 everybody, welcome back. Today, we are going to talk about why people feel the need to find podcast episodes or videos on every specific little fear they have in any given moment, and why that isn't needed. So today's little short 10, 15 minute video is called, Hey, is there a podcast on dot dot dot insert your favorite fear or symptom or concern here. So we're going to talk about that because it's one of the things I get asked all the time. So everybody that's popping in just let me give me a wave, let me know that you're here, let me know where you're coming from. We'll we'll have some comments. I'll put them up on the screen. So this will be a short one. I like these little 10, 15 minute videos. They're working out really well. You guys seem to really like them. Well, if folks to show up, just give me an okay, let me know that you're here. Let me know who you are. If you're watching on the Facebook group, then hey, Kathleen's here, Bethany's here. If you're watching from the Facebook group, I'm not going to see your name. I'm sorry, I'm only going to see Facebook user, but that's okay. We'll get there anyway. So let's see who else is here. Olivia is here. We get some folks from YouTube. We got some folks from Facebook showing up. Thanks for coming. So we'll get into it because people are rolling in as we go. Louis is here. What up, Louis? You told us the log out says Bessie. I did. I actually did say that. That's true. This morning on my Instagram story, I suggested that you unfollow all of us for today, or like stop following all of your favorite anxiety people for at least a couple hours. Clearly didn't listen because you're here. Sometimes that's a good thing to do. We'll talk about that another time, but go check out my Facebook, my Instagram story and you'll see Heather is here. What's going on? Matt is here. Everybody is here. I love it. Natasha is here. All right, we got about 17 people. Let's get into this. So one of the most common questions I get, whether it's in a Facebook group or on Instagram or wherever it happens to be, people will ask, is there a podcast episode on dot dot dot? So insert your particular fear or concern or symptom there. And I get this what happens all the time. So Bethany is here. She's one of our admins in the Facebook group. She can attest to this. It's a very common thing. Is there a podcast episode on sleep? Is there a podcast episode on being tired? Is there a podcast episode on stomach problems? Is there a podcast episode on nausea? Is there a podcast episode on blah, blah, blah? So everybody has something that they are concerned about in any given moment, the anxiety symptom of the day or the current fear that they're struggling with or the thing they think is the most scary to them. And they want to know if I've talked specifically about that. Now some of the topics are really good. And look, I've done 175 podcast episodes at this point. And those of you, if you're not listening to the podcast, there's 175 episodes. They go back six, seven years now, and it's just a ton of free information. So if you go to the anxious truth.com and just click on the podcast link, you'll see all of them. You can search them and you can listen on your favorite podcast platform on the website or on YouTube. All right, so I've done a lot of podcast episodes. So I have covered a lot of topics. But one thing that I have tended to not do is cover specific symptoms and specific fears. And I probably won't. I've done a few. I've done dizziness. I've done heart centered anxiety. And I have done breathing. I did those three. So I did those three sort of symptoms. They're the most common ones. And I did talk about those, honestly, because I just had about a zillion people asking me to do it. But I'm not likely to try and address every possible situation and every possible symptom that could come up when you're dealing with anxiety or an anxiety disorder. Why? Because they don't really need to. Now, and that's not like, oh, I just don't feel like it. I don't need to. I'm not trying to be facetious here or rebellious or defiant. But you don't need me to is really what I'm trying to tell you. Because the principles that apply overall in recovery, which is we're always trying to build a new reaction and a new relationship with those sensations and those thoughts and those feelings, no matter what the sensation is, no matter what the thought is, no matter what the feeling is, we're always using the same principles, which is to allow it to surrender to it to float through it to willfully tolerate. We can use all of these different terms, right? So Bessie says it's all, yes, it's all, um, is there a podcast about dealing with crappy therapists? I did, I will answer that right now. I did a little mini episode that I don't know if it appears in the list of podcasts, but it is on my website. So if you go to the anxioustruth.com and just search for the word rant, R-A-N-T, you're going to see a little mini episode that I did called Bad Therapist and Angry Rant in one act. I think it was. Yes, I talked about that. And I did another podcast episode called Why Is My Therapist Never Talked About