 Hey, I'm Drew and you are watching or just listening to the anxious truth The anxious truth is the podcast where we talk about all things anxiety anxiety disorders and anxiety recovery So if you're having problems with things like panic attacks agoraphobia OCD or health anxiety You're in the right place This week we're gonna have a chat with an old friend of the podcast About that thing where you get triggered by a story in the news or you see something actually happen that confirms one of your fears So let's check it out Hello everybody, welcome back to the anxious truth. This is podcast episode number 233 We are recording an early November of 2022 for those of you who are listening in the future Today we are gonna talk about the power of suggestion and scary thoughts This is that thing that happens when you see a story on the news or maybe a celebrity does something Or you just witness an event in real life that triggers you and confirms those things that your lizard brain is always really afraid of Really scary and so you get a little bit freaked out by it So today's podcast episode is about the power of suggestion and having scary thoughts and about how really normal that is in this community My guest today. I'm joined by a secret special guest I'm not gonna tell you his name will wait till he gets on camera with me But if you were in my Facebook group for any length of time, you will recognize this person He's now a friend of mine somebody who I know really struggled with panic disorder and agoraphobia for many years and now would probably call himself I won't put words in his mouth, but probably 80 or 90 percent recovered and living a great life So it's kind of an informal chat between friends. This came up for him last week He called me said, hey, this would be good podcast episode and it is so before we get to the interview just a quick Sponsored note this week. We are sponsored by Dr. Magic Finger once again This is Dr. Magic Finger's anxiety pens special pens for anxiety so the way this appears to work is that the ink is infused with good vibes and the little Bolt action piece of the pen that operates it I believe is made in a community of shamanistic healers So when you can use any old pen if you want But when you use the special doctor doctor Magic Finger's anxiety pen then the anxiety runs out of your head into the ink And that out onto the page So when you make a shopping list or you write an angry letter to your electric company because you hate them All your anxiety just leaves you and it goes out through the inking onto the paper and then you're better So Dr. Magic Finger comes in this cool brass color which develops a patina and I'm all about that So yeah, Dr. Magic Finger always coming through to sponsor the anxious truth Or not because clearly at this point now, you know There is no doctor Magic Finger and I'm just having fun with these silly little things I get tired of it sooner or later The anxious truth is actually just sponsored by me and all the stuff that I kind of half you guys free and Otherwise is on my website at the anxious truth comm so go check it out. There are books There's a monthly webinar on distress tolerance that I do every month with my friend Joanna Hardis There's a free one-hour anxiety 101 video workshop. There's my free morning newsletter called the anxious morning There's all the other podcast episodes is my social media stuff. There's all kinds of good stuff So go over to the anxious truth comm comm check it out and All the ways to support the work are also there financial and otherwise the anxious truth comm slash support That is never required, but always appreciated. I appreciate any way you guys support this work and encourage me to do more Thank you very much. Let's get on to today's topic Which is the power of suggestion being triggered and having scary thoughts and I can't wait to see who's on today It's gonna be good. I'll come back at the end to wrap it up. See you in a few Really Anyway, so welcome Jay Hey Drew, how are you? I'm very good for those of you? I mentioned it in the intro But I kind of teased it as we have a special guest for those of you who have been in my Facebook group for any extent a Period of time we'll recognize mr. Jay Floyd here one of the one of the greatest human beings that I am aware of today Just a good dude. Yeah, Jay was one of the admins in the Facebook group who gave Generously of his time until he became one of the smartest human beings. I know and left Facebook And I just left Twitter too. Oh my you you're must be you're living the dream now I decided I don't I don't need to know what an unbalanced chicken farmer thinks of my thoughts That's fair. That's yeah, probably accurate. Yeah. So speaking of that. Anyway, Jay and I speak on a regular basis I'm proud to call him my friend and we had a great conversation the other day. We said this is a podcast episode Actually, I give you full credit. You said this is probably a podcast episode. So yeah, it hit me the minute I saw it in the news. Yes So we're gonna talk about today and you get a chance now to just