 This week on the anxious truth. I'm joined by frequent collaborator OCD specialist Lauren Rosen And we're each going to give you five anxiety-busting tips and concepts. So let's go Hello everybody, welcome back to the anxious truth. This is podcast episode number 210 210 recorded in May of 2022 I'm not sure when you're going to be seeing this but listening, but that's when we recorded it today I am joined by a friend of mine frequent collaborator Lauren Rosen. Lauren is a OCD specialist practicing in Southern, California We do a bunch of stuff online together and I'm proud to have her on the podcast today We decided that we would do a little bit of a top five list I never do these things top five this top three this but today Lauren and I are each going to give you Five what we like to call anxiety busting tips and concepts that helped us While we were on the road to recovery from our different anxiety problems So before we get to that because it's a really great conversation with Lauren It always is I just have a quick reminder for you that the anxious truth is more than just this podcast episode There are three really good anxiety books books about anxiety and recovery that you can find on my website at the anxious truth calm There's also 209 other podcast episodes that you will all find on my website There is my free morning newsletter called the anxious morning Which you will also find on my website at the anxious truth calm And there's just years and years of free social media content all of my links and ways to follow along are also there So avail yourself of all the resources everything is there at the anxious truth calm And as always I will also remind you that if you are enjoying this work It is helping you in some way and you would like to find a way to help support it and keep it free of Sponsorships and advertisers as it has been so far all the ways to do that can be found at the anxious truth calm slash support It's never required but always appreciated when you guys do that So thank you very much, and I'm glad you're back here today Let's get to the conversation with Lauren top five anxiety busting tips and concepts here we go see I told you She was here In the flesh well in the on the podcast In the digital flesh those of you who are just listening you should watch on YouTube too because you would see us like where I can actually see Lauren right now It's amazing Technology man. I know it's amazing. You're all the way. You're 3,000 miles away, and here we are By the way, oh, yeah the internet thing. Yeah, maybe It's just a fed but it might it might catch on yeah Anyway, thank you for coming on. I appreciate you taking the time I I can't believe that you have not been on the podcast yet. So we've done so much stuff together I know well, I just I love everything that we get to do together. I love hearing you talk about anxiety So it's it's such an honor to be here to talk to you talk with you about the These anxiety busting concepts top five anxiety busting concepts So what we're here's we're gonna do we're gonna sign like I mentioned in the intro Lauren's gonna give like her top five These are the things that as you were going through your sort of anxiety journey things that you felt really helped you They might be concepts. They might be ideas. They might be tips and tricks like everybody loves tips and tricks I don't know if we're gonna have many tips and tricks here, but Stick with us anyway. I did try to come up with some pithy phrases, but I don't know There's still when you unpack them. It's it's messier and then then just a tip or a trick All right, so let's get cooking throw it. You're not let's go to number one Lauren's number one top anxiety busting Well, no in no particular order. Let's just say there. These are five in no order. All right I like it. So the first one that I have is thoughts are not facts. Oh Okay Yeah, should I do you want me to sort of yeah, let's expound on that a little yeah Hope you Yeah, so when I entered treatment for OCD I was for the first time in my life exposed to cognitive distortions and a list of them and I'd gotten my undergraduate degree in psychology, too So I had some awareness of cognitive biases and heuristics and stuff like that But there was something about looking at this list that I thought oh my god I've been listening to my brain and trusting everything that comes up in it as though we're the undisputed truth which is really weird Obviously this is not this mechanism is not the most reliable by you know a lot of people's standards Yeah, that's true. Let me ask you this So like you're abiding by your thoughts like you said as if they are this they are 100% try must follow the mayor my thoughts I had Jen Kirkman on a few episodes back and she told such a good story about her teenage years and her younger years Now she was literally rehearsing gluing herself to her thoughts without even knowing it She she was priming herself to the point where When the thoughts went off the rails like they will and an anxiety disorder She was so primed to follow every thought already that it was just automatic. Well, of course, these are real Of course, this is true. That's so interesting. I'm curious. I didn't I haven't heard the episode yet So how did she prime though? She just spent so much time Identifying with her it was really good conversation and I never thought of this before she spent had spent so much time in her teen Years identifying as her emotions. I'm the angry person. I'm the rebellious person. I'm the deep thinker I'm the that