 Buddy, we're here for Recovery Monday episode number 48. Today we're gonna do some Q&A questions from the Instagram crowd. So everybody on Instagram that's here today that posted a question on my Q&A post. Thank you very much. We're gonna talk about those questions today. So let's get cooking. Let's get the chat overlay up so everybody can see what each other is saying. My screen blanking software is off. Everything is ready to roll. The mic seems to be working. Apologies for the high pitched wine. Like the last couple of live streams. I had a cable problem, believe it or not, that I just recently diagnosed. And yes, there was a little bit of a wine on there. So no, did not have tinnitus. The problem was with my gear. And it took me two weeks to figure that out. No high pitched sound today. Yes, I figured that out. I just had to re-plug my cables in. Who knew? Sometimes you just gotta unplug and plug. So how's everybody doing today? And we are going to have a friend of mine who's gonna pop in too. She's in the green room, I have a green room. Very fancy, extremely fancy. So we're talking about that. Before we get cooking though, I'm gonna remind you of just a couple of things. And that is that actually on Wednesday, this coming week, I'm doing my webinar. So in two days with Joanna Hardis, bit.ly slash tolerating distress. If you wanna learn more about that, get every month. Tolerating distress is an important part of the recovery process and that's been going really well. I wanna remind you that there's this stuff too. So if you wanna follow along on a lot of the stuff that I'm doing, you can go get my books at the anxioustruth.com slash books. If you don't have my books and you wanna follow along with all that stuff. And, you know, all the good stuff. I gotta pay the bills so I'm gonna do that. So how's everybody doing today? First time to catch you live. Hey, Annika, how's it going? Lisa's here. If you're coming from the Facebook group, Restream will not show me your name. I'll just see Facebook user. So sorry about that. I won't be able to see your name. Hello, UK. YouTube isn't working for me. YouTube seems to be a little bit behind, but I do see people popping in from YouTube. So I guess it's working to a certain extent. Technology kind of sucks. So I'm gonna put some questions up from the Instagram crowd. But before we do, hey, Tally, has it going? Joe, what's up? Let us bring on a friend. I think a lot of you guys probably know her. Here she comes. There you are. Hey, Lily, good to see you. If you guys are not familiar with Lily, Lily is here. I will put her up on the screen. Lily is one of my friends that I dig on Instagram because her content is just always so educational, psycho-educational and informative. Welcome. Thanks for coming on today. Thank you. I'm excited. And this is really, I've never seen it. I'm impressed. Yeah, this is all new. Now you're cutting in and out. So you might want to check that. I hear you, but you're a little bit in and out. If you need to pop out and come back in, that's okay too. But if you got to plug stuff in, whatever. Making it up as we go along. So it's all good. So anyway, as Lily gets stuff prepared, I want to see where everybody's coming from today. Yeah, Lily's cool. Lily knows the deal. Lily makes the most entertaining and psycho-educational reels. I have real jealousy when it comes to Lily. You're custom made for it. I have a lot of jealousy for it. Can you hear me now? Should I go? You're in and out. So you're working, but your video is good. Your audio in and out. So we'll give it a shot. If you want to pop back in and pop back in, that's all you find. We'll make it work. So we'll get it cooking. Anyway, everybody is here. Houston is here. UK is here. Just listening to you with the dare girls. Oh yeah, Julia. I did that with Michelle and Aida. That was a couple of months ago. So I know they put that up in the dare podcast that was interesting to do. Ireland is here. YouTube is fine for me. Fort Myers, Florida. Lily's going to come back in. Let's see if this works for us. See if that's any better. You might have plugged in a mic or something. I don't know, a headset. You could try that too. Oh, you got a mic. Okay. No, you're in and out. You're speaking, but I can't hear it. I can't hear half of your words. Sorry. Oh yeah. Yeah. All right, we'll see how it works out. Anyway, let's pop in. We'll pop some questions up on the screen and we'll see if we can make the tech work here. So what do I have to put up? These are questions that I asked on Instagram. So I got a few that we can kind of pop a work on. So Lily and I will try to take them. The first question is a health anxiety question. And it is, how do I distract myself when I'm in physical pain that constantly reminds me of my worries? To me, the key word there is distraction and whether distraction is what we're really looking for. So Lily, you wanna start on this one and see what your thoughts on this? Well, first of all, I just don't wanna go. Can I do it on my phone? No. You can. You can do it, try it on your phone if you want because I'm getting every other syllable. I'm gonna plug this. I mean, we don't need it. Just try it on my phone. Yeah, you can try it on your phone. It'll work on your phone. I'll be