literally you just eavesdrop on a conversation between two guys of questionable humor and intelligence and hopefully it'll be useful to you but Jay called me and What happened to explain what happened and then where you were at the moment and we'll kind of get into it people are gonna get this I'm going to not use the celebrity's name. That's what we'll know who it is, but I just don't want to exploit it It's like, um, you know, I one of the Hangers on issues for me in my recovery because I'm like 90% recovered. I think yeah, that's somewhat arbitrary But mostly recovered. They're just a couple of areas that are still sticking points And one of them is Driving on the freeway less so around town, but driving on the freeway has remained and a stubborn problem for me So a driving phobia driving anxiety and then last week much loved a celebrity died in a car crash and The immediate report said and of course those of us with anxiety issues Have a different antenna and we pick up different things than other people do people without anxiety Didn't notice this part of the news story, but the line that said it's believed that he had a medical issue while driving Yeah, and I just went Well, I mean a word. I'm not gonna say on your podcast Mmm You yeah, yeah, how dare you you just completely Revved up and triggered a word. I don't particularly care for but we'll use here. Yeah, you just triggered Thousands of people probably more. Yeah Because the fear is the big what if the obtrusive thought that happens for anxious drivers is Even if I do everything right, what if my body goes curfewy? You know and I take out myself and at least four people three of whom probably didn't deserve it sure Okay, I'm just waiting for that to register But one clearly did I'm condoning Bystander and I was just sort of waiting for I know you're a New Yorker But yeah, you could at least I have a little bit of compassion left in me By the way, that's my parents in the background. Hey We was just clicking at us if you hear vulgarities coming from over my shoulder. It's my cherry. Oh And on cue. She just did it. I don't know if you heard that I was not intelligible. It's okay I don't promise it's a family friendly podcast. Okay Okay, good So so I saw that and I thought oh let me see how that affects me But I know that people who are not as far along in recovery That's going to I'm not gonna well the clear week setback It's not gonna be a setback, but it's going to be something that nags at them It's going to be a bullet in the gun of the bad guy of the of truth of thoughts Well, if it happened to that celebrity who's to say it's not gonna happen to me and And so I noticed over over the last few days since we talked about it and considered bringing it up on your on your show I've been sort of paying attention. Yes, I'm a tiny bit more Hyper-vigilant in my overthinking while driving around town A tiny bit more I started noticing it also I live in LA and I happened to drive very close to where it happened And I'll tell you it got worse when I got close to where it happened The magic of anxiety and the magic of the brain. Yeah So so I wanted to bring it up as you know, what do you do with that like in your studies? I mean in your experience, what are you hearing is a good way to To recategorize those thoughts I think and we talked about this a little bit when we had our phone call the other day To me it comes down to it's a risk assessment problem or like a life math problem that I used the word life math And I think for a regular air quotes regular person Maybe that one in four that you mowed over and didn't care about that person Understands that there's a risk associated it could be that person. I don't know but sure that person understands when they hear that new story The celebrity unfortunately passes in a car accident and was probably the victim of a medical incident that caused this problem And it's come out since then that that's confirmed. That's confirmed Okay, so when when a normal or regular person hears that they do register some amount of risk Like I hear that and I think well, I know how old I am like I'm not getting any younger like, you know, that's possible So that thought creeps into every human mind if they if they're paying attention, right? They're paying attention if they hear it that thought will creep in But the level of risk that gets assigned to that variable day-to-day is pretty low like okay My odds of that happening are higher now than they were in 1986. That's true but there's it goes in these with with Non-disordered thinking correct it goes in these something to know bucket rather than something to be terrified of bucket That's exactly right So the person who is still dealing with a disordered level of anxiety will take that risk variable and pump it way up, right? Like this is the thing I'm afraid of it's scaring the hell out of me right now So therefore it must be important. So I must assign it a risk value That's a hundred times higher than the risk value that Drew gives it. So you know what? What do you think of this something I did with flying which