everything that came into her head became part of her identity and I understand that that's a thing that teenagers will likely do But the way she crystallized that like okay when things went off the rails She had been rehearsing gluing herself to her thoughts for years and years and years And so the idea that oh, maybe I shouldn't do that was completely far boom like mind-blower Totally. Well, I don't know what he talks about it How is it that you can get to be 20 something years old and nobody's said to you or even more right 30 something 40 something Nobody said to you you might want to be suspicious of those things that are happening inside your brain Whether they be thoughts or feelings or what have you that you might not want to take them at face value. So understanding That what was coming up for me I that I wanted to I didn't In addition to recognizing that they weren't Facts with what the natural extension of that was that I didn't necessarily want to make my choices Based on my thoughts or my initial thoughts that I wanted to be skeptical of them and to be thoughtful about how they impacted my behavior Which was the game changer because for me because For the longest time I'd take my take my thoughts really seriously and then just launched into Fixing whatever problem they had told me I had yeah because it seems logical like that's what you do of course It is amazing that nobody teaches us that nobody talks about that. I mean, you know, you're in the in that business, too I mean, I have people that are 30 40 50 years old that when I hit when they hear me say like, you know Your thoughts aren't necessarily important It's like a what? What do you mean? Yes, exactly because I think most a lot of people never really consider that that might be a thing So that's a good I dig it thoughts are not facts What about you? Are we are we going to exchange? Interlace yes, I think my first one that came to mind this morning when we were talking about this topic is Considering the possibility that maybe my anxious thoughts and my anxiety symptoms were wrong That was that was a big it was almost one of the early first steps Like the idea that oh, I'm gonna have to at least consider that no matter how strong and urgent and scary this is They might be wrong and and I found that that was a tough reality to to confront a little bit I think for many people it is like But they feel so strong. Yeah, but you're going to have to at least begin to consider the possibility that they are wrong So my number one, you know anxiety busting concept was it least consider the possibility that Those scary thoughts and sensations have actually been feeding you a line of BS It's possible. Oh good. And it's really interesting how our first two concepts really overlap a lot I think all of these are gonna overlap a lot to be honest with you. Totally. Yeah, and but I had the idea that It because so many of us before we get into recovery It's been a lot of time trying to prove some other concept right in place of the the concept that we're just Suggesting could be wrong. So all of the churning about like no, but that couldn't possibly be true As opposed to just saying, you know, that that could be true, but so could this other thing which is subtle but very different Yeah, again, you know for me the repeated experience has started to make a difference like well I've had this is like heart attack number 700. So I'm going to have to Consider the possibility that maybe that's wrong. Yeah, and that was a there was a bit of a turning point in the beginning early turning point But turning point nonetheless. So that was my number one What's your number two? number two for me was that thoughts and thinking were different and Yeah, which it sounds weird But I know not to you, but I think if somebody told me that a while ago, I'd be like, huh, what? but the idea that thinking as a behavior was so revolutionary to me because Especially with OCD well and all anxiety the thoughts that are popping into your head you feel so powerless in the face of and and To learn that there's something that you do have control over you you get to choose whether or not you keep digging For the certainty you keep digging the hole or if you put down the shovel and you walk away in spite of the fact that you really want to dig But if you don't know that it's a behavior you don't know that you are doing something You know, then how do you how do you even begin to consider stopping? No, you don't you don't know you don't know I I try and teach people to just make a single statement of fact, which is oh, I'm thinking and that's it That's the end of the story. Oh, I'm thinking I Think it's an act Stephen Hayes acceptance community therapy. They talk about the difference between thinking and minding Mm-hmm. I love that when you're a state of minding like everybody thinks we all think you don't get to decide not to think But you can decide not to mind meaning in that context. I believe it's you know, well now I'm going to try and make meaning from my thoughts. I'm going to try to solve them. I'm going to try to Analyze them and pick them apart and react to them like no, that's minding. So Yeah, it's a very subtle thing, but I like that idea of minding like we don't have to mind But we do kind of have to think we don't have a choice. We always yeah Yeah, that's cool. I often talk about it like about as Engaging with right and I think part of that is just you probably know this given that you're in school for psychology It's sort of psychobabble speak because it's the