 Are we live? Yes, we are live. Okay, everybody. Hey guys drew here that anxiety guy calm It's been a super long time since one of these videos. We're gonna have something special today. I'm not alone I'm with my good friend Holly cutsy. Is that how you say it Holly? Yeah, Holly's coming to us all the way vice- skype from Mallorca and I'll give you a little background on this Holly and I met because we were both Admins and the panic disorder group on Facebook and Holly's awesome. I'm telling you guys this right now Listen to everywhere. She says because she is like a textbook living walking example of how you do this If you follow me at all and you hear all the things that I talk about Holly is actually a textbook example of how you do this. So Holly tell us a little bit about how I Know we know how we're friends now, but tell us a little bit about I guess your story Okay, thanks for that. Um, yeah, I'm Okay, so I first suffered from panic attacks panic disorder when I was 11 I'm 33 now and I was 11 and I had really bad panic attacks like Like top-scale stuff, you know, I was off school for like nine months It felt like a continuous panic attack that I was in and I just had the most horrendous time And I thought I just didn't know what was going on or anything, you know, and um, yeah I don't know how much to detail to go into but I basically got myself a little bit better And I've always like suffered on an awful little bit and then I don't I don't really know how to Sort of like say but like through my 20s. I still sort of like lived quite Adventurously, I decided to not let anxiety sort of get in my way even though I suffered it very badly still and So I was kind of like quite a high functioning sort of panic disorder sort of person and because I was like missing one key piece of information which I sort of think I now have and Yeah, and it's like and now I'm 33 and in the last couple of years for sure I feel like I've like found that missing piece and that's not to say I still suffer panic attacks occasionally I still not panic attacks, but like anxiety And I'm currently five months pregnant and at the beginning of this pregnancy Which is my first one and it's very exciting But at the beginning of this I was I had really hard time for about two weeks We it seemed like such a long time But actually looking back on it was about two weeks of really bad like where I kind of forgot how to deal with it again But I'm happy to say that I'm back on track You and I spoke when you first found out you were pregnant and I remember you struggled a little bit But in the end again, you were textbook example of like you had been through this You learned a lot of the techniques and you understand the concepts and it all seemed to come back to you right away So I think what I'm gonna throw out there and this will be recurring theme as Holly and I work together on these podcasts I think is I think and correct me if I'm wrong But I think the key for you has been learning to not try to escape it or avoid it But to just sort of let it be there and I will tell everybody listening that Holly is actually a very talented Working professional musician, so if you really want to freak out while listening to us talk Imagine that Holly actually makes her money on a stage in front of people Performing original music, so it's like the worst possible case So, you know, I think take a little bit of I think inspiration from this awesome human being that we have here with us Yes, she will help us lead the way so tits. We are gonna start a series today You may have heard me talk about dr. Claire weeks before she wrote some amazing books. You can find them on Amazon They're all really cheap Claire Weeks CLA I are e weeks is w e k e s. She was an Australian psychologist, right? She's been gone since I think around 1990 or so Holly jump in if I'm wrong here, but For me Claire weeks set the gold standard by which I judge every other approach to anxiety disorders and panic disorder She speaks in or spoke in very simple terms she did her very best to describe these things as disorders of thought and thinking And she really there's a there's a tremendous amount of cognitive Cognitive therapy overtones in what she wrote and she's all about understanding what goes on when you're experiencing anxiety and panic and Really the way to best approach it Which is to do completely the opposite of what you think you're supposed to do to invite it in to not avoid it to Just let it be there to learn how to relax and float through it and just keep doing that and learning to do that with Courage and perseverance, so I'm a huge Claire Weeks fan. Holly. I know you're to know me too Yeah, so in fact what we're doing when I was really anxious during this pregnancy at the beginning as well It was I reread what gave me the idea to do this podcast is because I reread The piece open helpful your nerves. I've got a very old copy here And and it just like it's just all clipped back in I was just like, oh, yeah I know what I need to do like this. It was just so nice to reread it It's just so helpful I was just like we've got to get this out there and you know some more people know about this and can look you know Be helped from it. Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. This is of she's written a few books Peace from nervous suffering. There's a bunch of them. We'll go through them at some point I guess but this one hope and help for your nerves. This is the one I was telling Holly the other day after I suffered my very first panic attack Which is way back at like 1986 before a lot of you listening were probably even freaking born I did go see a psychologist twice and in the second visit. He gave me that book I read the book in about four or five hours Maybe six hours. I'm a fast reader and it's a short book and honestly had almost no problems with panic I still had panic and anxiety, but it dissipated quickly once I I read the book understood But she was saying and actually started to use the technique So I know that not everybody will have that experience But I think if you've been struggling and you're not sure how to do this stuff And you're not sure how to put into play the things that I talk about a lot the Claire Weeks books are a great Great place to start so we're gonna go through hope and help for your nerves Holly and I together Chapter by chapter so every episode of this little partnership will be another chapter of the book and today We're gonna start with chapter one So Holly why don't you talk a little bit about who Claire Weeks was and kind of what she did We can go from our notes a little bit. I guess. Yeah, well, she was So she was a GP for a start So she was a doctor that like dealt with patients on a she was actually actually she was a research biologist first I think and she's quite highly acclaimed in that field as well She's very intelligent lady and um, yeah She was a GP and she started noticing because she had patients that had like, you know anxiety disorders But they weren't I think back then because I mean she was born in 1903 and I think back then Anxiety disorders weren't very understood, you know, I'm not I mean I'm not saying that many people understand them now but You know broadly, but um, she so she sort of like developed her own program to Treatment for people because one of the main things that she noticed was that rather than I think it was that she Yeah, she noticed that her patients did not suffer from these problems because they had flawed personalities or traumatic childhoods Rather the problems were caused by the patient having a habit of fear avoidance made worse or caused by a responsive or sensitized nervous system and that's like the whole point, isn't it? It was like she realized that it was the habit of giving fear to your Symptoms of anxiety that actually perpetuated it and so that's her whole treatment an approach was to To stop avoiding anxiety basically, right? I'm right. Yeah, that's exactly right and and that was really kind of groundbreaking I think when she did it and a lot of this work that she did was in the 40 In the 50s and 60s when you know, they were still she talks about the term nervous illness and people would you know Oh, she suffers from nerves or right nerves It was nerves and there was not a lot of good information out there about this particular issue when she started doing her work And yes as opposed to doing things like trying to tranquilize people She really looked at it as a cognitive disorder And she talks a lot about something called second fear Which is where you're reacting to the first fear the panic and anxiety fear with the second fear and it starts to snowball And you begin to live your life worried about your next panic attack And you just become like an exposed nerve where you're constantly on guard for the next one She talks about all of these things. So we're gonna start going through the book chapter by chapter So what I would urge everybody to do is grab a copy of the book It's cheap online and then follow along with us. So we're gonna talk about chapter one today And then I would urge you go ahead and read chapter one Reference what we're talking about and then I think we're gonna be all about comments So comment on the video or at the end. I'll give you like my Twitter and all that stuff So you can reach out and we'll try and answer questions as we go to Maybe if we get really technically savvy, I'm in the technology business Maybe we could like live stream and take calls and stuff too, but oh my god. I know right Out of control your where you're sitting is so awesome looking by the way. It looks very pretty. It's nice Yeah, I'm sitting in my crap. My York is pretty nice Like lousy office on a Sunday afternoon in Long Island, New York, but anyway, all right So let's let's get into chapter one of the book and chapter one. I think is entitled the power within you Yeah, and these are short chapters The book is really a pretty easy read and you probably eat it up if you're having anxiety and panic problems You will eat this book right up. It's a quick read and you're gonna like it So a couple of things I think we wanted to talk about is how she She makes a pretty big claim here In the book in chapter one she says the advice given here will definitely cure you if you follow it And this will take perseverance and some courage and that's a pretty big claim wouldn't you say yeah Yeah, especially if you're reading that when you're right in the middle of like absolute despair It just seems insane that anyone could have the gall to say that like you will be cute It's just as if man No