 Hey, everybody has heard about floating and accepting and willfully tolerating. Today we're going to talk about a word I like to use, which is surrendering to anxiety and panic. It's Monday, which means it's recovery Monday is episode 13. So let's get rocking here. Let us call up the chat. Let's see who is showing up. Hopefully everybody will start to roll in. I have a feeling that this will be a large turnout today because of the break. Hey, everybody, we are in the middle of holiday break. I hope everybody is doing as well as they can do. Uh, thank you be. I appreciate you. I will put the chat overlay up so you guys could communicate with each other and see what's going on. As you guys wander in, just say hello. Let me know that you're here. Uh, I hope everybody is having a good break. I expect a relatively large crowd because a lot of people are not working this week. Hey, Anna, what's going on? Look, I got, I'm in my cool swivel stool. Like Santa brought me a stool. My desk is at one of those standing sitting desks and I was tired of having a chair that wouldn't fit under it. So I got a stool for Christmas. Yay. Uh, go make. Um, anyway. Hey, everybody, Whitney. Everybody is here. What's up guys? So today we're going to talk about surrendering to anxiety and panic, which I know, don't freak out on me here. I know that's like a scary word, but it's really not what it seems. Right. So, uh, the first thing that I want to say about surrender, and then we're going to get into this is we are not surrendering to anything actually dangerous. I would never tell you guys to surrender. Hey, Epic Fox is here. Um, what up? So I would never tell you guys to surrender to actual danger. All right. So that's always a super important part is to, to remember that we're never actually doing dangerous things here. We're doing things that you think are dangerous, that really feel out, feel dangerous, but we're never doing dangerous things. We're doing difficult things and scary things. All right. But that doesn't always equal dangerous things. So keep that in mind as we talk about the concepts of surrender, which I know that word gets a bum rap and I'm not a fan of surrender in general, cause I've, that's not necessarily my personality, but I think it applies here and I'll tell you what. Now, before we do that, I'm going to like, this is a little bit shameless plug time, right? So if you guys have been following along, you know that I have a new, uh, project called the anxious morning that is launching on January 3rd. So if you go to the anxious morning dot email and sign yourself up, it is completely free. It is an email newsletter that comes out every weekday morning and a podcast that comes out every weekday morning, shows up right in your inbox, totally free, a little bit more in depth conversation and discussion of a different topic every day, 260 weekdays that we have in 2022. It's going to be great. I have most of the content for the first six or eight weeks already loaded and ready to rock. We're going to have guest bloggers. It's going to be really good. So go to the anxious morning dot email and get yourself registered if you have not. Uh, and I will also be giving out links to where you can listen to that new podcast on Spotify and Apple and all that stuff. Nothing will change in the regular podcast, but the anxious morning is launching on January 3rd. I've been so excited to do that for like a year and we are ready to rock. So go check it out. All right. So let's talk about surrender. The reason why I started talking about surrender is that, you know, being a huge Claire Weeks fan like I am, she always uses the terms float and accept. And we hear about acceptance all the time and I've watched so many people and look, if you love the term float or accept have added, I've no problem with that. I'm not telling you not to use those things. But one of the issues that I run into all the time is people get really confused by the terms float and accept. And my gut tells me, I will never really know this, of course, but like maybe one day I'll get to meet her in the afterlife. Who knows? But what I might gut tells me that Dr. Weeks had access to the internet and she had the benefit of continuous feedback and I was real time and everything she said, I think she might actually change some of those words or at least be more detailed in her explanation. People seem to think that floating is a good thing. Like I'm supposed to float through anxiety, which means I'm supposed to be able to sort of get above it. And it should not feel so bad. I should rise above it. That's not what she was talking about. And accepting, meaning, oh, OK, I have to like this, like acceptance and floating are two words that have kind of positive connotations. Floating has that cloudy, pleasant, feels good kind of feeling that we attach to that word, because we're so verbal and in the way we process language. And acceptance is like accepting means you got to like it. And so people get really confused. How am I supposed to accept this? And how can I float over it? So I like the word. You know, Michelle, you don't have to search it. Just go to the anxious morning dot email in your browser. It's it's actually that's a URL. You can use that or you go to the anxious morning dot com if you want. And I'll send you over that way. Anyway, one of the reasons why people get confused is because of the connotations of those words. I get that. So some of some other people have come up with other ways to talk about it. Josh Fletcher, one of my favorite frequent collaborators and a friend of mine says willful tolerance, which I love willful tolerance is a more accurate description for sure. People do use the word tolerance a whole lot more navigate through move through. I