back. Okay, sounds good. So while Lily is popping back in, she's gonna pop back in with her phone. Sorry for the technical problems, but I'll take this one. How do I distract myself when I'm in physical pain that constantly reminds me of my worries? I think there's two things in this. Number one is the idea of physical pain, which is real, 100% real. I think there's nothing, I would say there's nothing wrong and nobody wants to be in physical pain, but sometimes we do have issues that do cause physical pain. There are physiological issues that do cause pain. And that's no fun and we have to deal with that. But sometimes then we take that pain and we glue it to the anxiety and the worry and the trying to solve and the overthinking and the fear. And that doesn't have to happen. So physical pain, if it's being caused by a physiological condition, a medical condition, an injury of some kind, there's nothing we can do about that, except let's see if Lily comes back in and see if that's any better. Hey, hey. Hi, better? Yeah, it seems a little better on your phone. So we'll try that. Okay, let's see how it goes. So what I was saying about this question is that there are, sometimes there are issues in our life, whether it be injury or medical conditions that do cause actual physical pain and that we have to deal with that. But sometimes we fall into the trap of gluing the overthinking, the fear, the anxiety, the rumination, the trying to fix things to the pain. And they, instead of being two separate things, they become the same thing. It all jumbled up like a ball of yarn. So I was kind of starting there. Have you had experience with this? It's definitely, and I think for me, what comes in as if we, you know, if we're distracting and we think it's something important, that's not really good. If our underlying belief is I need to pay attention to this pain because I need to, like I need to focus on it. If we're distracting, so to me, it's kind of that underlying in, you know, in your ability to like take care of yourself without being anxious, without being hyper-vigilant. So if you just distract yourself, what you think, my God, this, then it's kind of gonna be, well, it's not really gonna work. So I mean, because I'm not saying, oh, there's something wrong with, to me, distraction also can just mean being present, you know, because I know when you and I have, in terms of it's not physical pain, but it can be experiencing derealization and just to continue to do, it's not distraction, but you have an underlying understanding that, okay, it might be in pain, but it's actually safe. It's okay. For me, to do what I'm doing. And I know that if the pain gets so bad, there is something that will say, hey, you know what, I'm gonna talk to my doctor about this or whatever it is. I'm gonna change, so it's really understanding that it's okay on our pain. And then we can, we naturally can engage in life again. Do a podcast or do work knowing that we're not something, that we can still, oh, you can't hear me? It's doing that thing again, where you're talking, but it's only picking up some of your words. I don't know if it's the internet. Yeah, it tells me you have a good connection, but I don't know, it's hard. Unfortunately, it's kind of tough to follow. It's annoying, but I'll go get headphones and see if that makes a difference. I'll let you talk. We'll try. Okay, sounds like a plan. Sorry guys, technology, live, live TV, it is what it is. So I will pick up on what Lily was saying. That is sometimes a situation that says, well, since I'm experiencing pain, I can't possibly handle this. And I'm gonna glue it to my fear, I'm gonna glue it to my uncertainty, I'm going to glue it to the belief that I'm not safe, that this has to be solved. And if I'm in a distressful situation, such as physical pain, it's intolerable and I should not ever be in the situation. But in reality, we can take care of those sort of things. And so you can in the end, handle the physical pain in whatever way that you can medically, physiologically. But the idea that you start from the premise that I have to distract myself from pain because I believe that I'm incapable of handling any state of distress because it will just make me feel incapable, it'll make me feel weak, broken, afraid, uncertain, all those things. But that's in many ways, sometimes it's just part of life. We don't get to not feel those things, sometimes we have to. So I don't think you're trying to distract from the pain, to be honest with you. I mean, so you're gonna have to go with the pain as it's there, it's not gonna work anyway. So I think the first thing that Lily said, which was really valuable was if you think you have to find a way to distract from the pain and it doesn't work because it's really hard to drown out pain with distraction, then it just amps up that whole thing even more. Like this isn't working, what am I supposed to do now? So you're just adding a problem on top of a problem on top of a problem. So let's see, how's that a little better with the headphones in? I see you plugged in now. I know, you tell me, is it better? It seemed better, I heard your door opening. So let's see, we'll do the best we can guys. Sometimes technology not so great, right? So I think that's a