idea how profoundly I suffer, you know And I think that's so important because so many of us get in especially if you're into thick of things and you feel like I've tried this I've tried this I've tried this nothing works It's really I think natural to say well this person isn't gonna help me. There's no way this is gonna help me But in the end I mean I think it does help you and I think it's important to say and what will follow up on the next thing too She talks about perseverance and courage is part of it So she does never sugarcoats it you're going to have to be brave Yeah, right. That's just part of it. I know it's the part that everybody hates It's a sucky part, but you get to feel so good about yourself as well. Like cuz you just like I'm so brave man You know, yeah, that's nice feeling afterwards, you know, it's difficult to get there But once you once you do it you feel so much more of an achievement as well as opposed to just oh I went and saw this person and they hypnotize me and now I'm all better It's kind of like I took quite a lot of personal gain from Realizing that I had the power within me, you know, and that it was me that got me better I found that quite nice I did I was really scared for some reason when I was really ill that like they were gonna tell me like it was some Physiological like sort of condition and that if I took this tablet, I would then be balanced back and be fine and I didn't really Want it sounded weird, but like I didn't want someone to be able to come along and like fix it I quite liked the fact that it was me and I was in control of this and it just made me feel Actually that like yeah, I mean I am in control of this and yeah, I found that comforting I think maybe lots of people wouldn't I don't know why I found that comforting but you know No, I think a lot of people would find it comforting because in the end I think her approach to this is very empowering because the first few times you have to do this the first few times You have to do the exact opposite and just chill out into like the worst panic you can imagine You're like it's there's no way do you want to do that? I mean in any way do you want to do that? But you will hate doing it, but you will love having done it So I like I say that about a lot of hard things in life I hate going to the gym, but I love having gone to the gym. So exactly Same situation like this So it is a very empowering thing when you learn how to do this But it is gonna involve being courageous at least in the beginning the good news is you don't have to You don't have to be courageous forever I always trying through that out there You don't have to be like superhero brave for the rest of your life just in the beginning when you're starting to learn these techniques So that's really important Oh, there's a quite a good quote that she has here in the book. She says I have no illusions about you I'm not writing this book for the rare few brave people But for you a sick suffering ordinary human being with no more courage than the rest of us And I think that's quite important. That is true because she honestly believes I believe it I think Holly you seem to believe it too that everybody can actually do this This isn't yeah, this isn't magic and it doesn't require like an insanely brave person Everybody has the tools built into this. So she makes another really good point in chapter one and she talks about time And how long you may have suffered from this. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? Yeah, well, there's a nice I'll just give you a little quote from her She says however deeply involved you may be a nervous illness However, long you may have suffered you can recover and enjoy life again like that it doesn't The time factor isn't important here It doesn't it doesn't change you Like physically it doesn't matter if you've suffered like for a day or for 10 years or for 50 years, you know Like it actually Physically doesn't make a difference to your body, you know, like and and she says, you know Your body is waiting to recover like it's it's there just waiting for you you just have to Yeah, but um and so like that that's I think that that's really important because lots of people would say like oh But I've suffered it for so long that it you know, I can't get better now But it's important that with this sort of approach She doesn't actually matter how long you've suffered it or how profoundly you've suffered it And that's that's nice to know that is true One of the things you have to kind of embrace a little bit before you get on this journey of this type of Methodology is that you really know worse than anyone else. Everybody claims to have the worst possible case of treatment-resistant panic disorder ever It's probably not the case and I think to talk about the time thing Panic disorder if you look at it or any anxiety disorder from a cognitive standpoint If you look at it as a learning situation and a behavioral thing, it doesn't get worse Like it's not it's not something that gets worse like, you know having for big cancer or something like that Which will spread and get worse and make you sicker This does not get any worse at some point There's a point where it cannot get any worse if you have gotten to the point where you've stuck yourself in your house And can't