like surrender because it is a brutal and unambiguous word. And in a way, that's good for us. Right. When we surrender to this, again, I'm going to keep reminding you, we're not surrendering to death. We're not surrendering to actual incapacitation or insanity or dangerous things. We are surrendering to the fate that our brains are telling us is in front of us, but never really is. And surrender is just about giving up the fight. So when people say, how am I supposed to accept my anxiety? How should I? How am I supposed to accept panic? How am I ever supposed to float past that? I would say, try not floating just surrender. And I mean that in the truest sense of the word like surrender, the way to win this war. This is a thing that I wrote about. I actually wrote this years ago. The only way to win this war is to stop fighting it. It is very paradoxical. So much of recovery is paradoxical. It doesn't make sense, like from a common sense point of view, somebody popping into this live stream and say, this guy is crazy. What the hell are they talking about here? Like the way to win the anxiety war, if you want to see it as a war is to stop fighting it. And so surrender is literally means exactly what it says. And people hate this, but it is clear and ambiguous. You give up the fight. I will not fight it anymore. I will let it do whatever it wants to do to me. I will let it bring whatever horrible fate I have imagined for so many weeks, months or years. I will let it make me insane. I will let it kill me. I will let it make me pass out. I will let it make me fall down. I will let it make me lose control. All the things I will let it make me not breathe. Go ahead, go ahead. I dare you to do it. In a way, it's the surrender. There's a defiance in the surrender. I know surrender sounds like such and sometimes has a negative connotation. Because like, what do you mean? Like, there's no way. Like, I can't possibly, you know, I can't possibly surrender. I'm not going to give up. Surrender doesn't mean give up recovery. Surrender means give up the fight in the moment. Because really, that is what will advance your recovery when you try to fight it, because you think you're supposed to be a warrior and you're in a war and you have to, you know, battle the anxiety dragon. The reality is you the better way to win that war is to stop fighting it. So we're not giving up. Surrender doesn't mean surrender and just live the rest of your life stuck on yourself. I terrified surrender is give up the fight in the moment so that you can advance through that experience down further in your recovery. That is why I say surrender. What makes surrender so scary is that there's no sugarcoating that you can't you just don't get to sugarcoat that surrender. Literally is like, oh, no, it's going to come and get me. Yeah, that's exactly right. But we are basing this on the premise that it never actually does come and get you. You have been fighting against a fate that never happens again and again and again and again. So the best way to learn that I don't have to fight anymore is to stop fighting, right? So that is why I like the word surrender because it's a little bit brutal, but it's completely and utterly. OK, I'll answer some questions in a bit because I know what I pretty much know the two questions that will that will dominate the comments right now. The the object of the game here is let it let it do what you think it's going to do because when it doesn't and it never does, that is the only way we will believe that it is toothless. So if you want to look at this, we see all the metaphor that the anxiety warrior is, you know, is slaying the dragon and you're at war and you're battling the enemy. OK, fine. But the only way to learn that the enemy is weaponless and toothless is to go ahead and let it take its best shot at you. And then nothing happens, nothing ever happens because this is also predicated on the idea that being afraid and thinking scary things is not a disaster. If you think that recovery is about learning to never feel fear or control your thoughts or stop scary things from happening, you will be disappointed forever because as human beings, we do not get to decide what we think. We are like overdrive connection machines. Our brains are amazing. So it will connect everything to everything else. And once those connections are made, this feeling is dangerous. You will not unthink those connections, no matter how hard you try. I'll say it again. You cannot unthink the connection between anxiety, panic and danger. No matter how hard you try to think, talk, read, listen to songs, inspirational lyrics, prayers, memes, it will not work. It will not work because the connection machine that is up here will not unlearn those connections. There's no such thing as that. So we must have the experience, real experience in the real world that says this fate doesn't happen to me. I do not die. I do not pass out. I do not go crazy. I've never been insane no matter how close I feel like I have been to it. I never it never happens. And on top of that, all the scary sensations and thoughts that I experienced that I think are leading me to that fate have never incapacitated me ever. They never they have they've never incapacitated me no matter what you have done, all the all the mantras and this too shall pass and I'll warrior and it's this and this is OK. OK, I'm OK. I'm OK. That's never done anything. If you did nothing, you would still move through this. That is the ultimate experience that teaches us that you do not need special evasive action to get through it. I can't express that strongly enough. And I know that you may be listening like, no, that's crazy. I need to do I need to do things in response to my fear. OK, you you have a