content and the process and all of that Which is down to are you engaging with the content of your thoughts or are you engaging with the process and the fact that you are thinking? And Same kind of concept that you can be aware of the fact that you're thinking non-judgmentally mindfully Which is probably what he means. I think by minding. Yeah, probably I mean the minding as a verb Like I'm minding my thoughts on anyway. It's it's it's fascinating. We can talk about this for hours. Just this It's really good. So, okay my number two the number two on my list was I had to I had to shut up I had to shut up and what I mean by that and this is gonna separate But I'm talking about myself is I had to stop speaking my fear out loud all the time. I As soon as I felt something I wanted to speak it out loud I had to speak it to somebody my safe people my support people's mice my online forum people You know as early days of the internet, but they were there And I really had to call myself on the carpet for that like hang on a second here. This is not helping me What am I accomplishing by actually saying again what I what it feels like? It's yeah, and I think that followed after number one Like I had to at least consider the possibility that maybe this was wrong So if I'm gonna at least consider that possibility then maybe I'm going to have to consider the possibility that I need to shut up Now I'm being really harsh, but I that's what I said to myself like okay Just just be silent and I had to learn to just allow that feeling and just sit there without necessarily Speaking it into the universe again. Yeah, that was a hard habit to break But that that made a difference in my recovery in a big way Not speaking it out loud. I mean every once in a while we all we have to express ourselves It's okay. I'm not telling anybody to suppress your feelings But after a while I had to come to the realization that my feelings are dragging me up and down the street right now And I'm gonna have to put a stop to that so first I'm gonna stop saying them Yeah Nothing, but it's an attention started with I need to tell somebody I need to immediately like go to my safe person my three people and tell them that my heart is beating really fast Or tell them that I'm feeling depersonalized like no, I have to stop saying I've stopped doing that Because that's part of the being dragged up and down the street by these things. I think might be wrong Yeah, well, and I I wonder too because you meant you touched on the idea that you don't want to suppress feelings I think a lot of people anxiety or otherwise do that almost Want to share everything because the fear that they're going to sit on something and suppress it and make it worse It's sort of do you know, it's the sort of psychological savvy or with quotes of our culture That well, you can't not express something and and I think recognizing that There's a difference between feeling and expressing to You know, yeah, I think in retrospect. I could look back and say I I wasn't trying to suppress emotions I was I was trying to Relate differently to a rational fear So the emotion was always fear. It was always fear. I mean, so, you know, if you're angry or upset or resentful Or by all means you got to talk about that stuff But if you're just afraid again of a thing that is starting to look like it's probably wrong I have to stop speaking that fear It was really the fear in retrospect that gets I had to stop speaking my fear Yeah, I was important Very I was my number two I like it. Yeah, um number three number three No, number three on the hip raid uh certainty is an illusion and I wasn't even after certainty. I was after confidence was a realization that was really helpful for me because And everyone talks about certainty is the thing that everyone's after Even in our field I talk about it too And I think that's the that's what we think we're after but When it becomes clear that certainty doesn't exist about anything If we can't all say with definitive certainty that we're not living in a simulation then There's you can't say anything with certainty, right? Just just ask, you know, the creator I love that you wrote that up, you know, uh, ilan musk is telling us and he's way smarter than me. So Uh, so if there's no certainty about that, there's no certainty about anything but people what I was after was I thought it was certainty but I had The the best that I could I was certain enough from a rational perspective a million times over What I didn't have was the emotional experience of confidence And I wanted that I wanted to feel I wanted to feel sure not to be sure I mean if I could be sure that would be one thing But I think I understood rationally that I couldn't actually be any more sure than I was but I wanted to feel that and Yeah, that's really good. So that was the Wait, so you wanted to do I thought I wanted feel confident. Yeah But you thought that you wanted to feel sure or certain right And that even once I realized that certainty wasn't a thing because I think at first I was just like I just want to be sure and that seems Totally reasonable, but then it became clear. Well, wait a second sure isn't a thing What is it that I was after and recognizing that it was an emotional state of settled and assuredness that I wanted not And I I don't even think assured is not a feeling nor is Sure, really you can't feel sure, but it's the emotional experience Of confidence that That I was looking for That's good. That's really good. It's kind of deep Yeah, yeah Confidence not not necessarily