leave because of this that's as bad as it gets it can't get any worse no matter how long you do that So it's almost nice when you hit that point Literally can't get any worse than this. That's absolutely true So whether or not you you've only been dealing with it for six months or for 16 years It doesn't matter you can still get better at this and part of it is the way you look at it And so she talks about this as being an illness of how you think so one of my favorite quotes Like you said however long you've been on your body is waiting to recover She says it's important to understand this because your illness is very much an illness of how you think How you think affects the way you feel and really this is kind of the basis of CBT cognitive behavioral therapy So how do you point it out that she's not saying it's all in your mind? And I know we all hate when people say that it's not all in your head, but at the same time It kind of is because really what fuels panic the difference between a panic attack and I've done past episodes on this A panic attack is a physical thing, but panic disorder is a cognitive thing So it really is and a disorder of how we think and how we react It's not a disorder. That's physical or even some sort of chronic Mental illness that needs to be corrected. There's no structural defect in your body your brain. That's causing this It's purely a learned response. So panic disorder is a learned response It's just that you know that habitual phobic avoidance of what you think is going to hurt you when it really it won't Yeah, there's a really interesting bit in the when I was like reading a bit about Chloe's herself It said that she suffered herself from panic attacks and panic disorder and like There's some guy who's written dr. Robert Dupont describes in his book the anxiety cure that he he met her and he asked her if she'd ever had Panic disorder and she said yes, I have had what you call panic attacks In fact, I still have them sometimes they wake me at night and dr. Dupont responded by saying he was sorry to hear that and Then he said that Chloe's looked at him sort of in shock and responded like we'll save your sympathy for somebody else I don't need it or want it what you call a panic attack is merely a few normal chemicals that are temporarily out of place in my brain It is of no significance whatsoever to me, which is like literally the whole Point and it might sound like complicated if you at the beginning of this at the minute But it's that I still have I can still have a panic attack now, but it doesn't actually like and There's awful as it sounds that like because people might say oh, you never really could can be panic-free But you still might have panic attacks. You just learn to live with them That doesn't sound like very appealing, you know like when you're really like suffering from them but what you start to realize is that a Lot of what's so horrible about a panic attack is just the way you respond to it It's not actually like if you actually think about what's happening It's just like oh, I'm sweating and I'm breathing fast and my heart's beating fast and I feel a bit dizzy like it's You kind of think like when you break those symptoms down It's not actually that horrific and so if you have a panic attack and you're not responding to it in like Oh my god, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me way then like those symptoms are just it is just a You know a couple of physical symptoms as a sort of at the wrong time and place, you know And and that's that's the sort of point of it I don't have to come off track a little bit No, no, no, that's totally on track because it really is the basis of how she approaches this as you know She calls it an illness of how you think I would call a cognitive break or a cognitive Not dysfunction. I think I've used the term a bunch of times. I can't remember my own terms at this point But yeah, that's really exciting, isn't it? So I think you're right because in the end she's gonna talk about Exactly what you said that these are just physical sensations and it's not the sensations Your heart may be really rapidly it may even skip some beats here and there and she talks about that in the book Like that's it's okay. It's still a perfectly good heart your hands may shake But she literally says your hands may be shaking, but they're still perfectly good hands So there it's your body just doing exactly what your body is supposed to do in the you know in the presence of all that Adrenaline and we just interpret it as a dangerous thing. It's funny when you're down the gym And you're running or if you go for a run or a bike ride or swimming your heart's beating faster But you don't go like oh my god my heart's beating faster This is what's wrong with me But when you when it sort of beats faster out of context, it seems really in a panic attack It seems really really scary But like so it's just about taking that fear because your heart beating fast isn't dangerous It beats fast all the time if you're doing physical stuff You know, there's nothing dangerous about a beating heart that's beating fast So it's just putting it in context and real and like changing the way you react to it basically that's true It is all about the reaction So I think the takeaway really in chapter one of