right to make that choice. But every time you do things in response to your fear and say, well, this helps me or this this gets me through it. Well, then you're basically saying that you need to find a special way to get through this thing. And that isn't really working out for you so well because you hear watching this video, right? So I always like to be really brutal about that. If your life is great the way it is, then you're welcome to not ever surrender. That's totally fine. I'll support you on that. But that's OK. OK, so that is the deal with surrendering. I know it's brutal and I know that nobody wants to do that. But but this is this is the way it goes. But you can call anything you want. Call it acceptance, call it floating, call it all of those things. Call it willful tolerance. I like Josh's words. It's totally fine. All right, it's totally fine. Whatever works for you in the end. And by the way, if you really like float and acceptance, which Dr. Week said, then by all means use those two. Like whatever is working for you is OK. But I like I like to explain when people get confused by float and accept. I like to surrender because it is very unambiguous. OK. So I'm going to address I'm going to go through the comments here. And hey, it's it's like nobody's calling me. I have no appointments after this. So we'll go we can go a little longer if we wanted today. It's fine. Got time today. So I'll go through the comments. But before I do that, I want to address what I'm sure. Before I even read the comments, I know that there are going to be there's going to be one major question or theme here through a lot of these comments. I would bet my life on it. But what if in many of the comments I haven't really read? Well, probably. But what about when? But what about when? But what about when this symptom happens? But what about this thought? But what about this scary thing? So there's always a but you're going to throw some but at me. But what about nausea? Right. But what about feeling like I'm going to pass out? But what about thinking you're going to die? But what about that? Like it's special and it isn't because the part that you're missing here is the part where courage is one of the ingredients in recovery. It just is. I wish it wasn't. I don't want to tell you guys that. But when you will insist that like, but I can't do that, my body is telling me to respond. I have to do this. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You don't have to do that and not doing it is a matter of courage. And I hate to have to tell you that. But that is the answer to almost all of those things. Almost all of those things. But what about this symptom? But what about that thought? But how can I possibly when I have adrenaline panic and I feel like I'm going to die? OK, surrender to that. OK, go with it. Right. Go with. So that's probably the answer. And I'm not just, by the way, just a word on courage. Courage doesn't mean you don't you're not afraid, by the way. Courage just means that you are terrified and you do what you need to do anyway. And we learn to exercise our courage muscles. And I believe in my heart that everybody has courage. We all have courage. If it was something that was really important to you and it was something that was important to like a loved one, you would find courage pretty quickly. You wouldn't even think about it. And in this situation, you're just convinced that like, no, this is not a place where I can be courageous, but I know you can. And courageous means you act even when you are afraid. Brave people are not unafraid. Like I was terrified. I was terrified all the time. Everybody that is courageous is afraid. If they weren't afraid, they wouldn't have to be courageous. They would just do stuff. So courage is not being afraid. Courage is doing stuff even when you don't want to do it because you're terrified. So it's not failure if you're afraid. It's not. And courage teaches us lessons. I understand that this this courage looks like a leap of faith. I'm asking you to take a leap of faith. Everybody that came before you is asking you to take a leap of faith. All the recovered people that came before you are asking you to take a leap of faith that we did it too. We did it. Dr. Weeks did it. Like everybody did it. Josh did it. Kimberly did it. Like all the people you see me collaborate did it. Lauren did it. Like we have taken the leap and we did not hit the ground. There was a net to catch us. There's a safety net and it's not a drop to the death, even though your brain is swearing that it is. So it is a courageous leap of faith that begins to let you see this new way and you don't know it until you do it. So that is the relatively long answer to, but what about this? But how do I surrender to courage, courage, courage? It was my second podcast episode all the way back in 2014. I'm going to talk about more of that. In fact, I have a bunch of episodes in the anxious morning about courage, or I talk about that. So it's really good. All right. So let me go through some questions and comments. Hello, everybody. I'm sorry for people that I missed. Welcome to all of you. I'm glad you're all here. Netherlands, you guys are from all over the world, man. I dig it. And I love when you talk to each other, which I could see that going on right now. This is great. OK, so let's see here. Have you mastered the Floating Clare Weeks? Carol asks, I'll put some up of these on the screen. We'll go over these. Have I mastered the Floating Clare Weeks talks about? Yeah, I would absolutely say that I have. I can experience, I experience anxiety sometimes. I have anxious days like I'm a human being. I even can experience panic, but I can absolutely float or accept like Dr. Weeks says, there's no doubt about