assuredness because there is no such thing Yeah, you know because that's that well, we can we can only be sure enough That's the best we can hope for about anything Um I had selly winston on the podcast and she talked about that. Well, you could be I'm sure enough Hey, I'll see you at 430. We're gonna record the podcast. Well, we don't know that I might get hit by a bus at 130 Right, I'm sure enough to say I'll see you at 430. That was you know, so that's good I just want to be confident in that feeling of being sure enough Right and we exactly and we know that we can't chase feelings. That's not that's a losing game. So Recognizing that I'm after a feeling and also that confidence has nothing to do with certainty I know a lot of very confident people who are Wrong a lot of the time So recognizing to like back to thoughts aren't facts that feelings aren't facts either and So I could be after this feeling of certainty, but it's kind of a joke anyway because The feeling associated with uncertain with certainty confidence that that it's a joke because it means nothing Yeah, it makes sense That's a that's a solid one. That's really good one actually I doubt it. I want to hear your number three No, my number three. So my number three was I had to come to grips with I think some of my misconceptions about me And believe it or not that sounds a little bit woo-woo and a little bit deeper than just anxiety But like I would treat myself and I still do an error sometimes treat myself like a machine Like oh, I'm just I can just machine like everything but as it turns out you can't So in that situation, I think for the longest time I thought that I could somehow just By force of will Just will my way through this this disordered state and somehow fix it I don't know what fixing meant, but I just thought that somehow well I could just terminate on my way through this thing And I had to come to grips with the fact that no, I actually can't do that Um, yeah, I know a lot of people would think like oh well You're just gonna be like relentlessly doing exposures and going to feel like that's very terminator Ask and that did speak to me to a certain extent, but that was different That was like, oh no, I have to go into this and feel all the feels and Like have all the experiences. I can't just somehow magical. I didn't even know how to describe this But that I could just iron will this to go away and that yeah Like there's a button to press right like if we just uh Press these series of buttons in this time frame. It's gonna reset the system and everything's gonna be Okay Yeah, and I think for me it was and it's so weird because I I can even look back and think I knew there wasn't a button I knew that I couldn't just somehow Like break it and that's it. It was gone instantaneously Yet I still thought that somehow this mindset or this approach to it that I could just will my way through it because I'm a machine Would somehow get me through it without doing the having the actual experiences that I need to have And I see on the flip side I know a lot of people like that in the community but on the flip side I see people who feel like if they just hope enough I wasn't hoping I thought I could like bend the universe to my will and I was wrong Um, but I know a lot of people also feel like if they just hope enough Or they just pray enough if I just hope enough somehow it's going to change without me making that change So I had to learn that it what will enough wasn't enough. I had to actually Take some action which I was willing to do but It just sounds so complicated. It's hard for me to even put it in words Yeah, yeah, and that you also have to experience the aftermath of it, right? I think that's what it's not like I can just do the thing and now it's better. It's like I have to do the thing and I have to Experience the the challenges in order to get better at navigating them versus, you know, yeah Yeah, I had to actually it was almost like the tedium of the work like oh, I have to actually do this work Um, so I think that was a little bit of a that was number three for me was coming to that realization that I just Okay, get rid of the machine terminator will bend the universe to your will thing and just go do things now Yeah, tiny little things and they add up and they did so that was my I like it. There you go. That's number four Number four is that the goal isn't to feel better. It's to feel better See this is where we need bold and I tell I know I guess that we can't have I I tried to do the bolds and italics the best as I could with my voice But I will explain even though I know you know what I'm talking about But and not that this concept is mined by any stretch of the imagination. It's borrowed, but I think The main idea here is that I wanted so desperately not to feel anxious. I wanted to Be able I wanted the recipe for how to have no feelings except for the ones I liked Forever and ever I wanted as pema children likes to talk about the dream of constant okayness. That was what I was after and it was Revelatory to me to learn that that wasn't in the cards for anyone I thought for sure that there were some people out there Even that you know if they were people without anxiety disorders Who were just perpetually okay? And I didn't realize that that's not that's not how it works Nobody is immune to feelings and if they think they are they're probably just trying to suppress them and you know Much, he's mow up which doesn't it doesn't work either um So to to learn that I could get better at feeling my