 We are back, we're back for another Recovery Monday. How's everybody doing? Today we're gonna talk about, by the way, we're streaming live on whatever day this is. It's October 2nd, and if you're watching a replay, welcome to the replay. If you're watching live, I'm gonna put the chat overlay up. Hello everybody, when does it start? It starts now, I'm a couple minutes late today, I'm really sorry. No, it hasn't started yet, but now it has. So today we're gonna talk about the idea that you're allowed to be human in recovery because sometimes I just see a whole lot of people kind of beating themselves up for being, having emotions or feeling anxious feelings or having negative thoughts or getting down on themselves. Like those things, those human experiences are failing and that doesn't have to be that way, right? So we're gonna talk about that today. Excuse me, I might not be able to go as long as I usually do today. We're definitely under the weather. I've been trying to pretend that I haven't been since Saturday, but so I'll chill with you guys for at least a half hour or so, but we'll see how long we go. I will put the chat overlay up so you guys can see each other and talk to each other, which is always nice when you do that. Mustard Rain, hey, Walter. Is that a Lebowski reference? You know, I used to have the G-Shock that he wore in the big Lebowski. That was always fun. Let's see. So hello, everybody, Monica. Hello, Mustard Rain. Hello, Carol from the UK. How's it going? Just a quick reminder, if you're in the Facebook group, I will only see you as Facebook user because Reastream won't show me your name, but otherwise I will see your name. So if you want to make a comment and say your name, that's fine, you might want to do that. And yeah, so hope everybody's doing okay today. Let's talk about the idea that, first of all, let's define like failure in recovery because this prompted this, was the idea that somehow your, if you are feeling things, whether you're feeling anxiety or whether you have a panic attack or your anxiety is triggered in some way or you have negative thoughts or you're feeling symptoms or whatever it happens to be, that the experience of feeling things or experiencing like a state of feeling is a failure. And it's not, it's just not. Like I don't like when people do that because it's sort of not fair to you to judge that. Like recovery is not about instantaneously preventing your feelings. It's never about preventing anxiety. It's never about preventing thoughts from happening. None of that. Like that's not where recovery is. Recovery is learning a new relationship with those things. But I do understand that in the heat of the moment when we're feeling really emotional and we're under the gun, like we're just feeling anxious or maybe there's a lot of stress in our lives and our resilience is sagging a little bit and we're not feeling necessarily as flexible and we're just under it, like we're up against it. It can be easy to like be triggered emotionally, which is fine. You're gonna have big emotions about your emotions and about your state. And then it's be very easy to fall into the trap of emotional reasoning. Like because I feel so emotional over the fact that I'm feeling anxiety again, maybe I had two good weeks and now I'm feeling it again. That makes me emotional. I will make an emotionally reasoned judgment that I am failing, I am weak, I am incapable. I don't know how to do this. I'm never gonna get better. And like while I understand how that happens because emotional reasoning is the thing that every human being is susceptible to, you know, we wanna try and remain aware of that. You know, try to remain aware of it. Try to remain connected to that and understand that it's okay to feel things. It's okay to feel fear. It's okay to feel sadness. It's okay to feel angry. It's okay to feel all our emotions. It's even okay to be anxious. It's not desired, right? Nobody wants to feel anxious. Nobody wants to panic. Nobody wants to feel afraid of leaving their own home, that sort of stuff. Nobody wants to be thinking about their health all the time. But it really is important to recognize that one of the lessons we're learning in recovery is that those are human experiences that are bound to happen to us sometimes and we have to learn to form new relationships with them instead of immediately hitting the disaster. But in hitting the panic button, calling yourself a failure, calling it square one, calling it a huge setback, that's like not fair to you and it just puts you in a bad spot and it's that harsh negative self-judgment that can make things even worse. It makes it worse than it has to be, put it to you that way, right? So again, I'm gonna repeat over and over again that being human is not something you're trying to engineer yourself out of in recovery. Like recovery isn't about learning to be less human. I feel less, I don't feel anxiety, I'm never afraid. I only have positive thoughts, that's not being human. Recovery is about learning how to be better at being human which means that yeah, I'm gonna feel stuff sometimes. I'm going to have experiences, internal, we call them internal experiences. I'm gonna experience emotions, I'm gonna experience anxiety, I'm gonna be uncertain sometimes. I'm gonna not feel very confident on some days, I might be afraid of things. Those are human experiences. Those are part of the human experience. They are pretty much universal unless something is seriously wrong. And none of recovery is about learning how to prevent being human. I cannot stress that enough today because lately I'm just seeing so many people that are stuck in the rut of I'm trying to engineer ways to not feel anxious or not have negative thoughts or only have happy thoughts or never be in a low mood. And if that fails and I do feel low mood or I am anxious after I've managed to engineer a week without big anxiety, then I'm doing it wrong. I'm failing, this isn't right. It doesn't work, I'm never gonna get better. I'm different, that's just not fair. And it's something that I hear again and again and again. You know, if you're new to this process, you're gonna fall into that trap, right? Because that's just normal. And so you have to learn the lesson that I'm trying to teach today. And again, if you're new to this, no one's probably ever said this to you. I'm not amazing, I'm not brilliant because I'm saying it, I didn't invent this but you just may have never taken