reasonable answer to that question. Okay, good. Yeah, anything else you wanna add to that with a little? No, I think you answered it. I think it was good. Sounds good. All right, let's go on to the next one. Let's see what we get. This is a good question, I think too. Oops, we lost Lily, she'll be back. We'll figure it out. How much window shopping can my anxious brain do? Here she is, we'll pop her back in. We are struggling mightily today. That's all right, we do this every week. Some are gonna be okay, some are not gonna be okay. It's not working out so well for Lily. How much window shopping can my anxious brain do? Will it get tired of the rumination and shaming? This is a really good question. And that's the when will it get better thing? So the best way that I can answer this question, how much window shopping, which I love the term window shopping. So this person is kind of looking at her rumination and her overthinking as window shopping, looking for problems, looking for issues to probably solve, how much can my anxious brain do? Well, if you continue to interact with it and unlimited amount of window shopping, will an anxious brain will continually look for things, look for problems, look for dangers, look for threats, look for things that need to be solved and addressed? So my gut tells me that there's no limit to the amount of window shopping that your brain will do with anxious thoughts. Would you agree with that, my friend? Yes, yes, because I think when we think we're gonna figure it out. This is Jess now working out. I'm so sorry, everybody. You keep, we lose you in your back, we lose in your back, I don't know. I know, not my day. I don't wanna make it take away from you. Well, let's see. Let's see if you're sleeping. I think my phone's not working with this. So I'll try my computer if it doesn't work. Okay, we'll give it an addition. I don't wanna take away. Okay, okay. All right, we'll be here. So I think what Lily was starting to say was, yes, if we keep, we can sometimes fall into the trap where we think we have to be window shopping, right? So an anxious brain is just trying to protect you. Remember, your brain is there to keep you safe and alive, not to keep you happy. That's a common thing you hear all the time. So when it gets into that rut where it needs to just continually look for things to solve, look for threats to mitigate, look for dangers to escape. And those dangers can be so varied. Sometimes they're like more literal type dangers. Sometimes these are emotional dangers, social dangers. The threats could be mental. The threats could be in your relationship. The threats could be career or financial. And if you think that you can't handle that sort of thing or that you have to constantly remain in control all the time of everything, predicting every possible problem, every possible threat, solving in advance, making sure that you stay clear of anything that could go wrong, then your brain can do that forever. It has an unlimited ability to keep looking and ruminating and ruminating. So the way that your brain gets tired of the ruminating and the shaming is to kind of let those things remain unsolved or even unasked, which seems super like, oh, try Lily again on her computer, let's see how that works. Your brain hopefully gets tired of that when you, what I was saying is when you start to leave those things. So those questions have to be left unanswered which is uncomfortable. They sometimes have to be left unasked which seems reckless and irresponsible sometimes. And as far as the shame, trying to get rid of the shame with thinking about the shame doesn't really work either. And there's that famous thing that's you know, shame dies in the light. Sometimes you just have to feel that shame to work through it. So in the end, it's trying to not, you have to abandon the idea that you have to try to solve all of the thoughts to stop them, to fix them, to find everything wrong. Let things be wrong. Let things be uncertain and unknown. That's uncomfortable and might feel reckless or wrong but that's the way that your brain ultimately gets tired of looking for those things in the end. Lily, can you even hear me? Can you hear me, Lil? I can't hear it out. No, you're in and out still. I don't know what it is. Well, we tried, took a shot at it. Yeah, we'll give it a shot again maybe next week. We'll work it out ahead of time to see if it works and then we'll get Lily back on though. She'll be all right. Thanks, Lil. Thanks for trying. See you next time. Sorry guys, technology does not helping us today. But let's see. So in the end, the idea that your brain is trying to latch on to all these different thoughts and problems that you have to solve and dangers that you have to, you just have to let them be. So I did a podcast on this called, there was the podcast I did about GAD drivers, GAD drivers might be helpful. The podcast that I did about learning to live recklessly parentheses, but not really is also part of that. But the shame thing is a little bit different animal too. Sometimes unfortunately, shame is just something that we have to kind of bring out and let it be there and work through that. When we try to suppress it, there's a lot of information now and research that's done on shame now