feelings though, which is the feeling better like doing a better job of feeling And that that would empower me to have a very different experience of my feelings and That I I actually in a weird way Would feel better because by showing up consistently And being willing to accept all of the feelings in the service of being the person that I wanted to be I would in effect breed an ongoing lasting sense of contentment that would be relatively impervious to the ups and downs of my moment-to-moment emotional experiences Yeah, that's a great explanation Of a of a cool phrase I I really wanted to feel better, but I had to learn how to feel better. Yeah Yeah, I think you know the italics You did a good job with that. Yeah. Yeah, we talk all the time about that the recovery process is about building a new relationship with anxiety and fear But really about everything we feel and in a lot of ways if you get good at Relating better to anxiety and fear and irrational fee on those and vulnerability Well, you get better at relating to almost every emotion and every feeling you have Yeah, and then and then recovery gets to inform The wellness of your entire life you end up walking away from recovery In a better position than those who never had to start I agree a hundred percent. I am in much better shape mentally and emotionally than I otherwise would have been without that experience Yeah, you know, it was a shitty way to have to get that experience I vote for it, but you know There were stills the linings in it for sure For sure. Yeah, all right number four my number four. This is a weird one But you know it might number four top anxiety busting tip was teach other people Now that might you know, well, of course, he's gonna say that look what he does but But that that was the genesis of that like what I discovered and this is probably a function of just the fact that the internet existed When I really did my recovery work the internet existed the first 20 years that I mucked with this nonsense There was no internet But when I finally got down to brass tacks and started doing the work the ability to to sort of Listen to other people and see it Through different eyes. Yes, we share the same experience But when I say that I'm pretty sure that I'm about to go crazy or disintegrate because I'm depersonalized that feels Very weighty, but if you say it It doesn't not I don't want to sound like I'm dismissing if somebody else said it But it's I don't have an emotional connection to it I can I can understand because I feel the same way But helping other people or teaching other people I would find myself all the time like well, I could tell you I'm pretty sure I could tell you what you what you should do or tell you what this is And in that process it really crystallized for me like oh, what would I tell somebody else? Yes, yes, so I I use that all the time in my recovery. What would I tell somebody else right now? Yeah, yeah, yeah because you have that objectivity you have that ability to see Oh, but your mind's tricking you With somebody else correct in a way that you don't have The clarity to do with your own mind sometimes No, we can easily dismiss things that other people say I mean not easily But if I run up to you and say something stupid or silly to you you're gonna like shrug your shoulders It was wrong with this guy But if you have that thought you might latch on to it and run with it because it's your thought So yeah for me the idea. What would I tell someone else to do and believe me? I was you know I was at the very beginning stages of this thing that I do But teach someone else or explain it to someone else was really useful because I would use it on myself I tell somebody else you right now when I did not want to go out the door I was frozen at the front door. What would I tell somebody to do? Okay, I guess I'll do that. Yeah. Yeah Even though it feels terrifying and I'm completely taking a leap of by doing so I'm just that and I think that that's down to getting in touch with the rational Thoughts, right? Like that's that's down to thoughts aren't facts as well Same might the same like a lot of overlap there because You can see in somebody else where their thoughts aren't facts where perhaps you can't necessarily see that as well in your in yourself I love that. I love the community piece and teaching others and It worked out really well It gave me the ability to look back into my situation probably with someone else's eyes for a second. That was huge So yeah, I was my number four. I was gonna ask to just as a follow-up. Did you do you feel? I know I feel and I've known a lot of people to say that they feel that they're That by teaching others by showing up for others it gives a sense of meaning and purpose to a really harrowing life experience and Yeah, I don't know. Yeah Completely people would ask me all the time like, why do you do this? Why do you do this thing? Now why am I changing everything and going to grad school at this age? Do you see the gray in my beard? you know To do this thing well because part of it is because it makes me feel like all of that stuff and all those years We're not for nothing then. Yeah, and that's that's powerful motivator in that Definitely. Yeah, I agree with that hundred percent. Yeah All right Top five we're up to number five. Oh number five. The pressure is on this is on the good one. This is it so my last one is basically a victor frankle quote that I've reassembled which The essential parts of it are that I have the power to change my attitude toward things and