an approach to your anxiety issues that includes this type of view. And so maybe this is the first time you're overhearing, somebody say this to you and that's fine, if it's new to you, then like anything else, you're learning something new and you're adapting and you're trying to take on new information and adjust, right? So that's okay. But what's tough to see are people that are in our community that get stuck in this cycle again and again and again and again, sometimes for months, sometimes for years, right? It's only, and this is based on the premise that I am only okay if I am perfectly okay. I am only okay if I'm not anxious. I am only okay if I am calm. I am only okay if I face no challenge. I am only okay if I experience positive emotions. I am only okay if I'm in a good mood. Like so, disorder and anxiety will whisper in your ear that those things are dangerous or that you're not capable. It will make you doubt your ability to handle those things but doesn't mean that that's true. And demanding again and again over and over for months and months on end that every time you experience a negative internal state that you have to dig into that state and launch the narrative that you are special, broken, different, incapable and never gonna get better is just, that's a habit you have to start to become aware of and it's something you have to be mindful of. Write yourself a note, stick it on the fridge, tattoo it on your arm, whatever it takes to start to understand, oh, I'm doing that thing again. Where I feel a thing and then I emotionally draw, I draw emotionally reasons, catastrophic conclusions about the world, about myself, about my self worth, about my capability because of this state, this emotional state, this internal state that I'm experiencing right now. And that is not fair. It is not fair to you. It's really hard for people to support you when you get in that state because then you find that you're continually going just for support that just sounds like a broken record. No, no, no, it's just anxiety, it's just anxiety. It's okay, you can handle this. And then you have to, you keep digging yourself into a hole and have to try and dig yourself out. So again, if you're new to this, it's normal to have that reaction. And even if you're not new to this, it's normal to have emotions over this. So I just see Mustard Rain asks, by the way, I always love that, that screen name. Sorry guys, my voice isn't so great. Did I ever get trapped in this? I will admit that for me, I didn't get trapped in, I'm never gonna get better. I didn't experience that. It doesn't mean that I'm special or stronger. It just, that wasn't part of the experience for me, but I did get trapped in being really frustrated and impatient. Like for me, it was an impatient feeling. It was a frustrated feeling. And sometimes my trap was, it would be going slower than I wanted it to do to be, or maybe I would be working on exposures that I thought I had mastered two weeks ago, that for some reason one morning were really hard for me again. And I would feel frustrated that the progress was seemingly going backwards. And my problem wasn't that I would say that I was failing or in a huge setback or back to square one. I would see it as I need to work harder at this. And so I would drive myself to somehow do it harder, like recover harder. And I had to learn the lesson that like, no, no, no, this, it doesn't mean I have to do anything different. It's just for whatever reason today, I'm a little bit saggy and I'm not as resilient as I was last week. And so I feel things more. So yeah, I did experience some of that, right? I do experience some of that, but I never experienced, admittedly, I'm always gonna be transparent with you guys. I'd never really got in the trap of I'm never gonna get better. My trap would be I would push myself to try and recover harder, which was in retrospect, ridiculous. Some of you watching right now, or if you're watching in the replay, you may, that may resonate with you. Oh yeah, yeah, I get that. When I get frustrated, I think I have to, or you think you're doing it wrong. Like I never thought I was doing it wrong. I just thought I could do it harder. It's really like mind blowing, even when I hear myself say that now, that like I could recover harder. What a ridiculous thing to say. I would never tell anybody in the universe to recover harder. That's crazy. But that's what I would think. Some people will say, I need, for me, I then start to launch into trying to figure it out. So if I experience a state that I don't deem acceptable, an internal state that I deem unacceptable, it's in the red zone, it can never have that happen. The fact that it happened means I'm doing something wrong and I have to figure out what I did wrong. I better analyze some more theory. I better read a little bit. I better go listen to more podcasts. Clearly I'm missing a technique that would have prevented this. And that's not fair either because that's not true. So I'm gonna repeat myself a lot in this stream because I think these are such important things. This is like the more humanistic side of recovery. This is not the technical side of recovery. This is not the engineering side of recovery, right? No, none of that. I'm gonna talk about the Facebook group in a minute. So I'm watching the conversation. I see it, give me a second and I'm gonna address the Facebook group. I'm probably gonna address it once and for all. I'm gonna say it one more time. But in this situation, I think there is a human side of recovery and the emotional side is part of it. And learning that recovery is also learning to deal with those things. Sometimes we think that all we're doing is I'm here fixing my health anxiety. I'm here fixing my agoraphobia. I'm here fixing my OCD. But guess what? You're probably going to work on more than just that. It is incredibly rare that somebody goes through the recovery process and somehow only interacts with their distorted anxiety. Parts of your personality will enter into this. Parts of your past experiences will enter into this. Your self image will enter into this. Your past experiences will enter into this. Your beliefs will enter into this. And this is the human part of it. And that means that there's gonna be emotions and it's gonna be a roller coaster sometimes and declaring yourself a failure or incapable or discounting all of your progress or screaming square one and pounding on the table because