This? So I have addressed that, right? But to get back to the point, all of the things you want to know about come down to the same principles. And very shortly, probably week after next, I'm going to do a whole podcast episode on this called Are You Following Principles or Looking for Directions, right? There's a difference between following the principles of recovery and just looking for directions to follow. Now sometimes we do need directions, right? So like, do I have a copy of it here? Yeah. So I wrote this book is chock full of actual directions. But the beginning of this book, which is also on my website, hey, look, future graduate students, I got to pay tuition bills. I'm going to have to start hooking these books a little more, right? So yes. So sometimes you need directions. But what I did when I wrote the anxious truth is I tried to explain the concepts of recovery, then we went into actual directions, like step by step stuff. So in the end, you really have to start to understand the principles of recovery and stop just looking for the directions that will handle your particular thing. How do I handle nausea? How do I handle dizzy? How do I handle, you know, whatever your jelly legs? How do I handle shaking? Like they're all the same. Yeah, we're totally going to hawk. And you know, let me put the chat overlay up because this way you guys can see each other's comments. We'll put it up on the screen. So as you guys comment, you'll see it on the screen. That's always fun. So you can see what each other's saying. So in the end, it's about following principles of recovery, not directions necessarily. Once you have taken the time to understand the principles. And then when you understand the principles, you can apply them across multiple contexts. Right. So let's talk about not so much symptoms, but context now, right? So everybody wants me to talk about their particular symptom, but I don't have to because we approach them all the same. And if you're in my Facebook group, you see me say periodically, just a reminder, all your symptoms are the same, right? I say that all the time. It doesn't matter. Your scary symptom is no different than someone else's scary symptom. But let's talk about context. One of the most common ones I get asked about is sleep, right? So are there any podcasts about sleep? Now, sleep really has two things. First of all, terrible person asked about sleep because I don't. So I'm not a good sleep hygiene guy. I'm not going to give anybody advice on how to sleep. However, the sleep question can really be taken apart. It's either like, can somebody give me tips on how to get to sleep, which is, you know, one question, which is a tough question to ask when you can't sleep. We talk about that some other time. But most of the time it's really fueled by the underlying fear that says if I don't sleep enough, then my anxiety will be through the roof tomorrow, which is really just a way of saying if I don't sleep enough, I will be very tired and I don't like feeling tired. I'm afraid of that feeling. And therefore I need to know how to stop it from happening by sleeping. So sleep is a really good example of understanding the concepts and the principles of recovery, because then you'll be able to say, Oh, I know my problem here. My problem is that I'm afraid to not sleep because then tomorrow I will feel physically tired and I'm afraid of my body. I am afraid of the sensation of fatigue. I interpret it mistakenly as danger. So therefore you would approach that the same exact ways you would any other, you know, fear, any other of those anxiety based fears. That's why we don't talk so much about sleep, because in the end, if you understand the concept behind it, you would say, Oh, I just have to learn to tolerate and navigate through and become a little bit more non reactive to the sensations that I have and those thoughts that I have when I'm tired. So that's why we say that. That's why we say that. So this is the point of why you don't need me to do a podcast episode for every possible context. Somebody asked the other day, not sure if you're here, I don't want to name the name, she knows who she is, and you guys all know probably all know her. Is there is there a podcast episode for burnout, right? So burnout isn't necessarily, I mean, it's a good topic that we should probably talk about at some point, but you don't necessarily need specific advice about when you are burnt out or when you are tired, or when you are stressed by your job or when you are stressed by money or when you're in a bad relationship. We can talk about all of those things. But in the end, just understand that so many of these things do get boiled down to very basic concepts that apply across multiple contexts. So if it turns out that you are just afraid of your emotions, your physical reactions, your changes in your body. If it's those things that you're afraid of, that's very different than asking for advice about dealing with a stressful job, right? Dealing with a stressful job is one thing. Dealing with I don't like how I feel in my stressful job because I'm afraid of my own body. That's very different. That