it. I am floating through that panic. I just don't react to it. So it comes, it washes over me, it hits its peak and it drops back down pretty quickly. So if I do experience panic, which can happen to me a couple of times a year, I am not joking. It's over in a matter of minutes, really minutes. Now, there's always that little 15, 20, 30 minutes sort of aftershock where it takes a while for your body to come fully down. But the peak of the panic is over really quickly because I do that. So yes, I have done that, but that took a lot of practice. It took a lot of practice and I had to be courageous, right? So George just greased Belly Garage. I love the name. Oh, God, I got such a kick out of like creative screen names. Thank you. I'm getting so much better, but it takes practice and dedication. Hell, yeah, it does. This is not a thing that you just decide to do. First of all, we don't just decide to be courageous. We work on that. We get better at it as we go. Second of all, we don't just decide to surrender. We have to get better at it as we go. We don't just decide to think differently about our anxiety and our fear. We have to that changes over time. The experience changes over time, over time, right? So very good. Thank you for acknowledging that. It does take work, but it is worth it. It is worth it. Okay, so let me keep going through. Sorry for folks that are in the Facebook group. I can't see your name as I know Cathy Kay is here. Welcome, Kay. Let's see here. Surrender is the perfect word. Acceptance, okay, let's see here. Here's a little thought on acceptance. I'll talk about this stuff. Acceptance is when intrusiveness lose their intrusiveness. And when there is no anxiety, the cycle is just like, yeah, that's really good. You're absolutely right. When you get that and you fully do that floating and acceptance thing and you become non-reactive, the reason why you become non- I'm gonna explain that for a second. The reason why acceptance and surrender and willful tolerance, all these things leads to that is because it can't be intrusive anymore when you're not afraid of it. Like nobody would call a thought about peanut butter intrusive because it has no meaning to us. We don't care about peanut butter, right? I don't think about peanut butter all day long, who cares? But if you're thinking about insanity or death or something like that, then of course you think that's really important. So we call that intrusive and we don't like it. But when we are no longer afraid of the process of those thoughts, not so much the thoughts themselves, but when we're no longer afraid because we understand the process that causes that, like, oh, I'm thinking again. I think about a lot of things. None of them are that important. Then it changes. And the same thing holds true with our anxiety symptoms. So the reason why acceptance and floating of us have works is because experientially we learn to track against reality instead of only, really there are technical concepts here, but instead of following blindly the rules that we have learned cognitively and verbally, and those of you that are first, you're gonna hear a lot of act in this, but instead of just blindly following those rules that we have been given up here, we track against reality and we learn from that. Reality keeps showing me that this doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. And the scary sensations that I have never actually incapacitated me, I always get through them. So that's good. I like that. Okay, this is good. The floating thing, I think she was, Dr. Weeks was really talking about the water thing. Like you're not, you're in the water, but you're not fighting against it. So, okay, this is a really good, I like this because I always try to explain floating is, imagine floating in the water, you're not floating above the water. You're still in it. So you're still wet. When you float, you're still wet. So think of it that way. Like if you're floating on water and using it as a literal like water type analogy, consider that you're still wet, right? Even when you are floating, you're still in the pool, you're still in the water and you're still getting wet. So you can't really think about, you can't really think about like not being wet. You'll always be wet, all right? So I'm gonna keep scrolling, keep scrolling, keep scrolling. Take that down. Thank you, Kate, and some comments. Let's see, 90% of anxiety, it's OCD. You can't tell her and see that that's it. That's true. That's true. Okay, I'll throw this up there. We'll use this as the example then. And I'm sorry, I don't mean, I'm not trying to single anybody out. Believe me, everybody in the room is thinking the same thing. So it's not just you, all right? How do I surrender when I'm so afraid for the panic attack actually dying? That's the part where the courage comes in. So for me, it was always a fear. I never had the insanity fear. Although with derealization and depersonalization, I would fear slipping away. I could never really define what slipping away meant or disintegrating. I had a feeling of disintegrating or slipping away. That was really scary. But for me, it was always a fear of death. And so how was okay, you're gonna have to come and kill me. So in the context of being afraid that the anxiety signals impending death that the anxiety will kill you or that it actually is indicating that death is coming. But insert whatever your fear is here. Consider that surrender has a bit of defiance in it also. Like surrender is an aggressive word, but there's defiance in surrender. Surrender basically says, I'll put my hands down. And if you wanna think of it this way, like go ahead and hit me as hard as you can. Go ahead, like you have never taken me out of this. So you can hit