now I will tell you I just took a trip on an airplane across the country last weekend and I now have zero flying anxiety none zero zilch completely gone completely cured Yeah, and I I'm like and that was trust me. It was intense when it was here. I'm talking Popping it out of van to the point where I worried about my respiration On a plane. That's how bad it got but now gone completely healed and one of the one of the Thoughts that I had in that recovery process would probably also be Useful here and it was helpful for me when I was in the problem when I was in the when the disorder was driving My thoughts. Yeah, I would go. Okay, Jay This is a risk assessment problem. I didn't have that language at the time But how many people fly a day? Geez millions and given on a daily basis. How many people die in a plane accident? Yeah, not and the answer on most days is zero correct And and really looking at it from that perspective. I could do the same thing here Living in Los Angeles. How many people are on the road right now? Oh, how many of them will die today in a car accident? You can even pull that out. How many of them are going to die in a car accident in their lifetime? How many people are going to have that as the cause of death and the answer is is is Minuscule numbers, it's not it really isn't Worthy of the energy bar that the anxious people give Statistically speaking but the issue there and you're 100% correct that it that is correct And that's why somebody who is in a non-disorder state can take that risk variable and shrink it to such a small It's negligible right I remember being that person and it literally sounded like this Ooh, wouldn't that be awful? Yeah, that would suck. Yeah. Yeah, right like you you literally that's literally that's and doesn't cross my mind again Yeah, yeah, that might suck a little bit An anxious mind is really sticky Well the anxious mind and it's very much the same whether or not you're afraid of driving or you have hard anxiety Or whatever it happens to be or you have health anxiety I've talked about this health anxiety is it uncertainty intolerance problem But almost all of this is right so if the odds are greater than zero or your Certainty of safety is less than 100 percent intolerable. I'm sorry intolerable. It's true. You could fly tomorrow The odds are dramatically against you dying in a plane crash as we have demonstrated But the odds are not zero because you know 200 people every five years Dying plane crashes. That's true I mean, you know and I know that I will obviously die in a plane crash But it will be because a plane crashed into the 7-eleven where I was getting a slurpee Oh, I have this you walking out doing the oh Are you fucking home? That's it? Yeah But the So Drew maybe a tip or a trick yeah that you could offer from your studies and your experience well So that moment happens in the news. Yeah Give me the next hour for the anxious person. Oh the next I mean I think you experienced a little bit of it and you were you know when you called and talked to me about it Which I think was great. I'm glad you did I think the next hour for a lot of the people listening to this podcast will be spent in a really agitated uncomfortable state Feeling like they are in some sort of day flying will go up way up because this thing that I harbor as a fear as a Feared outcome is now real like I have just been reminded. It's a big see see I told you I'm not crazy That's exactly right all of us is well. Yeah, you are but in a really common way and a very specific, right? It's a specific kind of crazy that we're okay with and we all have to a certain extent But yes, you're actually right your lizard brain if you will is gonna do that holy told you told you see told me This is right And so I understand that so that next hour is going to spend be spent in a really elevated state of discomfort agitation fear maybe that looks like Talking about it asking for reassurance in the Facebook group the other day had somebody post a video of a woman fainting I told you about this on our call it was some news thing I don't know woman anchor faces her greatest fear and feints on the air It was a sensationalized clickbait crazy thing, but this person's fear is fainting So they saw this video and immediately had to post it in the Facebook group. What do you think Drew? What do you think of this? Same thing would happen generally speaking. Let me ask my partner. Let me ask my friend. Let me ask my sister Let me ask Drew. Let me ask Jay. Did you see that story? What do you think about that? Because and then for the assurance that it won't happen to you. I promise Jay won't happen to you Yeah, then for people who are have any recovery under their belt Comes the guilt or shame about having indulged the fear. I think we need to let people off the hook on that Oh, what happened? And plug my headset hate man evidence Oh, I do I would agree with you a hundred percent and I'm so happy that you brought that up because so many people will get down On themselves Some feeling recoveries. Yes, it's not working Nothing is for it to ever really