that tells us, doesn't really work out. It's better to let bring it out and work through that. But unfortunately, sometimes you can't solve it if you think, well, I need to find a way to think about this so that I don't feel it. The object of the game is really you kind of have to feel it and you have to go through those things. So hopefully that helps. And I'm sorry for the technical problems, but we'll get Lily back in maybe next week. We'll try it again. So let's go to the next question. Well, you know what? Let's go through comments first because that might be better. Let's see, what are people saying about these things? Maybe, let's see, bad connection. Yep, really breaking up. Sorry guys. I have a friend who keeps saying she feels that this doesn't apply to her because she thinks her anxiety is unique and different. I will touch on that for sure. Let me get through the Instagram questions and I'll swap that, come back in and we'll do the other questions. So let's do this question next. And this question, I'm gonna have to paraphrase some of these because I can't put these giant, huge questions on the screen. I step outside whoever and seem to forget this is a person who is working on it, right? Has been stuck sort of indoors. Seems to be agoraphobic, I'm guessing. I have to infer that from her message. And she's saying that once she steps outside and tries to do the hard thing, she forgets everything and it seems impossible to do because the sensations get so intense. And unfortunately, the answer to this question is that is correct, the sensations get more intense and it really stinks that that is the way that it has to go. But you're afraid to step outside because you're afraid that you're going to experience those sensations and the only way to get through this is to understand I have to go and experience these sensations and that they will get intense and my job is to just let them be there. Now, that doesn't mean that in this situation you would say, well, I'm going to walk out the door and I'm going to stay out there for six hours but I'm going to walk out the door and I'm going to allow whatever happens, happens. Whatever sensations I have, I have. The issue here is you don't forget everything, you just are afraid. So that's really different and there's nothing really to forget. So in this situation, there's no, that's why I don't give you letters, I'd have no acronyms, I don't have anything like that. In fact, in two weeks, there's a whole podcast episode and a whole bunch of episodes of the anxious morning newsletter that talk about this, how the program and the steps break down in these moments, there are no steps, unfortunately. So there's nothing to forget. You just have to remember when you're about to step outside or go into that exposure situation, that challenging situation, this is supposed to be hard for me. I'm about to do a difficult thing and I will let it be difficult because I understand why I need it to be difficult. I understand the lessons I'm trying to learn here and I'm going to let it be difficult for 10 minutes. And if I make my 10 minutes and then I can go back in and try to get myself back together, I made the 10 minutes, I'm good to go. So there's not a lot to remember. So it's not like, oh, I forget everything. People say this all the time, it goes out the window. Well, it doesn't really go out the window because you probably have the presence of mind to run back inside, you don't forget that. And really all we're asking to do is not run back inside. So two things here would be don't overcomplicate it. There's not a whole lot to remember other than why am I doing this? What am I hoping to achieve by it? And my job is to stay in these sensations for longer than I usually do. Right, there's nothing to remember. Bethany says, nothing, basically do nothing. Just I need to stay in this and allow it. I have to allow it to do that. So hopefully that helps with that question. I know that people say that all the time. I feel like, I listen to your podcast and I'm reading your books, but when I panic, everything goes out the window. But really I'm not giving you a whole lot to do. I'm giving you less to do. And usually that question means, oh, I'm really hoping that there's some method that I'm supposed to use when I panic or when I get into that really scary situation that makes it easier for me to be in the situation or less scary or somehow gets me through it. But there's none. None of this is instructions on how to do that. The instruction is generally, you just have to do it and you have to let go, surrender, allow, flow, tolerate all the words, you know all the words. So don't forget that that's what you're after here. Not a special way to be less afraid. You're not trying to be less afraid. You're trying to be better at being afraid. And I know I say the same things again and again, but that's kind of the way it works. I'm gonna take this question next from Instagram, which I know you guys are gonna be amazed that I put this up on the screen, but I'm gonna answer it anyway. So somebody asked if hypnosis is helpful and if so, how do you find a qualified person? This is a double-edged sword. Now, anybody who's been following me for a while knows that I have a tendency to say no to