me as hard as you want. I'm not gonna stop you. And then I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna dare you to hit me again and again and again. So to me, surrender always had, there's a lot of active defiance in surrender. Surrender isn't necessarily passive. So in terms of death, I got to the point was like, well then you better come and kill me now because I'm kind of done with you. So you better bring what you got and you better get it done now. And if you don't, then I'm gonna know who you really are. And I know that sounds dramatic and that's not really how it works, but there's a defiance there. There's a defiance in surrender. So let's see here. Ooh, you got Bungie jumping going on. Hey, Ellen, picture jumping off a bridge with a Bungie on. I've always described the safety net. Like there's a net down there. You think you're jumping off a 7,000 foot dark abyss to the rocks below but actually like six feet under that is a very soft cushion or a net that you didn't know was there until you jump. So the Bungie cord is good, Ellen's thing, I like it. Let's see here. What does Bethany have to say? Always love the Bethany comments. Not when there's no anxiety. Yes, excellent. Really important, really, really important. We practice that acceptance in that surrender when we are anxious so that we can do that forever when we need to, when we need to. Like when we have to do that. And right now, if you're struggling, you got to do it all the time. But even in life in general, ain't nobody more recovered than me than I'm aware of on the planet. And a lot of people are at my level too. It's not just me. I don't have a monopoly on recovery but when I need to now, I can still do that because of the practice. So it will carry with you forever. Let us see here. Do you remember when you surrendered for the first time says, cat, I do. Like the first time I wrote about that in my first book, An Anxiety Story. I told that story. I was in the driveway of the house that I grew up in in the passenger seat of my mother's Ford Escort and which tells you how old I am because they haven't made the Ford Escort in a long time. And I was basically following the Dr. Weeks thing. She said, just let go and I did. And that was one of the scariest things I've ever done in my life. So I remember the first time I did it and I was amazed with a capital A that it worked. Like I had been, I was really on a downward slope in those days. And the first time I did that and I said, okay, this is what she says to do in the book. I did it and it peaked and it came back down. You know that moment when you're in the middle of the peak of your anxiety and then you know that it has turned and it is starting to come back down again. There's a moment that you recognize when you know you're starting to feel better. That was, I'm never gonna forget that feeling because it was literally a feeling of OMFG. It really worked. Like it really worked. I was thrilled. So yeah, I'm never gonna forget that. But it was freaking scary, man. It was scary. Let's see, practiced when I was doing my center. Okay, here we go. This is important because this happens over time when you practice. I noticed that when I surrender, anxiety goes away almost completely. I can give you what it sort of feels like for me sometimes. When I can feel that starting to rise, whether it's stress-based or whatever it is, there's a moment when I remember, like I talk to you guys all the time. I write thousands and thousands of words. I record hundreds of hours of video. Like I talk about this stuff all the time. And when I feel the anxiety beginning to rise on me, many times I'll have to remind myself, like what I tell somebody to do, like take your own advice trip. And that's when I remember, like, oh, that's right. Like put my chin out and remember that, take a swing at me, go ahead, let go, relax everything. And these days I'm so damn good at it that, and you will can be too if you practice it a lot. It just never, the peak never really happens. If I'm gonna experience panic, it's gonna happen really fast and completely almost out of the blue, which I know everybody says it's always out of the blue. But yeah, very good. That works out really well. That you can bring it back down. What happens there is it doesn't necessarily go away. The intensity just kind of levels off and your interpretation of it changes. Your interpretation of it changes. So the physiology of anxiety is always the same. It's always the same. Like let me, 24 minutes, I'll go into that a little bit. The physiology of anxiety and panic is always the same. It never changes. Our bodies are only capable of doing so many things, right? So you're still having a rapid heartbeat. You're still having changes in galvanic response. You're still changes in respiration rate. You're still having all of those things, changes in muscle tone. You just interpret it differently so it doesn't feel as intense. And when it doesn't feel so intense, you're sending that signal back down the chain that says, oh, everything's okay. And so the alarm starts to quiet down. Like, oh, everything's okay. We'll turn the alarm off. So you get that residual adrenaline. It does what it does and it goes away, but it never feels so intense. That's what that is. It's not that it is less intense. It's just that it feels where you interpret it as less intense. That's the difference between, oh, I can do level six panic, but I can't do level 10. The only difference between level six and level 10 is what you think about it, all right? Let's see here. Thank you, B. I appreciate you going in there on that. Let's see here. What about bouts? Okay, let's bring this up really quick. Julie, how are you? Good to see you here. What about bouts or feeling