you're being human is simply not a thing that's productive or useful. It's expected. And if it happens to you sometimes that's okay, don't declare that now I'm failing because I did that thing that Drew said I wasn't supposed to do. But if it is a perpetual habit, this is a thing you go to over and over and over and over again. And you are still looking for some technique that will stop that. That's a frustrating place to be, right? So just being aware of it sometimes and being willing to take a risk that this time I will treat it differently than the last time just a little bit is the way to start to break those patterns. Just saying the patterns is also not fair to you. So if I'm gonna continually declare failure, whatever weakness, I can never get better. This is beyond me. It doesn't work. And all you keep doing is you'll tell anybody that listens, you wanna tell them that story. I don't know, I'm so hard on myself. I'm so hard on myself. I'm really hard on myself. I'm so hard on myself. I'm so critical of myself. Okay, like at some point you have to say, okay, I'm gonna stop self-flagellating here as a response. I'm gonna recognize what I'm doing and let me see what happens if I stop telling people that today and I try to do something different. So my advice in terms of how to deal with this human side sometimes is if you wanna start to break that cycle because you're stuck in it perpetually. Not that it happens sometimes. You're stuck in it on a perpetual cycle is what can I do different this time with this experience that I didn't do last time? Even if it's a tiny little change and you make tiny little adjustments over the time to start to let yourself off the hook to take the chance that maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm not in a complete ground zero setback. Maybe I'm creating the ground zero square one thing that I keep complaining I get dragged but maybe I'm actually participating in that. Open yourself up to look at it from a different way and try things a little bit different. It's really important, right? So that's one way that you can start to address that perpetual cycle but above all always remember that you are not learning to engineer out emotions, thoughts. You cannot learn to stop having thoughts. I must say it 10 times a week and I'm gonna keep saying it 10 times a week until I guess I'm done with this particular mission that I'm on or whatever that is but you cannot stop having thoughts. You cannot stop feeling negative sometimes. You cannot choose to be positive. You can't demand to only be positive. You cannot decide to not be afraid. You will be afraid. That's part of the deal. We're learning to be better at being afraid. We're not learning to not be afraid. We're learning to be better at being afraid. Only then do we feel less afraid over time. So sometimes this is also a logical or intellectual acceptance of what I'm saying to you right now but emotionally, no. And like this may resonate with some people watching right now also and feel free to chime into the comments. I'm gonna read some comments in a second, I promise. And I'm sorry about the throat clearing thing. I forgot to bring in some water. Anyway, so yeah, in that situation, like it's like, okay, I know that I hear you say that the exposure isn't the restaurant. It's the panic. Like for example, that's a discussion I was just recently in, like it's not the restaurant. It's the panic. That's the point of the exposure is to feel the anxiety, to feel the panic, to feel the fear, to feel the uncertainty, to trigger the negative thoughts. We actually need those things as part of our recovery. And you might be, usually when you're confronted with, oh, I hear you say that or I heard you say it in a podcast or I saw you write it in a book but when I actually have to do it, no. And that's okay. Again, everybody gets to that point in their own way in their own time where they're willing to try and do that but it's not fair to say, I want to do it this way. And again, everybody gets to pick their way. Also, you may decide that this orientation that I have is ultimately not for you and that's okay. You pick your own way, nothing wrong with that. But it's really unfair for you to say, I like this, that guys like Drew sound like, people like Drew say this, that Claire Weeks, Kim Quinlan, Josh Fletcher, all these people. They say, I like this, this speaks to me. I want to do it this way. But I also want to insist that I never have human experiences like strong emotions or anxiety or fear. That is, you stop, just hit the brakes right now because you can't reconcile those two things. If you're gonna go down this path, you are going to experience negative internal experiences that are part of being human. And I know that I see the comments are slow today because I have a feeling people are just listening. And you know how I know? People are saying, usually the viewer count goes up and down, pretty solid today. So take this on, just stop for a few minutes, think about what I'm saying, watch this again if you have to, sit down quietly and reflect on it if you have to. It's not fair to yourself to say that I want to follow these principles that people like Drew talk about. But I also wanted to declare myself and the whole process an absolute failure if I come up against the feelings that I have to come up against as part of the process that this crazy dude from New York is talking about. Absolutely not fair, absolutely right? So, you know, 17 minutes in, not too bad. I'll go a little bit longer, I'm gonna do some comments. Let's talk for a quick second about the Facebook group. I've said this in the Facebook group and I'm gonna say it again here because if you're watching this and you're in the Facebook group and yes, it's different now, it's pretty inactive, only I can post, only the admins can post. It was incredibly difficult to create the environment that I see people sort of pining away for. This is not like Pat Drew on the back, Pat the admins on the back, you guys know the admin team in the Facebook group, I'm never gonna be able to pay those people back for the time that they put in. It was very, very time consuming and incredibly difficult to create the environment that probably made that group as successful as it did. I want you to think for a second about the fact that group has been basically dormant now except for the posts that I make and the admins make sometimes, that's true. And that's a huge