While I don't have A lot of power over external circumstances or even some of my internal Experiences that I get to choose how I show up and I can bring levity. I can bring I can bring curiosity I can bring I will and I can also refocus my I can I can bring I can rein my attention into something that matters more to me As opposed to just staring at this thing like make it go away, which is from this it's from this place of victim hood I like I say that from my own vantage point that I was Victimized by my thoughts and feelings until I recognized. Oh wait a second I I can show up to this and in empowered stance and say bring it on Yeah, that's good Uh, that's because that's a whole different way. Now you have some agency in the process Yeah, yeah, and that might make it feel worse when you say bring it on but Yeah, that's my doing then Yeah And it's weird because it's all framing I think and I could see that I could see well I'm gonna have the same experience either way So I might as well do it on my terms and decide that I'm like I'm Actively going to accept that I have experiences all the time that I don't like Instead of seeing those experiences and trying to run from them. Yeah I'm gonna have experience. This is gonna happen no matter what so I might as well make it productive, right? It's it's a little bit my number five Very similar very similar I'll throw my number five out there then because it's very similar It was to me I used to repeat in my head quite often when it would get a little bit dicey It'd be like look today. There's nothing I can do about today. Like there's I'm just such a nerd. There's 86,400 seconds in a day and I know that because that's a dns zone file expiration number But there's 86,400 seconds in every single day and the sun is going to go down and it's going to come up tomorrow morning There's nothing I can do to stop that So therefore I might as well do the best I can with these 86,400 seconds I love that. Yeah a bit of it like there's nothing I can do about it So I can either choose to live them this way or this way And operationally it looked the same this way in this way. I know that you're not watching a video. You can't tell me Operationally looked the same, but the outcome was very different. Yeah, I was anxious. I was nervous I experienced symptoms. I had you know those Incessant thoughts that kept coming at me over and over and over So regardless of which way approached them, they were still there But the outcome at the end of the day was very different depending on how I chose to approach it So very similar. I think I think we have very very Very and I think to sort of add to what you were saying about There's nothing I can do there There are so many things in life about which we can do nothing and I remember Somebody explaining it to me in a concrete way and not to compare The challenges of emotional and mental health issues to physical Challenges, but somebody said to me well, what if what have you lost your limb? Rightly, what have you just lost? You didn't woke up tomorrow and you didn't have your right leg You could sit and Bemoan the fact that you lost your leg You could stare at it. You could long after it. You could think about how unfair It was that you no longer had this leg which Okay fair like all of those things are true. It is unfair. It's not like it it sucks It would be better if probably I mean we can't know that for sure, but probably would be better If all other things were equal But doing all of those things is just a tremendous waste of time because you still have this day and so The idea that was proposed to me was are you going to bemoan the fact that you have only one leg? Are you going to go out there and live your best one leg life? Even though it might not be the life that you want at the moment Right or the the life that you think you should have had. Yeah. Yeah That's you. Yeah. Yeah, I I should have an anxiety free normal calm happy day But I don't have that so what am I going to do about that? I'm going to live my best anxious life Yeah, and in the end that's exactly what it came down to I'm just going to do the best I can under these circumstances The one thing that I will say and I you know, I'm beginning to suspect that this is true that The limb analogy is pretty good. So when you wake up in the morning and you're missing your leg And you're the first reaction almost invariably nobody jumps up and says i'm just going to go live my best one leg of life It doesn't happen that way Yeah, you spend some time you go through that loss and that oh my god. This is terrible and I why did this happen? It's kind of natural to go through that but then you do hit a point where you say, okay Well, now what can I do? Yes, absolutely And I I think it's fair to recognize gosh, you know, I wish it were different It's just how long do you want to spend in the wishing? When it's not going to change the nature of the circumstances And that's a question for any individual person going to be different But also and to that end I actually one of my dear friends once said to me with about my anxiety she said It's like every morning you wake up and you're surprised that you have a left hand It's like every morning is what I have anxiety. Oh my god It's really good like oh, yeah, yeah Surprise, it's the same surprise the same way I felt every morning. Yeah, that's really good But I mean, I think it's the same as if we take it to what we've been talking about It's the same as waking up every morning again like reliving and rehashing all of the