depression coming over you? All right, so we're definitely not gonna get about depression today, but I have been there too. I've been clinically depressed three times in my life. And here's what I have learned in my own experience and from some very, very smart people who specialize in treating depression. We do not surrender to depression. There's a certain amount of, like you can't fight the thoughts. We don't ever wanna fight the thoughts or judge the thoughts as like, see, I'm thinking this thing, which means I'm gonna forever be depressed. But depression is all about activation and challenging, but challenging in terms of like, I don't wanna do anything, but I have to do things. I wanna just lay in bed, but I have to get up and brush my teeth and shower and feed myself. I don't really wanna engage with the world because it seems pointless, but I'm gonna pick up the phone and call a friend and just fake it for 15 minutes. So there's never a passive surrender to depression. Depression, everybody I've ever talked to that is a clinician that treats patients with depression. We'll talk about things like behavioral activation where you're always going at it a little bit. Now, that doesn't mean that depressed people get up and climb mountains to become not depressed. That's a little bit romanticized. You might see that in movies, but even the simple act of getting up and getting dressed and going to work if you have to or talking to somebody or having a meal with somebody, even when you don't think there's a point to it, those things make a difference. So we don't just, there's no passive waiting around and surrendering to depression, right? It's important, but always talk to your therapist about that, right? So let's see here. Presto, early when you started to do nothing is talking to yourself. Let me throw this out. I know this is, look, this is a really nuanced kind of thing. I get why this is confusing. It's talking to yourself, it's saying not gonna react to you. Is that still fighting against it? Here's the way I like to look at this. Like when you are going in, when you are like, I'm going in, okay? That's it, here it comes. I feel the anxiety is rising. You gotta do something about it. What am I gonna do? You can make those framing statements. There's nothing wrong with that. Like, okay, I remember what I have to do. I gotta be non-reactive. I'm just gonna let this go. No mantras, no soothing self-talk, no escape, no snapping rubber bands, no calling my mom, whatever it is. Here we go. So yeah, it's totally okay to remind yourself, oh, I have to do this thing now, and then you go do it. So there's nothing wrong with that at all. Those statements that set you up for like, okay, here's what I have to, I know what I have to do. And then you go and do it. That's totally, completely and utterly fine. There's nothing wrong with that. And in the middle of surrender, there's always gonna be thoughts. You will have thoughts. You will have things go through your head like, I'm okay, this is gonna pass. It's okay, you don't get to decide what you think. So some people think that somehow it's this iron clad, like, no, I will never see that I'm gonna be okay. Like that's, you can't decide that, but you just can't get caught up in that. You can't get caught up in repeating, yeah, I will be okay, I will be okay. It's just anxiety. You can't get caught up in that stuff. Because when you do, you wind up in the situation where you think that that has saved you, but it didn't. So let's keep going. Yes, what about exit doesn't matter? Imposter syndrome, driving anxiety is a little different animal. I'm not sure how, Michelle, I'm sorry, I'll put up on the screen real quick. I'm not sure how imposter syndrome and driving anxiety go together. I'm just not understanding. So I'm really, I'm sorry, if you wanna try and clarify, I'll do the best I can here. Okay, cool, this I like. Claire Weeks said, point your body at the day. Yes, yes, that's a great, I love that quote because to me, I also talk a lot about doing the, I also talk a lot about what I call, and I wrote it in the anxious truth, I don't know, the morning effect, which is you start your day instead of laying there and ruminating and thinking about how terrible you feel and examining your state. Am I anxious? Am I not? Can I do stuff today? You have a plan, you get up and you execute that plan. You do your morning routine, you do your daily hygiene tasks, you put on some clothing and maybe you meet your first challenge or your first exposure, even if that's small. You point your body at the day, like Claire Weeks said. And I think one of the first couple episodes in the anxious morning, and the reason why I have the anxious morning coming out in the morning, except if you live in Australia or New Zealand, I'm sorry, but the reason why it's out there in the morning is for that reason to help you point your body at the day, as opposed to just sitting passively and living up here and running simulations of the day and how bad it's gonna be and evaluating, can I do something with my body or can I not? No, no, you just plan to do it and you do it. No matter how small that is, it's tremendously impactful, tremendous. Michelle says, I've been practicing being with the symptoms and a lot of my symptoms have lessens for sure. It's cool realizing that it's working, right? It's great, isn't it? It's so awesome. Let's see here, courage involves fear, surrender involves feelings. It's a good way to look at it. I'm just gonna scroll really quickly here so I'm never gonna catch up and telling myself I lied, it's just a panic attack. Okay, cool, this is that thing that I was saying. So Brandy, thank you for this. It's okay, that framing statement that says, okay, I'm gonna panic, here I