difference from what it used to be. But you are still here, right? You are still here and you can still move forward. That group was never going to fix you. It was never gonna provide the magic bullet that you think you've been missing and do not overvalue the ability to just talk about your anxiety with people on demand because the biggest obstacle that I faced in that group was it quickly can become a breeding ground for what we call co-rumination, which you will call community support and I will see people get stuck in. And I would have to wake up every morning even though we have admins helping from all around the world and all the time zones and see 17 people, the first thing in the morning that wanted to ask questions that we had already answered literally a thousand times. That's not your fault, but I want you to consider that the effort that it would take to create the environment that you guys are pining away for that you want back so much. It's very hard, it was very hard. And I will freely admit that at this stage of the game and then I'm gonna get back to the topic at hand, we'll go into the comments. I'm not gonna be labored this. At this stage of the game, having gone back to school and pursuing actual formal training and becoming an actual therapist, like I just can't sustain that anymore. That was a tremendous load for a long time and it was a tremendous load on the volunteers that would help to keep the group on the straight and narrow. So I'm grateful for what the group was and I would urge you to take a second to be maybe grateful for what the group was but it's not ever going to return to what that was again. And I submit to you that you can recover even if it doesn't return to that. So that's my feelings on the Facebook group. Thanks for bringing it up. So let's go through comments real quick here. Let's see what questions you guys have to say. Again, I'm really sorry about clearing my throat. Again, I was kind of was trying to just like power through like I'm not sick but not working out so well especially today. For people who are trying to join the Facebook group you can join the Facebook group but just be aware it might take a while to get you in there because we're not looking at membership requests and you will not be able to post. So if you have been hearing about this Facebook group and you really wanna join it because you think you can roll you can join the group and then you'll have access to ask me questions you won't because you can't post, right? You're welcome, Bea. Bethany was one of our administrators she's in the comments right now. I know sometimes there are others. Those people spent a lot of time a lot of time on that group and I am eternally grateful for them and the work that they did in their fabulous group. I love you guys. So you can join the group, that's fine. It's called the anxious truth that anxiety support group just be aware that I will post when there's new podcast episodes or I have something to say or the admins but you won't be able to just pop in and ask a question as we just couldn't answer them all anymore. Let's do it and get a little sensitized from nerves. One best armor, I'm a huge fan of this. So Becky is our resident Twitch viewer she always watches from Twitch we got my one Twitch viewer who's into cosplay and makes these incredible like really cool costumes and outfits. I love them. So I love that you won best armor is not a thing that you would normally see in these live streams, so that's really great. I often feel like I failed says Brandy and I get that like it's okay to have that feeling. So the other thing that I would say and I appreciate this comment and I'm sorry that you're struggling with that Brandy but like I feel like I failed. Okay, well I'm having emotions. So consider this too, it's important, right? I'm having emotions and I don't wanna have those emotions because anxiety tells me that I'm incapable or just partially myself image over the years tells me I'm incapable or should never have them or they're not allowed whatever it happens to be in. I'm having emotions and I don't like that. So I will declare having emotions a failure and then when I see that I'm declaring my emotions as failure then I declare the failure to be the declaration of failure to be failure. So in this thing that we do together there's thinking and then there's thinking about thinking, right? Or there's not really, there's having thoughts and then there's thinking about your thoughts it's two different things. So there's having thoughts and then I start thinking about my thoughts and then there's feeling and then there's feeling about how I'm feeling and that's where things can really start to go off the rail. So just be nice to yourself as best you can. One good rule of thumb is when you want to declare yourself weak or a failure or incapable or like you're ruining everything or you're never gonna get right would you say that to someone that you care about? Would you say that to a friend? Would you even say that to a stranger in the comment section? You probably wouldn't, right? So I would almost bet that as I scroll down through the comments I see Brandi shared that, you know, okay I often feel like a failure. I would lay dollars to donuts if the comments were more active today if somebody would probably say you're not a failure Brandi. A total stranger would probably say that. So you wouldn't, if you wouldn't say it to yourself if you wouldn't say it to someone else just be careful about the things we say to ourselves easier said than done we are our own worst critics that is 100% true. It's almost like in just a part of being human don't know what it is. We can be kind to other people and be nasty to ourselves. So try to be nasty, not try to be nasty don't be nasty to yourself try to catch it, right? Try to catch it. It's important. Again, would you say it to someone else then don't say it to you or if you do say it to you at least catch it like, oh, I'm really I'm shit talking to myself again. Like I don't have to do that. Like what can I do different this time? I understand I'm feeling a thing right now I'm just gonna have to let this feeling of disappointment, frustration, impatience feelings of failure, I'm gonna have to let them be there and what can I do now while I feel that way is a really good way to go, right? I got to get to the Wally World thing which I see up in there, I'm gonna scroll because I'm digging a Wally World reference. Did