I don't necessarily need to talk about. And you don't need me to. So I will continually go back again and again and again to the same rules always apply. I did do a podcast episode with Billy Billy Cross at Anxiety United years ago. It's on my YouTube channel. I don't remember which one it is. I think we called it dealing with stress. And I talked about that in stressful situations, anxiety and disordered anxiety, especially will will essentially say, forget the situation here. I don't care that that building is on fire. How is it going to make me feel right? So recognize that your anxiety is likely going to always bring everything back to how is this going to make me feel right? So and in that situation, we know what I say about how we feel doesn't matter how you feel it's about what we do. So that's why I say we don't need to always ask is there a podcast episode on the principles of recovery are really kind of the same across multiple contexts and multiple symptoms when you begin to understand them. Yes, we can talk about a lot of different topics. I'm never going to write out a topics. I have a list as long as my arm coming up in the next six months. However, we don't necessarily have to address every specific fear. The other thing that I'm going to mention really quickly because we're at the 11 almost 11 minute mark and then we're going to look at the comments. So I'll see if there any questions or whatever and we can interact a little is it's very common for people, especially in the beginning of this journey and that's okay, by the way, if you're in the beginning of the journey, you need direction. That's totally normal. Like no one expects you to like, you know, come into a community like this, brand new to this, you have no idea you're confused, you have no idea what's happening to you. No one would expect you to know the principles of recovery. Why would you right? You're going to ask for direction that's totally okay. And everybody understands that and luckily we have a great community and they will, you know, they will try and help you out. I'll try and help you out the admins and the mods in the Facebook group will try to help you out. But in the end, it's this is not necessarily about, well, I'm afraid of a thing right now. So when I'm afraid right now, I'm going to see if I can find a very specific podcast episode or a very specific chapter of Drew's book or a video or some other that somebody else did or maybe an Instagram live from, I don't know, whatever one of my friends are Josh or Kim or one of those guys that can address this very specific fear right now. Like when we learn that all the fear is kind of the same fear, we don't have to frantically look for direction in the heat of the moment. That's one of the things we were trying to work on too, right? So let's see, here we go. Let's let's scroll up a little bit. Let's see what you guys are doing. Wow, we got 45 people here. I love when you guys kind of pop in here. So let's scroll up here. We saw everybody coming in. I'm on a road trip to your state. Oh, Heather's coming across the country. Very cool. What up, Lauren? I did the episode on therapists. Yes, by the way, just to get back to that. Like, yes, I spend a fair amount of time kind of commenting on that different helpers, different influencers and creators and therapists with different paradigms. It's kind of important. Like I don't mean I'm not trying to pick on any given therapist or many, many excellent, excellent therapists that just might not be trained or point in the direction of our particular problem. It doesn't make them bad people or bad therapists. I would have a hard time believing that there's anybody out there. I mean, if there are they are out there and we know who they are. But most people that try to help or really have the best of intention. So always keep that in mind, right? Alison realizes who being scared of your body. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. Let's see. No, no, no. Yes, I'm going to seedily hawk my books from time to time. I'm going to start to hawk my like merch too. You'll see. I mean, look, there's a ton of free stuff here. So don't worry about that. Don is taking a break from the food bank. Awesome. Yes. Matt says sounds like a game of whack-a-mole with you are trying to address every particular symptom and fear as they pop up. You will absolutely play whack-a-mole for a very long time and it will get incredibly frustrating because every time you think you solve one fear, another one takes its place. And those of you who have gone down the road a little bit can probably agree with this. Like and people will say, oh, my anxiety is morphing. Usually it means because, well, I've got to handle on this symptom and then, oh my God, there's another one. For me, it went from like I was so terrified about my heart and breathing and that sort of stuff. And then I got, I wasn't so afraid of that anymore. And I was having muscle twitches and I was absolutely crazily focused on the muscle twitches. So, you know, if you understand the principles, you don't want to play in that game of whack-a-mole Matt, that's a really good