go, I know what I have to do, I have to write it out. That's okay, I have that thought, I will still have that thought. So the last time I remember feeling that sensation, I documented it on my Instagram afterwards and I spent about an hour asking questions after a panic attack and somebody said, you know, what did you think? And I thought, oh, this is happening now. Like it's that realization of like, okay, here we go. And that's okay, here we go. Not a problem, that's really okay. This is good, my wife's a cardiac, my body is lying to me when I have symptoms, very good. I'm not gonna get into specific symptoms today. We're not gonna talk about but what about the symptom or that? Go ahead, do your worst, very good. Let's see here, okay. So Whitney, I'll address this because this is big. A lot of people will say like, well, I'm just not courageous enough, I can't do that. Like I'm not brave and I'm never gonna find it. But I think sometimes that's a misconception like what do you think bravery is supposed to feel like? Right, so the way I would tell you to respond to that and this is tough and my heart goes out to you because I understand that you feel stuck, right? You feel like you're never gonna be brave enough and I would ask you to consider, well, what does not being brave look like? Like what is that getting you? So look at the actions, not what you think. So separate when you can what you think and what you're feeling, right? I feel so afraid, it feels like this, it feels like that in my heart, I'm gonna go crazy, whatever it is. I feel, I feel, I feel, I think, I think. If you separate that for a second and step away from that for just a second and try to say, okay, what do I do when the chips are down? And how is what I do, not what I think, how is what I do actually serving my lack of bravery? Like what is that protecting me from? And when you look at what you do and then you look at that compared to the actual outcome, we track against reality as opposed to obeying our thoughts and feelings, we start to see that like, well, wait a minute, what do you mean I'm not brave? I am actually going through these symptoms. I've just thinking that somehow I'm protecting myself by saying I'm not brave, I'm gonna call my mom, I'm gonna snap a rubber band. That's not actually doing anything. So if you look at what you do, you'll always come to the conclusion like, oh wait, I am actually moving through it. I actually am, I'm not doing anything effective at all. So you don't think you're being brave, you don't mean to be brave, but you're being brave anyway. So a lot of people have a light bulb moment when you say that like, well, what do you think you're doing? That's that way you're not brave being brave is protecting you, I'm not, I can't be brave. But no matter what you do, it has been irrelevant. So you're still, you're still facing everything anyway. So there you go. Okay, so let's see here, I've been housebound for eight years and I made it so far in the last month. Excellent, it's never too late. Put it up on the screen. Everybody cheer, this is awesome. Housebound for eight years and made it so far. It is never too late. You are never too far gone for this. That is great, I'm really happy to hear that. Practicing surrender, very good. Practice makes perfect. I'm gonna keep rolling, keep rolling, keep rolling. Sleep in the middle of, panic in the middle of the night. Here's the difference between day panic and night panic. It's dark at night. That's it, same rules apply, right? Same rules apply. And I know you hate that answer, but the same rules apply just cause it's scarier to you. Doesn't necessarily matter. Let's see here. Will acceptance and courage help me come? Yes, again, I don't wanna address each individual symptom. Yeah, so when I feel like I can't breathe, okay. I guess I'm gonna have to suffocate right now, which admittedly is a ridiculous thing to say. But really that's what it is. So the need to like now I have to control my breathing. I have to make sure I'm breathing. No, like you can use some very basic things. You can make some very like, okay, I'm gonna belly breathe now instead of chest breathe. So there are a few things that you can learn. Diaphragmatic breathing is a big one because usually people who get into that, I'm afraid that I can't breathe will wind up making the mistake of trying to completely fill their lungs. Air hunger will make you try to fill your lungs up to here. And then you can't because your ribs don't expand that way. But if you can change that and belly breathe, it's not a magic shield, but suddenly reality shows you, oh, look, I am breathing. I actually am breathing. So there is one simple way to respond to that, which is by making sure that you breathe into your belly and push your stomach out as opposed to trying to fill your lungs up to your neck because that doesn't really work. And usually the change in sensation there will be enough to shift you into like, oh, look, I really am breathing. So there is a practical thing you can do there. You can try that, Jen, if you want, Gemma. Let's see here. You don't need self-confidence, very good. I love it. I love how you guys are always helping each other out. Very good. Let's see here. What about sensitized nerves? Same thing, sensitized nerves just means you got some stuff, you know, you're afraid of things. That sensitization just means I am afraid of things that I normally wouldn't be afraid of right now. So sensitization is the topic we see all the time. Dr. Weeks talked about it all the time, but in the end, it's sensitization just means, oh, I'm having threat responses to things that I normally wouldn't see as a threat. So it's not anything special. It just means that, okay, these are different instances where