challenges Like I can't believe I have to do this again, right because I have OCD or I have anxiety And The reality is it you're gonna you're gonna walk through it one way or another and And getting too lost in oh, no, it's like this. Oh, no, it shouldn't be like this is just the only thing It's doing is detracting from What could be like you're you could pivot and look toward The the things that you enjoy and cultivate those while the anxiety lives there I think in the end we're all doing that We already we're already doing it even when we don't know it Because in the end well, it's another day that I can't do how I can't get through this day But what you've gotten through every single day that you claim that you can't So I think we're all Automatically doing it because this is all about shattering that irrationality and bringing reality into the picture Like well, no, I I I did live the day I woke up this morning and how am I going to do today? Just like I do every single day, but but yet I've done that now for 387 days in a row So I I guess I should probably just accept the fact that I am actually doing it. Yeah, so Yeah, there you go, man. I feel like we could have like 200 top anxiety busting Admittedly top five anxiety busting tips was a bit of clickbait. I thought I'm like, I never do anything like this, but It was actually really helpful though because it to like I was saying before we started recording like it to sort of organize concepts Like if I have a five set, what is it the elevator pitch 30 seconds to tell somebody We have a 32 or 33 minutes to tell somebody and you know, these aren't instant cures We never claim that of course, but they are important concepts I think you gotta When you can put your brain around them and take them in and really start to buy into them They things change things can start to change Absolutely, even if not as fast as you want, but they can I think you and I are both living proof of that Yes, I think we are. I hope we are anyway. I try to be Anyway, thank you so much for coming by. We're gonna have you have to be a regular guest now. Oh, okay Twist my arm. I love chatting with you Twist my arm We'll have to come up with a new five every every once in a while. I'll just really next top five yet another like mad libs yet another mad libs That's fine. So where can people at this point? I'm hoping that everybody that is watching knows you already but lauren where can people find you if they Want to find you and I will give everybody links to lauren stuff at the wrap up also Well, thank you. Uh, so yeah, I am on instagram, which is actually where I met drew I do a fair amount of advocacy work on there at the obsessive mind I also have a center the center for the obsessive mind. I treat people with ocd anxiety and eating disorders in southern california and uh via the the interwebs in in various parts of the world and country as allowed by law and uh, yeah, so you can find me on my center on my website, which is the obsessive mind calm And I have a podcast that I do with my colleague and dear dear friend kelly frankie called purely ocd Well, we just get together and talk about everything ocd Uh, so that's I think that's about where people can find me It's all good stuff. Go check it out if you haven't already Thank you Yeah, so if you come back for the wrap up, I will give you guys all the links and I'll have every all lauren stuff in the show Notes for this episode. So thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for having me on I will see you next time. Okay. We are back for the wrap up. That is it for episode 210 of the anxious truth I hope you enjoyed the conversation with lauren. I know I did we're going to have her back on a regular basis lauren and I do a bunch of stuff online together And we're just going to keep kind of ramping that up and doing more and more as we can as time allows So thank you so much for coming by to listen if you would like to get at lauren online You can find her on instagram at the obsessive mind Uh, and you can google center for the obsessive mind to find her website But if you want to go to my website at the anxious truth comm slash two one zero That will be the full show notes for this episode. I don't want to make sure to link all of lauren stuff on that page So that is it. That is a wrap for episode 210. You know, it's over because music As usual that is afterglow by my friend ben drake. You can find ben and his music at ben drake music.com Go check him out. He's a great musician and a good person. Tell him. I said hello if you do And that is it. I appreciate you coming by I'm going to ask a favor as I always do Which is if you are listening to the podcast on spotify or apple Any place where you can rate or review the podcast leave a five star rating Take a second and write a quick review if you enjoy the podcast It helps other people find it and that's why we do this to help as many people as we can If you're watching on youtube hit the like button subscribe to the channel Leave a comment do all the things i'm happy to interact with you guys over on youtube It's been a whole lot of fun the last few months that i've been doing that And that's it. Thank you for coming by and spending time with me. I hope that it has been useful I hope you can incorporate this into your recovery in some way I will be back next week as usual I do not know what i'm going to be talking about but I will be here So remember as I always say at the end of every podcast episode. This is the way You got the feeling that you're gonna win