comment. Do I think I'll run out of podcast topics as Rachel and know, as I said, I will probably never, probably never. Thank you, whoever said this, if you want support from drew in the admins in the face group, you have to be listening to the podcast. It's really important, right? So we'll talk about the podcast for a second. Let me put this up on the screen and I'll show you how to get there. Do I have it? I did not put it up there. But if you go to the anxioustruth.com and click on the podcast link, you'll be able to search every episode and you'll see the links to Spotify and Apple and Google and Stitcher and wherever and YouTube. All the podcast episodes also grow up on YouTube. If you don't know how to listen to podcasts, you can always go to my YouTube channel and see all the episodes. They're even in a playlist in order, right? So that person is right. It becomes a lot easier for the helpers to help you. If you are making an effort to become familiar with the concepts and learn like there is a reason I'm put up on the screen again, like there is a reason why I wrote this book. This is a damn good book. And this is the principles of recovery right here. So everything you ever hear me say is likely written in this book. I'm not telling you to go get it, but you should probably go get it like there's a tremendous amount of information in there. And it really, really helps to start to understand it as opposed to trying to I got to play whack-a-mole now I'm afraid of being alone now I'm afraid of my stomach now afraid of this. It really like we're trying to teach you the principles of this so that you can stand up on your own and not need direction all the time. All right. So let's see. I've banned myself from using the words. Let's put these up on the on the screen because they're always good to share. 15 minutes. Let's do another five minutes or so. I've banned myself from using the word feel feels and symptoms. They're not important to recovery. Dead untrue. Sometimes this is one of the principles of recovery, right? So I've talked about that. How do I talk about my anxiety? How do I talk to others about my anxiety? I have done podcast episodes about that. And there are some words that we should probably ban for a while. And when people see stuff like this, sometimes they feel like it's very cruel or cold, like you're telling people to shut up. They're not allowed to express themselves. No, that's not what we're saying at all. But one of the principles of recovery from disordered anxiety is you have to stop speaking your fear out loud because you hear it too. So every time you do stuff like that and start talking about your symptoms, you're rewarding your misguided lizard brain for the wrong response. Every time it sounds an alarm and you speak that alarm out loud, you are rewarding it for that. So nobody saying that you're never allowed to express yourself. We just have to be careful about the way we we we talk about this all the time. So let's see. Alison says, what up, Alison? Good to see you. I think we could link a lot of these with an episode of being scared of your body sensation. So yeah, but in the end, so in this situation, an episode about being scared of your body, if then this is a tough one. So I'm going to talk, I'm really just going to address my own time constraints and the demands in my time. I could do an episode on being afraid of your body. But guess what? I've done 175 episodes. Almost every one of them is rooted in that that you are afraid of your body and your thoughts. So that's that thing about the principles of recovery. If you go way back to the very beginning, and these podcast episodes, it used to be called that anxiety guy, which I really never liked that name. But you'll notice that in the very earliest podcast episodes, that's how I introduced it. Those earliest episodes from 2014 and 2015, the first 15 to 17 episodes are the foundational episodes. And they will give you the foundation of all the episodes to follow. And they will even give you the foundation of a lot of what I wrote about when I wrote the anxious truth. So when you go back and start to really invest the time to learn it, you can listen to free podcasts. You could buy an $18 book. You can see a therapist. But when you invest the time to learn the concepts and the principles like that, then you don't need individual podcast episodes anymore, right? So there you go. All right, let's see. What else we have? We'll do another couple minutes for a week. We kill it. 51 people. Thank you guys. I really appreciate you guys coming by. Let's see here. Cathay is here. What up, Kay? No, no, no, no. Kermit's friend. It's Rachel again. That is Perry, the platypus. Perry, the platypus. First of all, one of my favorite animated characters of all time. With the coolest cartoon character theme song ever. So look for the Perry, the platypus theme song, the extended version on YouTube, by the way, it's really good. Perry was sent to me by my friend, Bridget Cooper. You've seen Dr. B on the podcast and she sent me Perry. Heather says practicing every single day is extremely important. That is true. Maria, welcome. Let's