work for me, right? This is the dialogue that can be set off. Yeah, and I think I know you've experienced that and you're always so open about talking About and I appreciate that but you can you can let yourself off the hook. It's okay Like we all and I say this over looking at it as a continuum. It's a continual That's exactly right and to me and we had a great conversation not too long ago about this too Like the resiliency time and I did all kinds of crazy math on my Instagram anybody who saw that I'm still it's still here That's common Tom telling you but we talked about that. It's the recovery time So when you're in the midst of it the thick of the struggle when you get triggered air quotes by this story about a celebrity Or you see fainting on TV or oh my goodness, my mother-in-law fainted last week. She's also very ill But I see that fainting is confirming my worst fear that I might faint too The time it takes you to go from heightened Agitated terrified state to back to normal baseline the more recovered you are the faster that happens Exactly. That's how I look at it. Yeah, because I don't my goal used to be Zero problems ever. Mm-hmm because the problems were so awful. They felt so bad Now it really becomes a oh, I indulge that for 30 minutes that used to cost me a week Yes, love that. Um, and that that to me is just recovery 101. That's that's those are the mile posts Yeah, the signpost and you how far you've I agree a hundred percent and that realization like that used to cost me a week That's a really accurate statement that literally would cost you a week of your life So and I was so now I have like a vigorous intolerance For acting in accordance with those fears Well, because you recognize really yeah, and it's like I have a big uh, no you I can feel however I feel I'm doing the thing anyway Yeah, like uh, last night I had to go pick up a friend and it was night driving in LA and you know, la's filled with Zombie maniacs that want to eat your face. Yeah, of course. I don't know who And so I try not to go out at night Because of that. Yeah, I'm kidding. But I I just I'm like nope doing it no matter what I don't even indulge The not doing it thought for very long. Yeah, so a good I think a good Indicator of how far you are along in this process is how soon does that cry that crisis if you will a psychological crisis end for you that That's what I want. That's what I want your people to hear. Yeah is no, no, no Not having anxious immediate responses to things Isn't the goal of recovery No, and I've started saying to the people that I work with not professionally But anytime I hear someone who I know is in disorder. Yeah, I'm like I will You can use me as your safety person for a couple of months. Yep until you start getting the basics under you Yeah, because you need that at first and what I will say to them is it's hard for you to hear right now but If you have anxiety and it doesn't matter does it matter? And it makes them go. Oh If you have anxiety and it doesn't matter, is it a problem? Yeah It's not Yeah, not a problem even beings are supposed to have anxiety. Yeah, it's what keeps us from hang gliding over volcanoes Well, I I do that I just did it this morning Yeah, all the Long Island volcanoes that we have here, but yeah, I think it's important to understand it That is 100 true. So the the fact that you might get triggered By the power of suggestion, which is we're talking about you might have a bodily response to something fearful Correct. Yeah, because that may be a fear that you harbor for the rest of your life I look and I say this all the time. I don't know anybody more recovered than me But there are moments when I can still have an uh-oh thought Like and and but the difference is I might experience seconds now of distress a minute to maybe Maybe I'll have a full blown panic attack that lasts all of 10 minutes now That might happen once or twice a year, but the recovery from that and the snapback is so fast And the meaning behind of those unpleasant moments For me is no longer see your life is over, right? Right. It's just that used to be the response. I lived that way for Eight months to a year. So that that reaction or the having that thought was it is that was the disaster? See yeah, my life's over. I can't do I can't accomplish any of my goals Everything that I wanted to do in life is now over if I haven't done it by now I won't be able to that was literally where my mind used to go and this was This was Starting up to the time that I I discovered Claire weeks and that led me to discovering your facebook group. Yeah That was how that was the gestation of my recovery And uh, well the timeline I should say of my recovery So but even once I started getting some of the principles under me That you lay out on your book and that you talk about on your podcast, you know The minute even then I still struggled intensely for three or four months And it's but and and by the way The recovery process for me and for a lot of the people that I talked to it isn't something you notice Um in the moment. It's something you notice later