you ever get trapped in this? Hello Nadia, feel better. Thank you. I'm sure I'm gonna be fine. I'm a bad sick person. Like I get impatient and all that stuff. See, listen, here I am talking about like being patient with yourself, being kind to yourself and I'm terrible at that when I get sick. I'm not horribly sick, I'm just, I just feel it. Let's see here. Do the work, I feel strong, I feel confident. Love this, Mike Vance. Dude, I know how hard you've worked on this, right? And so this is great to hear. I was almost, I started, I finally started to do the work. I feel strong, confident, love it, love it. Yeah, my sick noises are fine, exposures. Good job, Mike. I know that you have struggled and you have worked hard. So you have earned all of that and I'm happy to hear that. Currently have the bug, the flu. It's going around here, unfortunately. This is, I mean, since it's a topic, I try not to make, like, being sick a topic but I currently have the flu bug. It's going around here for sure. I don't know where I got it, but I got it. I found it hard to work out what's anxiety and what is the flu. I started saying it's okay to not be okay. In this situation, you might not know. So it's important to recognize that for people in our community, often, many people, even if you don't have, like, health anxiety specifically, right, it's very, very common. If you do get sick, regardless of what it is, you get the flu, a cold, a sinus infection, a stomach bug, whatever, almost any illness sometimes will be like, oh, it makes my anxiety go through the roof. Now, when you feel better, that health anxiety, air quotes will go away. But it's very, very, very common, right, very common. Just keep in mind that that's a representation of, I'm terrified of my own body and I really feel the need to keep my body, like this, all the time. In the same state, no ups, no downs, predictable, steady heart rate, steady breathing. I need my body to be like this all the time. Any change in your body, like if you drink a cup of coffee or have some caffeine or too much sugar or you eat too much or you get sick or you work out too hard in your sore, often is interpreted as, uh-oh, uh-oh. So when you say it's hard to determine what's the flu and what's anxiety, it's all the flu, right? And then you're anxious because your body has changed and you're afraid of that. Most of the time, that's what that is. Terry says, team frustrated inpatient, checking in. I get that, that was me, frustrated inpatient. It's hard, but it's okay, like I had to learn, like, oh, I'm gonna be frustrated today. And you know what, I'd have those days. I would have frustrated days. I'd have days when I was a little bit, little ornery, little snippy, little angry, right? I was just feeling it and like I had to learn, like, well, I'm just gonna have to be, like, you know, frustrated and impatient, maybe a little angry today. Okay, that's another thing, like anger or low mood. Like we humans are designed to feel all the things, including anger, so sometimes we are told that specific emotions shouldn't exist. You know, raise your hand if you've been told that anger is an unproductive emotion. It's a lower emotion. Like we should be able to evolve our way out of anger. Like who said that? Come on, like that's ridiculous. So that was me sometimes. I had to learn like, I have to let this be here and feel this way today. Didn't want to, but it made a difference. Okay, cool. So Bethany is talking about like, I must have slacked off and gotten lazy. I wasn't thorough enough. Like I must be feeling anxiety again because I took my foot off the gas. I slowed down in my recovery and I did something wrong. I missed something. I wasn't thorough enough as really accurate. So I appreciate you sharing that, right? These are very common themes, you guys. Dealing with the anxiety while just letting it be there. Yeah, I get it, Charlie. I hope you feel better. It's not like no fun being sick, I get it. Seems to be going around. Let's see here. We're not going to talk about certain things here. You're going to find, not that I don't care, but you're going to find that the content I produce is very rarely body focused, if ever. I will acknowledge that you feel things in your body, but I almost never address like physiological explanations for an anxiety disorder. You can disagree with that and say that I'm missing it. That's your prerogative, but I always like to be upfront with you guys, especially if you're new to this community. And waiting for me to talk about that, you're going to very rarely hear that from me. I don't, that's not where I put my eggs. Let's see here. Here you go. So Becky sharing that her past experiences entered the picture. They naturally came up with the idea of having to think them or resolve them. Again, I think it's really important like you're going to experience all of these things. And I think almost without exception, I'm trying to think of anybody I've ever encountered that was just like, yeah, I'm only agoraphobic. That was my only problem. I fixed the agoraphobia and no other part of my personality, my life, my experiences, my social structure entered into it. That's almost never that way. Because you are part of a whole person. Like you're agoraphobia or healthy. Anxiety or OCD is part of a whole person. It's not just that, right? So it's important to recognize that. You don't have to necessarily dig for the other things, but invariably you're going to come up against some things that are going to trigger emotions and memories and all of those things. You're allowed to be human today's topic. You're allowed to be human in recovery. Doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. Excuse me. Grateful I found your channel. Good, I'm glad you find it helpful. Thanks for being here. Let's see. When you finally reach the point where you, I'll put this up on the screen. Watch Drew scroll through the comments part of the program. When you finally reach the point where you were completely okay with being with the anxiety, did it still take a long time for your nerves to heal? So it's a good question. It's a reasonable question. You will find that one of the words that I don't like and I don't use is heal, right? So heal indicates that somehow or other, there's something broken or dysfunctional or wrong with your nerves, your nervous system, your body, whatever it happens to be. So my nerves didn't have to heal at all. There was nothing wrong