hypnosis, but there's a difference. It depends on how you're going to use it, right? So as we go through this journey, we get exposed to different people, we learn new things, people smarter than us in certain areas can teach us things, we have to remain open to this. So I'm gonna tell you that there are clinicians that will use hypnosis alongside all of the stuff that we talk about. And some will say that their belief is that hypnosis is a way to get into a little bit more of a willing and accepting and open mindset, which is what we need. Like I'm going to open myself to this experience. And some clinicians who practice hypnosis find that using hypnosis, which I am not an expert on in any way, I don't even understand it in a lot of ways. But when you find somebody who says, well, I'm going to use hypnosis as part of this process that will sound familiar if you're consuming my content or old people who sound like me, they can use it as a tool in that, where it can help you get into a little bit more of a relaxed state or a little bit more of an open state where, okay, I understand I'm gonna do a really hard thing. Now I'm gonna chill out first and now I'm gonna go and do it. That can go both ways. I've been in conversations that say, yeah, but you don't want the person to get into a situation where they feel like they must go into their hypnotic state or whatever that is called before they can do the thing. So a good clinician will understand, no, no, no, this is a way to get the ball rolling. So it can be used as part of this. It can be a tool as part of the recovery process that you guys are familiar with. You guys are hearing me talk about all the time. What I don't like about hypnosis are hypnotherapists that undergo, whatever it is, a couple, a two months of training can call themselves hypnotherapists because they can and then will tell you that hypnosis will cure your anxiety disorder. Run from that. So if you want to use, if you find a clinician who specializes in treating anxiety disorders who happens to use hypnosis as part of that? I personally wouldn't have an issue with that. That can work. There's evidently some value in that. I don't know if you guys follow Emma on Instagram. She's Scottish anxiety lady. Wow, I think now she's called the anxiety whisper. She may have changed. So she uses hypnosis as part of her approach to treating anxiety and she's a qualified psychotherapist and I trust what she says. And she was the first one that opened me up to this idea. So hypnosis can be part of the deal. Just don't let anybody tell you that you go to a hypnotist and somehow or other this person will stop your panic attacks. You can use it as a tool. Evidently it's a good way to induce a change of state and to help you get through some of these challenging situations and face what you have to face. So hopefully that helps. How would you find a qualified professional? And I'm probably gonna catch some heat from this but from what I understand just about anybody can become a hypnotherapist with credentials from whatever school you decide to go to that teaches hypnotherapy. So I don't know how to tell you whether they're qualified or not. But I will tell you that it's always a red flag when a hypnotherapist with no other credentials except hypnotherapy will tell you that they are going to stop your panic attacks or make your anxiety go away or fix your OCD or fix your social anxiety or fix your health anxiety. That's run from that. That is not a good statement to run toward at all. So next one. What should you tell your brain as doing not? Okay, so this person asked the question about the specific context was a person was going to get their haircut. Now for a lot of people watching today, 70 of you in the room now you can understand that going to get your haircut could be a super challenge because you're trapped in the chair, you can't go, you might panic while you're getting your haircut. I get all that, right? I was there. So this person says when they're getting their haircut what should I tell myself? What should I do? What should I talk to my, what should I tell my brain? Doing nothing was increasing my anxiety. And the answer to this is again, correct. That is correct. So that's actually part of what you're trying to do in that situation. When you do nothing, when your brain is certain that like nothing is a bad idea, oh, I'm feeling more anxious. Correct. You need the experience that tells you if I do nothing, my anxiety may peak. It will ultimately, that haircut's going to end, ultimately it is going to come down. And when I did nothing, I still got through this. I did not have to, and I did not have to treat my anxiety or my anxious state like it automatically and urgently needs fixing or evasive action. So unfortunately, what do I tell my brain? And how can I, because I don't want to do nothing because doing nothing made me feel more anxious. Correct. Like you're doing this whole process because you think that you should never ever feel more anxious. That's the whole process is learning that, oh, it's okay if I get anxious. And unfortunately, that means that initially you will experience that anxiety more intently because you're not trying to run from it. You're not trying to stop it. You're not trying to