and you go Oh, that used to bother me. That is totally the way you start noticing that you've recovered Yeah, if you're listening you can't see the big smile on my face because that's yeah, it's so true It's just true. It's just true. It's not like yay. I recovered. I just noticed it's like I haven't had that feeling in a while right wait a minute That feeling used to stop me from going to the grocery store. Yeah Yeah And so people ask all the time went how do you know when you're recovered? Well, you don't until one day you realize Oh, wait, you know is eventually that's how you're right and and you stopped asking like that that question stops being a question at some point you just stopped thinking about it and then one day you realize Oh, when did that happen? Like wait, when did I become a grown-up? Like I still have that thought And I just love I love the essence of what we were talking about here Which is there are going to be moments in the real world that confirm your worst fears. Yeah Well, because it is true and we could acknowledge this as we start to maybe wrap this up a little bit Let's acknowledge that unless you have and there are truly completely irrational fears gravity will turn off as one that seems to come up a lot now Gravity will not have that as a company. I gained so much weight. I would welcome that. Yeah, you know, if we could make that happen partially I'd be all right I'm good with like a 4% reduction gets me to my ideal weight. So Yeah, if we could do that, but there are truly irrational fears that are impossible A panic attack does not make you psychotic gravity would not turn off and the moon will not turn into me love But many of the other common fears are grounded in things that really do happen people do have heart attacks They do get mentally ill. They do die. They do embarrass themselves That is true and you will be triggered by a demonstration of that That is the world telling your oversensitized brain say this can happen I even did with me. What if I ship myself at the grocery store, which I had all the time I have even that eventually became I will be laughing about that with a friend on the phone within 30 minutes. Yes, or like, well, that would really suck I hope that doesn't happen Yeah, no, no, and I it would become a funny horrifying story in my life Yeah, and it used to be like the end of the world now It's like no, it'll just become a funny story if that were to happen Yeah, and if you are being triggered the power of suggestion is working against you right now Just understand that it's okay for that to happen Recognize what's going on right now. I'm indulging this crazy life math You know out of whack one risk assessment step away from it for a second. Just be afraid One of the angriest I ever got with one of your podcasts was one of your early ones when you said let it kill you Yeah I was like, oh Why do you hate me and it has now become a Why do you hate me so much guy that doesn't even know me The this is an interesting and I can't think it kind of dovetails a bit I think the very first interaction that jay and I ever had together was a little bit of a confrontation Because you were taking exception to some of my words Yeah, and I think it was like in a youtube comment like well, it's such a shame that you would say something like that I believe Yeah, here we are years later. Yeah, I did get over it Hold me too. I mean, I'm not harboring any click as I hang up on Jay I'm not harboring any resentment over that. No, no, really. It's true That's super common. You will think that these things if you are triggered by some Story here in the news or something you see in the world. It's normal. It's going to happen Recognize what's happening and the best you can do like to put that that trick or that tip into this Recognize my lizard brain is oversensitized. It is dramatically Overestimating the amount of danger I'm in right now So I'm just going to have to be really afraid For a little while Without trying to stop that and figure this out. The sensitization is like a gyroscope It's going really fast and it takes a minute to slow down And I even had to use that after my trip because I'm going to the amusement park There were some genuinely scary things that got me a little more sensitized. Yeah So yesterday once I got back into my routine here in Los Angeles I had to go. Oh, oh, I'm a little sensitizing. That's just going to slow down gradually and today It's less and tomorrow probably be gone. Yeah, I love that that it takes a while to spin down You can there's no instantaneous and that's it. You're done with it So yeah, give it time let it unwind be afraid if you have to be just don't Give it up for us. Yeah, give it a minute. It'll work itself out. Great topic, my friend I'm glad that you called with this one. I am so glad that we did this. It's so good to see you Yeah, we'll have to do him now and then, you know, not that jay is is involved in the mental health field at all But can we talk about your show or now? Is that a subject? Is that a uh? You know about anything I have no secrets I mean like I can