with my nerves. There was nothing wrong with my nervous system. And again, you can choose to disagree and say, this is nervous system regulation. Cool, just you won't hear me say those things and then I might not be for you and that's okay. So no, did it take a long time for my nerves to heal? My nerves were totally fine. They never needed to heal. What it did take a while, what does take a while is for cognitive habits and sort of survival habits, if you will, to start to die out. So yes, even though, and that's why I say all the time, there's very rarely a time when someone wakes up and says, hey, I'm recovered because you just don't know. Like I don't know what today brings. I don't, you know, I would think I was pretty much recovered and then maybe I'd have a couple of tough days and I would experience things that I used to experience all the time and I would experience them once in a while. So the common story, my experience, and you guys can chime in if you want, is that what would happen is that the triggers or the high anxiety states, whatever you're dealing with, particularly for me was panic attacks, maybe for other people it's health obsessions and things like that, those things would start to last shorter amount of time, that the duration would shrink and then the time between those episodes would start to stretch out. So I don't conceptualize that as my nerves were healing. I just conceptualize that as those old reactions that alert mechanism was starting to stand down a little bit. It was less sensitive. If you want to call it healing, that's totally fine. The reason why I don't say healing is that it indicates that something is broken that you have to fix or your body isn't broken. So hopefully that helps. But that seems to be a common thing. First, the triggers are shorter and then there's more time between them. So call that what you want but that's a pretty common experience. If anybody wants to confirm that, that's fine. Let's see, this resonates so much. I have felt a failure since childhood. Yeah, so Carol, I'm really, you know, that's tough. That's a tough place for you to put carrots, the Carols thing up here. And I'm going to kind of heal. I'm going to kind of look out in about five minutes. I have felt a failure since childhood, almost 60. I cannot deal with thoughts, emotions, even excitement. I must be the only one. Yeah, but you're human after all. You totally are human. And listen, that's a tough place to be. I'm sorry that you've lived that experience. It's never too late to learn different ways. So I can appreciate that it's been many years for you. Recognize that sometimes there's so many factors that go into that view of the world and ourselves. Sometimes people are in environments where people tell them that they're not allowed to express their emotions. Some people wind up in environments either as children or other times in their life where if you are anxious or afraid or experiencing big emotions, you're ruining my day. So stuff that, don't ruin my day with your experiences. And then you can start to learn that it's like, it's not acceptable to have big emotions. It's not acceptable to be worked up. It's not acceptable to show them. It's not acceptable to be afraid. That's a tough place to be. But you can always learn, right? And you are human. You're allowed to be human. We don't get to not be human. Sucks. It is live. If you are watching on October 2nd at 2.40 p.m. Eastern time, it is live. If you're not, then it's not. It's a replay. Oh, yes, I made it to the Wally World reference. National Lampoon's Vacation, one of my favorite, excuse me, one of my favorite movies. Holiday Recovery is, Anxiety Recovery is Holiday Road. You get to Wally World, just enjoy the bumps and mishaps along the way. If you've never seen those movies, they're older movies. They're really funny. But yes, you're 100% right. And you know what the funny thing about that first movie is, right? Like so, if you guys know the movie, they went through all these trials and tribulations and it's actually pretty good. We can learn lessons from that movie. So the Chevy Chase character is the main character, Clark Griswold. He plans out a perfect, idealic, family, old-fashioned, family road trip vacation to Wally World, the fictitious amusement park that they wanna go to, presumably at Disney World, like fictitious analog. But as it turns out, sorry about that. As it turns out, the trip is nothing like that. Nothing, it's just one mishap after another. It's a funny movie. It's comedy, but, and they made it. They still made it to Wally World in the end. And then when they got to Wally World, the park was closed. John Candy, like comic genius, gone too soon. Like, you know, sorry, sorry folks, parks closed, the moose should have told you. So like it just goes to show you that like we make, we think we can plan and control and, and he was, that was a good example of trying to plan for perfection. Yeah, the moose should have told you, this is one of my favorite lines ever in that movie. And it's a lesson in like flexibility in a way, psychological flexibility is a thing. So thanks for the, thanks for the Wally World reference. I appreciate it. Let's see here. Good morning, whoever is in the Facebook group in the morning, clearly in a different time zone. Let's see here. Perfect health, the dream. Just being able to breathe out of both nostrils sometimes is a dream, but I get that. All right, so let's see here. Since back, since my friend's trip, I am back on, back on the coffee, you kids like the rock and roll? Terry, sometimes you crack me up. And by the way, congratulations on your strike ending that's gotta be a big load lifted. So good job on you, good job you guys for sticking with that, getting what you wanted. I think you did a good job. Back on the coffee and loving it. Vicki's talking about body sensitivity. It's a thing for sure. Would you compare anxiety, recovery or brain can make a bad connection? It takes a lot of time. Yeah, this is a reasonable question. Would you compare anxiety, recovery like trying to lose weight? Feels like your brain can make a bad connection and it takes a lot of time to rewire. Yeah, like what I always try to say is we're dealing with a threat detection system, right? That system is designed to keep us safe and keep us alive. People always talk about that like a pretty decent part of our brains evolved not to keep us happy or contented or positively vibrating, they