cope. You're not trying to do all those things. So you experience it in its raw state and its full power and learn that, oh, I can handle that, that can happen. So what do you tell your brain? Nothing. Like, yes, this is what's supposed to happen. I don't like that. I don't like to have to tell you that and you don't have to like to do it. I didn't like doing it either. But I remember one of those first times when I had to go get my haircut and it's like, okay, well, this time I'm just gonna do it this way. And that sucked. It was the least fun haircut I've ever had. It takes 15 minutes to cut my hair, whatever. But it sucked, but it was a really valuable experience for me to have. So if you wanna think about what you can tell your brain, think about what you're gonna tell your brain before you get into that. So just like the person who said she gets afraid and forgets everything when she walks outside, the telling your brain and the self-talk and the instruction comes before. That's what gets you into the chair to get your hair done. While you're in the chair, there's no whole lot of conversation that should be happening between you and your brain. Just let whatever happens happens. So you can start by saying, okay, I'm afraid to go get my haircut because I'm afraid I might panic. I understand I have to go and experience that anyway. This is going to be uncomfortable. This is going to be scary. This is going to be really difficult. These are the things that I fear, but I understand why I have to do this and I'm going to be as open as I can to this experience and do the best I can. The conversation between you and your brain is then over and now you have to go and do the thing. And when you come out the other side, the conversation can begin. Man, did that suck? I hated that, but I'm okay. But I'm okay. Didn't like it. Would don't want to really do it again, but look, I'm okay. I did it. So really the conversation between you and your brain is before and after. And yeah, Tally, I don't know how you guys do it. Big long hair where you're in that chair for hours. Respect. Don't know how you do it. Anyway, hopefully that helps. Let's see here. This will be the last one from Instagram and then we will, I'll see what was in the comments here. Did panic attacks and anxiety cause you to have gastrointestinal issues? I'm answering this because I said, if they asked questions, I would answer it. Yes, of course, many people. Now I, me personally, I'm not, I'm not a big anxious stomach guy for whatever reason. That's just not the way my body works. So I was never the person who had to run to the bathroom or got nauseous. That just was not me. But, but I'm probably unusual. Like I was more of a breathing dizzy heart guy than a stomach guy. Other people, it's incredibly common. Anxiety will 100% cause nausea, stomach pains. There's a knot in my stomach. I feel like there's a pit in my stomach. I feel like I have to run to the bathroom 100%. We, we, I must say, you guys have heard me say this before. We literally have slang in the English language that talks about that. Like it felt like there was a knot in my stomach. There were butterflies in my stomach. Like we even, we acknowledge it in just common language without even talking about anxiety, fear and anxiety disorders. We know what it means. If you tell somebody, oh my God, like it was so nervous, I had butterflies on my stomach or, you know, when they told me that I had been laid off, I felt like it was going to puke or like I just got a knot in my stomach. I felt like it was punched in my stomach. Everyone would understand. So yes, panic and anxiety can cause many people to experience gastrointestinal issues. That's normal. That's part of the process. Unfortunately, if you're one of those people, that's just one of those things you have to learn to get through. Sometimes that's exacerbated for people who have a metophobia because if they feel anything gastrointestinal and they're terrified because vomiting is the worst possible thing that can happen to a human being and you will not hear otherwise, then that could definitely be an issue for sure. A gastrointestinal upset that comes with anxiety and panic for somebody who deals with a metophobia, they will tell you that means that all bets are off. I will never allow it to happen. So yeah, sometimes that makes things even worse. All right, so those are the Instagram questions. There were a couple more, but these are the ones that I could definitely answer. So let's go through the comments here and see what people have talked about. I'll put some stuff up on the screen real quick and then I'm gonna end it early this week because I have some stuff going on, but I have a friend, let's put a rawr's thing up on the screen. I have a friend who keeps saying she feels like this doesn't apply to her because she thinks her anxiety is unique and different than everyone else's. Can you touch on thinking you are worse than others? Well, I think everybody at some point has that. I'm worse than everyone else. Sorry. Everybody at some point thinks this can't work for me because I'm worse than everyone else. Mine is worse than everybody else's. It can't work for me. You can think that and just about everybody thinks that but thinking it doesn't