the book and again It's a really short chapter which is great because it's easy to read You know where she talks about that it's an illness of how you think that everybody can be cured by it Which I know is a cured from it or overcome it which is really big a big bowl claim But you know, there's a lot of stuff in here. It doesn't matter how long you've suffered And once you start to adopt this approach that you can actually start to turn the corner So that's really the basis of chapter one of the book is that the answer really lies within you Understanding what this is and how you are going to approach it and start to change how you react to it So this is not Claire Weeks saving you. It's not Holly saving you It's not me saving you. It's not a coloring book saving you or a call to your mom or your boyfriend saving you It's you saving you. Yeah, so we talk about a lot like you have to learn to be your own safe person And that's what this book is all about. It starts to explain how that can happen. So that's chapter one It's a short one next time. We'll do chapter two. Do you have anything else you'd like to add to this Holly? No, I don't think so. I think we've covered everything that we wanted to or what was in the chapter one So yeah, yeah, I think so too. So chapter two is the episode we'll do next and we're not even quite sure how Often we're going to do these things we're hoping like maybe over the other week when we can squeeze it into our schedule, but Chapter two a little preview is called how our nervous system works and she does talk a little bit about Without getting into a lot of real technical detail She does talk about how your nervous system works and creates these sensations that we Experience when we're experiencing anxiety or panic and it's a really good overview because it she really works hard to demystify What's going on? She's not it's just power. Exactly. Yeah, she was huge in that not being bewildered She uses the term bewildered and confused and she really tries to take that away. So next time we're going to talk about that. So Anything you wanted to say to wrap it up? I don't think so. Okay, so I would say this this is going to get published all over the place So it'll be on my website that anxiety that that anxiety guy calm and I guess on my youtube channel It's on I have a youtube channel So it'll be there you can comment on the blog page itself on the blog site itself You can comment on YouTube Twitter is at that anxiety guy and Facebook is that that anxiety guy also So Holly do you have would you like people to reach out to you? Do you just want to go through this way or we'll work that out as we go along comments but comments definitely and like especially if I just wanted to say that like I think that Let's do it the reason we I wanted to podcast this is because when I was really like ill at the beginning I And I was young as well But like my dad said to me who had a bit of experience with this stuff He gave me the book and was just that you need to read this like this is important like you'll see that you're not alone and all this sort of stuff and this was before the internet and I was so scared to read I didn't want to open the book because it's quite it's feel it felt so Intimidating to like sit on my own and read a book and I didn't know what was inside I didn't know what it was gonna tell me and I just was really scared about reading it And so I know that that might sound strange But when you're like really in the thick of it it can seem very intimidating to read a self-help book or you know And you don't know if it really is gonna sort of what it's gonna tell you and stuff So like that's why I thought it'd be nice because it's like we're all having a conversation about the book You're not on your own having to read it You know like it's just a nicer way to get it out there, but I really recommend getting the book as well Yeah, hold it up again. I don't have I have it on Kendall hold it up so people can see it that that's the book You'll find on Amazon. It's crazy cheap. It's in the US. It's like six or seven dollars They even they're even people selling used copies of it. I don't know if you have this in America But in Britain I use a website called Abe books a be a books.co.uk And every every book is like 90p And it's like a pounds to postage or something like that and I got that off I got that off a books like it's all secondhand books, but they're just so cheap It doesn't matter the books are all kind of old they've been you know out for a long time And I've actually been in contact with her estate dr. Weeks estates. It's her nieces. I believe in Australia That's still are the administrators of the estate. They they are just really helpful people. They love having the stuff out there I mean, it's crazy cheap for really really good solid advice as opposed to some of the other stuff I've seen where some programs are very expensive and really kind of based on what she's talking about anyway So yeah, it's worth it check out the book if you don't have it and find you there's audiobooks She has recordings just it's all really cheap and I would urge you to try it all so all right I guess we're gonna wrap it up. Yes. Yes. Cool. So much fun. We're gonna do it again next time. Yeah, okay. All right guys See you next time. Cheers