literally evolved to keep us alive so that we can have kids and perpetuate the species. I mean, that's what a lot of our brain, the lower parts of our brain that really care about that. And that system from an evolutionary perspective should be really easy to trigger so that we catch the threats and we stay alive and really hard to turn off because if you could literally just turn off your threat response, like in one exposure, it would be a crappy system, right? So it's like the smoke alarm in your house. Like if you could just turn that thing off without having to climb up on a damn ladder to do it, you would just turn it off and then you wouldn't listen and bad things could happen. So we wanna make threat detection systems easy to trigger, favor a false alarm if need be, because that's the better bet. Like we'll favor a false alarm as opposed to ignoring danger and harder to turn off. So yeah, man, it takes a while for sure. No doubt. Psychological flexibility is a big thing. Mustard rain throws it up here. It's a core component in many approaches to treatment of therapy. It's a big deal learning to be more psychologically flexible. Let's see, I had to spend the last three nights alone. Let's throw this up on the screen. Sorry, I won't show your name. Last three nights alone as my wife had to work nights, I did it, it was tough, very scary. Scary thoughts just don't stop at one step at a time. Excellent, sometimes just so scared of thoughts and moving that I don't wanna do anything. Yeah, it's okay, like that's part of it, right? You're learning, oh, through those experiences, like, oh, those were super scary thoughts and I had so many of them, but they were just thoughts and I was able to navigate through them if I just let them be there, tolerate them and stop trying to save myself from them. It's a hard turn to make, right? Cause the normal knee jerk response that would be, this feels super threatening and dangerous right now and I must do something about this right this minute. So it is a crazy hard left turn to make to not do anything about it. But when you don't do anything about it and you still come out the other end, like, that's where the lesson is. Good job. I know that that was very difficult for you, I'm sure. Let's see. I don't understand why I have good days being outside and then some days my anxiety makes, let's see. So this is almost the topic today. I don't understand why I have good days being outside and then some days my anxiety makes me have DPDR. Will it always come and go? The answer is maybe. Like, that's not the answer you want and I'm not trying to tell you like, oh, you're gonna have a lifetime of DPDR, but I experienced an anxious sensation and so my response, like is the topic today you're allowed to be human is I need to figure out why? Cause that's a state that I think I should never ever, it's okay to not want that, don't get me wrong. It's not something you will want, but in this situation, I'm so afraid of it that I've decided that I should never ever feel that. I must never feel that. And so if I'm okay on Tuesday but then I have DPDR on Wednesday, I will hit the panic button and say something must be wrong. I better figure out what this is. What does it mean? Why did it happen? And can I find some assurance that this won't be like this forever? As opposed to I'm allowed to feel this. In fact, I kind of need to feel it to get better, right? So look at the different approach there. Like I'm supposed to feel this, like just cause I didn't feel it on Thursday is no guarantee of Friday. And if I do feel on a Friday, I'm gonna have to try to relate to it a little bit differently. I hate this. This is super frustrating. I wish it wasn't happening all okay. Scream, hit a pillow, tell a friend, write a journal about it. Doesn't matter. Like express yourself the way you have to. But also it's okay to feel this. I'm learning a new way to work with this feeling as opposed to let me see why it happens so I can figure it out and then see if I can gain some assurance that it'll stop happening. One of the crazy paradoxes of recovery is that you have to say, I don't want this to go away. I don't want this to hang around forever but I know that I would be capable even if it did hang around forever. So sort of we only, and that's a paradox and I did a live on this, I don't know, months ago. As people sometimes hear this message as I have to just learn to live with this forever. Is that what you're saying? No, but you have to come to the conclusion that even if I did, I would be able to handle it. Wouldn't like it. Don't want that. But I would not always have to hit the urgent panic emergency button about it. When you reach the point where you recognize I could handle this for a very long time if I had to, that's when you really increase the odds that you won't have to. Isn't that weird? That's a terrible paradox. You have to accept that you could handle this for a very long time to increase the odds that you won't have to handle it for a very long time. Oof, so much of this makes no sense and it's frustrating and it's hard to argue, it's hard to teach, tough. The healing view doesn't lend itself to viewing the process is incomplete when feeling things again. Fair enough. We'll throw that up here. So Bethany says that healing, using the word healing does lend itself to viewing the process is incomplete. Fair enough. And again, everybody's allowed to use the word healing. If healing is a thing that resonates with you, then that's totally fine. Just try not to see healing as like there's something broken in me that's fixing. If you break your leg, that has to heal. If you develop an anxiety disorder, you have to learn. So I think it's important. Let's see here. Okay folks, park's closed. Yep, I think we're near the end of the comments and I'm gonna wrap it up because I am totally like, I need to get something to drink. French coffee had to be good. Happy to get back to work. Does dissociation, dissociative have the same treatment? In this, I'll throw this up real quick. You'll find again that I rarely talk about specific symptoms, but does dissociation and dissociative symptoms have the same treatment? In the context that we're in, which is disorder, states of anxiety, dissociative symptoms like DPDR, DPDR stands for Depersonalization and Derealization, by the way, is an anxiety symptom, right? It's a, some people would call it a stress symptom. I know that for me, if I'm having