mean it's true. And a lot of times that's driven by like an aversion to the technique if you will or the approach. Like I have to go do scary things. No, well, my anxiety is really bad so it's not gonna work for me. Unfortunately, it's a really common thought to see yourself as being worse than everybody else. Everybody, most people go through that at one point in time or another. But then I could say other than just thinking it doesn't make it true. Sorry. Think a big step. Throw this up real quick. I'm feeling better. I feel like I wanna take a big step. Excuse me. Drive much further than my save zone instead of little steps. This is okay. Can I always try it? Realistic expectations matter? Like in that situation? Oh, I don't need these because Lily's in here, hang on. Realistic expectations matter. So like, hey, I'm gonna really do something that I haven't done in a long time. It's gonna be challenging for me. I'm gonna give it a shot. If I get really scared or I panic because I do this really challenging thing, that's okay. That might happen. What can I learn from that? So yeah, it's okay to try those things. You don't have to like, it's not immediately a disaster if you try to do something that's too big or too much. Just understand what you're doing, why you're doing it and maintain an awareness of what the goal is and be open to the experience, whatever it happens to be. If you panic when you do it, that's totally okay. All right, so let's see. I have about two more minutes I can do. Too much deep, lots more steps. This is good. Can you touch on how I can stop making recovery an end goal? This is really common. Recovery is always the end goal. So you can't not think that. That would be unrealistic for me to say like, well, stop trying to recover because clearly that's why you're doing this stuff. But I think you have to be in a situation where you understand, well, recovery is my end goal. I do wanna get better, but what's the best way to put this? Recovery is the way I'm doing it. I do wanna get the better, but I'm just trying to have as many experiences I can that teach me that I can handle this, right? I can handle this. I can build a new, rebuild a relationship with anxiety, panic, fear, my own body, my own thoughts, my own emotions and let that be the goal. Like I'm just trying to get, I'm trying to be better, not feel better. So do things that help you be better and let that be the goal that you're always after and the feeling better, which is probably the way you're thinking of recovery comes down the road. So that might be a way to reframe that so that it's a little bit easier to just, as opposed to always shooting for, when am I gonna feel different? When am I gonna feel different? Well, shoot for, when am I gonna be different? When am I gonna act different? And the feeling different will come sort of lagging behind that. Unfortunately, that's the way that works. Hopefully that works. I'll do one more. Yep, because I have a call coming up. Sorry guys, I have to be a little shorter this week. Throw this up real quick. Does smoking cigarettes cause anxiety? Well, smoking cigarettes could certainly make you feel different. Nicotine is a stimulant. Nicotine is a weird thing, because it's a stimulant and some people will tell you, say it also relaxes them. So smoking cigarettes will make your body feel different. It's, that's not the problem, although really smoking is not good for you, so you really shouldn't be smoking, but as far as does it create anxiety or cause anxiety? No, it causes your body to feel different things. The nicotine may be a stimulant and that may be causing your heart to go a little faster and it amps you up a little bit. That's okay, that's what nicotine does. It's the reaction to that that you care about. It's the part where, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, I feel this way. So we don't care about the physical effects of the cigarette, we care about your reaction to those physical effects. So it doesn't cause anxiety, it just causes you to feel things, right? And yeah, I'd love to do the rest of these because you guys are asking good questions, but I can't because I have a call coming up and I could really only do about 35 minutes a day. So I gotta end it here. Sorry for the technical problems, we'll definitely get, yeah, somebody said crave a smoke when overwhelmed. I understand that and a lot of ways people will say that smoking is a way for them to calm down. So you might crave a cigarette when you get really anxious. I get that, it's a push-pull there. Anyway, that's a good point. Sorry, I can't stay for any longer. We'll try to get Lily back and fix the technology next time. I promise, I know it's a shorter one this week. This will stay on my YouTube, it's in its own playlist called Recovery Monday. It'll stay on my Facebook, it will stay in the Facebook group. But yeah, so thanks a bunch. I appreciate it. Next week we'll do some more questions. I'll try to get Lily back in. Maybe we'll do questions in the Facebook group. There'll be a little bit more that we can answer. And that's it guys. Thanks for hanging out on Monday and thanks for hanging in there with all the technology problems. I know it sort of sucked, but we'll work them out. See you next time.