm looking back at wedding on the past. You know you'll never get another chance. So go and live your life.