get so descriptive about being a homosexual that you'll be uncomfortable Oh, okay. Well, we'll test that Challenge accepted, but okay. I I think um because I think it's great in the end And you said, you know, some of that that crazy thing that would happen in your head Like see I'm never going to accomplish the things I want to accomplish. This is a oh, yes This is a guy who went from that To now I think it seems to be moving along pretty nicely your show. I have written a Yes A stage musical. Yeah That was adapted from a movie I made in 2006 that went to sundance I wrote the book and lyrics to it since my recovery. Yeah, I had last December we had our first stage reading at a venue in hollywood with 200 people in attendance and I Now I did at one point during the day of tech rehearsal when the audience was going to be there in four hours I turned to my co-book writer and I said I'm unpleasantly anxious and he said we can tell And that was it it went off it went off perfectly. We got what we needed out of it This is a person who couldn't go to the grocery store without enormous fear. Yeah, literally two years before that. Yeah so so Imagine that life that your life is not over your life is in a period of difficulty And this difficulty is manageable Yeah, and every single time I see another youtube video with another song from the show hitting the airwaves It just makes me smile that much because first of all, they are brilliantly written and this is a guy who's a Broadway guy Oh 100% just the humor is spectacularly smart and the music is great and everything's really happy with it And by the way, I'm currently working on a new one that is Very very different with a different composer. So like now I'm working on my next one Amazing and I this all this from a person who was certain his life was over Yeah And a person who was triggered by a new story about the unfortunate passing of a celebrity about a week ago And here we are things are true. Right. It's all again at the same time. Yeah, very good. Jay. Thank you so much for sharing I appreciate you in a big way. Thank you so much. I will see you guys. I'll wrap it up in a minute All right, folks. We are back to wrap this one up not a whole lot to say about that Hopefully it was informative. I love when Jay comes on and shares his experience We haven't done one of these in a couple of years. We did a driving anxiety one All about two years two and a half years ago. So you guys might want to check that out I'll link it in the show notes. So if you go to the anxious truth.com slash two three three I'll link the other episode that Jay and I did together It was about highway driving anxiety if I remember correctly and it was also another good one Jay's just a good guy He had a lot of good to say about this and again Remember if you get triggered and you're having scary thoughts because of the power of suggestion That's totally okay. It's part of this process Recognize what's happening Recognize when your anxious fear is distorting the threat level and then just let it be there The biggest issue is not that it happens The biggest issue is that you begin to dig into it and try to solve the problem either by proving that what you saw Won't happen to you Which you may never be able to prove because of that uncertainty problem in life Or at least understanding that I don't have to try to solve that problem And I don't have to try to make myself feel better Let it play itself out engage with life as we always talk about and just let it pass And as you go down the road that crisis moment will get will last Shorter and shorter and shorter amounts of time like I said and like Jay has confirmed in his life as well So that is it episode two three three in the books. You know it is over because There's the music That is after globe by my friend ben drake It is the sound the song that you hear at the beginning of most podcast episodes at the end of every podcast episode If you want to check it out, you can find out more about ben and afterglow at his website, which is ben drake music dot com If you are listening to this podcast on apple podcasts or Spotify Or some platform that lets you rate and review the podcast that you listen to leave a five star rating if you like this podcast And then maybe take a second and write a review if you dig it because it helps other people find the podcast Then we get to help more people, which is why I do this If you're watching this as a youtube video make sure you subscribe to the channel Hit the notification bell so that you know when I upload like the video and leave a comment that I can respond to You know, we have to soothe the youtube algorithm god. So thank you for your help with that. That's it. We're done Hopefully it's been helpful. We will see you again next week. I'll be back with another episode Do not know what i'm going to talk about, but I will be here and remember as always this is the way This is where your story begins You got the feeling that you're gonna win Yeah, you're doing fine Now in the city and you're living fast No looking back or sweating on the past