see. When is white is not eating? Okay, so this is one of those typical things that I know you're in your Facebook group, but why does not eating worse in my symptoms? You might be new to this, but this is one of those good examples of like, well, I want to just attack my symptoms. Why do I feel this way? Well, it changes the way you feel hunger is a way you feel right. So if you feel hungry, or you are worried that somehow if I don't eat enough, my blood sugar is crashing, you think your blood sugar might be crashing, which I will tell you 95% of the time you guys are not having blood sugar crashes. You're not. But okay, you know, you think you are. And so you start to worry about that and treat it as it's an immediate danger. But it's not not eating doesn't make your anxiety go up. It makes you hungry and it makes you feel different and you are afraid of feeling different. That's really important. Right. It's really important. Tracy's here. Let's see here. Okay, this is good to love your podcast, just I'm careful to not use them to reassure myself, which is really good. Like, look, for somebody who does what I do, the best day in my relationship with you as an individual is the day that you stop listening to me. Like that's true. Like if I do this well, and you do your part of it, then the best day ever for me is the day that you go away, because you don't need me anymore. So one of the things that we always have to be careful about doing and look, I appreciate how much you guys buy into this and, you know, you really, you support me in my work and I appreciate you all more than you'll ever know. But I'm always careful to tell people, like, don't use me as, as comfort, right? So if you're out doing your exposure and you can only do your exposure if you have drew in your earbuds, that's the thing you have to start to work on to not do that. Right. So that's important. Let's see here. All right. So I'll answer this one real quick before we wrap it up. When does it get easier? I've been doing my exposure for two months and still scary and hard. A lot of white knuckling. Your last sentence is why it doesn't get easier. Usually, and you know, we've talked about this before, I have podcast episodes on common exposure mistakes and misconceptions with exposure. I've done Instagram videos about that. So again, one of the best things you could do is go and use the search functions, look through my IGTV, look through my YouTube, my website. I've actually talked about this nine times at a 10. This means I'm you're just doing the things, but you're not actually willing to tolerate the discomfort. You're hoping to do the things without the discomfort. That's not how this works. Right. So we talked about that. Let's see podcasts are valuable. Thank you very much. Spotify. I'll put this up on the screen. So best use sending people to Spotify. That's going to be start to be my default because I will tell you that for whatever reason, Spotify has decided that my podcast will be one of the first to have video. So starting in about two or three weeks, they tell me I will actually start publishing video podcasts. So if you listen to the podcast on Spotify, you will actually be able to watch the podcast on Spotify. So I'm setting up for that. And there's also some extra tools like polls and commenting over there. So they're really working hard to make it really good experience. And I'm going to start to use Spotify a whole lot more. But yes, you can find me that. No, no, no, no, let's see what else we have. We can't possibly put that much into Facebook comments. Thank you, says Bethany. Again, Bethany, I'm eternally grateful for help in the Facebook group and anybody else, any of my other admins that are here. Thank you. You have to remember this too. It's really, really difficult for you to go into a situation like this. First of all, is there a podcast on? Is it is a decent question? But again, this whole video is told you why you shouldn't necessarily have to ask that. But what's even worse is is trying to get recovery in a little string of six Facebook comments. There's almost 400 pages in The Anxious Truth, the book I keep annoyingly holding up. There's a reason why it is so long. There's a reason why I'm never going to run out of podcast episodes. There's not a lot to know, right? So it's really, really hard for you to learn recovery just by a series of Instagram posts or comments in a Facebook thread, like go out and use the source material and invest. You are worth the investment in your time, whether it's free podcasts or you buy these by my books or whatever it is. So here you go. And I appreciate I'm seeing people say very nice things about my books. A while before I sign off because I know I've talked about the books a little more than I really want to but everybody also has sort of their favorite episodes, which I'm digging, kind of scrolling through here, right? Thank you. Common exposure mistakes. People are linking the stuff in the comments. I dig it. Thank you. So one of the things that I will answer really quickly before we go, because you guys are hanging in there, 52 people still here. Thank