a particularly stressful moment, I will feel a little bit of derealization and depersonalization. So it's just a thing, right? So yeah, we would say that it's no different. Depersonalization, if you have it, you may decide that it is the scariest thing. It's a special symptom and it needs a special approach because it's the thing that bothers you the most, but there are also people in the room right now that would say that stomach symptoms are the worst and that's the biggest problem. Others would say breathing is the worst problem. Others would say heart is the worst problem. Others would say scary thoughts is the worst problem. So we see them all as the same. So you learn to have, build a new relationship with that state. Like I don't have to hit the panic button when it happens. I can let it be there and I can work through it and ultimately it fades into the background. So that's how you would work that. That rings true moving forward now. One good result of the pandemic. You know, this is true. So Carol, you're killing it today in the comments. I appreciate you're participating. One good result of the pandemic is the awareness of mental health issues. I can now talk to my family. You know what? I would agree with that in a big way. It exposed our mental health weakness, honestly, in a big way. In the West, I can speak for Western nations, the US, Western Europe. It exposed our mental health weakness. Not I mean that humans are weak. Our mental health support and treatment systems really exposed them as being woefully underdeveloped here in the US for sure. We just don't have enough help for the number of people that need help, but it did start to normalize the conversation or at least bring out the conversation about the impact on mental health. So that is a good point, Carol. And I'm glad you could talk to your family now about it. That's really great. I want to thank you for everything you have done. You're very welcome. Whoever's in the Facebook group thanking me, you're welcome. But always give yourself the credit. Never give me the credit. You're doing the hard work. I'm just a dude with a map. Are you doing private practice, says Vicky. Vicky O'Long Island. In February, I could be your therapist. So yes, that I could do that. So I don't know how you can get in touch with me, but I don't put the link on my, you know what, just if you could on the replay, leave this comment on the replay because these comments go away, Vicky, and I'll post the link for you. If you want to get in touch with me, it is true that in February, I could actually be your therapist. Legally, ethically, all of those things. So if you want, I'll send you a link. Brain 2.0 will have no more threat detection. Release by Apple in 2027. That would be great, man. You know what, it just should have better threat detection or it should have more like, clearly it's an AI problem. Is it everything AI now? So tired of hearing the initials AI. I think it needs more nuance. It's just not smart enough yet. It's super fast. It's really powerful. It's just not that smart. It needs a little bit more smarts. So I think that's it, guys. I'm kind of at the end of these. Let's see, it's great to feel. It's also exposed how vulnerable we are. Yes, this is a good thing too. So GBG, thanks, I appreciate it, man. It also exposed how vulnerable we are to mental disorders. I think it did. And you know what brought that out was the fact that everybody was experiencing it at the same time. So in a way, people who would not necessarily be traditionally represented in that discussion, they might be marginalized. And I'm not starting a political argument here, but you can't argue with the data that certain segments of the population are historically underrepresented in the mental health discussion. It's just true. It's just numbers. So in this situation, yeah, it is one of those things where all of a sudden everybody experienced it. And so now we need to talk about how vulnerable we are to things like anxiety or loneliness or isolation. Like, yeah, we should have been talking about that already, people who already experienced those things. You know, it's tough. So let's see. Imagine if leaders went just like, let's see. This is a great comment. And then I'm going to wrap it up. Imagine if country leaders went like, damn, just did some grocery store shopping for my agoraphobia. Like, imagine how normal so many would feel instead of isolated and at a lot. Yeah, you know what? That's a really good point. Wouldn't that be, I mean, you wouldn't want them to have to do that, but normalizing these discussions and talking about them and recognizing just how many people are confronted, not just by anxiety disorders, but mental health issues in general, like, we do have to do better at that. Maybe in parts of the world, we do only speak for the US and probably the Western world, but we got to get better at it. Anyway, guys, thanks for hanging out. And I did the whole 45 minutes. That's pretty good. I'm proud of myself. Thanks for listening to me clear my throat at you and sound scratchy. I appreciate it. And just remember, you're allowed to be human, right? You're allowed to be human. Be careful. Be mindful of the cycle that you might be stuck in where you declare yourself weak or failing or anything like that. You don't do that. Have the feelings, feel the feelings, express them, just be careful about beating yourself up. That's not cool. So this will stay on the YouTube channel. If you ever want to come back and watch the replay or again, the person who wanted to get in touch with me, Vicki. So just wait for the, this will show up on the replay and just put your comment on the replay. Always go to YouTube. They stay on Facebook, but they're hard to find on Facebook. They stay in the Facebook group. They get buried there. So YouTube is always the best way to come back and rewatch these. Thank you. What we're doing now is every other Monday, we do one of these. So I won't do this next week, but the week after. And then every other Wednesday when there's no live stream, there's an episode of the anxious truth. And of course you should be listening to Disordered. That's the podcast I do with Josh every Friday. I hate to say it. I said it in one of my little update on the anxious truth. I think that might be the better podcast these days. So check out Disordered every Friday. That's at Disordered.fm. All right guys, I am out. Thanks for hanging out and the stream.