I have to recognize, oh, I'm feeling a certain thing right now just because I'm having a threat response when none belongs in a lot of different contexts. That's all that is, Lucy, right? I'm gonna scroll to the bottom, bottom, the best I can here, because I'm gonna start to run at a time. Let's see here, got your book, blah, blah, blah. Symptoms of Universal, yes they are. I'm gonna keep scrolling through, hey, Melissa, how's it going? You got through before, so good, this is good. Jackie, I'm glad to hear you end your statement with I have to remember that I got through this before, because you did, you did. And I hope you feel better really soon. We all do, of course. Sometimes we actually do get sick, but you always wanna act based on what's going on right now, right now, okay? So there you go. So how do I surrender and say, bring it when my anxiety has actually brought it before? I've thrown up in public from my anxiety, okay? And what was the outcome of that? The outcome is you're still here, right? So again, we get in those situations where the demand, I cannot allow that to happen. I should never allow something unpleasant to happen is really a trap. We've all had unpleasant things. I'm not saying I want you to get physically ill in public over and over. That's not cool. It's not fun, but you can't call that a disaster because if you're gonna declare it a disaster, this will be very difficult to get past. It was a bad experience. That's true. Human beings have bad experiences universally every day. We just don't always declare them disastrous. If you are, you're gonna have to really examine, well, how is that serving me? There you go. Oh, let's go, no, no, no, no, no. Here we go, here we go. About feeling it, you have to feel it keep going. Yes, you do. Let me throw this in here. So, and then I'm gonna, we're almost at the bottom. We're almost done, guys. Thank you. There's still almost a hundred of you here. Pretty cool. Claire Weeks said something about feeling it. You have to feel it to keep it going. That is true. So, acceptance and surrender back to the topic of this basically says, go ahead, go ahead. Do what you want. I'm not fighting you. And anxiety is really bad at thriving in a circumstance where it doesn't have anything to thrive on, right? It's true. Like they really have a hard time. And anxiety is a really hard time doing things when there's no fuel for it. And when you let go and surrender, you're not adding that additional, you're not sending those signals back down. It says, we gotta fight, we gotta fight, we gotta fight. So, you are taking the fuel away to a certain extent. Not instantaneously, but over time, you're absolutely right. So, there you go. No, no, no, no, let's see here. Some of these comments are super long. And again, you're gonna have to go back and watch the rerun if you can. How do you float through constant high anxiety and pre-anticipatory anxiety of not going to the doctor? What are you gonna do, right? Again, you have to really start to come to grips with the thinking habit that says, if I think and I worry and I think and I worry and I ruminate and I act upon my fear, I'm doing something, but really you're not. So, it's always kind of the same questions. It really is always, I'm sorry, the same answers in a way. So, I'm sorry, I don't have anything to answer here, but I can still practice anxiety and still share about it. Yeah, very good. Depression makes it hard for me to participate in the Facebook group and the group does not really respond to both about depression. This is a good example. So, Kathy is dealing with depression right now and Kay, we're all with you here and hope you're feeling better, but so it makes it hard for her to interact socially like in the Facebook group because you just don't want to, I get that. So, sometimes you're faking it in a way, but participating in the anxiety discussion is part of that challenging of depression. So, good job Kay. I know you're working hard on that. I know that's not coming easily. So, there you go. Okay, I think we're about done. I'm gonna get to the end here. Nothing much, I can't really answer all of them. I really wanted to, but I'm never gonna make it all. All right guys, I think we're about as good as we're gonna get here. 40 minutes is about as far as I'm gonna go. So, hopefully you guys have a good feeling for the surrender situation and what surrender means if you're having a hard time in a situation where like I don't know how to float. I can't accept this. I will not accept this. I can't, but how do I accept this? Try not accepting, just try surrendering and then let the world play out the way it plays out in front of you and then track against the reality that you see in front of you. In the end, that's really what it's all about, right? It's really what it's all about. And then just one last reminder, if you haven't already signed up for the anxious morning which launches on January 3rd, go to the anxious morning.email. Everything is free. The emails will come with three to 500 words and a podcast episode embedded in the top, by the way. So, you get the email and the podcast all the one time. And if you hop on over to the anxious morning.com I will put all the links and stuff there where you can listen to the podcast. So, thank you very much guys. I appreciate you guys supporting each other. I see those discussions going on that I just can't keep up with because there's too many comments. And we'll see you guys next Monday. Recovery Monday 14 will be next week. I don't even know what we're talking about. We will be here and I hope you will be too. So, everybody enjoy the rest of your break. Keep moving forward. Don't retreat under the covers for 10 days please. All right, see you guys next week.