you. One of the things I will mention really quickly, and I'm going to do some posts about this too, because it gets asked all the time people ask, well, what should I do first? Should I read the podcast? Should I listen to the podcast? Should I start from the beginning? Should I read the books? Which books should I read? Look, it all goes kind of hand in hand. But if you're going to read books, then I will tell you that this if you are not sure where to go in your recovery, if you don't know, you're lost, you're confused, you don't know where to start, you've tried everything, nothing works. This is the one you want to start with. You want to start with this one first, 7% slower, which is the new, the newest book is a fun read. It's fast. It's a little easier. It's lighter, but it will help you a whole lot more if you read this one first. The other book, which is called an anxiety story. That's just my own story. So if you want that one, which you can get on my website, you can get on smash words as a free download, you can get it as an audio MP3 on my my own website, free as an MP3 download. That's if you want to know my story, by all means, you can get that one anytime. That's not required unless you just want to know who the hell this dude is and what I went through, right? So so that you know that I've been through what you've been through. But when it comes to the books, read the anxious truth first, then go get 7% slower, I would say, get them both at the same time if really want to again, tuition bills coming up. So for those of you that do not know that, yes, either in January or March, I will be a full time graduate student in clinical mental health counseling. So there you go. For those of you not following me on Instagram, that is it. So yeah, I got to pay those bills. I got two kids in college at the same time. So help me out help a brother out, right? Anyway, so that's what's going on. All right, shameless plugs done at the end. Let's see here. I'll do one more. I am totally shady. Let's do one more real quick one and then I'll sign off. How do I determine my 7% slower acknowledgement? Can you give me an example? I'm having trouble with the acknowledgement homework? Sure. I'll answer that really quickly before we hang up. The Oh, cool. Just finished my master's in clinical mental health counseling. Very good. So remember the club, I guess. So how do you know what you're with your 7% so what you're rushing what I did in the book when I said start to acknowledge them and I gave you homework. Tell me what happens when you get anxious. Now, it may possibly be that you you don't have the rushing response. If you're more of a freeze person, then that's okay. Like that you might not have the rushing response. In which case, if that doesn't apply to you, then by all means, even get a refund from Amazon. I would be okay with that. But generally speaking, when I ask people, what does it look like when you start to get anxious and afraid and you're trying to escape? They give me all the same responses. I stumble over my words. I start to drop things. I fumble things. I can't write. I can't speak. I start to walk really fast. I start tapping my leg. I start fidgeting. Those are your signs that you are speeding up. So the homework that I gave was start to realize those and just write them down and go through them so that you can catch them when they happen. Right. So hopefully that answers your question. The homework there is just write it down. Just what happens when you try to escape. That's where you will find your speeding up habits that you can start to intercept and maybe break. But again, if you're not a speeding a person and some people aren't, most people are but some people aren't. That might be why you're having problem with that homework. And if you're not, that's okay. Then the book wasn't for you. And by all means, I would support yourself. I would support you getting a refund. No problem there. All right, peeps. We're good to go. Check it out. Kathleen is going to be in grad school at the same time as I'm squee. I always get a kick out of squee. Don't know why. All right, cool. We'll sign it together. Excellent. All right, guys, thanks for coming by. If there's questions and comments or ever you happen to be look admittedly, I'm not good at the comments on YouTube, but I will do my best to check in from time to time. Go ahead and leave them below. I will try and check in. This will stay in the Facebook group. It will stay in my Facebook page. And I will post it to my IGTV also so you can comment over there. Thank you for coming by. And next week, we're going to start doing, I believe we're going to start doing Recovery Mondays, where every Monday we'll do a little live stream about this time of day for 10 or 12 minutes, and we're going to do like one lesson out of the anxious truth, one recovery lesson every day for not every day every week for many weeks because there's a lot of lessons in the book, but I dig the whole like short live stream. So we're going to do more of that. Look for those announcements starting next week. And yeah, thanks for coming by. Appreciate you guys later.